There He Goes Again

This is something of a re-start to this blog.  Its been a few months since I posted due to various complications, but I am back and will be posting on a regular basis.  I have certain basic principles I follow in my posting, or perhaps philosophies would be a better choice of word.  These will inform and influence this blog, and the political blog I have started elsewhere.  I also plan to review my Critical Mass blog which is my rant on contemporary society.
What are these philosophies you ask?  (At least I hope you do, as I am writing for my own pleasure and satisfaction but I do want there to be an audience.  And I do wish for comments and even contrary opinions.  A dialogue or debate is part of the learning and growing process. 
So here they are:

Big is Bad-this idea has had a fairly prominent place in the dialogue over the “Great Recession”, at least until recently.  I maintain in my Economics 101 influenced outlook that big is bad in every part of the economy.

Greed is Not Good-it is a disease that the world’s economy suffers from and almost died from a couple of years ago.  The unending pursuit of more and more coupled with the Big Companies and Rich Powerful individuals acting out this way are the primary source of the economic problems we have faced since Reagan.

A Bounded Market Economy-this is my, still being worked out, vision of how we deal with the screwed up version of capitalism we now have.  I am not a socialist or a communist.  I think the way market economies are supposed to work actually empowers  people and allows them to prosper, but only when it is bounded or protected against the actions of the ruthless and greedy.

A Synthesis, or Systemic outlook on how the Economy and/or the world works.  Everything is linked, everything affects everything and trying to study Economics in a reductionist way is way too limited.  It has its uses, but many economic actions take place for non-economic reasons and you need to deal with that to understand.  At least in my less than humble opinion.

So, I am back for good or ill.  I hope you get something out of this and let me know if you do. 

Related articles

• Can liberalism save capitalism from conservatism? (salon.com)
• Leading Economics Bloggers Share Bleak Outlook, According to Kauffman Foundation Survey (kauffman.org)

Economics 101

Cover via Amazon

Bill Gates via last.fm

Before I start ranting about specific events I want to explain my philosophy if you will.  The sort of economic system that I would like to see come into existence.  I know that there are powerful vested interests that are not going to be in favor of this.  I also know that not everyone, and maybe nobody, will agree with the tenets of this system. 

But I think it is a better way of running things.  It’s a third way if you will between the Washington Consensus, or Rational Economic Man, or whatever you want to call the system we have had for a while, and the various forms of socialism, or planned economics. 

I call it Bounded Capitalism, or the Bounded Market System. 

It rejects the micromanaging and control of the market that the left tends to endorse, but puts limits on the excesses of the market.  Yes, I am talking about a role for government.  That may be heresy to some people, but I am also talking about letting the market decide almost all of the time. 

By the way, I am talking about a market as defined in most Eco 101 courses.  One with many buyers and sellers.  That’s a market we haven’t seen in a while.

Obviously there are a lot of details to this idea and it will take more than one post to explain it.  Hopefully there are those of you out there that will stick around and follow my argument as I develop it. 

But the general idea is to keep income within certain boundaries, by mechanisms that interfere with the market as little as possible.  Nobody is poor, nobody is Bill Gates. 

Could I mean a (gasp!) graduated income tax?

Possibly, it’s one possible feature of this system. 

Another key part is size.  We have all read the various articles and speeches about too big to fail in re the financial crisis.  Well, I think the too big to fail, or too big to exist phenomenon exists all through our economy and it is, to not coin a phrase “The Axis Of Evil”

If Small Is Beautiful then Big Is Ugly. 
Details to follow.