Great news for me ... I'm a Libertarian Paternalist!
I've long "what" I am, but just not the name.
I ESPECIALLY like the need of humans to direct money flow into
different accounts. I support many gov't individual accounts:
a forced savings retirement account (SMART or whatever)--the second
pilla
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> The main "good" it provides is a negative one, that of keeping
>> homelessness and starvation to a low enough level to prevent
>> political instability.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This of course presumes that the welfare state reduces homelessness
> and starva
Yes, many feel that, since they contributed, they should get the benefits.
This "lie" is pernicious. All politicians should be stating that the money
paid in has already gone out -- and money received by retired folks now is
money taxed by current workers. On the other hand, that's also
not soo
Sorry, David, you misunderstood me (or at least what I
thought I meant).
I first tried to point out that gov't money was one thing,
not so much "socialism". But SS is something else -- I guess
I should have said most folks would agree that "social
security" is a form of socialism, but would add t
> Jason DeBacker wrote:
> >Why don't more people give more money to charity?
> >If you asked someone if they would rather see $50 used to
> >feed a child for a month or on another month cable TV (or
> >whatever), I can't imagine someone not saying that the child
> >should be fed. But almost no one
> --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Americans don't like to support something called "socialism," but
> > they often support socialism by some other name.
> > David
>
> All but a very few Americans, including economists, are in favor of
> socialized money. That is the most pervasive socialist
> p
I don't believe Gary Hart was ruined by "scandal", per se.
First, he supported a very unpopular, but I think kinda OK,
50 cent/gal tax on gasoline. When gas about $1/ gal (including
taxes). This made the unsure very unsure.
Only second did he publicly claim something like he
would never cheat/ ha
> > "Whenever a government creates a body to regulate a trade
> for the benefit
> > of the people, the trade gains control of the body for the
> benefit of the
> > trade at the expense of the people."
> >
Sorry for no help in the particular, but I remember a paper I
wrote 20 years ago making th
Hi folks, hope some of you can help me.
My friend and colleague, Jan Oravec from Slovakia,
has received an Eisenhower Fellowship for a couple
months, end of March to end of May. These fellowships
allow bright young guys to network in the US.
He's the President of the F.A. Hayek Foundation
("N
Bill says the whole (too long) report is nonsense.
I mostly agree, BUT with a caveat.
If switching to petro Euros has no affect on foreign investment
into the US, then I'd agree the report is useless.
However, if the switch to Euros, or the war in Iraq, or
a feeling that US assets are overpriced,
Thanks for the link about Slate, but there is something fairly annoying.
Lott claims:
" >> In 98 percent of the cases, such polls show, people simply brandish the weapon to
stop an attack.<<"
Tim Noah, disputes this, yet also FAILS to say what the polls do show.
"But polls by the Los Angeles Ti
First off, if "macro" is at all close to a "science",
there should be near unanimity, among macro "experts",
on exactly: why did the dot.com bubble keep growing, even
after Greenspan's 1997 (?) irrational exuberance comments?
Why did Argentina turn into such a mess?
I don't think there is agreem
I think there is no pure economic explanation for most things
European (or American, for that matter). There may also be
a rather larger difference between the "average European"
and the "average European leader" with respect to EU power vs
national sovereignty. Certainly the UK is an active v
Fred, (& Susan)
> even more than direct/indirect, you need to specify what is "neutral".
You have not yet adequately done so.
As I try to do this, I realize that neutral must apply to some other characteristic,
like a car's "neutral color", or a car "in neutral" (gear).
So, a policy change can
Dan,
even more than direct/indirect, you need to specify what is "neutral".
Given democracy, one (adult) person, one vote, a strong case can be made
for a "neutral" poll tax.
Of course it is not "progressive" like most income taxes. Flat rate
taxes, sales/VAT taxes, even land taxes, affect some
Title: RE: going on about 'statists'
Joe, I
agree with you, in essence, yet also support Fred's
technicalities.
I'm
not at all sure that the freedom of anarchy, perhaps with chaos/spontaneous
order, is as bad as Corporate State (or even what we have now); and I'm
pretty sure that Libertar
> > --- Alypius Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > A statistical physics model is predicting that the
> US stock market
> > > recovery suggested by recent rises will only last until
> spring next
> year,
> > > before tumbling yet further.
> >
> > Why would this contradict efficient ma
Wei Dai wrote:
> People don't mind competition if it's voluntary, but you can't opt out of
> economic competition. I think it's a necessary evil, not something to be
> desired for its own sake. Clearly some people do enjoy competition, and
> they should certainly be able to participate, but what's
Great question.
I'm sorry that I didn't immediately find the internet map
showing the transfer of giga- and tera- bytes of data.
I've seen such before, such info maps certainly exist.
But it's not really clear that there has been really
that significant an increase in "information";
certainly
Good link, Eric.
On the other hand, if you had just quoted this paragraph:
The concept of rational expectations asserts that outcomes do not differ
systematically (i.e., regularly or predictably) from what people expected
them to be. The concept is motivated by the same thinking that led Abraham
Fred wrote:
> I agree, with an IPO, new money does enter the system.
> After that, the shares are just exchanged.
>
> If a firm is profitable, then money enters the system by increasing
> corporate or partnership assets, and if a firm has losses,
> money leaves the
> system, by decreasing assets
> > have been solely as a result of money actually leaving the
> system to go
> into more secure things like money market instruments,
>
> Money does not leave the system. When one person sells
> stocks, another
> person is buying. But evidently much new money is going to
> money market
> fun
Data that includes going to college almost certainly includes SAT scores.
(I also think they correlate strongly with IQ, but haven't looked for that
data).
I'm "sure" that the effect of more schooling is higher on those with higher
SAT scores.
In addition, I'd guess the data includes average, rath
I have now read many instances of the Argentina problems being blamed on the
fact that "tying the Argentine currency to the US dollar made that economy
seriously uncompetitive".
But I thought the measure of an uncompetitive currency was falling exports &
rising imports.
And that Argentina had had
> From: Robin Hanson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> People can also run some other charity, like for a cancer, and solicit
> donations to support that charity. The question is why these two
> charities are so often combined. Many people would not give
> money to someone soliciting for a race by i
> From: Robin Hanson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Fabio wrote:
> >... The participants also get to socialize with other
> healthy people with
> >disposable income and who share similar values. So both
> sides benefit.
>
> OK, this suggests that health, income, and values are
> complements as f
> ref Tideman and Tullock, 1976, A New and Superior Process
> ..., JPE 84 (Dec).
>
> T&T note that demand revelation is not perfect. For example
> coalitions can
> distort the results. The coalition benefit would vary with
> the square of the
> number of members. But majority voting also su
> Subject: RE: how to eliminate unemployement
Well, the communists were most successful --
unemployment was illegal. This worked.
It's not very free market, though.
>
>
> I know Georgists support land taxes (or community collection
> of rent, if you
> prefer) to fund services. That is one
I recall buying a couple of houses in Silicon Valley:
put all your money down, plus whatever you could borrow
from relatives;add your income to see how much you
could afford to pay per month
and get an 80% mortgage based on that; with the
seller accepting a second as the difference from
your d
The late Al Frank had a newsletter, the Prudent Speculator, which was ranked
very highly on return for 10 & 20 year periods (some 23% annual avg.)
He's a long term investor (avg 6.5 years), fundamental value.
NOT day trading!
Here's a bit from an interview with its current author:
You recommend
Usually "one order of magnitude more" is about 10 times more.
So, increasing from a range around 8 to around 80 is an
increase in an order of magnitude.
It is more debatable, but not uncommon, for each digit to be
its own order of magnitude: 1-9 / 10-99 / 100-999.
Unfortunately, my "whatis" defi
I repeat below the top part of the blurb, because I think it's almost
great -- I wish that the "most were dying" included a range of
numbers, 50-80% for instance, to go along with the 90% after.
I mention this because, as part of the excellent idea that incentives
matter, even with incentives yo
Proposal: US individuals & corporations can donate to candidates,
BUT only get a deduction (or 50% tax credit) if their candidate
does NOT win. Those who donate to the winner get ... satisfaction.
I realize this is unrealistic, but it seems very attractive.
Tom Grey
> -Original Message-
> From: Alex Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Tom Grey wrote
> > Further, I derive support for this from limited thought experiments:
> > Society A: more Atheist,
> > Society B: more Bible Believing.
> >
> > In which society do I expect more fraud? more cheating spouses &
> > promiscuity? mo
> >>Irrespective of the "objective" truth of the Bible, the
> superiority of a
> >>"Bible believing society" is a position I strongly believe,
> >>
>
> Doesn't your position commit you to believing that the people in our
> society who do not believe in the Bible
> are in fact mostly selfish me
> -Original Message-
> From: Alex Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> If information doesn't change people's minds - what does? Or, at
> least, what causes people to have the beliefs that they have? This is
> where Bryan's important work comes in. Understanding these sorts o
A friend told me about her grandfather, on a striking picket line at Ford
Motor Co. in freezing winter, during the Depression. The poor workers,
peacefully striking on government streets, were sprayed with water by the
Detroit fire department, who was there with the police. The water rapidly
coo
Bryan, for some reason some recent posts of mine to this list have not been
posted --
am I off the list for some reason? (There was a time when my company email
was down for a week,
it might have bounced too much mail or something).
Tom Grey
Here's a very relevant John Adams quote:
I must
The "American Dream" vs. the "Russian Dream"
One American farmer has a neighbor that just got a prize cow.
A Russian farmer similarly has a neighbor with a prize cow.
The American farmer's dream: to have a better cow than the neighbor.
The Russian farmer's dream: that the neighbor's cow dies.
A
Robert Nozik, author of the fine Anarchy, State, and Utopia, seems to end up
with a minimal "state" primarily enforcing contracts and protecting
property.
I was sad to read that he recently joined Hayek & Keynes "in the long run",
i.e. dead.
(I was looking for info on "life expectancy at age 50,"
(Still not finished with year end work at work ...)
Recently finished Prof. Caplan's fine "Stigler-Becker vs Myers-Briggs"
paper.
I believe strongly in MBTI (MB Type Indicator) (I'm an NTP, E/I). I like the
Five
Factor Model addition, but not name, of "Neurotic", and don't like the names
of the o
OK, I didn't open it -- so what does it say?
I went to the web site referenced, but didn't see an obvious
path. I like the idea of having more files on a server; maybe
Professor Bryan Caplan's Armchair "File Cabinet?"
I guess I missed the fireworks between the "Austrian Economists" and
Bryan, wh
In an era of paper-covered hardbacks and paperback books, there is also the
competitive question: What else if not a blurb?
Art?
White/colored paper?
A note from the Author (eg. This paperback edition, and no other, has been
authorized ... JRR Tolkien)?
In Slovakia (like the Czech Republic), we ha
The "Fight or Flight" adrenaline effect is yet another (possibly clever?)
explanatory note; the specific adversity/disaster is important. I don't
believe in any general "happiness while hungry" or "happiness while in
pain". But when the crummy circumstance was caused by a more specific
threat, th
I think the popularity of "Nightmare on Elm Street", etc.,
including with many young women, is fairly relevant,
and supportive of "stress arousal".
I'd suspect a strong second order effect in women:
the men are "more than usually" aroused;
which leads to "more than usual" arousal in the women
I think a missing issue is the emptiness of consumeristic materialism.
(Really!) I know, I know -- work, study, get rich (go Tree!).
Many workers under communism, in trying to survive as well as they could,
focused a lot of energy on their own families; eg fathers coming home at 4
pm
to pick up t
On a practical matter, when such tragic disasters strike, the federal
government *wants* to get involved; at least in part to show how important
it is to keep them around. Each and every bailout (Long Term Capital
Finance?) increases the moral hazard. I think Chapter 11 should be enough,
but pol
-Original Message-
From: Technotranscendence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 4:47 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Handicapping the 2001 Noble Prize in Economics
On Friday, September 21, 2001 9:27 PM fabio guillermo rojas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> O
-Original Message-
From: Technotranscendence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 4:47 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Handicapping the 2001 Noble Prize in Economics
...
Of course, there's no need to wait for the Nobel people to do that. You can
always ju
Not obscure, but different:
Hernando de Soto ("The Other Path", "The Mystery of Capitalism")
I've been looking up the ones named, plus others. This is fun.
Also, thanks to Bill for "principal agent" theory.
Tom Grey
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Dear Armchairists (?),
My M&A advisory company has a few sector teams (in Vienna & London).
We also have a network of local offices in all the CEE capital cities.
On a big "Bank" deal, for instance, there will be a local team element, and
a London sector team element.
When we get the mandate, it'
Thanks for the article Bryan.
I had also found the NY Times link by looking for
"Paul Krugman" economics
in www.google.com, the best internet search engine (for me, so far).
The Armchair critics of Krugman have not actually stated enough for an
armchair "newbie"
to fully agree or not with the
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