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jackAn analogy I frequently hear argued about is using an analogy of a household budget for a national economy. Usually, someone advocating cost cutting *implies* that analogy, and then someone opposed jumps in to point it out and say it doesn't apply.
The implication is something like, "we only have so much money, so we need to prioritise". Obviously the biases of the person talking are the obvious priorities, so obvious they don't need to explicitly justify them. Usually first in the queue is "whatever the status quo is, we obviously need to keep funding THAT". Obviously vulnerable people and non-voters get shafted. And worrying from a practical standpoint is, "oh, we can't afford long-term investment, we'll patch it quickly and accumulate infrastructure debt, I'm sure a later government will be happy to patch it up properly after it's been underfunded for decades" BZZZZZZT NO THEY WON'T THEY'LL CUT TAXES LIKE AS NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST AS SHORT SIGHTED AS YOU.
And then someone else is like YOU DON'T HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU DELUDED COCKWOMBLE YOU'RE THE GOVERNMENT YOU CAN LITERALLY PRINT MONEY and then there's an argument about how much the government ever SHOULD print money. Usually Hitler is mentioned. I can understand Germans being twitchy about this, but you can be cautious about the wrong things.
Sometimes they don't actually SAY "deluded cockwomble", they just strongly imply it, or allude to a private eye legal letter which said it[1].
But anyway, there is a legitimate question, SOMETIMES you have to cut back necessary services to keep even more necessary services going. But if you're saving money in ways that are are only going to be more expensive shortly, 'saving' money by skimping on all the maintenance, turfing vulnerable people out of hospitals early, cancelling public transport, etc, but that are going to come back around as things fall down and need to be rebuild, now people need even more care, business steer clear because no-one can get to work, you have to ask, "is this cheaper overall, or only in the short term?" And if it's cheaper in the short term, is it ACTUALLY cheaper? Will you actually have a stronger economy in ten years time if you sabotage it now? Or not? If not, should you borrow money now to cover for this?
What are the counter-arguments to this? Well, with varying degrees of validity in various situations, they include: "government spending is a black hole which is essentially always wasted, so spending as little as possible and hoping people survive somehow is for the best", "the country is bust in the long term, we can't sustain the standard of living we have now, so the sooner we start letting people die of it, the sooner we can start rebuilding" and "I've got mine, lets burn the country to the ground as long as rich people end up on top of the pile". You can probably see which of these I sympathise with and which I don't.
But the thing that bugs me is, most of this is ACTUALLY TRUE OF HOUSEHOLD BUDGETS TOO. Getting deeper into debt is usually bad! But if you can borrow at government-bond rates it's a lot lot more attractive. And to some extent, if you're in a money crunch, you cut everything you CAN cut. But seriously, the car you use to go to work, the children's education, the medical care for the family members who are sick (to the extent that touch wood you have to pay for it yourself), cutting those is not normally "oh good, I'm more fiscally responsible now". It's "doom doom doom doom everything is about to collapse". Cutting YOUR SOURCES OF INCOME is an extreme short-term measure. There may be times when it's necessary. But I hate how people seem to be all smug and "oh, well, obviously" about it. The big things you can cut are (a) letting people die and (b) destroying the very things that make you money. Yes, half the time you DO have to cut those. But for god's sake, don't charge in with a machete chopping away with abandon, be sombre :(
[1] I made all this up. Don't cite me.
The implication is something like, "we only have so much money, so we need to prioritise". Obviously the biases of the person talking are the obvious priorities, so obvious they don't need to explicitly justify them. Usually first in the queue is "whatever the status quo is, we obviously need to keep funding THAT". Obviously vulnerable people and non-voters get shafted. And worrying from a practical standpoint is, "oh, we can't afford long-term investment, we'll patch it quickly and accumulate infrastructure debt, I'm sure a later government will be happy to patch it up properly after it's been underfunded for decades" BZZZZZZT NO THEY WON'T THEY'LL CUT TAXES LIKE AS NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST AS SHORT SIGHTED AS YOU.
And then someone else is like YOU DON'T HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU DELUDED COCKWOMBLE YOU'RE THE GOVERNMENT YOU CAN LITERALLY PRINT MONEY and then there's an argument about how much the government ever SHOULD print money. Usually Hitler is mentioned. I can understand Germans being twitchy about this, but you can be cautious about the wrong things.
Sometimes they don't actually SAY "deluded cockwomble", they just strongly imply it, or allude to a private eye legal letter which said it[1].
But anyway, there is a legitimate question, SOMETIMES you have to cut back necessary services to keep even more necessary services going. But if you're saving money in ways that are are only going to be more expensive shortly, 'saving' money by skimping on all the maintenance, turfing vulnerable people out of hospitals early, cancelling public transport, etc, but that are going to come back around as things fall down and need to be rebuild, now people need even more care, business steer clear because no-one can get to work, you have to ask, "is this cheaper overall, or only in the short term?" And if it's cheaper in the short term, is it ACTUALLY cheaper? Will you actually have a stronger economy in ten years time if you sabotage it now? Or not? If not, should you borrow money now to cover for this?
What are the counter-arguments to this? Well, with varying degrees of validity in various situations, they include: "government spending is a black hole which is essentially always wasted, so spending as little as possible and hoping people survive somehow is for the best", "the country is bust in the long term, we can't sustain the standard of living we have now, so the sooner we start letting people die of it, the sooner we can start rebuilding" and "I've got mine, lets burn the country to the ground as long as rich people end up on top of the pile". You can probably see which of these I sympathise with and which I don't.
But the thing that bugs me is, most of this is ACTUALLY TRUE OF HOUSEHOLD BUDGETS TOO. Getting deeper into debt is usually bad! But if you can borrow at government-bond rates it's a lot lot more attractive. And to some extent, if you're in a money crunch, you cut everything you CAN cut. But seriously, the car you use to go to work, the children's education, the medical care for the family members who are sick (to the extent that touch wood you have to pay for it yourself), cutting those is not normally "oh good, I'm more fiscally responsible now". It's "doom doom doom doom everything is about to collapse". Cutting YOUR SOURCES OF INCOME is an extreme short-term measure. There may be times when it's necessary. But I hate how people seem to be all smug and "oh, well, obviously" about it. The big things you can cut are (a) letting people die and (b) destroying the very things that make you money. Yes, half the time you DO have to cut those. But for god's sake, don't charge in with a machete chopping away with abandon, be sombre :(
[1] I made all this up. Don't cite me.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-01 03:53 pm (UTC)