Changing Times
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Times change, slogans change.
A Democrat President once said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That’s a Republican way of thinking expressed in the idiom “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps.”
In contrast, Bernie and Hilary believe “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Democrats are all socialists now, a European way of thinking endorsed by Karl, Josef, Fidel and the most famous National Socialist of all, Adolf.
Cue the liberal who writes in bleating “Naziism wasn’t socialism”. Oh, go ahead. Do it. I’m ready for you. You’ll lose.
Back to Joe’s email:
I’m curious – if we were to survey history for the last few millennia, which system has been more successful at raising overall prosperity? Or is that factor no longer relevant, misery now being considered acceptable so long as it’s widely enough shared?
Joe Doakes
It’s not even a question for those paying attention.
So much of our society, of course, isn’t, and never has.
October 29th, 2015 at 7:52 am
I wonder how different our country would be had JFK lived?
Among his many economically sound ideas: He hated the Fed and was looking to abolish it. It is rumored that he had strong bi-partisan support to do so and the bill was going to be signed when he returned from Dallas. By the time anyone went through the stuff on his desk, the bill, if it indeed existed, was missing, never to resurface.
October 29th, 2015 at 8:24 am
It’s amazing how many people out there see gov’t free stuff and mandates as costless. Example…..many people want the fed’l gov’t to pass a low forcing all employers to give 6 mos (or is it a year?) of free money to any employee who has a child. No work, free money. They don’t think that it really costs employers anything to do that. Same with Big Spending. They see the gov’t as having unlimited resources when it comes to spending and giving out free things.
October 29th, 2015 at 10:15 am
Sticking with “Changing Times” theme…
Headline: “More than 800,000 refugees RETURNING to Syria as Putin OBLITERATES Islamic State”
Putin – 1, 0bumbler -1K, America’s standing in the world – obliterated.
October 29th, 2015 at 1:15 pm
I saw this on FB yesterday: http://i.imgur.com/T3j2LpV.jpg
It is perfect.
For those who hate our pseudo free market/capitalist economy because of the unfairness between the “1%” and the lower class, simply ask them why is it that collectivist dictatorships need walls (political or physical) to keep their populations from escaping, and we need walls to keep the riff raff out? Why does everyone want to leave those countries and come here?
In the broader sense of history, the simple answer is human nature.
In modern times, the simple answer is public entitlements.
October 29th, 2015 at 1:38 pm
“It’s amazing how many people out there see gov’t free stuff and mandates as costless.”
It amazes me too Chuck, for far too many the stuff is costless because it’s not money they earned from their hard work and efforts, it’s the other guy who carries the load. In other words; PISS on the other guy.
October 29th, 2015 at 1:50 pm
Scott….there was a letter to the editor in the St Paul paper a while back…a guy was saying gov’t spending is good because…then he went on to explain the multiplier affect of spending in the community. In his liberal ignorance, it did not occur to him that there is a negative spending effect from the person the gov’t takes the money from to redistribute. Also how inefficient gov’t transfer payments are with their 30% admin fee.
October 29th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
Money is free, just print more. Ask any libturd.
October 29th, 2015 at 9:10 pm
Chuck wrote:
. . . there was a letter to the editor in the St Paul paper a while back…a guy was saying gov’t spending is good because…then he went on to explain the multiplier affect of spending in the community.
Chuck, I took micro and macro economics in college. Absolutely fascinating subject. Economics is considered one of the humanities because it’s about human behavior, not the “natural world.” I wish that I had taken it before I entered the working world.
One of the things you learn is the history of economic thought.
J.M. Keynes modified classical, market economics. Keynes’ theories did not replace classical economics. Keynes developed the Keynesian equation for GDP, Y = C + I + G + (X-M) = GDP, where C is consumer spending, I is investment spending, G is government spending, and (X-M) is exports minus imports.
Consumer spending has a multiplier > 1 because consumer spending is voluntary. People don’t spend a dollar unless they believe that they are getting $1 or more of value out of what they buy. Investment spending has a multiplier > 1 because people invest to increase their capital. Government spending has no multiplier > 1 because government does not spend money to get a positive return — if it did, you wouldn’t need government because people would buy the services voluntarily or invest in public projects voluntarily.
Keynes believed that a stimulus was occasionally necessary because, in modern times, complex industrial supply chains and organized labor made wages and prices “sticky” (in classical economics, a business cycle recession was cured when wages and prices dropped and the market for an item or service cleared, e.g., supply and demand would equalize).
Government spending on a stimulus has to be borrowed money. If taxes are raised to pay for a stimulus, the amount of increased taxes merely takes money away from investment and consumer spending , so there is no net stimulus.
But if the government borrows too much money, you have a problem with “forward lookers”. People don’t spend the government money because they anticipate higher taxes or reduced benefits in the future.
This is textbook keynesian economics.
Whatever Obama is doing — massively increasing government spending, and paying for it with a combination of increased debt and increased taxes — is not keynesian economics. It’s Obamanomics.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:03 pm
Well, PB, we are living in 0baminable times… in an 0bamnable nation…