Thinking about the future

Someone made a post on "how to fix the economy in one simple chart": http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-fix-the-economy-in-one-simple-chart-2012-8

Tangent, relevant links:
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/how-does-education-help-great-recession
http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/17/12773836-fewer-people-see-college-as-good-financial-investment?lite
http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-wages-just-hit-an-all-time-low-2012-6
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trading-caps-and-gowns-for-mops-2012-08-22

For the 'one simple chart' above, the person suggests that corporations should be nicer and give people higher wages. According to their logic, this would increase their spending and create jobs.

They don't explain why a higher percentage of national income going to wages did not create enough jobs during the 1970's in the US. This is an important difference: while working less to create jobs will lead to higher wages, higher wages will not necessarily lead to enough jobs being created; it is just as likely to lead to inflation or people buying more brand goods meaning higher profits for the corporations that do not 'cooperate' by giving employees greater than market wages. This possibility was explored in a post responding to frequently asked questions for this idea.

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The answer to the first question in the previous post is that "economists encourage governments to go into debt because they observe that inflation leads to more spending, and they do not know how to get the private sector to create enough jobs without the wasteful spending caused by inflation."

The answer to the second question is that "printing money steals wealth from other countries that have collected US dollars, so the US can buy things without paying for them." Economists are understandably reluctant to explain this to people who do not understand it.

As I see it, society does not place value in ensuring the accuracy of the 'signal' afforded by the various levels of educational certification. People assume that a wage premium is enough to get most smart people to go to college; people also assume that being rich makes you happy. Someone with green eyes told me that they thought that greediness and the desire to earn money was one of the reasons for problems in the US—as it is said to also be a problem in other countries like China right now.

So we have all these young people who are aware that the system is broken. People in the established system, including the academic system and the social hierarchy of those who like money, do not seem to want to admit this. They are in a reality bubble with many other people who have the same attitudes, but the bubble is steadily shrinking. As has been said with science, sometimes the 'paradigm' will only change with new generations, but it is clearly in the interests of many people—including those who feel that events like the Aurora shooting are important and should be avoided—to cause change to happen more quickly.

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As I see it, Japan's culture and obsession with brand goods is to adhere to the dominant culture's definition of being "nice". While Japan may have thought that its diplomatic and military activity in the first half of the 20th century was the best way to help the world, the events leading to its defeat in WWII showed that the US did not think that Japan had been helping the world. When the first US submarine surfaced off the coast of Japan shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor (where the declaration of war was not delivered in time but the US government had already translated it due to having cracked the codes used), the Japanese people did not bother to react to it. The later submarine blockade which sank most of the Japanese civilian fleet, and was of the same type used by Germany which was publicly denounced by the US, suggested that Japan had misjudged the extent to which the US would go to win a war. The nuclear bombings of two Japanese cities were further proof of this.

Therefore, while I feel this idea would help Japan or any other developed country with economic problems, I don't see it likely that Japan will make a concerted effort to adopt (!) this idea because it would be a sort of insult to the United States, in that Japan would be presenting itself as the world's cultural leader despite having previously been defeated in a war which it had started.

Young people in Japan, of course, might disagree since the "lost decade" showed that Japan's leadership does not really understand economics any more than US leaders do and this leads to harmful effects.

So, given the reluctance of even poor people to admit that their "work hard due to lack of national wealth" understanding of the economy is wrong, instead of a 'unite to help the poor people of every country' perspective it might be more effective to use a 'help the young people in every country' perspective instead. Young people can become rich by working in the financial industry, but the message of OWS is that this is not a socially acceptable thing to do, and that we should be able to create a society where doing "unethical" things is not necessary to survive.

This reluctance to betray the concept of educational certification is something I have been trying to avoid mentioning. I do not feel it helps society to avoid supporting this idea for that reason, but someone with prior social commitments might find it difficult to extricate themselves morally and yet might have some strange rationalization for not promoting this idea without mentioning its apparent originator.

As stated in previous posts, it should not be important who thought of an idea if there are enough jobs for someone to accomplish their goals without creativity/reputation capital.

So what this post hasn't done: expand on how to get young people to support this idea, when everything up to now has failed to win support.

On the use of real names: one of the persons I have mentioned before on this site, I am not sure of their last name. This seems like a selfish thing to mention though.

However, this site has implied, and maybe even directly stated that it is possible, just maybe difficult, to act "ethically" while also only doing things that directly benefit you. Much of this has to do with costs to memory as an excuse to do things that might otherwise be perceived as altruistic.

I dislike the idea that anyone might do something because of how it would affect me (the person typing this), maybe mostly because I am not sure I would still exist at that moment in time. As in, if anyone had that goal, it would seem to be in conflict with anyone who would benefit from me not existing.

...how lame, I think the video I was going to link to is not available on Youtube anymore. It is the part in the first episode of the anime 'Angel Beats!' where "Crow Song" by Girls Dead Monster is played while there is an encounter in the vicinity of a bridge. The lyrics for that... but it also seemed a little similar to an event on January 1, 2009, when an Iraqi female person was shot near a bridge in Baghdad. It is in the list of significant actions for that day in the database released by WikiLeaks, and there was at least one news story in local media.

I authorize anyone who reads this site (there are at least a few I think) to use my name in connection with this idea, and even to link to this site. Of course, due to my physical situation I might not be able to reply in a timely manner or participate in a conversation.