The Beginning of the end of the Progressive Era, the great deflation 2020 – October 25, 2020,
People forget that it was the Progressive Era which began in 1897 and ended 1920 that led to the great depression and world wars. The main objectives of the prior Progressive movement were addressing problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption. The movement primarily targeted political systems and capitalism.
To date, there exists no better economic system than capitalism, unfortunately, the wealth generated from the free market benefits the optimistic individual and not the pessimistic one. As an example, most homes and apartments in the western world have electricity, a fridge, a stove, running water a toilet, heating, internet, a television, a bed, etc. Outside these homes and apartments paved roads, street lights, sewer drainage, access to public transportation, etc. however in the modern era, the progressives don’t think this is enough, they want more, they want the government to do more, the problem and this is what triggered the Great Depression, is that the government can’t do more with triggering a deflation or hyperinflation scenario.
What led to the rise of Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the idea that the government wasn’t doing enough to stop inequality. Those evil capitalists were taking more than their fair share and the government should find a way to make things fair.
The moment people want the government to play the role of God, society is headed toward a downward spiral. The free market and capitalism work because people are guided by their own invisible hand/self-interest which serves society as a whole.
The invisible hand is a metaphor for the unseen forces that move the free market economy. Through individual self-interest and freedom of production as well as consumption, the best interest of society, as a whole, are fulfilled.
Now, there are times when there should be a referee or a regulation that prevents as an example, pollution, theft or destruction, imagine as an example there was no regulation of owning a nuclear bomb? I don’t think anyone would want that and this is obviously where the demand of a progressive would be necessary.
The problem with progressives is just like anything else, they overreach, if left to their own devices, they imagine themselves as well as their idea to be Gods. All humans can become greedy, greed isn’t something that only capitalists suffer from, socialism, environmentalism, and Communism are all forms of greed.
Replacing the free market with government bureaucrats is a form of greed, the people who work for the government under Leftist ideology are indeed the beneficiaries of the rules and regulations they pass. The richest employer in most developed nations is the government, the problem is the government doesn’t build or maintain much of anything the private sector couldn’t do better.
The private sector is governed by laws, but it’s the government that benefits financially via the implementation of the laws. Therefore the invisible hand which guides the free market is being put into question as the government gets paid more to do less, while the private sector collectively gets paid less to do more.
Now, if there was no fiat monetary system in existence and let’s say the currency was back by something like Gold, in that scenario the world would already be in a great depression. Now, what the world is asleep to is that industrialization, urbanization, and MERIT-BASED immigration have led to technological advancements which have actually decreased the need for a big government.
The tech sector from a free-market perspective has actually been deflationary, which means that the need for the government has shrunk, in many Scandinavian countries as an example their governments continue to shrink, newspapers have been replaced with blog posts, cameras and other things have been replaced with $500 smartphones all of these things are deflationary, what hasn’t deflated yet, is the size of government!
The progressives have helped the world to progress, but now they’re in the way of humanity progressing further. Now, I personally suspect that we’re entering into what I call “Late-Stage-Socialism” because it’s unlikely that the progressives are going to go away without a fight.
The progressives didn’t stop until they got Franklin D. Roosevelt into the white house. Nothing Woodrow Wilson did worked economically for the progressives and Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover according to the progressives weren’t doing enough FDR did more than enough, but he also prolonged the great depression and unintentionally helped to trigger a world war.
You see, the progressives, don’t think about the unintended consequences of their actions, progressives ECONOMICALLY make people poorer. You can’t have as an example a “New Deal” for a SPECIFIC working man or woman without stealing from someone else. Of course this is an inconvenient reality for Progressives, but this hidden theft eventually leads to the economic destruction of a nation.
Although I admire Donald Trump and I hope he wins the 2020 election, he’s a progressive, I can guarantee you that if Donald Trump wins the 2020 election he’s going to get a lot of push back from within his own Republican Party, it’s already happening now. If Joe Biden wins the 2020 election, this will also signal the beginning of the end of the Progressive era.
The economy is only going up because of Donald Trump, his understanding that regulations are the problem have helped to keep the economy afloat, Joe Biden will reverse this and the economy will crash, which will be good because at least shrinking the size of government will come into question.
The invisible hand has returned, I warn the reader that it might take up to 10 years+ years, we might even end up in a world war, but we’re entering into the end of the progressive era and you should be excited. A few things to watch for is deflation and how central banks react to deflation.
Now, regardless of what anyone tells you, the real economy is and will continue to deflate, now, what will happen is that most countries will approach deflation by printing money or providing liquidity to retail banks, which the governments hope will cause inflation, sure on the surface this might appear to work, but we’re quickly approaching a debt-servicing problem globally which will obviously push up asset prices and wipe out progressive ideals.
Eventually, everyone will know something is wrong and personally, I see governments all over the world defaulting on debt, which will raise interest rates and create an atmosphere of forced austerity measures, now when this happens, it’s unlikely that most governments will opt for austerity measures, they’ll do what FDR did and throw everything they have at the problem.
But as per usual the free market will move on, in the prior eras prior to Brenton woods a lot of people became speculators, well in this era, the government rewards speculators because of pension obligations, so this is one of the reasons why again, the governments’ involvement into the markets is going to explode in their faces.
The word has actually created the perfect atmosphere for stable central bank interest rates of between 3-5%, the problem in all of this is the size of government and pensions, people should save for their own retirement, we’re in an era of DEFLATION which means if a person simply left money in the bank and the size of government shrunk, people could legitimately save for their own retirements and not worry about the government having to take care of them.
Furthermore, as it relates to the poor, artificially low-interest rates are propping up asset prices, so as the price of housing deflates the poor can actually WORK LESS because again technology has made our lives easier. Now, I don’t know how long it will take for humanity to figure out the obvious, but we’re entering into the end of the progressive era! It should be abundantly obvious to you right now.
Big government doesn’t work, if you haven’t noticed with all of the covid-19 shutdowns, how useless non-essential government workers are, you’ll eventually figure it out!
Interesting times ahead!