[cartan]

This is nuts. All of a sudden, politicians all around the world have gone insane, simultaneously. Over here in Germany, politicians and journalists claim that tax cuts “benefit” only those with a job, so they’d rather make direct payments and especially raise welfare payments.

This is utterly idiotic for several reasons:

• A stimulus program is supposed to jumpstart the economy, not to “benefit” anyone, especially not any politician’s cronies or constituency.
• Sure, if you go and give every welfare bum more dollars so they can buy more contraceptives, beer and cigarettes, it will look good on the GDP. For one year. Then you’ve spent a trillion dollars, all the money is gone, and you’ll have to do put down another trillion dollars next year.
• You might argue that while money spent on contraceptives, beer and cigarettes is not exactly an investment that will produce future economic output, all the money paid for it will now be in the hands of the contraceptives, beer and tobacco industries, and they are going to invest it and produce future output. But that argument is flawed, too: After the welfare bums have filled all the condoms, drunk all the beer, and smoked all the cigarettes you bought for them, they will be broke again and the artificially increased demand for condoms, beer and cigarettes will be gone. All the new condom, beer and cigarettes factories will have nothing to do, and neither will those who produced the parts for those factories. So what you have now is a new recession, that will be even worse than the one you started with.

The reason that tax cuts, and, sorry, especially tax cuts for the rich, work so well is that the rich will invest their money where it generates new income instead of just throwing it out the window, there is no artificially increased demand that leads to malinvestments, and there is less incentive to move capital and production outside the country.

Not so long ago, everybody knew this. What happened?

[Zeddicus]

This is nuts. All of a sudden, politicians all around the world have gone insane, simultaneously.

Actually, they have not gone nuts. What they are doing is calculated, intentional, and well thought-out. The world is now run by a loose superclass of political and bureaucratic elites who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

It's the modern-day equivalent of medieval royalty, and what they are doing now is a brilliant capitalization on an intentionally-manufactured economic downtown to cement their power by making us, their peasants, ever more dependent on the crumbs they throw to to us.

[6SJ7]

After the welfare bums have filled all the condoms, drunk all the beer, and smoked all the cigarettes you bought for them, they will be broke again and the artificially increased demand for condoms, beer and cigarettes will be gone. All the new condom, beer and cigarettes factories will have nothing to do, and neither will those who produced the parts for those factories.

First the government mismanagement creates an equities bubble, then a housing bubble, and now a condom bubble! The fallout from that could be ugly.

[Incorrigible]

Thanks for the good logic. I’m going to put it to use.

[Quickgun]

And, since alcohol and tobacco are heavily taxed, the dems get a lot of thier money back.
I once stated that the govt. was more addicted to tobacco than the people who use it.

[Red Boots]

Not so long ago, everybody knew this. What happened?

You know, I read something interesting along the lines that increased solar radiation stimulated the human brain to think better. It sort of makes sense if you remember that we are in a period of very low solar radiation right now.