Posted on 06/28/2002 3:55:08 AM PDT by TightSqueeze
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:55 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I don't live in a dream world, I live in the same one you do- I see it differently and I'm not going to call you any names or make any insinuations because we see it differently.
And I don't believe that dems are the only ones promoting socialism- but they're mainly responsible for it. We have to work with what we've got. We either chose Bush or Gore. Which is gonna be? You pick the lesser evil is what you do. Right now, I want to work on sentencing the dems to electoral hell. When their population has been fumigated down to a number where we don't have to pay as much attention to them, then we can work on getting a good opposition candidate to go against the GOP. But the last thing we want now is to pull another Ross Perot on ourselves. That let in Clinton and it's going to take a long time to undo the havoc that wreaked.
I don't support all of Bush's policies, but because we have the bitter past as a grim reminder, I support him on the whole out of expediency and because I have my wish list prioritized. First get the commies out and by this I mean the Progressive Caucus. We got out Earl Hilliard in Alabama, Cynthia McKinney should be next. When we weed the true reds out then we can start in on the rest of the dems. When we control enough electoral votes comfortably, then we clean up our own act.
Also, the corporate donations you speak of. First, they give money to buy a vote, they don't give a damn which party it is. It's pay-off money. But if the gov't would keep its nose out of the market place in the first place and not dabble with protectionism and these corporations were forced to compete on their own merit all the bribes in the world wouldn't do them any good. Secondly, you look down the list of donations for the Progressive Caucus. Unions, Arabs, and More Unions. That has to say something as well.
When paying off debt, first pay off the highest interest, working your way down. This will help free up more money - a little at first, but more later. Since this down turn will last a while, paying down debt will often provide a better return that you could get in the market.
For example, assume you have as 12% loan but can only make 4% in the market. Paying off the loan makes more sense because it will save you money in the long run.
It will also enable you to be in a better cash flow position to take advantage of a recovery. Just my .02
And here's a link to another article: The Trouble with Economics Texts , by William L. Anderson. Some exceprts ...
For example, a new text by Bradley R. Schiller gives lip service to the role of prices in the market. But it does not take long for him to point out that market mechanisms often result in failure. In his view, "The goal of every society is to attain the best possible (optimal) economic outcomes-the most desirable mix of output, the most efficient production methods, and a fair distribution of income." Just what is this "most desirable mix" that society seeks? Schiller does not say. Apparently, everyone already knows the solution, but those money-grubbing capitalists just won't do what society wants them to do.Look at how Schiller treats classical economics in general and Say's Law in particular. Schiller begins by declaring that prior to the 1930s, "macroeconomists thought there could never be a Great Depression." He goes on to say that classical theory denied the possibility of lengthy periods of unemployment and unsold inventories. Say's Law was simply the economists' version of "Field of Dreams": If you produce it, you will sell it.
That a man with a PhD in economics would make such a statement in the face of historical facts is breathtaking. First, by 1930, classical economics was dead, having been laid to rest by neoclassical economists such as Carl Menger, William Stanley Jevons, and (to a lesser degree) Alfred Marshall. David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill's writings, especially when it came to understanding the nature of value, had already been bypassed. As for Say's Law, J.B. Say himself, in writing his famous chapter XV (book I) in his Treatise on Political Economy, began by describing conditions of what today we would call a recession.
In other words, the "classical" economists and their successors had all lived through various downsides of the business cycle. To say that they denied the possibility of economic depression after having lived through a number of them is ludicrous.
Furthermore, the Great Depression actually vindicated much of the theory known as classical economics. Their point was that in the absence of constraints on wages and prices, the economy would ultimately find a balance. As Murray N. Rothbard has shown us in his classic America's Great Depression, the US government under Herbert Hoover did everything in its power to prevent wage and price flexibility.
All of this is lost on Schiller, who simply apes John Maynard Keynes and his unfortunate "classic" The General Theory on Employment, Interest, and Money. What he gives us is not an explanation of economic theory, but rather a hodgepodge of myths, fallacies, and ex cathedra statements trying to pass as economics.
Dirty little secret: big corporations love big government regulations because they put smaller companies out of business, thus increasing the surviving companies' market share. Were it not for government-imposed barriers to smaller businesses' entry, many large businesses would have to make themselves more efficient or go out of business. By keeping new competitors from entering the market, the government saves large businesses from the needs to improve; such inefficiencies sap the economy everywhere else.
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