Rob wrote:One thing you learn from being on the internet is that everyone is an expert on economics.
The thing is, there are people online who
are real-life economic experts, and sometimes they post things that ordinary folks can read, compare to opposing views by other economists and make at least a semi-educated decision on which perspective is more plausible; pretending otherwise is the same class of willful ignorance as "I'm not a climate scientist, so why even try to form a defensible position on climate change?"
Maybe with our increasing third world population we can get the third world government of Bernie's and BryanM's dreams within our lifetimes.
You seem to be taking a rather iffy position in this particular chicken-and-egg situation; instead of considering the possibility that third-worlders have been rendered poor/uneducated/etc. by the corrupt/brutal/etc. governments they're forced to live under, you appear to suggest that these awful governments inevitably pop up within groups of innately "inferior" people. If this is truly what you believe, I would suggest considering a couple of things: 1) I've already used Iran as an example, feel free to read up a bit more on how they got to where they are now, 2) You might also want to do a bit of research into some of the forms of government that our own Old World forebears have brought upon, and continue to bring upon, themselves, but if that's not close to home enough for you, 3) You've remarked that, outside of the immigration issue, you find Trump and all he stands for despicable; considering that our "superior" culture just elected him, what does that say about us?
I'm amused by the idea that Americans just aren't consuming enough, and also by the idea that if we just twist one dial everything will return to the way things were in the typically derided Leave it to Beaver era (MAGA!). Has the land mass doubled since then? Not sure where we're going to fit all of these new suburbs.
You appear to be conflating a couple of only tangentially-related issues here, allow me to attempt to sort them out...
- First, there's plenty to criticize in any era, but if there's
one thing that almost
nobody, save the plutocrats, gripes about concerning the Eisenhower years, it's how the economy, especially compared to today's, benefited a lot more people a lot more equally.
- To the best of my knowledge,
nobody has claimed that allowing more immigrants in will in and of itself revitalize the economy, nor that the more we admit the better it will get; what they
have said is that, given a fair opportunity to do so, a vast majority of these can and will participate in and influence the overall outcome in much the same manner as anyone else, as opposed to willfully skulking outside the margins. The overarching problem at the moment is that, in a manner increasingly akin to the places they're fleeing from, most of "anyone else" is living solely off the meager scraps falling from the well-dressed table of the obscenely wealthy, and as is their unregulated wont the latter are dropping fewer of them each day, which brings us to...
- I'm not sure what singular "dial" you're referring to here, but most every economic indicator we have (most notably the continuing failure of inflation to skyrocket despite low interest rates, despite
years of dire warnings from the right, which still, as ever, refuses to change its tune) does suggest that a major issue keeping capital from flowing freely is that fewer and fewer people have money to spend on anything but the bare essentials, which means that, especially if you work in any field which deals in anything
but the bare essentials (save super-high-end luxury goods, of course) you're in trouble no matter how much supply you produce, and may well find yourself joining the legions of folks all saving at the same time, with no spending from anyone else, including the government, to make up the difference.
While I'm here, before you go Full Quash on me and send me chasing in vain after the next shiny object, I'm still interested to hear why, considering their baldly self-defeating stance on illegal immigration, you think the Trump crowd possesses nobler and/or more effective motivations in their stance on legal immigration.
