Nilesian Economics

I have to start this off with a disclaimer. I am not an economist. However given the accuracy of most economic predictions and the growing evidence that not one computer model has accurately predicted economic moves for the last ten years maybe it doesn’t matter. I also don’t have things like evidence or well thought out philosophies. What I am about to lay out is purely intuitive, and I have to admit I have been known to blunder blindly down the path of destruction, believing I am the only sane person left. Then again my guess is as good as anyone else.

My economic model starts like this, the economy is cyclic but; it never grows or falls, if you were to use a median for say the last 100 years of the global economy, it would be a straight flat line, stretching into infinity. It is my contention that we live in a global economy, and in this economy there is a finite amount of money. Much like energy the money is neither gained nor lost it merely changes hands. The American government has printed a lot of money to try and resurrect the struggling economy in the last few years, but that money is so much paper without real assets to back it, assets in this case borrowed mostly from China.

It is really a simple idea to me; we (America) are part of the global economy. Our local economy is in depression, but because the amount of money is finite, someone else must have that money right? How do we get that money back? The first step is to stop worrying about the global economy and think only of ours. We need to start thinking of a big chunk of that money out there as ours and go get it! How are we going to get the money? As my mother might say well how did China get the money they loaned us? They got it by selling things people needed or wanted, they have manufacturing capabilities much of the rest of the world has abandoned.

Now ask yourself do we have, or can we produce anything that other countries desire enough to start handing over part of their money? I am also being intuitive here, but I am guessing we do. America has a lot more natural resources readily available then most other countries. We also have millions of acres of arable farm land, much of it sitting fallow. Could we not grow things, and build things again. I realize that many other countries produce consumer goods cheaper then we can, but if we stop using their goods and start making our own TV’s, prices will stabilize within a decade.

There is a lot of talk about President Obama’s job plan, I have to wonder why people aren’t up in arms demanding an economic plan instead. Taking away benefits, and entitlements is only going to work to a limited extent, we need to produce money. A jobs plan sounds kind of wishy washy, please business’s, we will give you tax breaks if you hire people.

How about a plan that says hey business start making things again, prove you can do it and then we help by blocking international tariffs and opening up markets. There should be no financial aid to any company that doesn’t have a solid plan to extend into overseas markets and bring the money back to America. Multinational corporations shouldn’t stand a chance here. America should be physically aggressive in acquiring our share of the money. I don’t mean violence, but we should care less about how other countries feel. What good is being the biggest kid on the block if we have nothing to show for it.

Let’s go for it America. Let’s take back that part of the global economy that should be here and let’s do it now. If children in other countries starve because we suddenly stop coddling them, that will be our fault. We will take it as a lesson to never again make other countries weak, but we will roll on, we will prosper, because we are still unabashedly the best!