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Edited on Mon Jan-01-07 06:05 PM by Tactical Progressive
Isolating something, like yacht-building or Faberge egg-making, will certainly yield economic movement, but that isolation ignores, for want of a better term, macro opportunity costs. If (the equivalent economic force of) that yacht building industry was making cans of corn instead of yachts, everyone in the country could be fed. An equivalent economic force to those workers would still be bringing in paychecks, contributing to labor unions, buying stuff, etc, but everyone would be fed instead of a few rich people spending a few days a year on their sumptuous seafaring extravagance or looking at their Faberges. The balance is much more broadly beneficial to society.
I could use your isolation logic to prove that everybody's earnings, yours included, should go directly into my bank account. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I'd buy, and the number of jobs that that would create. Trillions of dollars in jobs, literally, building homes, cars, jets, yachts, private golf courses, a few vacation castles maybe, for me and mine. What a capitalistic boon. So very much trickle-down too, it would take too long to list it all. That's your argument taken to one extreme. Proof that a tremendous number of jobs would be created that otherwise wouldn't. I make your case. See how meaningless that is?
Now, say the poorest of the poor can't afford the corn, ie not enough monetary demand. Nothing to offer in return. Too weak to even work. Too bad, then goverment steps in and pays for the corn through taxes. Rich people still shell out ten million dollars, only now in additional taxes for corn making instead of in discretionary outlays for their extreme luxury. That is government's job, to create a balance between moral and just economics and the capitalistic drive for self-interest in all of us.
Of course, the false dichotomy of the yachting industry become corn-providers is silly. A ship engineer isn't going to start making corn vats. She doesn't want to do that and she shouldn't have to. She should be able to design yachts and I want her to do that. This isn't about trading in one industry for something more broadly functional for society. Nor is it about making yacht-buyers buy all the corn for the underfed. It is about balancing resources and basic needs though, so that if the incomes of those prospective yacht-buyers are taxed more progressively, the equilibrium in society shifts into more broadly useful things, 950 people, say can only afford yachts this year instead of 1000, and twenty million families have insufficient nutrition instead of twenty-one million. The seven, presumably least efficient, yacht designers go out of business, while two new corn-processing plants are invested.
That's economics. Not the kind of jingoistic 'rich people create jobs' claptrap that you just gave us.
And yes, you're "so much sense" is pretty scary.
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