Nickel and Dime Economics

Governments tax people through excess fees, legal penalties, and other forms of taxation in the hope to recoup revenue.

one city in Missouri imposed many new fines and taxes to add revenue to their budget. The method they implemented is called Nickel and Dime Economics

by jondich September 20, 2022

Tanked the economy

Hey... Hey, guys...

Hym "Wouldn't it be funny if every time liberals got into office we tanked the economy and blamed it on them? Heh... We could probably be pretty subtle about it and just tank it every time we lose and then hold 'a good economy' hostage so we can maintain the status quo. LIKE WE DO WITH OUR RELIGION! It'd be, like, the same exact thing except for politics!"

by Hym Iam November 22, 2023

IT TECH ENCODING

C/:documents/c:/system CD drive Image Sounds ///

That's what you call IT TECH ENCODING

by 201HH December 20, 2024

In This Economy?

A statement usually made after someone suggests something that the other party doesn’t particularly want to do, particularly involving anything to do with money whatsoever. Often used as a cost-effective way to not do something, though really it often applies to a stupid idea being rejected for this even more stupid reason.

“Yo we should put some rats up our asses!” - Guy 1
“In this economy? Damn shits are lucky if they even get out of the sewers.” - Guy 2

by I.E.I. Industries February 25, 2025

Hot Waitress Economic Index

Hot Waitress Economic Index (HWEI) is an unofficial and controversial economic indicator suggesting that when the economy tanks, suddenly all the servers at restaurants become ridiculously attractive because hot people who normally work better-paying jobs are forced to wait tables. The hotter your server, the more fucked the economy probably is.

The HWEI is one of the many weird indicators that people have used to make sense of the economy. Advertisements by the United States Marine Corps, sales of men's underwear, and even lipstick sales are just a few of them.

You can expect to see tougher marine recruitment ads on TV in a difficult economy because they meet recruitment goals quickly in down economies. They don't have to worry about scaring people away. Men's underwear sales will dip (that pair might last a little longer) and lipstick sales will go up because it's a relatively inexpensive personal luxury.

Kevin: Damn, my waitress last night was hot, why is she working at The Cheesecake Factory?? According to the Hot Waitress Economic Index, we're definitely heading for a recession.

by Sickomonster March 4, 2025

Hard Problem of Economics

The micro-macro divide: Economics struggles to coherently connect the behavior of individual agents (assumed to be rational, self-interested) with the emergent phenomena of the whole economy (booms, busts, inflation). Models that work for a household or firm fail catastrophically at the national level (the fallacy of composition). The hard problem is that the economy is a complex, adaptive system of billions of interacting, emotional, and sometimes irrational people. It's like trying to predict the weather by studying a single molecule of air. The elegant mathematical models provide a comforting illusion of certainty but repeatedly break down in the face of real-world crises, bubbles, and panics.

Example: For an individual, saving money is prudent. But if everyone suddenly increases savings simultaneously (the "paradox of thrift"), aggregate demand plummets, businesses fail, unemployment rises, and people end up poorer overall. The rational individual act leads to a collectively irrational outcome. The hard problem: Economics cannot be reliably scaled up. Policies that seem sound in theory (austerity, deregulation) can trigger disaster in practice because the model's simplifying assumptions (perfect information, rational actors) evaporate in the chaotic reality of herds, fear, and speculation. The economy is a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes the characters rebel against the plot. Hard Problem of Economics.

by Enkigal January 24, 2026

Theory of Constructed Economics

The argument that "the economy" is not a natural force like weather, but a human-constructed game with invented rules, players (households, firms), and scores (GDP, money). Concepts like "inflation," "unemployment," and "the market" are models we built; they then take on a life of their own and shape our behavior, but they began as ideas, not laws of physics.

*Example: "A 'recession' is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. GDP itself is a constructed metric invented in the 1930s. The Theory of Constructed Economics shows that the terrifying, objective-sounding force that 'causes' layoffs is actually a story we tell ourselves using numbers we invented. We built the game, forgot we built it, and now tremble at its rules."*

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026