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There was talk about renaming the Krugman thread for this purpose, but that seems to be going nowhere. Besides which, I feel the Krugman thread should be left to discuss Krugman while this thread can be used for more general economic discussion.

Discuss:

  • The merits of competing theories.
  • The role of the government in managing the economy.
  • The causes of and solutions to our current economic woes.
  • Comparisons between the economic systems of different countries.
  • Theoretical and existing alternatives to our current market system.

edited 17th Dec '12 10:58:52 AM by Topazan

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#5701: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:22:51 AM

[up][up] I expect people to still try Wildcard. This liberal notion that everything must be zero risk or difficulty (yes, that's an intentional strawman) serves no one.

The fact that the game is shittier than in times past doesn't mean you get to throw up your hands and stop playing until the game gets fixed. No, you suck it up, and do your best, and maximize the opportunities you do have, while working to get the rules made more fair.

[up]In a similar vein, I didn't envision myself as a warehouse assistant manager. Does it utilize my degree? No. Does it pay very well? Hell no. Is it a job? Yes.

edited 23rd Jul '13 8:27:05 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#5702: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:26:24 AM

Yeah I expect people to still try too, doesn't mean we should just say there are a million ways out of it, downplay how hard it is and blame poor people for being poor. Which happens a lot unfortunately. I'm not asking for what they should think while doing it, I'm asking if you know of a solution.

[up]I take care of pets for people on vacation or at work. But I have to use the internet to find a lot of people who need it.

edited 23rd Jul '13 8:30:03 AM by Wildcard

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#5703: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:29:01 AM

[up] We're not talking about the Tea Party bullshit, though. [lol]

The solution, as in most cases with a problem so chronic, is multi-pronged. We absolutely need to (I can't believe I'm going to say this...) bring back sane unions, and we need to start holding vampires like Walmart and McDonald's accountable.

I may not agree with all of Fighteer or Shima or Tomu's anti-rich rhetoric, but there's something goddamn wrong when a $10 bajillion a year company claims poverty to avoid paying minimum wage.

We also have to emphasize education. No, I don't mean more worthless degrees (sarcasm) I mean, actual knowledge. The Bible says "My people perish for lack of knowledge."

There's a rather intelligent troper, King Zeal, who discussed this. He mentioned that kids from wealthy backgrounds don't get to 14 before they've already learned about annuities, CD's (not the music kind), trusts, all kinds of stuff that other people don't find out about ever.

edited 23rd Jul '13 8:34:08 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#5704: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:30:07 AM

Honestly, I've seen several posts that try to upplay it. I know how people are saying sales are modest and are still complaining that the economy is not good. I've seen homeless people and it's unfortunate. At the same time I think that this is the "worst case" of the aggregate situation. We should not summarize the whole situatin just on the worst case. Care for it, not exaggerate it.

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#5705: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:30:14 AM

[up][up]

Yeah, well, as a hardcore liberal I dont have any illusion of zero difficulty.

I also dislike how (obvious strawman here too) conservatives tell me constantly if I just get up , pull up my bootstrapos and work hard, I will succeed.

I tried that. It failed. Multiple times. You can only try so many times and fail so many times before you just give the fuck up and decide its easier to sit on the sideline and hate humanity.

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#5706: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:36:12 AM

[up] But you can't do that. That's what the corporacrats want. They want you to give up so they can just run roughshod with nobody to stop them.

That's how they pull brazen shit like getting Glass-Steagall shut down.

It was an honor
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#5707: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:36:30 AM

@Ship: My point is something like this, your a warehouse assistant manager, that gives you enough to live in a decent place with a roommate or a few right? The guy with two kids too young for employment papers and a disabled wife can't do the same with the same amount of money.

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#5708: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:37:29 AM

[up] That....is true. And it's fucked up.

[down] What he said.

edited 23rd Jul '13 8:39:49 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#5709: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:37:45 AM

[up][up][up][up] See, that's where you and I disagree. Hating humanity accomplishes nothing and costs nothing. You can hate humanity and still keep trying. tongue

But that is exactly what I mean when I say that part of the problem is that people stop trying. I'm not rich and powerful today, but I am in a better position than I would be if I hadn't tried. It's when you give up that failure becomes a certainty rather than a possible consequence.

edited 23rd Jul '13 8:38:13 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#5710: Jul 23rd 2013 at 8:40:14 AM

You know I think I'll become an employer, treat people well and then go the dark side with temptations of more power.

[up]Who's giving up? I'm saying we need a concrete solution before we talk about how everyone should do it.

@Ship: What education would you recommend? Trade jobs can fire you if you have a bad back and it interferes with your ability to work, the army doesn't take everyone especially people with health problems, and if your major isn't wanted outside of the college you can be in $50,000 debt and overqualified for entry level positions. I'm not saying don't try I'm saying how are people supposed to get out of that. You did right? Do you mind if I ask if it was before or after 2008?

I ask because I know unemployed people with the "get a job" degrees, I also know a guy without a degree who has a good business and is going to college. I also know a person with a film associates degree who is using his degree at his job.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:00:19 AM by Wildcard

Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#5711: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:16:14 AM

Unemployment will still be around if we repair the economy, though. Don't we have unemployment measures to compensate for that? Well we could have those measures now, too.

I think Starships' point is that whatever situation you're in, you have to keep going. If the situation is bad and tilted against the poorer people, do your best in that, too. It's not that if you work hard, you will "succeed" and become one of those millionaires. It's that if you give up, it won't make anything better.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:17:19 AM by Trivialis

Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#5712: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:19:12 AM

I agree with that, but I was asking because I want to help, but I need a solution or I feel I'm just giving them empty cheers without actually helping, and I'd rather not do that.

[up]The unemployment benefits aren't enough, and with lots trying to cut welfare left and right it sucks to be poor even more than it has in the past. I envy people who came out of highschool in the middle 1980s-2000 I think they had the best chance of making use of their education in recent memory.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:22:18 AM by Wildcard

Tangent128 from Virginia Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#5713: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:22:29 AM

Starship: I think the main argument is one of "if you are working 60 hours a week with kids, there simply aren't enough hours left in the day to educate yourself or be politically active".

Once people have access to food, healthcare, etc, such that 40 hours a week with occasional sick and vacation leave can support them, then they have a lot more agency to better their position, true.

But, there being six sides to every issue in economics: if "it's a competition" to get a job, such that say only 10% of applicants find good work... sure, it's possible that you can manage to be in the lucky 10% with aggressive dedication. But that's not a good strategy to propose as a society, since no matter how dedicated the other 90% are, there aren't jobs for all of them. "Winning the lottery worked for me, why can't it work for everybody?"

Obviously, economic policies that encourage and enable more people to start businesses are a good one-two punch. You aren't just self-employing people, but also providing more job openings to go around. (And diffusing economic power among smaller entities.)

At risk of even more rambling, the mention of "difficulty" and "playing [...] the game" reminded me of the way I view progressive taxation- you aren't being punished for success, just moving on to level 2. tongue

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#5714: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:24:39 AM

I agree with the progressive tax after a certain level of income, I know what very few wealthy people I know, (not super rich but enough to effect them) wouldn't mind a higher tax rate.

[down]I agree with that. Just there should be more decent paying jobs for everyone.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:27:47 AM by Wildcard

Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#5715: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:26:00 AM

The unemployment benefits aren't enough, and with lots trying to cut welfare left and right it sucks to be poor even more than it has in the past. I envy people who came out of highschool in the middle 1980s-2000 I think they had the best chance of making use of their education in recent memory.

Well shouldn't we reinstate those safety nets, then?

Like I said, that will remain true not only in current economy, but also in a more "properly" working economy. And if we attempt to eliminate unemployment entirely, that causes other side-effects.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#5716: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:38:00 AM

Standard wisdom has it that there's a baseline level of unemployment that represents the natural rate of churn — that is, people leaving (or being fired from) jobs and seeking new ones. Given that the amount of time to get a new job is non-zero, you arrive at a so-called "natural rate of unemployment consistent with full utilization of capacity". That seems to be around or slightly under 5 percent.

One sign that unemployment is too high is not just the number of people out of work at any given time, but the average length of time it takes to find new jobs. Also look at the ranks of the long-term unemployed: people out of work for six months or more. These people find it increasingly difficulty to get any job at all, and their skills atrophy, making them less productive even if they do find work.

Another related sign is the employment of college graduates. If college grads take too long to find work, or find work that is beneath their level of education, they suffer a permanent reduction in lifetime income opportunities, essentially wasting that investment.

If unemployment is too low, it indicates that demand is too high and you're likely to be entering a period of high inflation. That hasn't happened in recent memory, though. The most recent time I can think of when we had artificially high employment rates was World War Two, and that was a direct result of the war effort.


I would also like to add my concurrence to the rebuttals of what Starship and Tobias were saying. Being plucky and self-motivated may help a given individual outcompete other individuals for the available jobs, but it does nothing to increase the number of jobs available. The solution being offered is a band-aid; it does nothing to address the real issue. Also, getting people to start their own businesses won't help in this period of reduced demand. Even if you become highly successful, you're just siphoning customers and employees away from other businesses. You might do well, but you're doing so at the expense of others, to no net gain.

The only way to remedy persistently depressed demand is to increase net spending within the economy. Given that there is plenty of money available (our monetary base has tripled since 2008), the problem then becomes one of the distribution of that money. It's simple math. Fix the distribution problem and you fix the economy.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:42:10 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
RTaco Since: Jul, 2009
#5717: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:42:56 AM

Oh my God, Starship, if I hear you say one more time that progressives are "anti-rich", "hate the wealthy", or "blame them for everything", my head is going to explode. (Though I do understand how you might get that from Fighteer's attitude)

There is a non-negligible percentage of our population who cannot survive without welfare. That money needs to come from somewhere, and progressive taxation is the method of getting that money that harms people the least.

I'd also argue that the more successful you are, the more you are benefitting from society, and the more you owe that society for your success. The money taken away for taxes isn't "yours", it belongs to all the people and infrastructure that made your total earnings possible.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:44:24 AM by RTaco

Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#5718: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:47:08 AM

[up][up]A band-aid is not a bad thing, however. If you wait and do nothing until the real issue gets addressed, you will bleed severely.

Starship did say "don't give up, and at the same time work to improve the situation." That's his point: don't wait for a situation to become ideal and favorable before you begin to cope with it. It's not a bad advice to have you not throw your hands in defeat in a bad situation.

[up]I don't think he was talking about progressive taxation right now.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:48:55 AM by Trivialis

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#5719: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:51:49 AM

I agree that the advice I have to offer won't fix the social and economic scale nationwide. I don't know how to fix the national problem, especially from where I'm standing. The best advice I have to give is strictly personal, because it will take some serious economic reforms to start lifting the average whole to a higher level. While that is something that needs to happen, it's not the situation we're in right now, and you have to make due with what you have. Live in the world as it is, do what you can to improve it, sure, but don't just wait for it to get better and blame society for not giving you an even hand. That doesn't accomplish anything.

Until something is done on a societal level, which is well above any one individual's ability to accomplish, the most help that can be offered is on an individual one. The Big Picture still needs to be corrected, but there's nothing wrong with having some people focus on the Little Picture while the Big Picture's still broken. Making one person's life better is not a wasted effort just because thousands of others are still suffering.

edited 23rd Jul '13 9:53:34 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#5720: Jul 23rd 2013 at 9:56:12 AM

Policy solutions to our economic woes are well within reach, actually. It wouldn't take a huge demographic shift to push the obstructionist Republicans in Congress out of power sufficiently to get meaningful legislation passed. PPACA is a big start in that direction.

On an individual level, yes, do whatever you can to find gainful employment. That doesn't help the big picture, though, and it doesn't even necessarily help the individual. Let's take a super-best-case scenario, in which everyone who's unemployed or underemployed in the U.S. reads Soban's book (from earlier) and becomes amazingly motivated. They go nuts looking for work, start businesses, become models of bootstrapping.

Well, guess what — there aren't any more jobs to be had, so all they've done is move themselves up to the exact same problem as before: most of those people won't find jobs or will find jobs that don't pay enough to live. Alternatively, they'll displace people who currently have jobs, who will then become the new un-/underemployed.

Net benefit to society: zero. Well, the bookseller and author would make a nice profit.

edited 23rd Jul '13 10:00:49 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#5721: Jul 23rd 2013 at 10:04:26 AM

I would argue that it's more difficult than it sounds, but that's not the topic here. As it stands, it's still worth the effort to provide assistance on a smaller level even as we look for bigger changes. I would reiterate that treating the symptoms (as opposed to cause) is not a bad thing if the cause isn't just ignored, because while the cause may be more fundamental, the symptoms can be more urgent and do have a close impact.

Edit: Are we still talking about the self-help book? A point of advice to motivate you isn't inherently bad. That's what we're doing in this discussion, too.

edited 23rd Jul '13 10:07:07 AM by Trivialis

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#5722: Jul 23rd 2013 at 10:05:35 AM

It may benefit individuals, but in the big picture it's a zero-sum game. You'd do better to give every poor person $10,000 cash. Heck, we could draw it from the major banks' central reserve deposit accounts and nobody would even notice.

edited 23rd Jul '13 10:06:18 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#5723: Jul 23rd 2013 at 10:06:10 AM

Actually, if you read the books, you are also more likely to start a business and increase employment. (The books do not specifically suggest this, but it is a logical outcome from their lines of reasoning. Such as having examples from those who are self-employed or start small businesses.) Furthermore, if you are someone who is unemployed who becomes self-employed you lower the unemployment rate.

On it being a zero sum game. That's just not true. I do agree that giving everyone 10k in cash would be better use than some of the programs we have.

edited 23rd Jul '13 10:08:24 AM by soban

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#5724: Jul 23rd 2013 at 10:16:09 AM

The problem is that most people who care about trying to improve the overall economy OR about helping the poor just don't have $10k cash per person to give. I don't even have $10k. That's an unreasonable amount of money to me. That's, like, half a year's pay for a lot of people.

edited 23rd Jul '13 10:17:00 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Karkadinn Karkadinn from New Orleans, Louisiana Since: Jul, 2009
Karkadinn
#5725: Jul 23rd 2013 at 10:16:20 AM

Soban, I'm not even sure if you're reading the posts that are talking to you in their entirety. If you start a successful business but customers don't have any more money in their pockets than previously, you've just eaten the profits of another company in the same industry, because people can't afford to buy from both. That's not a net benefit to society, that's just cannibalism, much like Rick Perry telling all the 'job creators' to move to Texas.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

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