Friday, December 01, 2006

Why Captain Capitalism Was Made



because blogger sucks and is uploading only 1 in 10 charts I try to upload, this is merely a drafted post. wanted to get at least SOME of the charts up here. Charts are at the bottom;


Every super hero has an origin.

Batman lost his folks to the Joker and went on a vendetta against crime. Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman was bit by a spider and opted to become altruistic with his newfound powers. Superman was an orphan from a planet that blew up which somehow would incentive him to defend truth, justice and the American way.

And so too does Captain Capitalism have his origins.

However, the origins are not as exciting as much as they are a pet peeve. Tired of people being misinformed about politics, government, society, etc., (not to mention the trillions of dollars that were on the line) I thought that economics would be a great tool to cut through the political BS and show some people what the truth of the matter was.

And while it has evolved a bit since then the mission remains the same; to educate people about the truth of the matter via economics.

Alas, it seems I shan't get a break for the Captain Capitalism signal has the sky lit up.

So here's the latest in Minnesota. turns out we are going to have a $1 billion surplus on the state budget this upcoming year.

Naturally this gets leftists and rightists alike are all abuzz about what to do with the money. And without even having to think about it, you can already guess the bumper sticker sound bytes being exchanged;

"we spend too much on education."

"We need more money for health care, schools and jobs."

"Minnesota is one of the highest taxed states in the US"

"That money should go back to the tax payer."

"we dont' spend enough money on roads."

Alright, all you idiots shut up.

And the reason I want all the idiots to shut up is because I haven't heard one person quote or give any kind of indication they've actually LOOKED AT THE BUDGET!

There's a novel idea, looking at the budget.

ie-studying something before you open your mouth.

Sadly this is how all of politics and economics is discussed by your average TV-watching, college student, suburbanite crusader housewife type people out there.

So, as a benefit to all of you out there that wish to INTELLIGENTLY comment on the budget, may I suggest looking at the following charts before you do?

Short version, we spend enough on education and health care. So the left may take their broken record off the record player and quit playing that damn song "we don't spend enough on eduation and health care."


Here's a pretty colored picture with all the items and their respective percentages.


Also if you look at where the money has gone for the budget over time, you noticed that there really hasn't been that much of a change. The vast majority of it going to education and health care and very little of it going to things everybody uses like roads, police and general government.



Another interesting measure is different budget items as a percent of GROSS STATE PRODUCT. ie-what percent of your salary goes to these wonderful programs.

5 comments:

Alfred T. Mahan said...

THIS IS A NERD ALERT

Peter Parker did not merely become altruistic with his powers; he fought crime because his great-uncle Ben was murdered by a criminal that Parker could have stopped earlier, but did not, since he figured it wasn't his job at the time. Therefore, Parker is actually on a bit of a guilt trip about the whole thing.

If anyone's a moral, altruistic, product of his environment type, it's Superman, raised in the American heartland.

This concludes our NERD ALERT. We now return you to the cynical tone of Captain Capitalism.

Captain Capitalism said...

Duly noted about Peter Parker. I forgot.

There is always a dark beginning to every super hero. Yours truly is no exception.

Andrew L said...

I don't understand why people are always so happy to hear that the government is running a surplus. A surplus just means that you have more money than you budgeted for, which could mean that you're great at earning money, but it could also mean that you suck at budgeting. Ideally, you should be able to budget so that all your money is going toward necessities, luxuries, investments etc. instead of sitting under your mattress doing no good whatsoever.

Now of course, that can never be achieved, so the next best thing is to have a small surplus, but it's not really anything to get excited about.

Moreover, that is just considering surpluses as they pertain to individuals and private entities. Government surpluses are even less of a source of joy because government gets its money by taking it from you. If a government reports a surplus, that means, explicitly, that you didn't get what you paid for when you paid your taxes. You got screwed even more so than you usually do on tax day. Yippee!

People complain about huge corporate profits all the time, thinking that somehow the corporation has done someone wrong by offering them services at prices they were willing to pay, yet I've almost never heard anyone complain about government surpluses, even though government surpluses are the result of coercion.

Captain Capitalism said...

Your are an astute aspiring economist young Andrew.

Alfred T. Mahan said...

One of the great economic ironies in American history is that one of our worst depressions was begun by paying off our national debt by an economic illiterate (Andrew Jackson), who failed to understand that a funded national debt was actually a cornerstone of economic expansion.

Government surpluses are indeed a bad thing; this means that the Feds will turn them into accordion subsidies or free trips for Congresspersons to the Bahamas (and the idea of Ted Kennedy in a Speedo is chilling).