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Being Unilateral Leaves Little Surreptitious Holes In Theory
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Date Posted: 22:55:34 02/11/04 Wed
Rob posted a very good article recently, he used this article as support for his claim that Bush fixed the economy (if I took his post correctly, that is). However, all it really does is point out the fact that we are in a very different world now than we have ever been in.
Now we have this Golobal Economy. This new thing is something that requires all of the old ways of measuring our economy to go out the window. What it fails to address is the fact that our old ways of _fixing_ the economy need to go out the window as well.
Conservatives have a good way of fixing our economy that they call "trickle down economics." The gist is that by putting more money in the hands of corporations and the wealthy, we create an environment in which there is more money to be re-invested into the American economy, like new businesses, R&D, and ultimately the creation of new jobs. It makes sense too, and it works.
Liberals believe that putting money in the hands of the middle class is best way to improve the economy. They have the idea that putting money in the hands of the people that will spend it is the best way to boost the pocket books of large companies and the wealthy, so that they can re-invest in the American economy and create new jobs. This makes sense also, and it works.
The key difference here is that we are not in the old world any more. Putting money in the hands of the rich simply means that the rich have more money to invest. Where are they going to invest it? The same place a large company will - Wherever they think they will get the largest return. The fact is people, that translates to over seas investments. Companies will move operations out of country and open new business centers in other places in order to maximize "productivity," and to maximize their dividends to shareholders. And investers will invest in the companies that follow this strategy because it's the one that works the best. This effectively turns "trickle down" economics into "trickle out" economics. I don't have a catch phrase for the liberal view, but ultimately it too will lead to the same kind of thing. American companies are just going to move whatever they can to cheaper labor markets.
If we get a democrat in office, and taxes are rolled back to taxing the wealthy, all we will see is a boom in the economy because businesses have already benefitted from the Bush years and moved their investments off-shore. More money in the hands of us working class people will just add enough to the coffers of the rich to compensate for increased taxes placed on them.
The economy is not something that our political officials have much control over. It is going to grow now because companies are settling down after a period of great transition, and things are beginning to stabalize. Bush doesn't need to "Fix" anything any more than Clinton did. The only thing that a president and a congress can do is speed things up or slow them down.
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