Thoughts

My thoughts are a little jumbled today. I have several ideas for this blog post but I'm not sure how they are going to fit together. So these are just random, unrelated thoughts that I may turn into longer blog posts later. If you'd like to see them, don't be afraid to ask.

Generalizations: Some generalizations, like stereotypes, are harmful. Just about everyone wants to be seen as an individual. Yet seeing everyone as an individual can also be harmful. We can miss the forest for the trees - the larger patterns that disadvantage entire groups of people. The American Dream - any individual can make their dreams come true, but for some groups of people the odds are a lot lower.

False binaries: The great lie of American politics is that there is an us and them. Or that you either have to be for or against something. The right answer often is the compromise. The American Dream - much like our personal freedoms need to be protected by the Bill of Rights and other laws, a market cannot really be free unless it is well-regulated. Otherwise the fairness and efficiency of capitalism become perverted.

The velocity of money: A capitalist, a truly capitalist, economy requires a level playing field. Inequality is inefficiency. There is no reason a capitalist economy cannot be run by a socialist government. A healthy economy requires a mechanism for taking stagnant capital from the top and redistributing it to the bottom where it will be reintroduced into the economy. Capital does not trickle down, it trickles up. If the poor are given money, they will spend it. It will end up back in the hands of businesses. It's an economic stimulus.

Here's a (not at all) fun game: If you think that people are going a little too far in demonizing our president-elect, getting too worried, or crying wolf, check out Wikipedia's demagogue page. Does this remind you of anyone? "Hitler [Trump] updated the Nazi [Republican] party's platform to exploit the economic distress of ordinary Germans [Americans]: repudiating the Versailles Treaty [NATO, NAFTA, etc], promising to eliminate corruption, and pledging to provide every German [American] with a job." And here is a nice list of the methods of demagogues: scapegoating, fearmongering, lying, emotional oratory and personal charisma, accusing opponents of weakness and disloyalty, promising the impossible, violence and physical intimidation, personal insults and ridicule, vulgarity and outrageous behavior, folksy posturing, gross oversimplification, and attacking the news media. But I mean, no, they're not at all alike, right?