Literally! Our dodgy teacher has spent all session teaching us dodgy, conservative, pro-rich crap. And I don't like it one bit. We had a two hour lecture tonight. I spent the whole time thanking God that economists don't run the economy. Good God they would bollocks it up something terrible I reckon.
According to economists: Unions are bad Minimum wage is bad Safety regulations are bad Wage rises are bad (unless they're as a result of a rise in GDP) Not growing is bad
These aren't just ideas. These are like laws to them. No one is suggesting there's a trade-off. These things are just wrong according to them. Trevor is the only one so far who'd acceded anything different. Trevor is the man.
And there are other technical-type things they're trying to teach us are absolutes. It's so frustrating. It's no wonder all the business leaders are such economics facists. They probably think they've got no choice.
This is an example. An economy must always, without exception grow because if productivity grows and GDP doesn't, then you'll have unemployment. For buggery's sake. I've always wondered about that whole "growth doctrine", and wasn't really sure why we always have to grow. And it all comes down to one stupid fallacy that anyone could knock over. In reality, we can "grow" or we can all have a three day weekend. Or work a 6 hour day. So there's actually a lot of options. But they teach us there's one, and only one. It's bloody annoying.
So not only is macroeconomics boring (the first time I've ever felt that about anything economics-like), but it strikes me as counter-productive, and even more flaky and less useful than microeconomics. At least microeconomics had a lot of sound logic behind it, and you could conceive of reasonably sensible real world examples.
The only good thing about macroeconomics so far is my hilarious tutorial teacher. Oh, and my shiny red folder for it. Of my four subjects' colours, and think the red is the best.
“Or work a 6 hour day.” Oh, good. I knew I was doing something right ;)
Rainman / 10:43am / 17 August 2004
I’ve been fanatasizing about the Moneyless, Selfless ecomony, like in Star Trek, and I was pondering its practicality.
I suppose people would have to start doing stuff ‘for the love of it’, but I don’t know how that would impact the economy.
I mean, if a baker doesn’t have to pay for his ingredients, nor for his food or anything else, and would have to give his bread away, would he still get up at 6 in the morning and bake bread, without the incentive of making money to survive, if he doesn’t have to?
We work for money so we can buy food and goods. If food and goods come to us at no cost, would we still work?
Willem / 5:31pm / 20 August 2004
I’m pretty convinced that capitalism is the best way we’ve discovered so far of organising ourselves. But that’s not my problem. My problem is with all the flaky assumptions it makes and the bias economists seem to have against the poor.
Ryan / 6:06pm / 20 August 2004
You want an economic theory based on capitalism that is neither flaky nor has something against the ‘economically weak.’
I suppose I should stop talking then, given that all the econi\omy I had was the level 1 for 6 years in highschool, which ended 6 years ago. And which I barely got — still struggling a bit with the price/demand curve. :)
Wil / 7:40am / 21 August 2004