Hypothesis: Recession or...

[Nuclear Unicorn]

...capital strike?

A recession, by definition, is decreased economic activity.

Of course for economic activity to occur people have to have money. "It takes money to make money" as the capitalist axiom goes.

Ergo only those people who have money can be active with it.

I don't know about you but I've never really had a lot of money. I pay my bills and treat myself from time to time but my meager earnings are such that my economic activities haven't really changed that much because for me to spend less means I don't eat or lose my apartment, my car or some such.

It seems to me that a recession is just another name for a capital strike, i.e. the people who have money/capital are withholding it because they have certain demands. Indeed, every complaint from the RW bears this out: if business X cannot make Y profit it will cease activity Z.

So those with money hold onto their money, meaning they stop spending it amongst those whom they employ either as serfs or minstrels unless they are allowed to get back more than they give out.

Discuss.

[guruoo]

1. See: "Going Galt"

'John Galt is a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Although he is absent from much of the text, he is the subject of the novel's often repeated question, "Who is John Galt?", and the quest to discover the answer.

As the plot unfolds, Galt is acknowledged to be a creator and inventor who symbolizes the power of the individual capitalist. He serves as an idealistic counterpoint to the social and economic structure depicted in the novel. The depiction portrays a society based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces the stifling mediocrity and egalitarianism of socialistic idealism. In this popular mass ideology, the industrialists of America were a metaphorical Atlas of Greek mythology, holding up the world, whom Galt convinces to "shrug," by refusing to lend their productive genius to the regime any longer.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt
“Going Galt” and the next Tea Party wave
By Michelle Malkin • March 4, 2009 10:51 AM


My syndicated column today spotlights two related phenomenon: the Tea Party revolt on the streets and the
“Going Galt” revolt with our wallets. For new readers who are just learning about the protest movement an
d want to join, the best organizational resources are Tax Day Tea Party (nationwide April 15 events), Twitter
#teaparty, PJTV’s list of upcoming protests,
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/04/going-galt-and-the-next-tea-party-wave/

Google, "going galt":
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22going+galt%22&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=7e4fce8e7e3fc9db



I would say to them, take care in what you wish for...

"Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep, or movin' too fast.
His idea of a great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat.
he had only two ways home: death or victory."

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. Ugh!

Are people really that self-idolized, selfish and self-centered?

[guruoo]

4. You betcha.....

[jtuck004]

3. If you look at the stock returns among several of the leading stocks

there are people investing money for returns, and getting it. Just not in this country. And while it might look like people who have money are holding back, where there is money to be made there is always a budding Sam Walton who would take a little even if a lot is not available. Because economics are the way they are, you cannot hold onto money and expect to keep it. You must invest it in a business, use it to profit from the labor of others, put it in a bank and let others invest it, spend it. Otherwise it loses it's value over time.

"Experience, however, shews, that the fancied or real insecurity of capital, when not under the immediate control of its owner, together with the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country of his birth and connexions, and intrust himself with all his habits fixed, to a strange government and new laws, check the emigration of capital. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations."

Those feelings, which Ricardo said he would be "sorry to see weakened" have all but disappeared.

Ricardo, David
(1772-1823)
http://www.econlib.org/library/Ricardo/ricP2a.html

But we have lost a lot. A lot of people with power and capital took their money and production facilities out of this country years ago, realizing they could increase their profits by selling globally. Our wages flattened out, spending began to come from borrowing, not earnings, and over time the largess of credit, the dot come era, housing and the haze of war\nationalism clouded the ability of those that were left to see that the solid ground had disappeared beneath their feet. When the credit derivatives finally crashed because housing began to fail (there just wasn't enough income in the country to pay the bills we had signed up for) it all has begun to tumble. I think our greatest problem is that a majority of "the other 80%", those with 15% of the wealth, are still in the "denial" stage. They don't see that there is not enough wealth being created to support the life they are still trying to live. And until we wake up to the idea that we need, desperately, to invest (deficit spending) and rebuild, we will never regain our security.

[tritsofme]

5. Something about 8 million people losing their jobs...

Their capital strike being rather involuntary.