Econ Notes
January 12,2006
Today's lessons were about how the government spends its... ahem.... our money and how business owners make their money.
Mr. Z says:
Taxpayers expect the that the government should spend money wisely. The government has certain responsibilities, and all of those responsiblities should lead to one thing: to benefit the people as a whole. Unfortunately, the government often spends money in such a way that taxpayers do not agree with.
Today he drew a chart that he called the "Guns and Roses Chart." He said that government could chose to spend all its resources on "guns", all of its money on "roses" (making it clear that you could change those words as you see fit - military and state parks, for instance), or allot certain amounts for both. Mr. Z says that how the U.S. spends money falls in between the two lines on his G&R chart. Please see my crappy MS Paint version.
Next, Mr. Z decided to show us how capitalism works... *smirk* He drew this chart for us:
His explaination:
The owner of a business hires employees. The more employess he hires, the more money the business will (hopefully) make. Of the net income, the business owner, who does nothing and is rarely on the site at all, gets the chunk of money shown at the top of the chart. That leaves the other part to be split among his hardworking employees.
One of my fellow students makes this point:
If it weren't for the owner making the business to begin with, these people wouldn't have a job at all. Besides, if they feel they're not getting paid enough, in our country they have the freedom to find work elsewhere.
To my surprise, Mr. Z agrees with Kamron and tells him he is finally getting what this class is all about. But then he goes back to his ranting. He says that business owners are against minimum wage because it decreases their profits. In his words, "To them, it means the difference between a Hummer and a Cadillac at the end of the year."
He dismissed class on that note.
