2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[Crazed Rabbit]

So here are some thoughts on Obama's chronic lack of comprehension about business:

Much could be said about how stupid was President { }'s recent comments about business founders not really having built their businesses by themselves, but rather owing them in large part to things others, especially the government, did for them. You drove on a public road to meet your 457th potential angel investor. Your third grade public school teacher taught you always to say please. And so government gets a lot of the credit for the thing you sweated blood to create. Big surprize. If you build anything, you can absolutely bet people will line up for the credit, like Al Gores for the internet. Failure, you can keep the credit for that.

But here's the question to ask -- how many more successful businesses, inventions, products, services, toys, tools, insights, and just plain fun would there be, if government did not in the first place make it so ridiculously difficult to start a business and keep it going? I don't see our young president taking credit on behalf of the state for all the failures it help cause, all the ideas that never got off the ground because the regulatory hurdles were so high, or all the established companies that never had to face competition because they had managed to get their rents written into law. This is part of the seen and not seen insight of Bastiat. What you see is a successful business when it manages to survive, and then people run up, the same people who taxed and regulated it nearly to death, and say I helped! I helped! What you don't see are all the businesses that perished or never got started because of the heavy hand of the state. And it's a very heavy hand.

Both views have merit.

Bah. You'd think, after so many failed attempts to use Keynesian plans to boost economies, people would stop crowing about government 'investment'.

CR

[Lemur]

Bah. You'd think, after so many failed attempts to use Keynesian plans to boost economies, people would stop crowing about government 'investment'.

As opposed to the clear benefits and never-ending wins of deregulation and trickle-down economics? Please.

Besides which, what do you call a Republican who gets to write a budget? A Keynesian. What do you call a Republican who doesn't hold the keys to the treasury? A deficit hawk.

A part of me wishes that Republicans would sweep both houses and the Presidency, just for the dubious pleasure of watching the entire party do a 180 on deficits and spending.

Besides which, if you'd bother to read Fareed Zakaria's excellent (and rather less grammar-challenged than your linked) article, you'd see he makes the "investment" argument in detail. If you're going to refute, do it from the source.

We need a tax and regulatory structure that creates strong incentives for businesses to flourish. The thing is, we already have one. The World Economic Forum’s 2011-12 Global Competitiveness Report ranks the United States No. 5 — and first among large economies. There has been a little slippage in this ranking the past few years, but it is modest and can be rectified. Overall, however, whether compared with our own past — of, say, 30 years ago — or with other countries, the United States has become more business-friendly. That’s why, just last week, the Economist magazine predicted an American economic renaissance.

America is worse off than it was 30 years ago — in infrastructure, education and research. The country spends much less on infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). By 2009, federal funding for research and development was half the share of GDP that it was in 1960. Even spending on education and training is lower as a percentage of the federal budget than it was during the 1980s.

The result is that we’re falling behind fast. In 2001, the World Economic Forum ranked U.S. infrastructure second in the world. In its latest report we were 24th. The United States spends only 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure, the Congressional Budget Office noted in 2010. Europe spends 5 percent; China, 9 percent. In the 1970s, America led the world in the number of college graduates; as of 2009, we were 14th among the countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Annual growth for research and development spending — private and public — was 5.8 percent between 1996 and 2007; in South Korea it was 9.6 percent; in Singapore, 14.5 percent; in China, 21.9 percent.

In other words, the great shift in the U.S. economy over the past 30 years has not been an increase in taxes and regulations but, rather, a decline in investment in human and physical capital.

[Crazed Rabbit]

As opposed to the clear benefits and never-ending wins of deregulation and trickle-down economics? Please.

Who said I support "trickle-down" economics? You're acting like it's either Keynesian or trickle down economics. The housing bubble was the result of not following Austrian economics. Libor was partially the result of government involvement in the deceit.

Besides which, what do you call a Republican who gets to write a budget? A Keynesian. What do you call a Republican who doesn't hold the keys to the treasury? A deficit hawk.

I haven't considered myself a republican for a while.

We need a tax and regulatory structure that creates strong incentives for businesses to flourish. The thing is, we already have one. The World Economic Forum’s 2011-12 Global Competitiveness Report ranks the United States No. 5 — and first among large economies. There has been a little slippage in this ranking the past few years, but it is modest and can be rectified. Overall, however, whether compared with our own past — of, say, 30 years ago — or with other countries, the United States has become more business-friendly. That’s why, just last week, the Economist magazine predicted an American economic renaissance.

So we've been slipping, and we're now 5th among losers. A general ranking does not refute the fact that net regulations have been continually increasing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...097324446.html
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/cps...0116olson.html
http://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightc...om-smith.html;

I started a business, commercially unsuccessful, sadly, but we created some great technology. I was a libertarian before that, but I was really a libertarian afterwards. It's difficult to even explain how pervasive, expensive, frustrating and sometimes just plain insuperable the regulatory and taxation burden of the state is. It's not what did our venture in, but it helped. It's worse in other countries, where we seem to be headed. My engineers were in Italy. Italian counsel advised me that it was simply impossible, impractical, should not even be attempted to pay them in Italy. Even trying to do so would stir up a nest of officials and my guys would end up with pennies on the Euro. Just set up accounts in Switzerland and pay them that way, which he said was technically legal to do. So that's what we did. It's no wonder innovations by startups in Europe lag so far behind the US. And California? -- don't even think about hiring an employee in California. Read through what's involved in that and you will think it is some kind of joke until you realize it isn't. A whole ecosystem of plaintiffs' law firms exists just to sue employers who run afoul the complicated morrass of employment law requirements. And if you survive to be a public company, they will sue you every time your stock price dips. Some states, such as Texas, are better, but the reason they are better is not what they provide; it's just that they stay more out of the way.

And that's not even including the fact that EPA regulations increase every day, that cities generally increase rent-seeking laws for established companies like taxi services and restaurants vs food trucks.

America is worse off than it was 30 years ago — in infrastructure, education and research. The country spends much less on infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). By 2009, federal funding for research and development was half the share of GDP that it was in 1960. Even spending on education and training is lower as a percentage of the federal budget than it was during the 1980s.

Percentages. How much has such infrastructure spending increased in absolute terms, compared to inflation and population? That'd be useful info.

The result is that we’re falling behind fast. In 2001, the World Economic Forum ranked U.S. infrastructure second in the world. In its latest report we were 24th. The United States spends only 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure, the Congressional Budget Office noted in 2010. Europe spends 5 percent; China, 9 percent. In the 1970s, America led the world in the number of college graduates; as of 2009, we were 14th among the countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Annual growth for research and development spending — private and public — was 5.8 percent between 1996 and 2007; in South Korea it was 9.6 percent; in Singapore, 14.5 percent; in China, 21.9 percent.

I'd say it's not the number but the quality of college degrees. Interesting that here he goes for ranking and not the percentage increase in college graduates compared to the 1970s. We also have a larger GDP than China, and China needs a lot more infrastructure. Again, percentages, how much money per person does the USA spend compared to Europe?

For the second research spending bit -

In other words, the great shift in the U.S. economy over the past 30 years has not been an increase in taxes and regulations but, rather, a decline in investment in human and physical capital.

A slower percentage increase than other places who invested a lot less before is not a decline. And for all he touts Europe, we're doing better than that economic mess, almost as though not taxing and regulating everything to death mattered more.

CR

[Lemur]

The housing bubble was the result of not following Austrian economics. Libor was partially the result of government involvement in the deceit.

Ah yes, the guvmint caused the housing bubble. I believe that's been refuted early and often. The wicked, evil guvmint never forced anybody on Wall Street to create complicated financial instruments for badly-rated bundled mortgages. (And don't get me started on Austrian Economics. Any economic model that cannot explain empirical phenomena such as unemployment has a problem. Moreover, I find the fact that Austrian Economics appear to be unfalsifiable disturbing.)

I haven't considered myself a republican for a while.

And yet, by arguing that guvmint is the root of all evil, you parrot their talking points.

So we've been slipping, and we're now 5th among losers.

An interesting reading. We're ranked as 5th globally, first among industrialized nations.

Percentages. How much has such infrastructure spending increased in absolute terms, compared to inflation and population? That'd be useful info.

Somebody take your Google away? If you'd like to contrast percentages with hard numbers, surely that's within your purview?

Again, percentages, how much money per person does the USA spend compared to Europe?

Again, feel free to bring your own numbers to the debate, friend.

A slower percentage increase

What's the matter, did a percentage kill your brother? Do you have traumatizing memories of the percentages beating you up in school and taking your milk money? Zakaria uses percentages, but you're free to counter his research with your own numbers. As for your dismissal of the notion that we're in some sort of infrastructural decline, once again I'd say you're rowing a leaky boat up a counter-factual stream.

Also, you keep re-posting the Tom Smith essay. Clearly the dude had bad experiences with his failed website for lawyers, and my heart goes out to him. Starting a business is chancy, dangerous, and generally bad for your health. Anybody who does so deserves some respect. But his essay is a tangled yarn of grammar and spelling errors (which are not game-stoppers in and of themselves, but indicative that he had neither the resources nor time to engage a proofreader, and no editorial backup), logical half-truths coupled with lame jokes (again the Al Gore and the internet? Really? Not only is that Epic Fail from an originality and skillful humor perspective, it's off-base, since we have subsequently learned that during the 1970s Al Gore did more to advance ARPANET and the subsequent Internet than any other elected official. So he actually does deserve some credit, just far less than his statement implied. More importantly see horse, dead, beating of.)

Where to go from there? His website for lawyers would disrupt existing businesses, who tried to block him with money and bought politicians. Cry me a Google river. If you push a disruptive technology, you better be prepared for a knife fight. We all love Tesla, but he went down hard to Edison. That's the way of the world.

Then he's shocked, shocked that international pay is a hellish thicket of tax laws and regulations. Speaking as someone who's had many paychecks from London, all I can say is, How the hell did this come as a surprise to you, web dude? Did you do any homework before locating your engineers in Italy?

And so on and so forth. He did a web start-up for lawyers and failed. Such is life. Now he's "really" a libertarian. Well, you know what? When I got turned down by this girl, I became "really" a misogynist, and I'm justified, 'cause girls are meanies.

[Xiahou]

Besides which, what do you call a Republican who gets to write a budget? A Keynesian. What do you call a Republican who doesn't hold the keys to the treasury? A deficit hawk.

Hmm, didn't our current president run on fiscal responsibility? He called the $4trillion in debt under 8 years of Bush "un-American", while beating that number himself in half the time. He also promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term.... how's that going?

[Lemur]

Hmm, didn't our current president run on fiscal responsibility?

Yup, but we all know he's a wicked socialist who's channeling the undead spirit of Hugo Chavez as he prepares us for tyranny and other bad things, so what's your point?

Receipts have collapsed in the recession, the Bush Tax cuts have continued, so there's a marked imbalance in income to expenditures. But when it comes to new spending, President 44 has been remarkably restrained:



There's the socialist spending binge. Fear it!

Meanwhile, I seem to remember a recent president, can't place his name, who started two off-the-books wars with no intention of paying for them, signed a massive giveaway to pharma and the elderly with no intention of paying for it, and huge tax cuts with no intention of paying for them.

Deficit spending: IOKIYAR. And as I noted above, if Romney does anything resembling what he has promised on the campaign trail, deficit spending will explode (for real this time). But that will be okay, because Romney is not a wicked socialist.

[Lemur]

P.S.: Anyone who wants to break down Zakaria's argument should probably start here.

The United States is ranked 5th on the overall global competitiveness index, which is a weighted value reflecting scores assigned for 12 broad criteria presumed to affect “competitiveness,” [...] But on taxes and regulations, the U.S. ranks poorly. On the “Burden of Government Regulation,” the United States ranked 58th with a score of 3.4 on a scale from 0-to-7, slightly above the global average of 3.3. On the “Extent and Effect of Taxation,” the United States ranked 63rd out of 142 countries. On “Total Tax Rate, % Profits,” the United States came in 96th out of 142. On the issues that President Obama is pushing, the United States performs better than on those Romney advocates, which seriously weakens Zakaria’s argument.

The United States ranks 24th on quality of total infrastructure, better than on taxes and regulations. Likewise for “technological readiness” and “innovation.” “Higher education” (but not “job training”) generates bad scores for the United States, but clearly not for lack of spending. You can dig into the data here, and you’ll find that they tell a very different story than the one you may have read in yesterday’s Post.

Of course, Zakaria might still believe Obama has the stronger argument. But we should all be clear about the fact that regulations and taxes are real and growing problems, and that dismissing them as insignificant, even if inadvertent, doesn’t help policymakers find the solutions.

[Crazed Rabbit]

So, Lemur, when you finally post some facts they end up agreeing with me. I mean, it's like I summarized that without reading it:

A general ranking does not refute the fact that net regulations have been continually increasing.

Zakaria errs by citing the overall, weighted average U.S. rank of 5th to support his assertion that we already have a tax and regulatory structure that creates strong incentives for business to flourish. That relatively high ranking reflects a few obvious U.S. advantages—tax and regulatory structure not being among them.

CR

[Lemur]

So, Lemur, when you finally post some facts they end up agreeing with me.

"Finally post some facts"? Sheesh. You might want to dab the corners of your mouth, there's some smug dribbling down the edge.

I'm interested in reality, whether it reflects my preconceptions or not. I'm happy to post links and quotes from articles that argue in whatever direction, so long as they seem to be argued in good faith off good data.

Cato is a hyper-partisan source, but this article seemed to be well-founded.

Unlike Austrian Economics, I try to be grounded in empiricism. If reality shows something to be different from what I thought, I bow to reality.

-edit-

P.S.: I note that percentages don't make you break out in hives when they're from Cato. So maybe it's the kinds of percentages?

[Xiahou]

Yup, but we all know he's a wicked socialist who's channeling the undead spirit of Hugo Chavez as he prepares us for tyranny and other bad things, so what's your point?

That's the first indication that you can't defend the hypocrisy I've pointed out..... Painting the opposition as irrational while contributing nothing substantive. Let's see what else we have here....

Receipts have collapsed in the recession, the Bush Tax cuts have continued, so there's a marked imbalance in income to expenditures. But when it comes to new spending, President 44 has been remarkably restrained:

Ah yes, the widely debunked marketwatch chart. Just for fun, let's take it at face value.... My memory isn't always that great- but I'm pretty sure that Obama was aware that the economy was tanking while he was running for office and promising to halve the deficit. So, why would he say that when he knew tax receipts were falling? Was he lying or just stupid?

There's the socialist spending binge. Fear it!

More hyperbole...

Meanwhile, I seem to remember a recent president, can't place his name, who started two off-the-books wars with no intention of paying for them, signed a massive giveaway to pharma and the elderly with no intention of paying for it, and huge tax cuts with no intention of paying for them.

And he managed to do it all with less of that "un-American" deficit than Obama has seen under his single term.

In all, you've done nothing to refute my points. You hypocritically point out how Republicans came to power arguing for fiscal responsibility, while failing to live up to their promises once elected- while ignoring how the Democrats, including Obama, did that exact same thing.

[Lemur]

Or, you know, Cato has a lot less percentages.

The Cato article, like the Zakaria article, consisted entirely of percentages. But ... they were ... better percentages ...

The US economy is shrinking

ORLY?

Painting the opposition as irrational

I would go more with "dogmatic and monomaniacal," but what have you.

You hypocritically point out how Republicans came to power arguing for fiscal responsibility, while failing to live up to their promises once elected- while ignoring how the Democrats, including Obama, did that exact same thing.

Slight difference; Dems have not made deficits and smaller government their central plank, while it's all one hears about when Repubs are out of power. Emphasis, I'm sure you will agree, matters.

Also, the deficit under Obama has ballooned in the teeth of a recession and slow recovery, as opposed to the creative minds who gave us deficit spending in the midst of boom times. I appreciate your false equivalence, and admire it in an artistic sort of way. Can't wait for you to declare victory again. It makes me tingle.