The title of
this article comes from Steven Pearlstein writing for the Washington Post in a wonderful article, The Magical World of Voodoo Economics, debunking a lot of GOP
assumptions. Things they just don’t believe or ignore, like the 20th
century. But my favorite is how the GOP constantly promotes the ideas that
regulations will destroy jobs and are economic infeasible, by taking them out
of economic interactions. He writes:
One recent example comes from the cement industry, which now
warns that new regulations limiting emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen
oxide could close as many as 18 of the 100 cement plants in the United States,
resulting in the direct loss of 13,000 jobs.
Then again, where do you think all those customers of the 18
plants will get their cement? Do you think they might get some of it from the
other 82 plants, which in turn might have to add a few workers to handle the
additional volume? Or that a higher price for cement might induce somebody to
build a modern plant to take advantage of the suddenly unmet demand? Or perhaps
that higher prices for cement will lead some customers to use another building
material produced by an industry that will have to add workers to increase its
output? And what about the possibility that the regulation will encourage some
innovative company to devise emissions-control equipment that will not only
allow some of those plants to remain open but generate a few thousand extra
jobs of its own as it exports to plants around the world.
Such possibilities are rarely, if ever, acknowledged in these
“job-scare studies.” Also left out are any estimates of the benefits that might
accrue in terms of longer, healthier lives. In the Republican alternative
universe, it’s all costs, no benefits when it comes to government regulation.
As they see it, government regulators wake up every morning with an
uncontrollable urge to see how many jobs they can destroy.
For the whole article see http://www.washingtonpost.com/the-magical-world-of-voodoo-economists/2011/09/07/gIQARBiEIK_story.html
People have NO idea what the economy of the 19th century was like. A very chaotic form of capitalism, with a major financial panic and depression in nearly every decade.
ReplyDeleteIt is amusing to hear the GOP candidates talking trash about keynesianism, when the trickle-down economics they espouse is actually a variant of it.