PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader said...

The Occupy Wall Street crowd should be blaming government for driving-up costs of health care, education, energy, and many other goods, along with raising taxes, fees, fines, fares, tolls, etc.

Moreover, government created the conditions for Wall Street to take greater risks with the knowledge it would eventually be bailed-out by government.

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So, we find ourselves in a situation where the U.S. economy is being propped-up by $1 trillion a year budget deficits, along with endless quantitative easings, which are unsustainable.

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marmico said...

What a crock of bull.

Wealth (income) in the U.S. has been distributed upward to the 1% for the last 30+ years.

As a percent of the population aged 25+, college degree attainment has risen from 16% to 30% in the same time frame.

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PeakTrader said...

Marmico, so, when the 1% gain more wealth, many more Americans obtain college degrees.

I bet, the 30% of Americans who obtained college degrees earn a much higher income than those who didn't obtain degrees.

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Larry, why do you assume government universal health care is better than private health care with a government safety net?

We've seen what too much government has done to Europe and many other countries.

What "realities" are you looking at?

You need to look at the microeconomics level for best examples, not the macroeconomics level, because government has become too big in rich countries.

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PeakTrader said...

Larry, poor countries may outcompete rich countries in a way.

Some people in poor countries may afford $50 for $50 worth of health care, while people in rich countries may afford twenty times more for ten times more health care, because of government.

You need income before you can redistribute it.

However, that doesn't mean the income is allocated efficiently.

It seems, the more income government gets, the more it can squander.

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http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28997633&postID=1951678016227988432

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PeakTrader said...

I recall turning in a paper, which was 100% original.

A new instructor, a gay guy, who just got his Ph.D from Cornell, told me this paper is so good I must of copied it.

I had to show him a similar paper from another econ class to prove it wasn't plagiarized.

Nonetheless, he gave me only a "B." I could've complained to the Chairman of the Econ Dept. However, the guy had too many problems already and I didn't want to get involved in any more of his "games."

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PeakTrader said...

Ed R, is less foreign demand for dollars, exchanging more domestic goods for foreign goods, and working more for foreign goods an improvement?

U.S. trade deficits free-up domestic resources, which can be redeployed (to raise GDP) or unemployed (to lower GDP).

Many of our trading partners exchange their goods for U.S. dollars, instead of U.S. goods, and invest those dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds.

So, there's more money available for U.S. education and less money is needed from the U.S. private sector.

Consequently, the U.S. not only leads the world, it leads the rest of the world combined in the Information and Biotech Revolutions (in both revenues and profits), in part, because of more spending on education and more investment in emerging industries.

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Also, I may add, in raising U.S. living and labor standards, an increase in the minimum wage of $0.50 costs less than $2 billion, which is very little compared to the up to $800 billion a year U.S. trade deficits in the mid-2000s.

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VangelV, there's a positive correlation between education and income.

Last time I looked, most of the workers in the U.S. are American and U.S. per capita income is much higher than other large countries.

Also, there are hundreds of major economic forces pushing and pulling a large economy, not one or two that you may find in a textbook.

Moreover, there are all kinds of implications, both positive and negative.

In an optimal system, the goal is to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives, simultaneously.

"Reading an economic textbook" is not enough to even begin to understand economics.

You begin to understand economics after completing a couple of degrees in orthodox economics.

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