OPINION
We’ll Never Recover Fully Until All Americans Understand Capitalism
The veil has been lifted, and it’s time
There is much to applaud in President Biden’s plan to get the country back up and running. The amount of “investment” (yes, also just known as “spending,” depending on which side of the aisle you sit) is the hot sticking point, but, if the president gets what he wants, trillions are about to flood into the U.S. economy to get the engine roaring again. While I am thrilled that he is in office, as opposed to the former guy, the conversation around the recovery is still distinctly from a pre-COVID point-of-view. We are trying to get “back” to something that is gone.
The pre-COVID mindset says this: we should talk about the economy as businesses and workers, producers and consumers, the board room and the union; we should argue about the minimum wage, try to reach a compromise about $15 or $12; we should complain about homelessness and how inconvenient and unseemly it is; we should spend months debating the finer points of taxation law, unemployment payments, and the jobs report. Graphs. Charts. More graphs. More charts. We should debate, then go on summer recess to the Hamptons. I’m not an economist, but I am a citizen watching my nation fight for its life. All would be (somewhat) valid conversations had…
