This is How Budget Deficits and Chronic Diseases are Linked
Our metabolism and our economy are linked
In my last article, I explained the hype and controversy over cuts in wasteful spending by USAID (Agency for International Development). There is also talk about cuts in wasteful spending in other agencies like HHS (health and Human Services). The goal was to cut $2 Trillion from the annual US budget of $6.5 Trillion, enough to balance the budget because right now we are borrowing $2 Trillion a year to keep the party called the American Dream (for some) going. It is true that no other country in the world wastes and spends as much as Americans. We have only 5% of the world population and yet create 25-30% of the trash and use 25-30% of the energy.
But despite the hype, controversy, opposition by Democrats, tough talk, optimism among libertarians, campaign promises, and Musk’s sincere efforts to cut down the waste, I am skeptical it will ever happen in a meaningful way. There is already talk that there may be $1 Trillion cut over several years not $2 Trillion a year! Then there was the news that the Congress, including many Republicans and Democrats, plans to stop drastic cuts in any government agencies when they pass the fiscal 2025 budget in March, or they will force a Government shut down. Money to the human economy is like blood and calories (energy) to the human anatomy.
The fundamental issue with any CUTTING of spending is the serious instability it causes in an economic structure that creates “service” jobs using what economists call a “multiplier” system, based on deficits and needs for “service” (debt) and not savings and surpluses of “products.” 70% of our economy (GDP) is driven by services and not production or farming. Basically, if a millionaire in Virginia with lucrative government “service” contracts loses his USAID funding, it means the local pizza shop delivery guy, lawyers, plumbers, grocery store cashiers, and landscapers and all the others who “served” the contractor guy may lose their job and income too. Then people “serving” the lawyer, landscaper, pizza man and plumber could lose their “service” job too when the “spending” fountain (government) dries up. Unemployment will skyrocket when spending of “any kind” dries up in a centralized (non-local) service-based, deficit-driven economy that uses service multipliers. In fact, the size of the multiplier effect in an economy depends on the marginal propensity to consume (MPC), which is the proportion of an increase in income that is spent on consumption. In other words, in a consumer nation, multipliers are very effective in creating more jobs out of thin air (digital created money, that is!).
Let me use a simple example. Let’s say a professional, well-paid plumber making $300,000 a year, is hired to fix the broken pipes in the super wealthy Palisades neighborhood (that recently burned down) that hosts many doctors, medical and movie industry executives, and lawyers. After a while, the plumber finds out he has cancer because he was exposed to toxins not properly cleaned up by the wealthy owners after the fire. The plumber hires a lawyer to sue the wealthy owners. The lawyer also lives in the Palisades area. Once the plumber finds out he has cancer, the plumber’s already short temper changes for the worse and eventually his wife files for divorce. The plumber and his wife hire two other (family or divorce) lawyers who also live in that wealthy Palisades neighborhood. Meanwhile the plumber has to spend a lot of money trying to treat the cancer. Some of this comes from his own savings and the rest from his insurance company. Most of that money spent on treating cancer goes to the doctors and medical executives whom he served.. There is another fire in a nearby wealthy suburb and more homes are damaged. More firefighters are hired to fight the fires and new plumbers move in to fix the broken pipe after the fires. More construction workers are hired. More firefighters, construction workers and plumbers find out they have cancer. More lawsuits follow. More fires mean more jobs (money) for the plumbers, construction workers, firefighters, lawyers, insurance agents and adjusters. Lots of new jobs created: Firefighters, plumbers, lawyers, insurance agents, and of course all kinds of specialized doctors and medical staff: radiology technicians, radiologists (doctors) and endocrinologists and all sorts of doctors treating cancer and pulmonary diseases (the lungs of firefighters were affected and some found out they had cancer too). And they all work hard and late hours due to the booming and urgent “service” business so there are more daycare and after-hours jobs watching their children and more pizza delivery jobs and restaurant jobs created for preparing their food. Can we conclude more fires are good for the “service” economy? This is how “service” multiplier works. Servicing damages, debt and deficits are a good part of this type of economy. Government now pays $1 Trillion, or about 20% of the annual budget, a year to service its debt obligations and Americans now work 20% more every week to service their health deficits (medical costs). See our diseases and our economy are more closely linked than many realize. Our GDP (gross domestic product) heavily relies on the service industry and on debt and deficit management. Unlike “production” oriented money that is generated in a factory or a farm or a mine, service-oriented money can come from digital money issued and distributed by the government.
The US President has three main jobs: Keeping the employment high, inflation low, and the nation secure (from foreign enemies). What would the pizza delivery man, the landscaping guy, the plumber and the lawyer do when the “service-oriented” money dries up? Most city dwellers have service jobs that rely on other servers which ultimately are linked to some “central” deficit spending (money-printing) by the government. Very few people “produce” surpluses of products (like vegetables, grains, eggs, meat, dairy, tools, shoes, etc.). Even many large-scale commercial farmers now rely on deficits (huge loans) and are on artificial life support from government subsidies on grains, without which they could buy the huge tractors to “produce” monocrops for consumption by the huge urban “service” center populations. What happens when the city service guys lose their jobs and stop buying all that milk or meat?
Our economies and metabolisms are closely linked. In fact, in 1941, economist Edward R. Dewey incorporated The Foundation for the Study of Cycles after he discovered coincident cycles in nature and business. Let me try to offer a simplified explanation of how our economy, our ecosystem (nature) and our metabolism are related. People working indoors and in offices, mostly in “service” jobs, are mostly in a “stress and competition” mode, and their metabolisms (energy-budgeting and conversion inside their body) are driven by testosterone and dopamine1. As I explained in my books (see below), when a cortisol- and testosterone-driven organism (overly competitive and stressed), is deprived of good sunlight (with dysfunctional dopamine-melanin pathways), clean air, physical toil, home-made food and home-grown vegetables, it will make up for the energy deficit by overdosing on the energizing and motivating neurotransmitter dopamine which is best supplied by rewarding but addictive substances like sugar, alcohol, cigarettes, money/work, coffee, or digital candy in video games, social media, etc.
Dopamine in the human brain is linked to pleasure and motivations as well as numbers and scales. So the dopamine-addicted (metabolically-imbalanced and energy-deficient) Homo economicus can NOT accept a reduction in the “scale” of anything, whether it is income, power, fan base, asset size (house, TV, etc.). Start from your family, friends and neighbors and see for yourself how many of them have ever consciously “scaled down” their assets, income and stressful jobs in exchange for more peace and health (less stress)?
Our economic deficits and metabolic deficits (diseases) are two sides of the same problem as explained in detail in my books. After all, we are the only species that has mostly replaced calories and nutrients with an invention called money as the main means of survival. My first book (Masks, Crutches and Daggers: The Science of our Self-Delusional, Addictive Homo economicus Brain) narrated the history of the evolution of the modern human brain with all its imbalances, addictions and excesses (on Amazon’s 2022 Hot new Release).
My second book (2024), The ROGUE Brain, discusses why we are the only species that knowingly do what is bad for us and for our species. It’s all rooted in our unruly untrained brains and the metabolically dysfunctional feedback loops between the brain and the body (including guts).
My third book, The Right Way to Eat I discuss the way to balance different diets (like Ketogenic or Vegan) and nutritional regiments for proper metabolism.
I need help by righteous folks like you to share with others my mission, which is educating everyone about Brain 101 and Food 101 🙏.
Related:
Are Fires Nature's Equalizers in a Denatured California?
Thermodynamically War and Disease are Related: Kennedy is Right!
A body in the fellowship, relaxing, trusting and loving mode relies on neuropeptides like oxytocin and serotonin as the metabolic energy budgeting messengers between the body and brain.