HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: david@mail.sas.upenn.edu (R. David Murray)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: It's not a Depression because prices aren't falling?
Date: 14 Aug 92 21:17:16 GMT
Reply-To: david@penndrls.upenn.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: University Data Center, University of Pennsylvania

My grasp of monetary theory is weak, to say the least, but I thought
I understood that cutting interest rates as the Fed has been doing
was an inflationary action.  I was puzzled, then, that the 'inflation
rate' is so low.  Then it occured to me: in the Depression, we were on
a hard money standard, and so prices fell.  Now, we are on a fiat
standard.  So suppose real prices are actually falling so rapidly that
the fairly significant inflation of the money supply being practiced
by the Fed can just barely keep up?
From: fpf@taurus.gasco.com (Frank Ferguson x3584)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Comparative Advantage
Date: 20 Aug 92 15:52:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: gasco.1992Aug20.155251.13201
Distribution: na
Organization: NorthWest Natural Gas Company of Portland Oregon


In his response to my posting on comparative advantage, Al Date argues that
because only 20% of our workers are in manufacturing, only they will
suffer any effects from the factor price equalization resulting from
free trade.  I agree that these workers will experience (and have experienced)
the most immediate and dramatic effects, but other members of the economy
will feel the effects as well.  An economy is a very interdependent thing.
At the very least, wage competition will occur in services as people leave
(or redirect their plans and training) from the manufacturing sector, and
seek work in the higher paying service industries.

As an aside, I've always thought that our satisfaction with our drift
toward service industries was curious.  After all, when we've earned
enough from our law practice, for example, what do we want?
Why, a Lexus, a great 
stereo, a camera, a camcorder, projection tv with surround sound, and
a cruise on a ship of Bahamian registry.  Mostly manufactured, you note,
and mostly imported.  Services by an large vanish once performed.  They
do not make the things that fill the pot, cover the back or warm our
materialist hearts.  

I agree with Al that foreign wages would rise, but there is such a 
huge global reservoir of low income workers that the rise cannot be
great--at least not for quite a while.

Francis Ferguson
fpf@gasco.com
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 20 Aug 92 23:04:13 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <Aug.20.17.48.07.1992.10421@planchet.rutgers.edu> josh@planchet.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>Pinochet served his purpose and was eased out after he had taught the 
>>Chileans not to make the mistake of voting in programs which annoyed the
>>United States. 
>
>Oh, now I see.  How stupid of me.  This was all being orchestrated
>by the Trilateral Commission, the CIA, and the Mafia.
>

It is rather ignorant of you to not know of the well documented and quite
public US involvement in the General's career. 

>Pinochet was in actuality the love child of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe,
>and was taken to Chile by a flying saucer owned by the Freemasons.

Perhaps if you spent less time reading the trash media you might know
something about recent history. 

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Empty Philosophies
Date: 12 Aug 92 00:34:53 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <51634@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <BsIDwM.CDq@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>>Kenneth Tolman writes:
>>One might claim, casually, that all political theories are in some
>>sense shallow.  But I will presume that you mean that _relative
>>to other political theories_, the libertarian viewpoint is shallow.
>>This will be a difficult claim to justify.  Perhaps it is simply
>>the case that you have never met an able defender of the position,
>>in which case your opinion is justified.  But I'm here now, so we
>>can get these things straightened out.
>
>Ah, now I see that "shallow" is rather too weak to capture to absolute
>lack of depth in "libertopianism".
>

Yep, listening to lib'ians telling us that they "don't like paying
taxes, shouldn't have to pay taxes, not gonna pay taxes" reminds
me of listening to 5 year olds asserting that all they want to eat
is ice cream, and they shouldn't have to eat anything else, and
they won't, so there.
From: ekp@mcnc.org (Edward Pavelchek)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Comparative Advantage
Date: 21 Aug 92 21:14:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Good place for a disclaimer

I think Chris' article is right on the money.  A poor economy puts most
of its effort into sustenance.  Improvements allow a fraction of the
labor to be redirected - a lot went to clothing initially.  Now, most of
our current manufacturing is directed at housing and transportation.

This does not mean that loss of manufacturing capability is trivial.
On the other hand, it is vital that it remain strong.  Countries without
the ability to feed, clothe and house their population on the work of a
small % of the labor force will not have the ability to support a large
service sector.  Since services are difficult to export, they cannot 
be expected to pay for food or manufactured goods imported.

As the proportion of the economy in manufacturing grows smaller, it
becomes more difficult to be sure how healthy it is.  Our vast
accumulated capital could be hiding manufacturing deficits painlessly
for some time.
-- 
Ed Pavelchek   ekp@mcnc.org
But I make a profit of 3 1/4 cents an egg by selling them for 4 1/4
cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for 7 cents an egg.
Of course, *I* don't make the profit.          Joseph Heller, Catcha 22
From: josh@planchet.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 20 Aug 92 21:48:08 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:

>Pinochet served his purpose and was eased out after he had taught the 
>Chileans not to make the mistake of voting in programs which annoyed the
>United States. 

Oh, now I see.  How stupid of me.  This was all being orchestrated
by the Trilateral Commission, the CIA, and the Mafia.

Pinochet was in actuality the love child of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe,
and was taken to Chile by a flying saucer owned by the Freemasons.

He was then ousted because he discovered that Henry Kissinger and 
the Queen of England were agents of the international drug cartel.

Of course!

-j
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: kenr@orleans.storage.tandem.com (Ken Rose)
Subject: Re: Clinton on Economics (transcript of speech)
Organization: Tandem Computers Inc, Cupertino CA
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 18:33:19 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.165652.3018@news.ysu.edu>, ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben) writes:

> But tools and labor saving devices are not the same as *CAPITAL* or
> *CAPITAL FORMATION*.
> 
> Petty clarified that labor saving devices were *ARTE*.

What in the world is *ARTE* ?  And if you don`t consider tools and
labor-saving devices as capital, then you are defining the word
"capital" different than its common usage.  This is your prerogative,
I suppose, but leads to confusion is discussion about economic
issues.


> 
> Large U.S. corporations are concerned that their RATE OF PROFIT be
> as high as possible which means that they want to make as large
> a profit as possible with as little investment in capital as possible.
> 

Time out for an economics lesson here.

Any company, including the "large U.S. corporations" you feel 
compelled to single out, would like to be as profitable as possible.
Not only do they want to make as little investment in capital
as possible, they want to spend as little on labor as possible.
The key, then, is they want to keep costs as low as possible.

Your implicit claim that corporations are only concerned with
minimizing capital expenses but ignore labor expenses is inconsistent
with the first part of your sentence, in which companies
try for as high a rate of profit as possible.  In fact, 
companies consider various combinations of capital (or whatever you
want to call tools & equipment) and labor in producing output,
looking for the minimum cost method of production.

> ALL THE INDUCEMENTS IN THE WORLD FOR LARGE CORPORATIONS TO GAIN
> HIGH PROFITS DO NOT SERVE TO ENCOURAGE LABOR SAVING DEVICES IN 
> MANUFACTURING.

This is unusual economic reasoning.  Do you seriously believe that
if a company can spend $10,000 on a device that will save them
$20,000 in labor costs they will not do it?  You can't even reconcile
that (if you believe it, which your "ALL THE INDUCEMENTS ..."
paragraph implies) with your previous claim that corporations want
a high rate of profit.  

 
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Rose    (kenr@storage.tandem.com)
The Usual Disclaimer:  Any opinions expressed above are mine alone, not
those of my employer (who is kind enough to allow me Usenet access).
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com (Patrick J. McGuinness)
Subject: Re: The New Economy (was Re: NAFTA)
Organization: Motorola Inc., Austin TX
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 18:51:03 GMT

Some factoids caught my attention here ....

In article <Bt5GIs.Iv@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> sitomlin@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Stephen I. Tomlinson) writes:
><51907@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>sitomlin@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Stephen I. Tomlinson) writes:
>>> ....  Employment in the 
>>>U.S. rose from 99.3 million in 1980 to 117.9 million in 1990.
....
>>Considering that the 3% unemployment rate was a hot political issue
>>in the early/mid 1960's, you are incorrect.
>
>My almanac only lists unemployment rates for even-numbered years before 1980,
>but reports an unemployment rate of 5.5% in 1960, 5.5% in 1962, 5.2% in 1964,
>3.8% in 1966, and 3.6% in 1968.  Considering that the 1960s had one of the
>lowest overall unemployment rates of any decade since the 1920s, and taking 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>into account that we are at the trough of a recession right now, today's 
>unemployment rate still does not look out-of-line with those of decades past 
>to me. 

1. 20 million new jobs in the 1980's.

2. Unemployment dropped from 5.2% to 3.8% in two years, from 1964 to 1966.

3. The low unemployment rate in the 1960's was bested only by
the low unemployment of the 1920's.

So what did these periods have in common?
- 1924 tax reduction of Coolidge
- 1964 tax reduction of Kennedy
- 1981-83 tax reduction of Reagan

The *best* jobs growth (and economic growth) this century occurred after
income tax rate reduction legislation was enacted.

---
Pat
From: fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: NAFTA
Date: 17 Aug 92 23:11:39 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <40qn03Wd61fA00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro) writes:
>
>  I have seen stats showing that the number of jobs from 1980 to 1990 
>has decreased as a percentage of the population- I'll try to dig up the
>magazine article which might have those numbers.

  Acutally now that I think about it, it was the number of jobs under the
Bush administration, not from 1980-1990; sorry about that.

  Doug
-- 
                                                     Doug Fierro
                                      |\             UTS System Software
  O                         __________|_\______      CASE tools development
  \_.______________________| * * * * * * * * */      fierro@uts.amdahl.com
 __\____                   |=================/       (408)746-7102
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 02:11:14 -0400 
From: Thomas Omar Smith <ts2a+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Regional currencies
Distribution: usa

>I just found out about a group in Ithica, New York that prints and
>distributes its own currency.  This currency, called "Ithica HOURS," is
>apparently being used to "decrease the dependence on dollars" and "promote
>the local economy."  (paraphrases taken from "Ithica Money," the newspaper
>promoting Ithica HOURS)
>
>The August-September '92 issue of "Ithica Money" basically claimed that
>evil multi-national corporations are controlling communities with their
>dollars.  Hence, by using a currency independent of dollars, local
>communities can free themselves of the tyranny of these evil corporations
>(the polluters, discriminators, exploiters, etc)
>
>Would someone care to comment on regional currencies such as Ithica HOURS
>and provide some more general information?
>
>I recall that way-back-when banks actually issued their own currency.  Is
>this practice still legal, feasible, or useful?

Odds are real good that if they are printing their own currency, it is
probably illegal.  The right to regulate currency lies with the federal
government.  What they might be doing is using a bartering system, in
which you do a certain amount of labor for someone in the group, and
then can receive equal value in services as defined by the organization.
 Since you don't actually exchange currency, this is legal.  But if they
are printing their own money, it is only good if an organization wishes
to accept it.  It cannot be legal tender.

					Tom the non hacker
					Kemp in 96!
					"If patriotism is the last refuge
					of scoundrels,  Then environmentalism
					is the current refuge of totalitarians."
					Bob Jackson
From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Government meddling...
Date: 13 Aug 92 15:08:34 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <1992Aug11.163956.22475@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:

>>
>>     The Libertarians have never claimed that greed, corruption or deceipt
>> will magically cease to exist. These are human flaws that result from
>> culture and human nature. Having government pass laws to protect people
>> has never solved anything either. Have prostitution laws ended solicitation?
>> Have anti-drug laws ended marijuana use? Have anti-fraud laws ended fraud?

>They HAVE greatly decreased those things.  And more importantly, government
>regulation has greatly decreased crime, murder, rape, child molestation,
>and torture.  They have not eliminated it- merely reduced it.  That was the
>point of government in the first place.

Please prove this assertion.  Considering the massive amount of crime that
we have, and the massive amount of government that we have.  Also please
demonstrate that if said government powers have succeeded in bringing
about the result that you desire, that said government powers are the
only way, or even the best way to acheive said aims.

Most libertarians do not claim that theirs is the only way, merely that
it is superior to the methods now being employed.

>> The consumer must always be aware and cautious that is a fact of life. The
>> problem is the more power the government is given to 'protect' me the more
>> power government has over all aspects of my life. I was never given a choice
>> as to whether I approve of drug use, or prostitution. Yet my taxes pay to
>> 'protect' me from these things.

>You DO have a "choice"- choose your government.  This can be as strong as
>moving to the place which has the government you like (including none, in
>the outlands) or by voting to change the current government.

That's what we are trying to do.  Why do you think we have a party that
runs candidates.  Why do you think we bother posting replies to people
such as yourself.  We are trying to convince others to join us in freedom.

>>   Government forces are strictly reactionary. If someone breaks into my home
>> and murders my wife - the police can only react after my wife is dead!

>Say what?  Government is actively involved in prevention- from registering
>guns to seeking out killers who have killed before.

Not doing a very good job of it are they?

>> Now
>> what help is that? It is my responsibilty to protect myself and family
>> before the fact, perhaps preventing a murder. The government law against
>> murder does not protect me! Some one is jailed but my wife would still be
>> dead! 

>I agree that one has personal responsibility, but eliminating government will
>only cause problems.

Please demonstrate where the person you are responding to has advocated
eliminating government.  He specifically said that he wanted less government
not no government.  Will you *PLEASE* stop using this particular straw man.

-- 
--Mark

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: DEBT vs. DEFICIT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 00:05:08 GMT

In article <whitlock.76.0@vaxb.gbus.virginia.edu> whitlock@vaxb.gbus.virginia.edu (Reid E. Whitlock) writes:
>Can someone explain to me the difference between the U.S. "national debt" 
>and the "budget deficit". If I use the analogy of a checkbook, I understand 
>the deficit to be the difference between making a deposit of my salary check 
>into my checking account, then writing checks for my daily expenses. The 
>parallel is the revenue put in the treasury from tax, tariff and other 
>collections, that is later spent for entitlements, social programs, disaster 
>relief, the overhead of running the government, defense procurement, etc... 
>O.K. at the end of the year, more goes out than has come in. That's the 
>deficit, right ? Then is the debt simply the accumulated deficit? If there 
>were ever a budget surplus, would it automatically be used to pay down the 
>debt? 

Your understanding is pretty good...  The debt IS the accumulated
deficit.  A deficit results in the debt increasing, and (presumably -
we've never seen it happen in North America :-)) a surplus would be
used to pay down the debt.

This being said, you use the word "automatically," which is certainly
not the appropriate word.

We COULD also say that the government NEVER has either a deficit OR a
surplus, with respect to cash.  (This is an obfusticatory statement,
typical of governments, and is useful for the sake of argument here.)

Strictly speaking, a cash deficit would result in the reduction of
cash reserves, and a surplus would result in an increase in cash
reserves.  As I'm sure you're well aware, there is no significant
amount of "cash reserves."  All there is is a set of debts.  Thus,
there is neither a cash deficit nor a cash surplus.

Some department (in Canada, it's the Department of Finance, with some
responsibilities held by the Department of Supply and Services - I'm
not certain of the US equivalent) is charged with dealing with the
government's cash.  Any time that extra cash is required (because of a
deficit of revenues over expenditures, or when they have to pay off
some old bonds), they do some sort of bond issue.  This process is
hardly "automatic" - there are probably dozens/hundreds/thousands of
people employed in making this happen.

At the end of the year, the amount of cash that went out is really
quite close to the amount of money that came in, because of the
issuance/repayment of debt.

If there were a cash "surplus," then one of two things are likely to
happen (and guess which is more likely?):

(a) Various branches of government would find "worthwhile" programs on
which to spend this windfall.

(b) Some of the debt that comes due would not be reissued.  When $75
billion in T-Bills came due, they might pay out the $75B, and only
issue $20B in new T-Bills.

Option (b) has seldom been seen...

-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program
Newsgroups: sci.econ