OneTrueLiberal

Hilo de estudios locales e independientes de universidades Venezolanas detallando como las politicas socialistas destruyeron la economia, todos los estudios son pre-2018 para evitar la excusa de las sanciones. ABRO HILO🧵

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Or you know, just give em a 2% raise and call it a day 😆

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Well, yea. It's literally designed to erode your savings and make you spend them. Also a great opportunity to lower workers' wages without changing them. Just don't give them a raise.

Socialists continue to be the flat earthers of economics.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero The US is much more of a socialist welfare state today than it ever was back then. No housing credits, no guaranteed student loans, no medicare, no medicaid, no obamacare, etc. It is actually insane to argue the US had a smaller welfate state then lol

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Well, no, as I said in another comment, back then the US was a "socialist welfare state"

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Like I'm sorry, but it is absurdly naive to believe people were stupider back then and happily paid 90% in fucking taxes. That ain't happening ever dog lmao

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Nobody paid nowhere close to 70%, much less 90%. The same tax loopholes and workarounds people use now were used back then. There's records of this if you research it. Any such effective enforceable tax rate would completely kill business growth and reinvestment.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Usually these sweatshops, which although they have horrible standards and practices, provide better wages than any local alternative. Hence why people work for them. The issue to tackle would be why local industry is so poor and stagnant, which usually relates to policy.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero For the same reason you can buy a banana for cents in comparison to it's price in the US. Purchasing power and cost of living are massively different, and as such products and services are cheaper as well, that includes labor.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Nobody takes MMT seriously. It is just Neo-Keynesianism repackaged in a stupider wrapping.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Well, economics has also produced such gems as Modern Monetary Theory, so excuse me for being sceptical about its claims. Not saying they're full of shit, but if someone presented you with socialist economics, you'd rightly say they were biased due to their ideology

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Because the subjective theory of value and time preference are fundamental concepts of modern economics. They are required for the most basic of theories and predictions. They are not complex hoops to jump through.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero So why aren't we suspicious of capitalist economists when they jump through hoops to explain why capitalism is great?

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero This is just not true. Capitalism does not require unlivable wages or foreign misery. Hell, China became the factory of the world precisely because of it's abundant labor supply and low costs, and the Chinese live better each year as productivity rises and wealth accumulates.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Btw, not saying capitalism isn't good at what it does - it's just that the byproduct of what it does is misery (which is often kept oversees so that people don't have to trouble their pretty little heads about it and can consume in peace).

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Imma give you a minute to catch up and respond to a few of my responses or we'll be here all day mutually catching up lol

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Theoretically, market forces should lower the price of goods to the point of near-unprofitability. And in general new things (e.g. computers, smartphones, aplpiances etc.) cost less now than they used to 30 years ago. But for some reason people seem to be having a harder time now

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Another issue brought by the incessant consumption/investment required to not lose the value of the wealth in your hands is that it leads to malinvestment. People throw money at investments/purchases they wouldn't make otherwise. Resources stop being efficiently allocated.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Absolutely! But as you said, the average person is a lil fucking stupid. In our current system proper savings means investing in something that doesn't get eroded by inflation, most people won't do that. The suckers saving in liquid cash get a 2% invisible tax on their savings.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero To be fair, 99% of people don't. I gave the absurd example of "You wouldn't work for 1 cent a day" earlier, but if I lag behind the rest of the market on hourly compensation by $1 I start losing employees. I'm not exaggerating, it happened to me lmao

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Since you pointed out earlier that nobody should agree to work for $1 if they have to pay $1.50 to survive, I mean.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Absolutely, the thing we disagree on is what has caused purchasing power in the lower income sectors of society to stagnate in the past few decades. I personally think it's horrible economic and monetary policy. You may think it's something else. That's the discussion.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero And they have to run them because if food prices were up to the free market and if some people didn't get food stamps, they'd have no way to make ends meet. This isn't a healthy situation - normal work should earn you enough to sustain yourself, I think you'd agree?

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero That's because there is no objective worth to anything. Some people may like the food I sell, others may not. The value of my product and the labor needed to produce it is different for each of those groups.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero The discussion about the value of labor can never be decided, because it's impossible to prove the objective worth of anything. But most people will agree that a banana is not worth 8h of labor, even if they can't rigorously explain why.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero But, on the other hand, people do indeed ignore longer term risks and definitely don't care about whatever risks the workers took when producing. The consumer only cares about noticeable harm caused to themselves. Hence why I'm in favor of banning shit like Asbestos.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Eh, you're not totally wrong but also not totally right. Most businesses really don't want to kill the people that pay them lmao People also do stop using products if they make them sick in the short term, and competition can easily take your place if your reputation takes a hit

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero It's not just brainwashing or propaganda. It's a system that destroys the incentive to save and accumulate wealth and promotes constant spending and consumption via artificially cheap credit. Constant consumption is the name of the game. Everything to make the GDP line go up.

@DFMBRollins @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero It only works when the consumer hasn't been brainwashed. Unfortunately, the west has been bombarded with consumerist propaganda for decades, to the point where people don't even notice it anymore. And yea, you're right the average consumer doesn't give a shit.

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero Constant inflation, regardless of how low, also makes wage increases meaningless for most worker's. What does it matter to make more money on paper if in a couple of years your purchasing power will be the same as before?

@nigstnguemyanus @fratello_ritsu @BlipSethika @TheGrandZero The second big issue I see is housing, which has eaten a bigger chunk of worker's paychecks over time. Housing went from a product sold to satisfy a need to an investment to preserve or increase wealth. We can point to multiple things, from inflation to the sub-prime bubble.