The idea that there is no cost to any of the items on the Progressive Agenda is perhaps the most convincing argument that most leftists are fools. You never hear the argument "Yeah it costs $x, but it's worth it and here's why." Ever. Instead it's "One more big push and we'll be over the top and we can deliver the toys to all the good little boys and girls. I think I can. I THINK I can."
No consequences, ever, for any of their agenda. This from people who scoff at Art Laffer, who (depending on your political persuasion) either did the same for conservatives, or discovered the shocking truth that taxes have a disincentive effect. But that's a post for another day.
Zogby did a poll of almost 5000 US adults, and asked them eight questions about economic issues. The questions were basic (some would say easy):
- Restrictions on housing development [zoning, land use mandates, wetland preservation, etc] make housing less affordable (with less land to build on, buildable land increases in price, duh).
- Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (true; it increases the cost of providing the service by the amount of the license fee; it may reduce the supply of service providers, which will also raise the price).
- Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (true).
- Rent control leads to housing shortages (landlords are disincentivised to build more rental housing).
- A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (only if it has 100% market share).
- Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (TJIC just did a spectacular post on this).
- Free trade leads to unemployment (some jobs are lost as goods made overseas become cheaper, but other jobs are created as our exports increase; overall it's indisputable that the net is positive).
- Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (as unskilled labor is made more expensive, employers unsurprisingly hire less of it).
Very conservative, 1.30This is the number wrong out of 8. Liberals got almost 70% of these wrong. That doesn't happen by chance.
Libertarian, 1.38
Conservative, 1.67
Moderate, 3.67
Liberal, 4.69
Progressive/very liberal, 5.26
I'm certain that you could create another such list which would flip these scores (sample question to trip up conservatives: "The War on Drugs increases the number of innocent people killed by police."). But that's a post for another day. Today's post is about why liberals are such fools.
They flinch from the consequences of their policy prescriptions. They psychologically have so bought into the Fifth Freedom (Freedom from Consequences) that they really think that there's no adverse reaction to their plans. Higher tobacco taxes cannot be regressive, because they're trying to help those poor victims of the Evil Tobacco Companies. And so smokers (mostly lower middle class) pay an extra grand a year in tax. Same thing for gas taxes/higher mileage standards (less safe, more expensive cars), "Green" power (3-4 times as expensive per kilowatt-hour and resulting in more pollution and CO2 emissions from backup generators). Same thing for Light Rail (it kills local bus systems serving the poor to provide prestige projects serving upper middle class neighborhoods).
It's hard to stare the consequences of your actions in the eye, but these are the same people who think they're fit to rule because they're so much smarter than that Sarah Palin ditz.
4 comments:
same people who think they're fit to rule because they're so much smarter than that Sarah Palin ditz.
But you're missing the point: Sarah Palin may have gotten BREAST IMPLANTS!!!!1111!!111ONE111!
As Margaret Thatcher said, The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. To which the typical socialist responds Well then raise the taxes on the rich.
The threshold for being among "the rich" gets progressively lower as tax revenue continues to drop. Everything the socialists/progressives do is intended to tighten their control over people's lives, not make them better.
Liberals got almost 70% of these wrong.
Proficiently Stupid... Looking at it from a glass half full point of view :)
Depends on what you mean by wrong.
#3 is wrong: The standard of living in this country has been declining since 1964, when President Johnson declared a war on poverty. While the poverty level has held relatively steady since then at 12.7%, the cost of maintaining that level has risen 30% of individual income in 1965 to 50% of household income in 2003. Where families could get by at a given standard of living with a single breadwinner, it now takes two. This means that the real poverty level has nearly quadrupled since the war on poverty began.
#7 can be true, if you import everything and manufacture nothing, which is more and more becoming true, or if removing import restrictions places foreign competition at an advantage. For example, no minimum wages, no pollution laws, no OSHA, no mandatory free healthcare means foreign factories have less overhead, and can offer lower prices. Similarly, allowing countries like China to hide the fact that their products are inferior also place domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage.
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