Topic: Is the economy supposed to be a political tools? (Read 563 times)

I guess it is as perfect as how it should be. I mean when governments are the one who create needed setup like industries and making policies to allow import/export which are the basis for building economy stronger then they definitely will make use of those things again to make them stronger so that they will retain power to rule again and again. I mean governments may use economy as a tool for making themselves powerful which in turn may get people to find methods for their survival.

When governments derive path for better economy of their country which usually impact their every citizen. When their policy helps their each and every people to get better in their life which will obviously help their nation to be stronger. So, I guess governments may use economy as a political tool when it leads to win-win scenario for all of us including government.

Contrary to popular belief printing money doesn't really mean that the government is just devaluing their own fiat currency, there are just instances where some governments overprint their money to the point it results into hyperinflation. Our central banks also have their job to know what is sufficient money to be printed that can cover the demand at the same time have a healthy inflation but if they do something wrong about this they it may result to hyperinflation or even deflation. Printing money isn't really the problem here overprinting and underprinting is the problem that is see that can greatly affect the economy.

That is one of the reasons why they do not care but another one is simply they have used their political power to get economic power and for the most part they not only have fiat in store but several other assets that will resist the hyperinflation that is coming, they have precious metals, real estate, works of art and maybe some of them are even holding bitcoin, as such they do not care if the economy crash tomorrow as they have the means to keep themselves safe and even profit from such a crisis.

Economy and politics have always be connected and they can't function one without the other. And yes, politicans have always used economy as a tool to achieve their goals, with more or less success.
It's always the government that sets up economy policies and I don't know that any country is functioning different. There isn't a way that economy could be split from governments and politics and citizens have no other choice than to obey rules they set.

What should be is very rarely the case in any country. Politicians should be uncorruptible, judges should be fair, and so on. You're lucky if the majority is like that but there are always exceptions. Even in the US you had Clinton and then his wife, both impressive liars and confabulators. You had Bush who started a war with Saddam over nuclear weapons that never existed. Governments are corrupt everywhere, deal with it.
They print money because for them it doesn't really matter what will happen in 50 years. They'll be long dead by then. It's here and now that matters.

Maybe it could be a political tools that's corruption always present everywhere in different sectors of government. But  I think the Central banks has a limited number of money to be imprinted in every time that there is a change of leadership. Because if they imprinted more bills ,it's value will decrease. There is a limit and also imprinting of bills are expensive.

Well, in some sense, everything is a political tool. If two political parties are arguing over or even two political party supporters are arguing, we can say that everything could be an argument topic. You can talk about the most silliest things about how there used to be less people in the world and population was caused by the political decisions governments made, or you can go into more in-depth economical proof that the country is doing much worse.

None of this makes sense because in the end politicians are mostly elected, which means that if you are elected and if you are ruling that nation, you could basically find a way to get what you want done one way or another, if the people love you enough to elect you, maybe they would vote for your decision on a referendum as well so basically everything could be done.

Can you give at least one example of an economy that exists outside of States and different policies? If not then you should understand that economy is part of the state, i.e political tool

Of course it is from the start.

It has a great impact on economy without politics we can lose our economy.

TEX-LXRY

I think we didn't see crisis in full swing yet, this is just the beginning, sadly! This ship is sinking, and many people face with all kind of problems, and most of them are connected with the lockdown, news about viruses, that affects everyone! Small and medium businesses are ruined, and we don't see that yet, they are holding on some governments help, but for how long that can last when money is not coming? Tourism?! This year many countries that rely on money from that will not get it, they are stuck! And do you know how many people will be hurt by that?

After all that news are not getting better! More cases, more deaths, new lockdowns, new restrictions... In some moments I really don't know what we can expect to happen next!?

There are a lot of politicians who are helping a lot of people during this pandemic but when this pandemic doesn't exist yet, they are just making money out of their political platforms. But most of the politicians here in our country are very corrupt that's why our country is not that really developing compared to other countries out there who have a responsible government.

It is hard to find a trustworthy and responsible government officials because once they are elected, they are not doing what they should do. They are not serving the country with all of their might and they are just sitting in their houses and waiting for their salary to come.

Hoping that in this pandemic, we can recover from economic crisis and the government officials should focus on that and not on their own benefits.

Economy always was a sort of political tool. Big countries could affter small countries in a lot of ways

If so, things might work well if there's no interventions coming from corrupt officials, but facts remained
as there's none and everything works with this kind of industry.
There are many politicians who still in control and the allocations of the government budgets still being
used by those leaders from their personal gains.
If decentralized will be implemented and it will work independently, then this corrupt ways of system
will be change.

---

It's still the politicians that controlling and managing the entire process, with this kind of system it will
continue being corrupted in anyhow.

Economists give advise,but the politicians are making the decisions.Most of their decisions are only about gaining support in the society and wining the elections.That's why the political system of democracy is stimulating short term decisions(or policies for immediate gains,like you wrote).The people want less taxes and more government spending,so the politicians give the people what they want,in order to be reelected.This means higher budget deficits and money printing by the central banks.The economists know that this is dangerous for the global financial system,but they don't have the power and authority to influence the politicians and change their minds.

The large majority of the world's economists share your view on this and they warned governments about the future impact of this "toilet paper" money printing policies. The debt incurred will not even be settled in 2 or 3 generations from now and our children's children will be stuck with the debt we are creating now. 

I think many of these politicians just do this to manipulate their voters into voting for them by creating a "fake" sense of well being and security to hide the real dragon that will feast on the generations to come. (Most of these politicians will be dead by them, so they do not care about this or the legacy that they leave behind.)   

Due to the weak system of government political leaders have intervened and almost everything is now corrupt The country's economy is being hampered by politics. The intervention of political leaders has led to inflation in the country which is most effective in destroying the economy However, the country's economy will not be hampered if it is run in a decentralized manner without a central system to improve the economy In this case there will be no political interference.

    Economy should be a tool Yhiaali3, but the tool in wrong hands is a disaster. Many of us complain on governments and how
they operate, but we can't do a lot about that. It's why I prefer crypto-currences over traditional currencies, decentralization
is what we need, the power should be in the hands of all the people, not just some people.
    Now everything is just a political tool in hands of the party that wins election. In my country it's like that, and I believe in
many others as well.

Your words are true, the continuous printing of money impedes the economy and may cause inflation and the collapse of the economy if there is no real value for this money such as gold or commodities or others, but I do not think that the government issuing bills has anything to do with the matter.
usually the central bank of any country is the one that issues These recommendations are implemented by the government, of course when politicians intervene in the economy a lot of problems occur because such serious decisions may be taken for a political reason rather than an economic reason and this will lead to serious consequences for the economy.

Depending on how chronic a country's economic slowdown and the use of printed money. If the economic recession is in a mild stage like China, printing money with a guarantee of layered productive projects. If the economic condition is chronic then the medicine must be added with the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the role of pressing the government as a regulator of the economy in order to be able to drive the national economy fairly.

So before printing money the project must be prepared first. If it prints money and does not increase the production sector, there will be a mismatch that causes inflation. When inflation cannot be controlled the government will lead to depression. Printing money for social assistance and direct cash assistance during a pandemic is a fatal mistake.

Politicians by nature are extremely shortsighted, they care only about getting elected themselves, getting reelected if possible under the rules of the political system of the country, getting their party elected, getting all the credit when something good happens and not getting any blame if something bad happens, so they do not really care about the long term economic health of the country as long as it does not happens on their watch, that way they can always put blame on another politician and get elected again, it is an incredibly simple way to do things and yet people fall over and over again in the same trick.

The easiest solution to get rid of this problem is to print more cash.
You need to bring the economy and life back to normal as soon as possible and to compensate all the people who have been affected by the policies of social separation, the easiest solution is to print more cash.
It will lead to many problems in the future, but it is the only solution currently proposed.

That’s what it is, you can’t question the government on the decisions they make, they do whatever pleases and don’t care if it’s affecting the people or not. They go in there with promises that they are going to make the country a better place, but when they go in they make it even worse than it used to be. And this is a serious case in the developing countries, and you know why? These countries are already in a bad condition and still struggling to grow, but their governments keeps messing things up.

These are the countries that are going to be facing the consequences more than the countries that are developed. For the people whose government is not planning/working for their betterment, bitcoin must be a savior for them because it will at least help them to save their hard earned money in most secured way and also bitcoin is a proven tool against hyperly inflated fiats.

Economists are part of the government too and they are abreast of the impact of their involvement on the future economy. Let me also tell you that every government have contingency plan but in some cases that there are crisis with no one certain when the crisis will stop and the overall effect on the economy, there is need to take quick actions that might reduce the present effect of the crisis on the economy. You are talking about future plan when no one has better alternative that might solve present economy condition.

Almost all state leaders use the economy as a political tool to find the sympathy of the people. But not everyone can use
economy as a political tool, but only people who have power can afford it. And many dirty leaders are using the economy
as a political tool won the election. Which in the end after being elected, the leader use of power for corruption. Actually it
is better not to use the economy as a political tool in my opinion, because many are misused by politicians.

I would like to convey my own opinion and information about the subject you are talking about a little and the information about the subject you are talking about. First of all, as long as free cash is continuing, long-term economic problems will arise, and most importantly, inflation will increase unexpectedly. Although this is known not only by economists but by many, there is a fact that the world economy is no longer shaped by the economic conditions or the moves of the central banks. Politics has become a very effective weapon for the change of economic conditions today and all economic conditions that can occur with politics can change. That is why it has been very difficult to predict the future of economic conditions. Even the smallest political events affect the markets and the world economy, causing the economic balance to shake.

The continuous printing of money hampering the economy and quality of life in the long run will be true if the country is experiencing normal conditions and not an exceptional situation.
The comprehensive closure and social divergence created an exceptional situation that made some solutions that were bad in the past the best solutions in the present and made the printing of money a sound solution so as not to stagnate and people fail to buy and sell, they are the best solutions and they have no harm because it is an exceptional situation.

It is just because government are really rooting for a full control of the people, that's why they are taking advantage of this pandemic. I know that it is hard for us to survive this pandemic but the government should help us properly and give reasonable support to sustain our lives during this pandemic, especially those people who are really in need. Politics should not be the focused right now by the government, they should prioritize humanity because if you help people during this pandemic. They will take this opportunity to give thanks to you and earn their trust especially that people are the one who are voting those political positions during elections. As the governments are doing their best to help the economy recover, they should also help the community.

Some maybe yes, but some maybe not. But as far as I can see, some countries are really taking advantage of this pandemic to properly manipulate its people and control how things go. Politicians are using this pandemic to help people and have a good image so that when the next election comes, people will vote for them.

But that's an old style of a campaign, helping people during crisis is really a cliche thing that most of the politicians are doing.

They are using this pandemic to steal a lot of money. I'm not saying that all of the government officials are doing this but still a lot of them are corrupt. They are not properly allocating the money that they are holding or borrowing from World Bank, or the budget that supposed to be used in a health sector and for the community.

Who controls the money control the country. Kings or presidents, it's the same thing for me, with a different name. Economy is a tool, and it can be used for good or bad, depending on which hands control it, and personally I don't think it's used for good, at least not for the majority of the world population. I think the economy should serve all of us, not just some people like politicians and kings.

Don't forget the elections, Trump is probably everything he can to delay the effects of a possible recession during his mandate. If the recession strikes before the election he will probably lose them since his major achievement was about the economy.

Before the governments the economy was the tool of the Kings of every country. Even now many countries still have very wealthy kings, most of the times with limited powers. So in the end the government is just the aggregation of all the people in a country. Without such a pooling of powers by a government, the people would look very bad compared to other countries.

There might some bad consequences from the government, but without it, it would be even worse.

I think the economy is a management tool in the hands of the government. After all, the government takes all decisions taking into account the current situation on the country's market and regulates this situation by issuing various resolutions. In a crisis and taking into account the economic decline, the government takes forced measures and this can cause inflation and other negative consequences for countries.

There is nothing wrong with printing money with or without collateral. As long as the use of printed money is for the productive sector as well as real projects as collateral. Not for import activities or paying for coupons or debt. Japan succeeded in printing money as well as China, the two countries rapid development and growth. Print money guaranteed by debt securities is a way to withdraw cash (dollars) directly to the state treasury. But printing a new style of money can be with a sovereign wealth fund or project-based without having to issue bonds. China prints renminbi to attract dollars into China.

Economic programs are more often colored politicized so that they are not really formulated carefully. Economic programs are more political in nature only to boost the image of the authorities than for programs that truly empower the people's economy. The politicization of the program creates wealth and artificial growth. Politicization has made the economic program lose its substance, become more wasteful, ineffective, and even ironically is an increasingly heavy budget burden because the foundation is foreign debt or imports. The majority of economic policies are only reactionary and do not touch the problem substantially. Not to mention the government opposition who want a situation that is always not conducive.

The most important of a leader and government official is a strong character and dare to challenge the flow. Because an idealist when he is in the office is usually carried away by the oligarchs and plutocrats in power so that his idealism is lost by the flow of the system that has been created and running.

You are right partially.
The last sentence is quite questionable tho.
World changes the fastest when people's mind changes, not when you change the law - that is the main issue.
People all over the world should understand why do they need those changes and start to will a change

You said it your self, printing money is going to affect the economy badly in the long run. But the government is thinking about the short run. They know that bad affects that is going to take place, but to win peoples support they need show that they are fixing the economy. Thus, they start taking those stupid decisions. So, I guess they use economy as a political tool which they never should. But, yeah they are corrupted af and doesn't care about anything as long as they hold the power.

Most of the political leaders look for their own benefits on every activity in their government that is why they are concentrating on shirt term goals and forget about long term and also their ruling period is limited so why they want to do for long term.

If a government wants to make their economy strong they have to help the people to make money which will automatically make enough earning to thr government which won't bring any inflation as well.

Nobody is in control
but this thread reminds me of a lecture Andreas did a couple years back
Money as a system of control

have you watched it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyK4P7ZdOK8

30 of September of 2017.

I guess you have a decent economic background which is great. I also understand that the body making policies and those printing the bills are independent at least on paper. But I strongly feel that behind the scene of what we don't see, there are a lot of interconnected powers playing out, of which the government is always the mastermind.

I don't think they don't benefit directly from passing abusive law, but these last few years we have seen cases in which politicians literally sold their votes for a few thousands. If we could put a number on the damage some of them have done for a handful of dollars for their campaign, the public opinion would be outraged and push them out in an instant.

This is easy to explain, for politicians everything is a tool that they can use for potential gain and if that means destroying the economy so be it, there are very few politicians that actually care about the people they are governing, they care about themselves and nothing more, and while an economic crisis is bad for the people it is good for them as it gives them a chance to pass even more exploitative laws, this is why we need to separate the currency from the government and bitcoin is the first real challenger to appear in hundreds of years to the current model.

And that leads them to don't care at all. Their little voice won't be heard by the top rank officials or even their normal complains as a citizen.
With talks like this regarding economics, they wouldn't care because for those small complains that they have and still no action, that doesn't matter anymore to them if the economies good or not.

If you look at central banks and their policies, they are supposed to be independent and their decisions should be disconnected from politics. This was made for a simple reason, politics can try to take advantage of these policies to get advantages which will destabilize the economy in the long term. In this frame, the government can only make decisions regarding the management and allocation of resources it already owns.

Economy is not really an important political tool because all politicians use it, when you use something by everyone that means it is not a tool anymore and it is a must. Let's look at USA for example, there is really nothing in economy that is not divided, everything regarding money is divided between two parties and now you see that it is not a tool anymore but a must.

If you want tools you have to figure out how to use something that the other side is not using at all, for example for Democrats it is the green new deal because they are the party that cares about the climate and the global warming danger, republicans do not care about it, or look at ones who are looking for free universal healthcare, those are stuff you can call tools because other party do not use it, same goes for gun rights for republicans for example.

See , as long as it can be used by the politicians to exploit the people and policies , everything is a tool for the politicians. Never trust them for good.

See problem is , at this time they have to print money or generate jobs and take care of salaries of people. Unfortunately printing money is the easy way out , plus I have not seen much politicians with an educated background where they did serve the country and it's people for good. Most of the times they are just faces of the party they are working with.

Plus printing money is not as easy as we might think , The Fed decides how much money is supposed to be printed , there are 7 members in the Federal Reserve and therefore this whole notion has to be put forth and is considered equally from all directions , they are well aware of the outcome it might bring .

More or so : It's needed at this time because we cannot expect them to run governance during a pandemic + various protests all around the globe . As long as they are able to help their people through this time it should be enough.

It's not like they don't care about the matter. The truth is, against the government, they can only very little by voicing out their concerns which doesn't go far by the way. Government will fo whatever they want.


This is the scenario that occurs majority of the time. The government have always influenced economic policies especially for their own selfish gain. People might argue that economists makes the fiscal policies of any nation but I know for a fact that isn't all there is. These economists will only do the bidding of government if need be. They just keep printing more bills till they reach peak points and then try mitigating it. Rinse and repeat.

I understand your point, we always know that printing more money will bring inflation. However, with the current situation wherein we are under the pandemic, countries are not operating as normal, the law of supply and demand are skewed.


Sadly, this is true, not looking at the long run and it seems that the problem lies on the sitting government. If the government knows how to run the country to get out of recession and increase productivity then it will be very beneficial specially giving its people more purchasing power.

I'm not an expert economically but what you have just said is true. Even people who are not good in economics will understand that the continuous printing will have inflict the future.
But for some people that have completely zero knowledge about economics, they wouldn't care about this matter. Although, they will see the infliction when most credits start to increase in rates and also the adjustment of taxes.

Case Scenario - 1

If you give way authority of most vital treasure to non-governing body then how do you think government will give us protection from worst calamities, or downtime of country.

The Economist will always have attitude to save the countries economy and thus may not give free hand to release reserve funds for common man.

Case Scenario - 2

In the developing countries where corruption by political bodies are done 24*7 do you think they will even give slightest angle to this idea. I guess no. Many developing countries has this scene and black money goes into pockets of politicians. They can go rogue to save their "hard earn black money", may hesitate to release these in emergency situations or may have few percent of contribution towards countries development.

Sadly both seems to be worst depending on which type of country are we talking about.

This will be in Corrupt nation where the leaders are unpatriotic in there service to the people that put them in the position they are in. When a corrupt leader is installed the overseeing power of a nation, everything can go bad, in Africa we can figure out some leaders who put in people into critical/important areas -economy,health,education,security- of the nation based on sentiments and not whose profile fits in. Some government leaders -in a corrupt government- take no notice of the economical implications before they sign off decision some of this -like collecting loans unwisely- taking the nation into Dept,