On my school forum, there are some pretty interesting/untrue posts. For example, one was titled:
“How will inflation affect teen spending?”
Another one, where I was arguing against minimum wage, someone countered my argument with this:
“With no minimum wage, IF there was a sudden increase in unemployment (what we’re going through is nothing) people could have no choice but to work for long hours and not make hardly anything. They wouldn’t be able to support themselves, and they wouldn’t help the economy by buying anything.”
Brownie points if you can discover the things wrong with this argument.
The next argument, in reply to my next post:
“Herbert Hoover let the economy be vary free. It worked for a long time, but without safegards in place, there was a huge crash. He didn’t like government intervention, and I don’t mean to be post hoc, but the economy didn’t fix itself for a long time and there was huge unemployment. Unskilled labor may also be useless in the near future due to robots and high tech machines. Lastly, the US is a very expensive place to live. With all this anti-NAFTA nonsence going around, we need to consume our own goods. With a very poor workforce, how will we do this?”
My favorite is the part of how the unskilled labor might be useless in the future.
On the large forum on Public Schools and the Mill Levy Override (aka: increased taxation for public schools in our local school district), I proposed that the public schools should be abolished, yet people still clung to the notion that the public school system is AWESOME.
Other good titles:
“Government vs. Fed control of the economy” - in which the person argues that the Fed, not the government should control the economy.
“Economic Impact of a Dictatorship vs. Anarchy” - This Argument you have to see:
“I was reading part of The Undercover Economist, and the author mentioned Olson’s point that a stable dictatorship is better for an economy than anarchy. Assuming that the dictator wanted to maximize his personal gain, he would strip the country of all resources if his reign lasted for only a week. However, if it was to endure, he would have to preserve some resources so that he could continue to steal capital from the citizens in future years. Why is it, then, that so many countries with dictatorships are extremely poor? Is it maybe a case of poverty leading to a dictatorship and not the other way around?”
He seems to make an argument, then questions it with his own questions.
Why does everyone seem to just follow the teacher on Kenyesian economics and pro-government arguments (not for everything, but for its existance and certain policies).
Still, this forum is fun to argue on. I just can’t wait to see what they will argue for next.[:)]
