hope it is coherent to the reader Why is economic growth considered a harbinger of economic health? Economic growth has led to the imbalance of wealth we witness today, nation by nation. Has it improved quality of life for the average person who may have owned their home whose kids will never afford beyond a condo whose kids will be renters and so it goes as we are told of our great economic growth these last decades. Economic growth to whose benefit? Consider my inspiration for the topic The economy. Quality of life. Advantages of being an island/continent nation. I just do not understand why/how Australians buy into the need of a "growing economy". I do believe there may be a small, well balanced - sustaining economy with minimal growth. I reject the "Grow We Must" economic mandate. We have witnessed it going malignant with ill regard for quality of life As an island continent of a pretty homogeneous population I do believe a smaller economy would have served the individual well. Maybe even with reliable power plants and decent fuel costs. What ever is lacking and requiring great costs of importation might be fostered. Cars, parts & manufacture for example Wonder! Who expanding, bigger economy benefit. Yup! The usual culprits setting them more apart from common people. And step by growth step quality of life deteriorates over decades. Witness Israel. 50 years ago pretty egalitarian. The P.M. addressed by first name Today a concentration of wealth beyond "fair" where a working person must work two jobs to rent an apartment. What happened in Israel, the economy grew too fast leading to a concentration of wealth. Why the mantra, pabumized Economic Theory, requiring growth? Especially for a place like Australia that can be its' own. BTW can anyone itemize an example where economic growth led to improvement in the quality of life for the average, working citizen? Except and the fifties. But, we had the Eisenhower Tax Code then and earning more meant truly being taxed more that should make today's uber rich tax whiners, grateful I believe in the "Pain Index" for fair taxation. Not numbers. Spread the pain evenly. AND just to be perfectly clear, I do not advocate such economic isolation as caused Sovietsky ruble to implode. I do advocate Nationalism and a nation's duty to foster an economy to the greatest good of the most persons and not just the inverters. And where trade is required, trade fairly while keeping the nation's people's interests as primary. And I do not buy into Growth Based Economics as being essential for people's quality of life. Moi the progressiviest member on Board. r > g Created the Uber Rich Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic, regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
In a Ponzi scheme, you must grow or collapse. Those that need constant growth are those who are already economically ****ed. Avoid them. Their economic model is a scam. Throwing good money after bad is a mistake.
The fact that you seldom (never?) quote the post to which you're responding make all your posts look like you're talking to yourself.
No problem if I am. I am addressing the ideas not the person. And in many ways, the purpose of my writing them is as much to order my own thoughts as it is to communicate them to others. I typically only quote when I am not responding to the comment directly above my own or not just making a generalised comment on the topic. If you follow the thread through, read for the context not the challenge of argument, it should all flow neatly for you. In this particular example, given that there are no other posts in the thread, it is quite clear to what I was responding. No quote was required.
Growth should always be a key aim. Entrepreneurial activity creates growth. Human capital creates growth. The issue is sustainability. There is too much reliance on consumptionism; there's too much reliance on manipulation through advertising. That's created environmental disaster and a non-productive elite benefitting at the expense of the majority.
Reads like old Economic Double Speak. Grow We Must Witness Israel, 50 years ago pretty egalitarian. Today the uber rich and the common person who works two jobs to afford rent. Australia is on that road. Ignorant Aussies gobbling up "Grow We Must". Their children will not enjoy the quality of life of parents. Give me an example of growth = improved quality of life except the USA in the fifties. C'mon An Example. I offer Israel and Australia as examples where growth has been a social economic malignancy.
Using economics when talking about growth? Shock horror! Sustainability can lead to radically different approaches (e.g green economics makes a swipe at the destructiveness of big business). However, to ignore that creativity and knowledge naturally generate growth would be obvious folly.
I asked for an example as I gave examples. Please do you have one Otherwise I just do not by into your Economics Double Speak of skipping unicorns in a rainbowed green field under a balanced economy. Ever wonder how the Star Trek, Federation economy works. They would say they were beyond money.
Two of the biggest impediments to economic growth are underemployment and rising costs of living in certain areas. Adding a huge number of impoverished people from other parts of the globe also brings challenges to wage levels, because you have an oversupply of labor relative to demand. (remember: people can't create demand if they don't have money! or at least the quality of that demand is going to be different, there's going to be a lot of demand but only when the price is very low, again that doesn't bode well for wage levels)
So What? How did the situation in Israel occur in some fifty years? see above. And how to preserve the life style of current parents of their children as adults, and grand children. Economic Growth is synonymous with diminution of quality of life for regular people while creating uber rich. Likewise all nations should support national economies, not globalist's for the benefit of that nation's tax payers. Grow We Must is destructive to the average working person. As bad as Free Trade. Someones is running away with big profits. Sequestration of currency.
Israel wasn't a "normal" situation for many reasons. Let's see, you had a highly educated and entrepreneurial demographic, then the U.S. was providing $1 billion worth of support annually for many years, to a country that only had 3 million people. Israel also topped the IQ list before its original Jewish demographic started to become more diluted.
Yes but all that Socialist Culture creating the same socio-economic monster with rapid growth. Amazing. How to curtail the monster of "Grow We Must" mentality. Not theory such as sustainability, but really. I do believe the Eisenhower Tax Code worked for America until dismantled with bipartisan efforts for decades.
The problem is that you haven't bothered to craft an argument based on economics. Are you seriously telling me that higher growth through entrepreneurial creativity or education is a bad thing? Now this isn't "my economics". There are multiple schools of thought. For example, green economics will certainly reject the notion that maximising GDP growth is necessarily consistent with maximising well-being. However, you've just chosen to whinge about economics and therefore you've effectively offered zero insights.
The federation has access to free energy and replicators. If they were as humanitarian as they claim, they would replicate freightors full of replicators and the whole show would be about delivering them to every planet in the universe until all poverty had been irradicated. But they dont, because its fiction. Stick to real examples
His was the very first post after the opening post. I thought it was pretty clear who he was responding to. And I agree with him. The need for growth is a consequence of our debt based fiat currency system
Why do you believe Eisenhower's tax code worked for America? The post ww2 era of the fifties and sixties were a unique time in American history. Europe and Japan were rebuilding, China had yet emerged as an industrial power, the US was the only large industrial nation capable of producing goods for domestic use and also export. The game has changed, there is now labor for manufacturing available all over the world, multinational corporations are not confined to any one nation.
Because it prevented the development of the uber rich and the dissolution of the middle, Middle Class. A factory owner and a factory worker were nearer regarding income than today. The standard joke was someone might not afford a pay raise because it would push them into a higher tax bracket leading to net loss. (said not to ever happen) During this era of economic rebuilding of the post WW2 world there would have been real profiteering had it not been for Ike keeping the Tax Code he inherited from FDR & Truman and building Freeways, not toll roads. Clear? Agree. To be clearer, this is termed a "Progressive Tax Code"
Yes, we are clear, but I am not yet willing to agree. It is easy to determine the marginal tax rates for that time in history, what is more difficult is determining the effective tax rates without examining the entire tax code. I don't have that kind of time or desire, but others apparently did. https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ The factory owners and factory workers wages were less disproportionate than today is because the size of the factory(business) was much smaller than those of today's. I think we need to look for other reasons for the concentration of wealth.
we don't want to prevent uber rich! We want more of them. We want more great guys like Gates Jobs Bezos Brin because they invent great new stuff that increases our standard of living. We should offer the guy who cures cancer a chance to be double uber rich so more people will try. Do you get these basics now?
Dissolution of middle class was due to idiotic liberal policies that should be reversed tomorrow. This is why we hate liberal taxes unions and regulations which drove 10 million middle class jobs offshore to countries without our liberal taxes unions and regulations. Do you understand now?
very good point! American businessmen were tops and when when the economy was globalized American businessman then supplied the entire globe not just the USA and of course made a ton of money!! The very last thing we in terms of national survival is for our businesses to be uncompetitive globally. Perhaps we should offer them huge subsidies for global success?
We disagree. The distribution of wealth in the fifties was a much healthier circumstance than what we have today. Example: Home ownership and stability as opposed to renters with less home investment. Consider the charts and they don't begin until decades after the fifties.
I did ref.: home ownership above. I do believe you are a bit too bent the other way to carry on a dialog. I will try one more round if you like. No offense meant. I am bent to the Eisenhower, Progressive Tax Code. Why did both parties destroy it beginning with JFK Tax Cuts and all Tax Cuts since. Dinner and a Movie and loss of services for us, and for them . . . . Of By And For The Rich. Now includes Democrats too. aka Liberal, not Progressive.
