Tis rant is brought to you by the letters F and U

So, our "thoughtful" congress has decided to take steps to curtail spending, including no longer funding national public radio and PBS. This puzzles me, as combined they are an insignificant part of the federal budget, and provide a good service to the country.

PBS is the ONLY source for educational programming available to those that cannot afford cable, meaning that defunding PBS means that there is a strong likelihood that PBS will either have to shift to advertising, change programming to match that of network television, or both.

despite their valiant attempts to demonstrate their complete lack of intelligence, I still find it hard to believe that they had not considered the ramifications of defunding PBS. These are the same people that manage to run for office without going bankrupt, despite the cost being considerably higher than their salary for their entire term of office. these people are not morons, not entirely.

I don't think it is ignorance on their part, but pandering to voters. They tell these voters that budget cuts need to be made, and point to Public radio and television as "waste," because it is easier than making the cuts that really need to be made.

I wonder how angry their constituents would be if they found out how much money goes to subsidize major corporations, and the proportion of the federal budget that takes relative to pbs.

Creating wealth, or aggregating money?

So, to start things I am discussing one of the reasons i believe that the economy is in a bad state. i think that we have failed to educate people on many basic concepts of economics. These include the inability to consume more than what is produced, that everything has a cost, and that a person acquiring money is not synonymous with them creating wealth.

The last is what i want to discuss here, as it is a linchpin to the failure. As a society we have been lured into believing that the health of the economy is synonymous with the health of the bank accounts of those at the top. This is only part true, in that the health of everyone's bank account can indicate the health of the economy. What we have done is bought in to the belief that, if the richest few are doing well, then everyone is also doing well.

That everyone does well if those at the top do well is only true if those at the top are creating wealth, which, those involved in the meltdown on Wall Street, were not doing. These people were merely accumulating money, as the methods that were used to acquire wealth were one-directional, meaning that they did not create jobs, the techniques relied on lax enforcement, questionable interest rates, jargon to hide the low value of investments, and government regulations that benefited them, often at the cost of others.

This stands in contrast to those that create wealth. Those that create wealth acquire their money by being businessmen, not politicians. They focus on competing based on value, as opposed to cost. they create jobs, which in turn creates demand. This extra demand means the new products need to be made. This cycle, if it is allowed to continue, generally means a better life for all.

The better lives are created due to employers desiring better employees, meaning that they are given incentive to work harder. the better pay results in disposable income, which is spent buying desired products, which starts the cycle over again. mean while, those at the top, are still wealthy, a win-win.