In my household, if I feel that the economy is getting worse I will cut back. If I feel that the economy is getting better I will be more likely to spend. My decision is based upon emotional perception and not statistical or market data.

Business is not affected by emotional perceptions. A business owner who manufactures and sells a product looks at the economy differently. It’s not a matter of feeling good about the future. It’s a matter of how many product units will the market accept and what is the potential profit in the production of those products. The business owner uses hard data and computer generated trend lines to make his or her business decisions. If the answer is, that the business is likely to sell fewer products at lower price point, the business will contract regardless of the potential future of the economy. The business will only expand, I.E. hire more workers, if the trend line projection is that the market will accept more of the company’s goods at a profitable price point.

Increased tax breaks and reduced regulation will not compensate for retreating trend lines in a weak economy. A business that over produces on speculation will soon find itself out of business, if its inventory is not saleable, regardless of the tax structure or reduced regulation costs.

Supply Siders want to limit government spending by reducing the number of federal employees and cut stimulus and infrastructure spending. They propose an increase in the subsidies and support for business and the reducing of business related regulation and business taxes thus creating more “opportunity” for business to expand.

The problem with this is that reducing the federal budget and federal employment rolls has a negative effect on the trend lines that a business uses to determine how much it can produce. If there are fewer people employed by the government, there are fewer buyers for products and services. Stripping away consumer stimulus packages also has a negative effect on market trends. With less money in the market there is naturally less demand for product at a profitable price point.

It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to “Prime The Pump” when the economy takes a nosedive. Federal job creation and federal infrastructure projects are what brought us out of the great depression and other government initiatives have lifted us out of smaller economic down turns in every historical recession on record as well. There has never been an instance when cutting government spending has cured a slumping economy.

My greatest fear today is that Supply Siders and Tea Party republicans in their zeal to slash the size of government will succeed to the point that will destroy governments ability to create economic incentives and send us into an economic spiral from which we will never recover.

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Is there a lack of real liberal minds?

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Introduction

I used to carpool with an old, blind professor to the small college I attended and he use to tell me, paraphrasing Gore Vidal, that politics came from two words: poli, meaning many, and tics, meaning blood sucking vermin. Unfortunately his somewhat suspect etymology, while proving technically untenable, has turned out to be largely correct in principle.

In American politics, where power has become everything, ideology has become a bastard step-child. American politicians think more about how they can fool the masses or get around popular democracy to further their ends than they do about what they truly believe in, if they actually believe in anything.

Of course, it is not my intent to sweep every single politician under the bus with a broad brush, so it must be understood that I am speaking in general terms.

Two Major Ideologies: Liberal and Conservative

There are two major ideologies in American politics. Understanding these helps us understand each other politically and enables us to make sense of what at times seems senseless. These ideologies are labeled conservative and liberal. Although these terms have changed definitions over the years, I will use them as they are currently defined.

If you took a strip of paper that was blue on one end and gradually changed colors until it was red at the other end you would end up with a spectrum of colors. At some point toward the center of the strip you could get into a few arguments as to whether the color was red, purple, or blue. It is that way with the liberal and conservative ideologies, so I will be concentrating on the ends of the strip, so to speak, and not the middle.

Conservative vs. Liberal

At the core of it, Conservatives base their ideology on what they see as reason and logic and it is individualistic by nature, whereas a liberal’s ideology is based on emotion and ideals and is collective by nature. A liberal is interested in curing society’s ills by social engineering. A conservative is interested in curing society’s ills by individuals exercising their own choices to better themselves. Because of this, conservatives view centralized power with deep suspicion. Liberals on the other hand see centralized power as an opportunity to affect great change for good.

The Role of Government

Because of the fundamental differences in the way conservatives and liberals approach the solutions to society’s challenges, it should come as no surprise that they have radically different views on the role of government.

The Liberal View

A liberal wants the government deeply involved in our lives. It is often seen as a parent to us all—or the big tent. They believe that the government can force society to confront its ills and legislate and enforce the cures. A liberal point of view diminishes the individual’s responsibility and believes people are victims or victimizers. This point of view does not view individuals as having power to rise above their circumstances in large numbers and therefore a savior must be found to “level the playing field.”

They point to the example of the civil rights movement of the 1960′s. Without government intervention, they argue, the rights of minorities would never have been acknowledged nor would there be equal rights for all.  In fact, the civil rights movement is the basis of the modern liberal’s political ideology, and proof that it is essentially correct.

This conviction motivates liberals to use all means available to impose their vision of goodness on the masses. If they can’t get the populous to support their agenda then they will get the courts to legislate it. This is because they firmly believe that their agenda is for the greater good of society.

Liberalism is naturally sympathetic with socialism and suspicious of individualism and even though it shares the same long-term goals as conservatism,  its approach, as you can see, is radically different.

The Conservative View

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