From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,tx.politics
Subject: Re: Clinton's plan our best and only hope for the future
Date: 6 Nov 92 14:24:36 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <Tc==33#@engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe) writes:

>In article <1992Nov5.020627.14550@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>|> 
>|> You seem to have confused bureaucrats with politicians.  Bureaucrats
>|> have no interest at all in politically popular projects.  Bureaucrats
>|> aren't elected and can be damned near impossible to fire.  
>|> 

>All the more reason to not let the government control 'investment'.

How is that again?

>|> Unfortunately, there are areas where the market doesn't allocate well
>|> at all.  Right now, under the current structure, the 'market'
>|> allocates preferentially to the generation of meaningless paper
>|> profits which do well (briefly) for investors but create no real
>|> wealth.  Investment churning, etc.  This is NOT in the best interests
>|> of the economy, you, OR I (unless you happen to have enough capital to
>|> make money at that game).
>|> 

>The market isn't perfect, never has been, never will be.  However it
>represents *free* individuals making *free* choices with *their* money.
>I will take a free but imperfect system to a non-free impefect system.
>I would even choose it over a non-free and *perfect* system.

But the point is that the market is ALREADY 'bent'.  It is bent by the
fact that some things can be consumed without the consumer paying the
full cost, so they consume more of them.  It is bent by the fact that
some goods allow people to get their benefits without buying them if
someone else DOES buy them, so we tend to consume less of them.  It is
bent by tax codes.  Why not simply at least recognize that and try to
bend it into a productive direction?

Paper profits from churning investments and elveraged buyouts don't do
anyone any good.  Why not discourage them?  There's a big long list of
places where the market 'fails'.  Nobody is talking about a command
economy; simply altering the 'mix' to move things in a more productive
way than the current 'mix'.

>|> 
>|> Yes, and it's also possible that we would have invested in absolute
>|> crap.  If you can point to ANYTHING that would have likely been
>|> created by the market in place of the Interstate highway system, I'd
>|> be interested in hearing it (and your justification for why the market
>|> didn't create it anyway, if it was such a flaming great idea).
>|> 

>Unfortunately I'm not that good of an entrepeneur to visualize what
>might have been.  Most likely we would have had more of a mix of
>transportation options.  Telecommunications technology may have been 
>accelerated.  More people might be working from home rather than commuting.
>As to your second question, what would be so unusual about alternative
>plans not making it in the face of a massively subsidized plan?

Nothing.  The point, though, is that the market doesn't allocate
things well on this kind of scale.  Might as well wish for a magic
wand. 

>|> 
>|> No, Clinton's plan is founded on the notion, well proven in history,
>|> that men are in general a greedy and rapacious lot, and that without
>|> some outside guidance and restraint they will lay waste to everything
>|> around them in the name of their own profit and privilege. 

>Hmm, men are greedy and rapacious but when elected to office they
>can suddenly provide guidance and restraint.  I didn't realize that
>becoming an elected official could 'cleanse' a person of all his
>bad traits.

The difference between making decisions based on your own pocketbook
and making general decisions from which you cannot profit.  This whole
'rebuttal' is specious.

>|> This has
>|> been recognized for thousands of years.  It's why the Roman Emperors
>|> used to have men who followed them around and repeatedly reminded them
>|> that they were only mortals.
>|> 

>Maybe we should try to do that with Congressmen.

Perhaps we should.  But then someone would complain about the cost.
:-) 

>|> 
>|> Then how do you explain the fact that people are working longer hours
>|> and making less money than they did in the past?
>|> 

>Statistical aggregation.  People as a group are working longer hours
>because we have more people working.  

That's not what's being said.  Typical personal income has DROPPED
$1600 over the last 2 years, and yet people are working longer hours.

>We have people making less money
>in the past because we have had an influx of young workers and women.

Evidence for this trend?  What we have is a greater number of women
and young workers UNEMPLOYED, which typically happens during economic
bad times; these are the first group which is laid off.

>We may have some individuals working longer hours (i.e. overtime) because
>of government laws which create incentives to overuse full-time employees
>rather than add new full-time employees.

Actually, the incentive almost runs the other way.  It's cheaper to
add two part-time employees than one full time employee, unless the
full-time employee is salaried and working 60 or so hours a week.

>|> 
>|> >level of manufacturing has increased.  
>|> 
>|> Level, perhaps, although I would like to see some figures on this.

>From 1980 to 1990, manufacturing as a % of GNP rose from 20% to
>22.5%.  From 1947-1990, the % of GNP has pretty much ranged from
>20% to 22.6%.

How much of that 'manufacturing' is things like foodstuffs?

>|> I'd also like to see it massaged into manufacturing on a per capita
>|> basis and a mention of how many people are involved in manufacturing
>|> now (and that number is down by millions -- what are all those people
>|> doing now?).

>Employment in the 'goods' sector is down in percentage terms.  Some of
>this is due to the fact that many jobs which were formerly performed
>by a 'goods' company are now being contracted out.  

But they would still be producing those goods SOMEWHERE in the
economy, unless they contract it out to a foreign firm.

>Same work, maybe
>even the same workers, but a different sector classification.  

This statement just doesn't seem to track.  If a company is
manufacturing something, whether under contract or not, that is
manufacturing.  Those workers don't all of a sudden magically become
'service sector' workers.

>Also,
>the fact that we can produce more goods with fewer people is an
>indication of our increased productivity.  If we wanted to keep 
>everyone employed in manufacturing industries we could simply require
>companies to eliminate all machines and require that work be done
>by hand.  Of course this would also dramatically raise costs, and
>substantially lower the standard of living for everyone.

Disingenous and specious.

>|> 
>|> >Our technology still leads the
>|> >world in many areas.  
>|> 
>|> In some areas, indeed, but we're working real hard to piss those away,
>|> too.  We INVENTED most of the technology that other countries turn
>|> into products and beat our brains out with.  Why do you think that is?

>Perhaps we have better things to do with our time and effort.  If
>you were a productive janitor as well as a productive electronic
>engineer, would it be a productive use of your time to clean your
>office, or would you hire someone else to do it?

Disingenous and specious, not to mention evading the question.
'Better things to do with our time'?  You assume that ALL of us are
that 'engineer'; SOMEBODY still needs to be that 'janitor', whether I
do it or not.  Just how economically profitable is it to do the R&D
and then let someone else do the production?  It's NOT; that's why we
have things like intellectual property laws.

>|> Obviously, there are great opportunities in those areas, and yet
>|> countries with less of the 'market freedom' you vaunt clobber us in
>|> your free markets.  How does that come about, do you think?
>|> 

>Perhaps you could provide a better description of what you are talking
>about.

Germany.  Japan.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.