While reading about recessions (am I getting old, or what?), I suddenly got the creepy feeling that our entire lives are unduly influenced by those who think they know what they’re doing.  Financially, that is.  The Great Depression and the Great Recession were both times of economic hardship because the rules capitalism put in place defined us as being in an era of lowered GDP, or gross domestic product.  Why?  Because there were no jobs.  Why?  Those who hold the purse strings (capitalists) had pulled them shut with all their might.  Then, like magic, depression and recession end and everyone tries to get back to business as normal.  To me this seems utterly ridiculous.  They call economics the dismal science for a reason, after all.  The fact is the rules are made by us.

Society is very complex.  This is one reason that people should really think hard about who they’ll vote for.  Leaders who think it’s all simple inevitably lead to disaster.  If I could, I would switch the world economy away from capitalism.  If I were president and were to try this, it would be a very, very slow process.  It would take generations.  Why?  Because this is a complex system.  Sudden changes don’t last.  Of course, to people who believe the universe took only six earth days to create and that a big flood wiped out all the dinosaurs (or maybe some were on the ark), complexity is anathema.  Of the devil.  Well, as they say, the devil’s in the details.

And so we suffer through depressions and recessions.  To those of us with feet on planet earth, it doesn’t feel like much has changed.  We still need to sleep and eat and all that, but some “experts” are telling us why we have to pay more at the grocery store or at the fuel pump, and why those at the top of the pyramid seem to be all right, no matter what happens to the rest of us.  And we let it carry on.  Economic systems are simply a reflection of what people value.  The things we value most cost the most (it’s called supply and demand, AKA capitalism).  The most expensive material thing I own is my house, and truth be told, it’s mostly owned by the bank.  But the most valuable actual thing I own is my mind.  It can’t be bought.  And one thing it keeps on telling me is that all of this business about recessions and whatnot is rather silly.