[Rhodes22-list] Reduce your federal income tax (political humor)

[Brad Haslett]

Stan,

You guys getting serious about what this or that economist said makes me
nervous.  Maybe it just reminds me of all those undergrad classes I skipped
to go flying.  Guns or butter?  Screw that!  Airplanes or beer!

Wasn't it Ricardo who first proposed the idea of comparative advantage?
People don't actually like to stare it in the face because it may affect
them personally.  For example, if we could train Chinese pilots to fly
American airplanes for ten cents on the dollar, whoa!  Forget that, we've
already done that with American pilots.  Bad example.

Here's one.  We pay billions of dollars to subsidize American cotton
farmers.  We pay billions of dollars to help poor starving African
countries.  Why don't we just let African farmers grow cotton, something
they can do, and cut the subsidies to both?

We're not a minute into this conversation and I'm already depressed.  No
wonder it is called "the dismal science".

What economist said "in the long run we'll all be dead?"

Brad


On 6/29/06, stan <stan at rhodes22.com> wrote:
>
> Dave,
>
> Don't want to see you get discouraged from doing what you do so well
> because
> of anything I say - I was just picking up on his basic point to run with
> and
> then putting words in Milt's mouth to make my philosophical points.
>
> Undoubtedly you are correct on the practical aspects and it is big problem
> we will just have to wait until my daughter's book comes out (I think in
> Dec.) on the Bubble
>
> stan/gbi
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <DCLewis1 at aol.com>
> To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 5:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Reduce your federal income tax (political
> humor)
>
>
>
> Stan,
>
> In my view Mr Friedman has an overwhelming handicap, he's a  tenured
> economics professor at a renowned University.  We should not  assume his
> deliberations
> have much to do with the real world.
>
> You may be old enough to recall that Mr Friedman played an  dominant  role
> during the Nixon administration.  I believe he was on Nixon's Council  of
> Economic Advisors, or something like that.  He claimed that by  modulating
> monetary
> policy ($ in circulation) you could control inflation.   After attempting
> the
> theory for several years, with no hint of success, he left  government
> service
> and commented he was sure he was right but the time constant  for monetary
> policy might be very long.  It's exactly that type of small  theoretical
> oversight that plagues his statement in your post.
>
> The small theoretical oversight that appeared in his material in your post
> is that In the real world you can't simply buy from the lowest priced
> vendor
> to
> maximize your standard of living - unless you have something to sell in
> return that generates the liquidity for your purchase.  Exactly what is
> that
> thing you are going to sell?  Mr Friedman posits "If you are the
> best  body
> parts
> supplier...."; in fact, there is no reason at all to assume that "we"  are
> the best or uniquely capable at anything much less body parts. What
> we  can
> guarantee is that we have some of the highest labor costs  and strictest
> environmental regulations in the world - but neither  are a plus.  As a
> practical
> matter, anything you can manufacture  in Edenton can be manufactured
> cheaper
> somewhere else - so what are  you going to sell back?   There's no
> substantial
> protection for  intellectual property in most of the world, so what are
> you
> going
> to sell  back?
>
> >From my perspective it's not enough for Mr Friedman to speculate
> regarding
> ".... endless unimagined enterprises ..." that we could pursue to generate
> the
> liquidity to support our foreign purchases.  Friedman needs to
> be  specific
> as to how liquidity will be generated, and he needs to demonstrate his
> proposal will work in the real world in a credible time frame.  Our
> inability to
> generate liquidity is demonstrated in the humongeous trade deficit  that
> has
> been
> going on for decades - it's a big problem.
>
> Dave
>
>
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