There are many myths about human behavior. One of these is that people are autonomous and and use their intellect to make decisions. The majority of what a person does is instinctive. People are hard wired to return incumbents and to trust whatever leadership they have. It may be true that folks are born with God given rights. There is no evidence that they are born with anything but free will. With free will, immediately upon birth, human beings make their first economic transaction and continue doing the same for the rest of their lives. They trade freedom for comfort. When the comfort dries up, they take their freedom back and repeat the process. Economics does not consider this transaction. I am the only economist one who does. So, whether rights are given by God or just show up, are used as collateral to trade for comfort.
Economics also assumes that a human’s first choice is to work. Work is a second choice and a distant second choice. When there are no other alternatives work begins. Under normal circumstance it is obvious this is obvious. If that is the case work is undertaken. Notice that predators in the wild only hunt when the can’t find an already killed cercus. Hyenas are thought of as scavengers and are the natural enemies of lions. Lions are just as likely to be scavengers as hyenas and both species are thieves. It is a lot easier to chase smaller animals away than to kill something fresh. Human beings, like all predators have the very same characteristic. A human being who is living off others will live on perhaps 60% of what he could bring in by working before looking for a job. Some will almost starve before working. Like lions and hyenas, some will steal rather than work. It is no different, just a different animal with more complexities. There is still more.
Because people are so smart many figure out how to steal on a grand scale. That is what the Federal Reserve open market committee is about. Why do corporations buy back their own stock and do everything possible to run its price up? They want to get paid as much as possible as fast as possible independently of earnings. They get paid far more by goosing their stock price than they could ever make in salary and bonuses. They get interest free loans just for this purpose. If you think welfare has made poor people lazy, just wait until rich people get forced off welfare when the stock market crashes. These are the smartest people in the world and most innovative. You will discover that innovation has been almost completely stifled. Why innovate when the Federal Reserve will pay you for doing nothing? With no innovation, there is no where for the economy to go but south and that is where the economy is headed.
Knowing that changes many equations and makes much of economic thought
It is also instinctive to look to government to solve problems.
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