THE THINGS THAT PEOPLE KNOW THAT AIN’T SO

The things people know that ain’t so…People are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts. Held axioms and memes – things taken for granted to be true, presumed to have been researched and proven somewhere – and compare them with the facts.

• Socialism helps the poor – the poor flee from socialistic economies because socialism harms them.
• Socialists care about the poor – they don’t, they care about the rich, they’re obsessed with the rich, and are interested only in policies that might harm the rich, but actually help them at the expense of the poor.
• High tax rates retard economic growth – they don’t; what matters is tax collected (as opposed to tax rates), and how governments spend tax.
• Jobs can be “created” – jobs are never created, so long as there are unsatisfied desires, jobs, or at least readily available job opportunities, exist; the problem is what keeps job seekers from available jobs.
• “Labour-intensive” ways of doing things create jobs – it actually reduces employment and impoverishes supposed beneficiaries.
• Companies pay tax – they don’t; no one has any idea who pays so-called “company tax”.
• Governments “regulate” businesses – they don’t; all business regulation is actually the regulation of customers.
• “Consumer protection” protects consumers – it doesn’t; all so-called consumer protection harms consumers by reducing consumer power, increasing prices, and reducing competition and choice.
• Cheap imports destroy local jobs – cheap imports increase local employment and promote exports.
• We need more exports and more forex – we don’t; we need fewer exports, more imports and to dispose of foreign exchange in exchange for maximised imports.
• Government “stimulus packages” increase spending and stimulate growth, jobs, etc – they don’t; they reduce the amount of money in the economy and retard recovery.
• A free market is unplanned – there is much more planning in a supposedly unplanned economy than in a centrally planned economy; free market planning is much more co-ordinated, much more rigorously enforced, and much more effective.