Ted I say - "I didn't say anything about the unemployment rate in the US at this time except that it was normally lower then the unemployment rate in Europe." and you reply with "it was the German unemployment rate that was the lower of the two."
"Can you understand why that doesn't really respond to what I said or do I have to explain it? "
Tim, you said that that the US rate is "normally lower" than Germany's.
Try normally lower then Europe's. I do admit I mentioned Germany before but Germany has traditionally had lower unemployment then most of Europe. The US is closer to the size of the EC then it is to the size and population of Germany. If you take an area of the US that had the same size or the same population of Germany and had among the lowest employment rates in the US I'm sure you could find more then one that had an unmployment rate consistantly lower then Germany's.
than you need to know that Germany was the one
with the better rate for a long time.......and that's in spite of the socialist leanings of its economic model.
Exactly. In spite of not because of. However when you consider all of the EC then the general trend asserts itself.
" For European unemployment rates look at kc.frb.org chart one particuarly post 1983. "
This is no where near an accurate viewing of Germany's economy.
It wasn't an attempt to be an accurate viewing of Germany's economy nor was it presented as one. I said "For European unemployment rates..."
Let me see here........Clinton is president, he proposes welfare reform and gets it passed but giving him credit makes no sense. Even if Clinton plagiarized the Rep. welfare reforms word for word, why should he not get credit. One can have a great idea and if you do nada with it, all it is is a great idea. Coming up with the idea is about 1/4 of the work......getting it implemented and making it work is the hard part.
He gets some credit for signing it, but it was a Republican initative from the begining and never would have been possible if it wasn't for the Republican congress. If Clinton did not push for it, it still would have happened with a Republican congress unless he vetoed it. Clinton didn't even start pushing it until the Republicans won and it was almost inevitible (atleast without Clinton's strong opposition to it). He saw the way the wind was blowing and go ahead of it, but since he did sign the bill and not fight it I suppose I can give him a little credit, I just think the Republicans in congress deserve more.
Donna Shalala talked about welfare reform when I took a class from her and I believe that was before the Reps. put together their reform package.
Republicans had been pushing welfare reform since Reagan's first campaign. Actually before that but that was its first big public push. Was this class before 1980? Conservative thinkers had been pushing for the idea since before I was born but since it didn't become a big theme of the Republicans until Reagan I guess 1980 is a fair date. Also Shalala was one of very few democrats who had been onboard with the idea. It had recieved strong support from the Republicans since atleast the early 80s, really before that.
Reagan and Bush Sr. were president sequentially from
1980 to 1992........that's 12 years. How many years did the Reps. need?
1 year, if they had Republicans controling both houses. But in all 12 years they did not have that. Clinton had two years with his party in charge of both houses and got nowhere with welfare reform. In fact if I remember correctly (and I admit I am less then 100% certain about this) he didn't even push the idea. Then the Republicans come out strongly for the idea (more a reiteration then a new policy for them) and suprisingly win both houses for the first time since 1952 and Clinton then starts pushing the idea. I would have given Clinton more credit for it if he had made it a major theme of his administration when the Democrats still controled congress. It probably would not have passed but at least it would have been evidence that his stance on the issue was more then political oportunism.
They were not socialist nor communist countries........they were dictatorships in which the wealth and production were controlled by the dictators on top, and not the people as Marx intended. To my knowledge we have not seen a communist economic model in play with the exception of the kibbutzim.
They where largely socialist in fact and called themselves either socialist or communist. The fact that they where dictatorships is irrevlevant to this. Socialism does not require democracy. Socialism is when the government controls the economy or at least the major factors of production. Capitalism and socialism are opposites but neither is either equal to or opposite of either democracy or dictatorship. You could have a socialist democracy, or a socialist dictatorship and you could also have either type of government with a capitalist economic system.
Marx intent was take out the greed and depravation that common with most existing economic models.
Whatever Marx's intent was it ignored both human nature in regard to motivations and the fact that no individual or group has the ability to effictivly plan an economy. An economy is too complex. If you have a free market system where prices are charged for things and those prices can adjust freely then producers get feedback on what is in demand and consumers get feedback on what is available by the adjustment of prices. What mechanism would carry this information if you don't have a free market and price information. Even if we somehow could evolve to the point where we don't need the incentive of profit (a silly and naive idea in my opinion) we still would not have the ability to make a modern economy function offically without the information carried by prices in a free market.
How about a deal, if I pick out a book by Hayek or someone similer (maybe two Hayek's books where not big for the most part) I'll read some Marx or a book but some socialist leaning economist that you pick. I might learn something and I think you would have a better understanding of the problems with socialism.
Where you get your opinions is important......if its not based on fact, then there's no point in arguing IMO.
To the extent that facts can be said to point to any economic conclustion then point to the idea that free markets are the greatest creators of human wealth and well being in human history. However it can be argued that some ideas have not been implimented and of course there is no controled expiriments to conclusivly prove there is nothing better.
In any case economics (and still less economic philosophy or what used to be called "political economy" is not a simple collection of facts. Facts are like 1+1 =2, but you need theory and ideas to show that 1+1 is the question that needs to be asked.
Where do you get your economic ideas from? I don't think it's relevant to the issue at hand but it has become a matter of curiosity. (and if you say "from the facts", I'll give you a little virtual smack <g>)
Tim |
