Saturday, November 29, 2008

Running Songs, songs for while jogging

I am as of now convinced that running songs, songs sung in our heads or actually out loud while we are jogging, improve performance, help one to get the most out of oneself.

Running songs: provide rhythm to the number of paces per minute rate; help to serve to increases the number of paces per minute rate; remind the runner of the importance of a high number of paces per minute; help to serve to increase the distance moved forward per pace; remind the runner of the importance of a high rate of distance forwards per pace; take the mind off of pains, discomforts, and inertial lazy feelings; and, in a somewhat hypnotic manner help the runner to believe that he is able to attain to a high level in terms of number of paces per minute and distance forwards per pace.

I've heard that when the American blacks were slaves they sang songs while working which helped them to get through the work with a minimum of mental and physical fatigue. I suppose similar cases exist throughout the world. American blacks, now free, are big successes in the world of sports in America.

The jogging song that was my first jogging song, the jogging song I used yesterday and today, was:

High and long we step, heads high in the wind;
many times a minute we step, champions of glory road


I realized that this first jogging song, sounded corny, sort of like goose-stepping Hitler youth of a type; the melody for it that came up naturally in my mind sounded like a corny inferior sibling of Rogers and Hammerstein musical on the stage type lyrics.

I also realized that this first jogging song is useful if what you are into is stepping high when jogging, and if what you are into is holding your head high to the wind while jogging; however generally speaking, stepping high with the foot and holding the head high to the wind are inefficient and slow you down IMHO.

When I first came up with the first version of the running song I was enamored of thinking of myself while running as like a champion athlete triumphantly and joyously running on the best road for jogging out of all the roads that run alongside a beach anywhere in the world.

I had to revise the jogging song. The version I first came up with this evening:

Far and quick we step, streamlining the wind
Many long paces a minute we step, glory road kings.


'Improvements'(?) that came to mind this evening:

1

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the wind
Many long paces a minute we step, glory road kings.


2

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the wind
Many long paces a minute we're stepping, glory road kings.


3

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the wind
Many long paces a minute we're stepping, glory road kings.


4

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the wind
Our steps per minute rate is high, we're glory road kings.


5

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the sky
Our steps per minute rate is high, we're glory road kings


6

Far and quick we're stepping, streamlining the sky
Our steps per minute rate is high, we're glory road kings


7

Long are our strides as we streamline the sky
Many are our steps per unit of time,

Ruler of Roads of magnificence, am I



Scrap Notes re the rhyming and choice of words:

Champions of the Roads of Splendor we fly by.
Rulers of Roads of magnificence we fly by
highway
splendor
honor
majesty
eminence and renown
magnificence
stride
Many our steps each per unit of time,

I aver that I came out well in the end, version 7, which took me the longest to come up with, has a haunting Vedic like beauty to it, and is a big improvement over the six previous versions. The computer-like sports-coach-like scientist within me notes that the fact version 7 not version 11 or version 5, was finally far superior to previous versions, is notable. When it takes seven versions to get to excellence in a stanza, well that's alot of work for a poem, but seems this time it was worth it.


@2008 David Virgil Hobbs

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Hobney not Money: A Community or Local Currency Type Solution for Economic Problems

The solution to the economic problem that catches my mind's attention the most these days, would involve the use of credit card technology, so as to promote balanced high velocity internal circulation of a type of money. This 'money' would exist in terms of numbers in computers that worked in combination with credit-card-like cards. This special type of 'money' would have to be spent on purchasing goods and services whose production involved the use of limited or zero amounts of imports. For now I shall refer to this special type of money as 'hobney'.

Under this system, a person would be paid 'hobney'; the hobney he/she was paid would manifest itself in an internet web page; the person paid the hobney would be able to spend it using a card like a credit card. The hobney paid the person would be of various types: hobney that has to be spent on food, hobney that has to be spent on housing, hobney that has to be spent on clothing, hobney that has to be spent on transportation, hobney that has to be spent on medical care, hobney that has to be spent on education, hobney that has to be spent on recreation.

Looking at the pay that a person would receive for work under this system, the percentage of the total hobney paid a worker for an hour's wages that is of the type that can only be spent on for example food, would be set by observing the amount of production and employment generated by the food sector (not dependent on imports) that hobney could be used to purchase from. Same for the percentage of the total hobney paid to a worker that could be spent on housing, clothing, transportation, medical care, education, and recreation. Another determinant of these percentages would be analysis re what is good for a person, what percentage of total spending going to say housing is optimal for a person's well-being, and what percentage of total economic resources persons desire to devote to various types of expenditures.

The hobney would have to be spent purchasing from the various sectors eligible to sell to those using hobney to purchase, within a given amount of time. For example, if Leroy received a certain amount of food credits, after a certain amount of time, if Leroy did not spend those food credits, the value of the food credits would begin to decline. This would establish an incentive leading to a high velocity of circulation of the hobney. A faster circulation of the hobney from sector to sector would result in higher income, sales, production, and consumption in a given amount of time.

At this point I tend to favor the establishment of several local clusters across the nation; a worker getting paid hobney by a sector in one of the se clusters, would have to spend the hobney buying from sectors in his own local cluster. Seems to me that this would work better than say one big cluster for the entire nation which would allow a worker paid hobney in Boston to buy from a food sector eligible to sell food in exchange for hobney in California.

As of now I tend to favor say one hundred hobney clusters across the nation as opposed to one big national hobney circuit because: this being a relatively new untried approach, with many local clusters, good methods learned in the best clusters could be transferred to the less competent clusters; incompetence in a given cluster would not infect the other clusters; corruption would be easier to contain given the use of lots of local clusters; local clusters would promote more innovation and creativity, more producing- gardens-out-of-desert type activity than one big national cluster; lots of local clusters would increase the amount of innovation and education produced by the hobney system; a system featuring lots of local clusters would be much more resilient in the face of productivity impairing disasters than other clusters; the velocity of the hobney as it moved from sector to sector (clothing to transportation for example) would be greater with local clusters as opposed to one big national cluster.

If the hobney dream came true, I would appoint a panel of experts to advise me, especially with regards to facets of the hobney implementation problem that I am not sure about yet. For example, a worker might get paid one unit of housing hobney per hour, and he might want to use this housing hobney to purchase a tent that costs 100 housing hobney units. Various alternatives develop: the worker might not be able to take possession of the tent until he had paid the 100 housing hobney units in full; or, the worker might be able to take possession of the tent after paying 10 housing hobney units, the way people buy a car on credit, the other 90 housing hobney units being paid off while he had possession of the tent; or the choice in the matter could be left up to the individuals involved. Then there is the question of to what extent it should be possible to bank and to loan hobney units. Which of such various alternatives is the best, depends on pros and cons of the various alternatives, pros and cons that have to balanced against each other; it is too much to expect that I by myself should make all these balancing judgements; I by myself would not be as competent making such judgements, compared to I combined with a panel of experts.

The nation now is faced with restrictive free trade agreements. A hobney economy running parallel to the traditional international money economy, might possibly minimize offense against such trade agreements and against the aspirations of foreign nations.

Judging from what I know of the American character, the faults and strong points of American people, Americans would fit in well with a hobney type of system. Americans can be surprisingly good at mechanical skills. Producing things, inventing things, repairing things--these are activities that Americans are good at and that Americans enjoy.

The era we live in now is characterized by the presence of the internet, which was not used by most people just ten years ago but now is used by most people. I believe that the presence of the internet, which allows for free, complex, sophisticated communication between persons, means that a hobney type system would succeed much better than it would have in the pre-internet days.

This is all based upon the philosophy of economics that most attracts me at the present time, a philosophy which I consider to by my own original economic philosophy (I realize others who have not communicated with me may have come up with similar ideas independently) which is: economic growth is produced be balanced increases in the internal velocity of money combined with judicious increases in the money supply (balanced here means, for example, not too much or too little being spent by consumers on any one sector, sectors being food, housing, clothing, transportation, medical care, education, recreation, and perhaps other sectors not mentioned here).

A problem faced by any scheme designed to improve the lives of persons materially and spiritually, is that there exist individuals who are devoted to damaging the material and spiritual lives of persons. How to deal with such malicious individuals is important, but beyond the scope of the subject matter dealt with here. For now all I can say is that perhaps the malicious types would be less malicious if they considered how they themselves and their own families, would be better off if the people around them were well fed, well housed, well clothed, well educated, etc etc.


@2008 David Virgil Hobbs

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bailouts and Aid for US Companies are Not 'Free Trade'

It would be almost funny, were it not so tragic, to watch all these insolent free-trade fanatics fall all over themselves implementing all sorts of economic band-aids like 'bailouts for companies' and 'aid for companies' that contradict free trade, in attempts to save the credit/banking and automobile industries.

The bailouters and aiders dare not even mention the possibility of resorting to tariffs, because if they did, they would be admitting that they have been wrong about free trade. Instead they enthuse over US govt "bailouts" and "aid" for US companies, because they think that such terms can mask the fact that they are contradicting the free trade doctrine (and probably their free-trade agreements), and their previous free-trade fanaticism, which involved such huge levels of insolence for those who dared to disagree with them--despite the fact that their so-called free trade was filled with defects such as:

Us tariffing them less then they tariff us; obliviousness re the distortion caused when one nation hates the other more than the other hates it; a lack of concern for hidden subsidies and hidden tariffs used by competing nations; naivete re foreign nations manipulating currency values to take advantage of other nations; amnesia re the obvious distortion produced by wage levels in one nation being higher than another; the folly of failing to appreciate multiplier effects as labor spends its wages buying from their fellow citizens who in turn also spend and invest etc.

As if a situation featuring every national government "bailing-out" and "aiding" companies of their own nation, was a classical expression of the "free-trade" these idolaters of so-called free trade have historically so ferociously propounded.

How can these people simultaneously insult those who oppose their so-called free trade doctrines, and at the same time proceed to spend trillions of dollars, "bailing-out" and "aiding" certain pet companies?

"we kint admit thet we were wrong about free trade an' increase tariffs. Now we'll jest use bailouts an' aid fo' pet companies, an' pretend thet by doin' this hyar we is still bein' th' wise free traders thet we haf allwus been, as enny fool kin plainly see." (take that, Free-Trading Larry Summers Worshipping Harvard Crimson, of the Harvard that employed hundreds of teen-aged girls who never went to college instead of me, the Harvard grad Harvard man)

Sufficient tariffs (foreigners should be allowed to choose between exporting to us and setting up plant in our nation), inviting foreign producers to produce in our nation, compared to bailouts and aid are less likely to act as incentives promoting incompetence and corruption.

Another almost laughable facet of the matter is that some companies are considered 'too big' to be allowed to fail, whereas other companies are considered 'small enough to be allowed to fail'. It defies belief that persons who are above the level of moron in intelligence should think this way. Obviously, twenty companies with a billion dollars in sales each, are the equivalent of one company with twenty billion dollars in sales. So then how can one billion dollar companies be considered 'small enough' to be allowed to fail, whereas the one large company is considered to be 'too big to be allowed to fail'. This kind of favoritism, this kind of thinking is an extreme contradiction of the free-trade doctrine and the elements of the free-trade doctrine that are wise and reasonable or point in the direction of wisdom and reason.

"Uhh, duh, Dehe are twebuhnty c'panies dat each habe a billion dollars in sales. Dese twebuhnty c'panies put togedeh habe twebuhnty billion dollars in sales but dat is not ekal t' one c'pany wid twebuhnty billion dollars in sales, duuhhhh, cuz twebuhnty times one 'n one times twebuhnty are not the, ERRRR, same ding".

Then you have the problem that we are all being asked to bail out automobile companies in the Detroit Michigan area, as we were previously told we should bail out banks in the New York City area. In contradiction to this, for a long time I have been interested in the idea that the way to get the economy of Massachusetts (the state in which I reside) going, is to produce a situation where the people of Massachusetts make the cars that they use. What is there in this bailout for Detroit Michigan, thatgives us in Massachusetts even a fighting chance to produce some of the cars that we use?


I do not have hundreds of people working for me like these "free-traders" who are into government bailouts and aid for their nation's big companies do, you would be wise to take such into account when comparing my words with theirs; I am at a disadvantage. Anyway from my perspective, it appears that these free-trade & bailouts & aid worshipping creatures would be taking a step forwards if they were able to admit that what they are now advocating, bailouts and aid, is not free-trade, and so therefore now they are no longer justified in opposing the lowly and maligned art of utilizing tariffs on imports. Tariffs have a proven history of producing economic growth. Many of the most intelligent and respectable statesmen and thinkers of the past have lined up behind tariffs. Not so with national government "bail-outs" and "aid" for 'special', 'too big to be allowed to fail' pet companies.

Tariffs can be reasonable when they accurately compensate for the lower costs of production faced by foreign producers, so that the tariff covers the difference between the lower costs of production enjoyed by foreigners and the costs of production in the home nation. Tariffs can serve to entice foreign automakers to produce their automobiles in the our nation while employing our citizens.

True it is possible that unions can take advantage of the rest of the population by forcing employers to pay them exorbitant wages and benefits, the cost of which is passed on to the consumer; but the present situation in the nation is closer to the ideal situation which basically features for the entire work-force one high minimum wage, than it is to the distorted situation featuring unions taking advantage of consumers. In the present situation, there exist in the world highly competent foreign auto producers whose existence and competition provides a natural barrier against price-fixing on the part of US auto manufacturers.

True, for years third world nations suffered economically due to their inability to export; but now our nation has bled itself almost to death via trade deficits (the nation's economy is now based on impermanent foundations such as money borrowed from foreigners and money on hand due to sales of assets to foreigners) that have given the third world a fighting chance.

Now in the present due to technological developments, the third world is capable of attaining prosperity without depending on exports to generate such prosperity. Third world nations that screw themselves up by failing to attain to a prosperity that is easily attainable, have themselves to blame for failing to attain to prosperity; it is difficult to defend the idea that meddling in foreign nations's affairs to rectify their inability to attain to attainable prosperity should be a high priority for our nation.

Scriptures written for the guidance of all nations, declare that persons should do their best to provide for their families and to not betray their nation. Those who betray their nation generally speaking, are also betraying their families.

The details of our constitution may with the passage of time and changes in human society become somewhat out of date, but the general intent of the constitution as expressed in the preamble stands the test of time: the constitution states that two basic purposes of the constitution are to promote the general welfare and to "secure blessings" for the posterity, meaning the descendants of the people.

Our nation has the potential to bring all kinds of fun and joy and good spirits and material and spiritual prosperity to the rest of mankind, but we cannot do this if we are living in poverty (we cannot do this if we are led by those who desire to materially and spiritually damage mankind but that is another subject).


@2008 David Virgil Hobbs

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Properly Predicting Prospects of Economic Stimulus Plans

It is amazing to hear those who consider themselves to be wise economists, or who are esteemed by others to be such, discuss economic stimulus tactics. Many of them seem to rant as if a particular school of economic thought, supposedly dignified by way of deriving its name from the name of some famous economist, is always right, and other schools of economic thought which likewise are attached to the name of this or that famous economist, are always wrong, as if the prospect of an economic stimulus plan succeeding could be based upon cleverly understanding which of the famous economists of the past was the smartest.

Fact is that the extent to which a given economic stimulus can be expected to succeed, should depend on an understanding of ignored details that characterize the particular economic situation and the particular economic stimulus that is thrown at that particular economic situation. Thus it is absurd that so-called 'experts' should ignore details that distinguish one economic situation from another, and one intervention from another, and rant as if one school of thought is always right and the other school of thought is always wrong, all based not on a detailed understanding of the economic facts re the given economic situation, all based not on how the details of the given intervention interact with the given economic situation, but rather, all based on insults, assertions not backed by fact or reasoning, generalizations, theories, and the general misconception that the harder an essay is to understand, the wiser it is.

The fact is that money that is spent on economic stimulus programs is money that is diverted from the manner of spending that would occur if the economic stimulus program were not enacted. Thus the effect of the economic stimulus program has to be compared to the effects that would be produced if the economic stimulus were not enacted in the first place. This comparison is accomplished through a comprehension of troublesome yet pompously ignored details regarding the particular economic situation and the particular economic stimulus program being considered.

Money used for economic stimulus is not generated out of thin air. It is obtained through various possible methods: increase of the money supply, taxation of citizens, borrowing from citizens, borrowing from foreigners. (The creation of money is similar to a defacto flat tax upon all those who possess the currency whose quantity is being increased; when money is printed up, the value of a given unit of the money declines). Thus the question becomes, how will the economy function if the economic stimulus is enacted, compared to how it would have functioned if the economic stimulus were not enacted? One has to look at the various uses to which money could be put, and how the enactment of the economic stimulus program under consideration effects such uses.

A citizen could simply hide cash under his mattress, or hold on to material assets such as various objects that have economic value. An economic stimulus package could produce effects such as inflation, increasing the incentive to cease from simply hoarding cash and to circulate the hoarded money instead, one result being that the money chain reaction fashion produces income and sales for citizens/residents as it travels from person to person, another result being that the money could fall into the hands of someone who spends it on imports from foreign nations or who travels to a foreign nation and spends it there. Such release of money into the economy would produce some inflationary effect. The net effect of the economic stimulus program in terms of changing the economy through the effect on hoarding of cash etc., would depend upon troublesome pesky facts such as: the extent to which there is hoarding in the economy, the extent to which the citizenry spends money on imports, and the extent to which the hoarding is effected by the economic stimulus package.

If no economic stimulus package was enacted, citizens would themselves spend part of the money that would be spent funding the economic stimulus package, by buying from other citizens, or by buying from foreigners, purchasing imports. The effect of the economic stimulus package if it were to be enacted, would be related to the extent to which the economic stimulus package increased or diminished domestic citizen to citizen financial transaction and domestic citizen purchasing imports transaction. Such increase or decrease depends upon pesky details (details apparently beneath the grandiloquent dignity of some alleged 'experts') regarding the particular economic stimulus program being considered, and regarding the particular economy that the economic stimulus program is directed at. It could be that the economic stimulus package transfers spending power from those who are more inclined to spend money on imports to those who are less inclined to spend the transferred money on imports; or the opposite could hold true. It would be an oversimplification (see http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/does-the-democrats-stimulus-package-make-economic-sense/ ) to exult over how due to the economic stimulus package, the money has been transferred from someone who would have spent it on despised luxurious imports, to the noble govt who has spent the money hiring a citizen, because the citizen who receives the money might spend the money on imports or end up using the money to buy from someone who proceeds to take the money and then spend it on imports himself.

If no economic stimulus program was enacted, the money taken by the govt to use on the economic stimulus program could be used by the citizens to loan money to their fellow citizens; if an economic stimulus program was enacted, citizens could end up with money spent due to the economic stimulus program and use it to loan to their fellow citizens also anyway, even if the govt did not use the money to loan to citizens. The extent to which the economic stimulus program would effect such citizen to citizen lending depends on annoying plebeian details such as: the details of the particular stimulus program enacted; the behavioral characteristics of the individuals composing the particular economy the stimulus program is directed at; the extent to which banks keep a certain percentage of the money they loan as reserves; the differences between the individuals who would get money as it circulates through the economy if a stimulus plan is enacted compared to if a stimulus plan is not enacted. An economic 'stimulus' program could have the negative long-term effect of interfering with the positive effects produced by citizens replacing foreign creditors as sources of credit. Fact is that since those who receive loans proceed to spend or invest the borrowed money, the economic stimulus program would not have the magical effect of introducing into circulation for buying and spending, money that otherwise would have been allegedly unavailable for buying and spending had it been loaned by citizens to fellow citizens.

If no economic stimulus program was enacted, citizens could use the money that would otherwise have been used by the govt for the economic stimulus program, to invest in companies owned by their fellow citizens; they could get a percentage share of profits in exchange for such investments. The companies they invest in would spend or loan or invest the invested money thereby circulating it into the economy. Thus domestic ownership replacing foreign ownership could increase the long term strength of the economy, in a way that could be impaired if the government were to take the money and spend it on an economic 'stimulus' program. The balance between short term benefits of the economic stimulus program and long term benefits of investment would depend upon irritatingly boring details such as the individual characteristics of the particular economy and particular economic 'stimulus' program being considered.

Relevant to this is the apparently simplistic enthusiasm of persons like Palin for tax-cuts to energize small business growth which they consider to be the engine of the national economy. Citizens would still be able to get money to invest in the enterprises of their fellow citizens if an economic stimulus program using the money of citizens was enacted by the government, because they would get their hands on the money as it circulated through the economy after being spent by the government. When successful small businesses are created, they take revenues away from other businesses that already exist. This leads to a transfer of profits and employees from businesses that already exist to new businesses. What is required for the purpose of economic growth is investment that increases productivity of employees in terms of productivity per dollar paid, and also (my new cutting-edge idea) productivity per hour worked. What boosts the small business sector is increases in money flowing in the direction of the small business sector as a whole so as to increase the small business sector's total sales and employment. If the small business sector uses its profits to spend excessively on imports, such does not constitute acting as an excellent engine of national economic growth.

If no economic stimulus program was enacted, citizens could use the money that otherwise would be spent on the economic stimulus program, to loan money to foreigners, and to invest in companies that manufacture or produce services either here or abroad and make sales to foreigners. This kind of economic behavior could act as a sponge to soak up money out of the world and into the nation; this sponge-like effect could be interfered with by an economic stimulus program, despite the fact that citizens could obtain money as it flowed through the economy after the govt spent this money on an economic stimulus program and then proceed to loan money to foreigners or invest the money in companies that sell to foreigners. It is possible that circumstances are such that citizens and the nation would be better off not loaning to foreigners or investing in processes depending on sales to foreigners for profit, because what the future holds is that such investments will not pan out well. There might be a short-term boost to the economy canceled out by negative long term effects due to the government interfering to some extent in the sponge-like loans to foreigners etc.; money that otherwise would have been loaned to foreigners, could end up due to the economic stimulus program, in the hands of persons who spend excessively on imports. In the short term, the money loaned to foreigners, would circulate outside the nation, in foreign nations (one can understand this if one is able to look at the international train of events as economic forces produce economic forces in a chain reaction, as opposed to being deceived by for example where the dollar goes after the foreigner loaned the dollar trades it in for another currency, the important thing is what the foreigner does with the money he gets after he trades in the dollar*). The extent to which the positive short and long term effects of govt taking money for a stimulus program balance out the negative short and long term effects with regards to the particular subject of interference in loans to foreigners and investment in sales to foreigners, again depends upon the details regarding the particular economy and particular stimulus program being looked at.

If no economic stimulus program was enacted, citizens would be able to use the money that otherwise would have gone to the government for the economic stimulus program, to pay off debts held by foreigners. A similar situation but somewhat different would exist as citizens got their hands on money flowing through the economy due to a stimulus program. Paying off the debts to foreigners could cause short term weakness followed by long term strength. Again the short and long term positive vs negative effect of the stimulus program in this regard depends on the state of the given economy at the given time and the details of the stimulus program enacted.

I could go on with examples of how the negative and positive effects of using money for a stimulus program are effected by details regarding the state of the economy in question at the given time and the unique characteristics of the economic stimulus program that is utilized, but I spare you.

When the economy in question is not leaking money through trade deficits etc, stimulus programs are more likely to do things like increase short term prosperity, this being evenly balanced out by a decrease in long term prosperity; or, increase short term prosperity without damaging long term prosperity; or, increase both long and short term prosperity. When the economy is not leaking money stimulus can be produced by transferring money from those who indulge excessively in purchasing imports to those who purchase domestically produced goods and services. When the economy is leaking money due to a trade deficit as the USA economy is now, there is an increased likelihood of economic stimulus programs at best having no positive effect. Problem is that money can end up being transferred from those who use it to build up the national economy to those who bleed it away spending it on imports.

Academics, people in general, seem to tend to idolize the 'great men' (often deceased) of the past and like inquisitioners, persecute those who come up with new ideas in the present. Problem with this is that what was an excellent plan years ago may be a bad plan in the present given the changes the national and the world economy have gone through. The United States 25 years ago, was a nation whose exports approximately equaled its imports. Now for many years the United States has been a nation which has imported far more than it has exported.

People like to sit back in their easy chairs and come up with stunningly brilliant theories and pretend that their laconic concise brilliance has solved everything, but when it comes to predicting the effects of economic stimulus programs, what is required is boring tiring work such as data acquisition and analysis, empiricism, an understanding that the important thing is not the theories of Keynes or of his antagonist, but rather an understanding of the unique characteristics of the economy in question and of the economic stimulus program being considered.

It is simple minded to say that simply transferring money from one group of citizens to another will somehow automatically stimulate the economy into health; this kind of thinking distracts attention from interventions that would actually accomplish something. At the same time, it is simplistic to say that there is no such thing as a government sponsored transfer of income and/or wealth that succeeds in actually improving the health of the economy.

* If an American, Joe, loans a Frenchman, Francois, 10 dollars, and Francois trades the 10 dollars to Pierre for 20 Francs, after the currency trade the fact remains that the new thing in France and in the world, is still that Francois has 10 dollars of buying power that he did not have before. Then when Francois uses 2 of the dollars ( in the form of 4 of the Francs he got from Pierre) to buy a haircut from Trudeau, one can see that the chain reaction of economic forces has been from Joe to Francois to Trudeau, not from Joe to Francois to Pierre. The inability of even those Americans who consider themselves to have superior intelligence to understand such concepts has to say the least damaged the US economy.


@2008 David Virgil Hobbs

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