...in a sea of misunderstanding.
Economics is not difficult to understand. People think it has to do with numbers. I'm constantly told I must be good at math because I'm getting my degree in finance and economics. With the exception of reading some charts and analyzing data, economics has little to do with math, and everything to do with relationships, causes and effects, and psychology. That is why it is endlessly fascinating to me.
Dan Mitchell has come out with a new video which a offers a basic explanation of the principles of the free market, how they differ from, or will influence the stimulus proposals, along with easy-to-understand statistics and comparisons. Even if you claim to disagree with free market principles, I would argue it is a good idea to fully understand what they are, so you can be 100% against them, no?
Are you familiar with the idea of sound money? Private property rights? Rule of law?
Neither was I until I began my graduate studies. I'm embarrassed to say I was a supporter of whatever I though sounded reasonable or pragmatic.
"More money for the arts? Why not? I like art!" I did not understand that the fulfillment of my selfish desires was not the role of government. I was susceptible to the kind of egocentric and detrimental thinking most voters use to make their decisions. That's why we see so much voting for bigger government and programs we are hopeful will bail us out.
Even if we vote for things that won't help us directly, we are motivated by what we believe to be altruistic and noble goals without understanding the outcomes of the policies. We have no idea that voting for government intervention is often the slowest path to change, if not reversal of progress!
Bottom line - don't number yourself amongst the uninformed masses. Just because the campaign season is over, it is not time to stop educating yourself about politics and economics, in particular in times like these. The decisions of our government affect you much more than you know, and in particular, much more since the size of governments around the world are expanding.
3 Comments:
"Even if we vote for things that won't help us directly, we are motivated by what we believe to be altruistic and noble goals without understanding the outcomes of the policies. We have no idea that voting for government intervention is often the slowest path to change, if not reversal of progress!"
You can say that again! I wish more people could see this and stop being so idealistic about a government that keeps doing the same crap wrong over and over again. It's like a battered woman who keeps going back to her abuser in hopes that he finally changed this time around.
@Valerie M - I think your analogy is fitting. We keep crawling back to the government, not because they have the answers, but they have the power, and we don't want to piss them off.
The most worrying thing about the increasing size of government is they never vote to make themselves smaller, a turkey does not vote for Christmas. Governmental allocation of resources is typically less efficient than that of the market, the only case where it can be more efficient is in that of mass transit and public goods such as the army or street lights. I presently feel I get little for my tax dollars and believe many foreigners will see the US as a less attractive destination that they once did. Retro-spective taxation as we saw in the case of AIG is a dangerous step against capitalism.
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