[ExI] The Dogs of Immortality

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Thu Jul 17 20:27:54 UTC 2008


Stathis writes

> 2008/7/16 Lee Corbin wrote:
>  
>> If you "adjust government spending... to stimulate aggregate demand",

and I used that silly phrase *only* because it was part of
the article I was critiquing

>> then all you are doing is distorting market signals and prices, and cause
>> people to rush out and buy things that they otherwise wouldn't.
> 
> The market does what it does in any case: there is no good market and
> bad market any more than there is good evolution and bad evolution. If
> Keynesian or socialist policies are economically maladaptive then
> those countries which adopt them will fall further and further behind
> compared to their more savvy neighbours

But it takes so long!  So long to ferret out the real cause and
effect.  Consider that all the western European countries have
lagged the U.S. in real economic growth for decades. (One
very good book, by German author Olaf Gersemann, is
"Cowboy Capitalism", where he relentlessly exposes the facts
and the causes.) Yet they still have standards of living that are
quite comparable.  But would they if they had the same 
demographic and cultural history problems the U.S. has?
The smug Scandinavians sit there with their homogeneous
middle-class populations completely oblivious to what would
happen to their country if it had a serious underclass. Well,
as I say, it take a long, long time for results to come in.  We
won't be as lucky as we were with Keynesianism to have it
all exposed in just a decade or two.

> who decide to do away with public health, education, fire
> departments and the like.

No one, is, as you know recommending that any society do away
with education and fire departments. All that's been in the air on
lists like this is privatization. As for me, I would only get rid of
public health departments when our society of individuals became
a little more capable than they are at present;  on the other hand,
I'd privatize education tomorrow morning if I could (it works here
in the U.S. where it's been tried, much to the consternation of
teachers' unions), and fire departments are something that one
should never dare to try to decree one way or another for an
*entire* nation---local variables and local knowledge are just
too important to overlook.

> People will then either emigrate to these countries for the job
> and business opportunities,

Yes, a number of very capable Europeans have done just that,
and more would like to, but naturally face huge obstacles in
wanting to be near family and friends and so on.  Our own 
most notable and hugely capable one-time frequent contributor
to this forum has often mentioned that he finds the Swedish
business environment so frustrating that he's often considered
emigrating to the U.S.

Lee




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