Category: economics
Governor Romneycare promises to be a better Obama
Governor Romneycare is campaigning to be the Republican presidential candidate. He tells us that: Every turnaround has three rules. Focus, focus, focus. Focus on what’s most important, devote all your energy to that which is broken. … Instead of focusing his energy on the economy he delegated the stimulus to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and they built a stimulus which grew government jobs but didn’t grow private-sector jobs. And …
A lot of ruin in a nation
Many bloggers, myself among them, have been predicting hyperinflation, socio economic collapse, and violent political change. But a lot of countries are in worse shape than the US, and they have not collapsed yet.Â
Lifestyles of the benefactors of the poor
The other McCain has an interesting tale to tell: Recently the World Bank, led by the leading socialist candidate for the french presidency, in its endless efforts to help the poor, helped the poor backward illegal immigrant Muslim majority of the Ivory Coast take over from the slightly less poor and slightly more advanced native Christian minority of the Ivory Coast. But how do these people live when not tirelessly …
Democratic Peace
For a while, the theory of Democratic Peace was popular, widely believed, and widely argued. Supposedly democracies do not go to war with each other. On the basis of this theory, Osama Obama and Bush have been promoting democracy in the middle east. Supposedly, if Muslims get to vote, they will vote against making war on us. Of course, one could look at much the same evidence and conclude that …
“Democracy never lasts longâ€
In 1814, John Adams, second president of the United States, and one of the revolutionaries that founded it, said Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. And that was the …
The end is not nigh
But it is in sight. There is a lot of ruin in a nation, but we have had a lot of ruin. The US government lacks cohesion, and is insolvent. Lack of cohesion means that in a crisis it is apt to disappear, dissolve into its parts, with each part seeking its own interest. Insolvency means a crisis is looming. I would expect the Euro to collapse before the US …
Who rules the world?
Tracing rulers academic connections yields an interesting picture. Thus Mugabe, like so many third world rulers, comes from the London School of Economics, but Harry Lee Kuan Yew was educated in Singapore. And lo and behold, Mugabe was installed in power by the “international community†aka the tranzis, while Harry Lee Kuan Yew was installed in power by Singaporeans. A similar trace is visible in the Ivory Coast, where shortly …
Conservative bloggers declare victory
According to Strata and others, the outcome of the budget negotiations (to reduce by one percent spending that was recently increased by by thirty percent) was a mighty victory. By a vote of approximately ten to one, the US House of Representatives voted to continue at slightly lower speed on a course that leads to bankruptcy, hyperinflation, social collapse, and, if we are lucky, civil war in the next decade …
Laffer curve
If the government taxes 0% of GDP, it will not get any money. If it attempts to tax 100% of GDP it will not get any money either, since there will be no above ground wealth. So somewhere between 0% and 100% is the tax that maximizes revenue. Genghis Kahn and Raffles believed that the tax that maximizes revenue is quite low, close to 0%. Today’s politician’s believe it is …