Elections Trump economic adviser refers to people as the human stock market

[TheComebackKid]

Well he's correct. "Stock" as a term refrs to human. And the currency in which the world operates is human production.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Awkward phrasing, but the statement itself is not a big deal.

You are correct that the statement is not a big deal. One can agree or disagree with his view, but clearly he wasn't saying anything insulting.

I'll add that the phrasing is only awkward because it is economics jargon. For example, consider the much discussed paper by Ben Jones titled, The Human Capital Stock: A Generalized Approach.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.104.11.3752. That's from 2014.

Google the phrase, skip the first few pages of articles about the outrage of a Trumpista using the term, and you'll find plenty of articles using that exact phrase, usually in specialized pieces. Here's another example from 1996, Evaluating the Impacts of Human Capital Stocks and Accumulation on Economic Growth, but there are many: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12347512/

The people purporting to be outraged by this are ignorant or lying. The people in this thread calling me a liar for pointing out that it was a fairly straightforward economics term are also either ignorant or lying.

 

[nac386]

You are correct that the statement is not a big deal. One can agree or disagree with his view, but clearly he wasn't saying anything insulting.

I'll add that the phrasing is only awkward because it is economics jargon. For example, consider the much discussed paper by Ben Jones titled, The Human Capital Stock: A Generalized Approach.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.104.11.3752. That's from 2014.

Google the phrase, skip the first few pages of articles about the outrage of a Trumpista using the term, and you'll find plenty of articles using that exact phrase, usually in specialized pieces. Here's another example from 1996, Evaluating the Impacts of Human Capital Stocks and Accumulation on Economic Growth, but there are many: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12347512/

The people purporting to be outraged by this are ignorant or lying. The people in this thread calling me a liar for pointing out that it was a fairly straightforward economics term are also either ignorant or lying.

I'm not in economics, but I'm familiar with the term. I think it's awkward phrasing because usually "human capital stock" is used to refer to the benefits provided by the workers, not the workers themselves. When you measure human capital stock, you're not just counting people. Think of this definition:

Human capital is a collection of traits – all the knowledge, talents, skills, abilities, experience, intelligence, training, judgment, and wisdom possessed individually and collectively by individuals in a population.

Or this one:

Human capital is the stock of habits, knowledge, social and personality attributes (including creativity) embodied in the ability to perform labour so as to produce economic value

So there are two reasons why people are upset. First, and maybe most commonly, many people have simply never heard that phrase, and if you've never heard the phrase it sounds dehumanizing. That's not the adviser's fault, there's nothing he can do about that. But secondly, he used the phrase is a clumsy way, so even people who are familiar with the term just think it sounded a bit odd.

But like I said, it's not a big deal to me. I understand what he was saying, and I'm not the least bit bothered or offended by it. But I also think that his phrasing was awkward.

 

[PEB]

Human cattle

 

[Deleted member 159002]

Members of both parties support young men having to sign their freedom away to the government to avoid felony charges. Young men are meat for the grinder as far as Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump are concerned. That's far more offensive than the OP.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Members of both parties support young men having to sign their freedom away to the government to avoid felony charges. Young men are meat for the grinder as far as Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump are concerned. That's far more offensive than the OP.

Good boy. You've earned a pat on the head from the leader.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

Good boy. You've earned a pat on the head from the leader.

What are you talking about?

 

[vapor&dust]

Dumb thread. Human capital is a term used by many people for years to refer to workers in a positive way. Really it's just one of those corporate motivational bs bingo words. Human stock market is new but it conveys the same thing.