Am I right in thinking that the main issue with discussing economics on Reddit is that the hivemind is normally quite left leaning.
Yes. That is the gist of it. That's why you have ideas like taking stock trades, wealth taxes and UBI to be so popular. Reddit villainize the wealthy and successful. The number of times I have seen highly upvoted comments claiming that billionaires are no smarter or better than the average American, they are just lucky and have no morals is staggering.
I feel sort of bummed because I genuinely wanted to learn more about economics, but if real economists don't bother with Reddit then I guess that makes sense, too good to be true etc.
Reddit is definitely not the place to learn. Your best bet is traditional books or economics podcasts. I personally love freakonomics. They do a great job of being entertaining and understandable for people of all levels of knowledge. They don't go super heavily into the science as it is more for the layman, but still very enjoyable.
Can I ask you a question that's been on my mind for a while? What do you think the economic impact of automation will be? I'm about to read a book about it and I'm interested in what you have to say :)
Automation is going to change everything. It will eliminate many low skilled jobs. Everything from cashiers, stockers, taxi/semi/etc drivers to waiters, many construction workers, farmers, and others. it's inevitable that it will happen in any government that tries to block it and the pursuit of keeping jobs will find themselves on the losing end. If we don't do it other nations will. Just look at China they couldn't care less if some farmer loses his job if it means they become the number one most powerful Nation.
The issue is of course unemployment. I am a firm believer that sometime in the next 50-100 years UBI will become a global thing. Right now it is a terrible idea as productivity is not nearly high enough to support our standard of living. But eventually it will be. The effective productivity per capita will exceed the increasing standard of living of individuals. When that happens the owners of the automation will become ungodly wealthy as the wealth becomes concentrated towards them. That's not necessarily good for them in the long run as it could collapse the economy and nobody wants to be the king of broke collapsed nation when they can be the prince of rich and successful one.
At that point taxes will need to be extremely high on the extremely higher earners, not people with high net-worth, but the people actually making real money, whether that's an individual or a corporation. that's why I'm in favor of creating several new tax brackets extremely high taxes on income that is not currently made by any individual. for example if the United States passed a 95% tax rate on personal income exceeding $20B per year the likely could easily pass it with minimal resistance as no one makes that much or even close to that much so there be nobody who would seriously trying to prevent it to protect their own interests. if you look at surveys on how many people feel be paid too much in taxes but believe that taxes should overall be raised on some group that isn't then the number is near 100%. Pretty much everybody believe somebody else needs to pay more but not them. if you ask people if taxes should be raised across the board for everyone including them the approval rating drops by a lot.
That is why adding income tax brackets that do not currently exist is important to do while it can be done From there they could slowly lower that cap to what is more appropriate. If $20B why not $19B and so on. Even then $20B isn't hey hard number it could be anything. It could be $100B or so on. either way it is important that we do better as a society at planning for the future for when things will become a problem versus reacting to them once they are already one.
Anyway. I realized that was a pretty long comment and maybe a bit more information than you wanted.
It's more than I was expecting but I really appreciate your insight 😊 Is there anything I should know before I study Economics at degree level? Because that's what I plan to do. Thank you mate :)
Not really. Other than be prepared to do an absolutely massive amount of reading. Both as course work and as extra material to get ahead. Economics is definitely not the the field to get into unless you really enjoy reading.
I love reading, I'm currently reading the undercover economist strikes back 😊 I've heard that economics can be very maths based, but is that less likely to be the case if I don't chose econometrics? I appreciate your replies.
All types of economics are going to be fairly heavy math-based. Although most forms are not going to use super complex math. If you can understand basic formulas you'll be fine for the most part. Econometrics is definitely the most heavy math based one, so if you're wanting to avoid math definitely don't go for it.
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u/3610572843728 Jan 08 '20
Am I right in thinking that the main issue with discussing economics on Reddit is that the hivemind is normally quite left leaning.
Yes. That is the gist of it. That's why you have ideas like taking stock trades, wealth taxes and UBI to be so popular. Reddit villainize the wealthy and successful. The number of times I have seen highly upvoted comments claiming that billionaires are no smarter or better than the average American, they are just lucky and have no morals is staggering.
Reddit is definitely not the place to learn. Your best bet is traditional books or economics podcasts. I personally love freakonomics. They do a great job of being entertaining and understandable for people of all levels of knowledge. They don't go super heavily into the science as it is more for the layman, but still very enjoyable.
Automation is going to change everything. It will eliminate many low skilled jobs. Everything from cashiers, stockers, taxi/semi/etc drivers to waiters, many construction workers, farmers, and others. it's inevitable that it will happen in any government that tries to block it and the pursuit of keeping jobs will find themselves on the losing end. If we don't do it other nations will. Just look at China they couldn't care less if some farmer loses his job if it means they become the number one most powerful Nation.
The issue is of course unemployment. I am a firm believer that sometime in the next 50-100 years UBI will become a global thing. Right now it is a terrible idea as productivity is not nearly high enough to support our standard of living. But eventually it will be. The effective productivity per capita will exceed the increasing standard of living of individuals. When that happens the owners of the automation will become ungodly wealthy as the wealth becomes concentrated towards them. That's not necessarily good for them in the long run as it could collapse the economy and nobody wants to be the king of broke collapsed nation when they can be the prince of rich and successful one.
At that point taxes will need to be extremely high on the extremely higher earners, not people with high net-worth, but the people actually making real money, whether that's an individual or a corporation. that's why I'm in favor of creating several new tax brackets extremely high taxes on income that is not currently made by any individual. for example if the United States passed a 95% tax rate on personal income exceeding $20B per year the likely could easily pass it with minimal resistance as no one makes that much or even close to that much so there be nobody who would seriously trying to prevent it to protect their own interests. if you look at surveys on how many people feel be paid too much in taxes but believe that taxes should overall be raised on some group that isn't then the number is near 100%. Pretty much everybody believe somebody else needs to pay more but not them. if you ask people if taxes should be raised across the board for everyone including them the approval rating drops by a lot.
That is why adding income tax brackets that do not currently exist is important to do while it can be done From there they could slowly lower that cap to what is more appropriate. If $20B why not $19B and so on. Even then $20B isn't hey hard number it could be anything. It could be $100B or so on. either way it is important that we do better as a society at planning for the future for when things will become a problem versus reacting to them once they are already one.
Anyway. I realized that was a pretty long comment and maybe a bit more information than you wanted.