So, I wasnt planning on commenting on the RNC until after it was over, I dont wanna do a day by day as that's kinda demanding, but the first night was based on things like economic prosperity and leaning into economic populism.
I didnt watch every speech tonight, I probably missed more than I didn't, but I did see a lot of economic populism tonight, and I wanted to tell people, don't buy it.
The right was pushing for a lot of populist things that sound good like tax cuts, and not giving money to illegals, and jobs and prosperity, and surprisingly unions and anti corporate talk so I wanted to explain how trickle down economics actually works.
The GOP loves corporations. They might be embracing a more populist approach here, pushing back against corporations shifting jobs overseas (everything here relates back to jobs jobs jobs), but make no mistake, in their core view, corporation are "job creators". Basically, due to how capitalism works, poverty is the natural state of humanity. Property is a natural right, and it's justified in labor. The proper way to get money to afford goods and services needed to live is to work. Now, the rich own most property. That's how capitalism works. And they generally make jobs. In the trickle down mentality, corporations are "job creators", and their problem with corporations these days seems limited to shifting jobs overseas and giving them to illegals rather than to middle class citizens of the US.
But yeah, basically, everything in their perspective is jobs jobs jobs. The GOP claims to be the party that better understands how to create jobs. And they believe we need to deregulate the economy and give rich people tax cuts so they can create jobs.
And then the rest of us are supposed to work those jobs. Like, we're supposed to be "grateful" for the "opportunities" that these glorious "job creators" give us.
Now, it's easy to attack democrats when you're not in power, and it's easy to blame them for complex problems like inflation. And I've been hearing them say Biden's "disastrous" policies like taxes on the rich and corporations and small business owners are leading to inflation. No, corporate greed did that. Because at the end of the day, businesses are only interested in maximzing profits. Job creation is secondary to them and their big interest is to maximize the work done for the minimal amount of money. So jobs inevitably pay poorly and are miserable to work.
And on the consumer side of things, businesses will sell the least product for the most money and used the supply shocks of COVID as an excuse to just take the public for all that it was worth and raise prices as high as possible. Democrats did little to contribute to the problem, but they're gonna be blamed, just for being in power and being ineffective in solving the issues.
So, the party out of power is gaining popularity, while the party in power is stuck and unable to do anything, and this populist pitch sounds good. The GOP gets to say they feel our pain while complaining about higher cost of living, and selling the idea lower taxes and deregulation help us all by making things cheaper and allowing people to keep more of their paycheck.
But dont forget the core engine that is capitalism here. It's rich people creating "opportunities" for poor people to work in exchange for money needed to live.
Basically, it's capitalism as we know it in a nutshell, and yes, in my view, its basically wage slavery. It's the idea that we should all work for the glorious "job creators" and give benefits to them to incentivize them to "create jobs" for us, and the economy works best when we dont tax them, or regulate them to ensure fair treatment of workers.
Workers are then expected to sink or swim. Of course, in their econ 101 based view, they'll say that their ideas are better for the little guy as they'll have better jobs with better pay because big government wont be taxing them or imposing regulations on them that would otherwise make them less likely to provide for workers.
But corporations dont wanna provide for people. Again, their big goal is to make a profit. They will inherently hire as few people for the lowest amount of money possible, to do as much work as possible, so they can sell a product for as much money as possible, so they get as much money as possible. And they rake in record profits, while the rest of us slave away working for them. That's trickle down economics. Basically, if we make businesses happy, they'll make the rest of us happy.
It's actually screwed up if you actually think about it in a vacuum.
So why is the left better? Because the idea that the right is better at creating jobs is a myth. It doesnt really matter who is in office. As things stand, with Joe Biden, we have "full employment". We're literally at the highest level of employment capitalism can sustain. We had inflation and that sucked, and I admit cost of living has taken a hit, but that's been subsiding and the real question is raising living standards. Which begs the question how do you do that?
Well, regulations. Businesss wont just provide a living wage. You have to make them. And Biden has been for a $15 minimum wage. He just hasnt been able to pass it because he lacks the votes in congress. Because there arent enough democrats and the GOP is against the idea. Now, would a higher minimum wage actually cause unemployment? Probably not. The actual tradeoff between the amount of jobs lost from a minimum wage and the amount of people helped is actually lopsided in favor of the minimum wage. Especially when we're already at full employment.
Unions. I mean, it was weird seeing the teamsters guy speak at the RNC tonight, because the GOP is historically anti union. But unions are important in actually raising living standards, because to actually make the wealth trickle down, you need to hit the corporations like a pinata. You need worker bargaining power to actually leverage the corporations to pay workers what they're worth. Now, the corporations hate unions, because they know unions make them do things like pay more money, and offer better working conditions, and they wanna work people as hard and long as possible for as little money as possible. That's how capitalism works. So despite the GOP leaning in a weird pro union direction, it's the dems who are pro union. And Biden has been just about the most pro union president since FDR. So wtf, teamsters? Why talk to the GOP? I do welcome a GOP that is more pro union, but the dems are the ones who are pro union, and Biden has been pro union. He's gone almost full Bernie on that front.
So gee, it almost sounds like democrats are pro working class. Like more than the GOP? So why support the GOP and not the dems? Vibes? because they can promise crap they cant and wont deliver on but you arent happy where you are so you'll just buy into this mindless rhetoric?
I get it, inflation sucks. But let's not blame democrats and taxes for it. Heck, all the tax increases Biden has done are on the wealthy. Normal people arent getting their taxes raised. And while Trump is promising tax cuts do you really think lower taxes are better for you than unions and wage increases? Really? Again, if you want better working conditions, you vote democrat.
If anything the democrats don't do enough. Like man, if you think tax cuts are great, you should love my UBI plan. My UBI plan would give several thousands more your typical household than the trump tax cuts would. Of course, then they scream about inflation and national debt. Well, guess what? Your tax cuts cause inflation too by pumping more money into the economy for you to spend on stuff. And national debt? Man, let me tell you, you realize the GOP tends to literally cause massive budget deficits that greatly balloon the national debt, and have since Reagan, right? So don't give me that crap.
The fact is, the reason I'm so meh on democrats is they don't do ENOUGH. I mean, I actually am so blackpilled on the "job creator" narrative I dont think jobs are the answer to the economy as well. And we should implement a universal basic income. And make work more voluntary because there's more to life than wage slaving to corporations. And this would greatly improve the economic well being of the working classes. yes, it would give to "lazy" non workers too, but thats the point. Just as unions improve conditions for the working class, so would liberating workers from being forced to work. Businesses would be forced to pay workers more or automate away undesireable jobs. People would be able to better pursue their own happiness.
Now, again, the GOP would likely say my ideas would be inflationary. Well, all good things are technically inflationary. People having money to spend is inflationary. Tax cuts funded by deficit spending...are inflationary. So let's get away from this BS double standard that spending money funded via taxes is inflationary, while somehow tax cuts arent just helicopter money funded by the creation of new money dumped into the economy, or alternatively refusing to remove old money.
It's BS. Heck, that's my entire point. the GOP's entire pitch on the economy is bull####. it is. It's nonsense. Of course, for most, explaining these concepts to people is difficult, and most dems would rather lecture people about how the economy is great and they're stupid if they disagree so people have some idea the dems are out of touch (and to be fair, the neoliberal, centrist types are), so basically, we get blamed for everything while the GOP just throws mindless attacks on us while claiming to be populist.
But again, it's literal nonsense. These guys ultimately want us to be slaves to corporations. They're not our buddies, they're not our friends. They might be making the right overtures toward us to appear like they care more and given the bad optics of the Biden administration they might be more effective, but they're still functionally the same people they were when Mitt Romney ran in 2012 and Reagan ran in 1980. They just have a more populist window dressing.
Donald Trump's first term was effectively repackaged reaganism with populist vibes. We already know what we get from Trump. Don't buy it in his second term. His economics arent great. Biden's are actually better. Dems just suck at marketing. Biden's biggest flaws come from not being progressive ENOUGH, not being too far left. And if you wanna make america great again for real, never forget what what did it was the new deal coalition, not the right. The right has been the antithesis of progress since at least Herbert Hoover.
So elect lefties. Elect progressives. Elect human centered capitalists. Heck even elect democratic socialists. Those guys are the ones that will ensure you get the best deals. Trump is a demagogue, he's always been one and he's selling you the same load of crap he did in 2016. Don't buy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment