– Let’s Talk About Solutions, Not Fake Fixes (Of two Minds, Aug 8, 2015):
Since the status quo has no workable Plan B to “growth” in an economy in which household incomes have declined 8.5% in a supposedly expanding economy, real solutions must arise outside the status quo.
It’s a lot easier to talk about what’s wrong with the status quo and fake fixes than it is to talk about real solutions–for a number of reasons.
1. It’s clear to virtually everyone who isn’t being paid to make absurd claims that everything is peachy that the status quo is failing, so discussing the failings is like shooting fish in a barrel.
2. Grousing indignation (at all the failings) is an easy state to sustain; solving problems is an entirely different and not-so-easy state to sustain.
3. Emotional numbness brought on by financial distress and exhaustion reduces interest in solutions–there doesn’t seem to be any when you’re exhausted.
4. The predatory, parasitic status quo generates social fragmentation and an incoherence that breeds disassociation and alienation, neither of which are conducive to discussing solutions.
5. Since the status quo has no workable Plan B to “growth” in an economy in which household incomes have declined 8.5% in a supposedly expanding economy, real solutions must arise outside the status quo, which means the vested interests will lose their stranglehold on wealth and power. This is a no-no, so any solutions that lead to this are marginalized, ridiculed, labeled “impossible,” etc.
6. To solve a problem we must first diagnose the problem correctly. The correct diagnosis of the current pathological status quo is: the problem is not X,Y or Z–the problem is the system itself.
I am indebted to correspondent Tom R. for extracting what might be the core diagnosis of our ills from my discussion with Max and Stacy: “We’ve been brainwashed into financializing the human experience.” (at the 9:20 mark)
This is not a problem that can be fixed by tweaking state-cartel policies (Obamacare, banking, etc.) i.e. fake fixes. This is a problem that requires a complete rethinking of centralization, money creation, empire, wealth, prosperity, consumption and how we live.
We touch on many of these core problems and outline a few structural solutions in this 25-minute discussion: