Democrats, why do you believe government so often?
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It has worked tremendously well in every country that has ever tried it, including this one twice. There's plentiful research on the topic, just walk into the economics section of an academic library and throw a dart (make sure nobody is around). Welfare does stimulate, see USA 2009, USA 1933, and any other country at any other time that has used stimulus after a financial depression. The only reason we don't have full employment now is the anemic size of the stimulus we had (because Obama is the almighty compromiser and had to try to appease intransigent conservatives).
It's completely ridiculous to suggest that distributing money doesn't increase spending.
It didn't stimulate the economy in 1933. Although rebuilding the infrastructure is alot less offensive than the failed stimulus in our latest horrible economic times. btw FDR was an economic hack.
Distributing money, printing it up, increases costs and devalues the dollar. Why count on the same entity that ruined the economy to fix it?
Teabaggers are insecure people whose beliefs have no real logic so they have to constantly seek affirmation like insecure little children, needing other idiots to agree with them so the little house of cards they developed in their minds doesn't topple. Rush Limbaugh has been spouting the same puke for 30 years and the Teabags still lap it up because they aren't bright people and need their ridiculous beliefs to be affirmed. Notice how you never get anything but talking points from a conservative then once you refute those, just name calling or saying you are on welfare, live in your mom's basement, ad hominem etx
You mean like your post here?
LMAO I love the hypocrite posts.
It didn't stimulate the economy in 1933. Although rebuilding the infrastructure is alot less offensive than the failed stimulus in our latest horrible economic times. btw FDR was an economic hack.
Distributing money, printing it up, increases costs and devalues the dollar. Why count on the same entity that ruined the economy to fix it?
It has worked tremendously well in every country that has ever tried it, including this one twice. There's plentiful research on the topic, just walk into the economics section of an academic library and throw a dart (make sure nobody is around). Welfare does stimulate, see USA 2009, USA 1933, and any other country at any other time that has used stimulus after a financial depression. The only reason we don't have full employment now is the anemic size of the stimulus we had (because Obama is the almighty compromiser and had to try to appease intransigent conservatives).
It's completely ridiculous to suggest that distributing money doesn't increase spending.
Let me say, you are correct in that, government borrowing and spending money can give a short-term economic boost. On the other hand, government borrowing and spending money tends to be detrimental to an economy over the long-term.
Lets first imagine a "closed economy". As in, there is only the United States, no international trade. What is the effect of a "welfare program?
Well, being that economies are based on production and consumption. What we want to do to sustain a "high level of economic activity". To do that we need to increase the total amount of goods produced, and goods consumed. And for economic growth, you need investment as well(to increase efficiency of production).
Now, welfare programs don't increase productivity, but they do increase consumption. If producers are having a difficult time finding consumers; Then producers might lay people off, cut back hours, or even lower prices(causing deflation). By giving money to those with the highest propensity to consume, especially by creating targeted programs(IE cash for clunkers). You can prevent producers from laying off employees, or cutting back hours, or lowering prices. Effectively, the producers would seem to come out "untouched". The poor would have their welfare to provide for their basic necessities. Everyone wins right?
The problem with that system has to do with how the "individual actors" respond to these new incentives. A welfare program for instance "tends" to disincentivize people from working(IE producing). It is nearly impossible to know the "exact amount of stimulation" which is necessary to keep the producers, producing. If the stimulus is "too great", they might start producing too much. Or possibly, what they were producing might not have been desirable in a changing market, especially without the government incentives. Thus, as soon as the government "pulls out", the "malinvestment" of the stimulus might have created a bubble of overproduction and mismanagement that could put the producers at an even greater risk. Necessitating endless government intervention(IE subsidies, tax breaks, contracts, bailouts, etc).
And more importantly, the money to stimulate the economy in this way, inevitably is derived from borrowing more money. Borrowing more money can eventually lead to large amounts of inflation, as well as just being a burden on taxpayers. While greatly enriching those who loaned the money(IE the bankers/financiers).
If those on welfare put off reentering the workforce. Then the amount of total goods being produced will remain lower than what would have been had more people joined the workforce as quickly as possible. This keeps overall production lower over the long-term.
Even in the old Keynesian days where he believed the best way to boost the economy was through "public works projects". His idea was that, if you have 20% unemployment, you might as well put those people to work doing something to benefit society. Which seems to make sense on the surface. Of course, this view assumes that the government can put to work only those people who simply cannot get a job in the market. And they will leave their "government job" as soon as a private-sector job opens up.
The reality is that, the government ends up creating jobs that have wages at a level which discourages people from even looking for jobs in the private-sector. And as a result of the pressures of politics, these jobs tend to stay with us forever.
If we look at the bigger picture of welfare. We see that the government is lowering long-term productivity, taking away labor from the market and effectively wasting it, and distorting the market in such a way that producers get the wrong signals. Causing them to invest in the production of things which may not be desirable without the government intervention. All while bankers and other financiers get rich.
Now, if we know that welfare and even government projects don't have a long-term positive effect on the economy; Then why do so many people support such an idea?
In all honesty, it is because it is a political gold mine.
The poor support it because they think they are screwing over the rich. The unions support it because it protects union jobs. The bankers support it because they can make a lot of money. And most importantly, and somewhat ironically, it actually protects capitalism from socialism.
Keynes said that his policies "saved capitalism". Saved it from what? Well, from socialism. The problem is, you can't have a bunch unemployed, hungry people running around. Especially not in densely populated cities. That is the surest way for capitalism to collapse. Or more specifically, without jobs and welfare for the poor; It wouldn't have been safe to be rich. Especially not in a London or New York City. The pitchforks would have been coming, and they wouldn't have had far to go.
Regardless, I hate discussing this issue on purely economic terms anyway. No one should support welfare because they think it is good for the economy. Even if it actually was good for the economy, it is still a bad argument. Welfare is a social issue. The merits of welfare need to kept within the bounds of its social effects.
Which comes to my general objection to any sort of government welfare program. I think it makes us immoral, selfish, self-centered, and entitled. This may seem backwards, and liberals will claim a sort of "moral high ground" on this issue. But wherever there is liberal policy, you have selfish, entitled, self-centered, immoral, and arrogant people.
Liberalism destroys communities, it destroys families, it destroys respect for laws/government. And it makes us forget that we have an individual responsibility to help others. We assume that the government is taking care of everyone else, so we don't have to. Basically, it negates true altruism.
Not only that, but I believe government intervention in the market strips away the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor, and strengthens the hands of big business. Instead of trying to become "self-sufficient" in their communities and their own labor. They become increasingly dependent on government and big-business.
That doesn't mean there aren't liberals who are truly compassionate, there are. The problem is, the average person who votes for or otherwise supports liberal policies, is not an overly compassionate person. He only supports those policies because it benefits him. The relatively small number of genuine "do-gooder" liberals have created an unholy coalition with those who they intend to help. Without even contemplating the real effects of their policies, and the motives of the other people who support their policies.
For instance, is it really true that Hispanics and Blacks are overwhelmingly supporting democrats because they are so compassionate/altruistic? No, they are just voting themselves freebies behind the cover of "do-gooder" liberals. And ironically, blacks and Hispanics actually hate liberals. And those Muslims that liberals love to defend, really really really hate liberals.
"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave." - H.L. Mencken
If ever-growing portions of the population have no money due to lack of welfare options, they basically fall out of the economy, which means your economic axioms become essentially non sequitors with respect to society.
I don't think anyone is arguing that "economic stimulus" is necessary outside of a recession. But a social safety net is still necessary, as it's much easier for the middle-class to become poor than the other way around, particularly intergenerationally. Wealth accretes. If you don't have any redistribution of wealth downward, you inevitably end up with a tiny oligarchy ruling over a society of serfs, rather than anything resembling the ideals of free market capitalsm.
You mean like your post here?
LMAO I love the hypocrite posts.
Typical Tea Partier post, name calling and personal attacks without addressing anything I actually said. Consult the Rush Limbaugh website for your talking points lest your whole worldview fall apart.
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