Atheist goes Political, vol. 2: Trickle-Down Economics

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Script:
http://lazyperfectionist1.blogspot.com/2011/04/atheist-goes-political-vol-2-t...

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• supply
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• economics
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[drkangl21]

Very well said!

[lazyperfectionist1]

@drkangl21 Thank you.

[thethingthatwants]

What upsets me most about the Conservative party is how many things I feel that “should” make me one of them. I am one who loosely belies in “Less government involvement” but somehow this means something completely different; for instance, I am pro choice because it is a personal choice that the individual makes, it is not a choice the government should make for us! How is helping the wealthy “less involvement”? I think the Conservative motto is now “Less (of your) government (but more of mine)”

[lazyperfectionist1]

@thethingthatwants I'm probably going to get into that down the road.

[AussieGriffin]

I'd do it shorter than that, yet this was worthy of being in my economics made easy series.

A.G.

[Squiglypig]

@ReignbowSmite Yeah, because you can't really blame anyone other than the company if anything happens to you and then even if something happens it might not be covered by a clause in your employment contract that ensures that you, for instance, can't have your broken leg covered by their insurance.

If the government has free medicare then it's all covered if you're a US citizen. No "Oh well you can't because of constitutional clause ##".

[Squiglypig]

@jffryh SHOULD be supplied and demanded equally.

I'll use the opening of the PS3 as an example.

Sony purposefully didn't create a lot of PS3s because they figured that they could sell the fewer ones at a larger profit, which they could if everyone bought one, which they didn't. But the demand was way too high and the price was too steep, so that was a failure.

What happened in the 1930s was the direct opposite. Everyone had something to sell, but it wasn't sold.

Both examples are failures.

[jffryh]

@Squiglypig If up to me, I might replace income tax with sales tax, sin taxes, luxury taxes. I would tax fossil fuel industry out of existence. "trickle down" is term used only by leftists to deride rightists, I guess refering to "supply side", which rightists might seriously support. Truth: question of whether supply or demand is more important is like asking which blade of a pair of scissors is more responsible 4 cutting the paper. Every good bought & sold is supplied and demanded equally.

[jffryh]

@Squiglypig excludability is part of what makes something a private good. health care is private good because time I spend talking to my doctor is time the doctor cannot spend with someone else. health care is public good because if person A feels happy because of person B's good health, so does person C.

Smarter people may know better than me what tax structure does least harm. "tax the rich" is surely too simplistic. what we have now is surely overly complex. if up to me, I would ...

[jffryh]

@Squiglypig Public goods R those 4which state involvement is needed 4 maximum public welfare. to provide public goods, state must take from private economy. state should take revenue in which ever way does minimum harm to private economy per given level of revenue, &spend it on most important public goods. as state grows from 0 to 100, you get diminishing marginal returns from state. state should stop at level where marginal benefit from state == marginal cost to private economy.

[jffryh]

@Squiglypig I view socialism as state controlled economy coupled with democracy/free elections/voting, and communism as state controlled economy without democracy. The most totalitarian state might find it immpossible to entirely eliminate free choice from markets. Theres continuums of possible levels and sorts of state control. I divide the world between public goods & private goods. Private goods R those 4which public welfare is maximized when state keeps hands off. public goods R those ...

[Squiglypig]

@DarthSutekh And look where we are now.

History repeats itself because people don't learn.