[From Rick Marken (2008.10.20.2200)]
Warning: Do not read on if you think McCain/Palin is _not_ a national
embarrassment.
If you are lucky enough to live in LA LA Land you would be able to
read this tomorrow in your morning paper. But since many of you don't
live here, here's what you would get to read if you did:
To the editor, LA Times
While I appreciate your endorsement of Obama, I'm puzzled by your
concerns about his economic policies. Your main concern seems to be
about Obama's "ideas on taxation", which, you say, "do not stray far
from those put forward by Democrats over the last several decades".
You say this like it's a bad thing. In fact, the "high tax" policies
of Democratic administrations over the last several decades have
produced considerably greater GDP, job, stock market and wage growth
and smaller deficits than the "low tax" policies of Republican
administrations. This, despite the fact that economic theory says that
higher taxes are bad for the economy. In real sciences, theories that
predict the opposite of what is observed are rejected. Not so in
economics, where the observations are rejected if they don't match the
theories. I think this fact about economic theory shows that Obama's
apparent lack of mastery of it is a sign that he has actually mastered
it quite well, and correctly concluded that fact trumps theory.
Best
Rick
···
----
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
[From Bill Powers (2008.10.21.0638 MDT)]
Rick Marken (2008.10.20.2200) --
I guess I have to suspend my own rules for a brief time.
Politics aside, that was a nice letter to the editor. Here's mine to
the Boulder Daily Camera, inspired by yours:
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, people were raised to
think that they should save up their money to buy things they needed
or wanted. When they banded together in communities (I'm making this
up), they contributed toward common services they wanted done such as
police protection, fire protection and rescue, road-building, care
for the helpless or incompetent, and a hundred other things no
individual could support alone. Unfortunately deadbeats, freeloaders,
and the incurably selfish tried to benefit from all these common
services without paying their share, living off what they could
borrow from other people and risking other people's -- and the
community's -- savings for their own benefit. The community decided
to pass and enforce laws saying that everybody had to contribute part
of their money into the community's savings account. To be fair, they
gave everybody a voice in deciding what common projects should be
undertaken with the accumulated money. The deadbeats etc. grumbled
loudly, but had to go along, and chose not to go elsewhere because
things were so much better where they were.
And that, children, is where the Save-And-Spend Democrats came from,
and why things always go downhill so fast when the Borrow-And-Spend
Republicans are in power too long.
Best,
Bill P.
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[From Rick Marken (2008.10.21.1115)]
Bill Powers (2008.10.21.0638 MDT)--
Politics aside, that was a nice letter to the editor. Here's
mine to the Boulder Daily Camera, inspired by yours:
Great!! Hope they print it. The printed version of mine is edited, in
some ways I like and in some I don't. Check it out at:
The interesting thing is that the letter right before mine articulates
the same "cut taxes on entrepreneurs to create jobs" crap that so many
people continue to buy, despite the evidence that I mention in my
letter (far fewer jobs produced with Republican tax cut policies than
with Democratic fair tax policies) and the common sense, closed loop
idea that you can't create jobs to produce goods and services for
consumers who can't buy them due to low wages (to maintain high
profits).
Best
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com