"Tax Cuts Don't Pay for Themselves" - GOP Economists

[BaronVonBigmeat]

the competition is not capable of handling small mail. Thier fleets are geared towards parcel ONLY. A good friend of mine owns a couple fed ex routes and I've had this conversation before. In fact, the government doesn't force anyone to use the USPS at all. You COULD send all your mail using competition if you wanted to pay them to deliver it as a package.

The USPS has a legal monopoly on delivering basic mail. That means if FedEx tries to, they will find themselves in court. Of course their fleet is geared towards handling packages and not small mail--they aren't going to spend money on equipment which they aren't allowed to use!

Also, do you think that UPS, FedEx, and DHL couldn't go and buy mail Jeeps for delivering letters? Seriously? Like, the President of the company says "Welp, we thought the multi-billion letter delivery market looked attractive, but...we'd have to...buy some Jeeps. Ah well, that's too complicated, so much for that idea!"

DID CAPITOLISM GET US OUT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION? WHAT HAND DID CAPITOLISM PLAY IN CREATING THE DEPRESSION IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The Great Depression was a result of colossal bungling by the Federal Reserve (they have also created the housing boom here recently, and the inevitable recession/depression that is looming right over the horizon). It was also caused by the draconian Smoot-Hawley tariffs. It's also interesting to note how long it lasted--over a decade. There was a depression right after WWI, which was just as severe, only it was over in less than a year. That's because the government didn't try to take over half the economy.

 

[Larkinn]

The government not only has the power and the monopoly that increases the power, but it has the motive to use your money to buy your votes out of some notion that the government will then help you.

Except the flaw here is that the money doesn't magically appear from thin air. They need to increase taxes, which takes votes from the people they are taxing. Yes they do it, but its not some wand they wave to stay in power. Its a lot more complicated than that.

The fact that we have poured more than 6 trillion - that trillion with a capital T - into the war on poverty and the government tells us that we have more poor than ever should be our first clue that we're being bought.

I think the first clue that you are being bought is that you don't know what the government is telling you. It is certainly not telling you that there are more poor than ever (think great depression), and in 2000 the poverty rate was at a 26 year low.

Everything the government does that could be done in the private sector removes jobs and economic incentive from the private sector.

Yes it does, and its unclear why those jobs are better in the private sector than in the public.

Legitimate functions of government are to facilitate a well planned and adequate infrastructure including streets and roads, but the building should be done in the private sector.

Actually legitimate functions are whatever the people decide the legitimate functions are. What is economically best may be a different matter, but the people get to decide what is legitimate, not you.

It is in government getting out of the way and encouraging growth and excellence in the private sector that prevents monopolies from occurring.

Umm, no. It is government getting involved in antitrust legislation and regulating the private sector that keeps monopolies from occurring.

Every now and then a company is so innovative and cutting edge or so good at what it does that it becomes a monopoly naturally. Halliburton is a good example of that--there is maybe one other corporation in the world that can do what Halliburton does and that other company is French. Another is Microsoft who took on the giant Apple corporation and developed a product that has pretty much been king of the mountain ever since.

And then there are lots of companies who share the market with a few other companies who realize its in their best interest not to compete, but to collude.

The government should not interfere in these natural monopolies as sooner or later somebody will be brave, bright, and and perceptive enough to knock the giants off their pedestals.

And until then the people get screwed, the free market founders, and prices are staggeringly high.

I'll put my faith in private enterprise to keep us on the cutting edge and moving forward.

And I put my faith in the private sector, regulated by government. The private sector has the brains and the brawns, the government has the ethics.
By the way...this is an analogy.

 

[Larkinn]

In some cases, yes. Sometimes government road planners will manage to do something which makes economic sense. A bridge between two cities could cut a 2 hour drive down to a 2 minute drive. On the other hand, many projects are stupidly wasteful. For example, you may have heard of "the bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, built because an influential republican congressman requested it. It's likely that a private company would have built the bridge in my first example; not so likely that they would have built the second one. Without profit/loss, there is no way to calculate the net economic benefit.

And how many small businesses in the US fail every day? No organization is always going to do what is the most economically efficient. But roads are something which we don't want all over. Try driving in a planned city vs. one that just sprung up naturally.

Nobody is saying that government is amazing at what it does. But private corporations suck at monopolies. They suck when people are dependent on them. They consistently fuck over those individuals who are dependent on them. I'm willing to deal with some inefficiency for some control over whats going on. And when a company has a monopoly, they are likely to be less efficient than the government. The government has an interest in people enjoying that product, or the service...a company with a monopoly does not.

Prices of steel and concrete went up during construction of the interstate highway system. Even if our expenditures were minor (they aren't), it's going to effect someone, somehow/someway.

Umm, yeah. Prices don't go up every time someone builds a bridge. But yes if the government builds roads criss crossing the country, prices will go up. Tell me, do you think the interstate highway has helped commerce at all?

In the case of roads, you wouldn't have a dozen different roads from a dozen different companies, all crammed together side-by-side serving the same market, it wouldn't make any sense.

Exactly. So what would you have? Either that or no competition.

The part about overpricing is interesting. The most likely scenario is unmanned toll roads (or possibly road subscriptions) similar to what we have today with electronic ez-tag systems. If the road company charges too little, they get traffic jams, which reduces profits. If they charge too much, people take alternate routes, or perhaps new development slows down, which also reduces profits.

As fair as I know most bridges that use EZ pass systems are still public. The state/government has just contracted with a private company to help collect tolls.

Perhaps the best thing would be peak-useage pricing. A private company would raise prices enough to get traffic moving and clear congestion, but not so much that roads become deserted. Traffic jams would be a thing of the past, and bus companies like Greyhound would start serving urban commuters. Basically, individual car useage would be less attractive, and mass transit would be more attractive. Road companies might even sign a contract to reserve a lane or two of traffic just for bus companies during rush hour.

Or commuters would just come in anyway and complain bitterly about it. Thats what seems to have happened in London.

Moving to private roads would also put the brakes on suburban sprawl, and our car-centric development patterns. Developers would actually have an incentive to conserve space and reduce distances from customers. Why do big-box megaretailers like walmart dominate? They do have some advantages, but they have disadvantages too--namely, they require expensive multi-lane megafreeways. Probably 3/4 that I've seen are near one or two big freeways. If you're a big box store operating on low profit margins, you have to make up for it with high volume. That's easy to do when the government massively subsidizes the cost of freeways.

It would also make anything that travels much more expensive.

 

[Foxfyre]

Except the flaw here is that the money doesn't magically appear from thin air. They need to increase taxes, which takes votes from the people they are taxing. Yes they do it, but its not some wand they wave to stay in power. Its a lot more complicated than that.



I think the first clue that you are being bought is that you don't know what the government is telling you. It is certainly not telling you that there are more poor than ever (think great depression), and in 2000 the poverty rate was at a 26 year low.



Yes it does, and its unclear why those jobs are better in the private sector than in the public.



Actually legitimate functions are whatever the people decide the legitimate functions are. What is economically best may be a different matter, but the people get to decide what is legitimate, not you.



Umm, no. It is government getting involved in antitrust legislation and regulating the private sector that keeps monopolies from occurring.



And then there are lots of companies who share the market with a few other companies who realize its in their best interest not to compete, but to collude.



And until then the people get screwed, the free market founders, and prices are staggeringly high.



And I put my faith in the private sector, regulated by government. The private sector has the brains and the brawns, the government has the ethics.
By the way...this is an analogy.

No point in rehashing each point here as it has already become 'is too - is not' circular. But your last statement: "The government has the ethics" is waaaaaaay too Marxist for me. I don't believe it, buy it, and I would not vote for anybody for dogcatcher who would say it. Our founders would be rolling over in their graves.

 

[Dr Grump]

Your founders are dead. Time to move on...

 

[Larkinn]

No point in rehashing each point here as it has already become 'is too - is not' circular. But your last statement: "The government has the ethics" is waaaaaaay too Marxist for me. I don't believe it, buy it, and I would not vote for anybody for dogcatcher who would say it. Our founders would be rolling over in their graves.

Did you catch the "By the way, this is an analogy"?

Corporations also don't actually have brains or brawn...just as government doesn't actually have ethics. But government is a watchdog on capitalism, and its one that is incredibly important.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

And how many small businesses in the US fail every day? No organization is always going to do what is the most economically efficient.

Private companies do make plenty of mistakes, and they go out of business. When government makes a mistake, there is a knee-jerk reaction to give them more money.

Try driving in a planned city vs. one that just sprung up naturally.

Well first off, "planning" is not something exclusive to government. Secondly, government planning via zoning laws has been one of the primary reasons why we have suburban sprawl. Look at a pre-WWII town vs. a post-war town, the difference is obvious. Driving is easier, yes; but at the cost of pedestrian activity. That's why New Urbanists want to scrap zoning laws as they exist today (except for heavy industry, for obvious reasons). The whole point is that you don't need to drive in the first place! Compare Paris to Houston, for example.

Nobody is saying that government is amazing at what it does. But private corporations suck at monopolies. They suck when people are dependent on them. They consistently fuck over those individuals who are dependent on them. I'm willing to deal with some inefficiency for some control over whats going on. And when a company has a monopoly, they are likely to be less efficient than the government. The government has an interest in people enjoying that product, or the service...a company with a monopoly does not.

Most of what we learn about monopolies in high school history class is bunk. The cartels that were formed usually failed, because there was always either A) someone outside the cartel looking to get in on the action, or B) one of the cartel members weaseled out of the deal. Thus, cartels started turning towards government for protection from competition. Private companies were actually begging for some of the measures that FDR instituted with the NRA to "manage" competition.

Standard Oil is always given as an example, but their prices steadily declined. They had a "monopoly" because their prices were lower than anyone else's. (Actually it was more like 88% of the market, but whatever.) So, at the urging of companies that couldn't compete, the government intervened and took them to court. By the time the case was decided, Standard Oil had actually lost market share. The bottom line is, in some cases, a monopoly is more efficient. The main question is, are they a monopoly because they out-competed everyone, or are they a monopoly because the state granted them special priviledges?

Tell me, do you think the interstate highway has helped commerce at all?

It has helped commerce, sure; but a private road network would have done the same with less waste, and less distortion of the economy. What I mean by that is, the radically different development patterns we've seen after WWII. Big box stores and isolated corporate-built tract housing have benefited; classical town planning and mom and pop local stores have suffered. If we had to pay the true market price of roads, neighborhood developers would probably incorporate mixed retail/apartment/office space within walking distance, rather than building golf courses surrounded by McMansions. Saving $5 at Walmart wouldn't make much sense if you had to pay a $5 road toll during rush hour.

As fair as I know most bridges that use EZ pass systems are still public. The state/government has just contracted with a private company to help collect tolls.

Oh I know, I was just saying that the electronic tagging method would be the easiest way to do it. Sometimes when you talk about private roads, people have visions of manned toll booths at every street corner, heh. Paying for roads with gas taxes just doesn't make sense. It's like paying for cigarette-related expenses with a tax on lighters.

Or commuters would just come in anyway and complain bitterly about it. Thats what seems to have happened in London.

From what I've read, congestion is lower than what it was, and Londoners are starting to move closer to work. Or, work moves closer to where people live (remember of course that new development is heavily restricted in the UK).

Whatever the case, we can't simply just blindly add more lanes and more roads. If you're like me and live in a newer american city, I'm sure you can think of an example where there are 5~6 lanes of traffic on each side of the freeway, and despite that, they're perpetually clogged. You can't build your way out of traffic jams--if traffic actually does go down, then people move out further and fill it back up again. Road planners actually have a nickname for this phenomenon, I forget the word for it though.

A traffic jam is really just an example of an economic shortage. You can't have unlimited road space, although god knows we've tried. And the best way to solve shortages is to charge the market price. You can run "please carpool!" public service ads all day long, but the only thing people really pay attention to is prices.

 

[Shogun]

The USPS has a legal monopoly on delivering basic mail. That means if FedEx tries to, they will find themselves in court. Of course their fleet is geared towards handling packages and not small mail--they aren't going to spend money on equipment which they aren't allowed to use!

Youy do realize that most post offices have drop off locations for UPS and FED EX, right?

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE, FEDEX EXPRESS BUSINESS ALLIANCE BEGINS TODAY WITH ACTIVATION OF FIRST DROP BOX AT DOWNTOWN STATION IN CHARLOTTE, NC
http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_015.htm

Meanwhile, regarding the ORIGINAL tangent that brought me to this thread: Nothing says ECONOMIC IMPACT quite like replacing the SOLID compensation in the USPS with the capitolist wet dream of 8.00/hr UPS labor, eh? I'm sure downgrading the income of that many Americans would be gravy for CEOs but probably not for everyone else. If you think that capitolism is the cure all I suggest you remember what brought this nation out of the depression (ironically, the product of wolfish capitolism)




"Also, do you think that UPS, FedEx, and DHL couldn't go and buy mail Jeeps for delivering letters? Seriously? Like, the President of the company says "Welp, we thought the multi-billion letter delivery market looked attractive, but...we'd have to...buy some Jeeps. Ah well, that's too complicated, so much for that idea!"


I think that they would be capable of buying jeeps but I don't think that buying jeeps would allow them to deliver mail with the uniformity and reliability of the Post Office. It would turn into exactly what the ISP market became in the early days of the internet. A conglomerate mass of unpredictable service and conflict due to membership subscription. Will every small podunct town see a fleet of jeeps? Mail going to get delivered according to convenient routes by an incapable organization? Delays blamed on reciept of mail from competition?

IN the same logic why isn't free market capitolism how we procure our police force? Can you admit that there are many areas where capitolism is NOT the most beneficial alternative? Nursing home, again. Tell me how you are proud of the standard of living found in most privately owned nursing home since capitolism if rife in that market.

BILLS WOULD RELAX FEDERAL CONTROLS ON NURSING HOMES
The Academy found "shockingly deficient care" in some nursing homes and concluded that "a stronger Federal role is essential." Congress responded in 1987 by passing a law that specifies, in great detail, what nursing homes must do to protect patients' rights and to enhance "the quality of life of each resident."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...4A35753C1A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

No Place Like Home: Nursing homes struggle with too few nurses, aides for growing elderly population
In the good homes, tens of thousands of well-intentioned but underpaid, undertrained workers struggle to care for patients who arrive far sicker than residents did years ago.

In the bad places, residents endure unanswered call buttons, cold meals, festering pressure sores, inexplicable medication errors and worse results of inattention. Such incidents can recur in the same facilities for years with minimal repercussions for their operators.
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20020922nursinghomes0922p1.asp

Patient care standards still lack at nursing homes
Substandard care remains rampant at nursing homes throughout the country, according to the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress. Twenty percent of homes evaluated during an 18-month study ending January 2002, had "serious deficiencies that caused residents actual harm or placed them in immediate jeopardy," the report states.

The agency is considering regulatory changes that would allow the government to divert nearly $7 billion over 10 years to nursing homes that have been stung by recent payment cuts. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said that he would consider taking action to guarantee that the money is spent directly on improvements to patient care at homes.

"We must ensure that the nursing home industry doesn't line its pockets with this money. I expect the industry to use that money for the direct care of residents," said Grassley, who chairs the Finance Committee.
http://www.pkslawfirm.com/Content/901




The Great Depression was a result of colossal bungling by the Federal Reserve (they have also created the housing boom here recently, and the inevitable recession/depression that is looming right over the horizon). It was also caused by the draconian Smoot-Hawley tariffs. It's also interesting to note how long it lasted--over a decade. There was a depression right after WWI, which was just as severe, only it was over in less than a year. That's because the government didn't try to take over half the economy.

Are you suggesting that the New Deal didn't, in fact, drag this nation out of the Depression with non-capitolist ventures? We can debate the cause of the Great Depression if you want to but, more interestingly, can you show me a single free market solution that helped this nation crawl out of it? I'd love to read about how pushing the standard living wage down in order to maximize profit had a greater economic impact than the "socialist" new deal.

 

[AllieBaba]

WWII dragged the country out of the depression.

 

[Shogun]

um... are you sure that is your final answer?

 

[jillian]

Actually, the New Deal dragged this country out of the depression. WWII just took us to a boom economy.

 

[AllieBaba]

Not true. The New Deal was limping along, and was nothing but a band aid.

The war pulled us up, put us to work, gave us a focus, and fixed the problem. And the pres knew it would, which is why he was into it in the first place.

 

[jillian]

Okie dokie...

Guess all those history books will have to be changed so the right-wing "I hate the New Deal and Roosevelt" contingent can engage in further revisionism.

 

[AllieBaba]

We all know how very accurate and dependable history books are, after all. Read what some of the older ones have to say about Indians, for example. Guess we'll have to re-write those, as well. Oh, wait..we did!

But thanks for chiming in, dear. I know how important it is for you to be noticed, sweetums. Twitterbug. Dahling.

Did I leave out any condescending endearments? Let me know and I'll use them next time.

 

[jillian]

I'd suggest you go back and look at where the rudeness started, snookums.

I understand, really I do. I know you're one of the most limited posters on the board, but really, if you can't keep up, don't stamp your feet..... it's kind of weird, to tell the truth.

Mostly I just ignore you. Sometimes you amuse me.

 

[AllieBaba]

Well, you ignore me except when you're neg repping me with juvenile comments attached.

I'm all for you ignoring me, punkie poo. I wish you would. It would save me the indigestion I'm currently suffering, brought on by your saccharin and generally inaccurate comments.

But hey, maybe you'll learn something in your attempts to belittle me. You never know, punkin.

The Great Depression was ended by WWII...and I can't find much of anything that says any different, other than the lib nuts here.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/wwii

I think that one is suitably juvenile for you.

"However, the extent of the Great Depression was so great that government programs alone could not end it. Unemployment remained in the double-digits until 1941, when the U.S. entry into World War II created defense-related jobs."
http://useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/p/1929_Depression.htm

 

[Shogun]

GIRL FIIIGHT!

the saccharin edge of you gals' posts is cracking me up.

I'm gonna have to go with The New Deal on this one. WW2 did have a significant impact on the boom of the "greatest" generation but all that I've read puts the resolution of the great Depression on the shoulders of the New Deal. Which, would have been a major economic spurring by what would be seen as socialist programs these days.

 

[Foxfyre]

GIRL FIIIGHT!

the saccharin edge of you gals' posts is cracking me up.

I'm gonna have to go with The New Deal on this one. WW2 did have a significant impact on the boom of the "greatest" generation but all that I've read puts the resolution of the great Depression on the shoulders of the New Deal. Which, would have been a major economic spurring by what would be seen as socialist programs these days.

The New Deal helped people survive the Great Depression and provided enough hope to spur American resillence and courage to see us through it. It was World War II, however, that ended it.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/wwii

 

[AllieBaba]

Until today, I was under the impression that everybody knew that.
And Jilly, baby, it IS what's in the history books.

 

[jillian]

I'd suggest that if it's your fondest wish that you be ignored, that you refrain from addressing posts to me.

Otherwise you just look more stupid than usual.