“Cost cutter in chief” by Joshua Golden
Is it the economy?
Pre-election media feeds continuously reported that the economy was a major consideration on the minds of voters, regardless of any understanding of economic theory, or its application. The details of macro economics are observed passively from the grocery aisles as economic technocrats apply their best guess on how to maintain equilibrium. Enthralled by their mandate to maintain endless growth, and the profitability that keeps the world running, watchful wizards of finance keep an eye out and a hand on the wheel of commerce to ward off any threat of panic.
Despite the fact that a global pandemic and subsequent policies of recovery caused a universal disruption of the world’s economies, high prices inexplicably became the fault of the incumbent. But over time, as all old enough to have lived through some history can attest, the average cost of goods and services has always risen to levels unrecognizable by previous generations. The cost of food became the primary measure of inflation in the popular imagination, and the high cost of eggs a standard metric. Egg price as an indicator of presidential economic incompetence seems a stretch, it should be obvious that the president has no control over grocery prices, indeed if he did, why the heck would prices remain unpopularity high in an election year? Clearly there are bigger forces than administration policy at play.
It was perplexing to note that no one ever mentioned that in the last 2 years 100 million chickens and turkeys have been killed in an attempt control a virulent outbreak of avian flu. It is easily documented that the efforts to control the virus has driven up egg, chicken and turkey prices. the avian virus has now crossed over from just infecting birds to numerous mammalian species, including sea lions, mice, cats, dairy cows, and, increasingly, humans.
The price of milk production may to be impacted too. According to Western United Dairies, a California dairy trade organization, the mortality rate among bird flue infected dairy cows has been much higher than anticipated. Since early August, outbreaks have been reported in 124 California dairy herds. Most of the animals that are succumbing to the virus are young; they are going through their second lactational cycles. With a loss of production of up to 70%. It is unclear whether infected dairy cows will recover full production.
A hard row to hoe.
As a teenager I was the only vegetarian in my family, so I developed an early interest in cooking and food preparation, and eventually an interest in growing food. In the early days of my nearly 35 years as homesteader I idealized the aspirations of self-sufficiency, and while my efficiency at providing a significant quantity of my nutritional needs developed so did my appreciation that in the world in which I live, self-sufficiency is a myth. For the entire span of human history people have depended on each other to meet their needs, as resource surpluses happened, trade was enabled and eventually drove the conquests of people and territories that have drawn and redrawn the maps of the world. Fast on the heels of surplus came capitalism as markets were developed, commerce codified and industry discovered. Industry enabled the speculators of wealth, and more demands were made of people and the planet, with corporations as the economic drivers of capital.
The price of food has a long and torturous route. In 1800 83% of the U.S. labor force was in agriculture, today farm and ranch families comprise less than 2% with direct on-farm employment 1.2% of U.S. employees, the people that produce the food that most take for granted everyday. But that’s just U.S. production, with consumer expectations of anything available, anytime, imports are ubiquitous, making seasons obsolete. Promised tariffs on foreign goods is guaranteed to raise prices as the exporters pay it forward to meet the added expense.
Community and commerce.
Our industrial/consumer era has impaired the ability of most to provide for themselves. People are disconnected from the skills, interest or land to do so. And of course, the scant coating of living soil that covers fewer and fewer places on our rocky, water covered planet where plants convert solar energy into carbohydrates and sustain life is itself imperiled by an impending climate crisis.
Populism as a political force was epitomized by the “Order of the Patrons of Husbandry” – the Grangers, now reduced in memory to a nationwide collection of aging Grange Halls, founded in 1867 as a fraternal farmer organization: “United by the strong and faithful tie to agriculture, we mutually resolve to labor for the good of our order, our country, and mankind.” Their motto was “In essentials, unity; In non-essentials, liberty; In all things, charity.” By 1874, the first year of record keeping, there were 268,368 dues paying members, by 1873 membership had reached 1.5 million.
The financial panic of that year led Grangers to fight predatory jobbers, brokers, and transportation monopolies of capitalist robber barrens. The Grange took on a more economic role, advocating buying co-ops to reduce prices and eliminate middle-men. Co-op grain elevators and mills were developed, eventually ushering in the consumer cooperatives movement, that today has been neutered as a political force, as basic commodities are replaced by processed food products, provided by cartels fueled by the vertical integration of transnational production.
In those heady days of political populism a healthy disregard of the supremacy of elites naturally led to collective action and the passing of so-called “Granger laws” that legislated lower freight rates, regulating railroads, an investor driven industry that had transformed the continent, with cheap immigrant labor, was granted 130 million acres and 10‘s of millions of dollars by the U.S. government, but regarded their increasingly essential operation as a private engine of profit. The railroad magnates portrayed activist Grangers as dangerous cranks and enemies of law and order, the Grangers were not enemies to capital, but did oppose the tyranny of monopolies. Grange activism eventually led to regulation of public utilities, the interstate commerce commission, the rural free delivery of mail, and the parcel post, which in turn improved rural roads. A clear case of regulation creating more efficiency and fairness.
Fast forward to today.
Venture capitalist, the decedents of the captains of industry that made Capital king, with their “The right place at the right time” model of , great idea start-ups, lucky stock options and investment driven buy-outs have co-opted the mechanisms of democracy. Leadership by the entitled “geniuses” of wealth creation is nothing less than oligarchy.
Elon Musk’s position as the wealthiest human on the planet quickly approaches a literal 1% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, the beneficiary of massive government contracts, subsidies, and bravado has by his own volition leveraged himself into the shotgun seat of the upcoming Trump administration. Musk with fellow entrepreneur and presidential want-to-be Vivek Ramaswamy have announced they are looking for volunteers to join the newly minted, as yet undefined, and wholly unofficial “Department” of Government Efficiency.
Announcing “We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you…Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.” Musk further confirmed that the work would be unpaid, stating; “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies, and compensation is zero. What a great deal!”
Musk, as cost cutting hero in chief, Vows to gut government expense by 2 trillion dollars. Sure eliminating fraud, abuse, and nonproductive bureaucracy is a good idea, I know where I would start- The Department of Defense spent $820 billion during fiscal year 2023, The U.S. spends more on “defense” than the next 9 countries combined, and employs 34% of civilian federal workers, with another 20% at the department of Veterans affairs. But watch for Musk to look the other way and recommend increased privatization of essential services, slashing civil servant positions, and benefits he deems unnecessary for those he deems unworthy. There is little doubt that the cost cutting will be met with conflict, which will leave needful work undone, pitfalls that impair performance, and litigation by the disgruntled that will all add up to more government inefficiency.
About 61% of the federal budget is mandatory spending, only 26% is discretionary, and the rest is interest payments on debt. These categories are not named for the relative importance or necessity of the programs involved; they refer to the relationship between the law that authorizes a program or activity and the law that determines the program’s spending. Changing mandatory programs requires amending the relevant law, to modify funding levels set in authorizing law.
Considering that congress can barely cobble together an annual budget, the narrow margin of the ruling party which can’t even agree with itself on key issues, with procedural budget deadlines routinely missed. the future of government efficiency is, to say the least, in question.
Joshua Golden,
From Politically Correct Week in Review,
Every other Monday, 7 to 8pm, only on KMUD
