Headline, April21, 2014

"' ECONOMIC SECURITY :: 

O" LORD - GOD...... . -PLEASE "'

EVERYTHING  -every single thing in this world that is,   -and will be, will always  and ever,  - get  exacerbated,  by an ever increasing drive for economic security.

Economic security is to modern man what a castle and moat were to medieval man.   And this is putting it very mildly.  In developing countries, economic security is an unending mortal combat.

One would have expected that the desire for economic security would fall as the danger of real starvation and exposure faded into the past. But this hasn't happened.

Instead, the desire for economic security is probably the major economic demand confronting the political marketplace.   Everyone, Yes, everyone the world over, wants economic security, and they see and think   -that government is the prime vehicle for guaranteeing it.

The world over,  -the drive for economic security dominates our actions, and it will very soon end up dominating every economy in the world.

The desire for  economic security   can be seen both how we earn our incomes and how we spend them. When public opinion polls ask about the desired job characteristics,  economic security always takes top spot, well above higher pay or anything else.

This preference for economic security shows up in many ways. Old workers want seniority hiring and firing so that  worries  about layoffs can be confined to someone else   -new workers. Restrictive work rules are designed to provide job security.

As for consumers,  "let the buyers beware"   is not an aphorism that attracts  much support nowadays. Yet with better-educated  buyers who make fewer mistakes and have higher incomes, so that they can afford mistakes more easily-

We should be in the direction of letting individuals make more of their own decisions. But are we?

"We are much less willing to let individuals make their own mistakes," says one  leading American economist. "Anyone who has bought a house under federally insured mortgages knows that the regulation act as if the buyer were a first-class idiot.

Consumer legislation usually assumes that the consumers are incompetent. It is common to explain these regulations as having been forced upon society by some extremely powerful minority. The problem is to understand why most of us want to be protected from our own mistakes.

Everyone wants economic security and runs to the government for protection when he feels it slipping away. When OPEC raised the price of oil in 1973-74 and food prices exploded, both were met with overwhelming demands for government regulations to mitigate the real income losses.

Energy became a regulated industry and export embargoes were imposed on grain sales. Examples are endless :  farmers, the elderly, the steel industry, electronics, textiles    -"everyone wants economic security". None of the groups are villains:

They simply want what each of us wants :   "    ""Economic Security"".    "

Some of the demand for security springs from the nature of industrial societies. In agriculture societies, economic destruction was seen as,  and mainly was, the result of impersonal, uncontrollable forces:

If the weather is bad, incomes are going to fall and no earthly force can alter the results.

Economic destruction in industrial societies is caused by identifiable human actions that can be controlled. For example, if someone plans to build a coal-slurry pipeline from the coalfields of Wyoming to the Midwest, the income of the railroaders will fall-

But they can mobilize to prevent the pipeline companies from getting the right element domain necessary to build the pipeline. If incomes are threatened by Japanese steel or TV sets, Japanese products can be identified and kept out.

In an industrial society,  economic security  becomes a feasible objective.

Modern industrial societies may also lead to a set of financial interrelationships  -mortgages, consumer credit, pension rights and so forth-   in which small declines in personal income are more threatening to an individual than they were in the past.

Objectively,  being hungry  may be more serious than having your car repossessed, but objectively the repossession may pose of a threat to modes of living. With income security during retirement depending upon private pensions, job security while working becomes directly tied:

To income security during one's old age.

Industrial sons and daughters are not expected to take care of industrial mothers and fathers in their old age. Instead they depend on pensions that are attached to jobs.

Skills are also threatened in a world where many skills are learned on the job and where job openings are awarded based on seniority. To move from one employer to another involuntarily is to go to the bottom of skills ladder and start over.

To lose one's job is to take a chance on destroying one's human capital and substantially reducing one's earning.

Economic security also has a peculiar dynamic. Every instance of providing economic security leads to demands for more economic security.

If any given industry is protected from its own inefficiencies, why shouldn't everyone else be protected from their own inefficiencies?!!

'''' But as protection grows, there is no  natural stopping point "" .

The honour and serving of this very important educating post continues:

With respectful dedication to all the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world  -of economics.   See Ya all  on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"" Millions By Millions Club ""

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless