Tag Archives: Economic

Economics, Politics

This seems to sum up the Occupiers quite nicely

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This study found young liberals to make the least charitable contributions of all, whether in money, time or blood. Idealism in words is not idealism in deeds.

That was from Who Really Cares?, which addressed the myth that Liberals are more generous than Conservatives.  This is in addition to Liberals being bad at basic economics.  So other than being “generous” with other people’s money and not knowing their subject, they are doing a great job.

I’m no cheerleader for banks or credit card companies (unlike some celebrities who do ads for banks).  I just know that the problems with the bailouts and the mortgage meltdown were due more to politicians than the bankers.

Here’s more:

More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate “forgiveness” of loans to third-world countries, a “living wage” for the poor and a “safety net” for all.

But these are all government policies — not individual acts of compassion — and the actual empirical consequences of such policies are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. Depending on what those consequences are, there may be good reasons to oppose them, so being for or against these policies may tell us nothing about who is compassionate or caring and who is not.

A new book, titled Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money, or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts.

Hat tip to Pastor Timothy for this quote by Penn Gillette:

Economics

With friends like these . . .

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Reading How Obama’s plan to raise the minimum wage will hurt young black men reminded me of how counterproductive so many Liberal policies are for blacks.

The abortion rate is three times higher for blacks than whites, and Liberal dreams of taxpayer-funded abortions will deliberately take that higher.  Yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?  Planned Parenthood kills more blacks in a week than the evil KKK did since their inception (and ironically enough, the KKK is pro-life).

They support teacher’s unions without fail and oppose charter schools, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?

They assume that poor blacks will always be poor and set up the welfare to perpetuate that, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?

Now here’s part of the post about how minimum wage increases hurt young black men.  I encourage you to read it all.

Moderate economist Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University lists the policies that are accepted by virtually all economists.

Here’s Greg’s list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

  1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
  2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
  3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
  4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
  5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
  6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
  7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
  8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
  9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
  10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
  11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
  12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
  13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
  14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)
All this makes the race-baiting of false teachers like Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie and the Leftist media so galling.  Tea Party members love people like Herman Cain because his ideas are so superior to those on the Left.  Yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart and that Tea Partiers are racist?  Leftists like that have no shame.
Financial, Politics

Remember that stimulus bill? It added 450,000 government jobs and destroyed 1,000,000 private sector jobs

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You can see the whole study at Self Evident Truths: New Study: Stimulus Bill Destroyed One Million Private Sector Jobs.  Private jobs are what pay for government jobs, not vice verse.

A recent study by Timothy Conley from the University of Western Ontario, Canada Economics Department and Bill Dupor of Ohio State University Economics Department shows that the stimulus bill, passed in 2009 to “save” jobs and get the economy back on track, actually destroyed one million private sector jobs:

Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. (Here’s the PDF of the study.)

What leftist doctrine doesn’t seem to grasp is that public sector jobs, while employing people, exist only if the private sector can generate wealth. This study shows what common sense should have provided when the Pelosi/Reid Congress was in charge – Keynesian economics is a bankrupt philosophy that has the capacity to bankrupt entire countries.

When will people realize that Liberals fail at basic economics?  Conservatives are better at protecting you, keeping you employed, keeping you from being destroyed in the womb, protecting your kindergarteners from learning how “normal” LGBTQ behavior is, and more.

Politics

Fair trade and the law of unintended consequences

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Some businesses cynically promote “giving” that is more about making us feel good about ourselves than truly helping others.  Think of companies who sell marked up water where a deliberately undefined percentage of the proceeds goes to charity.  Instead of paying an extra 50 cents for a commodity where perhaps a nickel goes to some ill-defined charity and the other 45 cents profits the company, I recommend donating the whole 50 cents and buying your water elsewhere.  Or drink tap water.  Now you get to release endorphins for being generous and wise.

Fair trade coffee is all the rage in many churches.  Does it really help those it attempts to, or is it another counterproductive measure? Read some interesting thoughts at Is fair trade really fair? | Reason To Stand.

  • Fair trade trades in the same markets of empathy that charities do.
  • It does not have the power to lift whole nations out of poverty like free trade has because it ignores basic market principles.
  • It preys on the desire to feel good (as opposed to actually doing good) that many people (mostly liberals) have.
  • It assumes an unsubstantiated predatory view of markets.
  • It encourages inefficient economic practices (by discouraging mechanization)
  • It encourages people to stay in agriculture when they could move to other industries which could produce more wealth for more people.
  • It fosters a moral hazard where lower quality goods can be foisted onto artificially captive markets (ie. moral-minded churches) while higher quality goods are sold on the free market. I’ve been the unlucky recipient of this sort of deal where a local church provides fair trade coffee which costs as much as Starbucks but tastes like burnt rubber. This is wholly unfair to the consumer.
  • Fair trade is based on a Marxist economic understanding where equality of outcomes is held to be the standard of “justice”. For this reason you’ll hear a lot of talk of “social justice” in pro-fair-trade material.
Financial, Politics

A big part of the problem

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Listen to the President talk about why he would raise capital gains tax rates even though cuts by Clinton and Bush both increased revenues.

Amazingly enough, the liberal commentator Charles Gibson knows and tells the truth about what happens when the capital gains tax rate is reduced:

History shows that when you drop the capital gains tax the revenues go up.

But note how Obama ignores the facts and says he wants “fairness,” as if having a higher rate for those evil rich people will make things more “fair,” even though there will be less tax revenues to fund his liberal projects.

As I said in Jobs!!! Part one, here’s a huge part of the problem: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?  Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.  The video is just more evidence of that, not to mention the failure of putting Utopian ideals above financial facts.

And you wonder why unemployment is so high?  It is just like when ideology and feel good finger-pointing unnecessarily cost tens of thousands of jobs with the offshore drilling moratorium.

Hat tip to TNWAHM via Hillbuzz for the video