Posted on 06/13/2008 6:25:35 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Republicans, as a whole, seem to have a fairly faint grip on reality vis a vis economics, and the Democrats live in an alternate universe on the subject.
How hard is to find simple competence these days?
If I didn’t know better I’d say the Dems have a ‘master plan’ to fix overpopulation by limiting our access to energy.
Tread carefully through that mine field. As I remember, the Federal Gooberment began subsidizing the production of illegitimate children during Johnson's Great Society.
As most FReepers know, what gooberment subsidizes, gooberment gets. They subsidized illegitimate children and got a bumper crop of the little bastards.
Congressman, if you ever get around to creating a ping list put me on it.
There is a problem with the government subsidizing the purchase of Gas, it will simply increase demand which ultimately will increase the price of Gas.
Now if the Government subsidizes the production of oil then it will increase the supply which will lower the price which is a good thing, but that isn't what they are talking about.
The way to force the price down is to increase the supply.
John / Billybob
We have had two presidents since 1900 who actually understood economics, Reagan and Coolidge. And Kennedy was talked into significant tax cuts by people who understood the subject. It is truly a dismal science and dynamic people, those who aspire to government leadership, do not normally study it. Dynamic “leaders” want to know how to manipulate the economy because they think they are capable of that and must do it and thus almost all are disciples of Lord Keynes who did not write on Economics but rather on the plausible excuses for government to control the economy. His theories were, of course, wildly popular with the political class. Were there no John M. Keynes there might well be private mineral extraction operations on the Moon and Mars by now, with tourist accommodations.
I have the opposite view, that people who get their living from the government should not be allowed to vote for the level of government from which they are compensated. Such people have a bias for government solutions and derive their incomes from taxpayers and tend to work to increase their incomes and thus taxes. I first heard that idea from my father who was a career naval officer.
If there were such a requirement the Great Universities would all have "Economic Citizenship" courses that would teach Keynes and command-and-control. Students would learn that economic events can only happen if the properly educated are pushing the buttons and spinning the dials and designing the economy from the political center. And remember, Marx was a noted "economist" who wrote about Capital and its deployment.
Well, I did say a “good” intro course. But you are right, in general the universities would fail us on that count.
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