The author believes that this demonstration will not push the United States into social unrest in the short term, which is determined by the cultural characteristics of the United States. The pursuit of "American Dream" is actually based on the following basic points: to pursue freedom and happiness by our own continuous efforts. At this point, Americans are still rational, so the parade was originally expected to have 20 thousand people, but in the end only a few hundred people participated.
So what prominent contradictions and problems did the Wall Street demonstrations expose in American economy and society? This can be found in the slogans and opinions of the demonstrators.
The first is to put forward the slogan of "to work". This is also an important reason for the outbreak of this demonstration to a large extent. Americans have a low savings rate, and no job means that life is in trouble immediately. The reason why American employment has become a problem has a lot to do with the long-term imbalance of American economic development, mainly in the imbalance between virtual economy and real economy. The fictitious economy represented by the financial industry is over-expanded, while the real economy in the United States is "hollowed out" because of industrial transfer.
According to relevant calculations, the proportion of the output value of the US financial industry to the US GDP has increased from about 15% in 1980 to about 25% at present, while the proportion of manufacturing industries that can effectively arrange employment has continued to decline. After all, the "white-collar" jobs created by the financial industry are limited and vulnerable to the situation. This economic structure determines the instability of employment in the United States. Therefore, under the influence of the financial crisis and debt crisis, the unemployment rate in the United States remains high.
Promoting the development of the real economy is a good medicine to solve the employment problem. However, judging from the current situation, the economic development of the United States can not find a solid support point, and it will take time to re-stimulate economic vitality. The Obama administration has also put forward the slogan of "returning to industry", but the traditional low-end manufacturing industry has been unable to return to the United States, and the resource endowment of the United States does not allow it; The development of high-tech and new-tech industries is facing the constraints of technological change, innovation and market development, which cannot be solved in the short term, so it is difficult to restore the economic vitality of the United States in the short term.
The second is to protest against "financial greed." The typical feature of the financial industry is that profits belong to themselves and costs belong to society. American financial industry has made huge profits by constantly implementing financial innovation, creating financial derivatives, and even using fraudulent means, but it has also led to excessive disconnection between virtual economy and real economy. When the financial leverage ratio is too high to maintain, a financial crisis will break out. Finance is the core of modern economy, and the financial crisis must be saved. As a result, everyone pays the bill, and the interests and responsibilities are very mismatched. This also provides an important lesson, that is, to maintain the reasonable development of the financial industry, and not to be excessively innovative and divorced from the real economy.
The excessive expansion of the financial industry has caused great harm to the American economy. On the one hand, it provides distorted incentives. The financial industry has high profits. For example, the profits created by the American financial industry account for about 40% of the profits of American companies. Faced with this kind of incentive, the number of outstanding talents who want to study economics and finance and earn high wages on Wall Street will drop, which is unfavorable to scientific and technological innovation and the development of the real economy. On the other hand, the financial industry has greatly encroached on the profits of the real economy, leading to the "industrial duplication" of the real economy. The financial industry does not create real wealth, and its profits mainly come from commissions, handling fees, agency fees, spreads and so on, which are created by the real economy. The excessive expansion of the financial industry encroached on the profits of the real economy and squeezed the space for industrial upgrading.
Once again, it is against the "power and money transaction" and "bipartisan struggle" of American politics. In fact, there are many problems in the political system of the United States, the most typical of which is "hidden corruption", which is embodied in the fact that large American companies lobby members of Congress for the benefit of these large companies when formulating systems and laws. So it becomes that whoever has money can get more rules to protect him. In fact, oil and arms, consortia control politics. Daniel, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in the United States, said Kaufman's research shows that if political contributions, money lobbying and other factors are taken into account, the United States is actually not a country with low corruption, but a country with serious corruption.
Encouraged by interests, the two parties in the United States did not hesitate to dig the wall to win the election for each other. The struggle between the two parties has put the dignity and interests of the American people in a very dangerous situation. For example, it is very simple for the United States to raise the debt ceiling, and the world will continue to lend money to the United States to develop its economy and improve the well-being of the American people. However, the dispute between the two parties almost made the United States default and lost face in front of the whole world. It is not surprising that the American people are dissatisfied with this.
Finally, the marchers put forward "opposing social injustice" and wanted to end the capitalist system and even beat the leaders of the Latin American revolution? Guevara's head. American private monopoly capital grabs high monopoly profits, and Wall Street executives get huge returns; At the same time, the sluggish development of the real economy and the decline in the income of ordinary Americans have led to a gradual widening of the income gap in American society and intensified contradictions. Some Americans are dissatisfied with the current system and governance model. At the same time, it also puts forward a deeper proposition, that is, our exploration of the most effective economic and social system model is far from over. Exploring a system and governance model that can effectively promote economic development and ensure that all people can enjoy the fruits of development is still a fundamental problem facing all countries.
Of course, the author also believes that these serious problems in the United States do not mean that the United States is about to decline After all, the domestic resources of the United States are basically not utilized, and it still has the most powerful innovation ability in the world. The dollar is also the most important reserve currency in the world, and the economic vitality of the United States will be stimulated again in the future. The key question now is how the United States will survive the current crisis. I think the United States can consider the following three aspects.
First, be more frugal and use resources in key areas and links of economic development. For example, we can cut military spending and use the money saved to subsidize small and medium-sized enterprises, scientific research and innovation, or subsidize the lives of low-income people. Unnecessary military exercises should be stopped decisively, because every shell is wasting the resources of economic development and lowering the living standards of taxpayers. The United States should not be led astray by the illusion of "imaginary enemies."
Second, strive to attract foreign direct investment. No matter in theory or in practice, foreign direct investment can bring benefits to the economic development of the target country. At present, the balance sheets of households and enterprises have not improved significantly, so American banks are reluctant to lend and capital cannot flow into the real economy. If the real economy does not go up, the employment situation will be bad. At this time, if we vigorously attract foreign direct investment, we can bring the necessary capital to the real economy and have an immediate effect on increasing employment.
Third, strengthen economic cooperation with other countries in various fields. We can consider expanding economic and trade cooperation with emerging economies. For example, China and the United States are highly complementary in terms of resource endowment, development stage and industrial structure, and economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States can bring great benefits to the two countries. China hopes that the American economy will prosper so that the whole world will benefit from it. Therefore, we should seek new areas of cooperation and explore new cooperation schemes from all angles, including policy adjustment.