past the tipping point...


moralist

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A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies.

lol - one of the questions.

I answered Strongly Disagree.

Multinationals should be free to create monopolies with no government interference...

...but they also should be free to fail with no government support.

Greg

Same here.

I answered Strongly Disagree or Strongly Agree to every question - I did not select (2) (3) or (4) for any question.

A...

Same here. I'm not ambivalent on any of the issues so the right/center results were pretty accurate.. One factor that can invalidate the results is when two people can give opposite answers to opposite questions and they will still end up with the same numbers. I can gusrantee that Gary and are at polar opposites on many issues.

And did you get a load of those absolutely ridiculous Presidential results? It's obvious that they did not actually take that test. A liberal took it for them and skewed the results. Just another example of the self deception inherent to liberalism. They first lie to themselves. Then they lie to others.

Greg

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The "shift has been rightward" [for EU governments] ? Ha. Ha.

If so, they began as Socialist.

If so, not for the populace.

This scale seems so relativist and subjective as to be worse than useless.

Well, some have moved a little to the right, like Sweden. To paraphrase Mark Steyn, they've move from left of left of center to left of right of left of center, but they're still left of center.

Darrell

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [which does not protect patients and is not affordable] PPACA is one piece.

Under the radar is Dodd-Frank which is a nightmare, so dark, as to be unfathomable. It is crippling significant sections of the economy, particularly credit.

Piece by piece, that collar is slowly tightening.

I admire the progressive's fanaticism in that they never stop advancing the agenda.

It is like trying to hold mercury in your hands.

A...

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Sssh...Don't tell Gary about this...

Rent seeking” is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of economics and, unfortunately, one of the most inappropriately labeled. Gordon Tullock originated the idea in 1967, and Anne Krueger introduced the label in 1974. The idea is simple but powerful. People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena. They typically do so by getting a subsidy for a good they produce or for being in a particular class of people, by getting a tariff on a good they produce, or by getting a special regulation that hampers their competitors. Elderly people, for example, often seek higher Social Security payments; steel producers often seek restrictions on imports of steel; and licensed electricians and doctors often lobby to keep regulations in place that restrict competition from unlicensed electricians or doctors.

Damn, I never heard of that phrase.

Thanks

A...

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Don't forget rent seekers who are technically not government employee's. Lots of sand in the gears of economics. I'd rather they stay home and collect welfare rather than actively impede useful enterprise.

"Rent seekers"?

Darrell

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html

For me to follow the link at work, I have to manually type it into another browser window. Or, you could just clarify your meaning.

Darrell

Edited by Darrell Hougen
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Sssh...Don't tell Gary about this...

Rent seeking” is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of economics and, unfortunately, one of the most inappropriately labeled. Gordon Tullock originated the idea in 1967, and Anne Krueger introduced the label in 1974. The idea is simple but powerful. People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena. They typically do so by getting a subsidy for a good they produce or for being in a particular class of people, by getting a tariff on a good they produce, or by getting a special regulation that hampers their competitors. Elderly people, for example, often seek higher Social Security payments; steel producers often seek restrictions on imports of steel; and licensed electricians and doctors often lobby to keep regulations in place that restrict competition from unlicensed electricians or doctors.

Damn, I never heard of that phrase.

Thanks

A...

Thanks Adam

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Sssh...Don't tell Gary about this...

Rent seeking” is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of economics and, unfortunately, one of the most inappropriately labeled. Gordon Tullock originated the idea in 1967, and Anne Krueger introduced the label in 1974. The idea is simple but powerful. People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena. They typically do so by getting a subsidy for a good they produce or for being in a particular class of people, by getting a tariff on a good they produce, or by getting a special regulation that hampers their competitors. Elderly people, for example, often seek higher Social Security payments; steel producers often seek restrictions on imports of steel; and licensed electricians and doctors often lobby to keep regulations in place that restrict competition from unlicensed electricians or doctors.

Damn, I never heard of that phrase.

Thanks

A...

I agree that the term is inappropriately labeled. In classical economics --- think Adam Smith --- rent actually referred to rent, not government favors.

Darrell

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Don't forget rent seekers who are technically not government employee's. Lots of sand in the gears of economics. I'd rather they stay home and collect welfare rather than actively impede useful enterprise.

"Rent seekers"?

Darrell

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html

For me to follow the link at work, I have to manually type it into another browser window. Or, you just clarify your meaning.

Darrell

Adam's post contains the gist of it. In addition I include all of the person's employed by companies whose responsibilities include keeping up with regulations, filling out government forms and trying to keep their company out of legal and regulatory hell. They are paid by the companies they work for but it is in their interest that the regulations remain in place and are continually changed to justify their own jobs. HR departments would be much smaller for instance without the labor department interference in employment. I think a huge part of our productivity is flushed down the toilet. But it's all "jobs"...

It's also called "privilege seeking" which is the term I should have used. Easier to spell rent. I'm not an economist.

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I think you guys seriously underestimate how far to the left (economically) the rest of the world is in comparison to the US. Obama would be considered pro-business in just about any country you can think of.

Obama wouldn't be considered pro-business by any rational measure and I'm not interested in comparing the U.S. with the rest of the world. If the rest of the world were so great, people would be flocking there instead of here.

Some European countries are reasonable in some respects. Switzerland has many advantages. The U.S. is losing its advantages and I no longer consider it to be a free or mostly free country. That's a sad statement, but unfortunately true.

For me, the straw that broke the camel's back was the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the individual mandate. The idea that a person can be coerced into buying a product he doesn't want is such an affront to liberty that it cannot be reconciled with the notion of a free country.

Of course, there are many other large and small ways in which we are being deprived of our liberty. Mark Steyn has a number of interesting articles giving examples of the ways in which we have been losing our freedoms. His latest reminds me of tales of the Soviet Union. Catch 22 comes to mind.

Darrell

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I think you guys seriously underestimate how far to the left (economically) the rest of the world is in comparison to the US. Obama would be considered pro-business in just about any country you can think of.

Darrell is nice, I'm not.

Do me a favor effete boy, do not tell myself, or, frankly 90% of the regular contributors on OL that they underestimate anything.

You do not have the ethos.

A...

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I think you guys seriously underestimate how far to the left (economically) the rest of the world is in comparison to the US.

I don't, Gary

Unproductive liberal socialist benefits parasite infested s***holes are the norm in this world.

It's Capitalist America that's still the exception even in its present degenerating state. Although considering the drain it's circling, it will likely not be so exceptional in the future as it sinks into the liberal socialist cesspool.

Greg

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