Want Widespread Prosperity? Radically Lower Costs

As long as this is business as usual, it’s impossible to slash costs and boost widespread prosperity.
It’s easy to go down the wormhole of complexity when it comes to figuring out why our economy is stagnating for the bottom 80% of households. But it’s actually not that complicated: the primary driver of stagnation, decline of small business start-ups, etc. is costs are skyrocketing to the point of unaffordability.
As I have pointed out many times, history is unambiguous regarding the economic foundations of widespread prosperity: the core ingredients are:
1. Low inflation, a.k.a. stable, sound money
2. Social mobility (a meritocracy that enables achievers and entrepreneurs to climb out of impoverished beginnings)
3. Relatively free trade in products, currencies, ideas and innovations
4. A state (government) that competently manages tax collection, maintains roadways and harbors, secures borders and trade routes, etc.
Simply put, When costs are cheap and trade is abundant, prosperity is widely distributed. Once costs rise, trade declines and living standards stagnate. Poverty and unrest rise.
These foundations characterize stable economies with widely distributed prosperity across time and geography, from China’s Tang Dynasty to the Roman Republic to the Byzantine Empire to 19th century Great Britain.

This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on NOVEMBER 19, 2017.