Hi, first post. Long time obsessor over economics and philosophy., but my academic training is in mathematics and ecology. I have a question, I know it is asking a bit much and quite a bit of speculation, but here goes… also, I am going to refer to the US economy, but the question could be generaliz…

Thanks for the thorough reply, it will take a while to digest all that!

Disclosure.. you would probably consider me a Keynesian - I don’t consider myself one… but I am trying hard to see the flaws in my own understanding - or I am just trying to formulate my own understanding at least! === So is borrowing for consumption is bad, but borrowing for production is good? I…

The way I am reading your concerns, It may be best to ditch thinking of the economy as a “thing”, and more of a process of action. To think of markets as “failing”, being "technological, or reachining equalibrium, or whatever is simply a conformation bias or a narration fallacy. Economics can not p…

You have to separate debt from inflation even though, at least in our current system, the two seem to be intrinsically bound. Debt is not inherently inflationary and yes it can elevate productivity. In fact, debt is the main source of productivity gains (the whole point of a financial system, where…

Borrowing for consumption is good if the consumer can actually bid it away from “productive” endeavors without regretting his/her decision to do so. In other words, if the consumer values those loanbale funds more than the producer, then those loans (consumer credits) are, for lack of a better term…

Thanks for the replies everyone! However, can someone explain it in a more “basic” way without too many assumptions? The situation: The govt takes weatlh (“value”, money, etc) from one party and gives it to another party. The question: Why is this much much (“blind throwing of a dart”) more likely…

Actually, this is much less bad than some of the other things government does with its revenues. It is much preferable that the government take from some and give to others than that the government take its revenues and launch a war because the economic output is simply wasted, it’s as if you took …

From the OP: The amount of regulation is neither here nor there. The trouble with the Repub/Dem debate over “how much” regulation is the assumption that regulation is like a dial and if it is just tuned to the right number of regulations/regulators, why, the economy will abound! The problem is th…

That seems to be a more clear answer, Clayton. Thanks for that. I might restate a point as… that’s all the govt does is redistribute wealth. Of course, as you noted, some of that redistribution is for the purposes of destroying wealth through war. But aside from billion dollar bombs and dead soldie…

No, that’s the whole point, the billions of dollars spent on bombs are completely wasted. The fact that everyone kept busy building bombs is kept from doing something else means that the prices of all the things they would otherwise have been working on are higher (due to lower supply of labor in t…

Consumption and productivity in a free market

Economics Economics Questions

John_James July 4, 2012, 2:52pm 13

If you need real world evidence, have a look at what was plastered everywhere during The War.

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Consumption and productivity in a free market

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