Don't Know Much About Capitalism

[Kevin_Kennedy]

After eight years of watching conservatives blow trillions of dollars and comport themselves like anti-intellectual, jingoistic blockheads, I found myself ashamed to admit that the Left seemed to have all the genuine intellectuals—people who seemed to possess real curiosity, who refused to accept whatever official line the government was shelling out, and who sought genuine understanding instead of name-calling and pointless vitriol.

With the Left now in power, though, they’ve by and large reverted to form. The very same people who just a year ago prided themselves on evaluating every Pentagon press release with an air of suspicion and hostility now accept without cavil whatever the Federal Reserve chairman or the Treasury secretary tell them. They’ll believe whatever economic superstition, no matter how transparently ludicrous, that happens to be in fashion. Whatever happened to “Question Authority”?

http://www.takimag.com/article/did_somebody_say_capitalism/

 

[midcan5]

All things change, sometimes for the better.


Nudge-ocracy
Fundamentally Different

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

All things change, sometimes for the better.


Nudge-ocracy
Fundamentally Different

Well so far nothing has changed, except for the amount of money being wasted.

 

[mascale]

People in the market economies have been able to discover just how badly they screwed themselves: When They Decided to Try To See The Entire USA from an SUV. Dianah Shore used to sing about that, before it happed. Senator Feinstein used to take pride in the fact that she actually owned six of the damned things.

Just coincidentally, anyone discussing "capitalism" is discussing entire generations of people making stupid choices, even badly! What God-Fearing Christian, for example, could even contemplate the purchase of an SUV?! Both Dinah Shore, and Senator Feinstein, for example: Are actually Jewish. The Party of the Christian Right even chose to blow up up Iraq after some Saudi's decimated the World Trade Towers! George Bush II, Term I, hoped to goose the economy with giant tax cuts, coming into office, even though nearly half of filers had no federal income tax liability.

This is the age of information technology. We know these things!

The Bolsheviks managed to overthrow the czar of all the Russians, and eventually The Soviet Union, and its allies, would raise incomes of all the workers a fixed percentage across-the-board. They eventually went out of business. That was actually, probably, a good idea--since there wasn't much business on-going when in fact they were in power.

Nixon signed the fixed percentage COLA in Social Security--raising all benefit amounts the same percentage--like in the law of contracts wherein savings get the relatively same, low interest rates, and stockholders get the relatively same, low dividend amounts. Teachers and government workers all pretty much get the same percentage pay raise, every year. They at least get the horrific amounts.

Argentina labor unions, (at one time, 85% of the workforce), indexed their worker wages the same percentage in response to hyper-inflation. They went the same as the Soviet and Eastern Block nations: Bless all their fascist little hearts, and spawn. Argentine labor unions are now less than 20% of the work force.

All of that is about market economies: And even Conservatives would agree to a lot of it.

Mostly, everyone thinks it's really about Israel: Which every so often, raises wage rates--for its workers--a fixed percentage across-the-board--just like Jordan and Iran. The Palestinians are not involved.

"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Mainly, O. J. Simpson was Ignorant Of the Law: And therefore went to jail! Market economies have things in common!)

 

[Iriemon]

All things change, sometimes for the better.


Nudge-ocracy
Fundamentally Different

Well so far nothing has changed, except for the amount of money being wasted.

Many do not agree with your "let it go down the tubes" philosophy.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

All things change, sometimes for the better.


Nudge-ocracy
Fundamentally Different

Well so far nothing has changed, except for the amount of money being wasted.

Many do not agree with your "let it go down the tubes" philosophy.

That's not an accurate description of my philosophy, but you're correct that many do not agree with me.

 

[mash107]

All things change, sometimes for the better.


Nudge-ocracy
Fundamentally Different

Well so far nothing has changed, except for the amount of money being wasted.

Many do not agree with your "let it go down the tubes" philosophy.

When government responds to a depression in that way, it lasts 2 years. i.e. 1921-1922's depression.

When government responds, ala Hoover, it lasts 15 years, and is much more vicious.

You'd think, given the vast amounts of empirical evidence, we'd conclude that Keynesian economics is a fraud... but alas, that's not what our 'masters' in Washington want.

 

[Iriemon]

Well so far nothing has changed, except for the amount of money being wasted.

Many do not agree with your "let it go down the tubes" philosophy.

When government responds to a depression in that way, it lasts 2 years. i.e. 1921-1922's depression.

When government responds, ala Hoover, it lasts 15 years, and is much more vicious.

You'd think, given the vast amounts of empirical evidence, we'd conclude that Keynesian economics is a fraud... but alas, that's not what our 'masters' in Washington want.

Obviously many disagree that Hoover applied much in the way of Keynsian stimulus or that FDR's New Deal didn't have an effect:

Year - % chng Real GDP

1930 -8.6%
1931 -6.4%
1932 -13.0%
1933 -1.3% <- FDR elected
1934 10.8%
1935 8.9%
1936 13.0%
1937 5.1%
1938 -3.4%
1939 8.1%
1940 8.8%

 

[midcan5]

Year - % chng Real GDP

1930 -8.6%
1931 -6.4%
1932 -13.0%
1933 -1.3% <- FDR elected
1934 10.8%
1935 8.9%
1936 13.0%
1937 5.1%
1938 -3.4%
1939 8.1%
1940 8.8%

Facts speak louder than words. FDR did one heck of a job.

 

[ItsFairmont]

Year - % chng Real GDP

1930 -8.6%
1931 -6.4%
1932 -13.0%
1933 -1.3% <- FDR elected
1934 10.8%
1935 8.9%
1936 13.0%
1937 5.1%
1938 -3.4%
1939 8.1%
1940 8.8%

Facts speak louder than words. FDR did one heck of a job.

The New Deal created the Middle Class, including the middle class so-called conservatives who take for granted the 8-hour work day (as opposed to 14), the 5-day workweek (as opposed to 6.5), healthcare, subsidized tuition, etc.


A middle class conservative is like a chicken at a BBQ. He has no clue.

 

[mash107]

Year - % chng Real GDP

1930 -8.6%
1931 -6.4%
1932 -13.0%
1933 -1.3% <- FDR elected
1934 10.8%
1935 8.9%
1936 13.0%
1937 5.1%
1938 -3.4%
1939 8.1%
1940 8.8%

Facts speak louder than words. FDR did one heck of a job.

The New Deal created the Middle Class, including the middle class so-called conservatives who take for granted the 8-hour work day (as opposed to 14), the 5-day workweek (as opposed to 6.5), healthcare, subsidized tuition, etc.


A middle class conservative is like a chicken at a BBQ. He has no clue.

1. Hoover wasn't an interventionist in the sense that he spent a lot of money, he had not. What he did was artificially set wage and price controls, which cause mass unemployment. When you're in a rapidly deflationary period, the last thing you want to do is keep artificial wages high. Hoover had said, quote, "we might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. We put it into action. . . . No government in Washington has hitherto considered that it held so broad a responsibility for leadership in such times. . . . For the first time in the history of depression, dividends, profits, and the cost of living, have been reduced before wages have suffered. . . . They were maintained until the cost of living had decreased and the profits had practically vanished. They are now the highest real wages in the world."

In summary, he created a depression from a recession. Of course FDR did worse, and prolonged it by 12 years.

2. The New Deal destroyed the middle class. Ask anyone that lived during that time period, and whether or not their lives improved from 1933 to 1945 or not. More than likely, it didn't.

3. 8 hour work day was a result of productivity increases and certainly not the government. Hell, we could likely be at a 6 hour workday by now, but government gets in the way of productivity.

4. Tuition is expensive because of easy credit. Hasn't the housing boom taught you anything? Easy credit = inflated prices.

5. GDP means nothing when it factors in government spending. If GDP was the end all, be all, statistic of wellbeing, why wouldn't government spend $1T an hour? Why not $1T a second? We'd have a $quitillion GDP, but people won't be a penny richer. What matters is the standard of living, that is.. how much the private economy produces that's of value and sells. GDP covers that and so much more irrelevant spending.