Biden's Plan for Depression

So during the two debates Biden made several comments relating to his economic plans. If we take him solely at his word, not using any commentary from Trump, his staff, or his supporters, we can still see that his economic ideas will lead this country to plummet economically (though we can always go back to making money by plundering the Middle East I suppose)

The first and most apparent this is the plan to shut down everything for three months regarding the virus. Even the WHO has made the claim that the economic disaster of shut downs of this magnitude will actually cause more deaths in regards to starvation than the virus itself. This alone is an atrocious idea.

Stepping away from the China cough and looking at his base plan, one of his statements was to increase the tax rate to 28% for anyone making 500k or more. Considering we are already in an economic decline due to the outbreak, this sort of tax increase will - as it always does - lead to companies laying off workers to make up the tax difference. Hitting employers with harder taxes always hurts employees in the long run.

Let's compound this with his plan to raise the minimum wage to 15/hour, and we can guarantee layoffs even further. We have already seen examples of this disaster in cities like Seattle, with jobs traditionally made for minimum wage now handled by automation. Employers who cannot afford to pay the new wage will have no choice but to lay off workers, and workers making above minimum wage but below 15 find themselves once again back at the bottom tier financially - assuming they don't get an increase in wage to compensate, which is unlikely. To make matters worse, this sort of increase, after the short term destruction will result in an increase of prices (again to compensate for the new minimum wages) and cause inflation, devaluing the currency until it is roughly equivalent again. 

This will be okay though because Biden plans to create 50,000 new jobs (might have been more, I don't recall the exact number but it doesn't actually matter). The problem with creating government jobs is they do not and cannot create wealth or economic growth in a country. Government jobs are paid for with tax money, which comes out if the population as a whole, resulting in a simple distribution and zero net gain in wealth for the nation. And of course with these job increases come tax increases, which may or may not be factored into the 28% figure above.

I know a lot of these proposals (increase minimum wage, tax the rich, etc) sound great at first glance, but if you get an understanding of economics, it's rather easy to spot this horror. I understand economics is an incredibly dry topic and not exactly a thrill to study, but if you want a quick rundown that is accessable to a lay person not versed in the subject, I sincerely recommend picking up "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt. It's a rather short book and the information in it is incredibly worthwhile for understanding how an economy operates.

Hopefully I didn't bore you too much. Economics isn't exactly the most entertaining of topics.