Are our politicians grasping for all the wrong answers on the economy? Makework job creation?
” With attention turning to the next big economic stimulus package, questions are still swirling about our economic troubles. How did we get here? How do we get out? As usual, Washington has all the wrong answers.
According to many politicians, we got here by not spending enough, not consuming enough, and not regulating enough. Now government, like some mythical white knight, is going to ride in to save the day by blanketing the economy with dollars, hiring an army of new bureaucrats, creating make-work jobs, and sending everyone some form of a bailout check.
The debate seems to focus on whether this will cost enough to save the economy, or if this is just a “down payment” with much more government spending to come. Talk like that would be comical, if the results weren’t going to be so tragic.
Worsening Economic Woes Ahead
The results will be worsening economic woes until we learn our lesson. But instead Congress is behaving like drug addicts who must hit rock bottom before they are ready to face reality. They are playing foolish games with the economy now because they are thinking only of political expedience. This talk of job creation is a perfect example.
Contrary to the belief of many, the goal of the economy is not job creation. Jobs can be a sign of a healthy economy, as a high energy level can be a sign of a healthy body. But just as unhealthy substances can artificially give the addict that burst of energy that has nothing to do with health, artificially created jobs just exacerbate our problems.
The goal of a healthy economy is productivity. Jobs are a positive outcome of that. A “job” could be to dig a hole one day, and fill it back up the next, or perhaps the equivalent at a desk. This does no one any good.
“The Austrian school of economics teaches that only a free market economy, unencumbered by onerous government controls, creates long-term prosperity. Politicians, however, tend to be notoriously short-sighted.”
But the value in that paycheck ultimately has to come from taxing someone productive. Some think this round-robin type of economic model is supposed to get us somewhere.
Politicians and bureaucrats have already done their fair share to ensure that jobs in the private sector are prohibitively complicated and expensive to create. They are now shocked that the economy is shedding jobs, and want to simply create hundreds of thousands of jobs to make up for the job losses, through another so-called economic stimulus package.
The private sector must be permitted to do that, but instead they are massively burdened with taxes and webs of red tape and regulation. Washington’s bandaids will only prolong this agony.
Long-Term Prosperity / Short-Sighted Gains
The Austrian school of economics teaches that only a free market economy, unencumbered by onerous government controls, creates long-term prosperity. Politicians, however, tend to be notoriously short-sighted.
I am left with these questions – who is going to be left standing to tax in the private sector to pay for all these public sector make-work jobs? Is Washington really to be considered some sort of savior for creating unproductive jobs in place of the productive jobs they eliminated?
We are at an economic dead-end and those in power are in denial.
The truth is our economic problems are due to loose monetary policy, central economic planning, and the parasitic expenses of government. Unless we assess these problems honestly, we unfortunately have a long way to go until, like the junkie, we hit rock bottom.
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/09/090115-13.htm
At least, that is what Ron Paul thinks.
Do you agree, or not? Why?
slew, I assure you I never meant to forgive other government sins by speaking out on the one.
“We are at an economic dead-end and those in power are in denial.”
Keep thinking about the oil and gas industry nd when it was destroyed and how the smaller ones and independents were taken over, now everyone hollers about the manipulated gas prices. The banking industry and such are now being given cash and buying out others, so I wold think that there will be the same thing going on.
Yo expect corruption at the lower level and even state level, but in the old days there were people watching the ones in Washington to make sure they played right, but no more. just like the big check floating deal for millions where they wrote bad checks. Now they do what they want to do and no on is responsible.
What next. Funny tha Paul and a few warned them, but no one did anything as that would have stopped the move to consolidating everything. It’s coming. You do expect at the bottom of the chain, but not at the top and that is what is going on, who will form a posse and stepup to the plate? Have a great 2009. I’m afraid the way the news reported PE Obama wanting the other $350 billion bailout cash so quick and “got to have it”, that the same people are in control. hope I am wrong. Yes, yes and yes, why not just put the money in the IRS and be done with it.
It’s scary at this stage of the game. I know the creation of “another excuse to pay for no value-added won’t fix anything. Yet I’m concerned about whether they’ve dug us too deep a whole to even get out of.
The only solution I can imagine that wouldn’t set the world into chaos is if we all declared a collective judgment against the Federal Reserve and the Bicameral Congress for defrauding the nation into paying an unnecessary tax (through inflation), for delegating to a private entity, the power to regulate a national currency and WORST of all, for then charging us interest on money “borrowed which the Congress had the duty to create free of interest.
As a Court of the Unified Citizenry of the United States, every penny of interest the Fed ever charged should and must be thrown out as unenforceable and all such debts erased.
It’d also be nice if the criminals could be forced to pay back what they’ve stolen already and then pay a penalty on top of that.
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I can’t believe my eyes that the news said that Obama is using an out dated theory on economics , the Keynsian Economics. We have never left Keynsian economics. Bush created the low unemployment rate by increasing government spending, via the military. THe rule for Keynsian economics is to create jobs , by taking a temporary debt to use for govenrment programs. THe problem is that this is not a TEMPORARY debt, when we never gotten out of debt. The problem is the politicians believe they have to do something, no matter if the thing they plan to do would be disasterous. I have told people for a long time what is wrong wiht the economic theory of the Democrats. They believe in taking the money from the middle class and giving it to the poor. SInce the poor spends a higher percent of their income, our GNP would increase. The problem is that the poor may be a little better off, but it would make it harder from being anything else, but poor. It would destroy the middle class though. That the plan from teh democrats might make a better national economy, but a lot worse of for the average individual economy. I found out there was a paradox thought up during the depression that describe this. I don’t remember it’s name, but it says that if one person saves, it’s good for the individual, but if everyone saves, it’s temporarily bad for the nation. The key word is temporarily. That’s why the government always created situations that would incourage irresponsible behavior. THe worse of all is to lower the interest rate. If we had decent interest rates, more people would save and we wouldn’t have this rollercoaster of an economy. People don’t understand how the stock market works, and I have warn people of this. Most logical people know there will be a crash coming soon. THe stock market boom is not from anything organic, but rather from all the retirement plans. When the baby boomer retire, they would start moving their money else where. When that happens, the stocks would drop. The government is doing everything to prevent it. Worse is to tell people not to save and put all your money in stocks to stay ahead of inflation. YOu have alsways said the government is stealing from us, by purposefully devaluing our dollar. They government is purposefully creating situations where we chase the next investment boom, to enrich the few.