Re: What Do You Think?
A wise man once said: if something sounds too good to be true - it probably is - I am sure they are just after the $150 fee - they won't even bother going after the free postage I get these ads through email all the time. Usually I just ignore tham but as I'm getting poorer by the second I thought I'd take a look. Do you think this is just a gimmick to get the fees and maybe some free postage, or could it be legit? David No Newspaper Ads… No Magazine Ads…No Bulletin Board Ads ... No Handing Out ... Congratulations Friend, We have selected you to be one of our new catalog circular mailers. You can earn from $550.00 to $3,000.00 and your paycheck is mailed to you promptly every Wednesday. If you accept our offer today and follow our instructions your first paycheck will be in your hands in approximately ten days time, following our instructions! Our printing and publishing company is in the process of hiring home workers. We desperately need home workers each week to stuff and mail out our special advertising circulars. We have so much on hand that we are paying home workers $10.00 for EACH letter stuffed and returned to us as per our instructions. There is no limit to the number of letters that you can stuff and mail for our company. If we receive 55 letters stuffed and mailed out by you will be paid $550.00 75 letters……$750.00 95 letters……$950.00 300 letters…..$3,000.00 And so on... The More Letters you Stuff and Mail the MORE MONEY You Can Make! QUALIFICATIONS * You must be able to read and write simple English. * Have the ability to fold loose page circulars. * Stuff and seal circulars in an envelope. * Apply postage and mail them with the address labels we provide to you. If you pay attention to circulars that you receive from other companies you will notice how all of them are very vague about what your package will contain in addition they don’t tell you if they are the ones that are going to send you the envelopes and circulars to stuff. They say all envelopes will come to you already stamped and addressed. That simply means that YOU will have to advertise to get people to send you self-addressed stamped envelopes. WE ARE DIFFERENT We send you the envelopes, address labels and letters to be stuffed…. We pay you for the work you do as per our instructions. Your only job is to place our special advertising circulars into envelopes and then mail them out. For this you will receive payment of $10.00 per envelope from US! Your initial postage cost is reimbursable. That means it’s free! So keep this in mind when you select an income group. No advertising in newspapers, magazines or bulletin boards. We do not deduct taxes from your paycheck, so you’ll get the full amount. We will send a form 1099 at the end of the year when you’re ready to file your taxes. You will not be stuffing or mailing anything that is pornographic or illegal. All literature that we’ll send you meets the requirements of the regulatory agencies, so you have nothing to worry about. For your convenience, we have established 5 different groups. You can choose the group that you want to work under. Each group carries different earnings potential and a different number of starting supplies. The Earning Potential of Group #1 is $550.00 Weekly Group #2 is $750.00 Weekly Group #3 is $950.00 Weekly Group #4 is $3000.00 Weekly! … This is the Most Popular Group. Group #5 is for established mailers who start in Group #4 and get promoted after receiving their first $3000.00 in pay. Once you’re in Group #5 you have the potential to earn $5000.00 but you must start in Group #4 if you want to be promoted to Group #5. We will leave it up to you to choose your own starting group. For example, if you start in Group #3, we will send you a large priority package containing 95 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels along with our easy to follow instructions. If you choose Group #4, we send you 300 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels. When you are promoted to Group #5, we will send you a large package containing 500 of each item to be stuffed and mailed for payment. WHY DO WE PAY SUCH A HIGH RATE AS $10.00 PER LETTER STUFFED AND RECEIVED ? First, the number of people who respond to our special letters, once they are mailed out, is very high. Second, they like what we offer and are willing to pay for the opportunities that we offer. These two facts allow us to easily afford to pay $10.00 per letter stuffed and mailed. Also, we want you to be happy with your new income level so you’ll continue to work for us which will allow us to continue making money. We need home workers for a year round opportunity. Once you sign up with us, you can stuff and mail for us as long as you want. Take a vacation or just stop and start again
Re: income and substitution effect
knowing what i and s effects are all about teaches people to evaluate which types of tax cuts will entail higher production - and which types of tax cuts will do the reverse... jacob braestrup danish taxpayers association So far we have that i. and s. effects are useful to a) teach Marshallian demand b) teach difference between nominal and real income c) students going on to graduate school d) useful but for reasons that can't be remembered! :) e) useful as a hurdle/signal f) not useful at the intermediate/mba level Regarding Marshallian demand this is true but just raises the question what is the use of Marshallian demand at an intermediate level? (Note almost all textbooks discuss i. and s. effects but most do not teach M. demand.) As I said in my post, for welfare analysis, income and substitution effects become important but this is not taught at the I. level. I don't see how i. and s. effects teach nominal and real income but am willing to be enlightened. c) is possible but it means that teaching i. and s. effects is a waste for most students. Surely there are enough useful things to teach that are also difficult? thus i. and s. effects is not needed for the hurdle. Thus the bulk of the posts, and a number I have received offlist, increase in my mind the hypothesis that this material is a waste of time (relative to other things that could be taught). Alex -- Alexander Tabarrok Department of Economics, MSN 1D3 George Mason University Fairfax, VA, 22030 Tel. 703-993-2314 Web Page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/ and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621 Tel. 510-632-1366 -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: National sales tax (was: Re: Neutral taxation?)
Susan Hogarth: I could really get behind a national sales tax if I really thought the feds would have the balls to try to extract 20-30% at the point of sale - especially in a 'progressive' fashion. Would poor people be issued tax-exemption cards? Here's my prediction of what will happen: a 20-30 percent sales tax will be implementen - but because of massive fraud (making headlines, etc.), the sales tax will be changed to a VAT (valua dded tax) like we have in Europe. When Britain went from sales tax to VAT, the number of public administrators 6-doubled - and the number of affected private entities 19-doubled jacob braestrup Danish Taxpayers Association
RE: Neutral taxation?/was Re: questions about dividend tax cut
To Tom Grey (and others) 2 points: 1: why not retain land tax as a local tax, as this would ensure tax- payers the possibility of voting with ther feet, end thus ensure some degree of fiscal competition between neigbouring counties / municipalities? 2: I believe Austrain Economic Theory does noit regard inflation as a neutral tax, as one of it's main beliefs is that the earlier you get your hands on new money, the more you benefit - and vice-versa. I don't know whether this holds true for constant (that is: expected) inflation as you are descibing as well - anyone? Jacob Braestrup Danish Taxpayers Association 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 more than others. My own preferences are more towards a flat(er) tax, with a large (poverty level) deduction, and rates tending down (to zero?); a land tax, split between local, state, and federal (1/3 each? 50-25-25?); and ever increasing taxes on pollution. I am constantly annoyed at the greens wanting huge regulation but unwilling to support higher pollution taxes. Um, to get rid of the last 5% of income taxes, I'd even support deficit spending printing money (inflation, another fairly neutral tax, of about 2-3% per year). But of the course the MAIN problem is on the benfit side -- so many voters want, claim, demand, and only-vote-for those politicos who offer their favorite benefits. The demand for benefits drives the demand for tax revenue. And the coming (2020) Social Security baby boomer elephant-sized funding gap is gonna be a HUGE increase in benefit demand. Europe is even more vulnerable than the US or the UK. Sigh. What is to be done? (someone said that... I know, what's is name the commie!) Tom Grey But this assumes that taxes can be neutral. I would tend to agree with Larry Sechrest here -- viz., there are no neutral taxes. (Sechrest's position is laid out in his Rand, Anarchy, and Taxes in _The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies_ 1(2).) Do any of you agree? Cheers! Dan http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/ -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: questions about dividend tax cut
Fred Foldvary wrote: If there are zero taxes on corporate profits, but taxes on dividends, then the incentive is to retain earnings rather than pay dividends, and the shareholders get the profits tax-free until the shares are sold for capital gains. The shares might never be sold, but passed on to heirs. For tax fairness, given the income tax, all income should be taxed equally, and for efficiency, the tax system should minimize the impact on decisions. So it is better to tax corporate profits and then credit that against tax liabilities of dividend income. To achieve neutrality, unrealized gains should be taxed annually, and then we can forget about capital gains. That being said, the income tax is inherently unjust, complex, and burdensome, but that is another story. I disagree (not with your last point of course ¡V and it is partly because I agree with you on this point, I disagree with you on the rest) Below is an extract (rather lengthy, sorry) from my publication Simpler Taxes - A guide to the simplification of the british tax system (the whole publication may be downloaded free of charge here: http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/publications/pdf-files/simpler- taxes.pdf) ¡§The first problem when taxing personal income is determining what it is, most importantly distinguishing it from capital gains. Some will find such a distinction impossible and even unwanted, believing that any capital gain should be taxed as income. To those it could be argued that: h There is a big difference between income and capital gains, and h While the former is easily identified and taxed, the latter is not. The difference between income and capital gains is, in theory, clear enough: an income is a certain payment at a certain date, subject to a formal or informal contract, while a capital gain is uncertain and not guaranteed to be positive. Thus work wages or interests on bank deposits are clearly incomes, while increases in house prices or shares are clearly capital gains. The former are certain and guarantied by contracts, while the latter are uncertain and could just as well be negative. Dr. Barry Bracewell-Milnes described the difference thus : ¡§It is rather like the difference between night and day. Certainly there is a dusky time in the evening where it is difficult to say confidently whether night has fallen or not. But at most moments within any 24-hour period, everyone is perfectly well aware whether it is night or day¡K If the otherwise insignificant boundary becomes important in some context, then we set an arbitrary cut-off point ¡V as we do with ¡§lighting up time¡¨, a convention to prevent people driving unsafely while the night is still deepening¡¨ But what about these borderline cases? Clearly the problem of separating income from capital gains, and the possibility of transforming the first to the latter, have been the main driving forces behind treating capital gains as personal incomes subject to taxation. The problem overlooked by those who find the border between the two hard to police is, however, that the inclusion of capital gains as an income opens up a host of other boundaries to be policed. To what extent should capital losses be deductible, if at all? Should all capital losses in one¡¦s entire lifetime be deductible from any capital gains, or only those from within the same year as any gains? What about inflation in that period? To what extent should running investments in physical capital, or the opposite as the case might be, be included in calculations of capital gains? If a house is sold after 20 years of decay for the same price as it was bought, indexed for inflation, then surely some capital gain must have been materialised along the way by the owner. Should this gain be taxed? How is it calculated? If the same house is sold for twice the original price after being vigorously kept and refurbished, should this investment not be deductible? What if the bottom has gone out of the housing market and the house, despite investments, is still only worth the original price? Should the investments still be deductible? The list of questions is never-ending, and I shall not attempt to answer any of them. Neither shall I attempt to answer the other question faced when including capital gains as taxable incomes: which capital gains should be taxed and which should not. If policing the boundary between income and capital gains is difficult, this new boundary is even more so. As interns or trainees, many young people work for low wages in the anticipation that their value as workers will rise from the experience, and other young people spend years in universities hoping the same. Clearly these increases in ¡§personal¡¨ values are capital gains, but neither are taxed. Only the part of personal values actually materialised as income (if any) is being taxed. The capital gain itself is not, and
Re: Study disovers Swedes are less well-off than American blacks
I am somewhat familiar with the mentioned study, having written a piece on it a while back (I also have the study on pdf at work somewhere although in Swedish I am afraid. I shall check it on Monday) Anyway, I will venture a few comments. On your question: Do you (all) think it is better to be black in America or white in Sweden (and why, of course)?, I would say: YES! at least in terms of economic opportunities. Unless the study is lying (which I believe it is not), the median black American household DOES have higher purchasing power than the median Swedish (white AND non- white, mind you) household. The difference, however, is not very large. Another thing is, that this is MEDIAN households we are talking about, and so the study says nothing of the spread of income. Without knowing this for certain I would venture that the difference of before tax income among black Americans is far greater than the similar difference among Swedes. This difference is of course increased when comparing after tax income, since the Swedish welfare state is vastly more redistributive than the American (indeed, this is the reason for the relative slow economic growth in Sweden). Thus, a risk-aversive person may yet prefer to have been born a Swede rather than a black American. That is: a risk-aversive AND egoistic person since, as the study shows, ALL Americans are getting increasingly richer than Swedes, indicating that a black American today can pretty much rest assured that his / her children will grow up to be richer than the average Swede. Another thing to keep in mind is that the study is comparing median income BEFORE taxes, rather than after taxes / welfare transfers (both in kind and money). This of course raises the question whether the median household receives more or less from this taxes v. welfare exchange (and whether the median American black household receives more or less than the median Swedish household). This is to some degree an ideological question. I for my part, have no doubt that the answer is that the welfare states in both Sweden AND America are so large as to make the median households in both countries worse off after the tax v. welfare exchange and consequently making the Swedish household even worse off relatively than before taxes. Jacob Braestrup Danish Taxpayers Association This is a multi-part message in MIME format. This article can be found at several sites on the net. This link is to a left-wing site where the feedback was almost uniformly negative, but, as so often in leftist critiques, factually empty. Does anyone on the list have any comments about this story? Despite the fact that the left-liberal responses I read to this article were devoid of substance, I still think there must be more to the story than this article says. Do you all think it is better to be black in America or white in Sweden (and why, of course)? Or does the answer all depend on some other factor? ~Alypius http://pub176.ezboard.com/frepnetfrm131.showMessage? topicID=141.topic Study disovers Swedes are less well-off than American blacks - --- Study discovers Swedes are less well-off than the poorest Americans Reuters via Haaretz | 5/4/2002 | Reuters Posted on 5/4/02 3:41 PM Pacific by l33t STOCKHOLM - Swedes, usually perceived in Europe as a comfortable, middle class lot, are poorer than African Americans, the most economically-deprived group in the United States, a Swedish study showed yesterday. The study by a retail trade lobby, published in the liberal Dagens Nyheter newspaper 19 weeks before the next general election, echoed the center-right opposition's criticism of the weak state of Sweden's economy, following decades of almost uninterrupted Social Democratic rule. The Swedish Research Institute of Trade (HUI) said it had compared official U.S. and Swedish statistics on household income, as well as gross domestic product, private consumption and retail spending per capita between 1980 and 1999. Using fixed prices and purchasing power parity adjusted data, the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households, HUI's study showed. Weak growth means that Sweden has lost greatly in prosperity compared with the United States, HUI's president, Fredrik Bergstrom, and chief economist, Robert Gidehag, said. International Monetary Fund data from 2001 show that U.S. GDP per capita in dollar terms was 56 percent higher than in Sweden, while in 1980, Swedish GDP per capita was 20 percent higher. Black people, who have the lowest income in the United States, now have a higher standard of living than an ordinary Swedish household, the HUI economists said. If Sweden were a U.S. state, it would be the poorest, measured by
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Alypius Skinner wrote So the real question is whether the optimal balance would be one of no public redistribution or some public redistribution. If there were no public redistribution, there would be no need for a state, yet if a state did not exist, one would soon emerge because the stateless society would be so obviously suboptimal for an economy beyond the level of the hunter gatherer. [...] I would certainly argue that the current level of public redistribution is above the optimum rather than below it--probably well above. But I would not argue that the optimum is zero public redistribution. Of course, this question of whether we should have an inherently redistributionist public sector is a different question than whether the public sector should micromanage the private sector. But this argument does not sound like striking a balance between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining the incentives for temptation-prone people as you first put it. But more like finding the optimal balance for the sake of our own self interest - however narrowly defined. Either way, I still cannot the logical argumnet why striking this balance is done more optimal using force, than voluntarily [btw: I do not disagree that something resembling states as we know them will emerge from a stateless society - but I do disagree that they necessarily must be based on cohersion - this I believe follows directly from your argument that some form of state is in everybodys (save very few) self interest]. - jacob braestrup - jacob
Re: A Short Review of *Hard Heads, Soft Hearts*
Alypius Skinner wrote Thus some sort of balance must be struck between compassion for our fellow man and maintaining the incentives for temptation-prone people (who are often the same as the incompetent or semi-competent people) to resist temptation. But where do you suppose such a balance is most accurately struck? in a public market for redistribution - or a private one? my money is on te latter - jacob braestrup
Re: Antibiotic Resistent Bacteria
Alypius Skinner wrote: This brings up the larger question of whether the economy experiences a net gain or a net loss from constant government tinkering, taxes, regulation, bureaucracy, paperwork, and general added complexity. Of course, some of this nanny state tinkering will provide a net benefit, even if only a slim one in many cases, but other cases will provide a net loss to society, and it is usually impossible to know which clever government program will result in net gains and which in net losses beforehand. It is even either impossible or difficult and expensive to discover which clever government programs are worthwhile after the fact. [...] Of course, since some role for the state is indispensable, such excesses cannot be entirely avoided, but I do think we need to ask whether, on balance, government micromanagement of the *private* sector is a net gain or a net loss or simply too close to call. Of these three possibilites, only one justifies the type of government program suggested by Fred Folvary. Evaluating proposed government schemes for further managing the free sector of the economy on a case by case basis is a well demonstrated failure. Correct: the choice is not one of no (little) government v. government mnaking the right descisions; but no (little) government v. government having the power to make certain descisions (whether these are on average right or wrong is an empirical answer, which I believe has been firmly established as on average: wrong!) - jacob braestrup
Re: Instruments for Traffic Policy
I am not sure this is what you are looking for, but the Adam Smith Institute published a publications just a few years ago, called: the road from inequity on the externality cost of road transportation and what could be done to alleviate them. The publication can be downloaded free of charge from the adam smith website www.adamsmith.org yours jacob braestrup Dear Armchairs, I'm looking for a source of information about market instruments for traffic policy. Do you know experts, papers, books or web ressources about this topic? Thanks! Steffen -- --- Steffen Hentrich The German Council of Environmental Advisors (SRU) Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: Median Voter and Sampling
I may be mistaken here, but don't public choice economists talk about the concept of rational ignorance to explain how small, concentrated groups can gain large focused benefits while spreading the costs in tiny pieces across the broader population? They do - but it doesn't make much sense, since theres nothing rational about being ignorant towards a political system that benefit others at the expence of oneself (or indeed benefit noone at the expense of everyone). As Bryan has pointed out (BC: correct me if I am wrong) RATIONAL ignorant voters would either punish immensely upon detection of political fraud (faliure to deliver on promises, eg.) or they would simply erect institutional barriers that would limit political fraud. However, they don't - and so they are not just rational ignorant. They are either just plain ignorant - or they are (rationally) irrational in their voting behavior - and general attitude towards politics. - jacob braestrup Sincerely, David Levenstam -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: Europe's worst ever floods linked to poor land management
Two points 1: It is my belief that in a free market for river management (no government meddling) common law practises would evolve, stipulating how to resolve cases where activities upstream causes havoc downstream (whether this take the form of pollution, flooding or whatever) 2: I seem to recall that heavy flooding in the Mississippi / Missouri area led to a reversal of the let's build a protective dike and thus move the problem down stream-policy. Large areas (including whole villages) were essentially given up and left open for future flooding, thus taking the pressure off the river further down. Can anybody confirm this? - jacob braestrup --- john hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... you seem to be suggesting that policy makers are benefiting the present at the expense of the future, yet couldn't one could accuse you of wanting to benefit the future at the expense of the present? One could accuse me thusly, but the accusation would not be warranted. My belief is that a pure free market would bias neither the present nor the future. It seems like the balanced position would be to accept the consequences of the 100 year flood for the benefit of 99 years of prosperity and growth. There can be too much investment in disaster prevention, but I have not seen any cost/benefit analysis indicating that the governmental river policies in Europe have been optimal. The same applies to US and Chinese policy. At any rate, if prosperity and growth are the goals, none of the European countries have tax and regulatory policies that maximize it, so the evidence is that there are other goals and preferences that have higher priority for the policy makers. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: Partisan fiscal policy
related to this topic is the expected fiscal effect from tax reductions and increases I recommend: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/loader.cfm? url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfmPageID=5369 (make sure it all fits into one line) - jacob braestrup Armchairs, As the US recession looms larger and longer, Bush and his folk are found in the uneasy position of trying some active fiscal policies... In a very simplistic macro view, raising public expenditures or lowering taxes (in the short run) were both considered expansionist fiscal policies--at least in the sense that both increase public sector deficits... they are equivalent policies. However, in real world policymaking, republicans prefer lower taxes and democrats would rather have more expenditures... as if they were different policies. Does this partisan/ideological asymmetry have any real effect? Is the equivalence for real... in the short run... in the long run? Do people perceive them as different too? More practically, what is easier to get, lower taxes or higher expenditures? Does this apply to the federal as well to the state level? any reactions? -JA -- NeoMail - Webmail
RE: how to eliminate unemployement
Kevin Carson wrote By funding services out of general revenue, we break the market price system's feedback link that tells the consumer the real cost of what he consumes, and lets him adjust his level of consumption on the basis of the price signal. I suspect that there are very few (if any) true public goods, that cannot be internalized and paid for entirely by those who use them. Many of the (good) features of the market could be restored to the payment of government, if the collection of taxes were kept as local as possible. That way, people would be (more) able to vote with their feet. This could also allow communities to experiment with different kinds of taxes, allowing e.g. the georgists to prove the superiority (if any) of their system of land value taxation. In some sense, local tax collecting communities would then act as competing corporations to link this thread with the other topic floating around on the list - jacob braestrup
Re: Q for environmental economists
I assume that you have visited his website http://www.lomborg.com there you may find answers to many of your questions I am not an environmental economist, but welcome (and agree with) most if not all of the things that lomborg has said. And the fact that it needed to be said has in my view been confirmed by the reaction from established environmental science (going for the man, not the ball) What environmentalists need to do fisrt and foremost are to learn that resources are not infinite (actually, it's almost amusing that THEY can't see that), and that they therefore need to price the environment like any other thing: Because thus is the only way to make infinite demands (including environmental needs) be met by finite resources. Thats more or less my five cents on the subject. - jacob braestrup Howdy, As ad hominem arguments fly around the internet, I seem unable to get an impartial opinion. Would those who study the envirnment give me the straight dope on The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg? His economic arguments seem pretty sound, and this statistical methods, from what I can tell (not much?) seem good. However, I would really enjoy an unbiased review (however brief it may be) from someone more knowledgeable than me. Sincerely from a barefooted, gap-toothed mouthbreather, -jsh = ...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong. -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com -- NeoMail - Webmail
RE: Republican Reversal
Lynn wrote: In terms of farm subsidies if a person who supports them is wrong (as we agree he is) then there is a cost to them. NO! There is a cost to society as a whole (including the individual) if the majority is wrong about farm subsidies - but the individual has no effect on this majority what so ever. Hence there are no marginal costs from being totally in the dark about the effect of farm subsidies. This is the essence of rational irrationality: that it is in fact rational, because it is costless (at the margin, to the individual). This distinguishes rational irrationality from outright (or irrational) irrationality(e.g. believing you can fly, when you are working on the roof of a tall building). Note that it may be rational irrationality to believe you can fly if you live in a cave and never venture out, since your belief is never confronted with reality. This is in fact how rational irrationality may be caught out most easily: when people are confronted with a non- costless experiment involving their belief in question (religious soldiers confident of the honour - and afterlife reward - of dying in battle actually facing an enemy shooting at them; or a religious man believing in eternal damnation for fornication actually meeting a model willing to have sex with him)) The above is based on explanations and examples taken from Bryan's work on the subject (to be found on his website). Any misinterpretations are of course mine. yours jacob braestrup
Re: children and cooperation
Another observation that may or may not be related to the children are much less cooperative tha adults-thesis is this: children are some of the best soldiers in terms of ruthlesness and willingless to kill (something it can be very hard getting well trained adult soldiers to do - even in it's him or me situations). I must admit that I am basing my statement on children soldiers primarily on anecdotal evidence (the pol pot regime, wars in africa, etc) - maybe someone on the list knows otherwise Anyway. If true, thi´s could point to the explanation that children are simply less socialised / civilised than adults. - jacob braestrup Why are adults so much more cooperative than children? A contrarian might dispute this, but I'd say it's pretty obvious. Kids resort to violence very quickly, adults very slowly. Kids go out of their way to hurt other kids' feelings; adults try to avoid saying anything that might get back to someone they don't like. Kids steal stuff from other kids much more readily than adults would. Etc. A few explanations: 1. Adults have a much higher absolute IQ than kids (i.e., kids' IQs are age-adjusted, adults' IQs are not), so they are smart enough to recognize the indirect effects of their behavior. 2. Adults have lower time preference than kids. 3. Adults have had more time to learn about indirect consequences. 4. Adults are just less spiteful. 5. Adults face harsher punishment. 6. The child and adult worlds are in two very different coordination equilibria. Notice how drastically the 12th-grade high school culture differs from the 1st-year college culture. Other ideas? -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself should understand it. Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks* -- NeoMail - Webmail
rewards from higher Education
i remember reading something recently in the Economist on the rewards from public investment in higher education not being so high after all (one of Bryans old points as I remember). Now i have been trying to find the article - unsuccesfully! can anyone remember which issue? - and/or does anybody know of any other studies on the subject - jacob braestrup
Gun control Down Under
We have previously on this list discussed the link between gun control and crime. to those interested, the following was forwarded to me this morning. how reliable the source is (Gold-Eagle.com) I must say I do not know - jacob braestrup - Forwarded message follows - This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Fra Gold-Eagle.com s forum: __ Australian Gun Confiscation Results are IN! See below for website to back up this information. Gun Confiscation Results Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent!) In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!) While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. You won't see this data on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the state Assembly disseminating this information. The Australian experience proves it. Guns in the hands of honest citizens lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note Americans, before it's to late -- NeoMail - Webmail Fra Gold-Eagle.com s forum: __ Australian Gun Confiscation Results are IN! See below for website to back up this information. Gun Confiscation Results Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent!) In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!) While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in "successfully ridding Australian society of guns." You won't see this data on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the state Assembly disseminating this information. The Australian experience proves it. Guns in the hands of honest citizens lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note Americans, before it's to late
Re: Childrearing loans
So, I was wondering what other armchair-ers think about this. If it's a good idea, what are the obstacles preventing it from being implemented? If it's a bad idea, why? The big problem is that parents have no right over the future income of their children. Hence they cannot make the contract. Neither can the children themselves until they reach (legal) maturity. HOWEVER. It would be a way of financing university. And a very good one, I may add. reducinmg the need for governments to get involved in the privision of what is arguably a private good: higher education. - Jacob Braestrup ps: I believe that many south american football (soccer) stars are found in this way (ronaldo, I think, for one): rich entrepreneurs discovering young talented but poor kids, helping them, and then making huge profits later. Since I assume that the stars are discovered quite young, the entrepreneurs must have found some way around the problem of legal maturity - maybe you could look into that
Re: In Praise of Pay Toilets
Robin Hanson asked: Plausible, but then the question is: *why* do people have a disutility of paying for toilets? Does this fit into any pattern of the sorts of things people have a disutility of paying for? Apparently using a toilet is something that people have tradiotionally seen as something of a human right!! I recall seeing on discovery channel (that oracle of truth) that an old irish statute made it unlawful to refuse anyone in a lavatory state the access to one's toilet - jacob braestrup ps: BTW: pay toilets are unheard of at restaurants here in Denmark. they are found on train stations and in public squares etc.
Re: Fw: Worldwide slowdown in economic growth
Fred Folvary wrote: But some of these activities would be unnecessary in a pure free market, e.g. there would be no need to promote growth, because it would not be hampered in the first place. I agree. if the institutions (core activities of government) are necessary for economic growth I cannot see why they would not arise voluntarily - I was merely pointing out what I remembered to be the study's reasoning Secondly, even given core spending, this need not be as a tax on general income or sales, hence the 20% would not apply. The optimal rate for growth is a marginal tax rate of zero. No one has said ANYTHING about an income or sales tax of 20 percent (I suspect you are pushing some sort of personal agenda on that). The study merely stated that a government SIZE (overall tax burden on the economy) of 20 percent of GDP seemed optimal in terms of economic growth. It did not stipulate on what this tax should be levied yours Jacob Braestrup International Officer Danish Taxpayers Association
Re: Fw: Worldwide slowdown in economic growth
evidence suggest (Cato journal - I believe the fall 1998-issue) that a tax biurden of around 20 percent of GDP seems to be optimal for economic growth (provided, of course, that it is spent somewhat wisely). any higher, and economic growth will be reduced Optimal implies that there will be less growth at rate lower than 20. Why is the optimal tax burden not less than 20? Ask Gwartney - he did the study... I guess the idea is that some state activities: secuiring a market, prtecting property, etc. promote economic growth, while other activities (notably redistribution) hamper with economic growth. The share of GDP spent on the core activities of the state is roughlty around 20 percent of GDP - jacob Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: What is a market?
Not that I do not enjoy the theoretical / philosophical excercise - but I just wanted to point out that I have a hard time imagining an alien making it to earth without already having a very clear understanding of what a market is - in fact, I believe the market as being one of the points on which I am sure we will have something in common. Jacob W Braestrup On pp 30-31 of *What Should Economists Do?*, James Buchanan takes issue with the orthodox view that the market is a *means* of accomplishing the basic economic functions an engineered construction, a mechanism. Buchanan argues that the market should be defined as such: The market or market organization is ... the institutional embodiment of the voluntary exchange processes that are entered into by individuals in their several capacities. This is all there is to it. Individuals are observed to cooperate with one another, to reach agreements, to trade. The network of relationships that emerges or evolves out of this trading process, the institutional framework, is called the market. It is a setting, an arena, in which we ...observe men attempting to accomplish their own purposes, whatever these may be. Seth Giertz __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com -- NeoMail - Webmail
RE: economic history question
Dear Lynn, to echo what has been mentioned by Bryan Etzel and Alex: You presuppose that leaving capitalism alone would have created social unrest (I assume by creating greater differences in income / fortunes) - although I have never seen any evidence of this claim: in fact, the Cato institute publiced a study on this some years ago, where the only detectable causality was between more capitalism (economic freedom) and less inequality - so one may in fact state that every implementet social policy has brought socialism closer, not saved capitalism. ...and on this last point! Has capitalism been saved? The current government involvement in the US economy - and thus de facto ownership of ressources is enourmous by any historical standart - even if it is low compared with Europe. Just because we have seen socialism in one hiddeous form (e.g. soviet union etc) - it does not necessarily follow that other forms of government (the US today) is Capitalism. - jacob The program I was manly referring to was the unemployment insurance program. By calls for the US to abandon capitalism I was referring to the vocal supporters of American socialism back in the years leading up to the Great Depression. The % share of the US public which advocates socialism has seemingly declined since programs like unemployment insurance have been put in place. If it were not for these type of programs might we have seen an increasing level of social unrest with a decreasing patience with capitalism. Such increasing unrest finally giving way to the end of capitalism and to US socialism. Thus it would follow that limited govt interventions in the market actually saved capitalism. Lynn -Original Message- From: John Perich [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 11:03 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: economic history question There are a lot of abstractions that it'd help to qualify in that last statement. For instance: which government programs (FDR's right-to- work packages? LBJ's war on Poverty)? Whose calls for the U.S. to abandon capitalism? What is a safety net [...] for capitalism as a whole? We need data! -JP From: Gray, Lynn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: economic history question Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:08:41 -0500 Would it be safe to say that the introduction of govt programs such as unemployment insurance had an impact in quieting the calls for the US to abandon capitalism and take up socialism? In other words did these types of govt programs serve not only as safety nets for individuals in need but also for capitalism as a whole? Lynn Gray -- -- -- I'm never gonna work another day in my life. The gods told me to relax; they said I'm gonna be fixed up right. I'm never gonna work another day in my life. I'm way too busy powertrippin', but I'm gonna shed you some light. - Monster Magnet, Powertrip _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: monopoly justice vs free market justice
Dear Armchair Economists, Does anyone know of any evaluations of the impact of state aid to coproratins / industries? Not so much the theory, but empirical studies into the effect of giving state aid - or better yet: the empirical results of ending / banning state aid. It would be great if the focus was the EU - but not a 'must' thanks Jacob W Braestrup International Officer Danish taxpayers association
STATE AID (NOT: monopoly justice vs free market justice)
sorry, I forgot to replace the subject - jacob Dear Armchair Economists, Does anyone know of any evaluations of the impact of state aid to coproratins / industries? Not so much the theory, but empirical studies into the effect of giving state aid - or better yet: the empirical results of ending / banning state aid. It would be great if the focus was the EU - but not a 'must' thanks Jacob W Braestrup International Officer Danish taxpayers association -- NeoMail - Webmail
