#economically illiterate

[snowlithills]

i am going to explode kier starmer with my mind

[theunvanquishedzims]

Character concept: kindly old mentor figure who is scouring the land in search of The Chosen One to pull the sword from the stone. They find the kid destined to be king, whisk them away on a magical adventure full of lessons like "be a good sport" and "always see the best in people," and guide them to the stone.

The child pulls the sword out and immediately gets knifed in the ribs by their mentor, who takes the sword, hides the body, and gets declared the rightful king.

[culturevulturette]

[nando161mando]

Every time some economically illiterate person insists Hitler was a socialist, I alway think of this:

[fennopunk]

It's exhausting trying to explain to people I need help on doing certain tasks, not because I don't KNOW how to do them, but because my brain is wired weirdly, and I need someone present so I can do them myself

It's especially annoying when it's stuff like "how to do X in computer/internet" and not only am I from the generation that was actually taught how to use computers in school, I have goddamn certificate on it AND AN ENTIRE FUCKING DEGREE THAT REQUIRES COMPETENCE WITH COMPUTERS.

[communistkenobi]

i love reading the methodology sections in the authoritarian personality because like they’re very thorough but there’s a large part of this chapter devoted to explaining how they asked participants about their political views because americans “are politically relatively uneducated and uninformed”

[vanilla-voyeur]

Kinda annoyed with the assumption that all socialists are just economically illiterate dumdums who would realize the error of their ways if they'd just take an Econ 101 class. Well I have taken introductory econ classes. I've taken multiple econ classes. The university I went to has one of the top 10 economics programs in the US. I originally went into college wanting to be an econ major before I switched to CS. I got to the point of taking one upper division class right before we started getting into the calculus.

The problem with how economics is taught in school is that it takes an approach of capitalist realism that taints their interpretation of everything. Everything that supports the ends of capitalism is assumed to be good. Everything that doesn't maximize efficiency is assumed to be bad. Anyone who advocates for something that has been shown not to maximize efficiency is a big dumdum who doesn't understand economics. There is no question or discussion about whether maximizing efficiency is something we always want in every case.

We got taught that price floors and price ceilings and taxes and regulations cause deadweight loss. Deadweight loss is bad for maximizing efficiency. All those politicians who want rent control and minimum wage and increasing taxes on the 1% are big dumdums who don't understand basic economics. Are there any trade-offs where it's worth it to increase deadweight loss for some other benefit? Not considered.

I do remember getting taught that monopolies are bad. Monopolies also cause deadweight loss. Notably, it is incredibly hard to be a billionaire without being the CEO of a monopoly. Billionaires are causing deadweight loss. Any politician who's against trust busting is an economically illiterate dumdum. If you don't have a problem with billionaires then you hate the basic principles of capitalist competition. (Or alternatively you're an economically illiterate dumdum.)

There are many forms of economic efficiency, but the only one I was taught in school was Pareto efficiency. None of my professors mentioned any other variant. Pareto efficiency was treated as a law of the universe. It's just a theory by some guy. He made some pretty math equations that work under idealized conditions. What if he's wrong? What about all the other models that think he's wrong? What if he's right but he didn't consider things like institutions of oppression? (19th century white Parisian nobility are well known for taking into account how racism, sexism, classism, etc affect society.)

I think the order of classes is suspicious too. First you get simplified microeconomics then simplified macroeconomics then increase the math of each while still being simplified, all before talking about where real life capitalist countries are failing at approaching the idealized model. By that time, the capitalist realism has already set in. We should get to the differences between the graphs and the reality by the third class bare minimum. Perfect competition isn't possible. It's a utopia. Does that actually mean that we should be trying to get closer to it? What sort of trade-offs should we consider when we're departing from perfect competition? We never discussed it.

To the extent of my knowledge, my university never had a class on idealized socialism or communism or any other economic model but focuses entirely on idealized capitalism until upper division classes. The only classes that acknowledge socialism exists compares existing capitalist countries to existing socialist countries. By then, you've already drank the Kool aid of how capitalism could be at its best and it turns out theoretical capitalism is more attractive than existing totalitarian dictatorships. What would a socialist democracy look like? They never bother to ask.

You can't compare and contrast something you don't know anything about. It's all capitalist realism. Anyone who hasn't taken a Socialist Economics 101 class where they draw the simplified graphs and they explain the concepts is an economically illiterate dumdum too.

[irnbraw]

ADVERTISMENT

[oldfritz]

time to write a book review for something i only read three chapters of because i repeatedly tried and failed to comprehend it in the hospital. godspeed men

[dirtgrubroy]

the ongoing gag that charlie is stupid and illiterate but also is a musical savant that can read theory and has a better grasp on economics than the rest of the gang. that he’s gross and grimey but is arguably the one member of the gang the rest are most physically comfortable with, the one member they’ll all come together for .::;; i need to sleep for a very long time

[vomitdodger]

And by that he means he is transferring the debt to the American taxpayer. And no lame stream media will point this out or asks the “what next” questions revolving around the debt.

For the young socialists who might not yet get this, if this “cancellation” was a legit thing, then why not cancel, mortgages, medical debt, car payments, etc etc etc.

Because it not real. It’s pure pandering to the economically illiterate, many of whom made bad choices to incur the debt. The banks WILL get the money somehow. It’s just not specified. If they didn’t, the banks would collapse. But then again the socialist probably want that too.

[darkeagleruins]

"Government construction of homes would take resources out of the hands of the private sector, reducing the number of housing units the latter can build. At best, this is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic...."

[centrally-unplanned]

I guess to balance out my frequent Biden defense, a 100% tariff on EVs+ from China is some rank insane economic illiteracy. Like I get red baiting the voting base, but remember, they are also economically illiterate. They won't know if your policy is actually good or effective not, just propose the not-awful ones! "New industrial subsidies for EV production" yeah probably wasteful but w/e I get that, don't sabotage green energy developments for no reason.

Definitely one of the worst developments of the recent times is how much the protectionist turn is actually real, Biden & Trump both are true believers in it so it is much harder to shake.

[sgiandubh]

When you do not know a thing about the issue at stake...

...perhaps it's better to remain silent.

Some of you know, others don't - and that's fine - but my main field of expertise is labor law.

I just read this in anger and disbelief:

Look, lady. I don't care who the hell you are, what you do for a living or why you felt entitled to answer those insistent questions on your side of the fandom. I suppose you are North American and have no idea of how things work on this side of the pond. It is fine: I might know what a Congress filibuster is, for example, but I'd be severely unable to judge the finer points of competence sharing between Fed and state level.

The difference between you and me?

I keep my mouth shut and/or do my own research before opening it in public.

Have you no shame to write things like: 'It was discovered clothing factories in Bulgaria and Portugal made it and how workers were exploited, mostly women, because these factories were in special economic zones in these countries exempt from EU employee rights and regulations.'

HOW DARE YOU? What strange form of illiterate entitlement possessed you to utter such things with confidence, comfortably hidden behind a passive voice ('it was discovered')?

Portugal joined the EU in 1986. Bulgaria (and my country) joined the EU in 2007. I have given 5 relentless years of my life to make this collective political project a reality, along with hundreds of other people my age who chose to come back home from the West and put their skills to good use for their country. In doing so, I rejected more than 10 excellent corporate job offers in France and China. To see you come along and write such enormities is like having you spit in my face.

Article 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (aka The Treaty of Rome) is formal and clear, as far as competence sharing between the EU and its Member States goes (the UK was still, back then, a full member of the EU - it quit on February 1st 2020):

That means that ALL the EU regulations are being integrated into the national legislation of the Member States. This is not a copy/paste process, however. And because it is a shared competence area, the Member States have a larger margin of appreciation into making the EU rules a part of their own. While exceptions or delays in this process can be and are negotiated, the core principles are NEVER touched.

Read it one hundred times, madam, maybe you'll learn something today:

THERE ARE NO SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. THE WHOLE FUCKING EUROPEAN UNION IS A SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE, THIS IS WHY IT IS CALLED THE SINGLE MARKET.

What the fuck do you think we are, Guangzhou? We'd wish, seeing the growth statistics!

Now, for the textile industry sector and particularly with regard to the Bulgarian market, a case very similar to my own country. Starting around 1965, many big European textile players realized the competitive advantage of using the lower paid, readily available Eastern European workforce. In order to be able to do business with all those dour Communist regimes, the solution was simple and easy to find: toll manufacturing.

It worked (and still does!) like this:

The foreign partner brings its own designs, textiles and know-how into the mix - or more simply put, it outsources all these activities. The locals transform it into the finished product, using their own workforce. The result is then re-exported to the foreign partner, who labels it and sells it. In doing so, he has the legal obligation to include provenance on the label ('made in Romania', 'made in Indonesia', 'made in Bulgaria' - you name it).

The reason you might find less and less of those 'made in ' labels nowadays at Primark and more and more at Barbour, Moncler and the such is the constant raise of the workers' wages in Eastern Europe since 1990 (things happened there, in 1989, maybe you remember?). We are not competitive anymore for midrange prêt-à-porter - China (Shein, anyone?), Cambodia and Mexico do come to mind as better suppliers. To speak about 'exploited female labourers in rickety old factories' is an insult and a lie. They weren't exploited back in the Eighties, as they are not now (workers in those factories were and still are easily paid about 50% more than all the rest) and the factories being modernized and constantly updated was always a mandatory clause in any contract of the sort. Normal people in our countries rarely or ever saw those clothes. You had to either be lucky enough for a semi-confidential store release or bribe someone working there and willing to take the risk, in order to be able to buy the rejected models on the local market.

If I understood correctly, you place this critical episode at the launch of the limited SRH & Barbour collection, for the fall of 2018. How convenient for you, who (I am told by trusted people) were one of the most vocal critics of S during Hawaii 2.0!

And as far as Barbour goes, it never pretended to manufacture everything in the UK only:

This information is absolutely true. You can read the whole statement, signed in October 2017 by one of their Directors, Ian Sime, here: https://www.barbour.com/us/media/wysiwyg/PDF/Ethical_Statement_October_2017.pdf

And a snapshot for you:

Oh, and: SEDEX is a behemoth in its world, with more than 75.000 companies joining as a member (https://www.sedex.com/become-a-member/meet-our-customers/). Big corporations like TESCO, Dupont, Nestle, Sainsbury's or Unilever included.

I am not Bulgarian, but I know all of this way better than you'll probably ever do. The same type of contracts were common all over Eastern Europe: Romania, Poland, the GDR (that's East Berlin and co, for you) and even the Soviet Union. I am also sure your Portuguese readers will be thrilled to see themselves qualified by a patronizing North American as labor exploiters living in a third-world country with rickety factories.

You people have no shame and never did. But you just proved with trooping colors you also have no culture and no integrity. More reasons to not regret my unapologetic fandom choice.

I expect an angry and very, very vulgar answer to this, even if I chose to not include your name/handle. The stench of your irrelevance crossed an ocean.

[she-is-ovarit]

Women and girls are oppressed on the axis of sex:

Economic

 Around 2.4 billion women of working age are not afforded equal economic opportunity and 178 countries maintain legal barriers that prevent their full economic participation, according to the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2022 report. In 86 countries, women face some form of job restriction and 95 countries do not guarantee equal pay for equal work.

Globally, women still have only three quarters of the legal rights afforded to men -- an aggregate score of 76.5 out of a possible 100, which denotes complete legal parity.

Gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty: it is estimated that 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women and girls. (Source: WFP Gender Policy and Strategy.)

Less than 20 percent of the world's landholders are women. Women represent fewer than 5 percent of all agricultural landholders in North Africa and West Asia, while in sub-Saharan Africa they make up an average of 15 percent.

In the United States, the labor force participation rate among females is 56.5% and among males is 67.5% for 2022

Vulnerable employment among women [in the US] has remained nearly the same since 1991. Workers in vulnerable employment are the least likely to have formal work arrangements, social protection, and safety nets to guard against economic shocks; thus they are more likely to fall into poverty. Vulnerable employment among women is 3.9% and among men is 4.6% in the United States for 2021.

In the United States, women spend 1.6 times as much time on unpaid domestic and care work than men. In 2019, women in the United States spent 15.3% of their day and men spent 9.7% of their day on unpaid work. 

A 2013 study revealed that 7.6% of lesbian couples in the United States live in poverty compared to 5.7% of married different-sex couples. Similarly, one-third of lesbian couples without a high school diploma were in poverty compared to 18.8% of different-sex couples.

Study: Stereotypes of middle-aged women as less ‘nice’ can hold them back at work.

Women hold 66% of all student loan debt. 41% of women undergraduates take out student loans, compared to 35% of male undergraduates. Women take an additional two years on average to pay off student loans.

Education

Women make up more than two-thirds of the world's 796 million illiterate people.

While progress has been made in reducing the gender gap in urban primary school enrollment, data from 42 countries shows that rural girls are twice as likely as urban girls to be out of school.

Male violence against women

In the United States, the share of women who have experienced intimate partner violence is nearly the same as the world average, 27%. Intimate partner violence is by far the most prevalent form of violence against women globally and is defined as the percentage of ever-married women (ages 15-49) who have ever experienced physical or sexual violence committed by their husband or partner.

35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.

1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner – a number that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade.

Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner.

Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.

200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.

Violence against women in Mexico rises to over 70%, study finds

7 in 10 human trafficking victims are women and girls.

Women and girls represent 65 per cent of all trafficking victims globally. More than 90 per cent of detected female victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Politics, power, and Influence

28.7% of seats in national parliament were held by women in 2022 in the United States

Metadata analysis shows biographies of women on Wikipedia are deleted and marked non-notable at a significantly higher rate than those of men.

Women continue to be underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, representing only slightly more than 35% of the world’s STEM graduates. Women are also a minority in scientific research and development, making up less than a third of the world’s researchers.

Medical discrimination, medical violence, and female healthcare

 Women 32% more likely to die after operation by male surgeon

Women are over-medicated because drug dosage trials are done on men.

Women are sometimes forcibly sterilized, without consent, across the globe.

Mental Health

A 2016 study investigating physical and mental health, and experiences of violence among male and female trafficking survivors in England found 78% of women and 40% of men reported high levels of depression, anxiety, or PTSD symptoms.

Female people in the US attempt suicide more frequently than men.

Adult women have higher rates of mental illness than adult men

Discrimination, bias, and sex-based stereotypes

 UN report finds 90% of men and women hold some sort of bias against females.

Men were 93 percent more likely to have their loans discharged when disclosing a medical condition, as compared to women who disclosed medical conditions.

We historically are not included in research, and when we are, are grouped in with men which is unhelpful (bonus question: What does this mean, then, if male people who "identify-as-women" are grouped in with women and not considered a separate category?)

The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy (MWD) denotes polarized perceptions of women in general as either “good,” chaste, and pure Madonnas or as “bad,” promiscuous, and seductive whores. Men who reported higher endorsement of the Madonna-whore-dichotomy rated their partner as less entitled to sexual pleasure. Women who reported higher endorsement of the Madonna-whore dichotomy devalued their own pleasure by rating their partner as more entitled to sexual pleasure than themselves.

“Their Great Shame is Poverty”: Women Portrayed as Among the “Undeserving Poor” are Seen as Deserving Sexual Assault

The Impact of Media Use on Girls' Beliefs About Gender Roles, Their Bodies, and Sexual Relationships: A Research Synthesis.

Mothers in China for decades pressured their daughters to bind their feet - often destroying the function and formation of their feet - in order to please and service men.

My one disclaimer to this post is that there is a tremendous amount of information left out of this post. This is because it is impossible to capture the vast amount of research and details within studies illuminating the sex-based oppression of women and girls. I have not gone into depth on the impact of media on teenage girls' body image, the role of trauma in girls influencing them to hate their bodies, FGM, the Iranian protests, etc. I hope others reblog and add more information.

[tanadrin]

love too spread right wing conspiracy theories as a “leftist” bc i am economically illiterate and convinced everything is doomed