I saw this front page post by Joan McCarter in which we find out that:
[E]conomic research suggests that tax cuts, though difficult for politicians to resist in election season, have limited ability to bolster the flagging economy because they are essentially a supply-side remedy for a problem caused by lack of demand.
I thought about this a bit and came to realize that a government plan to buy weasels would be better than tax cuts for economic stimulus.
Wait, weasels?
So what got me to think about this was a discussion I had yesterday about belief formation and how you can convince people of something. It is an established fact that tax cuts are an ineffective form of economic stimulus. This is provable, we have numbers to back it, but this would not convince the average tea partier. Why? Because of how they form their beliefs.
How is this about weasels?
Bear with me. So, what happens is that if you form your beliefs by using logical analysis and your own research, your beliefs can be changed by finding other facts that contradict your original conclusion. So if you originally thought that tax cuts stimulated the economy because you applied critical analysis to some reading you did, then we can use that same process to change your belief. Most of us here on the left tend to operate in that fashion so this makes good sense to us.
However, to convince a tea partier, you have to understand how they came to form their beliefs in the first place. They did not use logic and reason, instead they used faith and got their information from a trusted authority or expert. So instead of reading, analyzing, etc, somebody like Sarah Palin said to them, "we need tax cuts to stimulate the economy," and they thought that must be true because they see Sarah as an authority.
Okay... and the weasels have what to do with this?
Well you see this got me to thinking that the way you convince the tea partiers of how wrong they are is to get one of their authority figures to tell them they are wrong. So, to change their minds you need to get Sarah Palin to tell them that tax cuts don't stimulate the economy. This then lead me to conclude that I'd have about as much luck convincing her to tell them that funding the purchase of weasels would have a stimulus effect.
You're pretty strange...
Yes, I know and maybe it's aided by the decongestants coursing through my system but still, it is true that the government purchase of weasels would have a more stimulating effect on the economy. You see if the government bought weasels they'd have to spend money on:
- People to take care of the weasels
- People to manage the people taking care of the weasels
- People to buy the weasels
- Buying the weasels
- Buying the necessary supplies to care for and house the weasels
- Medical care for the weasels (if you buy a lot of weasels a few are bound to get sick)
So all of that money goes towards job creation and it is a direct stimulus to economic demand. Those people hired to care for weasels will then have jobs which will give them money to spend elsewhere in the economy. They'll need hair cuts, clothes, laundry detergent to wash the weasel bits out of their clothes, etc. They'll go to the bar after their long day of weasel wrangling and buy drinks and talk about how their managers suck. That bar will then need to hire more bartenders and it goes on and on. Velocity of the dollar and all that good economicy stuff.
Is this a plea for help?
No, this is a tremendous nugget of wisdom. Don't you see? As ridiculous as all of this sounds:
HAVING THE GOVERNMENT BUY WEASELS IS A BETTER PLAN
THAN ANY OF THE REPUBLICANS HAVE COME UP WITH!!!!!!
See, wasn't that worth reading through my ramblings? :)