Her is the source post.
This is magical thinking. Government can get their money three ways basically. Government can tax and/or assign fees to take the money OUT of the economy to spend where it could have otherwise been spent elsewhere. Government can borrow against future taxes and fees and spend it and the interest money plus the loan where it would otherwise been spent. Government can print money there by diluting the purchase power of the money making the economy weaker.
If you want the economy to grow get the government out of the way. Have the government try to grow the economy is a good way to waste it. The politically well connected will get the money and we would not have much to show for it.
How do you know it would have been spent elsewhere?
Over all in most cases it would have been spent and of that mostly it would probably have been spent in a better way.
This is the flaw of all opportunity costs when it comes to taxes.
The problem is not so much that taxes are being raised and then spent (as well as being borrowed), but what they are being spent for. Sending the money to five states to keep their state employee pensions temporarily solvent not so much. Financing the development of technology to develop say the productive mining of an asteroid is more so.
They assume money would have been spent otherwise and would have been spent more productively.
Given on what government does spend on I would assume it would have.
That's a big assumption in a non-rational market.
The market is more rational than human beings. The market WILL correct irrational human behavior. That is not something that can be said of the government. The government is more likely to amplify irrational human behavior.
It effectively argues that government spending on medical research which can save thousands of lives is less productive then people buying chia pets.
Chia Pet doesn't rock my boat But here is a link:
Amazon.com: chia pets
Most Chia Pets are under $20.00 and a good medical research study is a few hundred thousand dollars. I am not opposed to government engaging in pure research which is where one needs to go to advance knowledge. For profit corporations are generally more in to applied research and unfortunately the government does this also and on the behalf of corporations for the profit of corporations. Or at least when the government does not directly subsidize corporations (not tax credits, but money given), remember Solyndia?
Does medical technology that cures diseases contribute less to the economy than growth in Chia Pets?
Given that Chia Pets are just some sort of decoration with a living element like a piloted plant, the part of the economy it has is small; but is done on a personal level so people who purchase such gets value out of the deal. The development of a single medical technological item may or not be larger that Chia Pets. Now if you were to compare all non-utilitarian decorative items vs. medical items who were primarily researched by the government I think the former might over weigh the latter but both for profit and non-profit orgs also do research on their own and that would cause the latter to show more growth if they were included.
Inflation occurs when the total usable, available money supply exceeds the value of assets.
More accurately it is the amount of the available money supply with respect to the value of the over all economy.
Printing more money by itself does not automatically equate to dilution as expanding the money supply at a lower rate than asset production leads to deflation. Printing money by itself doesn't tell us anything in isolation.
And every time the government issues a bond the money supply expands. At this time the money supply exceeds the economy by a factor 2 or 3 and the value of the currency with respect to the economy decreases each year.
Do you think that nuclear power would be in the form it is without government helping?
No we would probably not have adventured so far out and have been more cautious in its development if it were not for government's "help".
Do you think that the biotech would be in the form it is without government helping?
I am not opposed to government funding research. However, when government begins to promote the outcomes of research is where the harm may enter and not just to the economy but may be for environmental harm.
Do you think that wireless communication would be in the form it is without government helping?
I believe that over all the government was more of a hindrance than help on this.
Cable television in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although the rise of free broadcast television during the 1950s greatly damaged Hollywood, many in the entertainment industry saw the great potential profitability of offering television for a fee. After 25 million American televisions tuned to
a musical version of Cinderella in 1957, for example, executives calculated that had Hollywood received $0.25 for each TV, it would have earned more than $6 million in one day without distribution costs.[SUP]
[3][/SUP]
Due to many legal, regulatory, and technological obstacles, however, cable television in the United States in its first twenty-four years was used almost exclusively to relay over-the-air commercial broadcasting television channels to remote and inaccessible areas. It also became popular in other areas which were not remote, but whose mountainous terrain caused poor reception over the air. Original
television programming came in 1972 with government
deregulation of the industry.[SUP]
[1][/SUP]
There's a balance between too much government and too little, but your radical "all government is bad" is clearly the wrong position.
I'm not saying that "all government is bad" but I do mean that when it comes to any government expendeture we should question whether it really does serve the general welfare or is it only serving a parochial interest.
