Tag Archives: Ezra Klein

Electing Officials to Represent the “Future”

bob-blob-ycW4YxhrWHM-unsplash.jpgI was catching up on some podcasts this weekend and I heard a particularly interesting one — Ezra Klein interviewing Astra Taylor. The conversation is wide-ranging, but there were a few bits that stuck out to me.

Astra talked about the differences between democracies, aristocracies, and lotteries, and discussed the idea of every citizen serving in the political body at some point. Not entirely a new point, but one thing that stood out was that there’s nobody in the political body who’s sole job it is to mind the “future.” As in, where’s the Congressperson or MP who’s elected to represent the people who have yet to be born? And I don’t mean the choice/life dichotomy, I mean — what about the child who’ll be born three generations from now and has a right to clean air and water.

She also raised the point that some could make the argument that we’re violating the Constitutional rights of people not born, yet (/mind–blown!).

I want to circle back to the Congressperson/MP to be the one minding the future. Of course, there isn’t someone like this (at least not in any of the political bodies I’ve seen), but wouldn’t it be cool if there were? Wouldn’t it be cool if we had an “at-large MP” who were part of the House of Commons and there sole role was to take into account (or represent?) the interests of the people who were to be born seven generations from now (I don’t think I’ve talked about this on here, but there’s a whole movement around “for the next seven generations“).

And this made me think about some of the founding documents of our nations. Take, for instance, the US Congress. By all accounts, there’s quite a bit of intransigence in the way the system is arranged. Some argue that this is intentional and some argue that the business of government has ground to a halt. What if… what if we were to remake the business of government in the US? I know, I know, it would never fly, but let’s just imagine a world where we can redesign the Senate, redesign the House, etc. Would it look the same after we were done? Probably not. Would we include representation for people who are to be born seven generations from now? Also, probably not, but I’d like to think that maybe we would. Maybe we would think beyond ourselves in this moment about those who will inhabit the space in the years to come.

What is “the Economy,” Anyway?

Earlier this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a bunch of figures, which collectively is known as the jobs report. The consensus around the numbers seems to be that the news is ‘positive’ for the economy. Hooray! Within the last hour, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 14,000 for the first time in almost 6 years. Hooray again! After hearing about these two bits of news, I went on a bit of a rant on Twitter about “the economy.”

At times, this can be a bit bothering — listening to someone opine about the economy when they’re not really specifically pointing to the part of the economy that’s disturbing to them. Part of me wonders if this is because the person doesn’t know what they’re talking about and they’re just repeating the headlines they’ve read in the paper that day or something they heard the newsman say on TV).

The economy is vast — really vast. Let’s just look at the definition on Wikipedia for a moment:

An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital, and land resources; and the manufacturing, production, trade, distribution, and consumption ofgoods and services of that area.

Labor, capital, land resources, manufacturing, production, trade, distribution, and consumption — that’s a lot of areas rolled into one! My guess is that when most people talk about the economy, they’re usually referring to that first part: labor. Their perspective on the economy is viewed through the lens of “do I have a job, do my friends have jobs, do other people have jobs, etc.” In this way, when unemployment is high, the economy is “down” or not doing so well.

The ironic part here is that today, with unemployment at 7.9%, the economy could be seen as doing quite well. I mentioned in the tweets above (and earlier in the post) that the Dow broke the 14,000 barrier for the first time in nearly 6 years. That’s pretty substantial as many other folks use the Dow as a proxy for how the economy is doing. “Is the stock market up, then the economy must be doing well…”

Just like unemployment is one facet of the “labor” area of the economy, the stock market could be seen as one facet of the “capital” area of the economy. Another important facet of the “capital” area of the economy: liquidity (cash).

A couple of days ago, Ezra Klein at the Washington Post had an important graph showing the rise in liquid assets over the last 20 years or so. The chart shows a steady (and quick!) rise in liquidity. In fact, liquidity has nearly tripled in the last 20 years! Why does this matter? Well, all that cash on the balance sheet of corporation’s doesn’t do any good for “the economy” nor does it do any good for the unemployment number of 7.9%. If it were up to me, I think that Congress needs to do something to incentivize the corporations for spending all that cash, which represents 11.3% of GDP! While I understand the Keynesian argument for stimulus spending, to me, it appears that coaxing all of that money back into the economy would be the most effective form of stimulus.

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While it may seem that I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent, I just wanted to illustrate that “the economy” can represent a number of things to a number of people. The next time you hear someone talking to you about the economy, double-check with them the part of the economy they’re referencing.