Specific Crisis Indicators

Organizational size is a broad indicator.

There are other indicators more specific to a particular time and organizational or policy space.

Prior to the most recent liquidity crisis, the subprime rate fell below the prime rate, for example. The rate inversion was a very clear signal of crisis within the specific time and organizational space.

The space in which capital was organized for application was both consolidating and unregulated. Combined with the timing of the rate inversion, it was easy to see a big crisis of liquidity coming. For the policy makers and analysts in control, however, the inversion was being considered a positive signal, inferring confirmation of the tax-cut hypothesis. Inferring a negative signal did not fit the hypothetical effect in time and organizational/policy space.

Financing the Bush tax cuts with a surplus of Chinese dollars was a neo-conservative policy product that did not fit America at the time given the organizational/policy space. America was primed for strong economic growth.

A budget surplus and a strong dollar, however, resists China's growth and support for the price of commodities which were key to precipitating The Great Recession and development of a financially interdependant global economy that is too big to fail.

Instead of achieving a high rate of growth, the Bush tax cuts achieved an economic contraction of monumental proportion. Consolidated corporates can now consolidate even more, gaining even more command and control over capital investment. The cyclical consolidation is a specific signal in the space of capital investment. The Chinese economy is not threatended by the possibility of a more pluralistic American economy that includes increased manufacturing jobs.

The best-and-brightest Ivy League elite were, and still are, in control of this policy space, not the American people--a highly specific indicator of crisis in political-economic time and policy space.

At the time of the Bush administration, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, considered the budget surpluses to be too high. The policy space was then fashioned to fit what, at that time, was touted to be a mandate for neo-conservative economic policy and programs. It was a very specific indicator of crisis.

Keep in mind that the Chinese dollar surplus was the direct result of an economy-of-scale model of efficiency. Specifically, the Wal-Mart model combined with consolidation and deregulation of the financial sector. The net effect has been to drive commodity prices up (exporting our raw materials) and labor costs down (importing finished products), organizing a "global economy." The result is a high margin of profit and capital formation without growth.

The time, however, is now for a distribution on that accumulation that benefits the American people. It is an undubious benefit that goes well beyond "always the lowest prices" that supports the lowest possible wages and the highest Wall Street salaries.

Presently, as we move forward with a very clearly disconfirmed neo-conservative economic hypothesis, having been very clearly and specifically indicated with a massive liquidity crisis and unemployment, consideration of financial reform occupies the organizational/policy space toward full liquidity and full employment, not just a means of keeping Wall Street safely rich without economic growth.