Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Economics is
Economics is, a pack of half truths spun by capitalists and laisez faire governments that support them, to put them at continuously advantage over the poor and weak, as well as suppress those who have decent love for the humanity and the environment.Woah ... quite a mouthful of a sweeping statement ...
I am not quite convinced of the arguments and the presentation of facts of economics lessons taught at JC and basic level in university. In fact it seems to put everything that is of disadvantage of greedy capitalists, as being evil and bad for the whole world.
Firstly, it potrays monopoly as evil. Because the capitalists are jealous that a monopolist can earn so much money. So they argue that monopoly is bad and competition is good, and they donate generously to political parties who then pass laws to outlaw it. Then they come up with intangible and abstract concepts like economic surplus, that disappears with monopoly and it is not efficient and bad bad bad bad bad bad. While there are some truths in exploitation and stuff, don't all big corporations bully and muscle consumers the same? It's not only that the monopolist are guilty. They also come up with a fictional perfect competition market. They say that in the end, everybody earns normal profit, so it's good for the people as nobody is fleecing the masses. Govts liked that theory. In reality, the capitalist would hide trade secrets, come up with copyrights intellectual property rights and only they are right to earn your money while everybody else is wrong. Of course they won't be satisfied with only earning normal profits.
Secondly, they say tax is dirty. It decreases economic surplus and distorts market signals bad bad bad bad bad. Even if taxes levied are supposed to help those who are made worsed off by the external negative externalities, we have seldom seen it happen before. If some kind govts have ever tried, it certainly was not the whole sum of tax. Also tax decreases economic production by a multiplying effect, bad bad bad bad bad. Drop the corporate tax! I would be happy to stay here and bring more investment and jobs to you and more donations to your party and stay in power with more votes in your next elections. Voila!
Thirdly, saving money is bad for the economy. Spend more money guys, buy our goods and services, part with your money and give them to me. It's for your good, your overall GDP will increase and everybody will eventually have a better life. John Keynes' wonderful theory that governments can easily do a little to help the economy by a lot was counter claimed that the economy can adjust back to its potential levels in the long run by automatic adjustments by the central bank's monetary policies. So now the officials can keep their fat pay check and let the central bank take the blame.
Free trade is also good, closed economies are bad bad bad bad bad. Call them freak names like autarky; 'aww what a turkey!'. Everybody would be better off with free trade? Who? The capitalists you mean? The money seldom trickled down to the masses. Didn't Uncle Sam learned that during the Depression? And free trade means the big bullies can officially come in and whoop all your small asses and carry on earn big money. It's opium war again, and again and again. Capitalists are jealous that they cannot earn the money the local companies are earning with their people. So they argue that 'everybody' would be better off with free trade.
Free economies are good, controlled economies are ... eeewww ... bad bad bad bad bad bad. The market knows best, what does the non-pro-capitalists govts know? They are stupid lah, look at ... those up north, in the eastern part of the world. They oppress, they don't respect human rights. Protest against them! They are against humanity! See? Free is good. Don't you like 'free' stuff too??
And oh, don't forget to teach your people the 'right' values. Anything that diminishes the capitalist's profit, is bad.
Ah ... began to write like the 7 habits post towards the end ... haa
Gotta cover my backside again at the end liaoz.
Disclaimer: The above message is not a criticism on any governments or its central banks . Any resemblance to governments dead or alive, in the past, present or in the future, is a pure coincidence and is deeply regretted. The owner of the blog is not qualified to give economics advice, readers are not encouraged to rely on his representation of economics. The owner is also not responsible for any disputes, misrepresentations and errors in the article.
taxi taker at 11:05 PM