Walmart and the current crash
Economist Michael Perelman links Walmart to the current crash:
The Economic Crisis: A Wal-Mart Economy Dimension
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Low wages helped to give Wal-Mart a competitive advantage in retailing, which, in turn, helped to spur off-shoring, leading to a serious balance of trade deficit. The low-wage exporters, especially China, attempted to keep their currency cheap, in order to prevent swelling unemployment at home.To keep the value of its currency low, China and the other exporters sent much of their profits back to the US buying investments in Fannie, Freddie, and U.S. Treasury debt. These funds helped to keep interest rates low, which stimulated both consumption and speculation. In this environment, housing prices and financial assets increased in value, creating even more consumption and a greater knowledge of trade deficit.
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The analogy is a bit stretched, but his main point makes sense.
Shalom Robert,
I don’t think the analogy is all that stretched..
The idea that we’ve spent last 20-30 years scrambling to to put lipstick on the Capitalist Pig by exploiting workers in authoritarian nations from South America to Asia to create the appearance that we have a growing economy is not beyond the pale.
B’shalom,
Jeff
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