Administration Talks "Reform" of Tax System
The Administration and its allies in Congress, following the advice of supply-side economists, have altered elements of the tax code to the end of freeing capital from taxation. Among the changes already made are the elimination of the taxation of corporate profits earmarked for dividend distributions, reduction or elimination of certain capital gains taxes, and cuts in taxes to high-income taxpayers, many of whom realize a substantial amount of their income not through wages, but through investments. Freeing income generated by capital from taxation, supply-siders would claim, encourages investment, which in turn expands employment. This argument is a modern variant on a long-repudiated idea known as "Say's Law," which posits that supply creates its own demand.
In practical terms, as a smaller percentage of tax revenues is collected from gross income generated by capital, a larger percentage must then necessarily come from the economy's other generator of taxable income: labor. The most compelling way for this shift of the burden to be accomplished—far more profound and far-reaching than the tax changes already put into place—would be to institute a federal sales tax. Such a tax would fall heavily on the income of working Americans since their expenditures constitute two-thirds of GDP. Moreover, a national sales tax would likely take the form of a consumption sales tax (the same as state and local taxing authorities use), and such taxes are overwhelmingly paid by middle-income and working poor individuals and families, not by corporations or the wealthy.
A permanent restructuring of the tax code would likely come within the next two years, while the Administration and its allies are certain to have majority control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Published 12/22/2004 07:23:23 PM
<< 40 Comments Total
If "supply-side" economics is just a variant on a long-disproven idea, why does it have such traction among some economists? (I can guess very well why it does among politicians, so that's not my question. My question is why are there economists who take it so seriously?)
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob.
Economists can be classified in a number of ways: conservative versus liberal; quantitative versus qualitative; micro- versus macroeconomics oriented; theoretical versus empirical; boring versus very boring; etc.
One way not listed above is non-craven versus craven. You see, if an economist is in the mainstream of thought, he or she commits to a most undistinguished life, regardless of talent, insight, or even publication vita. Conservative or liberal, the differences in understanding of "positive" economics (the economics of how theory works) are quite trivial, and the differences in statements of "normative" economics (the economics of how things should be) really aren't all that stark, either, at least not when it comes to the desirability of a good world where people are productive and comfortable, and the economy continues to do better and better.
The way you distinguish yourself in such a world is to take a position that is really and truly different. But it's not just for the sake of being different that you would do this, and it's not even for the sake of being merely noticed. It is, rather, for the sake of being noticed by the right kinds of people and organizations.
As a supply-sider, you will have little competition for the money that flows as grants, fellowships, and speaking fees from pro-business groups, from Right-wing think tanks, and from shadowy men and their families who have a habit of writing checks to people who can bolster and give reputability to their way of seeing things. Supportive organizations will buy boxes of your poorly written books, then hand them out as gifts to people who won't read them. You'll get invited to places like Washington, D.C., and to seminars in nice conference hotels in great places.
You will have become someone special in a world that looks away from most people in your corner of academia; and your name might even be spoken by the common man. (Do you remember asking me about Laffer curves, OddJob?)
Imagine: all of this for nothing greater than the price of abandoning a body of scientific knowledge—painstakingly built, generation after generation—about which no one gives a tinker's damn, except for a politician here and there who might trot it out when and if it comports with his political philosophy.
As I said: craven.
But the alternative is to live in the clear-eyed world of straight-forward applications of models, data, and esoterica, where you will live your life unknown, unheralded, and unremembered.
Unless, of course, you are the host of The Dark Wraith Forums, in which case you will still live your life unknown, unheralded, and unremembered.
But at least you will have blogged.
The Dark Wraith captures yet another two kilobytes of hard drive space.
I swear I'm not trying to be a blog 'ho, but I have a follow-up question. If what you say is true (& it certainly seems plausible enough) & that brand of economics is that disreputable among "real" economists, why would Feldstein have received a position at Harvard??? (Unless that department is susceptible to the craving for "names", even craven ones?)
Or do I misunderstand what Feldstein is all about?
- oddjob
Oh, and by the way, OddJob, I want to thank you for offering links on AMERICAblog to some of the articles here on The Dark Wraith Forums.
I also note, however, that you are introducing the readers over there to ShortNews. I fear that my ShortNews tickers down here are having the effect I wanted.
In retrospect, I suppose that should trouble me deeply. Fortunately, it does not.
In a world full of weird news, the Dark Wraith strives to deliver dignity.
Ah, you're back, OddJob. Good.
First of all, Harvard will take a brand-name hack just as fast as any other university will; and Harvard has a whole lot more money than just about anyplace else to get the best of the hacks.
I would dearly love to tell you that Feldstein is really a brilliant fellow who's just playing the game by advocating rehashed versions of theories that were beaten, shot, and buried generations ago; but sadly, I cannot at once say that and also be truthful. Far too many economists—liberal and conservative—find that such "luminaries" are anything but that.
Milton Friedman rehashed, polished up, and hawked at the carnival of political junkies something called "monetarism," which was fully grasped long before his time. Uncle Milt is now a god of academia, as well as at the Federal Reserve—so much so that one of my fellow grad students who now works for the Fed wasn't kidding me when he said that the name John Maynard Keynes is not a good thing to utter while at work.
Lord. Academia just isn't what it used to be. In fact, it never was.
The Dark Wraith blogs away on this bitter cold night.
Wraith: this is not something that I don't already know. To wit, that the Bush administration is busily transferring power to the wealthy, and strapping working- and middle- class Americans with the bill. But I am newly enraged. I think it's this part:
"A permanent restructuring of the tax code would likely come within the next two years, while the Administration and its allies are certain to have majority control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives." I guess this just highlights both the unfairness and the inevitability of it all.
My question is, though, do the Bush number-crunchers honestly believe their own myth-making, or are they hoping the rest of us are either not paying attention or just really dumb? Perhaps I'm missing something here. Does freeing the corporations and the rich from the burdens of having to pay taxes result in substantial job growth? How heavily is the average joe going to have to get taxed to make up for having let Corporate America off the hook? And finally, has anything like this current fleecing of America ever been seen before in the country's history? I'm obsessed with finding patterns...
What a mess. And I'm afraid I did my part to buoy this floundering economy like I said I wouldn't. Alas, the Missus wants a portable music device capable of storing 5,000 songs. For what? And that's just for starters. What would T.S Eliot say? Oh, the uselessness of it all.
--cam
Good evening, Cam.
During the first Reagan Administration, Budget Director David Stockman, speaking glibly during an interview, said that no one in the Reagan Administration really believed the supply-siders' argument that lowering taxes, particularly on the wealthy, would stimulate investment and work in such a way as to actually cause tax revenues to go up. Hardly a soul could be found in the halls of power who believed it back then; it was just a ruse to get people excited about the possibility that there really was such a thing as a free lunch, and to get those gullible folks to insist that the Congress serve it up by the truckload right away on Mr. Reagan's say-so.
Is the breed of political animals currently in Washington actually stupid enough to believe in their fairy tale, this time? For the most part, the answer is, "Good Lord, no! They may be politicians; but they're not ignoramuses."
Only a few of them, the ones who matter so much that they don't really matter at all, truly believe. George W. Bush likely believes in Laffer curves. He's the kind of MBA student I've run into on occasion over the years: the fellow who long ago hit his level of intellectual saturation and who forever after that has stuck like glue to scripts that got him applause as a bright-enough fellow years before.
The philosophical war is way beyond the clash of religious visions I keep seeing intimated in discussions elsewhere on the Internet and in the mainstream media. The fundamentalist hopes of a Final Push to Armageddon—complete with military, economic, and social dimensions—is noise candy for social philosophy fans of the Right and Left who enjoy a good End-of-Days/No-End-in-Sight brawl on the national stage.
In the steel-walled halls of policy making, the real fight is a battle being waged by those who see a very old way of conducting economic affairs as far better than the way of the 20th Century. Economic growth unchained by taxes and regulatory burdens would far outstrip the tepid, grinding pace to which we have become accustomed in the time since the New Deal. For this neo-conservative cabal, the United States has all of the military and intellectual power it needs to prevent any (previously overblown) short-comings from the days when we were committed to laissez-faire economics.
Moreover, from their perspective, anyone who thinks that we can forever play at the fringes of some "capitalist version of Communism" is a fool: either a Communist state will eventually become installed by creeping attrition of individual fortitude; or we shall throw the whole, blasted idea out on its ear. One way or the other, the choice is made. If we do nothing to beat back the progress of the socialist agenda, it will ultimately consume us. Even Marx, himself, bragged endlessly about the Hegelian "historical inevitability" of it, for God's sake.
How heavily is the average Joe going to get hit with taxes? Funny you should ask that, Cam. The answer is simple: once Joe has to bear the direct, full, and unmistakable burden of government expenditures, he will get hit with taxes precisely to the full extent that he and his fellow citizens want services and help from their government instead of initiative and sacrifice from themselves. Pay as you go—and pay in full—and don't ask for any more than you're willing to pay for.
Has anything like this happened before in America? Long, long ago, we passed from the time of feudalism to mercantilism; and we did so with a great deal of human suffering, but not much grasp by the common man that a new era was emerging. Similarly, we passed from mercantilism to capitalism without much fanfare of note to the average person. And then, finally, we passed from capitalism to socialistic capitalism without much more than a sigh by the masses.
In each of these cases, something quite new had emerged, and the comman man did not fully grasp the profound and remarkable changes the new era would have upon our lives and our thinking.
Comes now, once more, a new way; and with it will come human suffering, but not much fanfare. And once again, the common man will not grasp the profound and remarkable changes this new era will have upon our lives and our thinking.
Until, that is, it's too late.
The Dark Wraith has spoken, and it will be so.
I remember seeing a graph of economic activity over the country's history back when I was in high school in the 1970's. While in the number of years it lasted the Great Depression outdid everthing that came before it, it was not our only depression, and you could very easily see the impact the New Deal and its legacy had on the national economy. Prior to then, you had far more wild swings than anything any of us have ever experienced. The highs were far higher, too, but what was most evident to my eyes was how strong the swings were before FDR.
I'm not a liberal, but I choose fewer peaks and valleys and more predictability, thank you!
- oddjob
Oh, and Cam, as to whether cutting taxes does what Georgie claims it does? Note the job numbers, and then compare the reports of the holiday sales generally with the holiday sales at the luxury stores.
After four years of cuts, I think that should tell you all you need to know.
- oddjob
But DW, didn't Friedman win a Nobel Prize with that work?
- oddjob
And the prize money for that and all of the other Nobel Awards, including the coveted Nobel Peace Award, comes from the fortune Mr. Nobel made by inventing dynamite.
It is, indeed, an explosive issue.
The Dark Wraith anxiously awaits his Spam Award, blast it!
(I learned that as a boy growing up in the Brandywine Valley, home of DuPont, which first made its $$ by manufacturing gunpowder for the Union during the Civil War.)
It doesn't change the fact that someone has to take the work seriously for the prize to be awarded, or does it? (Certainly the "hard" science awards are respected.)
- oddjob
Good morning, OddJob.
I would encourage you to go to the home page of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and then from there navigate to the Austrian Study Guide. Merely looking at the titles and dates of authorship of many of the books and articles should give you an indication that monetarism was in the full scope of understanding of the Austrian School of Economics long before Milton Friedman came on the scene.
Furthermore, once you have reviewed some of that literature, I would encourage you to review the life and works of John Maynard Keynes, noting in particular his profoundly influential 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which unmistakably set forth for generations of political controllers the understanding that monetary policy is a macroeconomic stabilization tool.
By the time the so-called Phillips Curve had demonstrated the empirical relation between inflation and unemployment, monetary policy was already in full use. (In fact, it had been in use for centuries, if not millenia, without a formal theory and predictive model of its precise effects.) Later empirical results would propel Milton Friedman and others to point out what had already been noted as direct consequences of the confluence of the Austrian School's long-run and the Keynesian short-run analyses: monetary policy detached from political machinations leads to stability of the aggregate price level.
To which, I would be so bold as to venture, everyone from old man von Mises to Lord Keynes would say, "Well, duh."
And so it goes that the producers and writers get no respect, while the actors get invited to the ball.
Oh, and by the way, within the next decade, the Nobel Prize in economics will be awarded to a supply-sider.
The Dark Wraith, for that upcoming and momentous event, purchases a gold-plated blow-chow bowl.
DW: You spaketh, and you spaketh well, indeed!
Thank you for thoughtful explaination to my question. I will not filthy your wonderful blog with my profane reaction, however. Sufice it to say, I am truly horrified. Wait, no--that's cliche--I'm mortified.
In many ways, you verified what I continually try surpress in my daily thoughts. That is, we are passing from one kind of reality to another and it will be met with no resistance from the masses. Over dinner last night, I began my usual rant about the dramatic social and economic changes happening right under our eyes. The kinds of things that I see taking place (organized religious radicalism and what I like to call "institutionalized conservatism," for example) and the pace at which they are occuring are, at least in my view, extraordinary. For probably no good reason, I am reminded of the 1920s. It was the time of Prohibition, but also of unhinged hedonism, rising hem-lines (for women, at least) and that "evil" thing called Jazz. (It was also the time of some of the worse Mafia violence, wide-spread homelessness and poverty in many urban areas, over-crowding, drug abuse and many other ills, but let's just forget all that, for now.) But it seems that the current social crack down is far more insidious, permanent and has no counter-weight to balance it out.
Ok--I've gone totally off topic.
I think where I was going with this was the fact that I feel that the kinds of things we are seeing--the enormous social and economic changes--should have many of us rioting in the streets. The idea that we are going to be a nation of pay-as-you-go citizens is....well, it makes my blood boil. We have already begun that steady march to this revised reality, haven't we? I mean, your health insurance company charges you more and more every year for less and less. If you don't want to PAY more, don't go to the damn doctor so much, right?
The average Joe doesn't know what is coming downstream. The administration counts on that. By the time the canoe hits him in the head, it is going to be way too late. He'll kvetch to his wife, (or whomever) or maybe even his dog, about how he's been had. It will be too late. Little did he know, the time to have acted on his own behalf was two years ago, at the voting booth. If he'd known, Joe'll say, he would have made some noise-- instead he was stringing up x-mas lights watching "Housewives"-fishing, or otherwise just too busy.
Egad!
--cam
P.S. : I apologize for these long posts. (And ironically this one is about to get longer!) I can't help but be long-winded, but if it is a bother, please let me know!
As an aside, my good visitors, I must share with you the contents of an e-mail message I sent this morning to CNN.
Still posted on the CNN.com Website is an article entitled, 'Some Republicans wary of Bush's Social Security plan'. I encourage you to glance through the 18-paragraph piece before reading my comment, the body of which is reprinted below.
In your December 23, 2004, Inside Politics story, "Some Republicans wary of Bush's Social Security plan," your writer describes as an objective matter of factual record that the Social Security Trust is "financially shaky." In fact, such representations are being made only by those seeking change. That, in itself, makes the article an editorial rather than a report.
However, and to the point of this message to you, the writer states in the sixth paragraph that, "[S]ometime during the next decade annual benefits paid out will start exceeding revenues coming in." Then, far down in the sixteenth paragraph (the third from the end of the article), the writer mentions "Social Security's insolvency [which is] projected for 2042..."
I am hopeful that you see the difference between the broad and vague claim made in the sixth paragraph, bolstered by imprecise and controversial wording like "financially shaky," and the fact of the actuarial forecast made in the sixteenth paragraph.
The article is no less a distortion of the truth for having made that rectifying and factual statement near its conclusion.
Perhaps, having seen the error of its ways, CNN.com will provide a permanent link to The Dark Wraith Forums.
Or, perhaps not.
The Dark Wraith awaits the thundering silence from CNN's e-mail reading clerk.
Good morning, Cam.
The bloggier you are, the better this place is.
['bloggier'?!]
From what you are saying, you have been noticing the phenomenon of "socio-political reality re-invention" (SPRR, as I call it—pronounced "spur") to which I have been hinting repeatedly both here and previously at AMERICAblog and other places. I am somewhat frustrated that, even in academia, there seems to be an unwillingness to come to grips with how fundamental and unstoppable this sea-change is. I am, as usual, dismissed as something of a marginal alterboy who, while everyone else is busy munching on the Eucharist cakes in the rectory, keeps bawling that the candles have set the crucifix ablaze.
Oh, well, I suppose I should depart before the conflagration ignites my sporty, alterboy attire.
The Dark Wraith grabs the vicar's hidden wine stash on the way out.
The Nobel Prize in economics is that subject to fads? Damn...
- oddjob
If, indeed, the Bush Team pushes ultimately for a Federal sales tax to shore up the red ink that his administration has created, and/or if a "pay as you go" system of some kind comes about on a national level, what happens to the US economy which has always been dependent on comsumer expenditures for growth? Obviously, when Joe Red State sees his long-term income stream eroding and cost-of-living rising unexpectedly, he'll drastically downscale his buying habits (or the bank will forclose on his home, whichever comes first). Do either the Neocons or multinational corporations have a clue what they'll do in this eventuality? Are the multinationals looking to new markets to offset a declining American consumer-crazed culture? Are the Neocons so theoretically blindsided by their own ideology that they refuse to anticipate this in their models?
I don't know if it will make any difference or not, but I'm pretty sure the intent is not to suplement with a sales tax, but to REPLACE the income tax with a sales tax. I don't know how significant the impact of that will be, but I can see why DW points out that this would be the government walking away from taxing captial altogether, and thus forcing labor (earinings) to handle the entire burden. (Customs duty is a part of the revnue stream also, but that's basically a sales tax anyway.)
- oddjob
Good afternoon, LindiBee.
In short, Joe Red State has already seen his long-term income declining, and this has been happening for several decades. Joe Red State is accustomed to a life that is diminished as the years go by.
Perhaps progressives have never really asked themselves how they can show that their vision of the future is a genuine and viable alternative to eternal salvation and an after-life where the pain of this world comes no more. Religion gives expression to suffering, even as it provides no tangible shelter from it in this life. Progressivism might provide some shelter from that suffering in this life, but it has not given enough; and it proudly declines the lure of mysticism, desperately needed by so many, whispered from the blood of a martyr who stands as a metaphor for that suffering.
Of course, the neo-conservatives are so engrossed in their theories that they simply refuse to see the historical failure of their policies; but in a large sense, that is alright.
They are about to see those failures, once again. As are we all.
The Dark Wraith departs for a few hours.
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith. The sun reflecting off the 5 inches of snow outside is making my den very bright, but not bright enough to dispel the gloom that is unavoidable every time one hears more of the present administrations' plans.
For some years now I have suspected, even without all the economic insight I have gained from you, that the corporations are attempting to set up some sort of corporate feudalism. I read a work of fiction a while back that postulated exactly that outcome for the present policies of the multinationals. Now I see that it wasn't fiction as much as prediction. First they dumb down the kids, then they co-opt the free press, then they corrupt the votingt process, et voila! Fait accompli. And the idiots CANNOT stop kvetching about freaking christmas cards for gods sake.
As a canadian, I have had to listen to conservatives bitching about how high our taxes are, and why should we pay for all the lazy people who refused to work for themselves, and waxing rhapsodic about the american system and wouldn't it be great to have fewer taxes? I too am waiting for the thunderous silence from them when they see the NEW american tax system, when people who have the least will pay the most and get nothing for it.
I have it on good authority that it is 6 pm somewhere in the world right now. I'm going to pour myself some wine.
Lorri, learn all you can about our "Gilded Age". Karl & his friends would like us to return to that time (with the new techonologies as well, of course).
- oddjob
oddjob, do you have any sources in mind? Both concerning their plans and hopefully, some ways to fight them?
"Some way to fight them". I'm still hoping against hope that this isn't truly the edge of the abyss we're dancing on here.I want to believe that somebody with power is going to step in and stop the short-sighted bastards that are selling us down the river so that they can line their pockets with more money that they could possibly spend in five lifetimes.
But I am obviously not Cinderella, and there ain't no Prince Charming. But I am still praying that Oprah will run for president.
Lorri, and all other interested parties:
You want to know how Rove works? Read this. It's long, but I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend it. It was in the New Yorker over a year & a half ago. That's where I ran across it, and that's when I learned about his fascination with McKinley.
It's also when I learned what a formidable opponent he can be. I believe Shrub without him would still be living off the family money & whatever charity he could wheedle out of his father's friends. If I'm correct, then I also imagine Shrub knows this & Rove also knows this. However, Rove also knows he would never be able to win this kind of office by himself.
He is indeed "Bush's brain", when it comes to politics, but Shrub is his ticket to the kind of clout we have rarely, or never, seen before in a political operative. In it you will find hints and hard details of Rove's plans for the country.
- oddjob
This is a long rant by Bill Moyers, but it's drawn from his own extensive reading of our nation's political history, and the role progressivism played in it.
I found it inspirational! (And I'm no populist by natural inclination, that's for sure. The times seem to force me this way.)
- oddjob
Thank you, oddjob. Both of those essays were very informative.
I admit to feeling very discouraged lately. My daughter thinks I'm nuts. "We live in Canada, mum, why are you getting all bent out of shape over this?". Number one, America is our largest trade partner; you guys can't belch without it affecting us. Number two; the same forces that have worked so hard to bring democracy to it's knees in your country are hard at work here as well. For instance, Fox News just won it's licence to broadcast here. whoopee. Our prime minister handed over control of his business, Canada Steamship Lines, to his sons when he began his race for office - ships that run with flags of convenience. Not exactly committed to principles of fairness, is he? (On the other hand, he has been a staunch supporter of same sex marriage on a stricly civil rights stance.)
I'm not a lay-down-and-die kinda person, and I'm prepared to fight as hard as I have to to protect my vision of Canada. Knowing there are others out there who share a common vision of the sort of world we can build helps a great deal.
So thanks to you too, Dark Wraith!
Good evening, Lorri.
The big number you see at the bottom of this blog is unlike the "hit counters" on most Websites. This one marks how many new visitors (that is, unique IP addresses) have come to this site. I suspect that it occasionally counts a return visitor as a new hit (running through proxy servers will do that); but for the most part, it's pretty accurate, and it is, in my judgment, a good indicator of growth in interest in what the site has to offer.
Most hit counters measure how many page loads have been executed, which means that a each time a repeat visitor comes to the site, the counter goes up by one. That number is important, but it is also somewhat deceptive. Although the number of page loads is not visible to visitors here, as of a few minutes ago, the it stood at 4,149 for this Website, which is now 11 days old. Repeat visitors (by IP number) now total almost 800, of whom almost half are loading the page at least once a day. More importantly, the number of repeat visitors is rising each day.
What does that mean?
It means a lot.
The Dark Wraith goes to prepare the evening post.
It's nice to know you're rapidly developing a regular readership that large!
- oddjob
Lorri, if you saw Titanic, that was a fictionalized account straight out of the Gilded Age (near its end). All those people who died? The VAST majority of them were down in steerage ("coach class"). All those folks they locked up down below so they couldn't cause pandemonium on deck.
Welcome to the nascent resurrection of "the ownership society".
- oddjob
(The phrase sounds kind of icky when you put it in that light, doesn't it?)
Hmm....Oddjob, I like the Titanic analogy. I am laughing inwardly, though. You chose to dance around the point rather than just drive it home. (Maybe you WERE driving it home, in your own understated Oddjobby way...?) We ARE living on a real world Titanic, some of us are down in steerage and will drown because we were refused access to life vests, some of us are up on the upper deck gathering up the last life boats and jumping ship.
Daily I flip-flop (oh no, not a flip-flop!) between wishing I could be 18 years old again and make different career choices, and feeling the need to change the way the world works. There is a marked difference between the kids I went to school with as a college student 10 years ago and the kids I see everyday. The kids today may be lazy and apathetic in most areas, but they're also far more world-savvy than I ever was. (Credit or blame the internet.) They are flocking into the money-making fields and leaving the liberal arts behind. They don't want to be stuck in steerage--and they're right.
that post was from me, cam!
(durn it!)
And the sad part is, Cam, that we live in a world where you cannot be both a poet of the heart and a soldier of the world.
Pity.
The Dark Wraith plays a dirge at the funeral of the Renaissance man.
And on the subject of doomed ships, OddJob, one of my favorite songs of all time is The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle, by Gordon Lightfoot. It is next to impossible to find, anymore; but if you have the chance to listen to it, you'll be treated to some of the most complex metricality and rhyme schemes you'll ever hear in English music.
And I am speaking here as someone who, as a rule, no longer listens to stereos or radios.
(Partly, that's a choice; but mostly, it's something that has happened to me over the past decade that makes sound produced by electronics beyond merely annoying. Perhaps I heard Rush Limbaugh one day and developed an instant aversion to the medium through which he was barfing at me.)
The Dark Wraith enjoys the silence of the night tonight.
He wrote two ballads about sinking ships? The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald came out when I was a high school junior or senior (not sure which; I associate it with my senior year), and I've always found some of the lyrics quite haunting somehow. It's one of those songs that is always immediately available in my memory should I ever wish to think of it. (It will now no doubt remain with me until I go to sleep, and probably come back to me again once I wake up.)
- oddjob
Cam, you speak as though you fear you've chosen the career of the ivory-billed woodpecker. If that thought bothers you enough, might I suggest a self-help book that is truly excellent for dealing with career issues generally?
"What Color Is Your Parachute?", by Richard Nelson Bowles has helped me more than once, if only (occasionally) by offering sympathy & humor in a matter which I find (quite literally) depressing as can be. One of the useful things about it (& I'm going back to an edition from the early 80's, but I know this kind of stuff is still a major part of the book) is its ability to help you figure out what you're good at & really enjoy, not in terms of job titles, but in terms of actual tasks you do.
Knowing those tasks allows you to skillfully rearrange career things - if that becomes either necessary or desirable. Having that in your backpocket makes a sucky situation more palatable because it empowers you again.
(Apologies if you already know all about this.)
- oddjob
No, Cam, I wasn't deliberately riffing on Titanic in the way you suggest. I'm not normally that clever.
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob. Yes, Lightfoot wrote at least two ballads about actual ships that sank, in addition to a whole host of other folk songs about obscure events and historical arcs. The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle was recorded during a live performance, which was sold as a quick-cut record years ago, then as a somewhat limited-release CD. Because of the often poor sound quality, many people don't care for "live" albums, so you might find a copy of the CD buried behind his more popular and better-selling works. I believe it's the only live concert album he ever cut, so it stands out. As far as the music on it is concerned, you'll hear some strong—and in some cases, extraordinary and virtually unknown—folk music ranking right up there with his somewhat better-known works like The Railroad Trilogy and Black Day in July.
Sad that the man pretty much burned out his career and life because of alcohol.
Kind of a metaphor for nations that burn themselves and their citizens out because of hubris.
The Dark Wraith cruises into the night.
von Mises was an absolutist in his belief in the ability of a free market to bring about the best end?
Isn't a free market most likely to choose the best end when all the plusses & minuses are well understood before a market transaction is enacted? (For example, what about when the teenager buys coconut oil in the mistaken belief that it will help with suntanning, and then 20 years later ends up getting melanoma because it would have been better never to have laid out in the first place? That was in the best interest? Maybe not the best example, but I think you can see what I'm trying to get at.)
- oddjob
Good morning, OddJob.
And therein lay the fundamental flaw in the way the so-called Classical or Austrian School of Economics economists saw the world. From Adam Smith to von Mises to Friedman, they simply refused to acknowledge that the assumption of complete information was not only untenable, but that in its absence, the so-called "Pareto optimal" solution would not obtain.
(I shall explain the idea of "Pareto optimal" solutions in a subsequent post. It's an interesting concept.)
At the heart of the ideological war between liberals and conservatives is whether or not the government should have an active role in the lives of individuals, and if we are to concede that such a role is proper and necessary, to what extent that role should be played out.
In my judgment, it was fortunate that the writers of the Constitution set forth the role of government before the presumption of activist government became too ingrained: they saw monarchical and mercantilistic states as far too powerful. One of their most interesting methods—though by no means revolutionary—was to construct the federal constitution as one side of multi-lateral treaty with the several states and commonwealths of the Union. For their parts, the states and commonwealths would provide in their several constitutions for a concession of enumerated rights and powers to the federal party to the treaty.
Conservatives hold that, for the overwhelming majority of situations, a free market will provide the best solution to the fundamental economic problem, which is this: How does a society allocate its resources, all of which are scarce to one extent or another, among the multitude of competing end uses possible? This problem has three parts: what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it.
For conservatives, the best solution—not just from an economics perspective, but also from the society's perspective—is to allow individuals to freely enter into (or not enter into) transactions. People acting in their own best interests will make for the most efficient results, and the prices that prevail in the markets for both goods and for factors of production will solve the three dimensions of the fundamental economic problem stated above.
Liberals, on the other hand, argue that this might be all well and good if people really were able to act freely and with all possible information at their command for any given transaction; but that's simply not the case. Moreover, in the absense of symmetric bargaining power, economic agents with more information, market power, or sheer wealth will always and permanently come out on the better end of transactions, thereby preventing the "optimal" solution from obtaining. Even Adam Smith himself stated that the government had a proper role in preventing monopolies from existing: they were a clear, undeniable, and glaring example of an asymmetric market.
I shall stop here. This topic will course through these threads on The Dark Wraith Forums over and over again. I see the matter as far too important to touch once and leave behind. If enough people see how the debate is framed among moderates of both conservative and liberal leanings, it is my judgment that, on the overwhelming majority of issues, there is suprising consensus and agreement at the philosophical level; and that is the first step in coming to consensus, and then agreement, on matters at the policy level.
The Dark Wraith moves on.
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