| > 'Increasing demand' is itself a supplier-directed activity; it's one of the primary functions of marketing. It seems baffling to consider this from a political/macroeconomic perspective; how would you increase demand but through marketing activity...? You assume here that demand is possible, it just needs to be created through marketing. I get that that's what marketing does -- I really do. I read a great article recently about the rise of marketing in the U.S. as a way to get people to buy things that they didn't know they needed, as a consequence of the industrial revolution creating a surplus of products. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about an economic environment in which people don't have enough money to spend. And the solution to that -- and, it seems, your solution as well -- seems to be to give more incentives to the people who do have money to spend. So that's what I'm trying to point out to you. I don't think it should be a revelation; I'm surprised it's even a point of debate. I've done a couple of quick searches online for citations for some of my arguments elsethread -- there are a ton of other citations which I could bring which could be altogether summed up as, "companies have more money than ever before, and consumer demand is still low and consumers still don't have money to spend." So, at what point should we step back and say, "OK, this strategy isn't working"? You object to my macro-level perspective on economics. I object to the idea of managing a system as complex as economics at anything other than the macro level. I honestly do not understand why any economic strategy should not involve the entire economic ecosystem. > Because the two concepts have nothing to do with each other... Granted, but I was leading into that with the next couple of questions. Taken out of context, no, they're not related. In context, yes, they are. > It's because people oppose these ideas in their own right, and see them as being unjustifiable means even if they could achieve their stated ends. But, seriously, achieving their stated ends would justify their means. You seem to be saying here, "Sure, those are solutions to the problems, but people don't support them even if they do solve the problems." ...OK, so, why? Seriously, why are economic stimulus packages unjustifiable, but austerity is not? There are quite a few Greeks asking this same question right now... > Many people do not want ... Many people do not want ... Many people resent ... I hate to do this, but "many people" is not a good counter-point. I'm trying to stick either to specifics, or to things that I could produce citations for, or to things which (I hope) are clearly opinion. Would you mind doing the same? Otherwise, we're just making things up. For example, you say, "Many people resent that these intimate and personal aspects of their lives are being politicized and turned into public questions in the first place." OK, I'm one of those people. Let me explain: I've worked hard, for years, to claw my way from poverty -- actual homelessness, not enough money for food, all that good stuff -- up to lower-middle-class, and I'm working hard to at least stay there. I'm also the owner of a small business. So, I should be one of the darlings of the Republican constituency, right? I wish it were so. I resent that our country is still arguing about health care and tax breaks for huge corporations and tax breaks for wealthy people, while making it sound like these are all things which benefit me, when they don't. I am living this. It's not politics to me, it's life. My company builds long-term relationships with its customers. A year ago, my biggest client had their research funding canceled. There is a ton of work they would love to pay my company to do, but they can't. Not because they're choosing to save it instead, but because they don't have the money. My company recently enjoyed its highest-ever billing cycle, just last month. Great news, especially when my overall trend has been pretty good. But, right now, I have $30 in my accounts, because my company is also right now suffering through its slowest recent month in actually receiving our invoices, since so many of our clients are running a little short on money right now. I have, for better or for worse, a middle class mentality. I don't care as much about accumulating money as I do about doing things with it. I have lots of projects and hobbies. I have a truck that I'd like to finish the R&R on. Better yet, I'd love to pay someone to finish a huge chunk of it for me, to get it done faster. But, I can't afford it. I would have liked to go climbing last Saturday, like I do every Saturday, but, I couldn't afford it. I would like to hire a sysadmin/junior developer, to ease my workload and free me up to work on some of the other long-term projects we have instead. But, I can't afford it. Now, this is the part where I'm supposed to say -- if I were wealthy or if my business were bigger -- that it's all the fault of those mean old taxes. But it's not. The biggest problem facing my business right now is that my customers don't have any money. So why are we still debating the supply side of economics when it's the demand side that is suffering so badly? > I'm not sure where you've heard that http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/31/980891/-The-poor-pa...
http://progressive-charlestown.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-it-tr...
etc. If you would like to pay my hourly rate, I would be happy to do more Google searches for you. :-) (Meant just in good humor, no offense intended.) |
If they don't have enough money to spend, what's with all of the money that's circulating every day? What's with the (admittedly contrived) metric of GDP indicating that there's about of $13 trillion of value being generated via economic transactions in the United States each year.
You're also neglecting the fact that money isn't actually worth anything intrinsically; it's entirely a token of exchange that merely represents the actual utility value of the goods and services that are available for trade in the market. If the money supply remains constant but the real economy expands, then each dollar is worth more; i.e. if what you were saying is true, we'd see deflation. The fact that prices of goods seem to gradually increase suggests that, if anything, there's more money in the economy than is proportionate to the real demand that exists in the market.
The bottom line is that if there's real value to be obtained via trade, then trade will take place, and the value of the unit of exchange will simply fluctuate in response to the real value that exists in the market.
What you're really complaining about here is that people aren't spending money in the way that you expect/desire them to. You're treating the results of actual people's manifest choices as though they're a problem that needs to be corrected, as though people pursuing their own goals in life are obligated to conform to your expectations in doing so.
> So, at what point should we step back and say, "OK, this strategy isn't working"?
Why don't we take it a step further back, and consider whether and when it's appropriate and efficacious to design and implement any top-down strategies for what fundamentally amount to other people's lives. That's what economies are, after all, no matter how many layers of abstraction and aggregation you pile on top of your understanding.
> You object to my macro-level perspective on economics. I object to the idea of managing a system as complex as economics at anything other than the macro level.
Right, that's the fundamental disagreement. You've got it in your head that economies are somehow predictable systems that conform to well-understood models, and which can be managed via carefully-calculated planning.
The reality, of course, is that economies are vastly complex emergent phenomena whose patterns form from the individual decisions of billions of human beings in real time, and which follow no consistent and predictable rules at the macro level, and indeed may adhere to no fixed set of rules whatsoever, and for which, in any case, no theoretical model can even be tested in a controlled and scientific way.
I don't intend to be dismissive or condescending here, but I unfortunately can't think of a more descriptive summarization here: you're just wrong.
> I hate to do this, but "many people" is not a good counter-point. I'm trying to stick either to specifics, or to things that I could produce citations for, or to things which (I hope) are clearly opinion. Would you mind doing the same? Otherwise, we're just making things up.
I'm not making a counterpoint; I'm answering your question. You inquired as to why so many people seem to oppose your list of policy positions. This is why. You're seeing the dispute as one over which means best pursue uncontroversial ends. In reality, most of the opposition is the result of people opposing the intended ends of those policies.
> So, I should be one of the darlings of the Republican constituency, right? I wish it were so.
Either them or the Democrats. Both parties seem to have a philosophy similar to what you're advocating here.
> It's not politics to me, it's life.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Why do you resent that other people have opposing positions to yours? I don't mean to sound condescending, but I really don't understand how the description of your personal circumstances relates to the discussion. What was it intended to be an example of?
> I have, for better or for worse, a middle class mentality.
What does this mean? What does it mean to have any kind of a class mentality?
> Now, this is the part where I'm supposed to say -- if I were wealthy or if my business were bigger -- that it's all the fault of those mean old taxes.
Of course it's not. Not for large-scale business anyway; capital-intensive ventures with external investors calculate their tax burden as a cost of doing business, and we can't quantify how many businesses never launched because the tax burden would have pushed them into unprofitability. And although it's possible that cost and complexity of taxes actually do prevent many very small businesses - e.g. those run by families or individuals - from being sustainable, even this isn't the crux of the objection.
The problem is that taxes provide revenue to the government, and what those taxes are spent on is almost invariably destructive. Tax 'the wealthy' so we can have more foreign wars, TSA strip-searches, email surveillance and drug wars? No thanks. Tax 'the wealthy' so we can implement more policies that treat people's lives as instantiations of presumptive socioeconomic categories and shoehorn them into patterns of behavior irrespective of their own goals and intentions? No thanks. Tax 'the wealthy' so we further politicize deeply personal value judgement relating to matters such as health care and education, simply to make the macro-level picture look pretty? No thanks. Tax 'the wealthy' so we can artificially create more customers for your business? No thanks - tweak your business model, not the world around you.
I'd love to live in a world without taxes. In this world, I prefer for my taxes to go into pork-barrel projects, the pockets of corrupt lobbyists, and general waste, anything really, that prevents taxes from funding the grandiose ambitions of people who want to remake society and people's lives from the top down, and especially those who prefer for everyone to outsource their happiness and security to outside institutions and abstract 'systems'.