Essential Economics for Politicians
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Bruddah IZ
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Free Markets Accomplish Progressives' Housing Ideals
There is a blatant disconnect between the goals of progressives and the effects their policies on housing.
Rents rose faster than incomes in more progressive, coastal U.S. cities, while incomes rose faster than rents in more conservative cities such as Houston and Atlanta.
https://fee.org/articles/free-markets-accomplish-progressives-housing-ideals/
There is a blatant disconnect between the goals of progressives and the effects their policies on housing.
Rents rose faster than incomes in more progressive, coastal U.S. cities, while incomes rose faster than rents in more conservative cities such as Houston and Atlanta.
https://fee.org/articles/free-markets-accomplish-progressives-housing-ideals/
Bruddah IZ
DA
Bruddah IZ
DA
Bruddah IZ
DA
History Is on the Side of Tax Cuts
Fueled by low-tax, pro-growth economic policies, the 5.5 percent unemployment rate of 1960 dropped to 3.5 percent by 1969.
https://fee.org/articles/history-is-on-the-side-of-tax-cuts/
In his May 15, 2016 column “Why tax cuts work: The Trump plan means growth and jobs” in the Washington Times, economist Stephen Moore summarized how economic growth and tax revenues increased under the tax cut policies of Reagan and Kennedy:
Many times, tax rate cuts – including in the 1960s under John F. Kennedy and in the 1980s under Mr. Reagan – have raised tax revenues from the wealthiest tax filers because lower rates reduce incentives for tax avoidance and recharge the batteries of the economy and grow taxable incomes.
In both the 1960s and 1980s, supply-side tax cuts were followed by increased revenues. As Larry Kudlow puts it in his soon-to-be-released book on the JFK tax cuts: ‘We had six percent growth and the tax payments by the wealthiest filers nearly doubled. We had quarters of six percent growth back then.’ After the Reagan cuts, the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent rose from 19 percent in 1980 to above 25 percent in 1988, according to IRS tax return data.’
Fueled by low-tax, pro-growth economic policies, the 5.5 percent unemployment rate of 1960 dropped to 3.5 percent by 1969.
https://fee.org/articles/history-is-on-the-side-of-tax-cuts/
In his May 15, 2016 column “Why tax cuts work: The Trump plan means growth and jobs” in the Washington Times, economist Stephen Moore summarized how economic growth and tax revenues increased under the tax cut policies of Reagan and Kennedy:
Many times, tax rate cuts – including in the 1960s under John F. Kennedy and in the 1980s under Mr. Reagan – have raised tax revenues from the wealthiest tax filers because lower rates reduce incentives for tax avoidance and recharge the batteries of the economy and grow taxable incomes.
In both the 1960s and 1980s, supply-side tax cuts were followed by increased revenues. As Larry Kudlow puts it in his soon-to-be-released book on the JFK tax cuts: ‘We had six percent growth and the tax payments by the wealthiest filers nearly doubled. We had quarters of six percent growth back then.’ After the Reagan cuts, the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent rose from 19 percent in 1980 to above 25 percent in 1988, according to IRS tax return data.’
Hüsker Dü
DA
How nature proves men like Milton Friedman wrong
Markets and conservation
This and other abuses of nature led to a conservation movement that has since rescued numerous other species of birds and wildlife from extinction. Yet as we speak, elephant populations in Africa are still being decimated, destroyed by markets both legal and illegal. These serve parts of the world ignorantly hungry for the ivory tusks of elephants. Some love ivory for its decorative qualities. Other think it an aphrodisiac. These are the 'separate interests' of individuals who clearly do not care if the last elephant in the world is shot by some poacher in a dry African field. This is raw capitalism at work. It cares not for conservation or tradition. It cares only about consumption.
Worldwide exodus
We are in fact in the midst of a worldwide exodus of species bordering on the worst extinctions in geological history. In the past, these extinctions came about from natural disasters. Volcanism and meteor strikes helped change the climate, wiping out dinosaurs and even fish species.
So it could be argued that extinction is all part of the natural process of the earth. Even the seminal comic George Carlin tried to point out this fact by branding environmentalists a silly, sentimental lot. But Carlin was wrong on this subject. Because all the world's economy depends on nature, and massive extinctions are a clear sign of both commodities and markets at risk. In other words, what Carlin deemed silly is no joke at all.
Holding commerce to account
Milton Friedman may have been a brilliant economist. But he would have made a lousy biologist. Men like Friedman (and sheepdogs like Rush Limbaugh) refuse to admit that the human race and those billions of individuals pursuing their precious 'separate interests' are what's causing a massive failure of the one commodity none of us can afford to lose. That is nature.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-nature-proves-men-like-milton-friedman-wrong-christopher-cudworth
Bruddah IZ
DA
Too extreme for capitalism. This is a property rights issue. Government in Africa is failing the elephants.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Who’d a-thunk it? Game ranching and private ownership of wildlife for hunting, tourism and meat are saving rhinos, etc.?
There’s a pretty interesting and stark contrast between two completely different approaches to saving wildlife in Africa (rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and African buffaloes, etc.): a) ban the private ownership and all commercialization of wildlife except for eco-tourism vs. b) allow the private ownership of wildlife and legalize commercial activities relating to wildlife like private game ranching. Most African countries like Kenya take the first approach – individuals are not allowed to own or profit commercially from wildlife. A change in South Africa’s law in 1991 legalizing private ownership of wildlife and private game ranching provides a natural experiment to compare the two approaches.
A recent Bloomberg article provides these details:
1. South Africa’s private game-ranching is a $1.1 billion a year industry and growing at 10 percent annually. Foreign hunters, about 60 percent of whom came from the U.S., spent $118.1 million on licenses to hunt in South Africa in 2012.
2. Private game ranches have increased fivefold to 10,000 since South Africans were allowed to own and profit commercially from wild animals. The game ranches cover 20 million hectares, or about 16 percent of the country’s land.
So what’s happened to the number of wild animals in South Africa?
3. The private game industry is largely responsible for boosting the country’s large mammal population to 24 million, the most since the 19th century, and up from 575,000 in the early 1960s. For example, South Africa now has more than 20,000 white rhinos, 80 percent of the world’s total, up from 1,800 in 1968 when limited hunting was first introduced.
4. South Africa’s law change has also led to a commercial trade in wild animals with captive-bred species ranging from sable antelope to wildebeest sold at wildlife auctions.
And what about the situation in Kenya?
5. Kenya has lost 80 percent of its wildlife since it banned hunting in 1977 and large-mammal numbers are declining by 4.2 percent a year. The country’s elephant population has dropped 76 percent since the 1970s, while rhinos are down 95 percent.
http://www.aei.org/publication/who-...nting-tourism-and-meat-are-saving-rhinos-etc/
There’s a pretty interesting and stark contrast between two completely different approaches to saving wildlife in Africa (rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and African buffaloes, etc.): a) ban the private ownership and all commercialization of wildlife except for eco-tourism vs. b) allow the private ownership of wildlife and legalize commercial activities relating to wildlife like private game ranching. Most African countries like Kenya take the first approach – individuals are not allowed to own or profit commercially from wildlife. A change in South Africa’s law in 1991 legalizing private ownership of wildlife and private game ranching provides a natural experiment to compare the two approaches.
A recent Bloomberg article provides these details:
1. South Africa’s private game-ranching is a $1.1 billion a year industry and growing at 10 percent annually. Foreign hunters, about 60 percent of whom came from the U.S., spent $118.1 million on licenses to hunt in South Africa in 2012.
2. Private game ranches have increased fivefold to 10,000 since South Africans were allowed to own and profit commercially from wild animals. The game ranches cover 20 million hectares, or about 16 percent of the country’s land.
So what’s happened to the number of wild animals in South Africa?
3. The private game industry is largely responsible for boosting the country’s large mammal population to 24 million, the most since the 19th century, and up from 575,000 in the early 1960s. For example, South Africa now has more than 20,000 white rhinos, 80 percent of the world’s total, up from 1,800 in 1968 when limited hunting was first introduced.
4. South Africa’s law change has also led to a commercial trade in wild animals with captive-bred species ranging from sable antelope to wildebeest sold at wildlife auctions.
And what about the situation in Kenya?
5. Kenya has lost 80 percent of its wildlife since it banned hunting in 1977 and large-mammal numbers are declining by 4.2 percent a year. The country’s elephant population has dropped 76 percent since the 1970s, while rhinos are down 95 percent.
http://www.aei.org/publication/who-...nting-tourism-and-meat-are-saving-rhinos-etc/
Bruddah IZ
DA
No it's not a joke. Carlin wasn't wrong and neither was Friedman. You people have always been wrong about these things. Your pillar doom sayers Erlich and Malthus were horribly wrong.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Hanapaa!! or Sucker if you prefer.
Bruddah IZ
DA
The Fallacy of Macroeconomic Aggregates and Averages
In fact, however, there is no such thing as aggregate demand, or aggregate supply, or output and employment as a whole. They are statistical creations constructed by economists and statisticians, out of what really exists: the demands and supplies of multitudes of individual and distinct goods and services produced, and bought and sold on the various specific markets that make up the economic system of society.
There are specific consumer demands for different kinds and types of hats, shoes, shirts, reading glasses, apples, and books or movies. No one demands just “output,” and no one creates just “employment.” When we go into the marketplace we are interested in buying the specific goods and services for which we have particular and distinct demands. And businessmen and entrepreneurs find it profitable to hire and employ particular workers with specific skills to assist in the manufacture, production, marketing, and sale of those distinct goods that individual consumers are interested in buying.
In turn, each of these individual and distinct goods and services has its own particular price in the marketplace, established by the interaction of the individual demanders with the individual suppliers offering them for sale.
The profitable opportunities to bring desired goods to market result in the demand for different resources and raw materials, specific types of machinery and equipment, and different categories of skilled and less-skilled individual workers to participate in the production processes that bring those desired goods into existence. The interactions between the individual businessmen and the individual suppliers of the factors of production generate the prices for their purchase, hire, or employment on, again, multitudes of individual markets in the economic system.
In fact, however, there is no such thing as aggregate demand, or aggregate supply, or output and employment as a whole. They are statistical creations constructed by economists and statisticians, out of what really exists: the demands and supplies of multitudes of individual and distinct goods and services produced, and bought and sold on the various specific markets that make up the economic system of society.
There are specific consumer demands for different kinds and types of hats, shoes, shirts, reading glasses, apples, and books or movies. No one demands just “output,” and no one creates just “employment.” When we go into the marketplace we are interested in buying the specific goods and services for which we have particular and distinct demands. And businessmen and entrepreneurs find it profitable to hire and employ particular workers with specific skills to assist in the manufacture, production, marketing, and sale of those distinct goods that individual consumers are interested in buying.
In turn, each of these individual and distinct goods and services has its own particular price in the marketplace, established by the interaction of the individual demanders with the individual suppliers offering them for sale.
The profitable opportunities to bring desired goods to market result in the demand for different resources and raw materials, specific types of machinery and equipment, and different categories of skilled and less-skilled individual workers to participate in the production processes that bring those desired goods into existence. The interactions between the individual businessmen and the individual suppliers of the factors of production generate the prices for their purchase, hire, or employment on, again, multitudes of individual markets in the economic system.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Capitalism the Solution, Government the Stumbling Block
The capitalist system is a great engine of human prosperity. It creates the profit incentives for industry and innovation that just over the last quarter of a century has literally raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in what used to be called “the third world” of underdeveloped nations. The competitive process of supply and demand brings the productive activities of tens of thousands of businesses into balance with the demands of all of us as consumers, around the globe.
There is no economic system in all of history that has had the same ability to do so much material and cultural good as the open, competitive free market. But the capitalist system cannot do its job if government interferes with its operation. Burdensome government taxes, heavy-handed government regulation, misguided government spending, and mismanagement of the monetary system only succeed in gumming up the works like so much sand in the machine.
The best pro-active policy that any government could follow once an economy has fallen into a recession would be to accept and admit that its own past monetary and fiscal policies had caused the economic crisis that is being experienced, and then leave the market alone to rebalance itself and reestablish the basis for sustainable growth and employment.
But, of course, this would require the reversal of the premises, presumptions and political plundering of the modern interventionist-welfare state, and its accompanying system of monetary central planning in the form of the U.S Federal Reserve. It would require a rejection of the collectivist ideological and policy perspectives that did and continue to dominate and direct all that governments do around the world.
However, in the meantime, Murray Rothbard’s insightful and historically important explanation of how government central banking and misguided interventionist policies caused and prolonged America’s Great Depression of the 1930s, now available with this volume in Chinese, offers an opportunity for the people of the world’s rising economic giant to better understand the dangers from trusting too much in the power of government to assure and maintain economic growth and stability. And it may help in better appreciating the importance of competitive free market institutions, even in the banking and financial sectors, to bring about long-run economic betterment for all in society.
The capitalist system is a great engine of human prosperity. It creates the profit incentives for industry and innovation that just over the last quarter of a century has literally raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in what used to be called “the third world” of underdeveloped nations. The competitive process of supply and demand brings the productive activities of tens of thousands of businesses into balance with the demands of all of us as consumers, around the globe.
There is no economic system in all of history that has had the same ability to do so much material and cultural good as the open, competitive free market. But the capitalist system cannot do its job if government interferes with its operation. Burdensome government taxes, heavy-handed government regulation, misguided government spending, and mismanagement of the monetary system only succeed in gumming up the works like so much sand in the machine.
The best pro-active policy that any government could follow once an economy has fallen into a recession would be to accept and admit that its own past monetary and fiscal policies had caused the economic crisis that is being experienced, and then leave the market alone to rebalance itself and reestablish the basis for sustainable growth and employment.
But, of course, this would require the reversal of the premises, presumptions and political plundering of the modern interventionist-welfare state, and its accompanying system of monetary central planning in the form of the U.S Federal Reserve. It would require a rejection of the collectivist ideological and policy perspectives that did and continue to dominate and direct all that governments do around the world.
However, in the meantime, Murray Rothbard’s insightful and historically important explanation of how government central banking and misguided interventionist policies caused and prolonged America’s Great Depression of the 1930s, now available with this volume in Chinese, offers an opportunity for the people of the world’s rising economic giant to better understand the dangers from trusting too much in the power of government to assure and maintain economic growth and stability. And it may help in better appreciating the importance of competitive free market institutions, even in the banking and financial sectors, to bring about long-run economic betterment for all in society.
You must be referring to the Democrats Information time line that culminates with the
origination of the " Illegal " FISA " warrant based on manufactured evidence derived from a
Known False Premise......
All you DemocRATS can do now is hope you can swim to the shoreline before you drown...
Bruddah IZ
DA
Show me which economic system in all of history has had the same ability to do so much material and cultural good as the open, competitive free market.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Myth 2. Free trade doesn’t lead to better economic outcomes in the real world.
Paul Krugman once quipped, “If there were an Economist's Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade.'" However, critics of free trade, such as development economist Ha Joon Chang, have made very odd statements such as this one:
There is a respectable historical case for tariff protection for industries that are not yet profitable. … By contrast, free trade works well only in the fantasy theoretical world of perfect competition.
Comments like these are puzzling because proponents of free trade don’t assume there is perfect competition. They simply recognize that if one country can produce a product at a lower opportunity cost than another, trade between the countries (or individuals) is mutually beneficial. (This is known as the theory of comparative advantage.)
Economists have examined countless times whether or not freer trade leads to greater economic growth. In regard to trade liberalization — reform that lowers barriers to international trade — the evidence consistently shows that such reforms improve economic performance over time.
According to one study that examined 141 trade liberalizations and compared economic performance before and after liberalization (after controlling for confounding factors), “Per capita growth of countries [after]liberalization was some 1.5 percentage points higher than before liberalization, and investment rates were 1.5–2.0 percentage points higher.”
Subsequent research from Antoni Estevadeordal and Alan M. Taylor took the analysis further by comparing growth rates before and after 1990, when a wave of trade liberalizations occurred. The economists divided countries into an experimental group (the countries that liberalized trade regimes) and a control group (those that did not). According to a summary of their research, the authors “find strong evidence that liberalizing tariffs on imported capital and intermediate goods raised growth rates by about one percentage point annually in the liberalizing countries.” Research has also shown that trade liberalization has caused greater economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa, a region desperately in need of growth.
Reforms that result in freer trade generally lead to superior economic outcomes. This is a well-documented observation. Although there may be situations in which freer trade is undesirable, these situations are not the norm, and free trade policies are still the “reasonable rule of thumb,” as Paul Krugman has put it.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Myth 5. Capitalism isn’t economically superior to socialism.
A considerable amount of research has examined how a transition from socialism (or a repressed-market economy) to a market economy (or a freer market economy) — a process known as economic liberalization — affects economic growth.
For example, using data from 140 countries over the time period 1960–2000, economists from Bocconi University compared countries that underwent economic liberalization to those that didn’t. After controlling for other relevant variables, they found that
economic liberalization is good along all dimensions: it is accompanied by better structural policies and better macroeconomic policies, and it is followed by improved economic performance. This timing suggests a causal interpretation, at least with regard to economic outcomes.
Subsequent research published in the Journal of Economic Surveys has found that “there are strong indications that liberalization … stimulates economic growth." For a specific example, look no further than China.
Research from Oxford University’s economics department has found that China’s economic growth, which has been driving its massive poverty reduction, was fueled by trade liberalization, rapid privatization, and sectorial changes. As a result of these reforms, China’s GDP per capita grew 4.1 percentage points faster than it otherwise would have, lifting millions out of poverty.
A review of over 40 studies on the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth (with economic freedom measured using the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index) found that research consistently demonstrates that freer markets are robustly associated with greater economic performance. Studies have shown that economic freedom causes economic growth; the relationship is not a mere correlation.
Empirical research also finds that “countries can increase the utility of their national resources by approximately 45% simply by converting to market-based economies” and also consistently finds that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector.
A considerable amount of research has examined how a transition from socialism (or a repressed-market economy) to a market economy (or a freer market economy) — a process known as economic liberalization — affects economic growth.
For example, using data from 140 countries over the time period 1960–2000, economists from Bocconi University compared countries that underwent economic liberalization to those that didn’t. After controlling for other relevant variables, they found that
economic liberalization is good along all dimensions: it is accompanied by better structural policies and better macroeconomic policies, and it is followed by improved economic performance. This timing suggests a causal interpretation, at least with regard to economic outcomes.
Subsequent research published in the Journal of Economic Surveys has found that “there are strong indications that liberalization … stimulates economic growth." For a specific example, look no further than China.
Research from Oxford University’s economics department has found that China’s economic growth, which has been driving its massive poverty reduction, was fueled by trade liberalization, rapid privatization, and sectorial changes. As a result of these reforms, China’s GDP per capita grew 4.1 percentage points faster than it otherwise would have, lifting millions out of poverty.
A review of over 40 studies on the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth (with economic freedom measured using the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index) found that research consistently demonstrates that freer markets are robustly associated with greater economic performance. Studies have shown that economic freedom causes economic growth; the relationship is not a mere correlation.
Empirical research also finds that “countries can increase the utility of their national resources by approximately 45% simply by converting to market-based economies” and also consistently finds that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector.
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Bruddah IZ
DA
The Wealth Gap Isn't a Crisis, It's a Good Sign
When authorities attempt to equalize outcomes, they inadvertently create a permanent underclass.
https://fee.org/articles/the-wealth-gap-isnt-a-crisis-its-a-good-sign/?utm_source=ribbon
The market is a mechanism that rewards those who meet the needs of others. Those who meet the needs of others best are compensated accordingly and create wealth faster than others. Thus a gap is created between those who meet the needs and desires of others in an extraordinary way and those who do not.
When authorities attempt to equalize outcomes, they inadvertently create a permanent underclass.
https://fee.org/articles/the-wealth-gap-isnt-a-crisis-its-a-good-sign/?utm_source=ribbon
The market is a mechanism that rewards those who meet the needs of others. Those who meet the needs of others best are compensated accordingly and create wealth faster than others. Thus a gap is created between those who meet the needs and desires of others in an extraordinary way and those who do not.