HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rja@redwood26.cray.com (Russ Anderson)
Subject: Re: Bush, Reagan and Deficit cutting (was Bush or Clinton)
Originator: rja@redwood26
Organization: The 1991 World Champion Minnesota Twins!
Date: 14 Aug 92 09:07:27 CDT


In article <1992Aug13.121434.3421@desire.wright.edu>, demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
> In article <fulton.713631491@copper>, fulton@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Ben Fulton) writes:
> > In <1992Aug11.141243.3364@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:

> >>> To get a concept of what happened in the early 80's read David Stockman's
> >>	He was in way over his head in the Reagan adminstration, and anything
> >>he writes about it is an attempt to cover up his own part in any budget messes
> > 
> > I can't speak for that, but I thought the proposals that Stockman said he made
> > were intelligent and on target.  Did you disagree with his proposals, or
> > do you think he didn't make them?
> 
> 	I think he knew what he wanted to do, and the general way to go about
> it (tax cuts, spending cuts) but nothing about how to deal with congress in
> order to get it.  Being a congressman from Michigan he should have known Reagan
> couldn't just say "for the good of the nation, everyone cut 10%".

Stockman should have known that (Candidate) Reagan knew as much about balancing
the budget as Perot did.  In other words, once Reagan actually looked at the 
budget and had to identify where to cut, he could not/would not make the
cuts necessary to fulfill his balanced budget promises.

> 	Everyone wanted a kickback for any cuts they helped push through.

Stockman said the unraveling of FY 1982 spending cuts was when Jessie Helms
asked that the tobacco subsidies not be cut.  Jessie never asked for any other
spending and since the tobacco subsidies are a relativly small part of the 
overall budget, Stockman agreed.  After that whenever Stockman suggested any
other cuts, the response was "Jessie got his, why can't I have mine".  Stockman's
major problem was that he could not even get cuts throught the Reagan cabinet.

> 	In addition, I don't think Stockman ever realized the true extent of
> the bureaucracy until after he got to the white house.  You can never
> underestimate the tendency of a bureaucracy to fight against it's own
> elimination.

Stockman knew that the Congressional Dems would be tought, but since the Repubs
controlled the Senate and had a working majority (with conservative Sothern Dems)
in the House, there was not much the Dems could do.  What Stockman did not expect
was that Congressional Repubs and *even Reagan's own cabinet* were not interested
in spending cuts.

> 	It was fine to have all these ideals about supply side economics, but
> congress made it clear that they only way to a tax cut was through their vested
> self-interests.

Not just congress but also Reagan and his cabinet.

-- 
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!)
From: josh@foglet.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 19 Aug 92 01:55:31 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

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

>In article <1992Aug18.133518.3570@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
...
>>	Milton Friedman, economically.

>The favorite economist of Gen. Pinochet and like minded great leaders the
>world over.

I believe that this remark gives us a great insight into the thought
processes of Mr. Yodaiken.  It is certainly the clearest example of a
recursive ad hominem I've ever seen.  We should not believe libertarian
ideas, because Friedman espouses them.  What's wrong with Friedman?
Pinochet likes him.

Keep up the good work, Victor.

-j
From: mossiar@acpub.duke.edu (Dante Mossi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Downside of trading blocks(when you are not in one!)
Date: 14 Aug 92 20:35:00 GMT
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.


I read in an article of the Washington Post that some countries of latin
america that produce bananas are fighting against a ruling of the
European community to repeal a tariff to bananas that do not come from
the EC or its colonies, such as some small islands in the caribbean.
The lossers if this tariff is upheld will be all, in one side the scale
that the continental producers have achieved gives good prices and
quality, then the european consumers will have to pay more (and/or
consume less) for this product. In the other side of the spectrum, are
the mostly american multinational that own these companies, their bottom
line is surely be affected. I guess that free trade is better than any
tariff, but formation of trading blocks should not mean imposing higher
tariffs on non members. 

Dante Mossi.Duke.
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Subject: Re: Libertarian rebuttal..
Reply-To: whg@INEL.GOV (William H. Gray)
Organization: Idaho National Engineering Lab
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 19:41:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.142837.7785@spdc.ti.com>, burris@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Jim Burris) writes:
|> 
|>  
|> ... Socialism, by definition, is a
|> system where the government owns the means of production. After all these years
|> of Democrat-controlled Congress, we still have nothing approaching government
|> control of the means of production. ...

Appropo of this (and not entirely serious),  two points:

    From this week's _Economist_:  more people in the U.S. now work in government
    than in manufacturing (I am one of the gov't types -- nobody else would hire me).

    I figure people (labor of all kinds) are a pretty large part of the means of
    production.  Government at all levels owns about 50% of me (that is, disposes
    of that part of my income) and seems to be going for more all the time.  No,
    we are not socialist,  but the trend seems clear.
========== long legal disclaimer follows, press n to skip ===========

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and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
Xref: sparky sci.econ:6851 alt.individualism:5252
From: n8640664@henson.cc.wwu.edu (Richard Nixon)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 16 Aug 92 20:42:51 GMT
Organization: Western Washington University

tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:

>overcharging
>forcing employees to do extremely dangerous tasks (pick up vats of boiling
>oil), lying to customers, unsanitary food reusage
>misrepresentation of product

>In all of these cases, the manager was trying to help themselves out (and they
>did)  And always, it is subtle.  A Libertarian point of view celebrates this
>trickery- it certainly does not condemn it at least.  If you can get away with
>it - it is OKAY.  

You're going to have to face it: you are addicted to lying, Mr. Tolman.

"...celebrates this trickery"?   Show some libertarian references that
endorse fraud and misrepresentation, if you can.  Show how current gvt.
control endorses "fraud and misrepresentation" any less than libertarian
pricipals do.   If you remember correctly, the libertarian view is that
the only legitimate purpose of government is to control/punish the very
fraud you speak of above, along with the control of violence/property
crimes, etc.

>If you can get away with it - it is OKAY.  

	Perhaps a reference to your own views on lying on the net?

Certianly not a veiw you could attribute to libertarianism re fraud.
It is possible, Mr. Tolman, that the source of your mistatements is
your own imagination, and that rather than a intentional lying problem, 
you merely have an unitentional 'imagination' problem, one of filling 
in the gaps in what you know with fantasy images and scenerios.

If this is the case, then maybe the cure is simply brushing up on
the facts surrounding the topic, in order to avoid those situations 
where your posts and reality clash so jarringly.
From: courvill@hydre.enst.fr (Marc Bernard de Courville)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Future Interest rates & forward rates...
Keywords: rates forward interest
Date: 21 Aug 92 08:14:32 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Telecom-Paris, France

Hi everybody !
I'm posting this for a friend who has no access to email/news...
----------------------------------------
My name is Paul Courbis, I'm student in a private university (Ecole Superieure
de Commerce de Paris). I'm student in "Mastere specialise". I'm currently
working on "forward rates as predictors of future rates".
My main problem is to find a database to test hypothesis...
Does somedy knows one somewhere ?

Thank you very much

(PS: reply to courvill@inf.enst.fr who is kind enough to forward your
messages)

			Regards,

							Paul
From: jlacey@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (james.w.lacey)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Free Trade or Comparative Advantage
Date: 14 Aug 92 15:59:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T

In article <9208140247.AA13878@lenny.kaman.com> rob@KAMAN.COM (Rob Vienneau) writes:
>In this forum, a Stanford economist recently began a discussion by
>stating, in the usual authoritarian and obscurantist manner typical of
>the higher learning, that the theory of comparative advantage shows
>that the employment impact of the new free trade agreement is nothing
>to worry about.  .....
>

In essense the critism of Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage
is that it is a *static* theory and may not apply to a *dynamic*
situation.

....
>Here is a rational reconstruction of Ricardo's example.  Suppose both
>England and Portugal consume only two goods, cloth and wine.  Suppose
>cloth and wine are both produced with only one factor of production,
>labor.  Furthermore, suppose the given technology exhibits constant
>returns to scale such that:
>
>In England, 100 men are needed per square yard of cloth produced
>            120 men are needed per barrel wine produced
>
>In Portugal, 90 men are needed per square yard of cloth produced
>             80 men are needed per barrel of wine produced.
>
>Suppose the level of employment is given in both countries.  Note that
>for any level employment, Portugal can produce more of any basket of
>goods (x square yards of cloth, y barrels of wine).  That is, Portugal
>has an absolute advantage in both goods.  Nevertheless, both countries
>gain, assuming they are interested in maximizing consumption for their
>given levels of employment, if they engage in trade in consumer goods. 
>For a certain range of prices, England should produce only cloth, and
>Portugal should specialize in wine. ....

Using Ricardo's example, here is a dynamic wrinkle...

If we assume that free trade and comparative advantage is operational,
the per-capita income and demand for both goods of both countries increase.
If we may consider wine a food item, Engel's law states that
the proportion a consumer's income going to food decreases with
income.  As England's per-capita income doubled, its consumption
of wine would increase, but less than double.  Manufactured items
like cloth are less likely to follow the Engel pattern, thus
Portugal's demand for cloth should double if per-capital income
doubles.  Real world data seems to show that because of declining demand
for food, and for primary products in general, there exits
declining terms of trade between industrial focused and agriculturally
focused countries (with the decline harming the agricultural).

-- 
     Jim Lacey  --  my own opinions    
     email:  att!cbnewsl!jlacey  or  jlacey@cbnewsl.cb.att.com
     D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous?
From: m1tca00@fed.frb.gov (Thomas C. Allard)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 13 Aug 92 14:15:00 GMT
Reply-To: m1tca00@fed.frb.gov (Thomas C. Allard)
Organization: Federal Reserve Board, Wash, DC

In article <1992Aug11.151010.18532@hellgate.utah.edu>, tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:

bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) wrote:
> >> There has never been any society in history which has even come close
> >> to a "libertarian" system.
> >> Libertarians fantasize that as soon as one becomes a business owner,
> >> one is by definition holy, saintlike, etc.
> 

so I wrote:
> >But if a "Business Owner" can do all these nasty things, what makes you
> >think your local regulator doesn't do them?

to which tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) replied:
> 
> Because there is investigation into them as well.  As long as you have two
> opposed regulation agencies, they will watch each other for problems.
> In our system, one of those regulation agencies is the media- but that is
> not a sufficient protection alone against business.

and I reply:
Now I'm really confused.  "Business Owners" are bad, so they need gov't
to look after them.  But gov't might be bad, so we need the press to
look after them.  Why can't the press regulate businesses?  It seems like
the press has more work than it would in a libertarian society.  And the
obvious question: why isn't the press (they own a business, too) nasty?

What incentive do I have in making sure that those I do business with are reliable?  After all, they're regulated.  The regulators, however, don't get screwed.  And when I do, they don't take the responsibility.  Taxis are regulated, but if a licensed cab driver rips you off, the regulators aren't fined for letting him drive a cab.

The press has the same incentive as everyone else: make money.  If this isn't a good incentive for "Business Owners," why is it ok for the regulators?  GE (you know, the defense contractor that does all that work for the gov't) owns NBC news.

Finally, if gov't (and the press) are here because "Business Owners do bad things", why do "bad things" still happen?  

----
"Oh Life's a Cabaret
 Like Berlin, 1930,
 All I crave is my escape"  --Dead Kennedys, "Saturday Night Holocaust"
rgds-- TA  (uucp: uunet!fed!m1tca00 | internet: m1tca00@fed.frb.gov)
[implied disclaimer]
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Comparative Advantage
Date: 15 Aug 92 11:58:22 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Aug14.214534.6206@gasco.com> fpf@taurus.gasco.com (Frank Ferguson x3584) writes:
>Increased free trade has had the effect of fueling development in 
>less developed (or developing) areas of the world.  Countries (particularly
>on the Pacific Rim) have achieved substantial growth through a shift
>in manufacturing activities away from the developed industrial nations
>to those offering more attractive wage costs.  This movement benefits
>everyone so long as the purchasing nations do not lose the ability
>to continue fueling this development through their consumer demand.

It's a tribute to the power of the official ideology that the development
of the Pacific rim nations is so uniformly attributed to free trade.
In fact Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore all have benefited from
     1) massive public investment in infrastructure, which in the cases
           of Taiwan and Korea has been partially funded by the government
           of the USA --- Taiwan received about $5billion/year in
           *development* aid from the US for decades, and also received
           an excellent transport system care of the Imperial Japanese
           government.
    2) special trading priveliges -- the antithesis of free trade. While
      For reasons of Cold war politics, imports to the US from the pacific
      rim countries were favored over imports from e.g. Mexico and India.
    3) Direct transfers of hard currency via the US military in Korea,
       Taiwan and Japan through US bases, and in Singapore via Navy call.
    4) extensive government/corporate collaboration and the use of 
      protected markets to foster domestic production. The great Korean and
      Japanese combines have been *built* as the result of deliberate
     government policy via subsidies, monopoly production rights, 
    training programs. ... 


>The probable effect of free trade, in the medium to long term, is to
>depress wages and living conditions in the developed nations and to
>(perhaps slowly) improve conditions in the less developed world.  After perhaps
>several hundred years, the process of free trade and investment may well
>significantly improve global living standards and achieve the global
>efficiencies which original theorists said it would.  In the meantime however,
>in our and our childrens lifetimes (at least), the promise of free trade
>is very bleak.

Agreed. It's "pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die" at its finest.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:12:36 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <2056@usna.NAVY.MIL> potter@silver.usna.navy.mil (Mr. Jeff Potter (CADIG  STAFF)) writes:
>
>  steve@thor.isc-br.com (steve Hendricks) writes:
>:
>: In short, most libertarians outgrow it. :-)
>
> Funny, I don't think that Thomas Jefferson ever did....

He was no propertarian. TJ supported  public financed education, public purchase of vast
stretches of land, legislation to reduce disparities in wealth, public support of
manufacturing industries via taxation and tariffs, sharp limitations on "intellectual
property" (patents) ... Jefferson was more concerned with human liberty and the rights
of human beings than with the rights of property ownership. And Jefferson had a very
strong ethic of civil duty and a belief in majority rule. He would have had nothing but
contempt for the  crabbed and mean-spirited money worship that is now called "libertarianism".


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: studier@ninja.life.uiuc.edu (Jim Studier)
Subject: Predatory Pricing Definition
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 22:18:29 GMT






    It seems to me that the definition of predatory pricing should
include the successful raising of prices after the predator drives the 
competitor out of business.  For example suppose that company A lowers
prices so that
company B goes out of business and then doesn't raise them to higher
levels than they were before.  There can be several reasons
for this such as the superior efficiency of A. Unless A can
actually charge a monopoly price (increase profits by making fewer sales
at higher prices) the episode is not an example of *successful* 
predatory pricing. 

     At least I wish that I could tell *what* definition is being used
In the posts that I try to read.

             Jim Studier  (studier@ninja.life.uiuc.edu) 
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: rja@redwood26.cray.com (Russ Anderson)
Subject: Money Supply Growth Rates
Originator: rja@redwood26
Organization: The 1991 World Champion Minnesota Twins!
Date: 18 Aug 92 12:42:09 CDT


      Money Supply Growth Rates

M2 growth (4Q/4Q)  M3 growth (4Q/4Q)
-----------------  -----------------
1988  5.2%         1988  6.4%
1989  4.8%         1989  3.6%
1990  4.0%         1990  1.7%
1991  2.8%         1991  1.2%
 *    1.4%          *   -0.3%

(* 11/91-6/92)

Source: Federal Reserve Board
-- 
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!)
From: ekp@mcnc.org (Edward Pavelchek)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: NAFTA
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:38:53 GMT
Organization: Good place for a disclaimer

In article <1992Aug18.135550.3571@desire.wright.edu> exit writes:
>	Not true.  During the Reagan years, the number of jobs paying less than
>$10/hour decreased 25% while the number of jobs paying more than $10/hour
>increased 67%.  [USA Today, Op-ed piece, Monday, August 17th]

Was this "$10" inflation adjusted?  If the comparison is continued to
this year, how do the numbers stand?

Thanks for including your email address.

-- 
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: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians live in Virtual Reality
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:42:29 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

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

>>>	Milton Friedman, economically.

>>The favorite economist of Gen. Pinochet and like minded great leaders the
>>world over.

I suppose the dramatic improvements in Chile's economy since they adopted
Friedman's theories are completely irrelevant.

The truth is that Chile is in much better shape today than it was 20 years
ago.  The fact that you do not like the man who was in charge while the
improvements were taking place does not invalidate the improvements.

In Pinocet's defence I must say that I was impressed by the fact that when
he was voted out of office, he actually left.  

Not many other dictators can make that claim.

-- 
--Mark
From: fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: NAFTA
Date: 17 Aug 92 22:53:08 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <51907@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <Bt1H9E.H9w@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> sitomlin@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Stephen I. Tomlinson) writes:
>><Bsxz2o.6tw@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>>  . . . no one has made a very 
>>>  convincing case one way or the other.  NPR said yesterday 
>>>  that estimates range from gaining 150,000 jobs to losing 
>>>  400,000 jobs.   It is very clear from reading leading economists'
>>>  predictions about the economy in the Wall Street Journal, 
>>>  over the last several years that economics is far, FAR from
>>>  a reliable science.
>>
>>The prospect of losing 400,000 jobs should not greatly concern people (aside
>>from those directly inconvenienced, of course).  Employment in the 
>>U.S. rose from 99.3 million in 1980 to 117.9 million in 1990.  That's 
>>more than 5000 new jobs per day or more than 150,000 new jobs per month.  
>>And that's with the recession of the early 1980's averaged in.
>
>Right, but what kind of jobs? Everything I've read on this topic suggests
>that the 80's saw a process in which high-wage skilled labor was replaced
>by low-wage unskilled labor: replacing 400K industrial skilled labor
>jobs with 500K burger flipping jobs is a massive net loss to the economy.

  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.

   Doug
-- 
                                                     Doug Fierro
                                      |\             UTS System Software
  O                         __________|_\______      CASE tools development
  \_.______________________| * * * * * * * * */      fierro@uts.amdahl.com
 __\____                   |=================/       (408)746-7102
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Newsgroups: sci.econ