The market might be working in a sense that people have jobs and unemployment is low, but if you look closer, things aren’t working well.

The problem is expectations. The expectation that the standard of living will improve and we can consume more. That was bound to stop and because it was overdone the consequence is some retrenchment. Some diminishment of the American Standard of Living. Since the tide is no longer rising we will need to provide more support for the people stranded below the poverty line and let people know that it is Ok to live a lower class lifestyle. The rich need to stop flaunting their wealth and aspirational brands need to be consider pariahs.

Austerity may sound ugly but it is virtue as opposed to the vice of consumption. Doing without should be praised and consumption should be criticized. The rich need to do a lot more to help the poor and it should not take the government to force their hand. If they don’t the government will need to take action to address the bad example of conspicuous consumption by the rich. A rich person who builds a sustainable farm or powerplant and pays a good wage with benefits is virtuous. A rich person to imports and brands cosmetics and luxury goods and spends mostly on marketing and only creates a few jobs is despicable. A proper pharmaceutical company that produces lifesaving medicines, sells them priced not as a monopoly but to produce a normal business return on investment and has its representatives talk to doctors not to have the push the product but to make sure the doctors make sure only the right patients are prescribe the medicine.

I think that mostly everyone knows the right from the wrong. Too many only worry about doing wrong when they think they might get caught and even then it is not enough to stop some of them. Many deliberately choose vice over virtue. Vice is rewarded with the opportunity to engage in even greater vice.

We need greater reward for virtue.

TEK