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Stopped reading after this.
Like Mellon, Ryan abhors what he calls "big government" and calls for massive reductions, abolition, and reshaping of government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education.
http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/...ased_economicsHoover administration Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's infamous solution for the Great Depression was liquidation, as in his call to "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system."
Who would have thought, in view of the debacle ultimately engendered by Mellon's advice, that 80-odd years later, the Republican Party would again make liquidation its main election theme? But that's what Mitt Romney and his party have done by choosing Congressman Paul Ryan as their new candidate for vice president.
Like Mellon, Ryan abhors what he calls "big government" and calls for massive reductions, abolition, and reshaping of government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education. This is all in an effort to slay what Ryan and conservative Republicans see as the twin dragons of rising national debt and overly high taxes. In this view, taxes are stifling entrepreneurial spirit and investment while federal deficits and rising national debt are preempting capital, threatening future inflation, and thereby undermining the confidence of investors. In this view, government spending on anything except defense, which Ryan would leave largely untouched, is wasteful and deleterious to the economy and the human soul.
Of course, there is a large element of faith involved in this program. It is that cutting "big government" will automatically result in the revitalization of the U.S. economy and the resurrection of the American Dream. What neither Ryan nor Romney nor the Republican Party has done is to show exactly how this is supposed to happen. When confronted with the question of how to draw the line from trillions of dollars of reduced federal spending to millions of new jobs, they can't do more than speak of renewed "confidence" and reduced "fear" of inflation. They have faith that somehow these sentiments will translate into more production and jobs, but they don't know exactly how that might work.
Ironically, Obama and the Democrats have the same kind of faith -- only in the opposite direction. They warn of the grave risks of inadequate federal stimulus spending and of the danger of further decline in GDP growth and rises in unemployment if supplementary spending is not approved for unemployment compensation and for support of cash-strapped state-government programs. In this case, it is easier to identify the jobs that will be saved or created by the proposed spending. But there is also a faith that saving these jobs will lead to a jump-start to the economy that will also create booming new production and additional new jobs. When asked, the Democrats can no more describe exactly how these jobs will come about or from whence they shall arise than the Republicans can say the same for the slashing of spending and taxes.
The truth is high-tax, big-government countries like Sweden, Germany, and China are doing well economically and so are small-government, low-tax economies like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. The fallacy here is the exclusive focus on macroeconomic elements and policies as the major drivers of growth an employment.
More important are globalization and compe iveness policies.
Countries like Germany, China, Singapore, and South Korea that make being compe ive a high national priority and that develop structural policies for ensuring their presence in key industries rather than taking job creation on faith tend to do well. Those, like the United States and Britain with a more high-faith approach, tend not to do as well.
The great shame of the U.S. presidential election so far is that neither party is focusing on the main game -- real jobs for real people.
Stopped reading after this.
Like Mellon, Ryan abhors what he calls "big government" and calls for massive reductions, abolition, and reshaping of government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education.
I did like how big government was in quotes.
count me unsurprised. do you only read to hear your own thoughts echoed?
Ryan was a big booster of the expansion of big government under Bush, if you go by his voting record.
that's barely germane to the main thrust of the article. you're picking an ideological nit, which I guess is what you mainly do.
Like I said, didn't read it. Shouldn't have even started reading it, based on the le of your thread. My bad. Carry on.
Obama and the Dems come in for the same criticism. Guess you missed that part.
you give him to much credit
I'd like an explanation as to how cutting trillions in spending while reducing taxes will suddenly " make the economy grow "..
Please save the " get the govt out of the way.." bull .. I would like Darrins to tell me speficially how his theory is going to work.
The most important thing in the article to me was the author pointing out that some of the most successful world economies are also big government economies...it is not the size that matters, but the issue of whether or not, or to what extent, there is a common goal toward being compe ive in certain industries.
That is an area where it seems possible that the U.S. insistence on rugged individualism is harming us vis-a-vis other countries.
Remember Nash's game theory? It might be useful to bring that to bear on this issue.
unfamiliar. nuts ?
"most successful world economies are also big government economies."
A huge horse laff was Gecko in Poland complimenting Poland's huge economic growth, while Polish govt dominates that economy. Gecko, dumb as .
Big Government does pretty damn well PRC.
One acting in only his self-interest can often lead to non-optimal outcomes for not only society, but also himself. For instance, the prisoner's dilemma situation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
If you're interested, Yale has an entire videotaped course on game theory available online.
http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-159#sessions
thanks, BB
Compare and contrast the governments and economies of California and Texas.
CA can vote themselves into a tax hole. Chinese can't vote.
you first. cat got your tongue?
like, did you have a point?
then you can explain how a solitary comparison of two states within a country can be applied universally to all nations of the world.
Why does it have to apply to other nations of the world? Do these other nations have our same issues?
contextually, that was the trend of the discussion. you must not have been paying attention.
my bad. I thought you were following along.
btw, what was your point?
California is the mecca for progressive policies and look what it has done to their economy. Contrast that with Texas.
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