Comments on: An Hypothesis

By: David Peterson

David Peterson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:20:10 +0000

The Cato study is less helpful as it measures per capita spending where as debt to GDP is likely a better measure of economic performance.

So what you're saying is that people are better off when their government is borrowing less than when they have more of their own money to spend?

By: True_Liberal

True_Liberal — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:31:57 +0000

It's called "the law of unintended consequences", a.k.a. perverse incentives.

Let's hear it for GRIDLOCK!

By: Babinich

Babinich — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:34:43 +0000

muirego says:

"That's likely because Keynes was right and Milton was wrong."

It's just that easy is it?

Friedman argued that government could not micromanage the economy because people would realize what the government was doing and shift their behavior to neutralize the impact of policies.

The people have done exactly that when it comes to taxes.

People will go into "tax avoidance overdrive" if Obama becomes president and raises taxes, as he's said he would, in the name of fairness.

By: Hans Luftner

Hans Luftner — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:16:24 +0000

An economy simply can't flourish when all the wealth is pooled at the top and hidden away in offshore accounts and investments.

Money is rarely "hidden away" in investments. When you invest money you put that money into productive use, which grows the economy, typically to the benefit of society in general.

I suspect people "hide" their money in offshore accounts because your government discourages them from keeping it more local.

By: Ak Mike

Ak Mike — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:31:30 +0000

Muirgeo – Regulation or no regulation, the footprint of the Red Dog mine would be essentially invisible. If you went on the haul road at all you noticed that vegetation near the road was identical to that farther off – so the parts-per million "contamination" is a product of EPA officials more interested in being good bureaucrats than in actually accomplishing anything noticeable. You might also have learned that salmon incidence in the creeks around the mine is better now than before the mine went in, since the natural leaching of metals into the creek water was reduced by environmental measures taken by the mine.

As far as the leasing of additional space, there may have been a few more hundred acres leased, in a region with many millions of acres of uninhabited land. However, that land is privately owned by a native corporation anyway, and not therefore available for the public.