continued
Unintended/undesirable consequences requiring study and possible mitigation would include at the very least:
A large number of lost jobs (including those related to design of toasters) in the toaster making and selling business.
A shrinkage of employment in the raw materials and parts businesses of toaster part suppliers.
Possibly greater wastage of bread triggering offset by greater bread production (more jobs, but more related production pollution and more transportation costs and related transporation pollution), and greater wheat production (more jobs, but more pollution and environmental impact from more acreage tilled).
Related impacts of increased pan-frying.
And so on.
But, given that we are now apparently living under a central bank centric order (aka a new world order--one described and advocated by the likes of USA Presidents, central bank leaders, many Council on Foreign Relations policy scholars, reputedly the Trilateral Commission, reputedly Bilderberg, and so on) that exercises overt central planning and control of our perhaps former market economy (i.e., directly picking which firms get bail outs and survive and which do not, as well as firing and picking CEOs at General Motors and soon perhaps other major corporations also), isn't the feasibility of cutting out toaster production at least worth doing a fiscal/environmental/consumer impact assessment that could then lead to a rational plan for enabling transition to an economy without toasters, and with better quality bread, and with planned mitigation of job losses, pollution, etc.? It might take ten years to actually accomplish the elimination of toasters, were it found to be sensible to do so, but in an age of cash for junker cars, bank bail outs, and the ability to sustain decade long trans-administration wars of oil field occupation, surely our society can find the wherewithal to analyse, whether or not we truly need the toaster and then sustain an ensuing policy on it. Right?
And mightn't such an analysis precedent lead our society to a continued process of looking seriously at what we do and don't need, and what could and could not be done better and more efficiently for all persons (no fair favoring the top 25% with toasters but not the rest) and all the environment (no fair favoring some of god's creatures and not others)?
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I mean, I prefer a functioning republic with a market economy and reliance on millions of small choices made by by millions of competitive producers and billions of competitive consumers, but so long as we are dominated by producer oligopolies (i.e., no real producer competition in any classical, or neoclassical economic senses) and so long as our republic and our perhaps former market economy is to a great extent being subordinated to a central bank planned economy, shouldn't we at least have rational feasibility studies performed by our apparently new de facto leader, the central bank, and create a paper trail of research that we and future scholars and policy wonks can all review and understand as good faith attempts to be improved upon in order to organize our economic activities with improved fit in terms of humaneness, environmental impact, and efficiency?
Or is it smarter to have the central bank reorganize our economy based largely on the subjective value models resident in the heads of a very small minority of persons running our central bank?
Can Benjamin Bernanke and his immediate assistants really know if it is best for us to have toasters, or not to have them, without such studies?
Could even the worshipped Allen Greenspan know such a thing without such studies?
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Are persons so afraid of the inefficiencies of their own government that they now prefer the inefficiencies of a central bank making decisions without such studies being instituted?
Are there attention spans now so shortened by digital media that they no longer want careful, rational analysis, and policies and actions based on such findings?
Oh, I know, the central bankers are not flying entirely by the seats of their pants. But really, do you think anyone over at the Fed has done a serious impact analysis about toaster feasibility? I bet not, even though the toaster industry is a HUUUUUUGE one putting enormous, and potentially unnecessary demand on inelastic global raw materials, on energy, and perhaps even leaving a sizeable unnecessary carbon footprint. Why, if persons quit buying toasters, a huge number of Americans each year would have another $50 a year to save, or to spend.
Some may find my amiable discussion of the toaster's feasibility (or lack there of)in the current economic reorganization under way as glib, but I do not mean it that way. I am simply trying to avoid seeming another shrieking Obamanistic voice calling for change we can live with, change we can believe in while we struggle to avoid supposedly imminent economic and climate catastrophe, or another Bushistic voice saying we have to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of saving our economy and environment by getting rid of evil-doing toasters.
I am trying to do my part to talk in plain English, about a simple product, which the elimination of, might help to head-off environmental catastrophe and put resources to more humane use. A toaster, after all puts out a lot of heat into the atmosphere, doesn't it? If all toaster-users were to stop using toasters tomorrow, surely this would have some worthwhile effect on reducing the drift toward anthropomorphic-driven, er, excuse me, human-driven global warming, and almost immediately, at that.
continued
Whatever is decided about grand strategy regarding the toaster, I also sincerely hope we get back to more fully functioning republican government (repeal of Patriot Acts, Military commissions acts, and FEMA Continuity of Government implementation that keeps being re-extended 9 years after 9/11), and to functioning without so much producer oligopoly control and without so much unilateral, central planning by a small number of central bankers, however well-intended they may be, and they do seem to be trying hard to solve the present problems they define as insufficient liquidity, rather than insufficient affordability. Of course, to a person without a job, one suffers both, doesn't one? To say nothing of hunger, despair, family and emotional break down, and increased risk of suicide. But talking of liquidity and affordability are so much more pleasant terms for talking about the harsh realities, are they not?
Call me anecdotal, but it just seems worth noting that during WWII, probably the longest previous example of the USA operating very effectively with a centrally planned economy, there was an enormous government bureaucracy operating with a huge amount of brain power created and assigned to the task of operating the USA economy centrally--not just a central bank. That diverse brain power of WWII was drawn from all sectors of the economy--not just from the Central Bank. It was brought to bear to plan and control every facet of the complex USA economy for four years of war and did so with remarkable success, as even persons opposed to centrally planned economies (like myself) admit. And as our leaders insist still (though I am not so sure I agree that we need to be), we remain at war with terrorism, with elements in Iraq, with elements in Afghanistan, and perhaps soon with elements in Iran (and of course North Korea and Venezuela and other places with more difficult to refine crude are possible flash points, too).
continued
So, while we are at war, at the continued insistance of our leaders, anyway, perhaps they and we ought to learn from the effectiveness of the way central planning was conducted in WWII (to reiterate, it was one of the great success stories of central planning an economy in all of history) and at least consider doing the same now, when we once again labor under the combination of depression (depending on how different economists define it) and war (depending on our leaders insistance on it).
Today, the central bank is apparently trying to do it all largely under its own skill set. Oh it sends its employees like Tim Geithner to the Dept. of Treasury to expand the reach of its financial activities, but I fear it may be being overwhelmed, or at the very least having to battle a potentially greater problem with vastly less brain power and vastly less bureacracy than was brought to bear during WWII.
Just a thought.
Ah, the politics and economics and design of toasters.:-)
woodywood...
Unplug it, but hang onto that 12 year old toaster at least until the central bank, er, President Obama announces a cash-for-old-toasters program. It might be just around the corner, once everyone has used their $4000 kickbacks to get themselves in even deeper debt on a new car from one of our brand spanking clean and insolvent car companies.
Is this an amazing country or what? Where else on earth could a car company declare bankruptcy reputedly to get out from under its employee retirement and health obligations and then reputedly get the government to kick in $4k for old "value engineered" clunkers to be taken to the crusher and the $4k to be used as down payments for the surplus on dealer lots of new "value engineered" cars. And get this: the surplus on the lots is from the bankrupt car company closing down 700-800 dealerships and shipping their inventories to their remaining dealers to dump.
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Hi DC
I hate to try to cut back on your writing time and to deprive us from your pen-products, but have you considered baking bread yourself. When we moved to North America, we were shocked by the low quality of the most basic foods, amoung them bread...so we started baking ourselves. Loafs for the week days buns on sunday...30 years later still the same routine...and still enjoying it!
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