What do you get when you get to individuals who are entirely oblivious to economics arguing about economics? A presidential debate:
Taking the stage near Cleveland in Cuyahoga County, Mr Obama pitted his economic plan against Mr Romney’s “top-down” vision, saying Mr Romney would lead the economy down the path it had taken for the last 10 years.
Mr Obama said his vision of the economy saw growth coming from the middle class and that voters had “two very different visions to choose from”.
You know how you can tell when a presidential candidate is clueless about economics? When they talk about how the president can fix the economy. The president has as much ability to fix the economy as I do… scratch that, I actually have enough knowledge to advise people on economic issues with some competency (not much mind you, but more than either Obama or Romney).
Raising taxes isn’t going to fix the economy. Giving tax incentives isn’t going to fix the economy. Increasing regulations isn’t going to fix the economy. Reducing regulations isn’t going to fix the economy. There are only two ways to fix our economic woes, either the state must remove itself entirely from economic issues (I’ll see a leprechaun riding a unicorn before that happens) of the economy removes itself entirely from the state (this would be known as agorism).
The United States and most of Europe are learning the same lesson the Soviet Union did no so long ago, centrally planned economies fail. A centrally planned economy cannot work because it’s impossible to plan for the wants of other individuals. I cannot know what you want and you cannot know what I want, we must be allowed to employ our own means to obtain our own ends. This is what neither Romney or Obama understand, they both think the economy must be “helped” by the state.