Economic Code Words

From dKosopedia

The Republican Party has put forward an "economic" platform consisting of the fantasies of Market Fundamentalism and Supply-Side Economics, also known as Voodoo Economics. Since none of the language used by Republicans means what it says in any dictionary, it is necessary to provide a glossary of the terms, and explanations of the fundamental concepts of genuine economics.

Basic Concepts

The most fundamental idea in economics is that both buyer and seller must profit in any uncoerced free exchange. The profit is not always in money, but in the usefulness of what is received. What they get and give up has the same price, but buyer and seller have better uses for what they get than what they give. One cannot eat money, which is therefore worth less than enough food. One equally cannot eat very much surplus food, which is thus worth less at that moment for that person than the money needed to buy other things. It is easy to be confused by the fact that people will exchange items that have the same price, but different uses. The exchange of a dollar bill for a dollar's worth of coins is a clear example, for anybody faced with an old-style vending machine that does not take bills or credit/debit cards.

The principles of Supply and Demand and the resulting Market Equilibrium follow directly from this first principle, with the addition of a few straightforward conditions. Basically, these conditions define what we mean by freedom or lack of coercion. They are collectively known under the technical term Perfect Competition. Competition does not in fact have to be perfect to be useful, just as balls used in sports and other games, or ball bearings in mechanical devices, do not have to be perfect spheres.

The requirements of Perfect Competition define the role of government and the public in regulating economic affairs. They include participation in markets on an equal footing by all, with complete access to economic and financial information, and the inability of any participant to game the economy or coercively set prices.

The above is the essence of economic theory. The rest of economics is an attempt to extend the mathematics of these simple cases to others, and apply this theory to cases that do not meet the requirements all that well. In that sense, it is like geometry, with a short list of definitions and axioms (common notions and postulates in the case of Euclid), and a great body of theorems that result. Both are like Newtonian mechanics, with three Laws, and the Newtonian System of the World, which added one Law of Gravity to deduce all of the known motions of the planets successfully for two and a half centuries.

The field of economics, like many others, has pretensions to be a science, or even a branch of mathematics. But it deals not only with money and goods in the abstract. Its subject matter is just as much human behavior (psychology) and the rules for a society of humans (politics), as reflected in the older name Political Economy.

Glossary

The purpose of this glossary is not to tell you what these words and phrases really mean, but what Republicans mean to convey to some portion of their base when they say them. For most of the terms given here, the audience is the rich, including owners of corporate stocks, bonds, and real estate, and executives of corporations, especially Wall Street financial institutions. In a few cases, Republicans say these things explicitly, but most is in code. You can find the real meanings in the account above, and in the pages it links to. In every case, the idea of using this code is Plausible Deniability for what they really mean. Cross references to other translations on this page are in bold.

American Enterprise Institute

Groupthink tank

Bubble

The last time the markets rose under a Democrat, or Bubble? What bubble?—Market Fundamentalists

Business cycle

Making tons of money in a rising market and shedding liabilities to the government in a falling market. See also Too big to fail.

Communism

State ownership of all companies; the opposite of Capitalism, which is long-term corporate rental of the state. (It's cheaper than buying the legislature.)

Competition

for subsidies and government preferences, not better and less expensive products for consumers; Socialism for the rich, Social Darwinism for the poor

Corporate responsibility

Profit—Milton Friedman

Credit Default Swaps

I'm sorry, that's too complicated to explain. You can't understand it. (It's actually just insurance from a company that will not be able to pay claims.)

Day trader

We've got a live one!; If you don't know who the chump at the table is, it's you.

Deficit hawk

No, no, you should be buying good corporate debt, not evil government debt.

Derivative

Bill of goods

Economist

Corporate shill

Economic Theory

Have I got a bridge for you!

Energy policy

Subsidies to big oil, coal, and gas

Evolution

The process leading from the apes to the highest form of humanity—the corporation

Falling market

The inevitable consequence of a rising market

Federal Reserve

Goldman-Sachs Policy Committee; Keeping a lid on inflation

Financial analyst

Another useless idiot. If he was really so smart, he would be another Warren Buffett.

Fiscal responsibility

Trillions for corporate welfare, but not one penny for social programs

Free Market

Laissez-Faire; Free for corporations, but not for you

Foreign aid

Corporate aid; Kleptocrat aid; Instrument of economic torture for the poor.

Free Speech

Money talks

Free Trade

Monopoly pricing

Government Health Care

Unfair competition with insurance companies

Global Warming

Never heard of it

Globalization

Corporate Imperialism

Human rights

According to the US Supreme Court, corporate rights

Inflation

Diminished value of savings and increase cost of operations to business through wage increases—Ayn Rand Objectivist Alan Greenspan

Intellectual property regime

Corporate/government conspiracy to grant monopolies, perpetual if possible—Mickey Mouse

Investment

Speculation

Investment Adviser

A Post-Modern gangster who makes you an offer you can't understand

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts—Supply-Side economic terrorists

Junk science

Science

Keynes, John Maynard

Author of the discredited theory that governments should borrow and spend more during recessions to stimulate the economy, whereas any fool knows that only tax cuts can stimulate the economy.

Living, A

A killing--U. Utah Phillips

Market efficiency

At extracting profit

Market regulation

The work of the Devil; Communism; Fascism; the tyranny of the poor over the rich

Mortgage-backed security

Bill of goods

Nation building

Crusade for defense contractor profits

Oversight

We pretend to tell you what we have been doing, and you pretend to understand.

Policy

Selfishness

Principles

Greed, racism, and intolerance

Public Interest, The

Corporate interests

Public Option, Health Care

Unfair competition

Reaganomics

Voodoo politics

Republic

The arena in which corporate profits and managerial compensation are to be maximized

Rising market

Bubble

Road to Serfdom, The

In the tradition of the book of that name by F. A. Hayek, anything proposed by Social Liberals or Progressives, even if Republicans proposed it first, as with Cap and Trade

Running government like a business

Enron

SEC

Goldman-Sachs Finance Committee

Single Payer Health Care

Theft of legitimate corporate profits

Socialism

Any concern for actual people

Special interests

The public interest

Supply-Side Economics

Concern for the interests of producers, especially large corporations, not consumers

Taxation

Tyranny of the poor over the rich

Tax and Spend Liberal

Edmund Burke, once the Father of Conservatism

Too big to fail

Big enough to demand favors from the government and be sure of getting them; bigger than Lehman Brothers

Treasury Department

Goldman-Sachs Executive Committee

Trickle-down

In Voodoo Economics, gusher up for the rich, pie in the sky for the middle class, forget it for the pee-ons

Unfair competition

Competition

Union

Tyranny that we must protect our workers from at any cost

Wall Street Journal editorial board

The Usual Gang of Idiots

Washington Consensus

Agreement among the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the US Treasury Department that other countries should let in multinational corporations and financial speculators to plunder their economies—Joseph Stiglitz

Waste, fraud, and abuse

Any government program that helps anybody other than corporations and the rich

See Also

• Code Words on greed, racism, and intolerance