HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Alternatives to Import Taxes
Date: 12 Nov 92 13:04:43 EST
Summary: Don't build walls, expand your audience
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1689D787F.M23231@mwvm.mitre.org>, M23231@mwvm.mitre.org writes:
...
> I think we as a nation need to look closely at how we came to depend on "free-t
> rade" as it has begun to be practiced since Reaganomics began. When did we star

	Reaganomics was only in place from 1981-1990.  I'd look elsewhere for
the current economic practices.

> t thinking that it was good for the US to permit our corporations to range all
> over the globe with no tax consequences and with US gov't assistance?

	Why shouldn't they?  (WRT taxes)

> Why is it all of a sudden the conventional wisdom that
> we must do this? Suddenly we are bombarded with all these talking
>  heads droning the line that we must do these things and that this is the futur
> e for us. We need to review E. F. Schumacher's book, "Small is B
> eautiful"  and see if his 1975 vision was wrong or whether we are seriously off
> on the wrong track today with our notion that corporations are now boundaryless
> and can do whatever they want in the holy name of Free-Trade irrespective of
> what that does to the national security and to the well-being of the people.

	Since when does the "right" of a US autoworker to make $17/hour reign
supreme over the "right" of a Mexican to make $4/day?

	What will happen if both Mexican and US autoworkers are making $9/hour
instead?
	(Hint: how many more cars will US firms sell if all 20 million wage
earners in Mexico could buy a car?)

	Stop being so short-sighted.  Err, "small" minded. :)

Brett
===============================================================================
80s: 18 million new jobs, deficits down (%GNP), tax rates down, tax revenues up
GNP up, inflation down, unemployment down, interest rates down, cold war won
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Wright)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Hey! Libertarians only got 37,000 votes
Date: 6 Nov 1992 04:21:29 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu


The title says it all. Perot got 14 million, Lullani F???ani got
19,000, the Peace and Freedom people got some 10,000. Clearly
Libertarians are a lunatic fringe....
-- 
"There is nothing in the marginal conditions that     
    distinguish a mountain from a mole hill"            
                      Kenneth Boulding                             

					All comments  are mine---(David Wright) 
						david@cats.ucsc.edu.
From: tgrupe@watnxt11.ucr.edu (Todd E. Grupe)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: BANKRUPTCY 1995: Any thoughts?
Date: 11 Nov 92 22:17:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.164840.1526@bnr.ca> bucknerb@bnr.ca (Brent Buckner)  
writes:
> 
> Many people do not regard the debt as presenting imminent dangers.
> The book outlines criteria for establishing at what level
> debt becomes unsupportable.  This is a valuable analysis, in
> that it can move debate from a shouting match between 
> fixed idealogical positions to practical discussion.
> 
	I've just finished reading Bankruptcy 1995 very carefully, along  
with a couple of other recent books on depressions, hyperinflation, and  
the factors that cause them.  Higgie makes his case very well, but I  
suspect the economic disaster he predicts would occur a few years later  
than 1995, assuming our government doesn't take the necessary emergency  
action in the near future.  The jury is still out on Clinton; if he really  
tries to fulfill all the promises he's made in the last 10 months, the  
deficit will only accelerate.  (I believe the Grace Commission predicted a  
deficit of $640 billion for 1993.)  
	Argentina was in a comparable position before they took emergency  
measures to cut the government debt; it's a trade-off between short-term  
pain and long-term stability and growth.  I like that option a whole lot  
better than insolvency.

TG
--
tgrupe@watserv.ucr.edu

generic .sig
generic .sig
generic .sig

What are you reading this for?
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: I want a German standard of living!
Date: 7 Nov 92 00:10:01 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <BxB4By.97s@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, bigger@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Marcel Bigger) writes:
...
> 

	Obviously a newcomer :).  Yes, it does work.  (For those of you who
view this as an arrogant assertion, all postings of mine are always IMO.)

> Does supply side economics work? See Reagan presidency. One problem
> with this grand strategy is the time factor. Tax decreases and incentives
> increase demand before it increases supply. Furthermore, increasing supply
> means increasing productivity. Productivity is not easily increased and

	Supply-side simply makes supply easier to obtain.  More credit (through
higher savings/investment rates), less regulation, less government spending,
etc.
	Check out the .sig and decide whether Reagan's 1/2 of supply side
(cutting taxes) worked.

Brett
===============================================================================
80s: 18 million new jobs, deficits down (%GNP), tax rates down, tax revenues up
GNP up, inflation down, unemployment down, interest rates down, cold war won
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky sci.econ:8636 sci.space:15850
From: lc2b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lawrence Curcio)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,sci.space
Subject: Re: Study says: Space research spinoffs marginal
Date: 12 Nov 92 13:20:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.0f0iOtO00iV4M7vkx1
Organization: Doctoral student, Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I would think that the spinoffs od space research in the realm of
materials science would be neither marginal nor random.
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: I want a German standard of living!
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 21:24:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <BxB4By.97s@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> bigger@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Marcel Bigger) writes:
>
>In article <1992Oct28.145126.5242@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>>In article <60560011@hpcuhe.cup.hp.com>, megana@hpcuhe.cup.hp.com (Megan Adams) writes:
>>> I don't want a demorepublicrat standard of living.
>>> I don't want a libertarian standard of living.
>>> I want a GERMAN standard of living.
>>
>>	Great.  Are you willing to be one of the 10% unemployed?
>
>Germany is absorbing the high unemployment from the East. Germany's
>unemployment figures were much lower before Unification. It will
>take time to consolidate between the two former Germanys.

  Boy, are you wrong on this one.  West Germany's unemployment
  rate has been over 8% for most of the 1980's.  In the last
  year before unification it was 8.2%.   Note that most of the EC
  has social, tax, and industrial policies similar to Germany's
  and the EC average unemployment rate is currently 9.5%.   So
  the original question still stands:  If you want to be ruled 
  by typical European Christian Democrats, or Social Democrats, 
  are you willing to be among the 9.5% unemployed?

  I mean, granted, I'd rather be unemployed in a nation with
  generous social benefits, but mainly I'd rather not be unemployed.


>	Naturally, because the United States has much more people.
>Or differently put, the vast geographical area of the U.S. allows
>for more people. With its high population density Germany could
>hardly boost its population.

  This makes no sense whatsoever.  Japan continues to improve 
  productivity in an even smaller (usable) land area.  Anyway
  population has nothing to do with it -- manufacturing pro-
  ductivity PER CAPITA is higher in the US (source The Economist)
  Note also that per-capita productivity is also higher in several
  smaller European nations than in (west) Germany as well.

  [ savings . . . ]
>>	Social pattern.  The US government can't change that without social
>>engineering.  (Blech.)
>
>Still, that's a problem because investments depend on savings.
 
  The only "social engineering" needed to boost savings is to reduce
  taxes on it -- you tax things you want to DISCOURAGE.
                                                       


---peter
From: louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Trade War?
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:18:55 GMT

v37262d@kaira.hut.fi (Mancko H|glund) writes:



>The import taxes imposed by the US government are quite unnecessary,
>but on the other hand this was something one could expect. 

Not at all.  I happen to farm in Canada.  Grain farmers in Canada and
the U.S.  have been hurt badly by depressed world prices, due *mainly*
to the *insane* subsidies paid by governments in the EC.  A wheat
farmer in the EC gets 300% of the world price of wheat, which the
government has to dump on the world market.  It is the height of
stupidity to pay farmers to produce all they can, by pouring on the
fertilizer and chemicals, and then dumping on world markets.

A more sensible thing would be to pay the farmers *not* to produce!
More power to the Americans in this issue.  I can easily forgo German
and French wines!
--
Louis Schmittroth louis@cs.athabascau.ca
NW 1/4 18 67 21 W4 Alberta.  
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Hey! Libertarians only got 37,000 votes
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 21:08:54 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1dcrs9INN5fg@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Wright) writes:
>
>The title says it all. Perot got 14 million, Lullani F???ani got
>19,000, the Peace and Freedom people got some 10,000. Clearly
>Libertarians are a lunatic fringe....

   According to the Boston Globe, Thursday October 5, with
   99% of all votes counted the Libertarian Party got 278,000
   votes.   Still this is less than a third of their vote
   total in 1988, and even less compared to <Ed Clarke?> a
   few years earlier.   And all this despite the fact that 
   we had record voter turnout and an angry electorate.

   So I would say that despite bold predictions over the last
   few years on Usenet that the LP was a growing force, at 
   least at the national level it's clear that they are in 
   a serious decline.   


---peter

   
Newsgroups: sci.econ,alt.activism,soc.culture.usa,alt.amateur-comp,misc.misc
From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: Last Minute Write-in Candidate for US President
Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 07:25:41 GMT

ag173@yfn.ysu.edu (Jay Hauben) writes:
>
>ATTENTION ALL NET.CITIZENS:
>	Ronda Hauben has reluctantly agreed to run for the Presidency of the 
>USA as a write-in candidate.

Imagine if this worked:

	All over the country, people write-in "Ronda Hauben".

	"Ronda Hauben" wins!

	And then hundreds of people named Ronda Hauben claim that
	they have been elected!

--Tim Smith
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: jobs, again
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:24:29 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

 

  I was looking over the jobs stats in yesterday's Wall Street
  Journal.  It had earlier been announced that unemployment
  had dropped to 7.4%.     But the Journal reported that this
  was due strictly to an decrease in people showing up at
  unemployment offices.   The actual number of jobs in the
  US economy was *DOWN*.   

  Now, I've been accused by some net.optimists of being
  unreasonably gloomy on economic prospects.   It makes no
  difference to them that an increasing number of very
  mainstream economists and businessmen are beginning to
  echo my sentiments that the problems in the US and world
  economy are structural, not cyclical, and very severe.

  I just don't see any source for significant job growth
  in any sector of the US economy.   On the other hand I
  can think of plenty of economic and technological factors
  that will continue to put downward pressure on jobs.
  This is a very serious problem, not just economically,
  but also socially since unemployment can be a major
  force favoring crime, family and other social problems, 
  and political extremism.

  I have repeatedly asked various people who think I'm
  being too pessimistic to name the areas or industries 
  where they anticipate growth in good-quality jobs.
  What would you advise a college freshman to major in
  today?   What would you advise a laid-off autoworker 
  to seek training in?   

  Invariably, answer came there none.
                         

---peter

  

  
Xref: sparky sci.econ:8539 soc.culture.usa:8398 misc.misc:3748
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:14:53 EDT
From: andy <2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: sci.econ,soc.culture.usa,misc.misc
Subject: Re: Last Minute Write-in Candidate for US President
 <1992Nov9.072541.16791@u.washington.edu>

Ed Anger from the Weekly World News also announced his candidacy:)
One of his platform planks was free medicare for everyone and
giving all welfare recipients jobs? How? Make all the welfare recipients
work providing the free medicare:)
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: I want a German standard of living!
Date: 8 Nov 1992 04:49:47 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com


In article <BxBCsD.L6C@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com writes:
>
>                                                             So
>   the original question still stands:  If you want to be ruled 
>   by typical European Christian Democrats, or Social Democrats, 
>   are you willing to be among the 9.5% unemployed?

I read a newspaper article today in the S.F. Chronicle
Examiner which alleges that when Clinton takes over, he is
going to be given the 'other' set of books.   In this
second set of accounts, the US economy is in worse shape
than publicly admitted.  In particular, they give a much
more pessimistic view of US unemployment.  The currently
accepted unemployment percentage was arrived at, says the
S.F. C-E, by first overestimating the number of discouraged
workers, who are then no longer counted among the
unemployed, leading to a lesser percentage figure.

The allegation, which I have no way of checking, is that as
part of the Bush re-election campaign, fairly widespread
fabrication and distortion of US economic data took
place.   It may - or may not - be worth noting that the
S.F. Chronicle Examiner is a Hearst paper, and so not
exactly a fringe publication.

So the question now may be, do you want to be among the 10%
unemployed in Germany, or among the 10% unemployed in the
US.

jon.
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: BANKRUPTCY 1995: Any thoughts?
Date: 8 Nov 1992 04:42:11 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com


In article <1992Nov6.150116.5034@hemlock.cray.com>, rja@mahogany126.cray.com writes:
> 
> 
> Say the Gov ran a ~$300 Billion deficit for the next 3 years.  That would 
> give a ~$5 Trillion debt in 1995.  It would still be a smaller % of GNP
> than after WWII.  (Not good for the economy, but not a disaster either.)

On the other hand, the US economy is unlikely to grow as fast
as it did back them.  The rest of the world is not in ruins,
the US is no longer the unchallenged manufacturing leader,
and US goods no longer set the quality standard to beat,
and so the US is going to find it that much more difficult
to "grow out of" such a deficit.

jon.
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Request for information relevant to a Consumption Tax.
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:06:17 GMT

In article <BxDtJq.5wy@beach.csulb.edu> stcuster@beach.csulb.edu (Stephen Custer) writes:
>Does anybody out there have any thoughtful ideas on the pros and cons of a
>national consumption tax?  Also, are their any books or articles that offer a
>fair appraisal of this topic?
>

Philosophically, a consumtion tax seems bad to me, because you are paying
for something, buy not getting a service in return.

Now if a 1% consumption/sales tax was used to pay for  product testing,
standards etc. that would be reasonable.

Needless to say, it would discourage economic activity, and would probably
cause more econommic harm (costwise) than the revenue raised would be worth.

On the other hand, no government is going to give up such a cash cow so easily,
so a compromise would be a cross the board sales tax, on all consumption,
that was very simple to administer, and would replace a collection of
federal, state, local taxes with one easily administered one.


Canada tried (and for the most part failed) to do this with its Goods and
Services Tax.

it hasn't worked as well because:
-there are too many exceptions:

  eg. a "single serving" gets taxed, but "basic groceries" do not.
  this leads to stupid confusion about why 1 donut is taxable but 6 aren't

-local governments wouldn't cooperate

  so instead of one beauracracy administering a tax, we still have TWO
 beauracracies administering TWO taxes

- other dumb stuff

on the good side:

- the tax replace a lot of hidden "manufacturer's taxes"
  so now consumers are more aware of the tax they are paying
  the tax no longer taxes (ie discourages) production, but instead
  taxes consumption. This is probably better for an exporting country
  like Canada
>Thanks,
>
>-Steve
>
>
>


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
________________________________________|_________________________________
Xref: sparky sci.econ:8632 sci.anthropology:1370
From: matthew@remus.rutgers.edu (matthew bernardini)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Questions about the Economics of the Family
Summary: Reply to request for sudy on family data
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:09:30 GMT
Followup-To: sci.econ
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

I recently read a book called "Rethinking Social Policy" by
Christopher Jencks.  Although the point of this book is not totally
what you are looking for, the early chapters sound like exactly what
you requested.  Jencks analyzes the growing underclass in America, and
in doing so presents statistics and studies the differentiate them from
the middle and upper classes.  There are a great deal of studies cited in
the text as well as in the endnotes that fit the bill. 

Hope this book helps.

Matthew Bernardini
matthew@gandalf.rutgers.edu
	    


			   
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Interesting article
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 15:35:20 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

                                        

  The October 31 issue of New Scientist has an interesting
  article by Robert Chote on why current econometric models
  have such poor predictive value.   Although the article cites
  examples from the UK (New Scientist is a British magazine)
  the data and conclusions have interesting implications
  for any attempts to predict economic behavior in modern
  economies.


---peter

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: Re: Trade War?
Organization: Precipitating Pendulums Postal Party Poopers
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 18:30:42 GMT

In article <BxM7Ft.L4n@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <1689D88F8.M23231@mwvm.mitre.org> M23231@mwvm.mitre.org writes:
>>Read "Small is Beautiful". We don't need to ship more stuff all over the globe
>>to have a good US economy.
>
>  Boy you really have a fascination with a 20 year old book!   
>  Perhaps you could document your conclusions in today's terms.

Peter, this is not the Book of the Month club. Anyone who wants to
talk about economics should have read at least a review of Schumacher.

>  Millions of US jobs depend on markets overseas.  Major US companies
>  like HP, Sun, Dec, IBM, Boeing, Caterpillar Tractor, Eastman Kodak, 
>  and many, many others do a big part of their business in exports.

Schumacher doesn't address international trade explicitly. However, I
suspect that if he were alive today, he'd argue something like this:
there's nothing wrong with such trade, but having an the economy of a
given political (and by your own claim, *cultural*) entity dependent
on exporting things to other such entities that it does not control or
even necessarily share much with is a mistake. If we can't build
stable, healthy economies within the confines of a national boundary(*),
what makes us think we can do it within the confines of the entire
planet ?

-- paul

(*) especially one as large as the USA.

-- 
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a
little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider
price only are this man's lawful prey.
						John Ruskin
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: NO! Re: flat taxes - yes!!!
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:12:15 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA
Keywords: flat tax

In article <1992Nov11.103204.3702@ee.ubc.ca> jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:
>In article <markts.721352037@mcl> markts@mcl.ucsb.edu (mark.) writes:
>>
>> flat taxes for everyone. people and corporations.
>> the 13% idea from jerry brown was the only
>> good idea out of the democratic primaries.
>>
>> flat taxes will benefit the middle class.
>
>Do the rich actually use more services?
>
>I guess I'm in favor of progressive tax systems:
>
>- people who use progressively more services pay progressively more taxes!!!

  First of all, in a flat tax the rich WOULD pay more!    13% of a 
  1,000,000 dollars is more than 13% of 100,000 dollars.

  Under a flat tax with no deductions the rich would likely pay
  more since they now have the broadest disparity between the 
  amount they theoretically could pay and what they actually
  pay, due to those deductions.    As I said before, as a % 
  of income, Ross Perot paid less than Bush, Bush paid less
  than Clinton, and Clinton paid less than me!

  A flat tax/no deductions is inherently fairer and even if
  it were "revenue neutral" it would save the government money
  by being able to greatly reduce the size of the IRS due to
  the vast simplification in the tax code a "no deductions" 
  policy would have.  It would probably also produce greater
  revenue due to better compliance due to the simplicity.
  The biggest savings would be to the economy though via 
  the vast savings resulting from reduced record-keeping
  and accounting/tax-preparation costs.

  Yet another advantage of a flat-tax/no deductions is that
  it separates taxation from social/economic policy.  Cur-
  rently by combining those two functions both are distorted.
  Business decisions are made for tax reasons, tax policy is
  set by economic/social policy considerations.  It's nuts.

  Far better, if we insist on having government support for a
  particular aspect of life, say R&D or child-care, to do it
  with direct grants.


---peter