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Perhaps you think his beliefs are contradictory because he doesn't fit in a liberal or conservative mold. Personally I dislike those labels because I also have beliefs that are all over the map - some are associated with far left, some are conservative and some are libertarian. People should be voting on issues, not by party. Your friend would perhaps agree.
There are a lot of people out there (all over these forums, for example) that think the right to pursue and accrue weath is fundamental while at the same time approving of policies that create a system that literally locks people out of the ability to pursue or accrue even a basic standard of living, much less accrual of any significant money or assets.
And there are legions of people who know that last part is utter nonsense........literally and provably false.
Hopefully this won't end up in P&OC, but may fit either in Economics or Psychology, so I'll try here.
I spent about 14 years working with a guy who had some shall we say contradictory beliefs. Not here to criticize him because he was a great guy and we worked together about 14 years. In that time we had a lot of conversations.
To sum it up, politically he would be an extreme liberal socialist. Believing heavily in the nanny state and the use of government policies to regulate behavior. He regularly railed against big business and corporate profits. Yet at the same time economically he was an extreme libertarian. In his personal life he invested heavily in the same corporations he railed against and followed the stock market on a daily basis. His net worth was a couple million by his mid 30s.
He lived an extremely spartan existence (one of the reasons for his divorce) and believed everyone should live that way. To the extent he believed the government should enforce his chosen lifestyle on everyone. His chosen enforcement mechanism was through tax policy to apply punitive, almost confiscatory, taxes on anything greater than what he considered appropriate. IE property square feet, fuel use, electric, water, etc. For example, he believed there should be a $10 per gallon tax on gas to force people to not own cars. Though interestingly he didn't believe they should tax investments, where he had his money.
At the same time however he believed the government should not build roads. That all roads should be privately built and paid for by tolls. So in one conversation we had on this, when I asked "what about rural areas and farmers? There won't be public transportation out there and what about the impact fuel taxes and lack of transportation would have on farmers?"
His response was, then they'll have to move to the city, whether they want to or not. OK and what about the cost of food? If you put $10 per gallon tax on fuel and force farmers to pay for toll roads to bring food to market, the price of food will go up.
His response to that? Government should institute price controls.
Seriously. Confiscatory taxes, the free market prices, and government price controls all in the same conversation. Self contradictory and mutually exclusive beliefs. I've always wondered about the psychology behind such a belief system and it confounds me even today.
That belligerence is a mishmash of beliefs he's heard from people he's sought to emulate at some point in his life. It's not even a viable system if it were to be implemented. It's a bunch of parroted nonsense spewed by a guy who happens to have good saving habits and keeps his money invested, rather than withdrawing it in a crash.
The takeaway here is that, no, you do not need to be a psychopath like this individual in order to end up a millionaire in your 30's.
Hopefully this won't end up in P&OC, but may fit either in Economics or Psychology, so I'll try here.
I spent about 14 years working with a guy who had some shall we say contradictory beliefs. Not here to criticize him because he was a great guy and we worked together about 14 years. In that time we had a lot of conversations.
To sum it up, politically he would be an extreme liberal socialist. Believing heavily in the nanny state and the use of government policies to regulate behavior. He regularly railed against big business and corporate profits. Yet at the same time economically he was an extreme libertarian. In his personal life he invested heavily in the same corporations he railed against and followed the stock market on a daily basis. His net worth was a couple million by his mid 30s.
He lived an extremely spartan existence (one of the reasons for his divorce) and believed everyone should live that way. To the extent he believed the government should enforce his chosen lifestyle on everyone. His chosen enforcement mechanism was through tax policy to apply punitive, almost confiscatory, taxes on anything greater than what he considered appropriate. IE property square feet, fuel use, electric, water, etc. For example, he believed there should be a $10 per gallon tax on gas to force people to not own cars. Though interestingly he didn't believe they should tax investments, where he had his money.
At the same time however he believed the government should not build roads. That all roads should be privately built and paid for by tolls. So in one conversation we had on this, when I asked "what about rural areas and farmers? There won't be public transportation out there and what about the impact fuel taxes and lack of transportation would have on farmers?"
His response was, then they'll have to move to the city, whether they want to or not. OK and what about the cost of food? If you put $10 per gallon tax on fuel and force farmers to pay for toll roads to bring food to market, the price of food will go up.
His response to that? Government should institute price controls.
Seriously. Confiscatory taxes, the free market prices, and government price controls all in the same conversation. Self contradictory and mutually exclusive beliefs. I've always wondered about the psychology behind such a belief system and it confounds me even today.
This is neither an intelligent, educated, or rational individual, but an opinionated poseur.
He avoids the usually unpleasant result of cognitive dissonance with an odd mix of self-deceit and delusions of superiority.
Very convenient, really.
Hopefully this won't end up in P&OC, but may fit either in Economics or Psychology, so I'll try here.
I spent about 14 years working with a guy who had some shall we say contradictory beliefs. Not here to criticize him because he was a great guy and we worked together about 14 years. In that time we had a lot of conversations.
To sum it up, politically he would be an extreme liberal socialist. Believing heavily in the nanny state and the use of government policies to regulate behavior. He regularly railed against big business and corporate profits. Yet at the same time economically he was an extreme libertarian. In his personal life he invested heavily in the same corporations he railed against and followed the stock market on a daily basis. His net worth was a couple million by his mid 30s.
He lived an extremely spartan existence (one of the reasons for his divorce) and believed everyone should live that way. To the extent he believed the government should enforce his chosen lifestyle on everyone. His chosen enforcement mechanism was through tax policy to apply punitive, almost confiscatory, taxes on anything greater than what he considered appropriate. IE property square feet, fuel use, electric, water, etc. For example, he believed there should be a $10 per gallon tax on gas to force people to not own cars. Though interestingly he didn't believe they should tax investments, where he had his money.
At the same time however he believed the government should not build roads. That all roads should be privately built and paid for by tolls. So in one conversation we had on this, when I asked "what about rural areas and farmers? There won't be public transportation out there and what about the impact fuel taxes and lack of transportation would have on farmers?"
His response was, then they'll have to move to the city, whether they want to or not. OK and what about the cost of food? If you put $10 per gallon tax on fuel and force farmers to pay for toll roads to bring food to market, the price of food will go up.
His response to that? Government should institute price controls.
Seriously. Confiscatory taxes, the free market prices, and government price controls all in the same conversation. Self contradictory and mutually exclusive beliefs. I've always wondered about the psychology behind such a belief system and it confounds me even today.
People espouse beliefs based on their own self-interests. These ideas often either do no harm to the person advocating the ideas or enrich him or her further. The ideas listed above are so simplistic that no one would take it as anything worth a serious discussion. I would just consider it as thinking out loud, and anyone on the other end of the discussion can poke holes in his positions, just as with many of the posts on this forum.
Perhaps you think his beliefs are contradictory because he doesn't fit in a liberal or conservative mold. Personally I dislike those labels because I also have beliefs that are all over the map - some are associated with far left, some are conservative and some are libertarian. People should be voting on issues, not by party. Your friend would perhaps agree.
my beliefs are outside of that mold (i like libertarian/anarchist beliefs) but i have spent a good amount of time researching and discussing it online so i feel ive been able to be pretty consistent across the board. most people dont take that time (and that is perfectly fine) so their beliefs often contradict themselves sometimes. that is normal and fine but its a flaw. i certainly have plenty of flaws, im not trying to say i dont.
Economics is for all intents and purposes, is settled. You cannot form an argument against basic market truths which all originate from the economic version of the Unified Field Theory, except for economics, it's not a a theory, it's been proven over millennia. What does that look like you ask?
Everything in economics starts here. If you understand how this graph works, and what causes "shifts" in either curve, then you will understand how an economy works and you can use that knowledge to become wealthy... or not.
Everything else interjected or added to the above is just voodoo belief systems based on quackery, or political theater.
As in the example of his views that there should be extreme taxes on fuel, which would naturally drive prices of various goods, including farm product up. Where upon he stated the government should institute price controls to prevent those prices from going up. That doesn't even work mathematically, regardless of political belief.
I don't think these are very contradictory at all. The intersections between internal business costs (like fuel or employee wages) are but one factor when considering product costs and their costs to a consumer. So there could still be price caps that would take increased fuel costs into account. You are also assuming his price caps would be dollar for dollar, which was not stated in your post. His price cap could be costs + %, such that for example the profitability of a corporation would be limited, which is exactly how utility companies work.
Even if it was fully contradictory, there are tons of people who believe contradictory things. Like the post about the demand/supply curve above for example.
However deeply schooled in formal-logic, most of us wish for the proverbial cake, and to eat it to. We want clean, luxurious public parks... but cringe at the thought of paying taxes for funding the parks. We'd like for the police to chase away vagrants, to discourage robbers and to be immediately available when summoned; but we bristle at getting pulled over for speeding, and would generally wish to just be left alone. We'd like to be free to enjoy our outdoor party, with carousing and dance-music... but get irate when the neighbors fire-up their own outdoor stereo. And so forth.
If my taxes are reduced, that's only fair, because I am a heroic capitalist. If the rich guy's taxes are reduced, he's an exploiter and a robber-baron. If the poor guy's taxes are reduced, he's a moocher. And if the middle-class guy's taxes are reduced, well, he's probably not middle-class anyway... and in any case consumes more than he contributes.
Internally contradictory opinions are the natural result of human avarice and personal desire to self-advance. I'd be rather more surprised, and suspect a greater ruse, if coming across some person whose opinions were universally consistent.
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