Opinion – Image – NYTimes.com.
Understanding Step 1
This chart from the New York Times, is very interesting. The data presented is very telling but perhaps not in the way the author intended.
When you look at these charts what do you see? After you look and answer the question for yourself go to the next step.
Understanding Step 2
See this article for more information: President Obama’s Speech: Critical Question Continued.
What I see when I look at the data is very different from what I think the author’s point is. We are all tainted by our biases. We look at data, compose charts and in the end we see what we want and often construct the defense of the reality we want to see.
What I see when I look given the discussion in my prior article is first that Productivity tracks point for point with the increases in currency from 1972 on. This should not be any surprise. The way we measure Productivity is directly related to currency. The question is in this case the old one, “which came first the chicken of the egg?” In this debate one side will say chicken and the other will say the egg. One side will be firmly of the mind that the productivity drove the increase in currency according to economic theory, the other side will say the increases in currency inflated the productivity numbers. Either may be correct and both are at this point irrelevant. Which drove what now pales in comparison to the question of is the current net value of the U.S. supportive of the amount of currency (value) we have applied to it. This is 1/2 of the most important questions. The other 1/2 is – if not, how do we fix it?
The next thing I see in the charts, is that Wages did not track to the rise in currency nor did the gains of the wealthy. While you see some trending with the increases in either prosperity or currency, you should expect to see that. Wealthy people have the ability to derive more of their worth from long-term gains and theoretically should capture more of the currency in the economy. Again the argument of fair or not fair, while a fun and spirited debate does not change the fact that the trend-line of the data does not correlate to the Currency in circulation chart in the prior article anywhere nearly as closely as Health Care Costs or Housing Costs. It is these subtle differences that suggest an alternate cause for the increases of prosperity. Further it is the timing of the trends.
Finally, I see that the debt line that is shown in the chart is not indicative of the true debt but in fact the result of the application of the increased capital to pay off part of the debt that accumulated from 1972 due to the trade imbalances. We have accumulated over $12 trillion in trade deficits to the world since 1972 when we dropped the gold standard. If you plot that curve against the Currency in Circulation curve again they are almost a point for point match. The debt curve reported is not a point for point match. It is the result of result of the combination of the two.
Understanding Step 3
Remember Mark Twain said, “there are lies, damn lies and statistics!” All of these numbers need to be suspect – mine included. But in the end this is not a republican issue nor democrat issue – it is an American issue and it will take all of us to address it.
