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Comment by akamaka

2 months ago

Not quite, because a successful business could be as simple as a lemonade stand. Government finance, on the other hand, is an exceptionally delicate game of safely maximizing spending to stimulate economic growth (and therefore future tax revenue).

16 comments

akamaka

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s1artibartfast  2 months ago

The vast majority of government spending is not about growth and isn't an investment. It is about placating voters and interests groups.

Arguably positive budget categories like Education, research, and infrastructure make up a miniscule part of the overall pie.

  • pnut  2 months ago

    Interestingly, China, who does capitalism better than the west, is not very concerned about short term voter happiness or placating special interest groups. So it's not a given that government spending must be constrained by historical assumptions, or that that model is even optimal.

    I'd say many of the moves towards autocracy in the west are pointing in that direction, for better or worse.

kortilla  2 months ago

Yet nobody with an economics degree is in control of government spending. Funny that

  • krainboltgreene  2 months ago

    That’s actually just categorically wrong and frankly easy to find out. First of all the one that jumps to mind is AOC, but also just in general apparently econ is the third most popular study for congress members, behind politics and law.

    • kortilla  1 month ago

      AOC is not in charge of government spending. Congress members have not meaningfully capped government spending for decades now.

      So it’s not “categorically wrong” and it’s petty good evidence that those degrees are useless for actually controlling government spending.

  • bccdee  2 months ago

    …do you actually think there are no economists working on the US government's federal budget? Is that a serious belief of yours?