miércoles, 4 de febrero de 2009

Perdón Sr. Presidente, pero me toca a mí

1. Free trade with coutries who want to free trade (Latin America!). Selective import certificates for countries praticing mercantilism (China & Japan). Perhaps we could have the entire NAFTA system use import certificates on China.

2. refurbish the tax system. Now I must admit I lean Fairtax/value added tax, but I think we should also include something along the lines of a Georgian land tax and perhaps a capital gains rollover tax, but the fairtax sort of doubles for both of those I *think*.

3. Set a constant money supply growth Federal reserve policy

4. stop corporate welfare and discretionary fiscal policies.

5. ideally move to low levels of taxation/gov spending, but not so much that we don't have a government

6. make all highways tolled so as to stop subsidizing big box retail.

14 comentarios:

don pedro dijo...

that's my short hand list of what we should do to the economy

don pedro dijo...

in case you were wondering

don pedro dijo...

and where is Ancient Greek dude when you need him =P

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

The Ancient Greek Dude hates economics.

Anyway, are you sure that #6 won't hurt small-box retail as well?

Also, what exactly are fairtax (I wasn't a big fan of Huckabee, you can tell) and #4?

Everything else I pretty much agree with without question, though the fact that Japan is mercantilist and wealthy seems to be a strike in favor of mercantilism.

By the way, whenever I play Civilization IV, I choose mercantilism as my economy civic, but that's because it gives me free specialists and I always try for a cultural victory, not those other, vulgar victory types.

don pedro dijo...

he hates economics?? Well we are going to have to convert him =)

I shouldn't, considering that small stores and businesses don't usually have to ship stuff all over the place, where as we essentially help fund walmart and co by paying for many of the highways they use to transport they're wholesale.

The Fairtax is a flat consumption tax of 30% on absolutely everything with prebates to the disadvantaged.

Japan has only worked out because we've surprisingly survived their parasitism for over half a century. China on the other hand is not so wealth. This is what mercantalism does. Raises prices in your own country and hurting quality of life while at the same time hurting the country's against which it is directed. After enough time, the parasitized country will collapse and so will the parasite.

You shouldn't pick mercantalism! I don't know what the other options are (I've only played version 3), but go à la free trade if possible.

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

And what does free trade do? All it does is give you one free trade route per city. Not exacly good for generating culture.

Who do you like to play as? Isabella
(She speaks spanish, you know). I like Louis XIV.

don pedro dijo...

um... I don't think in version III you can play as specific people, junst civilizations in general. I should point out that i own absoltuely no computer games and that I haven't played Civilization in years and years. =)

I do remember playing as the Chinese vs. the Japanese though =)

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

I'm not so sure that having no tolls subsidizes big box retail, it just doesn't hinder bb&r. Hence, your recommendation about tolls might not be so helpful as you think. Although Government should not subsidize or help big business, I think it would be beyond their perrogatives to hinder big business.

don pedro dijo...

removing our socialized road system would not be impeeding big business, it'd be desocializing the system. Currently all tax payers contribute to make major highways toll-free, significantly lowering shipping costs for big box retail. Now if the people who used it had to pay for it, it'd work a whole lot better in my opinion. =)

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

I see. But I would rather pay for the roads through taxes (roads are constitutional uses of federal money) than have to stop at a toll station every hundred miles or so. Nebraska (unlike Pennsylvania) has no toll roads, and our state government does almost everything right.

don pedro dijo...

but it's a socialist system. you tax people even who do not use the roads to make it cheaper for those who do

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

So are all things where taxes are concerned that don't benefit everybody evil?

don pedro dijo...

no, but I don't think it should be designed to favor someone either. Subsidized highways artifically cheapen transport. And we know what happens when the government decides to cheapen certain items. Everything goes askew.

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

Ah yes...so they should find out a way not to artificially cheapen our military protection, and our police, and and and...

I think that there are some things where the effect that the cheapening will have on the economy is so small that I would rather have the slight evil economic effects than the inconvenience of toll stations everywhere.