[ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 03/02/2009 22.12, Damien Broderick ha scritto:
> At 08:53 PM 2/3/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote:

>> Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the mean
>> (100%) income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the current
>> 80%. They lost 1/3 of their wealth in the process of enacting their
>> welfare state and it is dubious they will be able to keep their
>> current status.

> I don't know about the quality of life in most of these places, but I do
> wonder if this fall in comparative wealth ranking (measured by what
> metric?

Mean income compared with the mean incomes of the most developed nations.

> are externalities included?)

When leftist/statist people advocate mass / uncontrollable / 
uncontrolled immigration do they compute the externalities imposed on 
others?
When you advocate something do you compute the externalities?


> matters to most citizens if the  welfare system actually works.

Big "IF".
If the welfare state actually work, it usually work well only for a 
short time period.
The Swedes needed to start reforming their welfare state already in the 
'80 because it proved unsustainable.


> For example, would it really be such a
> wonderful thing if Madoff had moved to Sweden or Nigeria, pocketed three
> trillion dollars from global scams, and thereby lifted the nation's mean
> income by many % points even as everyone else was ruined? Just a thought
> experiment.

It would had raised the median income for a year, not forever. And no 
more than a 1 or 2 % (in Nigeria). Madoff pocketed a few hundreds of 
millions, not billion or trillions. It is Obama that is pocketing a 
trillion of $ in the pockets of his friends with a bigger scam and it is 
not asking for the money. He is taking it willy/nilly.

Mirco