Kulaf wrote:You can certainly "create" demand through supply. Just look at the personal computer, the cell phone, etc. Marketing companies like Apple and Microsoft are masters of convincing people that you "need" this or that product.
No, no, no, no, no.
Will all of you quit confusing marketing with supply and demand?
It's fairly obvious when you look at the creation of any technology or otherwise that there's an unmet demand in the beginning. Marketing is expanding the demand, but the initial demand is still there. All else is falsity.
When you talk about a Slinky or any other entertainment product, no one mass produces it by the thousands without testing it first to see if people like it. No company goes into a bank and gets a loan based on anything other than hard numbers that the bank can double check. Things that look like genius because no one ever thought of them before is merely a misplaced idea of the individual's mark on history rather than the general sweep of a few billion people on this planet, more than one of whom will come up with the same idea.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
No company goes into a bank and gets a loan based on anything other than hard numbers that the bank can double check.
Actually, I'd disagree with that given the behavior of the banks in the last decade. If you think you're too big to fail then you can loan whatever the hell you like to anyone you want and the government will pick up the tab, right?
WoW!!! It's been a long time since I've been on this board! At least a year or more and I don't do computer games anymore, but I see the political discourse is still going and that is a good thing whether you are left wing or right wing. Personally I am very concerned about the condition of our country. It's been said by some knowledgeable people in the past that democracies have a life cycle. I hope they are wrong! I am concerned and alarmed at the condition of our country as many others are as well. As a conservative, I am not happy with many of the Republican candidates but hope we will get a strong frontrunner eventually. As humans none of us are perfect and that included Ronald Reagan, but he had a good understanding once he got on board as a fiscal conservative that federal government control, spending, taxation and getting into our lives had to be curbed and controlled. Sadly we are at that stage again of too much federal government. I am hopeful that a fiscal conservative front runner will emerge but right now I would not bet any money on it!
It's wishful thinking -that there will be a viable candidate that is truly fiscally conservative, let alone capable of guiding their herding cat of a party towards that. One candidate simply does not have the power to move the government in a direction the collective of those in control do not want it to go. There are too many methods to derail and hold things up in endless pissing contests and earmarks. Actual fiscal conservatism doesn't exist in politics in any meaningful way, because neither side truly has any intention of an overall shrinking of the government. The larger it is the more powerful, and no body of government is going to seek lessening their power. The only shrinking a party is going after are things they don't like (social programs and education), only to funnel the money into what they do like (military spending, corporate welfare). The Republicans are currently the most dangerous imo because they are catering to a very irrational, xenophobic, racist and anti-intellectual party (tea party). I feel any promotion of that kind of anti-intellectualism and promotion of the "otherness" of minorities or immigrants oppresses us a country rather than compels us forward, to become better than. So you have two flavors of equal spending. Both sides are going to spend your money and grow government to some degree, if you're honest you'll just admit that you vote for the party that puts your money into the things that benefit you the most, not claim some sort of "fiscal responsibility". Neither side have any of that.
It all balances out, the misery index was best during Reagan and Clinton's terms and the worst during Carter and Nixon's. No side gets to claim some superiority running the country because both have been equally good and shitty.
Let's assume your hypothesis is correct and the misery index was best under Reagan and Clinton. So let's examine the makeup of Congress during those years:
Reagan 1981 - 1988 (81-82 Dems control both houses, 83-86 Split control, 87-88 Dems control both)
Clinton 1993 - 2000 (93-94 Dems control both houses, 95 - 00 Reps control both houses)
And worse under Nixon and Carter:
Nixon 1969 - 1974 (69-74 Dems control both houses)
Carter 1977 - 1980 (77-80 Dems control both houses)
There seems to at least be a cursory case to support that transitioning control of the spending side of the equation (Congress) seems to have a beneficial effect on the overall economy.
So what do we have on the left that is going to save the day? Socialism? We have growing population groups that do not want to work and take care of themselves but would rather be wards and dependents of federal government handouts. Constantly we hear that the rich is not paying their fair share of taxes. That is a bad joke! The rich is a small group of the general population and you could take 100 percent of their income and it would not keep federal government running for very long. The general population is paying the bill of big government spending and does not have a say in how the money is spent.
Our congress is corrupt on both sides of the aisle. It's intention is to dirty each other up in order to keep everyone in line. It's a good old boy self serving club. We of the general population don't matter! This is why we need term limits on both sides of the aisle. These people need to go to DC to serve us, not themselves! What I'm neglecting to mention is human imperfection. We as humans cannot attain perfection, but we can try to do the best we can. ZZZZZZzzzzz
All of US politics is far closer to fascism than socialism, so trotting out the old canard that the "US Left are socialists" is just silly. Remember socialism is about the government controlling the wealth directly and not having any in private hands - do you really see that from any (serious) US party?
The unemployment/underemployment in the US is not due to "people not wanting to work and take care of themselves". It's due to the continued fallout from the 2008 crash brought on by corporate and banking greed.
Most of the wealth in the US is tied up in the top 10%. Taxes on that demographic dictate federal revenues far more than any other group. If you took 100% of their income it would keep the federal government going pretty much indefinitely, ignoring the other effects of doing that. That small segment is the primary funder of government, not the "general population". It always has been but the general load has moved in the last decade or so to include more of the middle class.
The odd thing is the clash between your first paragraph which is Tea Party-ish and the second paragraph which is pure Occupy Wall Street. You seem confused.
The odd thing is the clash between your first paragraph which is Tea Party-ish and the second paragraph which is pure Occupy Wall Street. You seem confused.
Ddrak wrote:
I don't need to know what you do - I'm making general economic statements. If you believe you can actually create a demand from nothing then I'd be interested to know how.
Dd
Two examples:
Cigarettes
Certain athletic shoes
I'm not talking about tobacco, I'm talking about cigarettes. An entire industry was deidcated (and still is) to convincing people those nasty things really are needed in your life. That was all advertising and marketing.
And some athletic shoes... again, marketing was what convinvec people they "need" those things, so much so they'll occasionally shoot someone and take them off their dead feet.
Marketing produces demand. No way around it.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Marketing doesn't create demand for food but it can sure tell you to eat Kraft (tm) Macaroni-n-Cheese! And yeah, innovation pretty much creates jobs out of thin air. And it seems like if you say that the demand for something like an iPad is some latent thing waiting for someone to come identify and articulate the demand for, then there's basically infinite latent demand for everything that hasn't been thought of yet.
I'm sure there's lots of cases where people identify and exploit the pre-existing demand for something. But it seems just as often that innovation and some tricksy marketing folk can literally create it where there was none before.
So -and here comes my point- maybe our economic policies should be balanced between supply and demand side? I don't have much formal knowledge of economics, but seems like the truth is somewhere in the middle of DD and Embar's arguments. Seems like you'd want to stimulate both sides of the chain to get everything moving.
Harlowe wrote:Humans smoked shit long before advertising existed.
Yes, but there was still innovation. Build a better peace pipe. Grow better shit to load in it. Trade some of that good smoke for a better horse. Not too much different from today
And it seems like if you say that the demand for something like an iPad is some latent thing waiting for someone to come identify and articulate the demand for, then there's basically infinite latent demand for everything that hasn't been thought of yet.
Yes. Now you're getting humans.
And the iPad, like a lot of Apple 'innovations', is just human wish-fulfillment with excellent design.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
I'm not talking about tobacco, I'm talking about cigarettes. An entire industry was deidcated (and still is) to convincing people those nasty things really are needed in your life. That was all advertising and marketing.
And some athletic shoes... again, marketing was what convinvec people they "need" those things, so much so they'll occasionally shoot someone and take them off their dead feet.
Marketing produces demand. No way around it.
I think you've missed my point. Marketing doesn't produce a net increase in demand, which is what drives macroeconomic growth. Marketing moves demand around - people spent some more of their disposable income on cigarettes and shoes and less on other things. That shift in demand doesn't help the economy and doesn't deserve special consideration from government.
In other words, giving tax breaks to Phillip Morris and Nike won't help the economy because the demand they are creating is only pillaging other competing demands. Giving tax breaks to the people BUYING cigarettes and shoes means they'll still have money left to respond to some other marketer's demand shifting and therefore stimulate spending and economic growth.
Now, if there's excess disposable income then giving tax breaks to startups will help a lot because they can actually take advantage of the spare demand floating around in the economy, but until there's that excess then you're better concentrating on where the bottleneck is - demand side and not supply side.
Ddrak wrote:Marketing doesn't produce a net increase in demand, which is what drives macroeconomic growth.
Great post.
Is anyone still confused about what "demand" means when talking about the main driver for economic growth?
Well arguably using the definition of demand that is being floated around here, the only way to increase "demand" is to increase the population of the planet. It seems any sort of new product is just fufilling an unmet demand. But all that does is shift the money that would have been spent somewhere else to the shiny new toy (the goal of advertising).
Kulaf wrote:Well arguably using the definition of demand that is being floated around here, the only way to increase "demand" is to increase the population of the planet. It seems any sort of new product is just fufilling an unmet demand. But all that does is shift the money that would have been spent somewhere else to the shiny new toy (the goal of advertising).
That isn't true.
First of all, people are confusing "demand" for a specific product or service with what "demand" means in supply side vs. demand side debate.
I thought Ddrak did a good job of explaining this. Demand is the power of consumers to purchase, and you can get a net increase in demand by shifting money to people most likely to spend it. That's why policies that favor the wealthy provide very little economic stimulus and policies that favor the poor and middle class provide much higher levels of stimulus. It's a basic fact that supply side proponents choose to ignore, and it's why supply side economics is a proven failure.
WoW!!! It's been a long time since I've been on this board! At least a year or more and I don't do computer games anymore, but I see the political discourse is still going and that is a good thing whether you are left wing or right wing. Personally I am very concerned about the condition of our country. It's been said by some knowledgeable people in the past that democracies have a life cycle. I hope they are wrong! I am concerned and alarmed at the condition of our country as many others are as well. As a conservative, I am not happy with many of the Republican candidates but hope we will get a strong frontrunner eventually. As humans none of us are perfect and that included Ronald Reagan, but he had a good understanding once he got on board as a fiscal conservative that federal government control, spending, taxation and getting into our lives had to be curbed and controlled. Sadly we are at that stage again of too much federal government. I am hopeful that a fiscal conservative front runner will emerge but right now I would not bet any money on it!
We have growing population groups that do not want to work and take care of themselves but would rather be wards and dependents of federal government handouts. Constantly we hear that the rich is not paying their fair share of taxes. That is a bad joke! The rich is a small group of the general population and you could take 100 percent of their income and it would not keep federal government running for very long. The general population is paying the bill of big government spending and does not have a say in how the money is spent.