2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[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