HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Date: Wed,  9 Sep 1992 10:46:31 -0400 
From: Ashish Arora <ashish+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Time series for gold and silver prices

A colleague of mine is interested in obtaining long term time series on
gold and silver (and other such commodities).  Any clues ?

cheers

Ashish
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Free movement of labour/labor
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 22:50:06 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.182647.28917@Princeton.EDU> jmo@stokes.princeton.edu (Mike Orszag) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.181135.11977@vms.eurokom.ie>, ncostello@vms.eurokom.ie writes:
>|> Has anybody come across any free-market economist who opposes free
>|> movement of labour internationally (e.g. from very poor to very rich
>|> countries)? I'd be interested to know if any such arguments exist,
>|> since it seems as logically simple as 2+2=4 to show that support for
>|> abolishing any controls on "economic migrants" follows from a belief
>|> in free markets. 
>
>Are you sure? If there were no distortions in the world, possibly,
>but I don't understand how one can make any such assertion when
>there are other distortions even if one believes strongly in
>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
>with the viewpoint of a free market economist to support controls
>on economic migrants.

In addition, it's important to properly define the term "free movement
of labour."  There are many ways in which such movement cannot (pretty
"definitionally") become "free" in every sense of the term.

As a trivial example, it costs money to transport people from one
country to another.  It could be as cheap as giving someone bus fare
to travel 15 miles, or it could involve long distances and higher
costs.

Additionally, it can be expensive to "assimilate" new people into a
country.  Whether it's the cost of societal infrastructures that need
to be expanded (schools/hospitals/police forces), or the increase in
roads and traffic, or the housing, NONE of these things come "free."
Various people advocate differing methods of payment (from the "pay
your own way" libertarian end, to the "public good" socialistic end of
the spectrum), but nobody would suggest that these sorts of things are
free.

Even if there's "political freedom" (i.e. - no regulatory stumbling
blocks) for people to move around, "economic freedom" is definitely
another story.  "Economic freedom" would only be possible in some sort
of communistic utopia, which:
  a) Isn't likely to happen
  b) Probably couldn't exist anyways
  c) Probably wouldn't be much of a utopia :-)


-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program
Newsgroups: sci.econ
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: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 16:09:14 GMT

In article <DAVIDM.92Sep13143538@consilium.com> davidm@consilium.com (David S. Masterson) writes:
>>>>>> On 11 Sep 92 19:57:31 GMT, pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul
>>>>>> Collacchi) said:

>> I'm suggesting that we might be experiencing a labor rate vacancy
>> decontrol going on right now.  Most employers don't give salary
>> reductions.  Therefore, as long as you "own" your job, labor rates
>> eventually increase.  Maybe not so any more.

>It seems obvious to me that, as the U.S. became more prosperous with more and
>more people becoming wealthy (more billionares here than anywhere else...),
>workers wanted larger and larger shares of the pie (as shown in their take
>home pay).  As workers got the chance to share in the wealth, they could also
>demand more in their lives.  Higher demand meant higher prices.  Higher prices
>meant more wealth to business owners.  Wealthy business owners meant more
>demand for a larger share of the pie by the workers.  This cycle has seemed to
>go round and round in the U.S. ever since it was founded.

>Now, however, something seems to have changed.  The world is opening up and
>more resources (as in workers) are becoming available to the business owners.
>The business owners realize they no longer have to capitulate to the workers
>here on wage increases -- they can go where its cheaper.  This would seem to
>lead to a depression in worker salaries.  The question I have is how long will
>it be before there is the accompanying depression in the price of goods and
>services (decreased disposable income -> decreased demand -> increased supply
>-> decrease in prices)?  Wouldn't that decrease in prices help us maintain our
>standard of living while the rest of the world catches up to us in prosperity
>(ie. our properity comes down as theirs comes up and balances out)?

There are a number of competing effects here.  As higher paid factory jobs
are exported to low income countries, there are fewer well paid factory workers
who can afford the products of those companies.  The lower paid workers who
have jobs will use public transportation or much less expensive automobiles.

The still well-paid middle class (professionals and management) will buy what
become less expensive foreign made automobiles (BMW's, etc.).

During the 70's when GM was first experiencing loss of product to foreign
producers they encouraged the federal government to increase tariff or
import controls.  They raised their prices and improved their profits, but
their share of market went down (by the early 80's, Japan overtook the U.S.
in auto production.

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.

Charlie
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Tobacco subsidies (Was:
Date: 14 Sep 92 19:19:58 GMT
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Cable TV Consumer Protection Act of 1992
Summary: 
Expires: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.
Keywords: 

In article <1992Sep12.210559.18395@tfs.com| eric@tfs.com (Eric Smith) writes:
|In article <71IG03C481So00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jsp@pls.amdahl.com writes:
|>Oh, and keep in mind that it was the government that created that
|>monopoly in the first place, so they kind of have a duty to oversee
|>what they created.
|
|So we pay them taxes to maintain the monopoly, and then we pay them more
|taxes to oversee it and prevent it from acting like a monopoly?
|Sounds sort of like the combination of tobacco subsidies and spending money
|to try to get people to stop smoking.
|
Actually tobacco is not subsidized. There are price support guarantees
to prevent tobacco from falling below a mandated level. That minimum
price level has never been reached. No government money went to the
growers.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an apologist for the tobacco lobby. Yesterday
I celebrated 16 smoke free years.

-- 
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom)  Tumbra, Zorkovick; Sparkula zoom krackadomando.
From: jke2@Ra.MsState.Edu (Joselito K. Estrada)
Subject: Re: Tobacco subsidies (Was:
Organization: Mississippi State University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:47:50 GMT

I agree. In reality, farmers are not the ones to ultimately gain from the
production and sale of tobacco to the companies. The ones who gain, given 
the increasing value of tobacco allotments (or certificates allowing certain farmers to plant tobacco on lands which have those allotments) are the original 
owners of those certificates/allotments who do not use it.

--
Jojo Estrada
Department of Agricultural Economics
Mississippi State University
jke2@Ra.MsState.edu
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Subject: Re: Mass Transit vs. Private Cars Re: Question about
Reply-To: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Organization: Idaho National Engineering Lab
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 16:57:01 GMT

In article <7995@public.BTR.COM>, timlee@public.btr.com writes:
|> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
|> |bohnert@leland.Stanford.EDU (matthew bohnert) writes:
|> |>  ...
|> |> I plan to vote libertarian in the upcoming election (due to the clear 
|> |> lack of any acceptable alternative), but I find myself wrestling with
|> |> some of what I perceive, perhaps erroneously, to be `good things' for
|> |> society that the Libertarians appear to be against.
|> |> 
|> |> The first that is obvious to me is government subsidized mass transit.
|> |>  ...			         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>   ...
|> But isn't it also true that mass transit's main competitor, private
|> cars, is also heavily subsidized (roads, traffic cops, paramedics to
|> clean up after accidents, externalities like pollution)?  Fair
|> competition would require that the subsidies for both mass transit
|> and private cars be removed.

Mass transit's main competitor is private cars because that's just about the
only kind of competition that's ALLOWED to exist.  In most cities it's illegal
to run jitney services.  It's either your car or subsidized transit,  by _diktat_.
I don't think anybody really knows what transit would look like in a free market;
there just isn't one.  This of course,  is a clear instance of "market failure."

Oh yeah,  I forgot about barriers to entry.  What does a taxi medallion cost
in your area?




========== long legal disclaimer follows, press n to skip ===========

Neither the United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory or any of their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever,
implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility regarding any
information, disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe
privately owned rights.  No specific reference constitutes or implies
endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States
Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.  The views and
opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the
United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory,
and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
From: ashish+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ashish Arora)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Property rights...`
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:03:37 GMT
Organization: Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.sci.econ: 11-Sep-92 Property rights...` by Mr.
Jeff Potter @silver. 
>   If one asserts that every single individual has the right to his
> or her own property then taxation, drug and prostitution 
> criminalization (one's body and drugs are property), conscription,
> anti-gun legislation, censorship; these can all be relegated as
> violating the property assertion and declared as unconstitutional
> and morally reprehensible given the societal right to own property.

[and more of the same deleted]

And so Mr. Potter would countenance slavery as well ?  And what of
children ?  Are they property till 18 and suddenly become free of
servitude ?  The problem is not peculiar to Mr. Potter's argument.  It
will plague all attempts to define social and economic structures and
institutions by starting from abstract principles, with "rights" to this
that and the other.  

cheers
From: ncostello@vms.eurokom.ie
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: partial regulation
Date: 10 Sep 92 16:31:48 CET
Organization: EuroKom Conferencing Service

In article <1992Sep9.204752.3366@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, smcguire@nyx.cs.du.edu (Scott McGuire) writes:
> I have come to believe that at times some regulation might be
> worse than a lot of regulation (while both are worse than no regulation).
> What brought me to this conclusion was thinking about the cable
> industry.
> 
> Cable tv suffers from the government being half in and half out of
> control.  Operators have been granted a monopoly but are not strictly
> controlled.  This has led to high prices and a clamor for strict
> regulation.  As much as I dislike government interference, more
> regulation would actually help.  Of course, no regulation and
> competition would help more.  Back home in Whitehall, PA there are four
> (5?) cable operators competing and reasonable prices.
> 
> Recently I have been troubled by similar thoughts concerning NAFTA.  I
> think that a truly free market would include both free movement of goods
> and of people - free immigration.  In this hypothetical free market,
> labor prices would move to somewhere between the current Mexican level
> and the level of the Northern two countries.  This would occur because
> Mexicans would no longer accept the very low wages they do now since
> they could move north to find better wages.  Meanwhile, northern wages
> would fall because cheaper labor would be available in Mexico and from
> Mexican immigrants.  The market would find some new wage level. This
> sounds good.
> 
> Now, remove the freedom of immigration.  Mexicans can not move north for
> higher wages and Mexico is still a poor country so they would accept lower
> wages than under the truly free market.  This would cause more jobs from
> the north to move to Mexico than in the truly free market since the
> labor is cheaper.  It seems, at least in the short run, both Mexican
> workers and northern workers are hurt by this.  Note: they are not hurt
> by free trade, they are hurt by government immigration policy.
> 
> On the bright side, eventually enough jobs and money will move to Mexico
> for mexican labor prices to rise to a level that will make the northern
> countries attractive.
> 
> Thoughts?  Right, wrong, halfway?
> 
> Scott McGuire

Doesn't it depend whether the reason for lower Mexican wages is immigration
controls or lower labour productivity for other reasons (education and 
training, etc.) which would subsist even in the absence of immigration
controls. Between the UK and Ireland, for instance, there have been
no immigration controls for over half-a-century, yet a large wage
differential subsists between the two.

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: 9 Sep 92 23:17:52 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Sep9.182736.22458@newsgate.sps.mot.com> titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas) writes:
>In article <53115@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>|> You claim instead that denial of service is not an economic transaction.
>|> This I dispute.
>
>Here we see a classic example of intellectual dishonesty.  Victor has just
>admitted that he is not using the same English language everyone else is using.

Really? I've usually only encountered language difficulty with stalinists
and propertarians.

>
>My question yesterday is answered.  Victor is not worth reading - he goes into the kill
>file.

Abashed, I am.

>
>-- 
>Eric Titmas      Motorola ASIC       titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com               
>
>It is impossible to take in more money than Congress can spend.  - Thomas Sowell


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Xref: sparky sci.econ:7494 sci.edu:993 sci.electronics:15667 sci.energy:4309 sci.engr.biomed:525 sci.engr.chem:479
From: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Subject: Re: Want _Your_ Blood to Boil
Reply-To: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Organization: Idaho National Engineering Lab
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 16:44:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.061049.29081@oracle.us.oracle.com>,
 wkaufman@us.oracle.com (William Kaufman) writes:

|>  ...  Who decides the fair payment for the road repair?

By what legerdemain does one deduce that gov't allocations of payment are
"fair"?  I suggest that arranging things so that they are Pareto-optimal
is pretty difficult (I think P-o is a decent characterization of "fair";
you,  of course,  are free to think otherwise).  
|>  ...
|>     But there exist externalities--like roads, like police and fire
|> protection, like toxic waste regulation--which have no economic
|> advantage, or for which the advantage is poorly evaluated by the market,
|> which should neverless be done.
|>  ...

Roads,  police and fire are not "externalities",  they are public goods
provided by gov't largely in response the the "free rider" problem.  Toxic
waste regulation is provided by government largely in response to externalities
imposed by the wasters on the public in the absence of such regulation.
========== long legal disclaimer follows, press n to skip ===========

Neither the United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory or any of their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever,
implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility regarding any
information, disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe
privately owned rights.  No specific reference constitutes or implies
endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States
Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.  The views and
opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the
United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory,
and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Free movement of labour/labor
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:16:50 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

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.

Paul Collacchi

Xref: sparky sci.econ:7408 talk.politics.misc:44299 alt.individualism:5373
From: ded@kps.UUCP (David Edwards /DP)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Milton Friedman...
Date: 9 Sep 92 11:46:28 GMT
Organization: Kuwait Petroleum, Stockholm, Sweden

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. 

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. 

David Edwards
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Why don't they name planes more interesting things than F1 or 747?
If they called the B2 the Batplane would Congress be more likely to fund it?
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu (T. Scott Thompson)
Subject: Re: Economics publications
Reply-To: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Organization: Economics Department, University of Minnesota
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 16:07:06 GMT

mikeg@athena.mit.edu (Jughead) writes:

>I'm looking for publications that discuss in some detail current economic 
>research and topics, something above the level that US News and World Report and
>The Economist get into.  I know there are jillions of journals and papers out

In my previous post I should also have mentioned that the

Journal of Economic Literature

often publishes survey articles that summarize recent research in
particular fields.  These articles are usually written by leading
scholars and provide extensive bibliographies of the relevant
literature.
--
T. Scott Thompson              email:  thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Department of Economics        phone:  (612) 625-0119
University of Minnesota        fax:    (612) 624-0209
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
From: rja@redwood26.cray.com (Russ Anderson)
Subject: Bush's Campaign Budget Cuts
Originator: rja@redwood26
Organization: The 1991 World Champion Minnesota Twins!
Date: 11 Sep 92 12:46:49 CDT


Last night Bush proposed $132 Billion in unspecified
budget cuts.  In the paper today it said that the 
cuts would not include Social Security.  Bush has already
said that he wants ~$270,000 Billion for Defense and
I assume he will pay interest on the debt.

Doing the math...

Based on FY 1992 budget outlay estimates:
(from Congressional Quarterly Weekly Review, Feb 1)

TOTAL SPENDING                         1,440,977

Defense                      270,000
Health and Human Servies,
  Social Security            280,654
Treasury (interest on debt)  290,613
                             -------
(sub total)                  841,267
TOTAL REMAINING                          599,710
Bush's proposed cuts                     132,000 (22%)


Bush will have to cut a total of 22% of all remaining federal
spending to reach his campaign promise.

If that is what Bush really intends, I wish he would come
right out an say so.

-- 
Russ Anderson    |  Disclaimer: Any statements are my own and do not reflect
------------------              upon my employer or anyone else.  (c) 1992
EX-Twins' Jack Morris, 10 innings pitched, 0 runs (World Series MVP!)
Xref: sparky sci.econ:7434 talk.politics.misc:44614