Paranoia and the "Culture of Fraud"

In a recent interview the leading Republican presidential candidate admitted that there is a confirmed relationship between government spending and GDP, and that a depression or recession would be a bad thing to cause. In an older story, a Wall Street insider described the financial markets as a fraud supported by the US government to keep money flowing through the economy by whatever means necessary.

The issue, of course, is that people don't like the idea of wasteful government spending or inflation but are willing to vote out of office any political party that doesn't fix problems with the economy. It would therefore be in the interests of politicians to support the accelerated work week which would create jobs without government spending.

But if we spend less time working and contribute less to tax revenues, maybe Russia will take over the world? After all, the Russian leadership is known to be very clever and competent and the US has many powerful world enemies. North Korea frequently declares its intention to retaliate against any aggression by "US Imperialists" and this is not a threat to be taken lightly. But the truth is, if those on the upper end of the income scale decide to work and earn less, things like housing and health care costs will go down as well and we can simply adjust the tax brackets to ensure that we can afford to protect US interests throughout the world.

You might wonder why the accelerated work week was not thought of before, and whether there is some hidden reason why it wouldn't work. Nuclear weapons are part of the reason, which have removed the need for major states to perpetually prepare for war in order to maintain peace. The increase in agricultural productivity is another, which allowed a shift to a service economy with increasingly small objective contributions to society from new types of jobs that have been created. When inequality and unemployment are high, any job that leads to increased consumption and demand for work is beneficial to the economy but it would be better to prevent wealth from accumulating in the first place.

Other than these, there is no real reason except a fear of being wrong... or a fear of being right. But lying imposes a cost on someone who is aware of that dishonesty, with the only justification for this cost being if there was no benefit from lying; and so it is better to be able to accomplish goals without resorting to deception. This includes whether you feel able, without cost to yourself, to complete goals that others see as important.