I explain this to my students, and though I'm not an expert in logic, this seems pretty solid: in an industrial or productive system that is founded upon mass production, if you do not also have mass consumption, you have *dick.* (That's not precisely the phrase I use in class, but I do curse in my classrooms. Never gratuitously, always for a purpose. Whatever, they're adults and I hear MUCH worse in the halls before class. C'est la vie.)
But mass production REQUIRES mass consumption. Simply, full stop.
Truly: Think about it. If you made the greatest and most satisfying anal prods ever known to mankind, but nobody had the $250 to purchase them, you would eventually end up with a warehouse full of anal prods and a failed business. Right?
But if millions of people were able to plunk down $250 for the pleasure (or whatever) an anal prod actually does = $$$$$$$. Right? Somebody gets rich.
Look at Zuckerberg's model - Facebook doesn't make, manufacture or produce anything. But people consume that nonsense in mass quantities, and leave all kinds of breadcrumbs and information behind that can be sold to advertisers, meta-data, etc.
[Re: the anal prods: I used this example years ago in class based on a South Park reference to South Park cows being turned inside out and transmogrified it with Cartman's anal probe and voila. It makes students pay attention, because they hear "anal prod" and perk up, and then I can further this point. And the point is important.]
Back to the point, to provide the evidence yet again that Trickle-Down/Supply-Side does not work, we thank the poor souls of Kansas and the malevolent wanker Gov. Samuel Brownback.
This is not a political statement, it is a declaration of logic: mass production requires mass consumption. Simple and repeatedly demonstrated historically.
Also, h/u: if your economic philosophy or "plan" for the largest global post-industrial economy can "fit" on a napkin - and you brag about that - you're fucking stupid.
Would you accept open-heart surgery instructions written on a Tic-Tac container? Would you accept mortgage fine-print on a tiny matchbook? If yes, then you too are also fucking stupid. Expertise matters. THAT'S WHY IT'S SO RARE.
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| The moronic and perfectly-named "Laffer curve" memorialized on a napkin to good ol'Don Rumsfeld. Hopefully by the time this ancient part of the Internet Universe is found, ol'Don will be dead and answering for his myriad crimes, God Willing. Because also (and may it never go out of style): |
