Why can't the federal government just invest more money

bump for government investment

Because there is a deep seated belief among a large segment of the population that a: poverty is the fault of the poor. And b: we live in a zero sum world where helping 'those people' takes away from (insert supposedly more deserving group), and of course, 'muh gubmint overreach'. What's more, there is the perfectly valid concern that the federal government isn't nimble (for lack of a better term) enough to address the problem, as it would require a fair bit of fine tuning to ensure it isn't a poorly executed waste of taxpayer money, government funded projects being the license to steal that they are. Imean, it's a good idea, but neither the government nor it's constituents are prepared to deal with it. And I'm entirely sure it is possible to revert back to a productive economy, or rather one that employs massive numbers of people. Between technology increasing efficiency, outright automation, and third world laborers who make in a week what an American factory worker makes in an hour, there's not a whole lot left for semiskilled grunts like myself. Nothing left but to roll with it.

>>2319599
>>2319599
We are fairly still agriculturally productive, which is a good thing. But the problem lies in where the direction of our investments in capital are going. If our investment in capital isn't returning us a profit through capital whose marginal efficiency is above the interest in terms of that good then why invest at all. Revenues built around service do give us a higher return on investment, but the problem is that the capital isn't giving us the return on investment, it's the sales and service fees that originate in the form of increased wages, not increased output. Service work is by its very nature non-productive, which means the money being utilized for it isn't returned, it's lost out of the cycle of productivity forever and in my opinion has to be replaced through additional capital injections eventually.

>>2319649

Think of it this way, if you have 100 dollars, and buy 1 machine which produces 1000 units which would normally cost 1 dollar to produce each, the return on this investment is higher than the interest rate and is productive, until we buy more machines and because of increasing leasing costs, maintenance, and employment will necessitate an increasing upkeep in addition to the amount of goods we have to buy from other entrepreneurs to even function in the first place. The marginal efficiency of the capital goes down over time, like how land being utilized for production does, but in this case it is because of the competition of the increased investment in the capital. The increased supply brings down the price of the good. Still though, these 1000 units are sold for a low markup and you still make a huge profit. You pay the laborers and the entrepreneur whatever division of wages and profit is thought applicable and move on, but unfortunately this is as good as it gets. As you add non-productive labor into the mix, the money you make out of that revenue is necessarily being given to sinecures and various positions which are inherently non-productive and service-based. They drag down the profit, which was all productive, into some productive wages and some non-productive wages, and then the wages given to the non-productive employees cannot be reinvested in capital or saved for future productive expenses, and is lost forever.

Now imagine a whole company like this. Every single employee is non-productive. The company is service based. Instead of driving the price of goods down through producing them, they drive it up by consuming them with increased wages. Doubly so, because they aren't producing.

>>2319650

All I'm saying, is that it would be best if every group of individuals organizing themselves under the cultural phenomenon of a company produced something. This thing doesn't have to be geared towards a particularly fast, or hedonistic lifestyle either, the investment and management of capital can be directed well. Just something to think about though.

>>2319599
This.

Add to this, the natural economic incentive for large corporations and billionaires to lobby the government and public to protect their own pockets, and you end up with anemic social services.

Plus niggers don't vote, and if you don't vote you don't get the nice shit.

What would you have them do? Open up textile mills and have them work for Bengali wages?

People don't like to hear but I honestly think those getting public assistance should be given busy work of some kind organized around civil society principles. Have them pluck weeds and pick up trash and heroin needles.

>>2319680
That's exactly what I'm saying. Fuck giving them handouts, have the Federal government invest in their government so they can get some fucking jobs.

>>2319710
the problem isn't joblessness, it's shitty paying jobs. Maybe a massive federal infrastructure projects would do the trick.

This is MURICA OP.

You have to be a rich corporation with well paid lobbyists to get free government money.

Government money is only for the rich and those powerful enough to scam it out of the system.

Socialism is for the rich, free market for the poor.

Michigander here.

The problem is that the leadership of those areas is corrupt. The Flint water crisis was caused by corruption. The reason Flint STILL does not have water is because of the corruption and ineptitude of the city leadership. City taxes in Detroit are so high because the city government is skimming off the top. Back when Kwame Kilpatrick was mayor of Detroit (No, Kwame was NOT the one who couldn't read) if you wanted to build or buy a house you had to send a kickback to his father to get it approved.

Throwing money at these areas will not work. It's been tried before and it is AWFUL for EVERYONE involved. Republicans have been working very, very, VERY hard in our state legislature to keep that from happening because EVERY time we've EVER tried it, all it does is take money from the people and put it directly into the private pocketbooks of the city leadership.


As for recommending how to fix it, I recommend people become FAR more ethnocentric* and take "Buy local" to its logical maximum. Protectionism, when temporary and used as a means to get a failing sector back on its feet, works and should be done.

And, of course, the Federal government jailing everyone with a D next to their name in the city councils and governments because NOTHING can be done if the people in charge are fundamentally opposed to the situation being fixed.

>>2320894
I meant to put this:

*Ethnocentric isn't really the right word, but I don't give enough of a fuck to find a better one. I mean that we should focus on each other. "Buy local" is an example of this.

>>2320894
Is Michigan more corrupt than other areas of US?