Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Colbert on Austerity and Sequester

What more needs to be said? 
This is too good not to pass along.




As I noted in another post, this is not rocket science, folks. 

Any good homemaker will agree that deficits are a matter of discipline. But the discipline has to do with management of available resources in a way that uses them judiciously, not squeezing them off. 

The way out of debt is more wealth, not less. And more wealth comes from more productivity, not less. Austerity LOWERS productivity. 

 Deficits are not a function of income but "outgo." In other words, spending more than you can afford is what causes deficits. 

Poor people are better stewards than rich ones because they have no options. Sure, they spend proportionally more for gambling, cigarettes and beer than their economic "betters" but unless someone is stupid enough to extend them credit for real estate, expensive cars or other high-priced luxuries they are not apt to hurt anyone but themselves. 

I spent my whole life in business as a general manager, working hard to squeeze a nickel or dime out of every dollar of revenue. It's not easy but it can be done. It can even be done, though less impressively, on a very small scale. But there is no way to make money from zero income. The arithmetic just won't allow it. 

But the manner in which money is spent is more important than how it is earned. Earnings from a revenue stream may come from goods or services, both of which are scalable, meaning the more you do it the more you get -- sales, products, performances, fees, whatever... But it can all be pissed away in a flash by poor management at the top. 

And that is where deficits are made. At the top, not the bottom. 

The goal of rational economics should be to maximize the proportion of wealthy people in a population by minimizing the number of poor people. That formula produces a positive symbiotic relationship that creates increased greater supply and demand. I takes a real knucklehead to imagine that clamping down on everybody improves an already bad situation.

There is more where that came from, including obvious conclusions about minimum wage laws. 
But if you're a fashionable pro-austerity Paul Ryan Conservative your head is already near exploding. I suggest you don't go there until you are more calm. Pop another tranquilizer first. 

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