My understanding of the Laffer Curve was based on a talk Arthur Laffer gave at my alma mater. He talked about it entirely in terms of the effects of taxation on the motivation to work. I didn't say I agreed with it, but I consider the guy who created the theory to be a pretty good source on what the theory is and why he thinks it is right.
The interesting thing is that Keynesians would definitely dispute your last paragraph there, because (as can be relatively easily demonstrated) the poorer you are the more likely you are to buy something with your extra cash, while the richer you are the more likely you are to invest the extra cash. That has very different effects on the economy.
Your understanding is a myth propagated by Arthur Laffer, and embraced wholeheartedly by Reagan (which as a sibling post points out didn't work).
The theory was that if taxes are too high, then people who might be motivated to work more won't because too much of it will be taken away by Uncle Sam, and thus the overall GDP would drop down so much that the added percentage wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. This resulted in the so-called Laffer Curve.
A big piece of the article was pointing out that women in science don't particularly want this, organizations teaching science don't want this, and men in science don't want this. The institutions involved are filling out the paperwork but definitely aren't interested in suddenly making 50% of all science graduates women.
And the article also made the appropriate comparison with the field of psychology, which is now something like 70% female (similar disparities exist in education, particularly primary education).
I doubt it. Why would anyone ride an unsafe bus knowingly?
A few reasons (male pronouns used in the general sense here, the same would go for women): 1. He doesn't actually know the bus is unsafe, because he has no access to a truly independent panel of certified bus experts that can tell him one way or another. Plus a lack of safety only shows up after an accident. 2. That's the only bus that serves the area he lives in or works at, and he lacks the means to start his own competing bus service. 3. He can't afford the safer (and thus more expensive) bus to get to work, so he's choosing to take the unsafe bus because the risks involved in taking the unsafe bus are better than the guarantee of starvation or homelessness. 4. The unsafe bus was safe when he started making use of it, but he hasn't had the time to adjust his routine to use a competing bus.
Usually the failure of pro-free market thinking has to do with not recognizing one of the following: - Barriers to entry into a market (time, startup costs) - Imperfect information (nearly always present, and heavily tilted towards the seller) - A lack of substitute goods - That monopolies, oligopolies, and competitive markets all have different behaviors - Barriers to switching between competitors (contractual obligations, researching competitors, etc) - effects of externalities and shared resources - time lags between market-related decisions and the effects of those decisions on the market
All of those (and I'm sure they're more) cause markets to behave differently than Economics 101 teaches.
"Public transportation is cheap, but I prefer to drive so I don't have to be around poor people."
That right there is the number 1 reason people drive rather than take public transit. (There are rationalizations related to scheduling, but that's what it really comes down to.) And that also leaves out another subtext, which is that the "poor people" they are usually thinking of are not white.
By driving, a lot of Americans can practice a bit of out-of-sight, out-of-mind with the people in their society that aren't doing as well as they are. When you travel or live among poor people, your brain has to admit that poor people exist and are mostly decent folks who just want to make a living for themselves and their families. By comparison, if you live in a wealthy white suburb and commute by car, the only poor people you see are those who are working for you (making your lunch, carrying your mail, cleaning your office, etc).
Dennis (and his name is spelled Kucinich, not Kucinic) has always stood for something approaching true progressivism. The problem is that whenever he tries to run for public office beyond his base here in Cleveland, he gets dismissed as a nutjob no matter how correct he is.
Case in point: In the presidential debates, the question he was given wasn't "How do you plan to fix the health care system?" but "Did you really see a UFO?".
Interestingly, one of the best known "intelligent design" textbook was created by doing something along these lines: $ sed 's/creationism/intelligent design/g' creationist_textbook.txt
Just how do you choose a good leader without having a huge bias toward those people who want the position?
I always like Clarke's idea - pick the leader by lot from among all eligible citizens. One term, and your name is removed from the pool of eligibles after that term.
Clarke didn't invent the idea. The first attempt at it was by Cleisthenes in Athens around 507 BC.
For people who were blacklisted, that wasn't much of an option either. Even if we're assuming that they completely changed careers (from being academics, musicians, actors, screenwriters, that sort of thing) to being businessmen, blacklisting meant that any sort of economic transaction with you would put the organization you were dealing with at risk of being blacklisted. That included making loans, or buying from or selling to any business that was run by blacklisted people.
Our chief problem is that we're discouraged from teaching grammar, and needing to entertain the students... Our 2 chief problems are that we're discouraged from teaching grammar, needing to entertain the students, and a lack of basic math and composition learning in elementary schools...
I put up a few personal photos out there, but (and here's the key point) they are photos that I'd want the entire world seeing (e.g. publicity shots from my various musical and theater performances).
Besides the other responses' mention of being slaughtered by the competition, there's another key reasons, both related to the monopolistic practices of land-line telcos: In order to build a cell network, you need land lines from the towers to the rest of the network.
There are 2 ways to get a land line network: 1. Lease them from the local monopolist (e.g. AT&T or Qwest). If you do that, the leasing rates will be high enough to ensure you cannot compete with their own cell networks based on price. 2. String your own lines. To do this you need enough political clout to get the permits to make use of the utility poles, and possibly need permission from the local monopolist (who won't give it).
I worked for a while at a smaller low-cost regional cell carrier. These sorts of companies can be somewhere around break-even, but they can't grow effectively.
1. The Bush administration is generally opposed to business regulation, so there's a good question as to why they're changing their tune now. 2. Why did the same folks that are considering blocking GOOG-YHOO had no problem with MSFT-YHOO?
Combine those factors, and it's possible someone threw a chair at the FTC to make sure this potential merger doesn't happen.
"Obviously, due to these techniques being available, the tool known as iptables must be made illegal. The ability to change how we're sending packets through our networks allows users to engage in piracy, terrorism, and cyber-warfare, and this cannot be allowed to continue in the name of national security."
(Yes, I think that's a load of crap, but I suspect they can get 60 senators with that and a few campaign donations.)
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding of the Laffer Curve was based on a talk Arthur Laffer gave at my alma mater. He talked about it entirely in terms of the effects of taxation on the motivation to work. I didn't say I agreed with it, but I consider the guy who created the theory to be a pretty good source on what the theory is and why he thinks it is right.
The interesting thing is that Keynesians would definitely dispute your last paragraph there, because (as can be relatively easily demonstrated) the poorer you are the more likely you are to buy something with your extra cash, while the richer you are the more likely you are to invest the extra cash. That has very different effects on the economy.
Your understanding is a myth propagated by Arthur Laffer, and embraced wholeheartedly by Reagan (which as a sibling post points out didn't work).
The theory was that if taxes are too high, then people who might be motivated to work more won't because too much of it will be taken away by Uncle Sam, and thus the overall GDP would drop down so much that the added percentage wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. This resulted in the so-called Laffer Curve.
Unfortunately, the relationship that Laffer asserted was a smooth parabolic curve actually looks more like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Neo-Laffer-Curve.svg
A big piece of the article was pointing out that women in science don't particularly want this, organizations teaching science don't want this, and men in science don't want this. The institutions involved are filling out the paperwork but definitely aren't interested in suddenly making 50% of all science graduates women.
And the article also made the appropriate comparison with the field of psychology, which is now something like 70% female (similar disparities exist in education, particularly primary education).
It's ok this time though, because the people implementing the project will think 36" is actually 36 meters, which is close enough.
I doubt it. Why would anyone ride an unsafe bus knowingly?
A few reasons (male pronouns used in the general sense here, the same would go for women):
1. He doesn't actually know the bus is unsafe, because he has no access to a truly independent panel of certified bus experts that can tell him one way or another. Plus a lack of safety only shows up after an accident.
2. That's the only bus that serves the area he lives in or works at, and he lacks the means to start his own competing bus service.
3. He can't afford the safer (and thus more expensive) bus to get to work, so he's choosing to take the unsafe bus because the risks involved in taking the unsafe bus are better than the guarantee of starvation or homelessness.
4. The unsafe bus was safe when he started making use of it, but he hasn't had the time to adjust his routine to use a competing bus.
Usually the failure of pro-free market thinking has to do with not recognizing one of the following:
- Barriers to entry into a market (time, startup costs)
- Imperfect information (nearly always present, and heavily tilted towards the seller)
- A lack of substitute goods
- That monopolies, oligopolies, and competitive markets all have different behaviors
- Barriers to switching between competitors (contractual obligations, researching competitors, etc)
- effects of externalities and shared resources
- time lags between market-related decisions and the effects of those decisions on the market
All of those (and I'm sure they're more) cause markets to behave differently than Economics 101 teaches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Stock
It's not like any cheese I've ever tasted, Grommit.
"Public transportation is cheap, but I prefer to drive so I don't have to be around poor people."
That right there is the number 1 reason people drive rather than take public transit. (There are rationalizations related to scheduling, but that's what it really comes down to.) And that also leaves out another subtext, which is that the "poor people" they are usually thinking of are not white.
By driving, a lot of Americans can practice a bit of out-of-sight, out-of-mind with the people in their society that aren't doing as well as they are. When you travel or live among poor people, your brain has to admit that poor people exist and are mostly decent folks who just want to make a living for themselves and their families. By comparison, if you live in a wealthy white suburb and commute by car, the only poor people you see are those who are working for you (making your lunch, carrying your mail, cleaning your office, etc).
His only real regret is that he still hasn't found a way to cure his bone-itis.
Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. I'm not entirely sure who modded me "Funny", but they obviously misunderstood that I was in fact serious.
Dennis (and his name is spelled Kucinich, not Kucinic) has always stood for something approaching true progressivism. The problem is that whenever he tries to run for public office beyond his base here in Cleveland, he gets dismissed as a nutjob no matter how correct he is.
Case in point: In the presidential debates, the question he was given wasn't "How do you plan to fix the health care system?" but "Did you really see a UFO?".
Interestingly, one of the best known "intelligent design" textbook was created by doing something along these lines:
$ sed 's/creationism/intelligent design/g' creationist_textbook.txt
I always like Clarke's idea - pick the leader by lot from among all eligible citizens. One term, and your name is removed from the pool of eligibles after that term.
Clarke didn't invent the idea. The first attempt at it was by Cleisthenes in Athens around 507 BC.
For people who were blacklisted, that wasn't much of an option either. Even if we're assuming that they completely changed careers (from being academics, musicians, actors, screenwriters, that sort of thing) to being businessmen, blacklisting meant that any sort of economic transaction with you would put the organization you were dealing with at risk of being blacklisted. That included making loans, or buying from or selling to any business that was run by blacklisted people.
Our chief problem is that we're discouraged from teaching grammar, and needing to entertain the students ... Our 2 chief problems are that we're discouraged from teaching grammar, needing to entertain the students, and a lack of basic math and composition learning in elementary schools ...
I'll come in again.
Buy Lightspeed Briefs!
Forget flying: it's only a matter of time before it becomes finding employment. At least, that's what happened in the 50's.
I put up a few personal photos out there, but (and here's the key point) they are photos that I'd want the entire world seeing (e.g. publicity shots from my various musical and theater performances).
You must have designed HotBlack Desiato's stunt ship, or at least the album cover to "Smell the Glove".
No you can't. ZOMBO has lied to you. OBMOZcom is winning the talent war.
To summarize the summary: People are a problem.
Besides the other responses' mention of being slaughtered by the competition, there's another key reasons, both related to the monopolistic practices of land-line telcos: In order to build a cell network, you need land lines from the towers to the rest of the network.
There are 2 ways to get a land line network:
1. Lease them from the local monopolist (e.g. AT&T or Qwest). If you do that, the leasing rates will be high enough to ensure you cannot compete with their own cell networks based on price.
2. String your own lines. To do this you need enough political clout to get the permits to make use of the utility poles, and possibly need permission from the local monopolist (who won't give it).
I worked for a while at a smaller low-cost regional cell carrier. These sorts of companies can be somewhere around break-even, but they can't grow effectively.
1. The Bush administration is generally opposed to business regulation, so there's a good question as to why they're changing their tune now.
2. Why did the same folks that are considering blocking GOOG-YHOO had no problem with MSFT-YHOO?
Combine those factors, and it's possible someone threw a chair at the FTC to make sure this potential merger doesn't happen.
The most effective criminals in the world are friendly, well-dressed, and outgoing.
I thought we called those people "politicians".
"Obviously, due to these techniques being available, the tool known as iptables must be made illegal. The ability to change how we're sending packets through our networks allows users to engage in piracy, terrorism, and cyber-warfare, and this cannot be allowed to continue in the name of national security."
(Yes, I think that's a load of crap, but I suspect they can get 60 senators with that and a few campaign donations.)