stop making sense

This Henry Thornton analysis of a speech by US Senator-elect Jim Webb about the unintended (?) consequences of globalisation is an interesting take on the issue of a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Where exactly should the emphasis lie?

Henry's concern is that the recent High Court decision will allow a Labor government, at some time in the future, to start meddling in the economy in an effort to negate any widening of the wealth gap. I've no doubt that should these apparent trends continue, a future - very future, I suspect - Labor government would certainly have a red-hot go, all other things being equal. Other things might include whether possible future governments in other western countries were facing similar trends and there was eventually a subsequent widespread movement against the prescriptions of Milton Friedman (RIP), (but more to the point, his enthusiastic camp-followers in governments). Or whether Australia, (and France, presumably), became holdouts against economic rationalism (or whatever you wanted to call it).

The view here in the VVB poorhouse is that maybe Henry should be addressing the issues raised by Webb. Surely they are the concern. Those figures - particularly the one about the top 1% of the US population now getting 16% of the nation's income, compared to 8% in 1980 - are telling.

Should we happen to put on the tinfoil hat that we keep in the attic at suburban VVB (for emergency use only, you understand), we might be induced to start thinking that the consequences of globalisation were not unforeseen at all. Rather, it was a dark conspiracy between the corporates who secretly rule us, in league with ideologically obsessed academics, to get the rationalist project up and running. Hence the invention of the 'profession' of salary consultant, who always recommend meeting the (international) market price for CEOs. Topped off with the conniving assistance of the bean counters, who manage to dream up non-performance performance hurdles for the same CEOs so that they don't have to actually do anything to get the obscene bonuses, about which we regularly read. And so on, you get the picture (if you have the hat). Globalisation is not just about trade rules, you understand. It's the whole system.

Alternatively, maybe it was just that the ideologically obsessed academics really didn't think that there would be unintended consequences of the type we seem to be seeing.

The answer is probably in the middle, as it usually turns out to be. But the data will bear watching.