Unbalanced Trends
This is the enticement to one financial rescue plan I’ve heard floated around. Instead of government bailing out corporations (which, for the record, I’m against), give everyone 55 years of age or older a million bucks for their retirement. This increases consumer spending objective, reduces dependence on social security and meets a few other objectives. [...]
Proprietors are the front line entrepreneurs. In a land professed to be all about liberty an economic system should favor the proprietors that are mainly responsible for the diversification of production, as opposed to business corporations seeking to merge and consolidate. A recent graph of economic trends since 1948 provided on The Middle Class Forum [...]
Last October 19, 2008 the Hartford Courant did an article on voter attitudes leading up to the election, based on interviews done in people’s homes, including mine. They also made a video of this, and it only recently occurred to me to provide a link. Here it is. That first handsome guy in the feature [...]
Continue reading about Talking Politics around the Kitchen Table
I hope your first reaction to that title is one of dismay. Am I turning into one of those think tanks or news talk hosts I criticize by passing judgments after only two months of data? Am I trying to brainwash you into my way of thinking with some hyperbole not backed by empirical evidence? [...]
Time to post some data again. The following graph, based on Table 1.1.10 in the NIPA database, shows how our exports and imports have trended since 1945, as a percentage of our overall Gross Domestic Productivity (GDP). This data has multiple implications. The most obvious thing to note is that we have trended towards importing [...]
Continue reading about Our Trade Balance in a Global Economy
This is the seventh entry in a series on the liberty of production. Previous entries established that over the course of history and prehistory culture has gone from emphasizing the liberty of production, the freedom of devoting our labors however we choose, to the liberty of consumption, the freedom of buying whatever we want. The [...]
I am interrupting the series on the liberty of production to provide some more economic trends data, which I will continue to do on a regular basis. This continues the series of relative income/productivity trends since post-World War II. Recall from recent trend data provided on The Middle Class Forum that the production/income of capital [...]
The previous entry (posted right before I went on vacation in the Adirondacks) showed that government income started to grow faster than overall domestic income in the late sixties. “Free market libertarians,” who actually have little interest in either genuine free markets or the liberty of independence, would use this as an opportunity to rail [...]
If you are persuaded by the argument that it’s OK for capital producing industries (financial institutions, insurance and real estate as categorized in NIPA) to grow faster than overall domestic income, then perhaps the following graph on the relative growth rate of government income will give you pause. The trend for government income reflects others [...]
Perhaps I should start off with the disclaimer that I am a long time, rabid, UConn basketball fan, both men’s and women’s. For those who do not know, Jim Calhoun is the UConn men’s basketball coach. He has been successful beyond what would once have been a UConn fan’s dream, and partially due to his [...]