ECONOMICS and POLITICS are like TWO SIDES of a COIN- INSeparABLE

 By:James Lyman BSAE, BSEE, MSSM

In our present political or economic discourse, we tend to embrace one while rejecting the other, depending on which we have interest in. If our interest is politics, then our attention is absorbed with matters and news about politics, while if economics, our attention goes to matters dealing with economics with exclusion of political matters. Nothing could be more short sighted! Economics and politics are so intertwined that you CANNOT consider one without equal consideration of the other. They are different sides of the same coin, always inseparable if you are to have a coin of any value. As much as you might like to neglige politics and talk economics, it's just not viable, and the opposite is just as true. 

This understanding is very important because today, the economic future of the millenniums is being determined by the present electoral process. The only problem is most of those millenniums aren't paying any attention to what is happening. Worst still, those in elected offices long with those who elect them by their votes are showing little or no concern for the future of millenniums only their immediate selves. This intertwining of politics and economics was part of our Nation's creation, with the popular public perception of America revolting against England because of taxation without representation, but in actuality the trouble went back much further than that, and it was economially based.

 As settlers started to migrate west, King George proclaimed those virgin lands in the west to belong to the Crown, and therefore couldn't be homesteaded by the colonist. Since Europeans were immigrating to America to get all this free unused land, this attempt to deprive them of economic opportunity went over like the proverbial lead balloon! Another thorn was when the Crown decided to cull through all of American's timber, and select the choice timber for England to use in shipbuilding, thereby leaving the residue for the colonist. Another example was Englishmen skilled in manufacturing and machinery were forbidden to travel to America, because the English didn't want America to develop our own manufacturing ability, instead to be a source of raw materials for England to exploit while selling us manufactured goods in return. 

This has always been the problem with the colonial system. The whole purpose and reason for a colony is economic exploitation . . . and no one . . . but no one likes to be exploited! Therefore, across the history of colonies, there has been friction between the colony and the mother country, very often resulting in armed conflict of insurrections. This economic-political duality was the whole bases for Japan and World War II. Coming late to the game at the start of the Twentieth Century, Japan embarked on obtaining a system of colonies to bolster her fragile emerging economy, just as so many advanced nations did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not appreciating that the age of colonies had already passed.

 Japan called this the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and she intended to push the white colonial powers out of their Far East colonies and take over, as if being economically exploited by a fellow Asian would make all the difference in the world. Prior to WWII, politics in Germany was in part driven by fears of economic domination by the other European countries, in particular France. These fears became very acute with the collapse of Germany's economy in the late twenties and thirties from the crushing burden of war reparations, much of it owed to France. 

The political process within Germany sought ways to address these economic fears, which resulted in the emergence of the National Socialist Party, more commonly know as the Nazis, and their solution was to militarize and use the political method of conquest to achieve their political-economic aims . . . in other words, World War II. In the political process of America today, every political poll shows the economy as the principle concern for Americans, driven by the uncertainty of the people's future. While contestants in the two thousand sixteen election flay away at each other with silly word games and various political machinations and marketing ploys, the real concern for most American's is- Will I have a job next week, next year or the next decade? Will the hard work I put in each day ever result in an increase in my pay? Will I ever be able to make any real economic progress? Pure economics and politics one hundred percent! 

The young people of America, the Millenniums and the Z Generation seem strangely remote from the political discord of our sixteen election, seemingly unconcerned that their future is being determined today . . . now . . . by those who are running for office in both the presidency and the congress. So far, no candidate has shown any particular interest, let alone any strategics or methods, for alleviating the problems facing the youth of America . . . 

The growing displacement by technologies, the threat of obsolescence pressing them out of the social economic system. So while they are busy amusing themselves with their little smart phones with texting, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media activities, the political system ignores their situation as the economy continues to leave them further and further behind. In short, you can't divorce economics and politics from each other.