h a l f b a k e r yExpensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.
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We are in dire economic straits today, to the point where the American government is considering minting a trillion-dollar coin in order to relieve pressure. We are down to this because interest rates are already as low as they can go, and taxes also cannot be made lower without bankrupting more cities.
The government has simply run out of "levers" that it can pull to effectively influence the economy.
I propose the creation of a new and powerful economic technique - governmental control of the quantity and percentage of advertising.
Here's how it would work. The content of ads would remain free to create and still be sold to whoever wishes to buy it, but the government would create a new federal agency that would dictate (a) the *required* number of minutes of TV ad time aired per day by every channel; (b) the *required* percentage of TV screen space per day that must be filled with pop-up promotion ads; (c) the *required* percentage of web sites that must be filled at all times with nonclosable ads; (d) similar statistics for movie previews, billboards in public spaces; etc.
I assume that by raising and lowering these percentages, the federal government could directly influence the public to buy more or less, as needed, to keep the economy healthy. This would allow the government to more directly encourage people to buy or not-buy things than the current indirect method of increasing/decreasing the money supply. A bonus would be that the more ad space is available, the less money companies would have to spend to compete for it, so the companies could earn higher profits exactly during these times of need.
Thank you.
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We make our beds, we lie in it |
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When what your doing isn't working, then doing more
of it, faster and harder, should give you even more of
the same. In this case more debt.
I think the Government has done about enough. |
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Where's your wife's idea? |
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"stupidest fuckin idea ever!" |
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I don't think it's nearly as bad as you say. It's'basically 'allow
government to regulate advertising for better market
performance'. Not a great idea, but not really that bad.
It's more boring than anything. For all I know there's
already a ser of advertising regulations in place. Likely not
these exact ones, but similar ones regarding how much is
possible and when and where. |
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Your so level headed. Since you put it that way... |
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The idea is fantastic in and of its own. Its just
painfully obvious to the rest of the world that
Americans like to have more than they are able. I
mean look at the size of them. We have some big
dudes too but damn! Also with all their unions and
high wages its no wonder China has been squirreling
away all that american cash. How did you not see this
coming? |
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As I understand it, the problem isn't that people are hoarding cash (and thus not spending) it's that the people haven't got any cash (and thus are not spending). |
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So how exactly does this idea redistribute resources away from the 1% of people who currently control 99% of the money, back into the pockets of ordinary people? |
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//back into the pockets of ordinary people// |
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where does one even begin to address the
breathtaking ignorance of this comment. |
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All the government has to do is to reduce the
payroll
tax (which they did in the past) or the gas tax for
that kind of effect, [phundug] -- with provable
results. |
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But in general repealing the business cycle is a bit
harder than building noise cancellation
headphones -- in theory you can do counter-
cyclical things -- but in practice, it's hard, because
the cycle is the result of many individual decisions
that has tremendous inertia. |
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This all presupposes that America's financial crisis
is somehow an
anomaly or error which can be corrected. It is not
- it's a simple
inevitability. |
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The world is now global (no, hang on, I mean yes,
but...anyway, you
know what I mean), which means there is bound
to be a levelling
toward the point where everyone enjoys the same
standard of
living. The fiscal landscape will continue to
change _whatever_ you
do, until everyone is at the same level and money
stops flowing
downhill. How is this not obvious? |
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The next 50 years will, therefore, be bad for the
affluent West and
good for the inaffluent rest of the world. The plus
side is that the
material wealth of the planet is not fixed but is
increasing greatly
year on year, so eventually everyone wins. The
minus side is that
people always judge their wealth relative to that
of other
people, and the West will never again be so much
richer than the
rest of the world. |
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There is almost certainly no way to dam the
economic waters and
prevent them from finding their own level. If
there is a way, it is
probably to start a major war (it doesn't really
matter with whom),
which tends to skew things quite a lot. |
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You forgot the bit where you raise enough taxes
to allow governments to build the necessary
infrastructure to connect the people within your
economy so they can make a go of it. |
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And...
Stop throwing away 50% of food produced.
Manage fresh water reserves more carefully.
Reduce birth rates to sustainable levels.
Develop sustainable energy resources.
Etc. |
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We don't have a shortage yet. We have a problem
with the images used to sell us food. We've
somehow convinced ourselves food will taste
different, based upon how it looks. |
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we'll have a food shortage right after we have peak
oil. |
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Possibly. However, we can still grow new food every
year. Oil is a little harder to grow. |
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