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Pirate Santa's journal
The Easter Bunny made me do it.
Supply side economics is a lie. If anyone tries to feed you some of that drivel they are ether stupid or lying to you.

"If we have an economy that's based on consumption, and the people who need to buy things don't have any money, and the people who have money don't need to buy things, is it any surprise our economy is slow and people are suffering?" - Joe Sanberg (Aspiration Financial)

Almost 40 years ago we decided to try some wealth redistribution, supply side economics, Which does lead to some short term growth. But has it trickled down? Is America today better than it was in the 70s? Let alone the 50s or 60s. Sure it's working for some people, the stock market is up up up! Do YOU make millions off your stock portfolio? If not then you're likely one of the hundreds of millions of people whom we stole from to make those profits.

America is positively SWIMMING in money, but it's not trickling down. Why should a fridge manufacturer re-invest? Build a new factory, hire more workers? Why bother, very few people can afford to replace a crusty old fridge, or buy a new mini fridge, let alone a house big enough to want to have one. Re-investing in the American economy just makes bad financial sense right now.

A little bit ago, someone said "It's supply and demand. If you create supply, it causes demand". I don't remember who said that gem. But it's exactly wrong. Sure if you make something fancy it will make people WANT that thing, but in economics 'demand' isn't just a desire, it's backed up by the ability to pay for it. Making a better TV won't create demand because it won't make people more able to afford it. There already is some demand for better TVs, which is why manufactures create better TVs. They don't make TVs when people don't want to buy them.

Demand creates supply.

Supply side economics is a lie.

Demand side economics is what the free market was built on. People like Gerald Ford realized that people need money to be able to buy his cars so he payed them better and encouraged other industries to pay their workers better so that money would grease the wheels of industry. But I mean, how did that work out? Only the most robust economy in the world.

I realize that giving people more money will cut into their profits, and for a CEO who's job is to make as much profit as possible that's antithetical. So businesses will yell and scream. But they say that hiring more people will 'kill jobs'. (How's that logic supposed to work? But you hear people talking about 'Job killing regulations' all the time so some people buy it.)

Yeah, paying people more will cut into the profits. The record breaking stock prices of this gilded age will go away... but don't fret: A rising tide lifts all ships.

---

I realize that economics is stupid complicated, and this is very simplified. I gloss over a lot of things and ignore plenty of others. It's less a nitty gritty and more of a grand overview. But lets not miss the forest for the trees. If I point to a mountain and someone says 'there's a lot of dirt and rocks and snow there' it doesn't make it not a mountain, it makes that person a pedantic.

(and possibly also obfuscating in order to deceive)

Here's the dirty little secret: Businesses do not like capitalism. And businessmen do not want a free market.

A business sprouts in a free market, where a person's good ideas and hard work can allow it to grow, but it blooms under monopoly where the free market is stifled nobody is able to provide competition. And they do that by exerting control on the government. Which is, as we've named it, communism.

Now you might say 'woah, hold on, they couldn't have come to be in a communist system', which is true as I said they sprout there... But how often do they sprout nowadays? When's the last time a new restaurant chain opened up? How about a car manufactuerer? Tesla is the only recent one, and that only because 100% electric isn't an area the others really wanted to exist yet. The internet created a flood of new businesses, because there were no big companies to hold them down... but try making something similar to Amazon or Youtube now (I mean similar in scope, not catering to the same market), if you've got an idea that's good enough to compete they will ether buy you out or make their own knock off and squeeze you out, because they do not want competition.

But that's monopoly, not communism. In communist Russia, the people who control the government also run the businesses. In capitalist America, people who run the businesses also control the government. And I would ask you: What's the freaking difference?

Edit: It was Rick Perry who said that demand follows supply. (and I misquoted him horribly)





 
 
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