5/16/05, Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sun, 15 May 2005 14:40:55 -0400, JDG wrote > <snip> > Reductio ad absurdum! Have I said one word against saving? > > The two places I've spent most of my life are Pittsburgh and Silicon > Valley, > which were centers of manufacturing. I saw the mills close in the former > and > semiconductor fabs largely disappear from the latter, with those > businesses > and their jobs go oversears. The best understanding of why that happened > is > that our failure to save, as a nation, has made capital far less expensive > in > places with high personal savings rates, such as Japan.
Unnh, wrong lesson. Capital is not that expensive in the United States. Perhaps you are conflating into "capital" both capital investment costs, including the regulatory environment, and labor costs. Neither of those relate to the personal savings rate except in indirect ways. Our reponse has been to encourage other nations to stimulate consumption, to > increase their cost of capital, rather than encouraging savings in our > country, to decrease our own cost of capital. I think that stinks. > Consumerism is out of control. > > So, while I am in favor of encouraging savings, which would strength our > financial foundations, I don't favor taking money out of the Social > Security > safety net to do so. > > > The question is: > > "Should the government construct policies such that as few people as > > possible need the safety net. > > What does that have to do with how dependable the safety net is? If there > were only ten people who needed it, but it wasn't there for some of them, > then > we're not being good stewards of the neediest. Constructing safety nets is hard I wouldn't trust the job to those who think they aren't needed. Nick -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
