Rant warning
It's almost 6 am, I haven't been able to sleep and I have a physics class that I can't miss at 8 am. Sound familiar at all? I don't care what happens, I'm using this weekend to fix my schedule.
That and I've been lying in bed trying to sleep for a while now. The mind wanders when you're trying to sleep and not really succeeding. Between random thoughts about stuff in general, the week so far, what to do over the summer, counting sheep, and other things that really need not be mentioned, my overly alert brain that might as well have been on caffeine decided it needed to solve the Great Economic Problem.
I don't like political labels, and especially the liberal/conservative scale. But if you really want to simplify it, you could call me a liberal on social issues, a libertarian on privacy and civil liberties type issues and a peace loving idealist dove on military foreign policy. Economics on the other hand is a whole other ball game. Let me put it this way - there's a lot of crap out there. The media, the so called economic 'experts', people who think they know it all and everything else. So for the privatize-everthing-cut-taxes-no-welfare conservatives and tax-loving-welfare-spending-big-government liberals, I have something to say....
You're all wrong. (and morons in general too)
There IS no 'right answer' to everything. Everyone loves to hear 'tax cuts' and hates the term 'welfare'. Nevermind the fact the Laffer Curve is a purely theoretical idea with no observable evidence to back it up. But economic theory aside, there is no single solution to every single economic problem.
Take healthcare in the US. And sometimes you really wonder where the fuck what the fuck happened that truly fucked things up the way it did. Because here you have a country that spends more as a percentage of its budget or in absolute terms on healthcare, and is at the same time the only developed country in the world not to have universal healthcare. Conservatives would go gaga and are probably thinking "Omigod he said universal healthcare! The socialist! Burn him!"
Or how about Social Security, one entitlement program the US actually has right? Yep, don't believe what the media and Bush want you to hear - it's as healthy a program as it gets. No, it's not perfectly solvent. Anyone with half a brain knows this. Anyone with half a brain also knows that privatizing the thing is no way to fix it and is a huge gamble that will probably end up HURTING the program with administrative costs going through the roof. Know what WOULD fix it? Raise the retirement age a little. And please, people today live a lot longer than they did in FDR's time and are a lot healthier on average. And raise the cap while you're at it. End result? A perfectly functioning Social Security program that is viable for at least the century to come.
But oh wait, raising the cap would be a tax increase. Taxing the rich to give to the poor. I can hear the conservatives screaming now. "Class warfare!" "Unfair taxation!"
Give me a break. There is no perfect free market. The ideal free market would be perfectly competitive, unemployment would be zero, taxes wouldn't be necessary, and neither would government because in such a market there wouldn't BE anything to regulate. But unfortunately we don't live in such a world. Regulation exists for a reason. Taxes exist for a reason. And in large part, thanks to the 'free market' we have today, we have the class differences we do. And I hate to break it to you, but that's not something the free market is going to fix anytime soon. If anything, the divide between the rich and the poor is even more than it used to be. Progressive taxation is about as fair as it gets, especially given the tax rates we have today and the fact that most people in the top 2% bracket make most of their money via investment and not wage labor.
No, I'm not saying that we tax the rich until the tax rates cross 100%. Not even close. I'm just saying that the very idea that there's something wrong with asking the guy making 2,000,000 to pay 20% more than the guy making 20,000 in today's world, given current market conditions, is laughable at best.
Where am I going with this? I'm trying to say that social and entitlement programs are not all bad if executed properly. Here's a fun fact: Did you know that Medicare is actually 4 times as financially efficient with administrative overhead than any private healthcare insurance? There's your 'wasteful big government program'. On the flipside, you have British Social Security. Privatized. And officially a mess.
Know what's the worst part? The so called conservatives that despise welfare programs and any kind of social spending are the first to sign off on corporate subsidies. Oil prices going up, energy companies posting record profits, Congress granting them subsidies and the average Bob getting screwed over. Oh, but welfare is evil and the bane of all mankind. Right.
Here's REAL economic conservatism for you by definition: True monetarism. No fiscal policy. No taxes. No subsidies. No government regulation.
Everything you would prescribe in the ideal free market. Something we don't have.
..
I think I'm actually a bit sleepy now. Maybe I can get an hour in before class. And lest you think I'm done, I have a whole second part to this coming up soon. It's the liberals' turn next. There are morons on both sides of the aisle, oh yes.
And of course, there's a very high probability nobody actually read any of this. But I don't really care either way.
Now Playing: Coldplay - Swallowed In The Sea
That and I've been lying in bed trying to sleep for a while now. The mind wanders when you're trying to sleep and not really succeeding. Between random thoughts about stuff in general, the week so far, what to do over the summer, counting sheep, and other things that really need not be mentioned, my overly alert brain that might as well have been on caffeine decided it needed to solve the Great Economic Problem.
I don't like political labels, and especially the liberal/conservative scale. But if you really want to simplify it, you could call me a liberal on social issues, a libertarian on privacy and civil liberties type issues and a peace loving idealist dove on military foreign policy. Economics on the other hand is a whole other ball game. Let me put it this way - there's a lot of crap out there. The media, the so called economic 'experts', people who think they know it all and everything else. So for the privatize-everthing-cut-taxes-no-welfare conservatives and tax-loving-welfare-spending-big-government liberals, I have something to say....
You're all wrong. (and morons in general too)
There IS no 'right answer' to everything. Everyone loves to hear 'tax cuts' and hates the term 'welfare'. Nevermind the fact the Laffer Curve is a purely theoretical idea with no observable evidence to back it up. But economic theory aside, there is no single solution to every single economic problem.
Take healthcare in the US. And sometimes you really wonder where the fuck what the fuck happened that truly fucked things up the way it did. Because here you have a country that spends more as a percentage of its budget or in absolute terms on healthcare, and is at the same time the only developed country in the world not to have universal healthcare. Conservatives would go gaga and are probably thinking "Omigod he said universal healthcare! The socialist! Burn him!"
Or how about Social Security, one entitlement program the US actually has right? Yep, don't believe what the media and Bush want you to hear - it's as healthy a program as it gets. No, it's not perfectly solvent. Anyone with half a brain knows this. Anyone with half a brain also knows that privatizing the thing is no way to fix it and is a huge gamble that will probably end up HURTING the program with administrative costs going through the roof. Know what WOULD fix it? Raise the retirement age a little. And please, people today live a lot longer than they did in FDR's time and are a lot healthier on average. And raise the cap while you're at it. End result? A perfectly functioning Social Security program that is viable for at least the century to come.
But oh wait, raising the cap would be a tax increase. Taxing the rich to give to the poor. I can hear the conservatives screaming now. "Class warfare!" "Unfair taxation!"
Give me a break. There is no perfect free market. The ideal free market would be perfectly competitive, unemployment would be zero, taxes wouldn't be necessary, and neither would government because in such a market there wouldn't BE anything to regulate. But unfortunately we don't live in such a world. Regulation exists for a reason. Taxes exist for a reason. And in large part, thanks to the 'free market' we have today, we have the class differences we do. And I hate to break it to you, but that's not something the free market is going to fix anytime soon. If anything, the divide between the rich and the poor is even more than it used to be. Progressive taxation is about as fair as it gets, especially given the tax rates we have today and the fact that most people in the top 2% bracket make most of their money via investment and not wage labor.
No, I'm not saying that we tax the rich until the tax rates cross 100%. Not even close. I'm just saying that the very idea that there's something wrong with asking the guy making 2,000,000 to pay 20% more than the guy making 20,000 in today's world, given current market conditions, is laughable at best.
Where am I going with this? I'm trying to say that social and entitlement programs are not all bad if executed properly. Here's a fun fact: Did you know that Medicare is actually 4 times as financially efficient with administrative overhead than any private healthcare insurance? There's your 'wasteful big government program'. On the flipside, you have British Social Security. Privatized. And officially a mess.
Know what's the worst part? The so called conservatives that despise welfare programs and any kind of social spending are the first to sign off on corporate subsidies. Oil prices going up, energy companies posting record profits, Congress granting them subsidies and the average Bob getting screwed over. Oh, but welfare is evil and the bane of all mankind. Right.
Here's REAL economic conservatism for you by definition: True monetarism. No fiscal policy. No taxes. No subsidies. No government regulation.
Everything you would prescribe in the ideal free market. Something we don't have.
..
I think I'm actually a bit sleepy now. Maybe I can get an hour in before class. And lest you think I'm done, I have a whole second part to this coming up soon. It's the liberals' turn next. There are morons on both sides of the aisle, oh yes.
And of course, there's a very high probability nobody actually read any of this. But I don't really care either way.
Now Playing: Coldplay - Swallowed In The Sea
posted by Sam at
3:53 AM
1 Comments:
hahaha, best post ever. You seriously should sit in my government class someday. Today my prof started making fun of scientists. I think it was the best thing I've ever heard. "These puny little scientists with their laws of gravity and the apple always falling, we don't get easy solutions like that" :)
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Anonymous, at 6:41 PM
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