from:"AdmrlLocke"

In a message dated 9/7/05 1:06:23 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Well I would guess that a median-income American of the 1950s would have been
> less inclined toward rape, pillage, and homicide than what we've seen in
> recent days. I'm sure it's still a relatively small percentage, but I'd bet good
> money (if we had such a thing) that it's a much higher percentage today.   Did
> we have any similar natural disasters in the 1950s that come to mind?   I
> think this sort of wanton lawlessness   didn't start until the summers during the
> Vietnam War in the late 60s.

1) It seems that some of the stories of rape and homicide are
   overblown, if not completely false:

     http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html

2) I'm not sure that inclination toward rape and murder is as closely
   correlated with income as you might think.  Ever heard of Ted
   Kennedy?

You're making unwarranted assumptions about my point. I did not argue that people committed rapes, robberty and looting out of poverty. On the contrary, I was arguing that I think people have become more inclined toward lawlessness than they were half a century ago, despite the looters probably having income at least comparable if not higher than that possessed by more law abiding   Americans half a century ago.   I'm not sure that that's true, but I suspect that it might be.

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

Thanks for the details. I misspoke myself anyway; it's the average welfare recipient circa 1990 that had as much income, including government benefits, as the average middle income American circa 1950.   In any case my point is that the "poverty line" doesn't mean much and so I don't recommend using it to make your point, with which I agree, that   people didn't stay because of poverty.

David
In a message dated 9/7/05 12:39:45 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> In a message dated 9/6/05 8:50:04 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> > I'm not sure the premise is entirely correct.? About 30% of the
> > (former?) population of New Orleans is below the federal poverty line,
> > yet 80-90%
> >
>
> The federal poverty line is just a politically-determined level at one time
> useful to liberal Democrats for beating middle-income Americans into a state of
> guilt in which the liberal Democrats could more easily consfiscate more of
> their income and give it to people who vote for liberal Democrats.  

Yeah, yeah, I know, but I don't see how this is relevant to my point.
My point was that a lot of people stayed because they wanted to, not
because the didn't have the means to leave.

> The
> American poverty line today is someone around the (real) median income of Americans
> in 1950.

Actually, I just checked this, and it's not quite correct.  At
least, not if you believe that Census and CPI numbers are pretty much
valid, rather than politically determined.

2005 Poverty line for family of 4:  $19,350 

  Convert this to 1950$ using CPI:  $ 2,396

     Median family income in 1950:  $ 3,319

So when adjusted for inflation, the mediam family income in 1950 was
38% higher than the poverty line in 2005.  The median family income
for 2004 (latest available on short notice) is $44,389, which is 136%
higher than the 2005 poverty line (adjusted to 2004$).

I used the think that the poverty line was contructed in such a way
that about 12-13% of the families were always considered poor, but now
that I try, I've had trouble verifying this.

For what it's worth, you can't actually check to see what government
poverty line was in 1950, since they've only been calculating it since
1964.

See
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/p/po/poverty_line_in_the_united_states.htm
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povmeas/papers/elastap4.html

     The first official poverty line for the United States was
     developed by Mollie Orshansky for the  (An independent government
     agency responsible for the social security system) Social
     Security Administration in 1964. It was amended, then later
     adopted for the  (36th President of the United States; was
     elected Vice President and succeeded Kennedy when Kennedy was
     assassinated (1908-1973)) Lyndon Johnson administration's  (Click
     link for more info and facts about War on Poverty) War on Poverty
     as a general statistic on poverty. Orshansky's definition
     calculated the minimum amount of  (The financial gain (earned or
     unearned) accruing over a given period of time) income a family
     unit would need to purchase food for all family members to eat
     the cheapest nutritionally acceptable diet described by the
     (Click link for more info and facts about United States
     Department of Agriculture) United States Department of
     Agriculture. She then multiplied that number by three, the
     average percentage that U.S. families spent on food. Orshansky
     did not intend this figure to measure the minimum income
     necessary for survival. Rather, she meant this as a statistical
     tool in order to facilitate the studying of issues of
     poverty. (From Fisher, 1992)

Re: poor better off today?


In a message dated 9/7/05 9:59:38 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


--- Jeffrey Rous <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The American poverty line today is someone around
the real median income of Americans in 1950.<

Can you provide the evidence?

The official poverty line is three times the minimal
food cost.  Since housing costs have risen much higher
proportionally relative to food, with many poor folk
spending half their income for housing rental, it
seems to me that three times food costs would buy
fewer goods.  Housing costs in the 1950s were of
course much lower relative to wages.  So one cannot
just look at real income, but also on the cost of
living, especially housing.

Of course there are goods today that were not
available in the 1950s, some of which the poor own,
such as microwave ovens, but in terms of purchasing
power for goods in general, aside from technological
improvements, I see little evidence that the poor
today are better off.

Fred Foldvary


Don't forget too that the poverty line doesn't include all the benefits people get from federal and state programs, like food stamps, et al.

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?


In a message dated 9/7/05 9:56:51 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I think this sort of wanton lawlessness didn't start
until the summers during the Vietnam War in the late
60s.<

There were riots in New York City during the Civil
War.

Fred Foldvary


Yes, anti-draft riots, though I don't know the degree to which people killed other people and stole their property.   Lots of Americans came to American to escape conscription, so it's natural that Americans would   have been hostile to it.   Wilson avoided the riots by putting the responsibility for drafting in the hands of locals.   I'm looking more for a natural disaster and whether Americans followed it with widespread looting, rape and murder.

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

In a message dated 9/7/05 8:59:10 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

At 00:40 2005-09-07 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Did we have any similar natural disasters in the 1950s that come to mind?
I think this sort of wanton lawlessness  didn't start until the summers
>>during the Vietnam War in the late 60s.

After the tsunami disaster in Asia there was no plundering and looting on
this scale, although the destruction was maybe 100 times that of Katarinas
in terms of lives lost. Why is that, do you think?

Regards,
Mats

I was actually thinking of comparing Americans in the 1950s with Americans today, but I'd like to hear theories as to why Americans went on a criminal spree but Asians of various sorts (Chinese and Malaya come to mind) did not.

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

2005-09-06 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 9/7/05 12:37:34 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Funny thing, when driving around New Orleans, I never get the feeling that I am on the set of Leave it to Beaver. Then again, of all the 1950s shows, maybe its the Honeymooners that comes closest to portraying a median income family from the period.


Well I would guess that a median-income American of the 1950s would have been less inclined toward rape, pillage, and homicide than what we've seen in recent days. I'm sure it's still a relatively small percentage, but I'd bet good money (if we had such a thing) that it's a much higher percentage today.   Did we have any similar natural disasters in the 1950s that come to mind?   I think this sort of wanton lawlessness   didn't start until the summers during the Vietnam War in the late 60s.

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

2005-09-06 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 9/6/05 8:50:04 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


I'm not sure the premise is entirely correct.  About 30% of the
(former?) population of New Orleans is below the federal poverty line,
yet 80-90%


The federal poverty line is just a politically-determined level at one time useful to liberal Democrats for beating middle-income Americans into a state of guilt in which the liberal Democrats could more easily consfiscate more of their income and give it to people who vote for liberal Democrats.   The American poverty line today is someone around the (real) median income of Americans in 1950.

Re: Szasz prize

2005-08-24 Thread AdmrlLocke

Woo-hoo! Congratulations Bryan!

Does this award come with pecunitary compensation? :-D

David

In a message dated 8/24/05 3:15:24 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


I must gleefully report that I am one of the winners of the 2005 Thomas
S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil
Liberties, largely for my article "The Economics of Szasz: Preferences,
Constraints, and Mental Illness." The other prize-winner is
individualist feminist Joan Kennedy Taylor.

There will be an award ceremony at the Cato Institute on September 21,
6:00-7:30 P.M. The event is open to the public, and a lot of my friends
will be coming - probably including some of your favorite bloggers. If
you live in the D.C. area, it would be great chance to meet in person.

Hope to see you there!

Re: Interest rates and housing

2005-08-19 Thread AdmrlLocke

Dear Fred,

Is the real estate cycle approximately 18 years from peak to trough, or from peak to peak?

When do you predict the next downturn will begin?

Thanks,

David

In a message dated 8/19/05 9:36:47 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> Are you saying that there's a
> real cycle of real estate
> that takes 18 years from (from peak to peak or from
> peak to trough?)?
> David

That is the usual cycle, although there are
exceptions.

>   That
> seems different from your initial contention that
> the current bubble has been
> caused by monetary growth.

My contention is that there are two causes, monetary
and real (including fiscal), and the causes are
complementary.  The timing of the cycle is inherent in
the nature of the real estate market for rentals and
construction.

>  then do you
> predict a collapse of real estate prices based on
> monetary or real factors, or both?

Both

Fred

Re: Interest rates and housing

In a message dated 8/18/05 11:40:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> If government has caused a real estate price
> bubble by artificially
> lowering interest rates, how can it have an 18-year
> cycle,
> David

Because real estate construction takes years, and
recovery from a downturn takes years.
An exception is an inflationary boom that is not a
real  economic recovery, such as the stagflation of
the 1970s. That's why there was a real estate peak in
1979.

>  Why does the money go
> into residential real estate and not into stocks or
> automobiles or other assets?

The money goes into all real estate, not just
residential.  Of course it also goes into stocks, as
with the tech boom of the 1990s, followed by the
downturn of 2001, which was not caused by real estate.
  But the real-estate boom prevented the 2001
recession from becoming major.  The big depressions
have all followed real estate booms.

Fred

I don't follow you. Are you saying that there's a real cycle of real estate that takes 18 years from (from peak to peak or from peak to trough?)?   That seems different from your initial contention that the current bubble has been caused by monetary growth.   Are you saying both things? If so, then do you predict a collapse of real estate prices based on monetary or real factors, or both?

David

Re: Interest rates and housing


In a message dated 8/18/05 11:28:53 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


--- Technotranscendence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> there are political cycles too, such as the
Presidential cycle.  Yet this doesn't line up with
18-years.<

Yes, there several cycles going on at the same time.
There are also random shocks.  The 2001 downturn was
not caused by real estate, for example.

But some have more impact than others, and my analysis
of historic cycles indicates that the real estate
cycle is the most economically significant one.

Fred Foldvary

Fred,

If the real estate cycle is based on government expansion of money, why does it have an 18-year cycle, any why has it been the same under three or four different monetary systems?

David

Re: Interest rates and housing

At other times new money has gone into consumer assets or the stock market or perhaps just particulary types of stocks; why did it all go into real estate this time?

In a message dated 8/18/05 6:36:43 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



I'm not sure about the 18-year cycle, but there are political cycles too, such as the Presidential cycle.  Yet this doesn't line up with 18-years.

  

 Regarding why a shift to real estate?  I think because there's a basic belief that real estate is a long lasting store of value.  Other assets tend to be more liquid and follow shorter cycles and cars are less durable.  Or that's my guess.

  

 Regards,

  

 Dan

 http://uweb.superlink.net/~neptune/BankFAQ.html

Re: Interest rates and housing


In a message dated 8/16/05 10:24:56 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


The last real estate bottom was in 1990, so if this
is another 18-year cycle, the next depression would be
around 2008.  So far, the economy is tracking the
cycle right on schedule.  In my judgment, the economy
is entering the plateau stage.

Heh, Fred, I guess you are the only armchair economist left.   

If government   has causes a real estate price bubble by artificially loweringn interest rates, how can it have an 18-year cycle, and why would it be the same under the federal serve system as it was under free banking or the period from the Civil War to the establishment of the Fed?   Why does the money go into residential real estate and not into stocks or automobiles or other assets? 

Thanks,

David

Interest rates and housing

2005-08-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

Are there any armchair economists left? If so, what do you think of the following article?

Thanks!

David Levenstam
George Mason University
-

Interest rates and housing
Bruce Bartlett (archive)

August 16, 2005 | Print | Recommend to a friend

Last week the Federal Reserve again raised the federal funds interest rate, which now stands at 3.5 percent. When the Fed began tightening monetary policy in June 2004, this rate stood at just 1 percent.
Thus far, there is little evidence that the Fed's actions have had any effect either on financial markets or the real economy. Market interest rates, especially for mortgages, remain low, and economic growth continues at a steady, if unspectacular, pace. Given the Fed's actions, economists would have expected interest rates to be higher and growth to be slower. The Fed calls the lack of impact a "conundrum."
As a consequence, some analysts are saying that the Fed will have to raise the fed funds rate higher than it originally planned. A majority of forecasters in the Wall Street Journal's latest survey expect it to hit 4.5 percent before the Fed stops. Economists at Goldman Sachs are predicting five percent.
The problem is that just because the Fed is raising rates gradually doesn't mean that the impact will be gradual. It could come quite abruptly. Think of a balloon. Whether you blow it up slowly or fast, at some point, it is still going to burst. The same thing oftentimes occurs with monetary policy. It may appear that nothing is going on for a long time and then, suddenly, something dramatic happens to show that monetary policy is working as expected.
Another problem is that the Fed's policies always take time before they impact, and these lags vary. So it's very difficult to know precisely when the impact will be felt.
Generally speaking, when the Fed tightens, the impact on the economy is symmetrical. That is, whatever sectors went up the most during the easing phase will fall the hardest when it tightens. Stocks went up most during the easing cycle from 1995 to 1998 and fell the most after the Fed tightened in 1999 and 2000.
In the latest easing phase, which began in January 2001, the principal impact has been on housing. Over the last five years, housing prices nationally have risen by just over 50 percent. But in some areas, prices have risen much more. Those in California and the District of Columbia are up over 100 percent. Twelve other states have seen increases of over 60 percent. All except Nevada border either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.
However, much of the country has not seen significant housing price increases -- in 32 states they have risen less than the national average. In Utah, prices have gone up just 17.5 percent in the last five years -- little more than the 12.8 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index. Other laggards include Indiana (19.8 percent), Mississippi and Nebraska (both 21.8 percent). Almost all of the below average states are in the nation's heartland.
In a recent speech, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president Janet Yellen noted that the ratio of home prices to rents is about 25 percent above its long-term average. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the ratio is 40 percent above normal. Experience shows that prices will either level off or fall when this is the case, bringing the ratio back to trend.
One thing that may be different this time is that the abnormal price-to-rent ratio is being driven partially by falling rents, not just rising home prices. This is because investors are purchasing so many properties in hopes of rapid appreciation, increasing the supply of rental housing. And since much of this real estate has been purchased with interest-only or negative-amortization loans, investors don't need much rent to cover their payments.
Negative-amortization loans are especially dangerous, both for borrowers and those making such loans. This type of loan is a bit like a credit card, where the full amount need not be paid every month. As long as a small minimum payment is made, the balance can be rolled over. In this case, the unpaid balance is added to the outstanding mortgage.
This reduces one's cash flow expense, but also reduces one's profit at the back end when the property is sold. So unless prices rise fairly rapidly, one can easily get into a situation where the mortgage is greater than what one can clear at closing. Consequently, even if prices simply level off, a lot of investors may find themselves with mortgages they cannot pay back after a sale.
Owning one's own home is still the best investment that anyone can make. And if you plan to stay put for a few years, you shouldn't worry about a bust in the housing market. But those buying investment properties on either coast should be very, very careful. It may take a lot longer than they think to make money and they should be sufficiently well capitalized to ride out a market dip.

Bruce Bartlett

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-29 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 4/29/05 2:35:28 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Right.  But this is all very predictable, even at a 10% tax.  Demand
for yachts is highly elastic.  Nobody really "needs" one -- or as I
like to tell people, if you can afford to buy a yacht, you can also
afford NOT to buy a yacht.  And, demand for new US-made yachts is even
mroe elastic, because you can buy a used yacht, or a yacht made in
Bermuda or something and sail it to the same places.  Or you can buy a
plane or horse or another golf membership instead.


--Robert Book
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


I sure wish I could afford to not buy a yachet!   :-D

David

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-29 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/29/05 2:07:12 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

David ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes:

> It's funny, during the 1970s people commonly attributed the
> excellent rates of economic grown in Taiwan and Hong Kong to the
> "Confusion work ethic" while completely ignoring the poverty of the
> hundreds of millions of Chinese right next door in Communist China.

I usually heard this as an argument against communism -- as in,
"Chinese prosper everywhere int he world -- Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Malaysia, America -- EXCEPT in Communist China.  So it's
obvious that the problem of poverty in China is with Communism, not
with anything inherent in the Chinese people."

Of course, there may be some selection bias involved in emigration,
but it's still a good point.

--Robert Book
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

The argument really applies to any system that stifles innovation and rewards conformity, or that eliminates both the private gains and the private losses from risk-taking, whether communist, democatic socialist, or theocratic.

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-29 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/29/05 2:05:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

David ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes:

> It's funny, during the 1970s people commonly attributed the
> excellent rates of economic grown in Taiwan and Hong Kong to the
> "Confusion work ethic" while completely ignoring the poverty of the
> hundreds of millions of Chinese right next door in Communist China.

I usually heard this as an argument against communism -- as in,
"Chinese prosper everywhere int he world -- Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Malaysia, America -- EXCEPT in Communist China.  So it's
obvious that the problem of poverty in China is with Communism, not
with anything inherent in the Chinese people."

Of course, there may be some selection bias involved in emigration,
but it's still a good point.

--Robert Book   
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Indeed. And thanks also for the material on the luxury yachet (are there non-luxury yachets?) tax from the 1980s.   It's remarkable that a 10% rate nearly eliminated the US industry.   Imagine what would have happened had my failing memory been accurate, and Congress had indeed passed a 100% tax!

David Levenstam

Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve

2005-04-23 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/23/05 4:42:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Peter C. McCluskey wrote:

> Mancur Olson claims in his book Power and Prosperity that the
> marginal income tax rate was effectively zero. The effective taxes
> were near 100% of what a typical worker in any given position could
> produce, but workers producing more than expected kept all the
> unexpected wealth. That created stronger incentives on each person to
> work hard than in the west, strong incentives to prevent others from
> working hard, and some incentives for each industry to deceive the
> system about what a typical worker can produce. There were few
> problems with the total amount of economic activity under Stalin. The
> problems were with the goals which that activity satisfied.

Much as I admire Olson, this is crazy.  Collectivization didn't just
costlessly move resources from agriculture to industry/military
production.  There was an enormous deadweight cost in reduced production
*per farmer*.  Not to mention massive destruction of human capital -
i.e. death.  He has a slightly better case for industry - Stalin did
firmly back unequal pay.  But a 0% marginal tax rate cuts against
everything I've ever read about Soviet economics under Stalin.

I'd been wondering how to express the very same thoughts--I do admire Oslon a great deal, and I do find the idea crazy.   Is it possible he was employing irony?

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-22 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/22/05 9:55:30 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

>
istribution.   The real question, according to
> McCloskey, is not why does Germany have only 75% of US per capital
> GDP, but why
> does Bangledesh have only 5% of US per capital GDP.   People in the countries
> with the top 10 or 15 per capita incomes in the world are fabulously
> wealthy even

I believe that the reasons the Bangledeshi have been looted is explained largely by this image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/elkgrovedan/Beetle_Bailey.gif> compared to half a century ago, to say nothing about compared to before 1700.
>   People living in the poorest parts of the world, by contrast, are still

> poor by pre-1700 standards.
Sadly, as suggested in Carrol Quigley's epic history tome, Tragedy and Hope: The History of Our World, despotism has persisted in China for nearly 5000 years, though strains of free market are enriching a select few today. Perhaps those on the subcontinent will see the light?

The Beetle Bailey cartoon offers a surprisingly good insight. I've never heard any refer to China as a subcontinent, only India.    It's funny, during the 1970s people commonly attributed the excellent rates of economic grown in Taiwan and Hong Kong to the "Confusion work ethic" while completely ignoring the poverty of the hundreds of millions of Chinese right next door in Communist China.   I've worried about the fate of Hong Kong ever since Britain gave it to the communists.   One of my brothers, the Director or International Taxation for Cisco Systems, assures me that Hong Kong has been doing just fine and that the communists have pretty much kept their hands of off the goose that lays the golden eggs.   [Metaphor mine, not his.]

The Chinese communists seemed to have taken seriously some lessons from their own early experiment with political liberalization in the late 1970s and the Soviet example.   In the Chinese case, people who could speak out but not engage in generalized economic activity spent much of their energy simply speaking out against the communists.   In the case of the Soviets, people who could speak out and vote but not engage in liberalized economic activity spoke out against the communists and then voted the communists out of power.   The Chinese communists in the 1990s seemed to take care to allow some economic liberalization but not political liberalization, with the result that people turned their energies on enriching themselves rather than criticizing the communists.   (It's also possible that the Chinese communists took a lesson from the early Soviet Union's NEP, characterized by Bukharin's famous admonition to "enrich yourself," which resurrected the Russian economy after war and War Communism killed it.)

I doubt that we'll see free markets in China, since we don't really see free markets anywhere in the world today.   I've heard though that in the late 1990s the Chinese communists started reneging on the 99-year farm leases, so I don't know if they'll be able to resist the temptation to use their power to try to control everything.   Still, the last I heard, the Chinese economy was still experiencing growth in real per capital GDP exclusive of military spending, so maybe the of Soviet collapse still provides a sufficiently strong lesson in what not to do if you want to stay in power.

David

Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve

2005-04-22 Thread AdmrlLocke

Since the postmodern left took over history from the New Left, the history profession could use a bit of that old document bias.

David

In a message dated 4/22/05 10:19:21 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Yes.  It suffers a bit from the historians' "If you don't have a
document, it didn't happen" bias, but it's good.

Anton Sherwood wrote:

> Speaking of Communism, is "The Black Book" worth having?
> I saw several copies yesterday at a secondhand store in San Leandro,
> marked about $8 if memory serves.
>
> --
> Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/

Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve

In a message dated 4/21/05 5:11:04 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Taking the example of Stalin's war on the peasantry in general and the
> Ukraine in particular, we see that massive confiscations of income at
> marginal rates well in excess of 100% certainly detered economic
> activity, to put it rather mildly.

Yes, but ag collectivization in the USSR DID raise additional government
revenue, at least in the short-run.  The people starved, production
fell, but Stalin got more grain to feed the cities and export.  At least
that's my recollection from Conquest.

Of course, productivity growth in agriculture was very low afterwards,
fitting my long-run Laffer curve story!

Indeed!   On page 174 of Harvest of Sorrow Conquest reports that while grain procurements rose from 10.8 million in 1928-9 to 22.8 million in 1931-2 (by official Soviet data), the confiscation had a profound effect on long-term productivity.   One next page he reports that the confiscation of meat reduced "revenue" even faster; by 1931 meat confiscations had already fallen below the level of 1929.

David

Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve

In a message dated 4/21/05 12:26:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> And I have a sneaking suspicion that more equitable distributions of
> income lead to less social conflict and rent seeking and lead to higher
> growth.

I wonder what the Laffer Curve would have to say about the "tax" rates and
"equitable distributions of income" and "lesser or greater social conflict"
and "higher or lower growth" etc, that led to and constituted the socialist
Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million killed in the
former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 35 million in the Peoples'
Republic of China; 21 million in the National Socialist German Workers'
Party. http://rexcurry.net/socialists.html   The poverty, misery, famine and
slaughter were so enormous that Holocaust Museums can quadruple in size and
scope as Wholecaust Museums.

Taking the example of Stalin's war on the peasantry in general and the Ukraine in particular, we see that massive confiscations of income at marginal rates well in excess of 100% certainly detered economic activity, to put it rather mildly.

Re: Laffer Curve

In a message dated 4/21/05 1:38:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>And I have a sneaking suspicion that more equitable distributions of
>income lead to less social conflict and rent seeking and lead to higher
>growth. Unlike you I can point to some theoretical and empirical
>studies that back my suspicion up (though I wouldn't bet my life on it
>being true).  My point is that any of us can have sneaking suspicions.
>Dueling sneaking suspicions aren't going to bring us any closer to
>agreement.

You're raising the bar on me.  I was just trying to meet your earlier
challenge;

>But there is no reasonable argument (at least none that I've seen)
that >tax increases in any range we've seen in this country don't raise
>revenue.

Disagree or not, I think my argument about long-term damage to
entrepreneurship and the work ethic is a reasonable one.

The Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury for the early 1920s show that higher marginal tax rates did at first raise revenue, and then in succeeding years cause revenue to fall in the brackets to which the higher rates applied.   People couldn't immediately adjust their much of their activities to avoid the higher rates, but over time did just that.

Congress imposed something like a 100% tax on luxury boats (as I recall, as part of the tax hike of 1990), and found that they collected zero revenue from the tax.

So we do have empirical evidence that higher marginal tax rates can produce less revenue.

We also know that as marginal rates rise, people have more incentive to lobby for special provisions to exclude themselves or their particular activities from the the higher rates, which in turn generates hostility among people with similar incomes from non-excluded activities, generating further lobbying for expansion of the list of excluded activites.   Higher marginal rates in general also raise the ire of   people who see themselves as getting punished for working harder, giving more incentive to people with high incomes to work less and spend more time in leisure.   Thus we had the phenomenon of doctors playing golf more often than seeing patients, etc., before Congress made large cuts in marginal tax rates during the 1980s.

Re: Laffer Curve


In a message dated 4/21/05 1:37:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



 

 By one measure, there is a big difference,  in per capita GDP taking into account purchasing power parity. From the OECD site, in 1999 the U.S. had a per capita GDP of $33,836. Germany, France, UK, Italy were all between $22,000 and $24,000.

  



Yes, the PPP per capital GDP figures for the last 15 years or so have shown a substantial gap between US and western European incomes. For that matter last I saw Canadian per capital GDP it was above European GDPs, and as I understand it, Hong Kong per capital GDP had pushed past Canadian per capital GDP into second place after American by the time the British handed the whole colony (both the leased and the non-leased portions) over to the Chinese communists.   

As McCloskey likes to point out, however, the gap between any of the countries the top ten or 15, for instance, shrinks into insignificance by comparison between the top 10 or 15 and the bottom 10 or 15, or even middle third of the world's per capita income distribution.   The real question, according to McCloskey, is not why does Germany have only 75% of US per capital GDP, but why does Bangledesh have only 5% of US per capital GDP.   People in the countries with the top 10 or 15 per capita incomes in the world are fabulously wealthy even compared to half a century ago, to say nothing about compared to before 1700.   People living in the poorest parts of the world, by contrast, are still poor by pre-1700 standards.

Re: Laffer Curve


In a message dated 4/21/05 3:13:06 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


So, if you have labor supply and demand functions that don't meet
these boundary conditions, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense
to talk about what happens as you approach these boundary conditions,
right?  In other words, if you see tax revenue continuing to increase
for rates close to 100%, then the fact that it doesn't go
(continuously) to zero at 100% means this is not the right model for
this question, no?

Also, because that particular labor supply curve doesn't recognize an
upper limit on time, it fails to take into account the fact that the
wage rate (net of taxes) is the price of leisure, which is a normal
good.  While this might not matter for small changes in the middle of
the range for most labor supply questions, it's my understanding (is
this correct?) that the theoretical basis for the Laffer curve is that
leisure has positive value, and increasing the tax rate can push the
net wage rate below the marginal value of leisure for some fraction
of the population.  So a labor supply function that does not take into
account leisure (i.e., is not "backward bending" at some point) is
also not appropriate for this issue, right?


That makes sense to me, Robert, but I'd bet ready money (if I had any) that   you won't persuade Bill.   :-)

David

Re: Does one government intervention lead to another?

2005-04-20 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 4/20/05 12:13:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



So has anyone ever compiled a list of this sort of thing involving other government policies?

  

 Cyril Morong


I don't know about a list, but as I recall Free to Choose Milton Friedman discusses the way that government interventions built upon themselves in the transportation industry.

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-19 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/19/05 12:43:11 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> For what it's worth, I recall a Treasury study in the late 1980s that
> concluded that the tax cut of 1984 was 95% self-financing.
>
> David

Do you have a citation for that study (or a copy)?

If "95% self-financing" means what it seems to mean, that would mean
tax revenues actually declined, right?

--Robert Book
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

No (thus the "I seem to recall"--actually I read about it on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal) and yes (tax revenues from the affected items fell, but I don't know over what period).

David

Re: Laffer Curve

2005-04-18 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 4/18/05 3:21:40 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


I've been reading about Laffer's idea that there is a tendency for
revenues to increase with increased taxation up to a point where revenue
is maximized.  As one of the class notes on Caplan's site indicates, you
can derive revenue as a function of the tax rate and assuming that the
slopes of the supply and demand curves are constants not equal to zero,
you can show that the Laffer effect exists.

For example, from

    Pd = price paid by buyer
    Ps = price received by seller
    t = tax per unit = Pd - Ps.
    R = revenue = tQ
    Supply curve: Qs = a + bPs
    Demand curve: Qd = c - dPd

You can derive

    R = t(bc + da - bdt)/(b + d)

Still, a lot of people have said that the Laffer curve is bunk.  Are
there any Laffer detractors here?  If so, what must the supply and
demand curves for labor look like for R(t) to be an always increasing
(or at least never decreasing) function?

James


For what it's worth, I recall a Treasury study in the late 1980s that concluded that the tax cut of 1984 was 95% self-financing.

David

Re: Exogenous Policy

2005-02-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

In case you're not familar with it, Bryan Caplan has done a great deal of work in this area.   You can find "What Makes People Think Like Economists?" in the Journal of Law and Economics, 44 (2), pp. 395-426 (October 2001), and "Sociotropes, Systematic Bias, and Politicial Failure" in the Social Science Quarterly, 83 (2), pp. 416-435 (June 2002).   Bryan uses specific policies as dependent variables, and regresses a large number of other variables against them.   He does find that most of the self-interest variables have little or no impact on people's beliefs while ideology, race, gender and political party all tend to have a large impact.   Bryan raises the issue not only of group-interested voting, but of sociotropic voting as well.

He also has several forthcoming articles in this area.   In "How Do Voters Form Positive Economic Beliefs," for instance, he finds that group-interest or sociotropic motivations seem to motivate the formation beliefs about how the economy works, but while some self-interest variables motivate the formation of beliefs about how the economy is at a given time.   He finds that the level of income, however, has no impact on the formation of either type of economic belief.

David Levenstam

In a message dated 2/16/05 9:01:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> I think you are mixing up correlation and causation here.  On what
> basis do you say that "most important characteristics in the
> liberal/conservative divide are age, race, gender, ..."?  Perhaps on
> the basis that we have polling data that can be broken down by these
> categories?  As for "Income, education, and employment status" -- how
> are these any less "group characteristics" than "personal
> characteristics"?

My basis for saying that these are important characteristics was simply that
they are correlated with voting a certain way.  Certainly income, education,
etc. can be used as a classification for a group, but these characteristics
would seem to be more highly correlated with an individual's utility level
than race or gender (at least under the normal assumptions economists make),
and that is the basis for the differentiation here.  If you show me evidence
that people vote on the size of a gov't transfer based on current income,
that might be a sign of self interested voting or group voting, but if you
show me that people vote on this transfer based on gender, I'd cite that as
evidence for group-interest voting.

> All you seem to have found is that people's votes are not easily
> changed by changes in their fortunes -- in other words, if you believe
> X while you are poor and/or unemployed, you tend to still believe X
> after you get a job and get rich.  Why is that surprising?  Do you
> think people should always vote based on their current short-term
> self-interest, without regard to what situations they may otherwise
> find, or have found themselves in, let alone what they might believe
> is right morally?  What counterfactual are you imagining here?

I don't expect people to vote only based on their current circumstances.
The question here is whether the ideological distribution changes because of
influences from policy- which might have short or long run effects on
material consumption or some kind of moral value.  If ideology is formed
from characteristics such as religion, race, gender, it is hard for me to
think of ways policy could influence ideology (immigration policy is one).
It would surprise me if policy didn't influence the ideological
distribution- i.e. the number of liberals/conservatives is purely a function
of exogenous shifts in the demographics of the population.

Jason DeBacker

Re: senior discounts

2005-02-07 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 2/8/05 2:24:37 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Robert A. Book wrote:
> First, for off-peak movies and the like, the idea is to fill
> the seats that would otherwise go empty; in other words, convince
> the seniors to see movies int he afternoon, so seats are available
> for full-price customers at night. . . .

So why do movie theaters have *both* an off-peak discount,
available to all comers, and a senior discount at all times?

I'd guess the standard reason for price discrimination--differing price elasticities of demand and difficulty arbitraging among them.   You can't buy a ticket for a matinee and then resell it to someone wanting to go to an evening show.   You could use your senior discount to buy a cheaper ticket to whatever show and resell it for a price between yours and the full price, but the physical environment would tend to limit such arbitrage. How many elderly people want to stand around waiting to catch someone who's willing to buy tickets from a stranger for a couple of bucks less than full price right under the watchful eye of theater personel?   My father (age 81) can't stand in wait in line for anything! And as frugal as he is, and as much time as he has to spend on medical care (starting with dialysis for hours each of three times per week) he's not going to spend much of that time standing around trying to earn a couple of bucks reselling movie tickets.   He's rather just stay home and watch tv or read a book.

David

Re: Arthur Laffer

2005-02-07 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 2/8/05 1:13:22 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>
> In a message dated 2/7/05 11:46:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>
> > There's an interesting (to me, anyway) interview with Arthur Laffer
> > here:
> >
> > http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_3
> > 00457.html
> >
> > --Robert
> >
>
> Oh, thank goodness! When I saw the subject line I thought you were goign to
> tell us that he'd died.

Gosh, I didn't even think of that!  Sorry, didn't mean to scare
anybody.

> I see the basis of his optimism, but still I feel
> pessimistic.   Marginal federal income tax rates have fallen (although they fell
> lower than they are now and rose again, and actually rise about the statutory
> 35% Laffer mentions) and we've had little inflation, but the federal register
> continues to grow by leaps and bounds, federal spending grows faster than at
> any time since the 1960s, and Bush gave us our first new entitlement since the
> 1960s, while the old entitlements continue to grow out of control.

Didn't the 1996 welfare reform act get rid of the AFDC entitlement?

So they aren't ALL growing

Also, lots of industries have been deregulated since (say) 1970.
Airlines, some types of telecommunications, trucking, etc.

I know, we've got a long way to go, but let's not pretend that the
past was some unregulated Eden, either.

--Robert

Ah well, it's probably just me so far as the fear of bad news goes--just my natural pessimism. I always   have the same response when my mother sends me an email with just a name in the subject: if it's a particular brother I think he's had another heart attack; if it's my dad I run through a litany of possible ailments that turned fatal. :-)

I thought that AFDC still exists and that the welfare reform act of 96 merely limited the time one can spend getting certain federal benefits--which might include AFDC. In toto spending on entitlements has certainly increased, even setting aside the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement, and I   understand that Medicaid especially has been growing at double-digit rates and will, even if the Republicans have th stomach to pass the Bush administration's current proposal, still grow at 7% per year.

Just how deregulated are the deregulated industries?   The federal government might not exercise direct regulation of prices in oil, gas, and transportation, but that doesn't preclude an ever-growing raft of regulation of these and other industries, regulation which indirectly changes the prices underlying literally millions if not billions of transactions.   In transportation, furthermore, the federal govenment never degregulated the basic infrastucture--the airports--and with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security they took a step backwards by socializing airport security, which might not be much better at ferreting out terrorists but has taken an impressive leap upwards in its ability to delay and harass l law-abiding travelers.  And what about the people thrown in prison for cleaning up junkyards that occasionally flood (supposedly violating the "wetlands regulations" promulgated under the Inland Waterways Act, which actually has nothing to do with wetlands at all), or whose businesses the federal government shuts down for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act, or the local officials imprisoned for refusing to quintuple local taxes to meet federal environmental regulations or other unfunded mandates?

I'm not saying that nothing good has happened, but it seems like a case of one step forward, two-hundred steps back.

David

Re: Arthur Laffer

2005-02-07 Thread AdmrlLocke


In a message dated 2/7/05 11:46:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


There's an interesting (to me, anyway) interview with Arthur Laffer
here:

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_300457.html

--Robert


Oh, thank goodness! When I saw the subject line I thought you were goign to tell us that he'd died.   I see the basis of his optimism, but still I feel pessimistic.   Marginal federal income tax rates have fallen (although they fell lower than they are now and rose again, and actually rise about the statutory 35% Laffer mentions) and we've had little inflation, but the federal register continues to grow by leaps and bounds, federal spending grows faster than at any time since the 1960s, and Bush gave us our first new entitlement since the 1960s, while the old entitlements continue to grow out of control.

Re: the answer is...

2004-12-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 12/16/04 6:52:22 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>More rural states
>vote Republican more and have lower income, education and test scores.
>-
>- Bill Dickens

Iowa might be an outlier, but as I  understand it they're above the national
average in per capita income, have one of the best public school systems in
the country, and typically test at or near the top on standardized tests.

David Levenstam

Re: the answer is...

2004-12-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 12/16/04 4:12:28 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>The correlation between per-capita state income and Kerry vote
>percentage is +.70.  That makes Bill by far the most accurate of our
>guessers.  If you do a bivariate regression, every +$1000 of per cap
>income is associated with +1.48 percentage points of Kerry share.

I didn't think of placing a specific number on it until after I read Bill's
estimate of .40.  Then I couldn't decide between .25 and .50 and had to run to
the vet.  If we take my expected value as .25*.5 + .5*.5 we get .375--so Bill
remains closer.  :-)

David

Re: guess the correlation

2004-12-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 12/16/04 2:21:38 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I've calculated the correlation coefficient between per-capita state
>income and the percent of the vote Kerry got.  Guesses?  I'll post the
>answer in an hour.
>--
> Prof. Bryan Caplan

I'd guess a positive coeficient--the higher the state's per capita income,
the higher the percentage Kerry won.

David Levenstam

Re: [Insurance] Content Coverage

2004-11-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

I was wondering if maybe it had something to do with the benefits of bundling
products, but I'm too tired to get  my mind around it.  Anyone  have any
thoughts?

David

In a message dated 11/16/04 4:33:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>One last thought: Insurance is a repeated game. If you
>burn your house down, your insurance premiums will go
>way up. Since mortgage companies require insurance,
>you can only go without if you can pay cash for your
>house. Perhaps moral hazard is less of a concern where
>there is punishment for bad behavior.
>
>Colleen

Re: [Insurance] Content Coverage

2004-11-16 Thread AdmrlLocke

Isn't it our own Walter Williams here at Mason who says that demand sets the
price, and supply simply determines the quantity supplied at that price?

David
In a message dated 11/16/04 4:24:40 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>It is my impression that Homeowners Insurance is a
>standard package plan, which means the agent/company
>has boilerplate documents which pre-exist a customer's
>individual demand. The coverage generally includes not
>only the residence, but outbuildings(detached
>garage/guesthouse/sheds), expenses incurred if a
>hotel/motel stay is required while your house is
>uninhabitable, and the aforementioned contents. In
>purchasing coverage priced at house value plus 50%,
>you are obtaining coverage for all of these items even
>though your home's contents may be valued at less.
>(The idea of course is that the more expensive the
>house, the more costly the other items.) To sell this
>coverage, an insurer has but to plug a couple values
>into a computer program.
>
>As mentioned, it is possible to obtain a 'custom plan'
>at a higher price. I suspect this price pays for the
>labor involved in creating the new plan (modifying
>existing documents and coinsurance clauses), and
>checking with the attorneys to make sure coverage is
>well specified and communicated in the document, and
>does not leave the company exposed.
>
>While this explanation may not be correct, it seems to
>fit standard economic intuition that a higher price on
>a product reflects a higher cost. Therefore I would
>guess the savings realized by boilerplate exceeds the
>additional cost incurred by moral hazard.
>
>Just my $0.02.
>Colleen

Re: personal finances survey

2004-11-12 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 11/12/04 4:12:47 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Fred, I know *YOU* know the correct answer!
>
>I just want to know what percetange of people out there also know it.
>
>I want to test the theory, advanced by some, that opposition to
>eliminating the income tax stems in part from the misconception that
>the income tax is a "good thing" because "I get a refund every year."
>
>--Robert

Robert,

As a CPA with master's degree in taxation who worked as a tax accountant for
many a year, I often encountered that silly notion and hard as I tried, often
could not disabuse the person of it.

David

Re: personal finances survey

2004-11-12 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 11/12/04 2:34:30 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I'm sure 4% is *MUCH* higher than the rate of (biological)
>hermaphrodites in the general population.  Probably 100 times higher!

I'm sure too. I was really just poking fun at the organizations that think
they should be some huge academic topic. :-)

Re: personal finances survey

2004-11-12 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 11/12/04 1:42:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>What's up with question 32?  52% male and 52% female?


Well maybe 4 percent of them were hermaphrodites.  I see that at the
university where I'm teaching (NOT GMU) they're having a seminar on people who 
aren't
100% male or female.

Re: Krugman on Rep and Dem "virtue"

2004-11-05 Thread AdmrlLocke

Oh, I see that Mass doesn't have even one Republican county!

I likewise see that Oklahoma (where the wind goes sweeping down the lane) and
Utah don't have even one Democratic county.

David

Re: Krugman on Rep and Dem "virtue"

2004-11-05 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 11/5/04 2:21:29 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Paul Krugman writes:
>
>"Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and
>good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be
>adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest
>divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower
>rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states." (Source: "No
>Surrender" http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110604Y.shtml)
>
>In the first sentence, Dems are Reps are equally virtuous; yet in the
>second, selected Dems are more shown to be more virtuous (by a
>traditional standard).
>
>1. What are the best (and easiest to collect) measures to test sentence
>#1?
>
>2. Re: sentence #2, what measures would Krugman presumably accept to
>show that Republicans are indeed as "virtuous" as Democrats, as he
>implies in sentence #1?
>
>Carl
>

Carl,

Krugman's not exactly unbiased in the matter, is  he? :-D

The Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1995 has divorce rates by
state from 1980 to 1993.  Presumably the current Statistical Abstract (2003?)
would have more current divorce rates (through 2001?).

It would be more interesting to compare divorce rates between Republican and
Democratic counties.  I would guess that small town and rural counties, which
tend to vote Republican, would indeed have lower rates of divorce and
infidelity than urban counties, which tend to vote Democratic.  Suburban voters seem
more like swing voters, and I'd guess that their rates of divorce and
infidelity lied between the  other two.  It would be particularly interesting to break
down divorce rates not only between Republican and Democratic counties, but
among rural and small town counties, suburban counties, and urban counties, and
see what we get.  Perhaps the rural counties in Mass help reduce its divorce
rate.  Or perhaps not.  I looked at the 1994 Bureau of the Census County and
City Book, but it doesn't contain divorce rates.  Perhaps a more current version
of the book does. I'm sure it's possible to find that data somewhere.
Perhaps try to Google it?

David Levenstam

Re: Projections and Media incentives

2004-11-03 Thread AdmrlLocke

I gather now that while Fox was last in calling Florida, they were first in
calling Ohio. I was still up when they called Ohio, but didn't notice when the
other networks did.

David Levenstam

Re: Now Bush to win 1.5:1

2004-11-03 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 11/3/04 6:54:43 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>In the end the important question is comparative - are there any other
>institutions that on average do better?  So far direction comparisons
>between markets and other institutions in the field have favored
>markets.  And real and play money have come out about the same.  But the
>jury is still out.

Robin,

In this case, were the markets closer than the polls taken right before the
election? Were they closer than the exit polls?  The exit polls seemed to
systematically inflate the numbers for Kerry, and it looks like the markets'
optimism about Kerry early in the day reflected the exit polls.  I'm not sure what
if anything that says about markets vs. other institutions in this case, but
I'd be interested to know what you think.

David

Re: lotteries and elections

2004-09-01 Thread AdmrlLocke

Dear Michael,

I laughed out loud at your concluding sentence.  Well said!  I've had almost
the identical response from one of my undergraduate students, except, being
only 18 or thereabout, she exercised the adolescent eye-roll instead.

David
In a message dated 9/1/04 12:30:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

>
>By far, the most common response I get when I mention that one's
>individual vote does not effect the outcome of an election, is
>astonished indignation. I am assured that regardless of the (lack of)
>effect of my individual vote, voting is an obligation born out of the
>principle of reciprocity. We, as individuals, should vote, because if
>everybody didn't vote there would be no electoral process. Voting is
>thus one of many necessary things we should do in order to be a
>respectable member of the community.
>
>By the way, do not attempt to discuss this subject at a cocktail party
>with drunken public elementary school teachers. Before you know it,
>you'll be personally responsible for, not only decline of western
>civilization, but all various and sundry despotic regimes throughout the
>world. It will end with you promising to vote Green in the next, and all
>future elections, just to stop the crying.
>
>Cheers,
>Michael Giesbrecht

Re: lotteries and elections

2004-09-01 Thread AdmrlLocke

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd never ever heard the term
"expressive voting" before yesterday when someone used it on the list, and I'm not
exactly sure how people define it.

I do know that when I lived in Iowa I encountered a great many voters who
supported candidates like Alan Keyes in the Republican primaries, knowing full
well that he couldn't win, and yet expressing the desire to "send a message" by
voting for him.  Would that be an example of expressive voting?

David

In a message dated 9/1/04 10:00:45 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 07:50:08PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> I've been discussing with my undergradute students the rationality of
>voting.
>
>What about the possibility that many people do not deal well with with
>small probabilities, and mistakenly think that their votes matter?
>
>Why have economists latched onto the idea of "expressive voting", when
>a
>much simpler explanation is that most apparently irrational voting really
>is irrational? Of course "expressive voting" preserves the assumption of
>rationality, but there is still the problem of participation in lotteries
>with negative expected payoffs. Is that just to be ignored, or will
>someone come up with a theory of "expressive lottery ticket purchase"?

Re: lotteries and elections

2004-08-31 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 8/31/04 8:36:29 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>A problem with many of these reasons is that they do partly rely on the
>
>illusion that their vote does matter! "Expressive voting" is not a
>
>completely separate issue. Why feel pride in participating in an irrational
>
>system? Why not express your political views in a more efficient way than
>
>voting? etc.

It's irrational only if the cost exceeds the benefit.  If someone gains a
benefit from voting that exceeds their opportunity cost, then it's not irrational
for them to vote.  As far as other means, they mostly have  much higher
opportunity costs and might not actually have much more likelihood of affecting the
outcome.

Re: lotteries and elections

2004-08-31 Thread AdmrlLocke

I've been discussing with my undergradute students the rationality of voting.
People might get other benefits from voting besides thinking that their one
vote can influence the outcome.  Some people feel a civic pride in voting.
Others vote to prevent others from telling them they don't have a "right to
complain," a comment complaint lobbed at people who don't vote.  I like the
excitement of going to the polls and seeing everyone else all keyed up about the
election.  Some people pick a candidate and then cheer for him or her, and then
feel good about that candidate winning the election the way they would a race
horse or a sports team.  For some people voting might serve as a social
outlet--something to do around other people instead of just staying home.  What other
reasons might people vote besides believing they can influence the outcome?

David Levenstam

In a message dated 8/31/04 12:31:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Does anyone know if there is a correlation between a person's
>willingness to buy lottery tickets, and his willingness to vote in large
>elections (where the chances of any vote being pivotal is tiny)?
>
>A simple explanation for both of these phenomena, where people choose
>to do things with apparently negative expected payoff, is misunderstanding
>or miscalculation of probabilities. This theory would predict a positive
>correlation. I'm curious if anyone has done a survey or experiment to test
>this.

Re: Private urban green space

2004-08-01 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 8/1/04 3:45:57 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>>Economists are not "hostile" to public goods.
>
>Still, knowledge of economics tends to make you more receptive to the
>idea of the invisible hand and the possibilities of private economic
>organization. Hence, it makes you more libertarian. And libertarians are
>sure hostile to the public goods scene, because there the emphasis is on
>things that *need* to be solved publicly.

While studying economics might tend to make a person more libertarian than
he'd be otherwise, studying economics doesn't necessarily make the person
libertarian.  The old Keynesians tended to have a fair fondness for government
intervention, as summarized by Paul Samuelson's "Two cheers, but not three, for
markets."  A Post-Keynesian instructor of mine back in 1990 told me that
Post-Keynesians would say "One cheer for markets."

Re: Private urban green space

2004-07-30 Thread AdmrlLocke

Well I recall the front lawn, the side yard and the back yard.

David Levenstam

In a message dated 7/30/04 5:52:47 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Dear Armchairs,
>
>
>
>today I had a discussion with a friend about urban planing and the necessity
>of public provision of urban green space (parks etc.). Do you know cases
>of private provision of urban green space and in that case, how do they
>make money out of it.
>
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>
>
>
>Steffen

Interesting Per Capita GDP Comparisons

2004-06-28 Thread AdmrlLocke

I knew there was some disparity, but I hadn't realized how great it had
become.  Check it out.

David

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005242

Re: Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation

2004-05-12 Thread AdmrlLocke

And physical therapists too.  My next door neighbor is a trained physical
therapist with decades of experience but she works at Staples.  Why?  Because
she's an immigrant who fled Iran and has trouble proving her background since the
Iranian government is hostile, so she hasn't been able to get a license.

In a message dated 5/12/04 11:09:45 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Check out this website.  It's a real time warp.  And yes, Virginia does
>license barbers!
>
>http://www.state.va.us/dpor/indexne.html

Re: the sea-change of military competition

2004-04-23 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 4/23/04 12:06:20 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>The US changed the
>name of the game after WWII...winning but taking no territory.

For the US that's an old story.  The US government frequently "spanked" Latin
American countries but between 1948 and 1898 didn't take any territory.
After World War I the US didn't take any territory, except perhaps a few island in
the Pacific.  Even then colonization had become sufficiently disreputable in
the West, in no small part because of American hostility toward it, that even
the Europeans could do it only under the guise of League of Nations mandates,
and then only in colonies that simply switched hands.

Re: the sea-change of military competition

2004-04-23 Thread AdmrlLocke

In the 19th century Britain as a democratic monarchy and France as a
democratic republic engaged in extensive empire-building, which was very popular at
home.  As Deirdre McCloskey loves to say, for Britain (and France) empire was a
major consumption good.  The empire allowed even the lower class Britons to be
lords of the earth.

In a message dated 4/23/04 11:33:28 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Would the fact that more countries are democratic - the biggest military
>powers (except China) are democratic anyway have got something to do with
>the absence of recolonisation, despite military gap, as democracies
>ostensibly do not go to war with each other.  Nevertheless, most
>decolonisation occurred in the 1960s.  Four decades is too short a time
>to
>assume that it would not happen again.
>
>Bart JP

Re: the sea-change of military competition

2004-04-22 Thread AdmrlLocke

I think the short answer to your first question is that the people who have developed 
the most advanced military technology and with it the greatest military might hold a 
great deal of hostility to the notion of empire/colonization.  They also don't like 
the idea of spending the tax dollars--some because they don't like taxes and some 
because they don't want to detract from social welfare spending--required to maintain 
an empire.
I can think of no comparable period in time in which the most advanced military powers 
didn't conquer their weaker neighbors, although perhaps someone can think of one or 
two.  In every case that comes to mind where there wasn't some sort of local balance 
of power, only natural barriers and great distances seemed to stop the spread of the 
most militarily advanced powers.
I suppose you could look at the Mongol refusal to sweep into western Europe as a case 
where the advanced power didn't conquer some weaker neighbors, but then you can say 
the same thing about their refusal to conquer northern Siberian peoples and the 
Kamchatdales (of the Kamchatka peninsula.  The Mongols just didn't seem to consider 
any of the three worthy of conquest.  It pieces some of our Western vanity to equate 
western Europe with Kamchatka,but from the Mongol perspective it's probably true.  Of 
course given the distance from Mongolia to Hungary, one could also categorize the 
Mongol refusal to conquer western Europe as a question of distance, although in 
reality it appears that they could have done so despite the distance had they been so 
inclined.
As for whether or not the current situation constitutes a fluke, I guess it depends on 
whether you think it's just an accident that people hostile to colonization should 
develop the greatest military power.  I really don't know.  I'm tempted to say that 
there's some correlation in that among a people who value individual liberty and 
progress you'd expect the sort of innovation that leads to great military 
techhology,and that such people might also tend to look less favorably upon 
colonization.  On the flip side, although private firms develop military technology in 
the US, they tend to have a strong symbiotic relationship with government such that we 
could hardly categorize them as free-market.  We also see that in the case of the 
British, for example, a long-term culture of individual liberty didn't prevent 
governmental actors and other elites from desiring and acquiring a vast empire.  Even 
in the US certain elites like TR desire and acquire some (little) empire.
In the US in particular there's our own colonial heritage that tends to militate 
against wanting empire, so that even when some elites wanted it they never got very 
far.  I don't see any correlation between being a former colony and having advanced 
military technology (of if there is a correlation, it's probably negative, looking at 
all the pieces of the former European empires).
As a first approximation then I'd be willing to say that there's some correlation 
between our having the greatest military power and our dislike of empire, but probably 
a low correlation (30%?).
I have little doubt that should a non-Western country ever develop techological 
superority we would likely see some colonization. As it is the Chinese communists have 
maintained their colonization of Tibet and would like to recolonize Formosa, and of 
course the old Russian empire still stretches across Asia.  I'm sure others can think 
of continuing cases of colonization or perhaps one or two cases of new colonization 
since WWII.
David Levenstam
David Levenstam
In a message dated 4/22/2004 3:20:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
writes:
> > > It is a cliche that at least in the area of military technology,> countries 
> > > rarely let themselves fall behind.  At least historically,> countries either 
> > > strived for parity or got conquered.> > But a weird thing has happened since 
> > > WWII.  The military ability gap> between the strongest countries and the weakest 
> > > has gotten a lot bigger.>  The British Empire in its heydey did not beat whole 
> > > countries into> submission with 0 casualties, but that is basically what NATO 
> > > did to> Yugoslavia.  Colonial kill ratios were something like 20:1, not 3000:0.> 
> > > > But despite this widening gap, the idea that the weakest countries are> going 
> > > to be recolonized is now laughable.  What in the > world is going> on?  Are we 
> > > in a weird fluke?  Are there any parallels?> --

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

2004-03-25 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 3/25/04 9:44:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I'm not sure that's true.  The British used to force-feed IRA hunger
>strikers (Bobby Sands died anyway) and the Soviets force-fed refusniks
>like Natan Shcharanksy.  I think the U.S. force-feeds prisoners who go
>on hunger strikes.
>
>--Robert

I think that the US doesn't force-feed hunger strikers--not that we have
many--but does anyone know for certain?

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

I think that's a good question.  Some people, maybe many people, would
consider having ones genitals split open and parts removed while other parts were
turned inside out to be worse than the slow, lingering decline into death from
anorexia.  Surely Don's sister tried to have him forceably admitted for
observation in three states (and indeed successfully in one) based on her believe
that in trying to become Deirdre Donald was harming himself.  Indeed it's not
very long ago that if Donald wanted to become Deirdre he would be locked up in an
institution for the insane.  We don't do that anymore, but we might do that
if Deirde decide refused to eat enough food to keep her alive.

If Deirde decided not to eat enough to survive in protest of Bush's policy on
Iraq, moreover, we'd likely (at least many would likely) applaud her
principled stand and not lock her up.  But if Deirde starved herself because her
family abandoned her and she could no longer bear the pain, we almost certainly
would lock her up and force feed her.

It seems that in the anorexic case when the motive for harming oneself
revolved around oneself, most people say that it's not legitimate and we lock her
up, but if the motive sounds like something grand that allegedly revolves around
making "society" better we applaud it.  That sounds rather socialistic,
doesn't it?

On the flip side, what about all those young women who starved themselves to
death or near death who later recover and express deep gratitute that someone
intervened to stop them from dying?

In a message dated 3/24/04 9:25:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>On Mar 24, 2004, at 4:28 PM, Eric Crampton wrote:
>>
>> I don't know
>> though whether there can be a harm standard that allows Donald to
>> become
>> Deirdre but doesn't allow the anorexic to starve herself to death.
>
>
>Why is that something to be forcibly stopped, but someone who smokes
>three packs of cigarettes a day is considered sane enough to be left
>alone?  Why is one a version of suicide, a cry for help, and the other
>is simply a choice, a preference, that shortens one's life?

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

In a message dated 3/24/04 9:34:32 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>
>On Mar 24, 2004, at 9:29 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>>
>>
>> No. I didn't say that they can't ignore them, I said that they can't
>> distinguish them from reality.  You can ignore Billy Joel's advice to
>
>> never argue with
>> a crazy man, but that doesn't mean that you can't distinguish between
>
>> the
>> real voice coming from the crazy man and you the "voice" in your head
>
>> that "tells
>> you" to punch him.
>
>In my own limited experience with two schizophrenic family members,
>they always knew the voices aren't "real," but couldn't (or didn't)
>always ignore them.
>

Well we'd want to be hesitant about drawing conclusions from two data points.
 I'd like to see what some researchers and practioners in medicine and
psychotherapy have to say about that.  We know, for instance, that although Nash
might have been faking his schizophrenia that he could not apparently distinguish
between the real world of markets and his mental world of sub-optimal
equilibria.  (That joke is for Bryan's benefit.)  :-)

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

In a message dated 3/24/04 9:12:09 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>
>On Mar 24, 2004, at 8:13 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> By contrast I don't find persuasive the attempt to equate someone who
>
>> cannot
>> distinguish voiced in  his head from reality with the average person's
>> internal impulse to sneak into the movie theater without paying.
>
>If they cannot distinguish the voices in their heads from reality, then
>
>why do they ignore the voices when the cost of listening to them is
>raised?  I really think "cannot" is the wrong word.  You could say it's
>
>somehow more difficult, but "cannot" is too strong, given how most
>schizophrenics behave.

No. I didn't say that they can't ignore them, I said that they can't
distinguish them from reality.  You can ignore Billy Joel's advice to never argue with
a crazy man, but that doesn't mean that you can't distinguish between the
real voice coming from the crazy man and you the "voice" in your head that "tells
you" to punch him.

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

In a message dated 3/24/04 4:29:09 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I would also see some forms of mental illness as being more akin to crappy
>production functions than to extreme preferences.  Chronically depressed
>people have crappy happiness production functions rather than an extreme
>preference to be unhappy.

This makes some sense and addresses some of what I find unpersuasvie in the
general argument.

By contrast I don't find persuasive the attempt to equate someone who cannot
distinguish voiced in  his head from reality with the average person's
internal impulse to sneak into the movie theater without paying.

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

In a message dated 3/24/04 1:09:35 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I think that many people exhibit at least thin rationality while
>arguably not being meta-rational.

Could someone please explain the difference between thick rationality, thin
rationality and meta-rationiality.

Referring to the schizophric, it's hard to imagine that he actually likes
hearing the voices that tell him to kill people and that he merely wished to
reduce the costs of his preferences.

Re: insanity vs. irrationality

What about the person, like an alcoholic or schizophrenic, who hates his
extreme preferences, as they destroy his life?  Setting aside the issue of
involuntary treatment for the benefit of others, as we really talking only about a
case of extreme preference?

David Levenstam

In a message dated 3/24/04 12:22:13 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>> On Mar 24, 2004, at 8:33 AM, Wei Dai wrote
>> >
>> > The paper makes the point that what psychology views as mental
>> > diseases in many cases can be interpreted simply as extreme or
>> > unusual preferences, and in those cases involuntary psychiatric
>> > treatment can not be justified as a benefit for the patient.
>
>Stephen Miller:
>> It seems to me that a clear exception may be where there's an extreme
>> preference to harm others.
>
>
>Depends on where you put the emphasis in Wei's last sentence.  This
>might be an exception to the "can not be justified" part, but not an
>exception to the "as a benefit for the patient" part.
>
>In other words, in the case of a preference to harm others,
>involuntary treatment might be justified as a benefit to others even
>if it is not a benefit (i.e., is a cost) to the patient.
>
>One thing I think is missing from all this is a discussion of how
>these extreme preference -- or indeed, any preferences -- arise.
>Normally in economics we tend to take preferences as given and view
>the formation of preferences as outside the scope of economics.  But
>we also normally assume preferences to be stable, when clearly they
>can change.
>
>Why is this relevant?  Well, many "psychiatric illnesses" appear in
>previously "normal" people.  If we are going to interpret "psychiatric
>illnesses" as "extreme or unusual preferences" then the onset of the
>"illness" has to be interpreted as a "change in preferences."  So we
>are necessarily dropping the usual assumption of stable preferences,
>and it's worth thinking about why these preferences change radically
>and suddenly.  Likewise, for some of these "illnesses" there are
>"treatments" -- in other words, drugs or something that "change
>preferences" back to "normal," or at least appear to move them back to
>normal range.  Again, it is worth thinking about why these preferences
>change.
>
>
>--Robert

Re: paying for blood donations

2004-02-24 Thread AdmrlLocke

We often have emergencies requiring large amounts of blood, but I can't
recall the last emergency requiring large amounts of semen.

David
In a message dated 2/24/04 2:29:19 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> Of course, there may be differences between
>blood and semen.
>
>Speaking from experience, one of these donation
>processes is also much more pleasant than the other.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Osborne

Re: Women Don't Ask

2004-01-28 Thread AdmrlLocke

Um, who says the male libido decreases over the 20s and 30s? :-D

David Levenstam
In a message dated 1/28/04 3:05:00 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Following the analogy of price control, any evidence that the group
advocating
>
>aggressive relationship bargining are the same ones who would generally
>benefit
>
>by such a policy?  On a related note, do the strength of male/female
bargining
>
>positions in a long term relationship change as male libido decreases over
>their
>
>20's and 30's and female libido peaks around 35-38?  (Think "Battle of
>the
>
>Sexes" over several periods...)  Wild conjectures welcomed.
>
>
>
>-- John Morrow

Re: Women Don't Ask

2004-01-28 Thread AdmrlLocke

It's funny that current feminist ideology holds traditional "male behavior"
in contempt and then insists that women engage in it.

David Levenstam
In a message dated 1/28/04 11:45:14 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I just read the well-reviewed *Women Don't Ask* by Babcock and
>Laschever.  Main thesis: Women should bargain harder.
>
>It is frankly kind of silly.  The whole book makes it sound like
>aggressive bargaining is a strictly dominant strategy, so women will
>definitely be better off if they do more of it.  It never considers the
>obvious possibility that women will price themselves out of a job.  Nor
>does it explore the interesting possibility that one reason female
>employees are doing so well in spite of obvious child-related drawbacks
>is precisely that employers know that they are less likely to demand
>more money.
>
>The book also tries to get women to bargain more aggressively in
>relationships.  I think this is another case where feminist norms are
>likely to function as a price control - some women will get a better
>deal, but a lot of others will be unable to get married because their
>standards are too high.

Re: [armchair] Re: spamonomics

2004-01-22 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 1/22/04 2:12:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>--- Ron Baty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Fraud "should not" be part of the market but always has been and will
>> likely continue to be part of any realistic market
>
>A pure market consists of voluntary economic acts, and theft, including
>fraud, has involuntary victims, so fraud is outside the pure free market.
>
>You are really saying that there will always be attacks on property rights;
>but these are violations of rather than "part of" a pure market.
>
>> In a "free market economy" how would you eliminate fraud without
>> limiting the free market or changing human nature?
>
>Of course no policy can "eliminate" fraud; rather, optimal policy seeks
>to
>minimize the net social cost of fraud.
>
>>  And is it not the presence of "fraud", using a broad definition, that
>> enhances the effect of reputation in market exchanges.
>
>I don't see why that would be the case.

I think rather that it's the effect of reputation in market exchanges that
reduces the incidence of fraud.

David Levenstam

Re: spamonomics

2004-01-22 Thread AdmrlLocke

Wow, I was going to respond that I've almost never gotten an email for
insurance, and then decided not to clutter up the list.  When I checked my new mail
again,  however, I found an ad for insurance!  That reminded me that in fact I
have gotten many emails, mostly for cheap health insurance.

David
In a message dated 1/22/04 11:34:07 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Christopher Auld wrote:
>> . . .  Merchants who think
>> I might be keen to see Paris Hilton perform intimate acts are third on
>the
>> list.  Followed closely by offers from extremely respectable officials
>in
>> Nigeria . . . .
>
>For me these days, smut comes after services for insurance brokers.

Re: spamonomics

2004-01-21 Thread AdmrlLocke

In a message dated 1/21/04 3:34:42 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>I was so ignorant, until last month I thought "Paris Hilton" was a
>hotel in France
>
>;-)

Paris Hilton is both a hotel in France AND desert topping! (from an old
Saturday Night Live skit "it's both a floor wax AND a desert topping!")

Seriously though, I had no idea who she was when I first started getting
emails offering to let me see her private activities.  Not until I caught an
episode of that "reality" how called (I think) "The Simple Life" featuring Paris
and her buddy, Nichole Richie (Lionel Richie's daughter) did I know who she was.
 At least when they used to send emails offering Pamela Anderson's sex video
I knew who she was.

David

Re: spamonomics

2004-01-21 Thread AdmrlLocke

I've seen almost exactly the same distribution.  As a first impression, I
wonder if the Nigeria scam doesn't employ the same anonymity (from the other
side) that recipients of the first three types of emails value.  Tracking down a
scam online might well prove more difficult than doing so over the phone,
especially in these days of caller ID.  The ease of mass mailings might also make
email a more effective means of perpetrating a scam.

I wonder too if people don't tend to believe what they read over the Internet
a bit more than they do other forms of communication.  When radio and films
were relatively new, people tended to believe what they heard and saw.  There
seems to have been something of a learning curve for large populations which
took them from blind faith in the 1930s to intense skepticism in the 1990s.
Perhaps the same sort of thing will happen with the Internet.  I know that people
often pass along without any sort of verification myriad emails claiming such
things as Bill Gates will pay you if you test some software or website, Bill
gates will bill you if you use some software or website, Mel Gibson grew up
disfigured and in poverty, people will steal your kidneys and leave you in a
bathtub full of ice, etc.  Perhaps oarge groups of internet users will climb up
the learning curve and we'll see a reduction in Nigerian scams.

David

Re: spamonomics

In a message dated 1/20/04 7:10:03 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>AdmrlLocke wrote:
>
>"People who engage in more sexual activity and
>alternative sexual lifestyles might feel less
>embarassed about admitting to auto-erotica than
>others, so the results might contain a great deal of
>skew."
>
>But should we think that an obvious possible bias
>would not be accounted for?

I would. It happens all the time.

Re: spamonomics

Even under a totally free market system a doctor or pharmacist might caution
a prospective purchaser of V!agra against using it without first getting
certain medical tests.

David
In a message dated 1/20/04 3:25:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>Your interesting question reminds me: A fellow remarked to me the other
>day
>
>that he told his regular doctor that he felt he "needed" some v!agra.
>Well,
>
>the doc starts explaining how the patient will have to undergo blood tests,
>
>which will then be evaluated by the doctor, to figure out if there is some
>
>other problem, or a better route to "solve" the "problem" with additional
>
>visits, etc. blah blah blah. you get the picture -the usual prudent doctor
>
>protocol.  So all the while the patient is thinking in his head "f#*k you!
>
>I'm going home to my computer!"  So, the FDA, and our socialized medical
>
>system is part of it.  Give thanks for the internet and a the "free market
>
>economy" it provides.

Re: spamonomics

People who engage in more sexual activity and alternative sexual lifestyles
might feel less embarassed about admitting to auto-erotica than others, so the
results might contain a great deal of skew.

David
In a message dated 1/20/04 2:07:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>You might complain that porn is a substitute, and not a complement, to
>sexual activity, but I don't think this is the case. Survey microdata
>collected by Edward Laumann reveals that Americans do not
>use pornography to compensate for lack of sexual contact. In fact,
>autoerotic behavior (which lumps together everything from attending strip
>clubs to phone sex to masturbation) is associated with higher levels of
>partnered sexual activity. Both men and women who are highly autoerotic
>are more likely to have multiple sexual partners in a short period of
>time. Moreover, use of pornography is highly correlated with diversity
>of
>sexual practices. All this suggests that such consumers might actually
>require v!agra given their heightened sexual behavior.

Re: spamonomics