I'd like to start this post with a quote. "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams
Fallacies are simply the widely held beliefs of the people and tend to fail when put to the test, including some that collapse like a house of cards and others where the truth turns out to be the direct opposite of what has been so often asserted. Many economic policies involve the fallacy of composition, as politicians come to the aid of some particular group, industry, state or other special interest, representing the benefits to them as if they were net benefits to society, rather than essentially robbing "Peter to pay Paul". Many local governments, for example, follow policies designed to attract either new businesses or higher-income people, both of which are expected to provide more local tax revenues. Whole neighborhoods have been demolished and "redeveloped" with upscale housing and shopping malls as a means of "revitalizing" the community. Since policies imposed by government are not voluntary transactions, like those of the marketplace, zero-sum and negative-sum operations can continue indefinitely. Here is another example: One of the ****ing claims against the insecticide DDT, during the successful campaign to get it banned in many parts of the world, was that it caused cancer. In places where DDT had been widely used, cancer rates had in fact gone up. Many of these were countries subject to devastating ravages of malaria, which killed off vast numbers of people. In the wake of using DDT, which killed mosquitoes that transmitted malaria, that disease was drastically reduced, almost to the vanishing point in some places. Now millions of people, who would have otherwise died young, lived long enough to get cancer in their later years, but the DDT did not cause the cancer, and its banning led to a resurgence of malaria that took millions of lives around the world.
Now this is just a basic summary of what I personally think about the fallacies of the United States and/or the world. What do you guys think about it?
Ah. Now I'm seeing an even more important discussion arising amongst this community. [b]Are Liberals doing any good to achieve growth, or are Conservatives closer to achieving growth?
During a Libertarian Era (1865 - 1890), there was very large economic growth, and during a slightly Socialist era (1992 - 2000), there was a very large economic growth.
The difference is if we want to sacrifice rights for big business.
Kevin, I'm not sure that's all so true.... 1865 to 90 is a considerably long time of immigration and growth, so large growth is obvious. But in this era, there was a severe panic in '73 that lasted for until '79. Also, in '93, following some successive increases, another panic that severely busted our market and kept it stagnant until progressivism with Roosevelt, and picked up with WWI..
Also, the right after 2000, we hit a bust in our economy in 01-03 - and it was with George Bush, not Clinton's (not their personal economic policies, but the parties in congress at the time and such..), that we reached the pinnacle of our economic growth in 2007.
It's not really how a legislative body handles growth -- growth can happen regardless of who is sitting at the top to say ' I have moneyz!' ... It is how it fixes the issues regarding a lack of growth.
