No democratic solution

Doctor Zero has a carefully thought out proposal on how to save America through mass democracy, through getting 50% of the voters plus one behind the measures necessary to save America, behind measures that are carefully pruned to be the minimum  possible measures that could save the country, measures that are as “moderate” as possible, which is not very moderate at all.

No way Jose.  Democracy is doomed, or the country is doomed, or, quite likely, both.Both in Europe and America we are seeing the collapse of private employment – the much prophesied death of the host under the impact of the parasite is finally unfolding:   People just are not getting into private jobs, and an ever diminishing proportion of private jobs are genuinely private,  genuinely producing stuff that has a price and a market.  Instead, it is stuff like “green jobs”.

Of course, this means an ever diminishing number of voters that will vote for the survival of the host, ever diminishing prestige and influence for the elite members of the host, and ever increasing prestige and influence for elite members of the parasite.

The parasite cannot restrain itself to match the diminished capability of the host to support it.  As things fall apart, the parasite will launch austerity measures to shrink its demands, but the austerity measures will shrink the parasite far more slowly than the host shrinks.   Russian agriculture still has not recovered from the liquidation of the kulaks.   Consider, for example, schooling.  New York spends $17 713 per student per year, which fails to pass the smell test.  It is past time for government to simply get out of the schooling business and let parents educate their children or not.  That would be a cut.  “Austerity” is never cuts, but merely reckless, extravagant, and self indulgent waste growing less quickly than the political elite would prefer.  What we need is cuts, not “austerity”.  Can you imagine how few votes a candidate who proposed actual cuts would receive?

The BLS  tells us that the normal July youth labor force participation rate before 1989 was 81 to 86% (always looking at July figures, since young people tend to be at school least in July)

Supposedly youth unemployment is a mere 18%, but since young people tend to be ineligible for unemployment relief, they do not necessarily register with the BLS, so a more realistic measure is the proportion presently employed, 51.4%, to the proportion looking for work or employed in good times, 84% in a typical july.

As everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the regime becomes more and more unpopular, but sound policies that would put everything right also become more unpopular – a vicious cycle we have regularly seen in Latin America which cannot be cured.  Only the employed and productive vote for measures that would permit productive employment.

To actually cut government spending down to what the nation can afford, you examine each government activity, and compare it with private sector businesses that do the same thing or a plausible substitute.  If the government activity is costing enormously more, as for example education, the government then abandons that activity.   As a general rule, the more unthinkable it is for the government to abandon some field of activity, the more outrageously extravagant and wasteful the government’s activities in that field are.  So if you want to cut the government back, the first place to look is at those things that are unthinkable to cut back.