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How does the government cause downturns?

by Miner49er 7y ago

gagege 7y ago
By trying to fix the economy in one area and ignoring the effects of the fix in a bunch of other areas.
- neuronic 7y ago
  Oh right, the free market should fix this! /s
  - hackeraccount 7y ago
    who knows more - a large number of people who have no idea what they're doing or a small number of people who have no idea what they're doing?
    - neuronic 7y ago
      Let's pick EPA for a second here. It's a bit rich to claim they have no idea what they are doing and should be abolished because the free market would fix the world around it. For example, let's cherry-pick the Clean Air Act and its effects: "In addition, because air quality across the United States improved; it is estimated 205,000 premature deaths and millions of other respiratory complications were prevented which resulted in an economic savings of $50 trillion versus the $523 billion invested to meet the Clean Air Act standard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#...
mtgx 7y ago
By doing stuff like "guaranteeing" student loans, encouraging policies of buying homes with high credit, getting the Fed to lower interest rests too much (making credit so cheap and easy companies don't even use their profits to buy/invest in stuff anymore; they even use credit to buy back their stock. Insanity), etc All of that distorts the market and makes everyone spend money they don't actually have. Eventually all of this catches up with everyone, on a country-wide scale.
- _dczq 7y ago
  ==makes everyone spend money they don't actually have.== So much for all that personal responsibility we used to hear so much about. Far easier to blame the government for everything. Companies use credit to buy back stock because we deregulated that activity. It used to be that the government didn’t allow it. This point is actually a counter-point to your theory.

How does the government cause downturns?

gagege 7y ago

By trying to fix the economy in one area and ignoring the effects of the fix in a bunch of other areas.

neuronic 7y ago
Oh right, the free market should fix this! /s
- hackeraccount 7y ago
  who knows more - a large number of people who have no idea what they're doing or a small number of people who have no idea what they're doing?
  - neuronic 7y ago
    Let's pick EPA for a second here. It's a bit rich to claim they have no idea what they are doing and should be abolished because the free market would fix the world around it. For example, let's cherry-pick the Clean Air Act and its effects: "In addition, because air quality across the United States improved; it is estimated 205,000 premature deaths and millions of other respiratory complications were prevented which resulted in an economic savings of $50 trillion versus the $523 billion invested to meet the Clean Air Act standard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#...

mtgx 7y ago

By doing stuff like "guaranteeing" student loans, encouraging policies of buying homes with high credit, getting the Fed to lower interest rests too much (making credit so cheap and easy companies don't even use their profits to buy/invest in stuff anymore; they even use credit to buy back their stock. Insanity), etc All of that distorts the market and makes everyone spend money they don't actually have. Eventually all of this catches up with everyone, on a country-wide scale.

_dczq 7y ago
==makes everyone spend money they don't actually have.== So much for all that personal responsibility we used to hear so much about. Far easier to blame the government for everything. Companies use credit to buy back stock because we deregulated that activity. It used to be that the government didn’t allow it. This point is actually a counter-point to your theory.