The choice was made
Stocks are selling off today, because embedded in the jobs report was a miniscule .5% increase in wages, off of a multi-decade low. All of a sudden the specter of another rate hike is on the table. The Fed won't allow wages to rise because that would be bad for corporate profits and the casino. The choice between the economy and the casino was made a long time ago.
The Fed's job is to maximize corporate profit and minimize wages:
As % of GDP:
This is the Fed/Obama's "recovery"
Interest rates have to rise now because someone might get a raise...
The stagflation of the 1970s devolved into a war between capital and labour. Capital wanted low interest rates and excess capacity, whereas Keynesian economics called for full output to allow everyone to have a good job. Friedman's goal was to take the country off the gold standard to enable secular trade deficits papered over with fiscal deficits, and to conquer inflation with imported poverty. It worked.
Subsequently, for the last 40 years, any time wages start to rise, the Fed chokes off the money supply and shuts down the expansion - long before standards of living can be repaired and wages can be normalized. For three reasons: first, open *free* trade with Third World nations doesn't allow for higher wages, secondly higher wages kills corporate profits, third because closing the output gap raises the cost of capital (interest rates), making investment less profitable. All of which has led to a surfeit of capital which now garners 0% amid zero aggregate demand. Careful what you wish for. Wages are revenue, something the dunces still haven't figured out. Yet.
The NeoCon class warfare was "won", and the prize will be mass bankruptcy.
