There are multiple, mostly separate realities now:
- The tiny ultra rich who've never had it better and don't see a problem.
- The very rich who are also doing really well.
- The moderately rich are okay too.
- An ever-shrinking middle class who either own or have a mortgage on 1 home.
- The masses of people living paycheck-to-paycheck without savings without a path to property ownership or raising a family.
- Undocumented, unskilled, and UberEats workers living in their cars and can't afford the basics of life to keep going.
There is some visibility up and down 1 strata, but very little beyond that.
Well, that sucks even more now. I'm about to get fired and the stats related to that and having a disability were already bad.
Likely the result of 50+ years of a pure fiat money system. The system has been supported by an unprecedented acceleration of technology and increasing globalization; likely why it kept going for so long. We could speculate that the fiat system may have helped to accelerate tech innovation in its early days (since decoupling from the gold standard) but now it seems to be causing stagnation due to systemic wealth concentration.
It may be the same kind of stagnation people faced under the gold standard; all the gold and assets had made their way into the hands of a select few people and so the appetite for risk dropped along with number of new opportunities and class mobility. Fiat money creation allowed elasticity of the money supply and thus the creation of new opportunities outside of the existing power structure. People started being empowered to make funding decisions using "Other people's money" and this facilitated investment and risk taking.
Now the issue is that the money flows themselves have been monopolized. It's still largely "Other people's money" being created and invested, but the anti-competitive dynamics are very strong. People aren't thinking about just numbers anymore (as they did with gold), they are concerned about 'rates of change' in money flows. I think that's what's driving the urge to control money flows and prevent risky spending and prevent competition. It's all about growth numbers and monopolizing growth itself.
This might explain why tech companies are laying off staff whilst having record profits and stock prices. It's about maintaining a leading position in a race, not about satisfying anybody's needs. It has become a zero-sum game about who can take control of existing money flows 'more efficiently'; meaning with less risk and less effort than anyone else. Unfortunately, the winning 'shortest path' to getting money does not align with risk-taking or value-creation.
Uncertainty can lead to reduced risk taking activity. Both hiring and firing have risk associated with them. This is probably a limited time impact and will change once people have a strong understanding of the current “trade war”, and an understanding of any impacts the Middle East conflicts will have on the global energy supply.
If you’re in business, look for opportunities where others inaction can benefit you. Maybe that’s quality talent available in the labor market.