Just venting a bit here. I've had several discussion lately with people that demonstrate a level of economic illiteracy and a lack of critical thinking that are so astounding as to shake my faith in humanity.
Last fall I had a discussion with a couple of otherwise intelligent gentlemen. One is actually an economics teacher. Essentially they said that WW2 got us out of the depression and that if we had a troop drawdown in Iraq that our unemployment level would shoot up.
Today I listened to a conversation involving 3 social science teachers discussing economic issues. I heard the following quotes. "You know what we need, right? We need the government to regulate gas prices, they're just too high". I said, "Well, we did that in the 1970s and it led to long lines and gasoline shortages". His reply was that what happened then didn't matter. Another guy said, "Well, you know, we need to do what FDR did during the Great Depression: instead of bailing out these large companies we need to return all this money back to the people through lower taxes". I didn't even try to deconstruct that one.
Some of my liberal friends on facebook suggested that either A) this bill is good simply because it attempted to do something or B) it didn't go far enough and that the government should have simply extended Medicare and Medicaid for all citizens.
I don't know where to start with these people. The teachers are very anti-Obama and would consider themselves conservative Republicans (I live in Alabama).
We're screwed. Although, thank God, I teach history myself and we begin discussing the Great Depression on Wednesday. Unfortunately I teach 7th graders, so I can't go quite into that much detail.
Mtn Dew:"Well, you know, we need to do what FDR did during the Great Depression: instead of bailing out these large companies we need to return all this money back to the people through lower taxes".
What?!
Mtn Dew:"Well, you know, we need to do what FDR did during the Great Depression: instead of bailing out these large companies we need to return all this money back to the people through lower taxes"
What the hell does this mean?
My personal Anarcho-Capitalist flag. The symbol in the center stands for "harmony" and "protection"-- I'm hoping to illustrate the bond between order/justice and anarchy.
His point was that FDR lowered taxes during the depression. I never asked him what he thought got us out of the damn thing. The general consensus was that instead of borrowing money to give to companies we should borrow money to give to taxpayers although the whole "borrowing" idea wasn't really discussed.
I thought FDR tried to pass a 100% tax on all incomes over 25000. when/where these cuts they speak of??
And personally I agree - that is exactly what the gobment should have done instead of the bailouts- give the money BACK to the people whose it was to begin with. Do you disagree??
Be responsible, ease suffering; spay or neuter your pets.
We must get them to understand that government solutions are the problem!
They're nuts on the tax stuff.
I certainly think it's better to give tax rebates in lieu of corporate welfare. However, the US is running a deficit and has a debt of between $12,000,000,000,000 and over $100,000,000,000 depending on how you count it. So giving back, say, $1,500 to an individual comes from debt. It means in the future somebody else will have to pay for that $1,500 with interest.
If someone is $500,000 in debt with an income of $40,000 but living expenses of $60,000 per annum it would be best for them to work towards eliminating spending and paying down their debt, not deciding which business will be the recipient of their next shopping spree.
yeah, the priority should be cut govt spending, then cut taxes. not cut taxes and spend anyway
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
as for economic illiteracy, an intelligent friend said to me " I think of health as a right, not a business."
Lolz, just wait for Economic Crisis 2.0. The entire economy, private and public, is still massively over-leveraged. All the finance firms hid swathes of debt from their books prior to their pleas for bailout money. The government doesn't even include the 5 trillion or so it takes to under-write Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.
There's a whole other wave of meltdowns looming on the horizon. It's rumbling in Europe, but pretty soon it's gonna make its way up the food chain back to the grand-daddy of mountainous debt: the US of A.
Right now the yellow brick road looks paved towards monetization. They're not going to cut spending, the economy will have tanked before that even becomes a viable political option. We're in for some interesting days ahead...
Smiling Dave: as for economic illiteracy, an intelligent friend said to me " I think of health as a right, not a business."
I think the most interesting thing about what your friend said is that his statement wasn't an economic one at least as we would recognize such. It seems that for too many people, economics isn't a positive science but an ethical or political prescription in which things "should be" a certain way but there is no analysis of "what" economics is.
And as someone who studies economics as if it were a speculative science, this hurts the most.
fakename: Smiling Dave: as for economic illiteracy, an intelligent friend said to me " I think of health as a right, not a business." I think the most interesting thing about what your friend said is that his statement wasn't an economic one at least as we would recognize such.
I think the most interesting thing about what your friend said is that his statement wasn't an economic one at least as we would recognize such.
It's a moral judgement. We have spoken about it many times. He thinks everyone is "owed" free healthcare by the world. It's a right that we must supply. And if we are too uncaring to fulfill our moral obligations, then it's a good thing the govt is there to make us do it, and not deprive the deserving of their rights.
Moral judgments are fine. I think it's immoral to use recreational drugs, but I'm not going to try to stop someone from doing it by force, which would be a political action.
Moral judgments are fine so long as they are not enforced through political action.
I certainly think everyone should have access to good, quality health services. However, I a) realize a free market is the best option and b) understand it's immoral to force someone else at gun point to give up their property to meet my moral standards.
Smiling Dave:It's a moral judgement. We have spoken about it many times. He thinks everyone is "owed" free healthcare by the world. It's a right that we must supply. And if we are too uncaring to fulfill our moral obligations, then it's a good thing the govt is there to make us do it, and not deprive the deserving of their rights.
Of course if morality were the standard of value then wouldn't we be incapable of explaining money and exchange -it just seems to me that saying that things are an absolute economic right are going to create more theoretical problems than they solve: the water diamond paradox.
I find this kind of sentiment interesting. I wonder at what point health became a "your right" and not "your responsibility" because it most certainly was not always the job of somebody else to make sure YOU continue living.