Charles Hugh Smith: "Big Idea Solution": Radically Lower the Cost Basis of the Entire Economy

From Of Two Minds:

We are constantly told all our problems are too complex to be addressed with simple "big idea" solutions. Complex problems require complex solutions, we are assured, and so the "solutions" conjured by the Central State/Cartel Status Quo are so convoluted and complex (for example, the 2,319-page Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act or the 2,074-page Obamacare bill) that legislators say they must "pass the bill to see what's in it." The real "solution" is to see that complexity itself is the roadblock to radical reformation of failed systems. Complexity is the subterfuge the Status Quo uses to erect simulacra "reforms" while further consolidating their power behind the artificial moat of complexity. Over the next three days, I will present three "big idea" solutions that cut through the self-serving thicket of complexity. Nature is complex, but it operates according to a set of relatively simple rules. The interactions can be complex but the guiding principles can be, and indeed, must be, simple. Big Idea One: Radically lower the cost basis of the entire U.S. economy. The cost basis of any activity is self-evident: what are the total costs of the production of a good or service? The surplus produced is the net profit which can be spent on consumption or invested in productive assets (or squandered in mal-investments).

The only way to lower the actual cost basis of the economy is to reduce the role and power of the Central State, dismantle its favored cartels and re-empower community and the market forces of innovation and competition. The Central State and its cartels are incapable of innovation or reducing costs because they dominate the market and the community.

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2012/05/big-idea-solution-radically-lower-cost.html