HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Economic motivations...
Date: 5 Sep 92 11:24:08 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Sep4.144834.3921@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>In article <52933@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>...
>> Honesty and clarity. Economics is deeply connected to morality, and it
>
>	No, it is not.
>
>	Economic justifications, however, frequently are.
>
>> is either disingenuous of simply mistaken to claim that one's economic
>> program is based on scientific principles alone. Even if economics were
>
>	Not if your program is merely to make the economy grow, and not to
>reward a certain sector.

1. Even if we accept "economic growth" as a goal, there is no verified
scientific methodology which may be used to determine the policies which
one should follow. 
2. The very concept of "economic growth" is highly ideological. It is not
at all clear that "living standard" is determined by economics alone
and many of us believe that democracy, a sustainable environment,
and social peace are often more important than economic growth. 
3. The definition of "economic growth" is not at all clear and depends
on one's political/ethical view. Do we measure "economic growth" by
taking the sum of financial activity per quarter? If so, then just printing
more money would be the fastest path to economic growth. If not, does
economic growth include future generations --- should we consider our
economy to grow if we become richer by depleting resources our children
might need? Do we measure economic growth by looking purely at aggregate
figures --- i.e.  is the economy growing if a small segment of the
population is becoming incredibly wealthy while the rest is stagnating or
becoming impoverished? How do we count the economic effects of a rise in
life expectancy or a decrease in domestic violence? Should government
spending or government subsidized spending count as part of our
measure of economic activity? For example, if the government taxes
civilian industry to build weapons should we count the growth of the
weapons manufacturers as economic growth? What if the weapons manufacturers
gain a significant export business? Should we consider selling weapons
to be purely an economic activity, much like selling cloth? What about
sales of tobacco? Should we measure the economic effects of tobacco 
by simply considering the economic activities of the sellers and producers,
or should we also count the health and legal costs?
And etcetera. 



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: ie-list@cs.ucl.ac.uk (IE Digest Moderator)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Intelligent systems for Economics digest
Date: 14 Sep 92 11:14:03 GMT



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From: ashish+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ashish Arora)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: The Deficit as a Retrospective Tax
Date: 7 Sep 92 14:15:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.UeexG8S00YV7Q3R1VK
Organization: Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.sci.econ: 7-Sep-92 Re: The Deficit as a Retros..
by Dave Polewka@cleveland.F 
> In a previous article, baindur@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Satyen Baindur) says:
>  
>  
> >......... Paying down the debt, under the present tax structure, 
> >simply means sending more and more money earned by working people 
> >to the rich people !
>  
> .....who then take that money and invest it in the economy,
> creating more jobs!!  Jesus Christ, how many times do you
> have to be told before it gets through your thick skull!?!?!

The rich that benefit may or may not (invest in the economy) and the
more jobs, if created may or may not compensate for the additional tax
burden on the working people (as is implicit in the reply).  That you
should assert it vehemently does not make it more believable.  

On a side note, did I read some suggestion for an alternate bboard which
would be sci.econ rather than talk.ideology ?

Ashish
Xref: sparky sci.econ:7415 talk.politics.misc:44396
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Success or greed? (was Re: Supply-side economics)
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:07:37 EST
 <1992Sep5.012350.647@s1.gov> <183436@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <183436@pyramid.pyramid.com>, pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
> In article <1992Sep5.012350.647@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
> |> In article <1992Sep4.104728.3911@desire.wright.edu>
> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
> |> >	You fail to recognize that the 'top 20%' is not a monolithic entity. 
> |> >By definition, they are the most successful.
> |> 
> 
> By your definition, maybe, and that is fine.  What is accurate is that
> the top 20% are the most successful at doing whatever it was that got
> them the upper 20 percentile rating, perhaps "making income."

	Since that is what is measured, yes.

> Others, look at "success" as a total concept, which includes emotional
> and spiritual values, relationships, physical well-being, wholeness,
> etc.  A friend of mine used to ask, "Who loves ya?".

	Who cares?  

	Get the point?

> No indication whatsoever that high income earners do well with 
> this.  In fact one study (no scientific tour-de-force) which allowed
> individuals to assess their own personal success showed no
> correlation between income and success.  On average, on a scale of
> 1 to 5, 5 being the highest, most respondants gave their life a 2.8.

	I tell you what.  Conduct your feel-good polls till you are blue in the
face, and see whether or not there is a correlation between self-affirmation
and feeding the family.

	Economic success (hey, you knew we were talking about that, right?) is
largely measured by return on investment.

> People knock high-earners for being greedy.  I think there's more to it.
> I think there are components of power, control (and "true" success) as well.
> It's a good question as to whether we want some of the most imbalanced people
> charged with making some of the highest impact decisions.  I certainly don't.

	Ahhh, those evil money loving Jews, eh?

Brett                                                      
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
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Disclaimer:								   NOT!
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: burris@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Jim Burris)
Subject: Re: Question about Libertarian Idealogy posted to sci.econ
Organization: TI Semiconductor Process and Design Center
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 15:09:20 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.223901.4088@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.011348.3455@leland.Stanford.EDU>, bohnert@leland.Stanford.EDU (matthew bohnert) writes:
>> Hello to all...
>> 
>	Bureaucrats usually don't make good businessmen.
>
>	Actually, my views are pretty close to yours, I simply don't trust the
>bureaucracy to do a good job.  Personally, I have no objections to government

   Actually, the "various" bureaucracies in this country are surprisingly good
at what they are asked to do. Therin lies the problem. They are asked to do too
much. They are given unsolvable problems. They are subject to political winds,
which changes their mission every 2-4 years. They are underfunded and underpaid
when compared to the private sector. And they are constantly hounded, blamed,
chastised, and otherwise castigated by politicians needing a scapegoat, and by
people with an anti-govt bias, neither of which back up their wild assertions
with data. 
   The information I've seen in studying public administration in this country,
from the federal system down to the township or school district, is that most
of the customers these bureaus serve are satisfied that they've been treated
fairly, within the context of the rules they must operate under. And, though it
is difficult to compare, productivity of the public sector seems to approach
that of the private sector.
   Politicians pass laws and regulations that are of dubious quality for
electioneering purposes. Thus, eliminating special-interest campaign financing,
imposing term limitations, holding politicians accountable for their actions,
and limiting our expectations of government in general ("ask not..."), will
improve the operation of our governments. Even a limited government needs the
bureaucracy. Let's see: armed services; police and fire depts.; FDA; EPA; DOA;
school supers/principals/teachers; forest rangers .......... These are all
bureaucrats. The problem is their politically-appointed directors. Do you
agree?

Jim Burris 

"for step areobics, I use a soapbox"
>
>Brett                                                      
>_______________________________________________________________________________
>Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
>Better, Cheaper, Faster					       (Pick any two :)
>Disclaimer:								   NOT!
From: davidm@consilium.com (David S. Masterson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Property rights...`
Date: 13 Sep 92 20:57:05 GMT
Organization: Consilium Inc., Mountain View, California
In-reply-to: potter@silver.usna.navy.mil's message of 11 Sep 92 14:40:46 GMT
X-Posting-Software: GNUS 3.13  [ NNTP-based News Reader for GNU Emacs ]

Hmmm...

Can we agree that the rights of the "individual" are those rights that the
"majority" has chosen to allow?  The "majority" giveth and the "majority" can
taketh away...

--
====================================================================
David Masterson					Consilium, Inc.
(415) 691-6311					640 Clyde Ct.
davidm@consilium.com				Mtn. View, CA  94043
====================================================================
"Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training."
-- Anna Freud

Well, sometimes, anyway.
-- Mark Brader, utzoo!sq!msb
Xref: sparky sci.econ:7416 talk.politics.misc:44397 alt.individualism:5376
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism
Subject: Castro's Cuba (was Re: Milton Friedman...
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:14:12 EST
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1165@kps.UUCP>, ded@kps.UUCP (David Edwards /DP) writes:
> In article <1992Sep2.215118.20393@henson.cc.wwu.edu> n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio) writes:
>>ded@kps.UUCP (David Edwards /DP) writes:
>>
>>>Where should they get their fuel from under the current blockade? Why
>>>is the US so insistent on destroying Castro's Cuba. While hardly a
>>>perfect individual, his provoking attitude to America has unleashed a
>>>scarcly understandable paranoia there.
>>
>>	Who is trying to sell fuel to Cubans and is prevented from doing
>>so?   What is stopping them?
>>
> 
> Who's talking about fuel? I'm talking about trade in general. You need
> hard currency in the form of dollars to buy fuel. 

	Or gold.  Or something else that someone will take in trade.

> Let's say Cuba has cotton, cigars (or whatever) and wants to sell them 
> to get money for fuel and everything else it needs. If France for 
> example wants to buy cotton for hard currency, it had better look over 
> its shoulder for what Uncle Sam's going to say. You can't trade with 
> Cuba without the threat of US reprisals. Somebody mentioned that the 
> US "let" India buy something from Cuba. 'Mighty big of them. 

	The US had no say in the matter.  India sold it despite the US, if you
will.  I believe Italy did also.

	But since we are on the subject of embargoes, if Castro is so
anti-embargo why does he have embargoes on his people leaving?  On people
calling into Cuba?  On people receiving US TV and radio?  On opposition
political parties?

	Such a wonderful man, eh?

Brett                                                      
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
Better, Cheaper, Faster					       (Pick any two :)
Disclaimer:								   NOT!
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Free movement of labour/labor
Date: 10 Sep 92 23:16:07 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <sefseaO00YV7E4InFT@andrew.cmu.edu>, ss9o+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Stephen Sorensen) writes:
|> Excerpts from netnews.sci.econ: 9-Sep-92 Re: Free movement of labour..
|> by Mike Orszag@stokes.princ 
|> > free markets. Even with no distortions in the world, consider
|> > workers who would be made worse off and displaced by the influx
|> > of new workers; in the language of the free market economist,
|> > this is not Pareto optimal unless lump sum payments can be
|> > devised to compensate workers for their losses; to make an
|> > argument work, you must prove that such a scheme is feasible
|> > theoretically. To summarize, it would be perfectly consistent
|> 
|> The influx of workers and a subsequent lowering of marginal costs would
|> be an efficiency gain supported by a free market economist. Those
|> displaced workers would not really figure into the model; theoretically,
|> they would find work elsewhere.  

In the free movement example, one might think that eventually displaced
workers might move to other countries instead of states (as they do now.)

Relative to the displaced worker, I wonder if the unimpeded immigration
situation is distinguishable from having work emigrate FROM countries with
high labor costs TO countries with low labor costs, which seems to be
a happening.  Exporting work is the same as exporting employment; It
leaves local workers jobless.  Eventually jobless workers are willing
to change expectations and possibly accept a job, whatever job, at a
considerably lower rate.  This produces a kind of musical chairs in which
first the number of (higher-paying) jobs, and thus the salary per job,
decreases.

New jobs are then added (slowly) keeping a lower cost per job.  The end
result is a system-wide decrease in labor rates due to competition among
world labor, but no continually employed local worker takes a salary
decrease.  It seems like a way of lowering labor costs "around" the
seeming stickiness of wages. The global, free-market waters always seem
to find a
way into small seemingly isolated channels.

Paul Collacchi
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:51:10 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <52934@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
> In article <1992Sep3.113009.3887@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>>In article <BtyC8K.JBt@newcastle.ac.uk>, Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>>> Libertarians frequently claim that reducing governmental interference
>>> in markets makes them freer and more efficient, so that they will
>>> expand faster than otherwise.  They claim that public sector spending
>>> is always less effective than private sector spending.  I trust I
>>> need not give references for these claims?  Yet, they are undemonstrated,
>>> and so prejudice rather than science.
>>
>>	That's not the kind of prejudice that Victor is implying.  Rather the
>>racist kind.
> 
	Sorry, I guess it was all that text about racist discrimination that
Libertarians supposedly engage in which mislead me.
:\                                

Brett
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
Better, Cheaper, Faster					       (Pick any two :)
Disclaimer:								   NOT!
From: asslm@acad2.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Economic welfare of urban poor
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:09:02 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska

Hi, I'm a new user and I'm trying to find information on how the economic
system directly affects the urban poor in the U.S. through the welfare
system.  Any help would be appreciated.
Any definitions from an Economist point of view on "welfare system", "problems
of urban poor" and "urban poor" would be very much appreciated.
Sherry
From: rob@KAMAN.COM (Rob Vienneau)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Sraffian Revolution 1/4
Date: 16 Sep 92 00:22:10 GMT

Since this is after the start of a new school year, I make the
somewhat doubtful assumption that there are many new readers that were
not here during the summer. So I'm going to repeat a comment with
expansions on what I have done before.

I am an amateur interested in the impact of the Sraffian revolution on
economic theory. I have found that only one university in the U.S.  is
dedicated to teaching what I consider valid theory (thanks to private
replies generated by a previous posting).

I claim the dominant Neoclassical theory has been shown to be mistaken
quite a while ago. Or, at least, one can competently develop an
alternate theory based on the work of Piero Sraffa. Even within
Neoclassical theory, Sraffian economists have shown that substitution
effects need not work out as Neoclassical intuition might lead one to
expect.

What do you think of this argument? Why do economists in the U.S.
continue, for the most part, to teach and develop one version of
economics that has been shown to have grave defects? Why do they not
even expose students to a thriving alternative?  Why do they not point
out the restrictions needed to make their theory work?  Are most
completely unaware of these issues?

Before answering, you may want to consult my next three messages.
These back up my claim that Sraffian theory provides a genuine
alternative. The first is a table outlining the differences in vision
between Sraffian and Neoclassical theory.

The second is a long note providing a model to illustrate Sraffian
theory. I emphasize certain characteristics that most Neoclassicals
found counterintuitive. To keep my mind from being bored, I explored
certain atypical issues. Sraffians usually treat only one kind of
labor; I examine many. Sraffians normally emphasize the problems with
Neoclassical capital theory; I emphasize the problems with the theory
of wages and labor.

The third provides a model that justifies certain Neoclassical
propositions. It highlights the differences with Sraffian theory.

Nothing I'm saying is new with me. I'm quite aware that neither of the
models are the most general instances of their respective paradigms.

                                         Robert Vienneau
                                         rob@kaman.com
Xref: sparky sci.econ:7435 talk.politics.misc:44654
From: cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne)
Subject: Re: Free movement of labour/labor
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 14:35:57 GMT

In article <183509@pyramid.pyramid.com> pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.160914.12778@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
>cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne) writes:

>|> One of the reasons we have such a large deficit is that the government is
>|> trying to protect the unemployed or unemployeable and we're borrowing money
>|> (from the Japanese and Europeans) to support this deficit.  That will
>|> eventually end and we'll be in the same position Mexico was in when they
>|> couldn't repay their debt.

>I'm not sure I see the underlying mechanics behind these assertions.
>Would you spell them out in a little more detail?  Thanks.

In recent years the deficit has approached $400 billion annually almost
half of which is interest on the national debt.  To give an example of
what contributes to this deficit:

	1.  Total health care costs in the U.S. are approx. $700 billion,
about 40% of which is paid for with government taxation.  This is thus
definitely part of the deficit.

	2.  In addition, other payments to people who don't have enough
income to be self sufficient includes housing, food and other living
subsidies.  This is another major part of the federal budget.

Defense spending (on the other hand) is no larger as a portion of the
national budget than it was in the 60's (although it could easily be
reduced).

The only reason the government can spend more money than it collects in
taxes, is that it sells debt (much of which is purchased in the international
market, since the interest rate is higher than in other countries).

I've related this to the situation in Mexico, where they defaulted on
billions of dollars in loans when the oil market collapsed.  Presently they
find it difficult to borrow money since they have a history of not repaying.

Just relate to what would happen in the U.S. if government notes were no
longer easily sold in the open market--the taxpayers would have to come up
with $400 billion or so in additional taxes to pay the deficit (or the
government could cut spending).

Charlie


Organization: Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA