The policy debates we have today, were considered luxuries 100 yrs ago. Today, our debates are how much further should we depress wages in order to boost exports. Or how much should we boost wages to get reelected. Industry leaders want to see wages depressed, labor wants to see wages increase. The two are clearly in a conflict of interest. But whatever the case is, we are not living in Pre-Victorian England where the threat of famine and disease kills off 50 percent of the population.
Modern business cycles are not like the rain and dry seasons of the plains in Africa. Twenty five percent of the lion and gazelle population do not just die off and repopulate again because of seasonal changes. Such free market perspectives are not exactly promoted anywhere in the modern world.
Today, our biggest economic challenges are the not the same challenges people grappled with in the past. But how to run our systems more efficiently. People are living better day after day, but how to keep this economic growth going without depreciating our national currency as rapidly? How do we promote economic growth and employment expansion without flooding the country and the world with too much liquidity? How do we cut the trade deficit without throwing millions of our people out of work? How do I raise the trade surplus without also rapidly pushing up inflation? How do I raise employment levels and incomes without causing property and asset prices from rising too fast.
And my personal favorite, how to convince the CCP to print more RMB to put idle labor and resources to consumer and military use.
And it is these type of trivial arguments that we are forced to take a look at every day.
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