Do add to these, but these two errors keep coming up as the big ones I've noticed damaging this country, and possibly most countries. Neo Liberalism Promoted by Milton Friedman and many others A good idea to the extent that it suggested how to improve, by bringing in competition or assistance from other countries, so each person or country could do what it was best at. The 'liberalism' part of the word comes from free trade and reduction of government regulations.
Note that I'm not an economist nor an expert, really just a novice but otherwise this post might take an hour to read. Neo Liberalism going wrong Due to a failure to adjust currency values, free trade can result in country A losing pretty much all of it's industry to another, with a resulting cash flow from A to country C, perhaps from America to China. The actual situation is far more complicated. The workers in country A lose their jobs, and the company owners in country A save a lot of money on labor and therefore get very rich. What can then happen in country A is many workers have declining rates of pay while the middle class continue demanding the same rates of pay. So for example a worker may need to do an entire day of work to pay for 15 minutes with a nurse. The government in country A carry out some redistributive activities to partly correct this problem, which if not paid for in taxes result in a growing deficit.
Neo Liberalism can also harm country C Country C might transfer farm workers to the factories to increase production, but eventually if country A runs out of money, then country C needs to find something for the no longer needed workers. Country C may also need a good way to store the wealth it is gaining or creating. Good Stuff As a country produces it gets better at it so more products can be made with a given amount of energy and raw materials, this can lead to increased amounts of wealth in both countries.
Overall Neo Liberalism changes life within each country through the economies. It can lead to greatly increased stress for the population because whereas there may have been generations of coal miners or car workers or office workers, the next generation may be uncertain of the way ahead as the coal mines close, car plants move to another country and office tasks get automated. The plus side is if office task are automated it could be possible to a lot of time to do things people find most fulfilling. More time with their children or learning things, or for hobbies. This has to be handled intelligently on an individual basis. For many years I had difficulty concentrating and mainly did repetitive tasks, but gradually my attention got better and now I can do pretty much anything I have the time o do. Also about 20% of the population have difficulty with any complex task and many really have to be in a safe environment. People are varied. Critique Neo Liberalism needs to be applied within a framework with a certain amount of charity or compassion. One criticism of it, which would probably exist even without it, is: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Conclusion The rich do get richer but the poor also seem to be getting a lot of benefits too. I am one of those and I love access to so many types of music and to so much information.
Contrast Neo Liberalism and the neocons. My understanding is neo liberalism is primarily economic and applies to business and structures involved in production. Neo Conservativism is a philosophy and it is rather sophisticated but the neocons are people who apply some elements of of Neo Conservativism, in foreign relations, and sometimes get it wrong and that's where a lot of our wars come from. Again I am no expert so do make some useful contributions to this thread.
