National Success

***Preamble*** In the OP and comments section, we agreed to leave round 4 to 4000 characters and not to introduce any new evidence. But because Con has decided to substantiate his entire case just now, I kind of have to use new sources. I've kept them to a minimum (3 new ones), and they are directly aimed at Con's new evidence. Overall I'd say Con's been incredibly rude. I put a lot of thought and effort into my case, and Con just tanks it even though we've taken every measure to maximize his response time. Then, when I'm limited to half characters, Con decides to include actual evidence for his case and brings up new arguments against mine. For example, Con is now arguing government involvement on my econometric model, when previously he had argued linear correlation. Do with this what you will. ***Case*** 3994 characters excluding sources and this sentence. === Democracy === The debate is causes of national success. Con writes “voter bases and legal structures are instead the integral causes”. a) The public ignores market prices when they take resources by force. Prices communicate information about scarcity and demand. Without this knowledge, actors are bound to cause economic destruction. b) Con thinks representative democracy solves the incentive problem. It doesn't because voters still have to figure out who to vote for. But if an individual vote makes no difference, there is no reason anyone would think seriously about politics. c) Con drops this point. Irrationality can explain why democracy doesn't cause national success. ===Pro Arguments === 1) Sampling Bias Con says Sweden and Norway are not that different from the United States. His source is just a link to the US statistics. Sweden's main industries are telecom hardware and lumber [1], while the US's are petroleum and steel [2]. The average rate of profit in telecom is twice that of petroleum [3]. I don't have space to dissect every Con anecdote, and I shouldn't have to. I've already talked about Con's evidence more than he has. A cursory glance at wikipedia should be sufficient to discredit his allegations of similarity. 2) Jurisdictional Competition i) Theory Con says immigration is negligible. This flies in the face of his own observation that they make up ~13% of the population, boosting tax bases significantly. ii) Example A) Individuals Con thinks that poverty is sufficient to stop migration. In 1965, the US repealed immigration quotas and saw substantial increase in immigrants from developing countries, particularly Africa and Asia [4]. So the primary barrier is legislative. Con never answered Denmark's elitist immigration policy. Con thinks that because the numbers are scattered for already successful nations, immigration doesn't correlate. Con even concedes that it might be due to linguistic and legal barriers, which is totally reasonable if you followed the Denmark and US sources. Con hasn't repeated the analysis on his own metrics. Just for kicks, the correlation of tax rates with prosperity is slightly negative among developed nations [5]. Con is cherry picking his whole case, failing to uphold the same statistical rigor he asks of me. B) Corporations Con concedes that countries compete for foreign investment. He states it is an effect, not a cause of policy. I'm curious as to why policy doesn't stimulate competition, since tax rates ARE policy and that's one thing countries compete on. Con writes that democracy is responsible for choosing such wise and competitive policy. Even if he wins “democracy”, this is still an evidence for “jurisdictional competition”. Con says that countries can't just cut programs to become more competitive. Turn this on Con because it shows how democracy inhibits a country's ability to compete for foreign investment. 3) Market Growth i) Theory Con thinks states can just look and see what goods need to be provided. But there's an opportunity cost to appropriating resources. Health care or technology spending is fine, but it causes the economy to contract elsewhere. The net effect cannot be measured without prices. Con has NEVER answered what would happen to a business ignoring prices. The obvious answer is bankruptcy. He hasn't explained why the fate of state programs would by any different. ii) Example Con repeatedly says differences between countries invalidate my model, but they don't because my model compares countries to themselves. Con continuously misunderstands SCED: Taxes are subtracted from yearly growth, so government spending is entirely discounted. C only depends on predicted growth after removing government spending. Changes in the tax rate take a while to have an effect. That's why each year's growth is a delayed peak [6]. But of course Con can nitpick my model. If these errors were serious, why is my fit so good? Con never answers. Sources: [1]http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://money.cnn.com... Same source as in Round 2, source [1]. [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] See spreadsheet from my round 2 source [5]. Sort countries by Sen Welfare Function or Per Capita GDP or whatever floats your boat. I took the top 30 and got -0.2 correlation coefficient. [6] See source [10] of round 2.