Blame America for the global financial crisis. The American form of “free enterprise” that has been championed by Milton Friedman and implemented by Republicans over the last forty years, has destroyed the economic system of nearly the entire world:
The ITUC warned that around the world more than 50 million jobs could be lost this year and that more than 200 million people would be driven into absolute poverty. The confederation said that the financial crisis had arisen because of “rampant speculation and financial profiteering” and that new global financial architecture needed to be established to “support regulation and ensure coherence”.
Some in American still think the current crisis is like other recessions that have occurred in the last forty years. They are wrong for many reasons. In the past, there were monetary and fiscal corrections that could be made which resulted in recoveries. These are gone this time. America is so far in debt that the increased debt alone will destroy the U.S. dollar. Protection is already a foregone conclusion and is in the latest Obama stimulus bill. Hyper inflation will emerge once crippling deflation finishes ravaging the economy, depleting savings and destroying wealth for ordinary people.
America will embrace socialism in order to provide basic necessities to Americans. There will be massive redistribution of wealth as America reconstructs a doomed currency. Oil and gold will become very expensive in U.S. dollars. The only commodities that will be relatively cheap are the ones that can be produced in America with little energy. Renewable energy will no longer be just to avoid importing oil — it will be the only energy the new America will be able to afford.
This Depression will not be like the Depression of the 1930s, because there are lots more people and many less options. People will not be able to return to farms to grow food to avoid starving to death. They will require the government to distribute food to all. Banks will be nationalized and in many ways have already been. Americans will attempt to emigrate to other countries because the conditions in America will be onerous and difficult. Many people will die and many will kill themselves as hope vanishes. There will be giant rallies of the unemployed, riots in cities, assassinations of politicians, elimination of current conservative political parties, and emergence of very left wing organizations which will make the current democratic party appear conservative.
A quicker solution would be to default on all the debt, establish a new currency, and nationalized banks so that commerce could begin again. All able people would be provided jobs or training for jobs. Great social programs, like universal health care, would be created. There will be living wage guarantees, higher taxes, and restrictions on wealth accumulation. A new green economy will emerge to employ millions of new workers. Universities will thrive as education is valued and people who excel at innovation are recognized as national heroes. Some private ownership will continue but most people would live in government owned properties. Corporations will be completely redefined in order to remove the greed and corruption from the system and virtually all will be non-profit.
Unfortunately, none of the transformation that is necessary will happen soon, because America continues to assume this is just an ordinary recession and the tools of the past will work again. They are wrong; thus, the pain will continue for a while.
America is doomed.
