Look at this video featuring a brilliant young entrepreneur who is engaging in the only proper way to redistribute wealth: with full consent from all parties. In this case, no doubt, he is helping to move money from the pockets of professional athletes, entertainers, and heirs into his own and those from whom he purchases goods and services.
Free Market Wealth Redistribution Read Post »
Mises.org has recently published an article that I co-wrote with Daniel Coleman where we attempt to answer why unlike every other black market, “info-trafficking” remains peaceful:
Unlike most black markets, the black market for information is characterized by peace and stability. There is a near-perfect harmony between the supply and the demand for movies, music, songs, and other digital content that falls under the control of intellectual-property legislation.
In the market for information, we do not see the kinds of conflicts that are rampant in other black markets. There are no turf wars between gangs for the right to offer the latest pop hit or blockbuster movie; there are no robberies committed by would-be users who need the money to get their fix. The vast majority of copyright violators go about their business without harming anyone.
In fact, those who upload, host, and share illegal content are not in any significant danger at all. What sets the black market in information apart from other black markets? Why is it nonviolent?
IP, Black Markets, Praxeology & Violence Read Post »
According to this Boston Globe article, How facts backfire, people are not persuaded by facts, and this does not bode well for the future of democracy as people’s perceptions (and voting decisions) are unaltered by “evidence”. In one experiment researchers ask people to guess how much the government spends on welfare and how much they should spend. One group is told the “correct” answer of 1% ahead of time, while the other one is not …
There are also some cases where directness works. Kuklinski’s welfare study suggested that people will actually update their beliefs if you hit them “between the eyes” with bluntly presented, objective facts that contradict their preconceived ideas. He asked one group of participants what percentage of its budget they believed the federal government spent on welfare, and what percentage they believed the government should spend. Another group was given the same questions, but the second group was immediately told the correct percentage the government spends on welfare (1 percent). They were then asked, with that in mind, what the government should spend. Regardless of how wrong they had been before receiving the information, the second group indeed adjusted their answer to reflect the correct fact.
Apparently some ideologues are unpersuaded by facts, but others manipulate them to justify their agendas. Looking at US Government Spending, lets find out what government welfare spending is …
If one excludes about $987,400,000,000.00 dollars in social security/retirement, and excludes another $1,046,600,000,000.00 dollars in education, and excludes another $1,090,200,000,000.00 dollars in health care expenses, and includes only federal spending leaving out about another $200,000,000,000.00 dollars in state spending. That leaves about $557,000,000,000.00 dollars in the welfare category, which is about 15% of total federal-only spending, and about 8.3% of total government spending including the states.
However, if one digs down into the sub-categories of the welfare category and excludes another $194,000,000,000.00 dollars in unemployment, and excludes another $77,000,000,000.00 dollars in housing, and excludes another $186,000,000,000.00 dollars in “social exclusion” (which sure looks like welfare, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt). That leaves about $99,000,000,000.00 in the “Family and Children” category. Which would be about 2.6% of federal-only spending, and about 1.5% of total government spending including the states, which in theory could be rounded down to 1%.
So in theory it could indeed be argued that the correct amount that government spends on welfare is 1%, but it could be better argued that facts, statistics, and semantics are being manipulated using a pointless definition of “welfare” to associate it with all entitlement spending in general and confound people who correctly and intuitively know we live in a world where entitlements have run amok.
The article is right about one thing. Some people (including the mainstream media) are not persuaded by facts, and the future does not bode well for democracy (not to be confused with liberty).
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Read Post »
Fortune magazine has an interesting piece summing up some recent trends in the dollar. While there has not been a radical or frantic dumping of the dollar, central banks and private investors continue to distance themselves from the US Dollar. The piece notes that other dollars, namely the Australian and Canadian ones, are gaining in prestige:
A new report from Morgan Stanley analyst Emma Lawson confirms what many had suspected: the dollar is firmly on its way to losing its status as the reserve currency of the world. We already knew that central banks have preferred gold to dollars, and that they’re even selling their gold for cash; now, according to Lawson’s data, it seems that those central banks prefer almost anything to dollars.
The new competition over reserve currency is interesting for more than its economics since it is an important political issue. The nation that can build up its own currency as a reserve currency will expand its ability to inflate and incur debt with less fear of inflation.
The US has benefited from this situation for decades. As the Fed inflates to finance deficit spending and to “stimulate” consumer spending, dollars are eventually absorbed by foreign central banks, put in reserves and out of circulation. The United States has managed to stave off the effects of reckless money printing for decades thanks to the willingness of foreign investors and central banks to sit on dollars as a store of value.
Now the demand for the dollar is fading away slowly. This won’t mean sudden hyperinflation, however, since the economy is still in terrible shape, and even if a boatload of dollars were to return to our shores right now, the lack of lending and spending, as a consequence of deflating portfolios across the land, will keep prices relatively contained, at least in the short- and possibly medium-term.
The good news is that the fall of the dollar will mean that the United States will slowly have to come to the realization that it won’t be able to engage in endless deficit spending and monetization of debt without feeling the consequences of runaway inflation. The empire has been financed by a dollar that was the world’s reserve currency. Those days are coming to an end.
The long, slow flight from the US Dollar Read Post »
Market-oriented reforms such as privatization, deregulation and tariff decreases being the clear and unequivocal factors.
In PPP terms, asigning a quotient of 1 to the U.S.
United States 1.000 1.000 1.000
Australia .841 .770 .837
Canada .905 .818 .843
Britain .688 .705 .765
France .780 .730 .713
Germany .803 .812 .763
Italy .756 .754 .675
Sweden .868 .777 .794
Switzerland 1.146 .987 .915
Hong Kong .547 .845 .948
Japan .732 .815 .736
Singapore .577 .899 1.064
Argentina .395 .300 .309
Chile .210 .251 .311
Source: World Bank.
Purchasing power gains or losses respective to the U.S. of several countries Read Post »
