Ch 11.1 - Economics
"In the future, there will be only one occupation: managing one’s wealth. And most people are going to be unemployed”. - Unknown
Narrative: Government spending is good for the economy. The benefits of regulations outweigh the costs. Capitalism is unfair because people get rich by exploiting the less fortunate.
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a. Incentives
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"Two economists are walking along and there’s a $20 bill in the road. One says it must be fake or someone would have picked it up already." - Unknown
"Economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. Economists love incentives. They love to dream them up and enact them, study them and tinker with them." - Freakonomics
"What is also significant is the chart of Leading Index Economic Statistics (LIES) accumulates data that goes unreflected in the monthly report of Basic Understanding Leftist Lies (BULL) and that weakens the reliability of the Statistical Hearsay Indifference Totals (****). So... the LIES, BULL and **** data continues to compete with the Real Economic Awareness Logistical Index Totality Yield (REALITY). We also can't forget that the Index Notional Statistical American Nuanced Economics (INSANE) has a repeated correlation to the monthly Direct Recent Indicator Values Economic Lies (DRIVEL) report." - Unknown
"Emperor Brandon declared the economy strong, and so it was. - Paulus Krugmanus, 2024 AD" - Unknown
b. Unintended Consequences
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The second most important principle of economics after incentives is the Law of Unintended Consequences. A good way to think about this Law is as follows:
"The great economist Frédéric Bastiat in the 19th century emphasized that the actual costs of policy-inspired destruction aren't what you see but what you don't see. It's the investment that did not take place, the income we did not make, the savings we otherwise would have socked away but did not, the technologies that might have come into being, the jobs that would otherwise have been created, the art and music that never saw the light of day, the progress that would have defined our times that we never saw." - Unknown
"You must learn to control the power within you. You must realize that everything touches everything else. Every action has its own consequence. There is a universal balance. If you bring water here to quench your thirst, you may be turning farmland to desert elsewhere." - Dungeonmaster in the 80's D&D Cartoon after giving the young cavalier all his power.
"Big Mac doesn't cost $3.99, it costs your health.
Netflix doesn't cost $17.99, it costs your time.
Social Media isn't free, it costs your focus.
LESSON: There is always a hidden cost." - Unknown
c. Competition/Trade
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"Rockefeller hated competition. He saw it as inefficient." - Unknown
"Communism will fail because what it attempts is against human nature. No man will provide me with food and other necessities of life unless he is a gainer by it in some way." — Calvin Coolidge
"The Communist Party worries about neighborhoods like this one. The rich don't have the incentive to make trouble, and the needy don't have the power, but the people in the middle have just enough of both. And the pressures they face trying to make their way in modern China—merciless work hours, bad healthcare, constantly rising prices, pollution and food-safety scare, and an erratic stock market—make them likely to lash out." - Unknown
"There is more power in rock music and blue jeans than in the entire Red Army." - Unknown
"When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." - Unknown
"Step 1: Set up systems that make the world's populations dependent on global trade.
Step 2: Shore up control over those systems so that you decide who gets to trade and who doesn't.
Step 3: Dominate the entire human species using weaponized starvation." - Unknown
"You are not rich until you can fly on a private jet without posting a picture." - Unknown
"Americans have a competitive advantage in shopping." - Peter Schiff on why the US Economy is in jeopardy
"It’s impossible to grok how more than a trillion dollars gets produced in an economy based on selling fried chicken nuggets and streamed movies to people with no jobs." - Unknown
"Funny, all the stuff I do not need in life is worth a fortune." - Unknown
"no Amazon my recent order did not meet my expectations, my rampant consumerism didn't fill the ever growing void inside me like I hoped it would but 5 stars I will try again" - @roastmalone_
"The economy is production. Not consumption." - Peter Schiff. Anyone can consume. The ability to make things and build stuff is what defines the wealth of a nation.
"The word 'consumer' is an inherently pejorative term. Of course we're the worthless eater bad guys with description like that, for a consumer does not produce but only takes. Now if they called us 'customers' then that would mean a productive person that patronizes others with their earned money rather than with fake printed wealth like the Rothchilds do in their huge fiat money scam - stealing from us through inflation." - Unknown
"China makes and we buy. China saves and we borrow." - Peter Schiff
"How much **** does a person really need?" - Unknown
"The American Way. People spending money they don't have, to buy crap they don't need, all to impress people they don't like." - Unknown
"You work until the day you die." - Unknown, Hungarian Proverb
"Attendance not required, effort not necessary. No skills needed, education not preferred. Criminal record is immaterial, and no ability for anything is preferential. No drug test necessary. Submit a completed or partially completed application, or even just your name for a $90/hr, 60 hr/week plus hefty bonus paycheck." - Unknown, on not finding any jobs posted with that job description
"The actual minimum wage is not zero. It's worse than that. It's negative when you include unemployment benefits, decreased property values, falling tax revenues and increased crime." - Unknown
"Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock" - Unknown
“decide between priorities... cat food or a cardboard house ... decisions decisions" - Unknown, on the impending economic collapse
"My dad once said to gain here is to lose up there." - Unknown
"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones." - Benjamin Franklin
"The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts." – 1 Samuel 2:7 KJV
d. Capitalism
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"Resources are limited. [Javier Melei, new PM of Argentina understands that the] best way to satisfy unlimited human desires with limited resources is through a free market. Through capitalism. That the government doesn’t have anything." - Peter Schiff
"2 ways to get resources: 1) Deal with Reality 2) Exploit People" - Unknown
"Capitalism is the only system that allows people in the middle and lower classes to own capital. That's it. That's the reality under attack by Marxism, which LOATHES the notion of the unwashed masses owning property, controlling their labor, and investing." - Unknown
"Everything other than capitalism needs propaganda. Capitalism delivers the goods, literally." - Unknown
“I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results.” - Ghostbusters
"Nobody planned the global capitalist system, nobody runs it, and nobody really comprehends it. This particularly offends intellectuals, for capitalism renders them redundant. It gets on perfectly well without them." - Peter Saunders
"I have to give my little rant here and say whatever the word may be for a welfare state so vast that no matter how high the progressive income tax goes they can’t possibly pay for it. So you have to institute a central bank that centrally plans our economy by mucking around with the quality of money and the interest rate. And on top of that a regulatory state so vast where every productive enterprise is regulated, most professionals are licensed, the government outright owns many industries wholesale such as schools, roads, hospitals, trains, electric, sewers, and so on. Whatever the word is for that giant mess, capitalism isn’t one of them." - Keith Weiner, The Gold Exchange Podcast
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