Pondering Whether The Pinko Commies Will Win After All

i've been following the financial media closely since the terrorist attacks in 2001. i think the bloom of gloom is finally beginning to see the light of day. i read some articles today that hinted at a certain rising dismay among economic 'experts' -- those modern day readers of crystal balls. they don't know what to think of this latest 'jobless recovery.'

china is the new squinty-eyed villan, having replaced the japanese for that honored position. i think people are too quick to blame the mercantilist policies of the chinese for the continuous sucking sound in the american job market. they forget that jobs are being outsourced to russia, india, and soon to vietnam where the wages are one third of those in china.

when i was in college, i read spectres of marx. in that book, derrida discussed the rush of optimism following the disentigration of the USSR and the destruction of the berlin wall. i was young then, but i remember the trumpets blaring in celebration of the ultimate success of capitalism. derrida posited that this moment of apparent triumph in the schism that shaped global relationships for five decades was actually the moment of greatest vulnerability for the purported victor of the cold war.

this is of course, a classic desconstructionist reading. i don't know if derrida foresaw the events we're experiencing today. i don't remember a lot about the book except for that one bit. nevertheless, the one thing i do remember about it seems remarkably prescient in hindsight. another desconstructionist trope is that certain beliefs and the systems built on them depend on the ideas and ideologies they oppose for their very existence.

the cold war walled off an enormous mass of labor from the 'free' market in capitalist economies, effectively limiting competition for jobs. now that those walls have come crashing down, workers on this side of fence are losing out to workers on the other side of fence. jobs are going where they would never have been permitted to go before -- vietnam, china, and russia being prime destinations.

now the market is more 'free' than ever before, and we are beginning to see cracks in the standard bearer of capitalism. the dollar is falling. there aren't enough jobs to absorb the unemployed, much less the new entrants in the workforce that hit the pavement to look for an income every year. opec is making noises about the falling dollar. oil is priced in dollars that's looking like a bad deal for them they don't buy as much as they used to.

ironically, the countries sucking up the jobs depend on the american consumer to buy what they produce. however, that consumer is pretty much tapped out these days, and the new annointed of globalism's advances don't earn enough to buy what they make. so, what happens now? i wonder sometimes whether my country is just a big paper tiger, ready to crumple at any moment. we've taken our faith in our way of doing things to its logical conclusion, but where's the bread and meat and potatoes in this deal? china and india have an infinite supply of labor ready and able to work for far less than what is needed for bare survival in america.

our economic fortune tellers keep saying that the low quality jobs will go away, but that 'innovation' and capitalist know how will produce better jobs to replace them. what are these jobs they keep talking about? they never describe these mythical occupations that will rise up to employ those who have lost their livelihood. sometimes, i feel as if these silly old men are just a panglossian army hired to convince us all that castor oil is a fine delicacy.