Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "If the Economy is Good, Why Do We Feel So Bad? with Kyla Scanlon" video.
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I'm an Australian engineer (educated in America) and you are 100% RIGHT.
Apologies for the rant but your point is as valid here and America as it is everywhere.
I have been forced to look into economics because of a small project I had back in 2016. During that project I found out how badly managed Australia's energy sector is. For years I had heard how ineffective Australia's energy policies were. Its a common news story, but then I found out the details of just how bad it is.
When I looked around I found the same or similar problem across most of the developed World.
Its fairly simple. Ever since the start of the industrial revolution and even more so since the end of World War 2 we have needed more and more energy to grow our economies. America did Tennessee Valley, Australia did the Snowy River Scheme and others did their equivalent. THEN starting with Reagan and Thatcher ECONOMISTS like Milton Friedman stepped in and claimed that "governments were the problem" and free market economics was the solution WITHOUT ANY REAL UNDERSTANDING of how INDUSTRIAL societies actually function and are dependent on basic infrastructure working.
Their solution was to privatise anything and everything because in their ideology the private sector does everything better. There was never any real proof to that claim it was just their opinion. What I have found is economists have NO IDEA how infrastructure needs to work so that businesses can function, make money, employ people and those people to have decent lives BUT THEY KNOW HOW TO SQUEEZE MONEY out of infrastructure.
AND it has NOT mattered if it was American neoliberal capitalist economists, Russian socialist economists, European mercantilists, Chinese neomercantilists or any other variety of economist. They have all FUBARD their infrastructure because they're economists not engineers and its all falling apart. Here's some examples:
America has over 30,000 bridges that need major repairs or outright replacing.
China has wrecked over 25,000 rivers, streams and waterways which is why their food is full of toxins.
Russia destroyed the Aral Sea.
Britain has utterly wrecked their water infrastructure after selling it to Australians while Australians sold their energy infrastructure to whoever would buy it and its now totally FUBARD.
And all economists can tell us is how great the FARKING stock market is.
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