I’m just trying to understand

Suppose my family was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and some members of my family were unemployed. Would it improve matters if we borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on things like painting the house, new clothes, and a new car?


I don’t think so.


Suppose it was my little North Central Idaho town of 20K people that was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and unemployment was trending up. Would it improve matters if the town borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on random stuff?


I don’t think so.


Repeat at the large city level.


Repeat at the county level.


Repeat at the state level (California for example).


Is it going to make things better in any of those cases?


If not, then why would it make sense to do it at the national level?

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8 thoughts on “I’m just trying to understand

  1. Alot of people borrow money from lack of luxury, not from lack of necessity. And some borrow from lack of necessity, screw the luxury. You are right. It wouldn’t improve matters or make sense to spend money on “new” things. Or things that don’t immedietly affect your survival.
    Alot of the problem seems to boil down to overpopulation. There would be more jobs, food, space and money. Theoretically.

  2. Ignore and redirect; It’s not about making things better. It’s about creating new government powers and new government programs, and about paying for favors from powerful left-wing organizations such as the UAW and the Teacher’s union.

    There is no such thing as over population. That’s a myth that I’ve been hearing since our public school teachers tried (successfully I might add) to scare the shit out of us little kids in the first grade, saying we were facing a “population time bomb”. That was in 1963. Rachel Carson had just published “Silent Spring” in 1962. It was all the rage, and others tapped that same, and similar, meme to scare the shit out of more and more kids. Nothing has changed since then. They’re still at it. Don’t fall for it. Be strong. Make all the babies you think you can raise.

    In fact, in a free society, more people equals more productivity and more opportunity. More inventors, more builders, more innovators, more resource creation (oh yes) and more of everything we humans consider valuable. It’s when we’ve been duped into believing that people are nothing but “consumers” and polluters and that government has to take care of people that the ugly, sick notion that humans are a burden is promoted.

    Since the first and most basic foundation of socialism is an indictment of humanity, and since every justification for government interference is based on that indictment, socialism, by definition, must create and foster a negative view of humanity.

    Don’t fall for it. Stay strong.

  3. “More people equals more productivity”
    Wouldn’t more people lead to a higher rate of the consumption of resources? Would there not be diminished returns, eventually? Or will the death factor always come out on top?

    “More opportunity”
    If there are X amount of jobs available in a city, and there are more people than X… what then?

  4. “Wouldn’t more people lead to a higher rate of the consumption of resources? Would there not be diminished returns, eventually? Or will the death factor always come out on top?”

    A higher rate of consumption, yes, but (in a free society) an even higher rate of production.

    If you’re worried about space, understand that the vast majority of land on planet Earth is undeveloped. You could place the entire population of the U.S. for example, in Texas, and each family would have several acres. Then there are the oceans, which cover some 70% of the globe. You can always move out onto the water. We have a long, long way to go before this is even a remote consideration.

    “If there are X amount of jobs available in a city, and there are more people than X… what then?”

    I know that’s how we’re supposed to think, but consider this; There were exactly zero jobs available here, before Moscow, Idaho was built. Now there are thousands of jobs. How did that happen?

    How many jobs were there in North America before the Europeans came. Now there are about 100 million. Did we steal 100 million jobs from the Indians, or did we create those jobs?

    For approximately 10 years of my life I worked for other people (age 8 to about 17) Ever since then (I’m now 50) I have been self employed. During that entire time of being self employed I have also employed other people. Is it starting to sink in? You show up on a bare patch of ground during the Homestead Act. You bust the sod using a plow you built, pulling it by hand. Fast-forward 100 years, and you now see a modern agri-business employing dozens. You are consuming food, yet you are producing far more than you consume.

    Henry Ford started with nothing but an idea. He took that idea and turned bare ground into a factory, in which he eventually hired people at twice the going wage, just to keep them on. He and his workers consumed automobiles, but they produced vast numbers of them beyond those they consumed. Is it sinking it yet?

    Oil, which we regard as an important resource, was nothing but a dangerous goo until some innovative people realized that it could be used for many beneficial purposes. Gold was nothing but a pretty metal you found in streams, until innovative humans came up with hundreds of important industrial uses for it.

    Tomorrow someone will find a use for something else that was previously thought useless, and that will create opportunities for others.

    The radio spectrum we pretty useless until some geniuses found a use for it. Today it is considered a vital “resource” and we continue to find ways to make more use of it. How many are employed (or have opportunities) in industries that take advantage of radio communications of all kinds?

    Bill Gates was a young punk with a vision. Now Joe and millions of others are employed, making all our lives richer in the process, enabling us to work and communicate more efficiently in virtually every industry you can name. An industry now exists (home and small business computing) where none existed before, because of this young punk with a vision. Is it sinking in yet? I could on all day.

    In short, there is no such thing as a fixed number of jobs, nor a fixed pool of resources. Belief in these things as fixed is one of the major errors in thinking that serve as the foundation of socialism.

    Human beings, and the creative mind of Man, are a resource unto themselves.

    The only resource I can think of that is in dangerously short supply is Liberty. Liberty is that which allows all these other things to happen. Without it, the well dries up, and then, yes, we starve as we fight for the spoils left behind by the vanquished innovators and producers. Then we’re on the long march back to the stone age, when the planet supported a few hundred thousand humans. Take a look at some of the poorest nations in Africa if you doubt me.

    I am fond of using the following rhetorical statement (please don’t take it personally);

    Your lack of imagination is proof of nothing but your lack of imagination.

  5. You just don’t understand progressive Social theory.
    If what you are doing does not work, blame the previous Conservative Administration. Then double what you are doing and throw more money at it – Rinse and repeat until the next crisis requires attention.

    The answer to failure is doing more of the same, faster and harder!

    When are the Adults going to take back the Government?

  6. Kevin, that will happen about the time that we start to realize that “keeping up with the Jones” is a childish way to act. You cannot individually continue to increase your debt and expect to come out ahead, nor can we as a people and a nation continue to do so.

    “You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

    –Dr. Adrian Rogers

  7. “Is it going to make things better in any of those cases?”

    Better for whom? The context and form of the question imply that the “whom” in question is the family, city, state, etc, specified prior to the question. But when it is done by politicians the “whom” is not the city, state, or nation, even though that is the justification they will use. The “whom” is themselves and/or their “friends”; the city, state, or nation just gets to pay for it — literally, in the form of cash, and also in the form of lost opportunity and impediments to pursuing any remaining opportunities.

    Re: a shortage of resources. As Lyle said so well: it is a myth. Jerry Pournelle wrote an essay (mid 1980’s, don’t remember the book) about metal resources. He used the numbers for U.S. consumption of several industrial metals and computed a U.S. per capita usage. He then computed the total amount needed to extend that consumption to the entire world. Then assuming ore with only 2% metal came up with a number for total ore required. The punch line: there are over 40,000 asteroids that are known to be larger than that. And some of those are thought to be near 100% metal.

    We don’t have a resource shortage; there are just too many people who lack imagination getting in the way of those who don’t have such a lack.

  8. I’m not trying to be argumentative.. But I find it odd that you can state I lack imagination from very short comment posts.
    I am merely asking questions and saying “comments” where I am curious about the rebuttal.
    Again, not trying to be argumentative, but I need to point out that Metal is a resource that can be used over, and over..
    Coal, Fossil Fuels, and Petrolium cannot.. Sure, it could all be a myth. We could have endless resources. I am not arguing that. In fact, the last word I originally ended with, is “Theoretically”.

    I love this blog. You give so little, and everyone gives back alot 🙂 Thanks for the replies.

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