There's a hell of a zap that neoclassical economics puts on your head. After being brainwashed to think that markets "naturally emerge" wherever a shortage occurs, a certain kind of evil asshole will take it upon themselves to "create markets" and thus "solve the problem"
1/
Remember Reservationhop? It was founded by an SF bro who couldn't get restaurant reservations so he had a brainwave: what if I found a "business" that creates fake identities and books every table in town and then auctions them off to would-be diners?
2/
Markets in everything, right? He's just using markets to solve a distributional challenge by (checks notes) committing thousands of acts of fraud and selling something that doesn't belong to him. This guy's brain-worms are amazing:
Comparing the government to a household or a business isn't merely inapt (a government is a currency creator, while a household is a currency user - their budgeting constraints are totally unrelated) - it's also profoundly dishonest.
1/
If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Like, if you really are worried about government "living beyond its means," then you should freak out every time Congress writes a $715B no-strings-attached check to the Pentagon, or sends $258B to the ultra-rich as part of the CARES Act.
Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster), Al Lewis (Grandpa), Yvonne De Carlo (as Lily), Pat Priest (cousin Marilyn), and Butch Patrick (as Eddie Munster) in The Munsters episode entitled Just Another Pretty Face, originally broadcast by CBS on January 13th, 1966. oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/664239042…
This was one of Fred Gwynne’s favorite episodes, mainly because he got to act unencumbered by the hot, unwieldy makeup and prosthetics required to portray Herman for a lengthy part of the show. oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/664239042…
Universal Studios, where The Munsters was filmed, hired special effects designer Ken Strickfaden to create the lightning effects for this episode. oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/664239042…