cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5566633
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MechCADdie on 2025-04-04 08:19:11+00:00.
cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5566633
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MechCADdie on 2025-04-04 08:19:11+00:00.
Someone has either never seen “Ferris Buller’s Day Off,” can’t remember it very well, or didn’t pay attention. This was covered in class!
In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?.. the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?.. raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics.
I watched this movie 3-4 times and even when reading this, I’m still spaced out.
Ben Stein just has a voice that makes me tune him out.
Such a great voice for comedy. Shame he’s anti-abortion, pretty racist, pro-Regan and Trump, weirdly against evolution… So many awful perspectives.
You can see his point. Look where it got us, we should have stayed in the sea.
Or we should’ve listened to what native americans were trying to tell us for centuries.
Yeah, can we vote for some intelligent design please. The old regime isn’t working out.
What’s interesting is that this boring speech isn’t just an actor reading something boring. Stein is a second-generation economist. He has a BA in economics from Columbia University. His father had a PhD in economics and chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
His father was apparently well respected by both parties, but the son has gone full MAGA, which is unfortunate.
Planet Money interviewed the professor who wrote the book from which Ben Stein is reading in that scene.
It is an older episode they re-air periodically. I think this one:
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/11/1218506684/worst-tariffs-ever-update
I know it from the Newsroom