True. Maybe we need to post some article/review on free trade, or so. 
Legolas Send a noteboard - 08/09/2010 03:59:28 PM
Legolas Send a noteboard - 08/09/2010 03:59:28 PM
The Dostoevsky discussion, while it highlights my deep distrust of socialism, was also meant to convey what I felt Dostoevsky's views were, and they are certainly not identical to my own.
Fair enough.
I do agree with you on some points of economic policy. However, I disagree with some of the key points that you make. For example, the marginal cost benefit of producing many products in China is disappearing. This is the result of improving wages in China as well as the increasing cost of shipping. If the US government can, by lowering tax rates, coax back businesses (and I firmly believe it can), then I think it makes sense because it will have a ripple effect in our entire economy. More production means more services, more prosperity and more revenue.
If the US government can coax back businesses, that would be good in the middle and long run, yes, hard to disagree with that. Arguably even worth the price in the short run. I guess I'm just not too convinced that that's going to happen. Trying to stop the outsourcing is ambitious enough, reversing it on any meaningful scale seems very difficult to me. Though obviously it depends on which sectors you're thinking of - some things are much less likely to be more profitable abroad than others.
And you know, you're not in a vacuum, other countries will react if you lower your corporate tax rates by enough to really make a big difference. A small country (Ireland comes to mind) can do that sort of thing and get away with it, but when the US does it, others will have to follow, or react in other ways.
In essence, I still agree with the fundamental principles expressed by the Laffer curve, even though I do not think that the proper place to apply it is in personal income tax rates.
Well, obviously - all the Laffer curve really says is that there's an optimal point of taxation somewhere, and that by having taxes either lower or higher than that point, you're not attaining the best possible economic outcomes. Now if it wasn't so devilishly hard to figure out where said optimal point actually is...
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford.
- 07/09/2010 09:15:16 PM
5012 Views
I find it kind of amusing...
- 08/09/2010 01:39:56 PM
1406 Views
The probability approaches 1 that we agree on non-economic topics and disagree on economic topics.
- 08/09/2010 02:14:32 PM
1405 Views
Actually, I don't think we're that far apart on economics.
- 08/09/2010 02:33:00 PM
1499 Views
Yet we always find the points of contention, rather than the convergences.
- 08/09/2010 03:31:51 PM
1468 Views
True. Maybe we need to post some article/review on free trade, or so.
- 08/09/2010 03:59:28 PM
1517 Views
- 08/09/2010 03:59:28 PM
1517 Views
You should write them.
- 08/09/2010 10:28:03 PM
1420 Views
I would expect you to understand it without any serious problems.
- 08/09/2010 10:36:38 PM
1396 Views
It's a book I plan on getting in the near future
- 09/09/2010 02:31:03 AM
1598 Views