Does anyone remember that meme that showed how government spending helps all businesses?

[Bucky]

It was anti-libertarian. It showed some businessman outside his business with a sign bragging about how he didn't need no gubmint help to make it on his own in the economy.

Then someone tagged up the photo, commenting how road building brought him his customers and suppliers, how OSHA inspections reduced labor costs and the social costs from preventing accidents, how the electric grid he depended on brought him cheap energy, how state vehicle inspections made his shipping costs safer and cheaper, how government insurance for banks reduced the cost of the business loans he used, etc...

It was real educational and would be very useful for me to use in the frequent economics debates I get into with ungrateful idiots on facebook.

[multigraincracker]

1. Capitalism's Founding Father. Adam Smith is always a good go to.

Capitalism's Founding Father. A dam Smith, 18th-century philosopher and political economist, was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1723. Best known for his classic treatise An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he is credited with establishing the discipline of political economics.


Found in An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Cannan ed.), vol. 2

In 1776 Adam Smith (1723-1790) was not optimistic about the chances of Britain introducing free trade because of the outspoken opposition and political power of the vested interests. He compared the protected manufacturing interests to “an overgrown standing army” which would focus the “insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists” which no politician would dare cross:

To make it simple, he thought the market needed regulations to protect it from monopolies. Basically leads to Western Social Democracies that rely on a free, "fair" market..

[TheBlackAdder]

6. Adam Smith also said for Capitalism to succeed, a wealth-based heavily tiered tax system was needed.

[calimary]

2. Sounds like you've nicely summed it up already, Bucky.

But I’m sure others will weigh in with more specifics.

I hope so. I make use of a lot f this stuff in our “Call to Action” email that my Indivisible group issues every week. I’m actually waiting to hear back from the editor, whenever she finishes. Then I make the corrections the editor recommends, and it’s ready for the publisher.

[Demsrule86]

3. That is keynesian economics. Reagan introduce supply-side economics which Bush I called (correctly)

voodoo economics...and is terrible IMHO. Sadly the idea that you have to raise unemployment by increasing interest rates in an attempt to slow a good economy, and to give those at the top more money so it can trickle down is supply-side economics which almost led to a depression in 2008.

[Bucky]

4. So... no meme librarians around here. Hmmm

my luck

I may have to give up correcting people for being wrong on the internet

[Midnight Writer]

5. I have seen that. Wish I would have saved or copied it. It was excellent.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. I think they were back with the 2012 "You didn't build that' argument Obama made.

.

It was how everyone benefits from public works programs, even those who don't pay their fair share of taxes.

A lot of Republicans like to say they were "self-made" when really their graces benefited from infrastructure.

.