tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7438855620184655702024-03-08T05:22:13.679-08:00Poverty in AperiomicsAperiomics is a system I thought of in 1989, I’ve been working on it mainly privately since then but am now starting to publish it. More detailed of it are found at Aperiomics.org, it is based on 12 mathematical principles of chaos and randomness that combine to explain events in war, economics, crime, sociology, evolution, etc.
People are welcome to read, they can correspond with me at greg@aperiomics.org. Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-22166741926254346802013-03-04T05:07:00.002-08:002013-03-04T05:07:21.286-08:00Europe's Grandma Crisis - WSJ.com<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303734204577466962276816888.html">Europe's Grandma Crisis - WSJ.com</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Like
most grandparents in Italy, Isidoro and Antonietta Arcidiacone were
thrilled to help out when their daughter, Grazia, and her husband
started a family 2½ years ago. They got more than they bargained for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The
67-year-old retired police officer and his wife have taken their
daughter's family back into their one-bedroom apartment in Rome. Mr.
Arcidiacone takes his two toddler grandsons to the playground and
pediatrician. Ms. Arcidiacone makes homemade gnocchi and peels the skin
off grapes so the boys don't choke. This summer, the extended family is
decamping to the grandparents' native region of Calabria, in southern
Italy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Mamma
and papà are fundamental. We couldn't cope without them," Grazia
Arcidiacone, a smiley 36-year-old brunette, said on a Saturday morning
as she sat in her parents' kitchen cuddling 14-month-old Francesco.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The
Arcidiacones are part of Southern Europe's unheralded social safety
net—an army of older family members who are helping younger generations
make ends meet during the region's crippling economic crisis. Half of
all <i>abuelos,</i> or grandparents, in Spain take care of their
grandchildren nearly every day, and 68% of all children under 10 in
Italy are looked after by their <i>nonni</i> when not in school or with
parents, according to official numbers. By way of comparison, 19% of
preschoolers in the U.S. were taken care of primarily by grandparents
while their mothers worked in 2010, according to Census Bureau figures.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>The Iv-B disconnect puts strains on all forms of V-Bi insurance and safety nets, here the families help to quench the chaos from the GFC. As money becomes scarce for welfare this puts more strain on them causing cracks and fatigue in their relationships like flexing a piece of metal.</b></i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here
it isn't just baby sitting. The number of 25-to-34-year-olds living at
home with mom and dad in Italy is rising—it was 42% last year, compared
with 33% in 1994—and most say they can't afford otherwise. "Until 2009,
staying at home was a choice," says Linda Laura Sabbadini, head of
social affairs at Italian statistics agency Istat. "Then, staying at
home started becoming a necessity."</span></div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-81112095577761416802013-03-04T05:04:00.001-08:002013-03-04T05:04:02.476-08:00'Back At Square One': As States Repurpose Welfare Funds, More Families Fall Through Safety Net<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/breakdown-tanf-needy-families-states_n_1606242.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Counterparties+%28Counterparties%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher">'Back At Square One': As States Repurpose Welfare Funds, More Families Fall Through Safety Net</a><br />
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Butler
is among the millions of low-income Americans sliding into the ranks of
a group experts call "the disconnected" -- people who are both out of
work and not receiving welfare. Their desperate straits reflect the
extent to which key components of the American social safety net have
been substantially reduced in recent years, just as the worst economic
downturn since the Great Depression has amplified demand for help.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><i><b>In an Iv-B economy there can be pressure to weaken V-Bi, also they can become short of money after loans to the Iv-B economy are not repaid after hitting the ceiling. Welfare can be reduced because the insurance nature of it seems to create a moral hazard, this can create a temporary boom as innovations grow. For example forcing some people off welfare might allow some businesses to grow that could not get desperate enough people to work there.<span style="font-size: small;"> H<span style="font-size: small;">owever these can be Iv-<span style="font-size: small;">B weeds as they grow to absorb these new resources, then crash causing people to use up their savings.</span></span></span></b></i></span></span></span></div>
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In
Georgia, as in many states, gaining cash assistance has become
increasingly difficult since the landmark welfare reform signed into law
by President Clinton in 1996. Nationally, the share of poor families
with children that were drawing welfare cash benefits plummeted from 68
percent to 27 percent between 1996 and 2010, according to an analysis of
federal data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
During the same period, the number of poor families with children grew
from 6.2 million to 7.3 million.</div>
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<img alt="tanf" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/650777/thumbs/o-TANF-570.jpg?4" style="border: none; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /></div>
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Behind
these precise data points lie messy stories of frustration over the
seeming impossibility of navigating a bewildering welfare system that
sometimes seems rigged for rejection; over mounting bills that can't be
paid; over plans subject to constant renegotiation in lives ruled by
scarcity. Like many states, Georgia does not track what happens to
people who are eliminated from its welfare rolls. But in conversations
with six women who have tried to gain cash assistance here, this is the
picture that emerges: Vexation, fear and deepening trouble.</div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-18170173107988443622013-03-04T03:07:00.001-08:002013-03-04T03:10:39.488-08:00The Bell Curve book<h2 class="calibre_15" style="margin-top: 0em; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Chapter 5<br /><b>Poverty</b></span></span></h2>
<div class="calibre_149" style="height: 3em;">
</div>
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i>Who
becomes poor? One familiar answer is that people who are unlucky enough
to be born to poor parents become poor. There is some truth to this.
Whites, the focus of our analyses in the chapters of Part II, who grew
up in the worst 5 percent of socioeconomic circumstances are eight times
more likely to fall below the poverty line than those growing up in the
top 5 percent of socioeconomic circumstances. But low intelligence is a
stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background. Whites
with IQs in the bottom 5 percent of the distribution of cognitive
ability are fifteen times more likely to be poor than those with IQs in
the top 5 percent.</i></span></div>
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<br /></div>
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><b>IQ can mask a lot of other problems as well, for example poor people might have poor nutrition that restricts intelligence, also a lack of motivation to think in terms of symbolic IQ tests because of education problems. IQ tests have a more subtle problem in that they fall on a normal curve, the questions are selected for this. They then test for random ability, the questions are usually independent of each other so solving one doesn't help a person to solve the next one. However Iv-B thinking is more in roots and branches where it is more important to think in chains. For example a programmer might have high random intelligence (RI) which helps him to do each part of a program, however he might have low chaotic intelligence (CI) which helps him to make chains of programming code that might have to be thousands of lines long to work. Many programmers have this problem, they manage to complete a course at school but cannot code on large projects. This chaotic intelligence or CI is innovative or counter innovative, B people who are inventors might use this to build new ideas from older ones like the roots of a plant looks for new nutrients. A farmer or miner might have this chaotic intelligence where he can pursue a goal tactically discarding ideas that don't work until he finds a new system that works. <br /><br />Random intelligence or RI is more suited to team players because each piece of a team job is independent of the others but tending towards a conventional or normal outcome. A union worker might have this RI where he can work as a plumber for example in building a house, then a carpenter, an electrician, a tiler, a concreter, etc also work as teams to fit their work in with the plumber to build a new house. These homes tend to be highly normalized, the RI of the workers is towards doing a normal job so the whole property is resistant to collapse. CI or chaotic intelligence would be like one person building a whole house, if they made some critical mistakes then the whole property might collapse, they would have more chance however of coming up with a new house design. <br /><br />This is probably why so many talented programmers have been found since the rise of computing, many of them amateurs, often also those with poor grades or little desire to do schoolwork of the kind that denotes high IQ scores. To create a CIQ or chaotic intelligence quotient is beyond the scope of this article, but basically questions need to build on each other like IV branches or B roots. A person doing the test might solve one part which leads to one or more other parts as branches that are more difficult. At some point he might fail to go to higher branches. This is like many games where people can excel even when poor students with this CIQ, they might complete levels that get harder such as in warcraft and continue to go higher. Instead CIQ might be like B, a person might have to be t<span style="font-size: small;">este<span style="font-size: small;">d in research by looking for information, like treasures in some games that unlock new parts of the game. The allows the roots structure to grow, it might measure for example a person'<span style="font-size: small;">s</span> ability to innovate</span></span> or in<span style="font-size: small;">vent something new<span style="font-size: small;"> while Iv CIQ would measure a person'<span style="font-size: small;">s</span> ability to exploit new ideas as counter innovations.</span></span> </b> </i></span></div>
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<br /></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i>How
does each of these causes of poverty look when the other is held
constant? Or to put it another way: If you have to choose, is it better
to be born smart or rich? The answer is unequivocally "smart." A white
youth reared in a home in which the parent or parents were chronically
unemployed, worked at only the most menial of jobs, and had not gotten
past ninth grade, but of just average intelligence—an IQ of 100—has
nearly a 90 percent chance of being out of poverty by his or her early
30s. Conversely, a white youth born to a solid middle-class family but
with an IQ equivalently below average faces a much higher risk of
poverty, despite his more fortunate background.</i></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="calibre_22" style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;">
<i>When
the picture is complicated by adding the effects of sex, marital
status, and years of education, intelligence remains more important than
any of them, with marital status running a close second. Among people
who are both smart and well educated, the risk of poverty approaches
zero. But it should also be noted that young white adults who marry are
seldom in poverty, even if they are below average in intelligence or
education. Even in these more complicated analyses, low IQ continues to
be a much stronger precursor of poverty than the socioeconomic
circumstances in which people grow up.</i></div>
</span>Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-1581970367526584422013-03-04T02:52:00.000-08:002013-03-04T02:52:20.617-08:00Failed states<img alt="http://nyudri.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/failed-states-2012.jpg" class="decoded" height="352" src="http://nyudri.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/failed-states-2012.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<a href="http://nyudri.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/failed-states-2012.jpg">failed-states-2012.jpg (967×535)</a><br />
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<i><b>This gives an indication of Roy and Biv societies, critical and in danger would be Roy, the borderline as on the G and Gb fence, and stable and most stable as Biv.</b></i>Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-44060489373297514432013-03-04T02:49:00.001-08:002013-03-04T02:49:48.940-08:00Economist's View: 'Important Reasons to Challenge Professor Mankiw'<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=743885562018465570" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/08/important-reasons-to-challenge-professor-mankiw.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher">Economist's View: 'Important Reasons to Challenge Professor Mankiw'</a><br />
<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
This captures an essential point (see <a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2005/03/_social_securit.html" style="color: #74198b;" target="_self">here</a> too):</div>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
Stepping
back from these particulars, the larger point is that most government
transfers take the form of social insurance against risks related to
health, unemployment and poverty. As with private insurance, people
shouldn’t expect the premiums they pay to equal the benefits they
receive. What they should expect — and appreciate — is reduced risk of
an economic shock that could turn their lives upside down.</div>
</blockquote>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-14809985593893732922013-03-03T04:24:00.000-08:002013-03-03T04:24:27.490-08:00How much can taxes curb inequality?<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/06/how-much-can-taxes-curb-inequality/">How much can taxes curb inequality?</a><br />
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How much can taxes curb inequality?</h1>
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Posted by Dylan Matthews on August 6, 2012 at <span class="get-the-time" style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">4:11 pm</span></div>
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The Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel has an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444246904577571042249868040.html?mod=rss_Capital" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">excellent piece</a> Monday
on what academic research tells us about taxes and inequality in the
United States. The short version: Inequality has exploded in the past
three decades. Taxes, meanwhile, have gotten more progressive — though
not enough to counteract that increase in inequality.<br />
<br />
<i><b>The rise of the Iv-B economy occurs from innovations, these are increasing because of computerization creating more booms and busts as well as winners and losers. Putting a brake on this runs the risk of collapsing the growth of some causing stagnation, it is more important to have strong I-O policing to reduce wealth inequality from fraud and predatory speculation. For example much of this inequality cam from the run up to the GFC from financial speculation rather than legitimate businesses.</b></i> </div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I’ve
made the graph below to illustrate that latter fact. The red line shows
how much taxes and transfers (such as food stamps) have done to reduce
inequality between 1979 and 2009. The data comes from table nine <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>.
The blue line, meanwhile, shows how much more progressive taxes and
transfers would have had to be in order to maintain 1979 levels of
economic equality.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/08/gini_change_taxes_transfers.jpg" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-6509" height="426" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/08/gini_change_taxes_transfers.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; max-width: 97.5%; padding: 6px; width: auto;" title="gini_change_taxes_transfers" width="606" /></a>In
2009, taxes and transfers reduced inequality by 26.4 percent, around
the same amount as the 24.8 percent reduction in 1979. But the tax code
actually has to become more and more progressive every year to prevent
inequality from growing. Taxes and transfers needed to reduce inequality
by 38.2 percent in 2009 to keep it down to 1979 levels.</div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-7957944924606836102013-03-03T04:16:00.001-08:002013-03-03T04:16:56.877-08:00The Revolt against TED « NYU Development Research Institute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://nyudri.org/2012/08/14/revolt-against-the-tedocrats/">The Revolt against TED « NYU Development Research Institute</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: ubuntu-1, ubuntu-2, Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;">That
solving any of their favorite global problems would require political
solutions—if only to ensure that nobody’s rights and interests are
violated or overlooked in the process— is not something that the TED
elite, with its aversion to conventional instruments of power and its
inebriated can-do attitude, likes to hear. ….TED’s
techno-humanitarians—{are nother} brigade of what the Nigerian-American
writer Teju Cole has dubbed “The White Savior Industrial Complex.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: ubuntu-1, ubuntu-2, Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;"><i><b>TED can act as a V elite that brings together ideas to cooperate and synthesize new ones, this is like the V leaves of a tree that feed the R prey, like the poor people of the world. The V wealthy often give money and ideas like this. </b></i> </span>Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-12767210171021895342013-03-03T04:09:00.001-08:002013-03-04T02:48:48.805-08:00Forgotten people<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=743885562018465570" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/sites/dlib.nyu.edu.undercover/files/documents/uploads/editors/NYWorldTeleSun_1961Oct10_pg1_1.pdf">dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/sites/dlib.nyu.edu.undercover/files/documents/uploads/editors/NYWorldTeleSun_1961Oct10_pg1_1.pdf</a><br />
<br />
<i><b>They work as R-B, sometimes R nomads and sometimes settling as B, they are in danger from Oy criminals and also from being cheated by Iv agents. </b></i>Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-47585954259113739962013-03-03T03:44:00.001-08:002013-03-03T03:44:11.191-08:00Empirics and Psychology: Eight of the World’s Top Young Economists Discuss Where Their Field Is Going | Power Games | Big Think<a href="http://bigthink.com/power-games/empirics-and-psychology-eight-of-the-worlds-top-young-economists-discuss-where-their-field-is-going">Empirics and Psychology: Eight of the World’s Top Young Economists Discuss Where Their Field Is Going | Power Games | Big Think</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: freight-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.200000762939453px;">Why
are developing countries poor? In terms of impact on mankind globally,
this strikes me as probably the biggest and most important current
economic question. I think the answer is complex and linked to a
combination of factors around history, geography, luck, etc. I am
personally working on management practices: people in developing
countries are poor because wages are low, and wages are low because
firms are very unproductive, and firms seem to be unproductive in large
part because of bad management. An Indian worker makes in one week what
an average U.S. worker makes in a half a day. One big factor seems to
be that factories in India are frankly very badly managed: equipment is
not looked after, materials are wasted, theft is common because
inventory is not monitored, defects keep occurring, etc. In a recent
project with the World Bank, we found in randomized experiments that
giving simple management advice to Indian factories increased
productivity by 20%, and I suspect that a number like 200% would be
possible in the longer run. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: freight-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.200000762939453px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: freight-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.200000762939453px;"><i><b>A global iv-B economy is highly competitive, if some companies and countries fall behind then they can fall to a floor of near bankruptcy while others rise to a ceiling of extreme wealth. This happens in other competitive fields, for example champion artists and sportsmen might get much more money for only small differences in performance. Products only a few percent higher in price for the same quality might crash, in a V-Bi economy products might normalize with few differences in quality and share the wealth more equally but creating more stagnation. </b></i></span><br />
<br />Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-9394728663311204572013-03-03T02:57:00.002-08:002013-03-03T02:57:39.078-08:00Payday lenders use courts to create modern debtors' prison : Stltoday<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/payday-lenders-use-courts-to-create-modern-debtor-s-prison/article_f56ca6aa-e880-11e1-b154-0019bb30f31a.html">Payday lenders use courts to create modern debtors' prison : Stltoday</a><br />
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<br />
<br />
<aside class="grid_3 left" id="asset-related"><div class="relatedstories box well" style="background-color: #ebeff9; background-image: url(http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/payday-lenders-use-courts-to-create-modern-debtor-s-prison/bottom-left.gif); background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">
<div class="well-caption clearfix">
So
here's the state of Illinois, which slow-pays its vendors, which has
$85 billion in pension obligations it cannot meet and which last wee…</div>
<div class="well-caption clearfix">
<h4 class="serif">
<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/psychology-can-be-crucial-when-trimming-debt/article_18047159-0f54-5c96-95fc-cc12bcaf6b31.html" title="Psychology can be crucial when trimming debt ">Psychology can be crucial when trimming debt</a></h4>
If
you've decided you want to get rid of your debts but are having trouble
doing it, that might be because you haven't prepared your brain for it.</div>
</div>
</aside><div class="asset-main">
<div class="entry-content">
Wakita
Shaw's troubles started with a $425 payday loan, the kind of
high-interest, short-term debt that seldom ends well for the borrower.<br />
But
most of them don't end up in jail. So Shaw was surprised in May of last
year to hear that the St. Louis County police were looking for her. She
and her mother went to the police station.<br />
They arrested her on the spot.<br />
They told her the bail was $1,250. "And I couldn't use a bail bondsman to get out,” Shaw recalled.<br />
The
Bill of Rights in the Missouri constitution declares that “no person
shall be imprisoned for debt, except for nonpayment of fines and
penalties imposed by law.” Still, people do go to jail over private
debt. It's a regular occurrence in metro St. Louis, on both sides of the
Mississippi River.<br />
Here's how it happens: A creditor gets a civil
judgment against the debtor. Then the creditor's lawyer calls the
debtor to an “examination” in civil court, where they are asked about
bank accounts and other assets the creditor might seize.<br />
If the
debtor doesn't show, the creditor asks the court for a “body
attachment.” That's an order to arrest the debtor and hold him or her
until a court hearing, or until the debtor posts bond.<br />
The
practice draws fire from legal aid attorneys and some politicians. They
call it modern-day debtors prison, a way to squeeze money out of people
with little legal knowledge.</div>
<div class="entry-content">
<br /></div>
<div class="entry-content">
<i><b>A deceptive Iv-B economy because of weak I-O policing. </b></i></div>
</div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-81078141461944641292013-03-03T02:54:00.002-08:002013-03-03T02:54:59.056-08:00Monetary Cranks Delay Reform in Cranked-Up Welfare States by Michael Heller - Project Syndicate<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/blog/ecb-monetary-cranks-delay-reform-of-cranked-up-welfare-states-by-michael-heller-by-michael-heller-by-michael-heller">Monetary Cranks Delay Reform in Cranked-Up Welfare States by Michael Heller - Project Syndicate</a><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">“The
welfare state evens out people’s chances in life, and it serves as
career insurance against sheer bad luck … </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><b>As Bi it normalizes people's chances not by reducing bad luck but by reducing chaos. </b> </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">The welfare state compensates
and appeases those who lose out to technological progress and to the
expanding division of labour and world trade. </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><b>By normalizing outcomes it narrows the gap between winners and losers both of which can hit a ceiling and floor and collapse as in the GFC. </b> </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">It helps people with low
productivity and prevents them from having to resort to fraud, theft,
and other criminality. </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><b>Low productivity is some people is averaged out by their joining a union, fraud and theft occurs more with secretive and deceptive R-B people. </b> </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">It insures people against economic risks in a
manner and to an extent that private insurance could not possibly
provide, and thus benefits everyone …</i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><b>Government insurance in more Ro while unemployment insurance funded by wage contributions is more Bi. </b> </i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"> Yet just as there can be too
little state insurance, resulting in an inadequate social safety net,
there can be an over-provision of insurance protection, resulting in
moral hazard … Germany today suffers a moral-hazard problem with respect
to unemployment benefits and wage supplements”.</i><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><b>Moral hazard does not arise from providing insurance but from not policing it adequately for fraud.</b> </i>Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-28355688762352672682013-03-03T02:49:00.000-08:002013-03-03T02:49:30.819-08:00Milken Institute | Newsroom | Currency of Ideas - Egypt's Costly Free Lunch<a href="http://www.milkeninstitute.org/newsroom/newsroom.taf?function=currencyOfIdeas&blogID=562">Milken Institute | Newsroom | Currency of Ideas - Egypt's Costly Free Lunch</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">
Back
up for a moment. You may not have noticed, but the Egyptian economy
responded very well to market-opening reforms begun in the early 1990s
that attracted massive amounts of foreign capital. Real income per
capita <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/egypt/gdp-per-capita-ppp" style="color: #12438f; text-decoration: initial;">has nearly tripled</a>,
to a respectable $6,300. The catch: the growth dislocated the lives of
millions of Egyptians, eliminating the security of many government
workers, sucking the rural poor into crowded urban slums, and creating a
wealthy elite of insiders who made no effort to hide their (sometimes
ill-gotten) gains.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Often these reforms can turn a Roy economy into Biv too quickly, where g public property is still more efficient than Gb private property. it can also be an Iv-B economy that creates a boom then a bust with extreme winners and losers.</b></i> <br />
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">
No
democratic government will succeed in the long run unless it reduces
official corruption, controls military patronage spending, lays out the
welcome mat for new businesses, and reforms the antiquated education
system.<br />
<br />
<i><b>A weak I-O police can be a symptom of the problem as much as a cause, if the countries has dissimilar groups then some might become enough of a majority to corrupt the justice system to favor them instead of being neutral. </b></i> <br />
<br />
<br />
But the immediate problem is managing the runaway food and
energy subsidies that are now equivalent <a href="http://www.cfr.org/egypt/reforming-egypts-untenable-subsidies/p27885" style="color: #12438f; text-decoration: initial;">to about 10 percent of GDP</a>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">
Simply
targeting the funds to those truly in need would go a long way toward
fixing the problem. About one-third of the money pays for food, mostly
in the form of lower prices for bread sold to everybody, rich and poor.
The other two-thirds is in subsidies for gasoline, natural gas and
butane for cooking, little of which raises the living standards of the
poor; the rest goes to industry and the middle-class.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">
But
efficient targeting is more easily proposed than done. Subsidized bread
is widely viewed as a birth right. And it’s hard to imagine the Muslim
Brotherhood-led government risking an outbreak of urban discontent that
gave the military an excuse to reassert power. Gasoline and cooking gas
are almost as problematic -- <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/world/middleeast/in-face-of-protest-jordans-king-cancels-fuel-price-increase.html?_r=2" style="color: #12438f; text-decoration: initial;">Jordan just rescinded an increase in gasoline prices</a> after mobs hit the streets (led, ironically, by the Muslim Brotherhood).<br />
<br />
<i><b>R-B people live chaotically on the edge, often subsidies are meant </b></i> <i><b>to normalize the costs so Bi-Ro people don't protest. This underlying chaos can lead to Ro protests as in the Arab Spring.</b></i><br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">
If
the subsidy system is to crack, the first fissures will probably be in
the delivery of cheap natural gas, most of which is used by business.
Indeed, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/world/middleeast/in-face-of-protest-jordans-king-cancels-fuel-price-increase.html?_r=2" style="color: #12438f; text-decoration: initial;">interim government floated a plan back in July</a>for
raising the price of natural gas sold to heavy industry. That’s a
credible beginning (if the government follows through), and one that
could pacify the IMF (and foreign investors) for a while. To save really
big bucks, though, gasoline would have to take a hit, and perhaps food
down the road.</div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-2356370452259901042013-03-03T00:42:00.001-08:002013-03-03T00:42:43.697-08:00Laura D'Andrea Tyson: Income Inequality and Educational Opportunity - NYTimes.com<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/income-inequality-and-educational-opportunity/">Laura D'Andrea Tyson: Income Inequality and Educational Opportunity - NYTimes.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">According to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf" style="color: #666699;">most recent census report</a>,
about one-quarter of children under the age of 6 live in poverty.
Recent research shows that early childhood poverty has negative effects
on brain development. At the age of 3, <a href="http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/resources/reports_and_working_papers/working_papers/wp3/" style="color: #666699;">children in poverty</a> have smaller vocabularies than their peers and a harder time sorting and organizing information and planning ahead.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Children
in poor families are also less likely to have access to early-childhood
education programs. Such programs have a proven record of raising
future educational attainment levels, especially for poor children.
Sadly, many states are slashing such programs, despite the fact that the
funds dedicated to them <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20120724a.htm" style="color: #666699;">earn an annual real rate of return of 10 percent or higher</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>R-B people are usually chaotic so investment getting them off the floor can lead to dramatic growth and returns on investment. There is no equilibr<span style="font-size: small;">i</span>um for them so they tend to either succeed or fail badly. </b></i> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Disparities
in educational achievement among children from different income groups
increase with age. Such gaps are larger in fifth grade than they are in
kindergarten, and they continue to grow as children move through primary
and secondary school.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As
a result of residential segregation, children from low-income families
are more likely to have classmates with low achievement levels and
behavioral problems than children from affluent families. Poor children <a href="http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/Whither%20Opportunity_Executive%20Summary.pdf" style="color: #666699;">are also disproportionately situated</a> in
schools that often find it difficult to attract and retain skilled
teachers. And as the Chicago teachers’ strike reminds us, poor children
are often hungry, depending on their schools rather than their homes for
breakfast and lunch.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Some communities are more Bi-Ro and act as teams to help their weaker members, this can overcome some of these problems bringing them up to a normal level around the center of their normal curve. </b></i></span> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
United States is caught in a vicious cycle largely of its own making.
Rising income inequality is breeding more inequality in educational
opportunity, which results in greater inequality in educational
attainment. That, in turn, undermines the intergenerational mobility
upon which Americans have always prided themselves and perpetuates
income inequality from generation to generation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>An Iv-B economy creates extreme winners and losers, t<span style="font-size: small;">he winners when they crash migh<span style="font-size: small;">t bump repeatedly against the ceiling like the 1% did after the GF<span style="font-size: small;">C, the poor bump against the floor repeatedly rising a little then cras<span style="font-size: small;">hing into extreme poverty and crime. This underclass becomes more nomadic as R.</span></span></span></span></b></i> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This
dynamic all but guarantees a permanent underclass. Indeed, the process
is already under way: An American child’s future income is already more
dependent on his or her parents’ income than a child born in most other
developed countries.</span></div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-27302148028809464272013-03-03T00:12:00.002-08:002013-03-03T00:12:27.753-08:00Greek Prime Minister Warns of Societal Collapse Like Weimar Germany; Citizens Storm Defense Ministry; Merkel Takes Gamble on Visiting Greece <br />
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/greek-citizens-storm-defense-ministry.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher<br />
<br />
<br />
Antonis Samaras says Greece's democracy is in danger, comparing situation to Germany's pre-war Weimar Republic<br />
<br />
<i><b>Resources are so scarce that the country is becoming Roy, so government owned resources will become more efficient. </b></i> <br />
<br />
Greece is teetering on the edge of collapse with its society at risk of
disintegrating unless the country's near-empty public coffers are shored
up with urgent financial aid, the country's prime minister has warned.<br />
<br />
<i><b>The result of Iv-B economics is some countries hit the floor when V-Bi savings and insurance are exhausted.</b></i> <br />
<br />
Almost three years after the eruption of Europe's debt drama in Athens,
the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that
democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Often in Roy they become dictatorships because a vote can become a negative sum game, the people vote for whatever will reduce their losses rather than for long term benefits. When people are poor crime rises and so the O police become more important than I civil police, people will commit more crimes to prevent starvation and disaster even though they forgo some benefits such as a clean credit history or criminal record. </b></i> <br />
<br />
Resorting to highly unusual language for a man who weighs his words
carefully, the 61-year-old politician evoked the rise of the neo-Nazi
Golden Dawn party to highlight the threat that Greece faces, explaining
that society "is threatened by growing unemployment, as happened to
Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic".<br />
<br />
Mounting anti-austerity rage before a new round of sweeping
EU-IMF-mandated austerity measures appears to have caught the government
off-guard, with officials voicing fears over the ability of Samaras's
fragile coalition to surviveAperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-36764112948754558872013-03-03T00:06:00.000-08:002013-03-03T00:06:12.541-08:00OpEdNews - Article: Transcript Exclusive Chris Hedges Interview; The Template for Harvesting America, Sacrifice Zones and Blood<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Transcript-Exclusive-Chris-by-Rob-Kall-121027-236.html">OpEdNews - Article: Transcript Exclusive Chris Hedges Interview; The Template for Harvesting America, Sacrifice Zones and Blood</a><br />
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<br />
<b>Chris Hedges:</b> Well, that comes at the end of the book, which is
an attempt that both Joe and I made to describe a system that has been
seized by political paralysis, and is dominated by [a] narrow corporate
elite that no longer responds to the needs of citizens.<br />
<br />
<i><b>After a color imbalance there can be a collapse that moves up the colors from B to V and R to Y, the last stage is where Y in poor countries and V in wealthy countries as the elite or most wealthy still have most of their assets but others have lost much of theirs. For example in the Roy animal kingdom Y predators might lions might still be ok while other animals are starving and dying ina drought. In a Biv plant kingdom the V leaves might have enough resources to make flowers and seeds as the trees are dying. </b></i> <br />
<br />
It attempts to
illustrate, by going into the poorest pockets of the country, that the
formal mechanisms of power that once made incremental and peaceful
reform no longer work, and that the only solution we have is civil
disobedience.<br />
<br />
<b>This is the disconnect caused by weak I-O policing, caused in turn partially by Y-V having most of the funds left to pay them.</b> <br />
<br />
But that comes after detailing the conditions that people
are living, in places like Camden, New Jersey, which per capita is the
poorest city in the United States; Pine Ridge, South Dakota has the
second poorest county in the country; The average life expectancy for a
male on Pine Ridge is 48<b>--</b>that is the lowest in the western
hemisphere, outside of Haiti; The coal fields of southern West Virginia;
the produce fields where largely undocumented workers, without any kind
of legal protection, organizing power or rights, pick the nation's
produce.<br />
<br />
<i><b>These are R and B people, R like nomadic pickers being ripped off by predatory Y-V capitalism. </b></i> <br />
<br />
And by the time you get there, I think, hopefully the reader
has seen what happens when individuals in communities are forced to
kneel before the dictates of the marketplace.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Not the marketplace but the team power of Y-V against R-B divided and conquered individuals.</b></i> <br />
<br />
<br />Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-66154377246795787832013-03-02T23:58:00.002-08:002013-03-02T23:58:34.377-08:00How Could Greece and Argentina – The New 'Debt Colonies' – Be Set Free? | Op-Eds & Columns<a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/how-could-greece-and-argentina-the-new-debt-colonies-be-set-free?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+%28CEPR%29">How Could Greece and Argentina – The New 'Debt Colonies' – Be Set Free? | Op-Eds & Columns</a><br />
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How Could Greece and Argentina – The New 'Debt Colonies' – Be Set Free?</h3>
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Ha-Joon Chang<br />
<i>The Guardian Unlimited</i>, November 25, 2012<br />
<span data-mce-bogus="true"><a class="blank" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/25/greece-debt-crisis-didnt-need-to-be-this-bad" style="color: #054785; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">See article on original website</a></span><br />
Colonialism
is back. Well, at least according to leading politicians of the two
most famous debtor nations. Commenting on the EU's inability to deliver
its end of the bargain despite the savage spending cuts Greece had
delivered, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the opposition Syriza party,
said last week that his country was becoming a "debt colony". A couple
of days later, Hernán Lorenzino, Argentina's economy minister, used the
term "judicial colonialism" to denounce the <a class="blank" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/22/american-ruling-fears-default-argentina?INTCMP=SRCH" style="color: #054785; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank" title="">U.S. court ruling</a> that
his country has to pay in full a group of "vulture funds" that had held
out from the debt restructuring that followed the country's 2002
default.<br />
While their language was deliberately incendiary, these
two politicians were making extremely important points. Tsipras was
asking why most burdens of adjustment for bad loans have to fall on the
debtor country and, within them, mostly on its weaker members. And he is
right. As they say, it takes two to tango, so those who condemn Greece
for imprudent borrowing should also condemn the imprudent lenders that
made it possible.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><i><b>In an Iv-B boom some countries will eventually collapse much worse than others, some will also win. this is like a poker game where winners and losers are separated</b><b> in the booms and busts of the hands played. Some can experience damage hitting the floor after a free fall in their economy like Greece, others can have damage from hitting the ceiling like the US did in their real estate market when it could not rise any further. The ceiling hit caused the momentum of purchases to falter and subprime borrowers to default. The floor hit caused the momentum of selloffs to stop, for example people taking their money out of the country and then finding there is no way to get the rest out. When this bleeds much of the country dry it hits the floor so the rest of people's money can lose value too. Vulture funds are like Oy vultures in the Roy animal kingdom looking to attack R countries with few allies able to stand together as a team. In this negative sum game all are trying to minimize costs and losses, the vultures are reducing losses on bonds purchased while the countries are reducing losses from the debt overhang. In Iv-B both sides can be imprudent, however both engage in the equivalent of poker bluffs or Chinese Whispers where rumors are believed because they go around with further misinformation constantly added if people think it will give them a competitive advantage. With so much secrecy there is little other information, those who miss getting on the boom might still experience poverty from the bust so there is no easy way to not participate. Often the best way is to buy into a bubble and try to get out early as it collapses. </b></i></span></td></tr>
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Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-19133826826591055832013-03-02T21:41:00.001-08:002013-03-02T21:41:33.439-08:00Bruce Bartlett: A Conservative Case for the Welfare State - NYTimes.com<a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/a-conservative-case-for-the-welfare-state/?smid=tw-share">Bruce Bartlett: A Conservative Case for the Welfare State - NYTimes.com</a><br />
<br />
<br />
In
the 40th anniversary edition of his book, “Capitalism and Freedom,”
Milton Friedman advised conservatives to use crises as opportunities to
advance their agenda. “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces
real change,” he contended.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Iv-B economies have two crises, one when hitting the ceiling and one when hitting the floor. This causes a change in direction of momentum in that society.</b></i> <br />
<br />
Thus Republicans are now
using the fiscal impasse to try to raise the age for Medicare and reduce
Social Security benefits by changing the index used to adjust them for
inflation. They know that such programs will be easier to abolish in the
future if the number of people who qualify can be reduced and benefits
are cut so that privatization becomes more attractive<br />
<br />
<i><b>The Iv part of the V-Iv Republicans are libertarians and so profit from the chaos of reducing V-Bi insurance in society.</b></i><br />
<br />
This
is foolish and reactionary.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Iv is counter innovation or counter revolutionary by nature, they react rather than act.</b></i> <br />
<br />
Moreover, there are sound reasons why a
conservative would support a welfare state. Historically, it has been
conservatives like the 19th century chancellor of Germany, Otto von
Bismarck, who established the welfare state in Europe. They did so
because masses of poor people create social instability and become
breeding grounds for radical movements.<br />
<br />
<i><b>V governments and industry often do better with V-Bi where Bi unions and social insurance create stability at the risk of stagnation. B people can become R revolutionaries and terrorists as a lack of insurance makes them act alone. </b></i> <br />
<br />
In postwar
Europe, conservative parties were the principal supporters of
welfare-state policies in order to counter efforts by socialists and
communists to abolish capitalism altogether.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Bi insurance is based on randomness and the normal curve, it quenches the chaos of collapses in capitalism caused by low wages.</b></i> <br />
<br />
The welfare state was
devised to shave off the rough edges of capitalism and make it
sustainable. Indeed, the conservative icon Winston Churchill was among
the founders of the British welfare state.<br />
<br />
American
conservatives, being far more libertarian than their continental
counterparts, reject the welfare state for both moral and efficiency
reasons. It creates unhappiness, they believe, and inevitably becomes
bloated, undermining incentives and economic growth.<br />
<br />
<i><b>It can become bloated and stagnant when Iv-B growth is lost, incentives are weakened when people have to be more normal and conventional. However this is caused by weak I-O policing creating a disconnect between the two.</b></i> <br />
<br />
One
problem with this conservative view is its lack of an empirical
foundation. Research by Peter H. Lindert of the University of
California, Davis, shows clearly that the welfare state is not
incompatible with growth while providing a superior quality of life to
many of those left to sink or swim in AmericaAperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-61254496419908371262013-03-02T21:05:00.000-08:002013-03-02T21:05:30.323-08:00The hidden prosperity of the poor<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/the-hidden-prosperity-of-the-poor/?smid=tw-share">The Hidden Prosperity of the Poor - NYTimes.com</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<header class="postHeader" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; line-height: 15px;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="color: black; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-hinted-1, nyt-cheltenham-hinted-2, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 25px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin: 5px 0px 2px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The Hidden Prosperity of the Poor</span></h1>
<address class="byline author vcard" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 2px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">By <a class="url fn" href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/thomas-b-edsall/" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: initial; text-transform: uppercase;" title="See all posts by THOMAS B. EDSALL">THOMAS B. EDSALL</a></span></address>
</header><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 166px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A concept <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w3964.pdf" style="color: #666699;">promulgated by the right </a>—
the notion of the hidden prosperity of the poor — underpins the
conservative take on the ongoing debate over rising inequality.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 166px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
political right uses this concept to undermine the argument made by
liberals that the increasingly unequal distribution of income poses a
danger to the social fabric as well as to the American economy.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 166px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">President Obama forcefully articulated the case from the left in an<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/06/remarks-president-economy-osawatomie-kansas" style="color: #666699;">address on Dec. 6, 2011</a> at Osawatomie High School in Kansas:</span></div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px 34px 14px 200px;">
<div style="color: #707070; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This
kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very
heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try.
We tell people — we tell our kids — that in this country, even if
you’re born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle
class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even
better than you do. That’s why immigrants from around the world
historically have flocked to our shores.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 166px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
conservative counterargument – that life for the poor and the middle
class is better than it seems – goes like this: Even with stagnant or
modestly growing incomes, the poor and middle class benefit from the
fact that a stable or declining share of income is now required for
basic necessities, leaving more money for discretionary spending.
According to this theory, consumption inequality – the disparity between
the amount of money spent on goods and services by the rich, the middle
class and the poor — remains relatively unchanged, even while income
inequality worsens.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>The Iv-B economy can cause some prices to rise in bubbles to a ceiling, also other prices to fall to a floor. For example many electronic goods</b></i> <i><b>fall virtually to the cost of production and then this downward momentum causes some companies to crash chaotically and go bankrupt. Farming can also have this problem, with cyclical booms and busts hitting this low floor of prices can regularly send them broke and needing to be supported by Bi cooperatives. </b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>It is also a Biv attitude, that all people are gaining from transactions so everyone must be getting wealthier, or a rising tide lifts all boats. However some areas can be Roy where resources are scarce, this can also be because resources tend to flow to the wealthier Y-Oy areas which are predatory. </b></i></span></div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743885562018465570.post-3834742779450307042013-03-02T20:21:00.002-08:002013-03-02T20:21:38.123-08:00Why poor people pay more bribes than rich people | Felix Salmon<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/02/18/why-poor-people-pay-more-bribes-than-rich-people/">Why poor people pay more bribes than rich people | Felix Salmon</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: 32px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">
Why poor people pay more bribes than rich people</h2>
<div id="thebyline" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;">
<div class="author" style="color: #777777; display: inline; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;">
By Felix Salmon</div>
<br />
<div class="timestamp" style="border-left-color: rgb(119, 119, 119); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; color: #777777; display: inline; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 5px 4px; padding-left: 5px; text-transform: uppercase;">
FEBRUARY 18, 2013</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/tag/bribes" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: initial; text-transform: uppercase;">BRIBES</a> | <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/tag/develoment" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: initial; text-transform: uppercase;">DEVELOMENT</a> | <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/tag/economics" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: initial; text-transform: uppercase;">ECONOMICS</a></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/world/asia/kabuls-car-guantanamo-where-vehicles-rot-and-trust-goes-to-die.html?ref=world" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: initial;">Azam Ahmed</a> has a report from Kabul’s ‘Car Guantánamo’ today:</div>
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 8px; padding-left: 8px;">
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Behind
these walls are thousands of cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles and even
bicycles, lined up in vehicular purgatory after falling afoul of the
Kabul traffic police. Things that have landed cars in the slammer:
illegal left turns, parking violations, involvement in fender-benders
and, perhaps most egregious, failure to pay a bribe.</div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“I’ve
been waiting two months to get my van back,” said Sayed Wahid, whose
quest to reclaim it, after it was impounded for an expired international
permit, propelled him on an exhausting odyssey through no fewer than
six different government agencies…</div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
In
November, Mr. Wahid had driven his van from Kunduz down to Kabul when
he was pulled over at a checkpoint in the capital. His license and car
tags were clean, but a permit to cross international borders, though not
needed for that specific trip, had expired.</div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
For
a moment, he said, he considered bribing the officer. He has regretted
every day for the past two months his decision not to.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ahmed
explains that when it comes to Kabul’s traffic police, “the rules are
unevenly applied, punitive to those who can least afford it, and mostly
irrelevant to those with money and power.”<br />
<br />
<i><b>Here the I-O police have a right wing bias to Iv-Oy, then secret bribes are like commissions to a salesmen. Bi-Ro communities get fragmented but can often come together in demonstrations and protests. Y-V teams profit most with the police becoming their agents in many cases. Oy crimes are poorly policed, the Y mafia might bribe the O police to look the other way. The poor are like prey and so they pay more than those who are Y-Oy predatory in a Roy country.</b></i> <br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The
point here is that it’s the poor, like Sayed Wahid, who are hit hardest
by Kabul’s endemic corruption. Either they do the sensible thing, and
pay a bribe they can ill afford, or else they’re at real risk of losing
their livelihood. Meanwhile, the rich and powerful aren’t even <i>asked</i> to
pay bribes: the police know better than to try this stunt on someone
who could easily get them fired. It’s safe to solicit a bribe from a guy
from Kunduz in a van; you’d have to be much braver to try it with a man
in a suit driving a Mercedes.</div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
It’s not that the rich don’t pay bribes at all; <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-15/berlusconi-bribes-are-necessary-not-crimes" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: initial;">of course they do</a>. But in general when the rich pay bribes, they tend to get even richer. That’s the deal: that’s <i>business</i>.<br />
<br />
<i><b>The rich pay commissions to the police for profit, when I is biased to the right they might pay civil fines for criminal fraud which are like commissions or bribes that go to I pay rises.</b></i> <br />
<br />
When the poor pay bribes, by contrast, it’s a deadweight loss: it’s
just money disappearing into the pockets of a corrupt official, never to
be seen again.</div>
Aperiomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06963836674738146348noreply@blogger.com0