War can create many problems, and this time it includes difficulties for supply side circumstance, central bankers, and monetary policy. Some are also debating (although they are divided) how Putin's actions will ultimately affect global currency patterns. I'd suggest that while no one knows how long global dollar dominance could last, this is still an opportune moment for special interest groups to dial back on their dependence of global financial flows for monetary compensation. Especially since this decades long global positioning has added to income inequalities, many of which stem from administrative privilege. In particular, inequality in the U.S. is largely due to tax dependent secondary markets (and their associated housing valuations) where knowledge and skill are essential.
Meritocratic organizational patterns in dependent markets have become like an endangered species, by aligning too closely with other aspects of elite tendencies (both left and right leaning) in advanced economies. Consider how this matters, for political opponents are now so opposed to each another that both sides are losing the ability to effectively function. This really matters for merit based organization, once profit becomes defined as the strongest limits possible to total applied knowledge participation. Even though the patterns we observe are more often knowledge use losses in rural areas, this is nevertheless symptomatic of continued losses for valuable skills in general, in all of society.
For decades we have taken administrative dominance for granted in the compensation of meritocratic time based knowledge. But unfortunately, administrative capture of monetary value for time based skill sets, creates extensive participation limits in terms of both supply and demand. When price making is used in excess of price taking in equilibrium conditions, the result is inevitably reduced societal coordination patterns (hence loss of mutual trust) for knowledge use. Indeed, our housing asset markets closely represent the pinnacle of what people hope to achieve in monetary compensation for knowledge and skill, instead of the compensation many citizens actually receive.
The supply side conditions which allowed this circumstance have only been exacerbated since the turn of the 21st century. Small wonder that our educational and healthcare institutions now experience problems at systemic levels with few solutions on offer. Yet applied skill losses tend to occur in ways that aren't necessarily evident, such as in U.S. justice scenarios which greatly impact both lower and middle income levels. For that matter, much of the cultural resistance to vaccines took place in "red" states where rural areas have already long since lost their hospitals and other local healthcare settings.
Should we finally reform knowledge centered citizen participation, recall as well, how closely linked these time based services are with housing. States such as Texas (where I live) have been heavily dependent on property taxes to fund the services citizens rely on, for instance. There are other important economic connections between housing and services as well. A prime example is how the Fed frames housing as a transmission mechanism for monetary policy, which in turn affects the money available for services in given time periods.
Hence when we highlight possibilities for greater housing affordability, it helps to remember that services access and participation would be closely connected to these efforts. Since services values are reflective of housing, only recall that good deflation in housing would require good deflation in time based services costs. This time based adaptation of local property taxes would only work for citizens if they can actually count on lower mutual time costs for group coordination. In many earlier posts I advocated for time as a formal economic unit. Fortunately, we could design means to connect economic time value to originating wealth or monetary value, via local building patterns for participating groups. I continue to hope that production and ownership reform efforts such as these, might be considered in the near future.
