How does government help the economy?

[eagle1462010]

Capitalism’s Betrayal Of The Working Class Could Be Its Undoing

Donald Trump is hacking away at working-class benefits. We’re in a period of extreme deregulation, deep tax cuts for business and the rich, extreme protectionism, and rising debt, even as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates. Together, these developments leave the working class with lower wages and benefits, higher prices, and reduced government services.

The actions of Trump’s administration are just the latest in a trend that goes back decades: the destruction of policies aimed at improving the lives of workers ― the very people who produce the profits upon which capitalism depends. The relationship between capitalism and the working class has always been defined by tensions, troubles, and instabilities. But these have now risen to such a level that the whole system is in danger of self-destructing.

After the Wall Street crash of 1929 plunged the world into crisis, capitalism survived precisely by making substantial accommodations to the working class. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created The New Deal as an antidote to the catastrophic rise of unemployment and poverty. Taxes on, and loans from, corporations and the rich enabled the state to initiate unprecedented public services ― establishing Social Security and unemployment compensation ― and large numbers of public jobs. The nation’s first minimum-wage law raised incomes for vast masses of people.

A capitalism shaken deeply by the Great Depression took these steps under heavy pressure from the Congress of Industrial Organization, a federation that militantly organized industrial labor unions, and was allied with socialists and communist parties. That large and powerful alliance forced a “trickle-up” policy on the FDR government ― direct help for the working class whose enhanced purchases trickled up as greater revenues and profits for capitalists. A relatively well-paid, secure, and largely white working class emerged.

More: Capitalism’s Betrayal Of The Working Class Could Be Its Undoing | HuffPost

More examples of how government can help, and hurt, the economy.

Hate Capitalism post.............LOL

I'm SHOCKED .............

Well, you may be SHOCKED - but you're also STUPID. What is your level of education?

None of your business................and you post is still partisan crap.

 

[Desperado]

If you are part of the military idustrial complex the US governement s great for you!
If not, the government is not a great help but can rather be a hinderance..

 

[Pumpkin Row]

During political campaigns, a huge focus is the economy. But how does government help the economy?

All economy, no matter how complex, breaks down to simply trades between individuals. Employees trade their labor for pay, consumers trade their pay for products and services, etc. What can government do to assist in this process?

The only thing it can ever do is exert force on someone. This is its only power. Typically this comes in the form of interfering with the voluntary exchange between individuals. The mandatory minimum wage, for example, says that two people willing to make an exchange of labor for pay is not permitted if it does not meet the minimum standard. Many people see this as an increase in pay for low-level employees, but in reality, if I can only afford to pay you 8 dollars an hour, and the government uses coercion to make me pay you 10, I'm just not going to hire you. You were perfectly willing, even happy, to get 8, and I was willing to pay it because I could use the help, but by their interference you get 0 dollars, and I get no help. How could it ever be beneficial to step between consenting adults who are both willing to engage in a particular transaction?

Even when the government subsidizes a particular industry, they are not bringing new money into the economy, they are simply taking it from somewhere else. Government produces nothing, so its action can never cause a net gain. All it can do is take money from some people and give it to others. And it behooves them to do this in a way that creates a greater number of voters to look upon them favorably, not necessarily in a way that would help the economy overall. Like all governmental action outside the scope of basic protection of human rights, it's a matter of hurting one person to help someone else. And their solution to all problems always benefits them more than anyone else, either by generating greater revenue, gaining greater control, or assuring the maintenance of their own position.

Despite all the rhetoric, I don't see how government can ever do anything to help the economy except by simply getting out of the way.

Government's Role In The Economy

While consumers and producers obviously make most decisions that mold the economy, government activities have at least four powerful effects on the U.S. economy:

Direct Services

Regulation and Control

Stabilization and Growth

Direct assistance​

DETAILS: Government's Role In The Economy

Government plays a major role in the economy. Major. Also, government socialism plays a major role in the economy. Try to imagine life without it.

75 Ways Socialism Has Improved America

Regulation and Control is only used to keep the biggest corporations uncontested, by eliminating competition.

The government neither stabilizes nor grows the economy, the private sector does that by responding to demand, the government prevents that by making the creation of businesses more difficult.

Socialism has only damaged America, and any other nation, shown by the Great Depression, and every Socialist Nation ever. In fact, Socialism has repeatedly and thoroughly proved itself a failure of an ideology, obvious from the fact that every time it fails horribly, the Socialists seek to call it something else.

Only economic illiterates still claim it works.

 

[Pumpkin Row]

Good government is good. We should all want good government.

• Government is Good - An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution
  Government is Good - An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution - 24k - similar pages
  Details government s crucial role in improving Americans lives and promoting the public good. Also critiques the right-wing attack on government.
  • Government is Good - Why We Need More, Not Less, Government
    Government is Good - Why We Need More, Not Less, Government - 16k - similar pages
    In the face of increasing threats to our wellbeing and the inability of the market or individual efforts to effectively address them, we need to expand public sector ...
• Government is Good - A Day in Your Life
  Government is Good - A Day in Your Life - 16k - similar pages
  whose signals crowd our nation's airwaves. 6:35 a.m. Like 17 million ... You simply take for granted that this water is safe to drink. But in fact you ... 7:01 a.m. Government also helps you own your house in more than the legal sense. On a more ...

Weak government is good government, and barely even then. All it does is promote monopolies through regulation, in response to lobbyists.

 

[gtopa1]

Our laws that regulate interaction between businesses and customers to provide a fair and even playing field have more influence on our economy than most other things. Of course the right is fighting diligently to remove lots of those protections for the working people.

That's what courts are for.

Who the fuck are you to say what's fair, or what is an even playing field?

Government can not make one size fits all solutions to every problem that comes up between consumers and providers. That's why government fails to protect anyone adequately, except you bed wetters only pretend to give a fuck about individuals. The sociopaths you support protect the businesses from getting their pants sued off.

When the banks fucked over millions of people with Adjustable Interest Mortgages, did government help anyone except the banks? Did anyone go to prison like they should have? No, because democrook sociopaths created the problem in the first place. They donate to sociopath political whores and you expect us to believe that's a better result?

Furthermore, what the hell good does it do to have a library full of laws and regulations if they're selectively enforced if they're enforced at all?

I realize you're weapons grade stupid, and absolutely incapable of doing any thinking on your own, so this response is actually for someone else who has a functioning frontal lobe. I'll likely ignore any retort you parrot unless it shows up in a sentient person's reply later on.


.

What the fuck do you think our courts are if not part of the government?

Didn't DemoKKKrats bypass The Law and go straight to lynching? Yes; I do believe you did. oh: and let the protesters vent their anger....on businesses!!! Law isn't a Dem strong point!!

Greg

You really think mentioning something from a century ago is relivent, don't you?

Ferguson and Baltimore were a century ago???????????????????

Nahhhhhh!!!!


Greg

 

[BULLDOG]

Our laws that regulate interaction between businesses and customers to provide a fair and even playing field have more influence on our economy than most other things. Of course the right is fighting diligently to remove lots of those protections for the working people.

That's what courts are for.

Who the fuck are you to say what's fair, or what is an even playing field?

Government can not make one size fits all solutions to every problem that comes up between consumers and providers. That's why government fails to protect anyone adequately, except you bed wetters only pretend to give a fuck about individuals. The sociopaths you support protect the businesses from getting their pants sued off.

When the banks fucked over millions of people with Adjustable Interest Mortgages, did government help anyone except the banks? Did anyone go to prison like they should have? No, because democrook sociopaths created the problem in the first place. They donate to sociopath political whores and you expect us to believe that's a better result?

Furthermore, what the hell good does it do to have a library full of laws and regulations if they're selectively enforced if they're enforced at all?

I realize you're weapons grade stupid, and absolutely incapable of doing any thinking on your own, so this response is actually for someone else who has a functioning frontal lobe. I'll likely ignore any retort you parrot unless it shows up in a sentient person's reply later on.


.

What the fuck do you think our courts are if not part of the government?

Didn't DemoKKKrats bypass The Law and go straight to lynching? Yes; I do believe you did. oh: and let the protesters vent their anger....on businesses!!! Law isn't a Dem strong point!!

Greg

You really think mentioning something from a century ago is relivent, don't you?

Ferguson and Baltimore were a century ago???????????????????

Nahhhhhh!!!!


Greg

DemoKKKrats? You have lost it.

 

[gtopa1]

Capitalism’s Betrayal Of The Working Class Could Be Its Undoing

Donald Trump is hacking away at working-class benefits. We’re in a period of extreme deregulation, deep tax cuts for business and the rich, extreme protectionism, and rising debt, even as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates. Together, these developments leave the working class with lower wages and benefits, higher prices, and reduced government services.

The actions of Trump’s administration are just the latest in a trend that goes back decades: the destruction of policies aimed at improving the lives of workers ― the very people who produce the profits upon which capitalism depends. The relationship between capitalism and the working class has always been defined by tensions, troubles, and instabilities. But these have now risen to such a level that the whole system is in danger of self-destructing.

After the Wall Street crash of 1929 plunged the world into crisis, capitalism survived precisely by making substantial accommodations to the working class. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created The New Deal as an antidote to the catastrophic rise of unemployment and poverty. Taxes on, and loans from, corporations and the rich enabled the state to initiate unprecedented public services ― establishing Social Security and unemployment compensation ― and large numbers of public jobs. The nation’s first minimum-wage law raised incomes for vast masses of people.

A capitalism shaken deeply by the Great Depression took these steps under heavy pressure from the Congress of Industrial Organization, a federation that militantly organized industrial labor unions, and was allied with socialists and communist parties. That large and powerful alliance forced a “trickle-up” policy on the FDR government ― direct help for the working class whose enhanced purchases trickled up as greater revenues and profits for capitalists. A relatively well-paid, secure, and largely white working class emerged.

More: Capitalism’s Betrayal Of The Working Class Could Be Its Undoing | HuffPost

More examples of how government can help, and hurt, the economy.

DemoKKKrats betrayed trhe Working Class and look what the bastards(Aussie sense as in the good guys) did to them; kicked that Hillary traitor to the kerb. If Trump fails them then to whom do they turn?

Git it done Mr President!!!



Greg

 

[alang1216]

I guess it's just the fundamental problem of power - it can, and pretty much always does, fall into the wrong hands.

Just because human governments are flawed doesn't mean gov't doesn't have an important role to play. Every human institution is flawed.

 

[MisterBeale]

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm

1.3 Billion NOT TO FARM....................There you go..........Gov't saving us all..............

 

[alang1216]

I'm mot sure how much of an economy we would have without roads, and fuel for our vehicles (oil companies received massive government funded startup grants) and medical care for workers( most medical research is government funded) etc. etc.

I take some exception to this. Just because "government builds roads" (which is not an accurate way of saying it, but we both know what we're talking about) doesn't mean nobody would build them in the absence of government. Roads are essential, and demand would be sufficient to support voluntary funding. As for fuel, I tend to believe that if not for governmental cronyism we'd probably be driving cars fueled by wishes by now. I mean, the holdback of technological advance in this area is well documented. Medical research has high demand, and again, I think it would thrive in a free market.

This is all speculative because we could never jump into a parallel universe to see what might have been. But people were getting along fine on horseback, and if the cost of eliminating an immense institution of immoral violence (with a body count in the hundreds of millions on its record) was to remain with horses and snail mail for a few hundred years, I think it would have been worth it.

We used to have lots of private roads in this country, now we don't and for good reason. They were mostly in the Northeast where the population density made them economic for a time. In the sparsely-populated West there were very few so if you were far from a navigable river you couldn't get your products or produce to market. The same economics applies to electricity and phone service in rural areas. Without the gov't the interior of the US would be very different.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

I wonder what government IS when I see the local and state government kowtow to PACS, lobbies, Contractors pushing things the majority doesn't either need or want? Things like say, moving airports, light rail or giving sanctuary to illegal aliens (this last example given the high homeless and jobless rate). So who IS "WE, the PEOPLE" anyway?

Well, there are two possibilities: either government is a body of representatives trying to serve the people and just doing a lousy job at it, or its a band of thieves and murderers who use the ritual of the governmental process to perpetuate an immense con in order to gain personal wealth and power.

To my mind, you already answered this question by citing what you see them doing. We will know them by their fruits, after all.

 

[bendog]

During political campaigns, a huge focus is the economy. But how does government help the economy?

All economy, no matter how complex, breaks down to simply trades between individuals. Employees trade their labor for pay, consumers trade their pay for products and services, etc. What can government do to assist in this process?

The only thing it can ever do is exert force on someone. This is its only power. Typically this comes in the form of interfering with the voluntary exchange between individuals. The mandatory minimum wage, for example, says that two people willing to make an exchange of labor for pay is not permitted if it does not meet the minimum standard. Many people see this as an increase in pay for low-level employees, but in reality, if I can only afford to pay you 8 dollars an hour, and the government uses coercion to make me pay you 10, I'm just not going to hire you. You were perfectly willing, even happy, to get 8, and I was willing to pay it because I could use the help, but by their interference you get 0 dollars, and I get no help. How could it ever be beneficial to step between consenting adults who are both willing to engage in a particular transaction?

Even when the government subsidizes a particular industry, they are not bringing new money into the economy, they are simply taking it from somewhere else. Government produces nothing, so its action can never cause a net gain. All it can do is take money from some people and give it to others. And it behooves them to do this in a way that creates a greater number of voters to look upon them favorably, not necessarily in a way that would help the economy overall. Like all governmental action outside the scope of basic protection of human rights, it's a matter of hurting one person to help someone else. And their solution to all problems always benefits them more than anyone else, either by generating greater revenue, gaining greater control, or assuring the maintenance of their own position.

Despite all the rhetoric, I don't see how government can ever do anything to help the economy except by simply getting out of the way.

I realize your question is not really a question, but an expression of your own selective libertarian philosophy. But if you were really curious as you portray yourself, you might want to peruse: A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. It's brief and leaves out a lot, but it is brief. LOL

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Histor...+brief+history+of+neoliberalism&tag=ff0d01-20

 

[Brian Blackwell]

During political campaigns, a huge focus is the economy. But how does government help the economy?

All economy, no matter how complex, breaks down to simply trades between individuals. Employees trade their labor for pay, consumers trade their pay for products and services, etc. What can government do to assist in this process?

The only thing it can ever do is exert force on someone. This is its only power. Typically this comes in the form of interfering with the voluntary exchange between individuals. The mandatory minimum wage, for example, says that two people willing to make an exchange of labor for pay is not permitted if it does not meet the minimum standard. Many people see this as an increase in pay for low-level employees, but in reality, if I can only afford to pay you 8 dollars an hour, and the government uses coercion to make me pay you 10, I'm just not going to hire you. You were perfectly willing, even happy, to get 8, and I was willing to pay it because I could use the help, but by their interference you get 0 dollars, and I get no help. How could it ever be beneficial to step between consenting adults who are both willing to engage in a particular transaction?

Even when the government subsidizes a particular industry, they are not bringing new money into the economy, they are simply taking it from somewhere else. Government produces nothing, so its action can never cause a net gain. All it can do is take money from some people and give it to others. And it behooves them to do this in a way that creates a greater number of voters to look upon them favorably, not necessarily in a way that would help the economy overall. Like all governmental action outside the scope of basic protection of human rights, it's a matter of hurting one person to help someone else. And their solution to all problems always benefits them more than anyone else, either by generating greater revenue, gaining greater control, or assuring the maintenance of their own position.

Despite all the rhetoric, I don't see how government can ever do anything to help the economy except by simply getting out of the way.

Go down and set up shop in Etheopia and tell me how much money you make! I bet it is not much. The conditions for buisness there are horrific becuase there is no government jus the wild wild west!

Just because we have government and a better economy than some other countries, does not mean government is the CAUSE of that better economy. This is precisely the logical fallacy that politicians continually promote. The president stands up there and cites improvements as though anything that happens in the country is because of them. This thread asks the question: Is this truly the case, and if so, how is it so?

 

[Brian Blackwell]

I guess it's just the fundamental problem of power - it can, and pretty much always does, fall into the wrong hands.

Just because human governments are flawed doesn't mean gov't doesn't have an important role to play. Every human institution is flawed.

What is government's important role to play? I would imagine organization and protection. However, these functions do not require government.

Government is the right to rule - not the ability to rule, or the right to lead - but the right to rule. This claim to authority has no valid basis, as it is said to derive its power from the "consent of the governed". Not all people give their consent, but even if they did, it is still invalid because it is contrary to natural law (i.e. reality) and thus immoral.

No man has valid authority over any other, so to act in this capacity is morally wrong. Voting for him to have such authority doesn't make it valid or morally appropriate, even if everyone agrees. Organization, cooperation, and self-defense can be accomplished on a voluntary basis, and often are.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

We used to have lots of private roads in this country, now we don't and for good reason. They were mostly in the Northeast where the population density made them economic for a time. In the sparsely-populated West there were very few so if you were far from a navigable river you couldn't get your products or produce to market. The same economics applies to electricity and phone service in rural areas. Without the gov't the interior of the US would be very different.

So this justifies a massive institution of immoral violence? If demand is not sufficient to elicit the required funding and/or effort to build a road, then the worst case scenario is that nothing happens - there will be no road, just as there wasn't yesterday. Alternatively, with government, the worst case scenario looks more like Stalinist Russia, where the result is 50 million people dead from starvation and violence. If people can't survive in a particular environment without a road they can't afford to build, then they need to move to a different environment. But you don't get to steal money from everyone under threat of violence in order to compensate for life's natural hardships. Not if you claim to be an evolved species who is capable of understanding basic morality.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

I realize your question is not really a question, but an expression of your own selective libertarian philosophy. But if you were really curious as you portray yourself, you might want to peruse: A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. It's brief and leaves out a lot, but it is brief. LOL

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Histor...+brief+history+of+neoliberalism&tag=ff0d01-20

I garnered what I could from the Amazon page, but I'm not going to buy this book because I'm not interested in exploring any particular economic prescription. My question is intended to evaluate the assumption that its possible for government to help the economy overall, considering the fact that the only powers at government's command is the power to steal and the power to punish. This thread is primarily about denying a claim, not offering a new one to take its place.

 

[alang1216]

I guess it's just the fundamental problem of power - it can, and pretty much always does, fall into the wrong hands.

Just because human governments are flawed doesn't mean gov't doesn't have an important role to play. Every human institution is flawed.

What is government's important role to play? I would imagine organization and protection. However, these functions do not require government.

Government is the right to rule - not the ability to rule, or the right to lead - but the right to rule. This claim to authority has no valid basis, as it is said to derive its power from the "consent of the governed". Not all people give their consent, but even if they did, it is still invalid because it is contrary to natural law (i.e. reality) and thus immoral.

No man has valid authority over any other, so to act in this capacity is morally wrong. Voting for him to have such authority doesn't make it valid or morally appropriate, even if everyone agrees. Organization, cooperation, and self-defense can be accomplished on a voluntary basis, and often are.

I'm not sure what planet you're from but here on Earth EVERY human population everywhere and throughout time has had a gov't. Seems like a 'natural' part of being human to me.

 

[NightFox]

Despite all the rhetoric, I don't see how government can ever do anything to help the economy except by simply getting out of the way.

Government does have a few legitimate roles with respect to the economy...

a.) Contract enforcement and the protection of property rights
b.) Preventing fraud
c.) Compensating for market failures (externalities)

Beyond that Government is just an inhibitor of real economic growth and a parasite on the productive sectors of the economy.

 

[dblack]

During political campaigns, a huge focus is the economy. But how does government help the economy?

All economy, no matter how complex, breaks down to simply trades between individuals. Employees trade their labor for pay, consumers trade their pay for products and services, etc. What can government do to assist in this process?

The only thing it can ever do is exert force on someone. This is its only power. Typically this comes in the form of interfering with the voluntary exchange between individuals. The mandatory minimum wage, for example, says that two people willing to make an exchange of labor for pay is not permitted if it does not meet the minimum standard. Many people see this as an increase in pay for low-level employees, but in reality, if I can only afford to pay you 8 dollars an hour, and the government uses coercion to make me pay you 10, I'm just not going to hire you. You were perfectly willing, even happy, to get 8, and I was willing to pay it because I could use the help, but by their interference you get 0 dollars, and I get no help. How could it ever be beneficial to step between consenting adults who are both willing to engage in a particular transaction?

Even when the government subsidizes a particular industry, they are not bringing new money into the economy, they are simply taking it from somewhere else. Government produces nothing, so its action can never cause a net gain. All it can do is take money from some people and give it to others. And it behooves them to do this in a way that creates a greater number of voters to look upon them favorably, not necessarily in a way that would help the economy overall. Like all governmental action outside the scope of basic protection of human rights, it's a matter of hurting one person to help someone else. And their solution to all problems always benefits them more than anyone else, either by generating greater revenue, gaining greater control, or assuring the maintenance of their own position.

Despite all the rhetoric, I don't see how government can ever do anything to help the economy except by simply getting out of the way.

This is why it's so annoying to see leaders, from both 'sides', touting national economic output, as an accomplishment of the state. Our laws should not be supporting players in maximizing GDP. They should establish justice and protect individual rights.

 

[alang1216]

We used to have lots of private roads in this country, now we don't and for good reason. They were mostly in the Northeast where the population density made them economic for a time. In the sparsely-populated West there were very few so if you were far from a navigable river you couldn't get your products or produce to market. The same economics applies to electricity and phone service in rural areas. Without the gov't the interior of the US would be very different.

So this justifies a massive institution of immoral violence? If demand is not sufficient to elicit the required funding and/or effort to build a road, then the worst case scenario is that nothing happens - there will be no road, just as there wasn't yesterday. Alternatively, with government, the worst case scenario looks more like Stalinist Russia, where the result is 50 million people dead from starvation and violence. If people can't survive in a particular environment without a road they can't afford to build, then they need to move to a different environment. But you don't get to steal money from everyone under threat of violence in order to compensate for life's natural hardships. Not if you claim to be an evolved species who is capable of understanding basic morality.

What immoral violence? Not all of us want to live like nomads in the stone age, most of us like the benefits society brings. No society can or will ever be perfect but the alternative is so much worse.