Economic links
About monetary policy, financial regulation and arguments over asset bubbles.
The Indian company behind the cheap car is now doing cheap apartments.
Gold coin dispensing machines for German-speaking countries.
Help Africa, stop giving it aid: As Thompson puts it: "The British Treasury is empty. So you are going to be borrowing money in order to give it away. And the countries that get it will be poorer as a result". Yup: but at least we'll have shown everyone how nice we are.
The Arab Middle East can be talked about in the language of genuine issues and needs or the language of excuses and scapegoats. Further.
About a history of prices in Muscovy 1600-1725 which is a rich source for understanding Russian economic history: This profile of poverty, stability, and slow "Europeanization" can be largely explained by the autarchic character of the Muscovite economy and the role the Romanov state played in Russian society. Because the Russian economy was isolated from that of Europe and without a significant entrepreneurial class, it did not profit from Western innovations nor did it produce many productivity-enhancing advances of its own. Hence the endemically low productivity and poverty.
… To be sure, lands were inherited, exchanged, and sold. But the market was so weak that Hellie was unable to determine the price of land.
… there was no capital market in Muscovy (indeed there were no banks), only the state was in a position to amass sufficiently large amounts of capital to engage in modernizing economic enterprises. Like land and labor, the state seemed to see "private" fortunes --held by the church, big boyars, or merchants-- as resources to be used in state activities (especially defense). These fortunes were taxed at the pleasure of the government or sometimes simply confiscated. The court regularly audited the "private" wealth of even its own elite servitors, that is, the boyars in Moscow. It is perhaps worth noting that these men, the very governing class of Muscovy, repeatedly told foreign visitors that everything they owned was in fact the tsar's. There was some truth to this.
Hellie does not dwell on the long term implications of state control of the land, labor and capital, but clearly it was tremendously significant. Without security in property, landed wealth--the primary source and store of value in any agricultural economy--could not be amassed by Russian gentrymen. Without the wealth afforded by land, they could not invest in commercial enterprises (as did their European counterparts) either at home or abroad. Without a proto-capitalist landed class, the state, under European military pressure, was forced to accumulate capital (by taxation) and push the economy forward. This of course only made the state stronger and society weaker.
… In the end, the Muscovite state sacrificed the economic freedom of its subjects for political and military security. Though this strategy perhaps saved Russia as an independent state, it had disastrous consequences for the Imperial and even Soviet economies.
Arguing that investment is stalled because the rules of the game are so uncertain. The Administration’s subversion of the normal bankruptcy procedures in the case of GM and Chrysler is not helping. It is, however, the sort of abuse of power to pay off political friends that one would associate with Chicago-style politics.
It is a regular finding of development economics that government provision has a tendency towards falling productivity: US schooling is a particularly egregious example: Total k-12 expenditures in this country were about $630 billion two years ago (see Table 25, Digest of Ed Statistics 2008). The efficiency of our education system is less than half what it was in 1971 (i.e., we spend more than twice as much to get the same results - see Table 181, same source).
So if we’d managed to ensure that education productivity just stagnated, we’d be saving over $300 billion EVERY YEAR. If we’d actually seen productivity improvements in education such as we’ve seen in other fields, we’d be saving at least that much money and enjoying higher student achievement at the same time.
Why pilots have a mandatory legal retirement age.
Mapping job losses (and gains) across the US.
Summarising the Obama years in two sentences.
About the entitlements in the US federal budget. Signs of significant crowding out effects from the US federal budget deficit. About the limitations of fiscal policy: "Most fiscal policy doesn't do anything except switch spending from one period to another," the RBA director said.
"When you change fiscal policy, all you do is stimulate the economy today out of future possible growth." Given the US Congress apparently cannot handle $US17bn in cuts from a $US3.4trillion budget, the likelihood of hugely increased future tax bills looks strong.
Tax revolt in California. California’s spending problem. And scare campaigns: Calfornia lawmakers, and the unions who put them into office, will do everything in their power to cut services first, employees last. That is indeed a crucial reason why we got here in the first place. Any analysis that doesn't explore how a higher-than-inflation-plus-immigration budget has failed to deliver on any increase in services, is not an analysis worth taking more seriously than common propaganda.
The Indian company behind the cheap car is now doing cheap apartments.
Gold coin dispensing machines for German-speaking countries.
Help Africa, stop giving it aid: As Thompson puts it: "The British Treasury is empty. So you are going to be borrowing money in order to give it away. And the countries that get it will be poorer as a result". Yup: but at least we'll have shown everyone how nice we are.
The Arab Middle East can be talked about in the language of genuine issues and needs or the language of excuses and scapegoats. Further.
About a history of prices in Muscovy 1600-1725 which is a rich source for understanding Russian economic history: This profile of poverty, stability, and slow "Europeanization" can be largely explained by the autarchic character of the Muscovite economy and the role the Romanov state played in Russian society. Because the Russian economy was isolated from that of Europe and without a significant entrepreneurial class, it did not profit from Western innovations nor did it produce many productivity-enhancing advances of its own. Hence the endemically low productivity and poverty.
… To be sure, lands were inherited, exchanged, and sold. But the market was so weak that Hellie was unable to determine the price of land.
… there was no capital market in Muscovy (indeed there were no banks), only the state was in a position to amass sufficiently large amounts of capital to engage in modernizing economic enterprises. Like land and labor, the state seemed to see "private" fortunes --held by the church, big boyars, or merchants-- as resources to be used in state activities (especially defense). These fortunes were taxed at the pleasure of the government or sometimes simply confiscated. The court regularly audited the "private" wealth of even its own elite servitors, that is, the boyars in Moscow. It is perhaps worth noting that these men, the very governing class of Muscovy, repeatedly told foreign visitors that everything they owned was in fact the tsar's. There was some truth to this.
Hellie does not dwell on the long term implications of state control of the land, labor and capital, but clearly it was tremendously significant. Without security in property, landed wealth--the primary source and store of value in any agricultural economy--could not be amassed by Russian gentrymen. Without the wealth afforded by land, they could not invest in commercial enterprises (as did their European counterparts) either at home or abroad. Without a proto-capitalist landed class, the state, under European military pressure, was forced to accumulate capital (by taxation) and push the economy forward. This of course only made the state stronger and society weaker.
… In the end, the Muscovite state sacrificed the economic freedom of its subjects for political and military security. Though this strategy perhaps saved Russia as an independent state, it had disastrous consequences for the Imperial and even Soviet economies.
Arguing that investment is stalled because the rules of the game are so uncertain. The Administration’s subversion of the normal bankruptcy procedures in the case of GM and Chrysler is not helping. It is, however, the sort of abuse of power to pay off political friends that one would associate with Chicago-style politics.
It is a regular finding of development economics that government provision has a tendency towards falling productivity: US schooling is a particularly egregious example: Total k-12 expenditures in this country were about $630 billion two years ago (see Table 25, Digest of Ed Statistics 2008). The efficiency of our education system is less than half what it was in 1971 (i.e., we spend more than twice as much to get the same results - see Table 181, same source).
So if we’d managed to ensure that education productivity just stagnated, we’d be saving over $300 billion EVERY YEAR. If we’d actually seen productivity improvements in education such as we’ve seen in other fields, we’d be saving at least that much money and enjoying higher student achievement at the same time.
Why pilots have a mandatory legal retirement age.
Mapping job losses (and gains) across the US.
Summarising the Obama years in two sentences.
About the entitlements in the US federal budget. Signs of significant crowding out effects from the US federal budget deficit. About the limitations of fiscal policy: "Most fiscal policy doesn't do anything except switch spending from one period to another," the RBA director said.
"When you change fiscal policy, all you do is stimulate the economy today out of future possible growth." Given the US Congress apparently cannot handle $US17bn in cuts from a $US3.4trillion budget, the likelihood of hugely increased future tax bills looks strong.
Tax revolt in California. California’s spending problem. And scare campaigns: Calfornia lawmakers, and the unions who put them into office, will do everything in their power to cut services first, employees last. That is indeed a crucial reason why we got here in the first place. Any analysis that doesn't explore how a higher-than-inflation-plus-immigration budget has failed to deliver on any increase in services, is not an analysis worth taking more seriously than common propaganda.