Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Hey getting away from this boring European expat conversation that's lasted way too long, do we have any Georgians out here (the state, not the country)?

I read on ESPN that the Braves are going to move out of Turner Field?!?! With taxpayer dollars of course. The place was built in 1996 for chrissakes. Couple this with a new dome for the Falcons, even though the Georgia Dome is also only about 20 years old...and Yikes. Do people really want to spend money on this?

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

it sounds like you don't really understand Europeans at all (i.e., that they are just simpletons with low expectations).

While the word "simpleton" has negative connotations, that description you gave is fairly apt for most of us most of the time: we are so busy with our daily lives and our quotidian priorities, we generally devote little time energy or attention to what the government is up to on a day-to-day basis. We make snap judgments based on cursory information. that's just how our minds work. Then one day we wake up and find our health insurance policy cancelled, or our payroll tax withholding suddenly jumped up, and it's "huh? how did that happen?" and a big surprise. Then we get emotional appeals to inflame our prejudices on why we should vote for "us" against "them." Anyone who tries to engage in a substantive issue is tuned out as "a boring wonk."

It goes back to fundamental assumptions about the social compact, I'd guess: European countries generally started with monarchies, and the monarch had a responsibility to take care of his/her subjects' well-being: like our brain takes care of our body. There's a great book by Lovejoy called The Great Chain of Being that captured the mystical elements of this synergistic relationship very well. Echoes persist today: the "state" has been taking care of its "subjects for millenia. What we see is just one version of a broader relationship that has been around since the Roman empire.

US has been different from the outset: there is a strong communitarian impulse here in which people take care of each other on their own, without the government interceding, because the tempation to manipulate the government to "play favorites" is so strong: from the beginning, our political philosophers wanted a limited government. They had been victims, second-class citizens, because the well-connected had used the power of government to favor themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else. Consequently, we sketched out a society in which initiative and enterprise would be rewarded, and it was implicit in their understanding that it would be shared, in the same way that a family shares among its members: at first you get help because you are helpless, but over time you are expected to learn how to help yourself. The idea of a self-reliant rugged individualist was always an exaggeration; the idea of a clan or extended family was a better metaphor.

[LynahFan]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Sounds like you're just short of the time and range of Europe I've experienced.

Seriously? Want to measure wee-wees next?

The reason I asked is that it sounds like you don't really understand Europeans at all (i.e., that they are just simpletons with low expectations).

Did this exchange really just happen?

You: Europeans are generally happier
Me: Europeans have different expectations/priorities
You: You can't generalize about Europeans!

I shared my personal experiences and observations, including a real scenario where my wife and I were comparing salaries and taxes in Sweden vs. the US (Los Angeles). There's nothing you can say that will change the fact that I'm better off financially in LA than I would have been in Sweden. You seem to be convinced that we'd really all prefer to live under Scandinavian-style socialism if we only had the chance. Well, I had the chance and turned it down flat - sorry to burst your bubble.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I'm shocked China didn't do this earlier: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...-reserves.html

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Another instance where data and ideology collide.

From the great Thomas Sowell:

Depressing news about black students scoring far below white students on various mental tests has become so familiar that people across the ideological spectrum long ago developed their different explanations for why this is so. But radically different news from England may prompt some rethinking.

The Nov. 9-15 issue of The Economist reports that, among children eligible for free meals in England’s schools, black children of immigrants from Africa meet the standards of school tests nearly 60 percent of the time — as do immigrant children from Bangladesh and Pakistan. At the bottom: white English children from families with these low incomes, who meet the standards 30 percent of the time.

What jolts us is not only that this phenomenon is so different from what we are used to seeing in the United States, but also that it fits neither the genetic nor the environmental explanation of black-white educational differences here.

many young whites in England are barely literate, and have trouble with simple arithmetic. Nor are these white students the victims of racial discrimination, much less the descendants of slaves.

With the two main explanations for low performances on school tests obviously not applicable in England, there must be some other explanation. And once there is some other explanation in this case, we have to wonder if that other explanation — whatever it is — might also apply in the United States, to one degree or another.

In other words, maybe our own explanations need reexamination.

What do low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common? It cannot be simply low incomes, because children from other groups in the same low-income brackets outperform whites in England and outperform blacks in America.

What low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common is a generations-long indoctrination in victimhood. The political left in both countries has, for more than half a century, maintained a steady and loud drumbeat of claims that the deck is stacked against those at the bottom.

The American left uses race and the British left uses class, but the British left has been at it longer. In both countries, immigrants who have not been in the country as long have not been so distracted by such ideology into a blind resentment and lashing out at other people.

In both countries, immigrants enter a supposedly closed society that refuses to let anyone rise — and they nevertheless rise, while the native-born at the bottom remain at the bottom.

Those who promote an ideology of victimhood may imagine that they are helping those at the bottom, when in fact they are harming them, more so than the society that the left is denouncing.

We in America have gotten used to vast gaps between blacks and whites on test scores. But this was not always the case, in places where there was anything like comparable education.

Back in the 1940s, before the vast expansion of the welfare state and the ideology of victimhood used to justify it, there was no such gap on test scores between black schools in Harlem and white, working-class schools on New York’s Lower East Side. [emphases added]

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

It says a lot about someone when they get their "deep thinking" from the New York Post!

However, could it be that lower class/ghetto kids just go to worse schools and have more problems to deal with at home than upper class kids?

[St. Clown]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

It says a lot about someone when they get their "deep thinking" from the New York Post!

However, could it be that lower class/ghetto kids just go to worse schools and have more problems to deal with at home than upper class kids?

The numbers from England compared lower class kids against lower class kids. The only difference is that one group of lower class students are either immigrants or children of immigrants while the others are, presumably, English by bloodlines. Using the terms black and white for the division could be misleading as an Armenian born child could feasibly be lumped in with the native born English.

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

The numbers from England compared lower class kids against lower class kids. The only difference is that one group of lower class students are either immigrants or children of immigrants while the others are, presumably, English by bloodlines. Using the terms black and white for the division could be misleading as an Armenian born child could feasibly be lumped in with the native born English.

I often think of the schooling issue like this. Mitt Romney would be a brilliant man and successful businessman no matter what circumstances he was born into. Having said that, if he was born poor, with one parent missing, and had to worry about getting mugged on the way to school or in school, had to worry about paying for college, had nobody in his family who had a proper education previously, etc - he still most likely would have found his way through it all, but I'm not sure he would have made it to 5M votes away from being President.

Its not a victim mentality that people have in these situations. Its you've got a lot more to worry about than turning in your math homework. What Fishy is saying, and what his article is saying, it that essentually these people are "doing it to themselves". I wholeheartedly reject that notion. Sure, some people may wallow in self-pity, but you'll find that in middle class households as well.

[5mn_Major]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Another instance where data and ideology collide.

From the great Thomas Sowell:

Although there's an interesting trend...the assignment of the cause to the left is pretty silly and obviously an attempt at journalism for political sake.

There is a long standing divide in each country between whites and blacks in the US and whites and whites in Britain. And it is quite probably due to cultural hangover from slavery/discrimination in the US and class outcomes in Britain. But as these trends are so pervasive, its extremely unlikely that such a ubiquitous trend could be the result of the left (psychological victimization) or the right (actual victimization).

US has been different from the outset: there is a strong communitarian impulse here in which people take care of each other on their own, without the government interceding, because the tempation to manipulate the government to "play favorites" is so strong: from the beginning, our political philosophers wanted a limited government. They had been victims, second-class citizens, because the well-connected had used the power of government to favor themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else. Consequently, we sketched out a society in which initiative and enterprise would be rewarded, and it was implicit in their understanding that it would be shared, in the same way that a family shares among its members: at first you get help because you are helpless, but over time you are expected to learn how to help yourself. The idea of a self-reliant rugged individualist was always an exaggeration; the idea of a clan or extended family was a better metaphor.

While again I agree with much of your post regarding causes (monarchy having the potential to result in more of a role of government), I'm not so sure about some inferences. I do agree that the 'temptation to manipulate government is so strong'. The issue is that that the top alternative is not non corporate voluntary associations, but rather the corporate world. And 1) the corporate world is the group that has sought to and has more successfully manipulated the government than any other body via special interests. there is no day that a bill is passed without special interest playing a role 2) the corporate world plays its own favorites. income inequality in the US is as great as it has been for generations...and due to US comparative advantage will get much more extreme.

Having said all that, I am of the opinion that the system as it is today is largely the best we can have (with the exception of cutting down special interest influence). Europe's approach is in the same league IMO and is strictly preferential to them. Therefore, the issues I outlined above are the price we have to pay for overall relatively solid US societal outcomes.

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

what his article is saying, it [sic] that essentually these people are "doing it to themselves".

Um, that is not at all what the article said. The article said that people who purport to "help" the lower class are actually hurting them. Nowhere in the article was there any mention of people doing it to themselves.

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Um, that is not at all what the article said. The article said that people who purport to "help" the lower class are actually hurting them. Nowhere in the article was there any mention of people doing it to themselves.

But Fishy, what good would it be to foster a culture of victimhood on these people if they were just blowing it off and doing the rugged individualist thing anyway? Clearly what you're saying is these people are buying into the evil gubmint's victimhood plot, and that's what's keeping them down. Its a clever but still at best disingenuous and at worst bigoted argument.

Its like if I said, aliens from the planet Zorbor are beaming nonsensical statements into FreshFish's head, which he's then posting on the USCHO message board. Technically, I'm absolving you of writing nonsense - its the Zorbodians fault. However, what I'm saying is that you post nonsense, right? Therefore you get the blame.

[SJHovey]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I often think of the schooling issue like this. Mitt Romney would be a brilliant man and successful businessman no matter what circumstances he was born into. Having said that, if he was born poor, with one parent missing, and had to worry about getting mugged on the way to school or in school, had to worry about paying for college, had nobody in his family who had a proper education previously, etc - he still most likely would have found his way through it all, but I'm not sure he would have made it to 5M votes away from being President.

Nope. He would have been elected 42nd President of the United States.

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

It is a bit sad sometimes how intelligent, well-meaning people have neither a sense of history nor an understanding of basic economics. Those areas of ignorance can lead a person to advocate policies that would make the situation they are trying to help turn out worse instead of better.

Thomas Sowell has provided ample evidence (in print) that the first minimum wage laws in the 1930s were blatantly and explicitly racist. Migratory blacks from the south came to urban industrial cities in the north and were willing to work for less money than the whites in the northern labor force. Sowell demonstrates how racial animus motivated the first minimum wage laws. He also provides evidence that, before the minimum wage law, for jobs of comparable skill level, there was no wage gap between white and black workers. That wage gap developed over time with the spread of minimum wage laws (note that Sowell sees these trends as correlation not causation, there are other factors in play as well).

One might respond that, while that the original minimum wage laws were deliberately designed to hold people down, not lift them up, perhaps times have changed?

Perhaps, but one thing that has not changed is that employers either put people to work or they put machines to work. The more you raise the cost of hiring people, the more attractive you make it to replace people entirely.

The latter point was brought home in a real-life manner last night. Usually I take a connecting train to the terminus where I transfer to the train to Manhattan. However, yesterday the connecting train was late, and so I drove to the connecting station instead. When I was leaving, there was a new system in place at checkout: you no longer needed to use the parking garage attendant to pay for parking. Instead, you could slide your ticket into a slot, it would read the magnetic stripe and tell you how much you owed, and then you could slide a credit card into the slot to pay.

Raising the minimum wage does not necessarily mean that people will automatically earn more as a result: it might just as easily mean that people lose their jobs entirely! (as they are priced out of the market for labor)

It is about at this point in the conversation that many people who believe in the minimum wage stick their fingers in their ears and start singing "we shall overcome" in a real loud voice.

I'd like to help the people at the bottom of the wage scale more than many people who claim to want to help others but then reveal that their true agenda is to feel better about how virtuous they are without really caring about the life experience of the people they claim to want to help. You can't help people by ignoring uncomfortable facts!

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Thomas Sowell is a libertarian lunatic. Want proof? Check out some of his "views":

Sowell compared President Barack Obama's actions to Adolf Hitler's in a June 2010 editorial for Investor's Business Daily titled "Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?"[37] Sowell described the role of uninformed citizens ("useful idiots") in the rise of Hitler and Vladimir Lenin, arguing that the U.S. was on a "slippery slope to tyranny" because citizens were not thinking about the issues. The example he gave was the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill, in which he asked rhetorically what gave the President an unconstitutional "authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation."....some conservatives endorsed Sowell's comparison. Sarah Palin recommended it to her Twitter followers, prompting the President of People for the American Way, Michael B. Keegan, to ask whether Palin "agree[d] with Sowell that President Obama's work to hold BP accountable for the worst oil spill in American history can be compared to the actions of Hitler?"[39]

Fishy I know you're having trouble searching for heroes to justify your dying ideology, and to make you look intellectual, but can't you find anything better than a guy who wants to trot out Obama-Hitler comparisons? I mean, really? This is the best you've got?

EDIT: Even better is his article in late Oct of 2008 before the Presidential election. Read it and laugh:

"It may seem hardly worthwhile going to the polls to vote this election year, since ACORN and the media have already decided that Barack Obama is to be the next President of the United States.

Still, it may take more than voter fraud and media spin to put Senator Obama in the White House. Most public opinion polls show Obama ahead, but not usually by decisive margins, and sometimes by a difference within the margin of error.

There has been a history of various polls over the years projecting bigger votes for the Democrats' presidential candidate in October than that candidate actually gets in November.

Some of these polls seem like they are not trying to report facts but to create an impression. One poll has been reported as using a sample consisting of 280 Republicans and 420 Democrats. No wonder Obama leads in a poll like that.

Pollsters have to protect their reputations but they can do that by playing it straight on their last poll before election day, after having created an impression earlier that a landslide for the Democratic candidate was all but a done deal."

........

"All in all, going into the voting booth this year is not an exercise in futility for those who don't want to be bum's rushed into voting for Obama by the media's picture of a done deal. If nothing else, genuine voters can offset some of the thousands of fictitious voters registered by ACORN.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...#ixzz2mhkeSGd7
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter

THIS is your hero? A guy who was "unskewering polls" 4 years before his time!

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Daniel Kahneman, from Thinking Fast and Slow:

(It's in print, so no link)

The social norm against stereotyping, including the opposition to profiling, has been highly beneficial in creating a more civilized and more equal society. It is useful to remember, however, that neglecting valid stereotypes inevitably results in suboptimal judgments. Resistance to stereotyping is a laudable moral position, but the simplistic idea that the resistance is costless is wrong. The costs are worth paying to achieve a better society, but denying that the costs exist, while satisfying to the soul and politically correct, is not scientifically defensible. Reliance on the affect heuristic is common in politically charged arguments. The positions we favor have no cost and those we oppose have no benefits. We should be able to do better.

You could probably replace "stereotyping" with half a dozen other politically-charged terms, and come up with an equally valid observation. Even though I am aware that in theory that everyone makes mistakes, in my heart I truly believe that I myself am never wrong.