Re: OT: Gary Carson is PRO-death penalty




>
> You are correct in that my knowledge about Macro Economics ranges
> between None to Pitiful.

I took some graduate courses in economics when I was a student in QBA
at LSU and some graduate courses in economics when I was a student in
IE at NU. I worked in the Division of Economic Research at LSU for a
couple of years, working on such stuff as a consumer price index for
Lousiana, and collecting production statistics at a parish/industry
level, and business cycle forecasting for the state. I also did some
part time work there for an economics/marketing consulting firm,
working on stuff like a state I/O model and state migration models that
where used on various consulting jobs.
I taught economic principles for Lee College (at a maximum security
prison, that was an interesting job) and taught statistics in the
Economics Department at Sam Houston State University. I've done
conference presentations on stuff like unemployment insurance/crime
relationships, the economics of health insurance, etc, and have done
journal articles in places like Louisiana Business Review (on business
cycles), Public Finanace Quarterly (on regional variations in
unemployment and consumer price levels), Journal of Regional Economics
(on labor migration).

>
> On the Micro level, I think that I am correct that the basic
> principles of the interaction between Demand, Supply, and Price still
> hold regardless of what style of government or market is in place.

If all you want to do is look at how governemtn intervention effects
prices and/or surplus quantities.

But, the purpose of government intervention is generally something
other than simple price/quantity relationships.

The government uses price supports in agriculture and the result is
higher prices and surplus goods.

But, the goal is to acheive a farmer income which is consistent from
year to year, to acheive a long term, stable agricultural industry.

The goal of the government intervention has nothing to do with your
simple model -- study of a market while ignoring the political goals of
the market is just silly and pretty much pointless.

Basically using the simple S/D model to look at government guarenteed
health care isn't economic analysis, it's political rhetoric -- it's
choosing a model which you know ignores any social benefits to the
market intervention, and will only show that the market intervention
disrupts the market clearing price rationing, as if market clearing
price ratioing is the goal rather than one possible means to a larger
goal.

Most economists are right wing nutcases and they aren't always honest
about what is economic analysis and what is political rhetoric.



>
> I get the impression that some people think that they only apply in a
> totally free market, and lose their validity if a government gets
> involved.

See above. Such models do lose their validity, the function mostly as
a way to misdirect.


>
> Of course once you get into the Macro thing, the relationships between
> them gets so complicated so fast, that those neat little calculations
> about producing Widgets don't seem relevant any more.

Macro is generaly a study of monetary policy, foreign exchange,
business cylces, that kind of stuff. So, I don't really know what you
mean here.

>
> I think that they still are relevant, it's only that you can't write a
> simple formula any more.

Uh. That's why the the simple S/D models aren't relevant, they are an
attempt to model the process with simple formulas and simple
two-dimensional relationships.

>
> The instructor started the course by saying.
> "Resources are scarce. Human wants are limitless. That is why we
> study economics"

He's wrong about that. Human wants are not limitless. There is a
limit to how much broccili we'll eat.

What he should have said is that resources are scarce relative to
wants. We generally want more than what's available.

But, even that isn't always the case.

There are many cases of medical fraud where a doctor who owns an
expensive testing machine at a seperate clinic will order un-needed
tests simply because he has fixed costs that have to be covered. Those
are situations where the supply of the good is lumpy (every expensive
machine, the supplier has to buy the whole machine) and there isn't
enough demand to use up the current supply. So, the provider engages
in fraud to artificially pump up demand.

Where does that fit into your supply/demand curves? Do you think that
we'd be better off if the government intervened and eliminated that
fraud?

>
>
> >> Raise the availability of a commodity. (Health care)
> >> Lower the price of a commodity to next to nothing. (Health care)
> >> Watch the demand for the commodity (Health care) soar.
> >
> >Health care is not a commodity in the economic sense.
> >
>
> So then, isn't that kinda, sorta sidestepping the issue?

No, it's not.

It's an attempt to clarify exactly what the issue is.



>
> So maybe I was wrong to talk about it as a commodity, like wheat.?
> It is one of the "goods and service"?
> Don't the basics of Supply, Demand and Price still apply?
> Even if the relationships are complex?

Why would a model of wheat production be useful in an analysis of
markets for MRI scanners?

Wheat is easily divisible, you can always add an acre to production.
You can't buy a pound of MRI scanners.

Wheat is easily transported and easily stored. Location matters a lot
in MRI scanners, you can't just move the damn things around.

>
> >>
> >> Sure as hell, you can control 2 of the variables, but the 3rd one will
> >> surely come around the block and kick you in the ass.
> >>
> >> Now, I picked health care as the example, but the principle applies to
> >> any service that a "good government" will provide from taxation of the
> >> citizens.
> >
> >Health care is not generally considered a government service in the
> >usual economic sense.
> >
>
> Hell, it's only been in the past few decades that health care was
> considered to be a government service.
>
> We're getting there, though.
> Hillary had big plans.
> Maybe President Hillary will bring them back.

As somebody else pointed out in this thread, we actually already have
universal health care. We're just very inefficeint at it.

Because of diabetes which the law presumes was caused by exposure to
Agent Orange, I have a service related disability and get health care
at VA hospitals and clinics. If I stub my toe and it gets infected
they actually encourage me to make an emergency room visit to get some
antibiotics (diabetics require that because we don't heal infections
well, which is why we often lose limbs). It would be much cheaper to
just have walk-in clinics for such simple things, but that's not the
way the health care system is set up.

All over the country we have county hospitals which can't turn you away
if you show up at the emergency room. So, poor people in the US just
use emergency rooms as a walk in clinic, it would be much cheaper if we
actually provided government sponsered walk-in clinics.

It would also be cheaper for those county hospitals to provide
preventative health care, but they don't want to have "socialized
medicine" so they just wait until someone's health gets bad enough to
require hospitilazation.

Just think about the long term social costs of not providing pre-natel
care to pregnent poor women. Such babies are more likely to be
mal-nourished in the womb, leading to increased chances of brain damage
or slight mental retardation, which leads to problems in school, future
poverty, future crime and imprisonment. The cost to society of not
providing prenatel care gets spread out over the next 60 years.




>
> >There are some items that are more efficiently provided by government
> >-- hiways and police services as an example. These are services that
> >'free rider' problems apply to.
> >
>
> I don't think there is much disagreement on those examples except for
> a few Anarchists and some Libertarian types.
>
> A "natural monopoly", if I remember the term correctly.
>
> But how about health care?
> Isn't that a case with a whole lot of suppliers?

I dont' know what you're talking about here.

>
> >Health care is sometimes provided by governments to acheive "equitable"
> >distribution. Not because it's more effiecent from a production
> >function point of view for government to provide it.
> >
>
> Yeah, I love that "equitable" argument.
> Right back into the political arena.
> Sort of like the goal of Socialists everywhere.
> Take from the rich and dole it out to the poor.

Let them eat cake.


>
> >The argument is that rationing by government will be more effective in
> >terms of fairness than rationing by pricing.
> >
>
> Heh.
> Rationing?
> Did you say rationing?

That's what economics is all about. It's about rationing.

>
> Isn't that when a government wants to increase the supply and at the
> same time reduce the price?
> Isn't that when that Ole Devil Demand comes right around the block and
> kicks you in the ass?

Again, I don't understand what you're talking about. There's no
problem with increasing supply and at the same time reducing the direct
cost to the end consumer. It's an allocation process where some of the
cost gets allocated to someone else. That's what fiscal policy is all
about -- managing government income and expenditures to reallocate
wealth.

Bush is a master at it. For example, poor and middle class families
bear the brunt of the human costs of Iraq, Halliburton makes money at
it. It's just a form of wealth distribution. War is a method of
transforming human lives into money.

>
> >Here's a nice little outline of an economists view of the functino of
> >government.
> >http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/lessons/fecga.htm
> >
>
> Yes, that is one economist's viewpoint.

That's pretty much the view of all of them.

>
> I've heard it said that the only thing 2 economists can agree on is
> that a 3rd economist is a fool.

I've heard it said that Bush is a compassionate conservative who values
life, unless it's the life of someone he doesn't care about like Karla
Faye Tucker.


>
> >You're analyzing government provided health are as if it's part of the
> >governmental functin of providing public goods and services -- when
> >really it should be evaulated as part of the government function of
> >redistribution of income and stabilization of the economy (it's not
> >considered stabilizing to have a free market for replacement body
> >parts, for example).
> >
>
> I didn't start with the assumption that health care was, or even
> should be a government service.

I though you argued against health care as a government service. Was
that just an assumption you made (government health care bad?)

> It seems that it is now one of the topics up for debate in the
> political arena.

If you want to use economic models in a political debate, be honest
about it and use a model that's relevant to the debate.

>
> I sure as hell don't go along with the notion that a government's
> function should be that of "redistribution of income".

Well, governments that aren't good at income redistribution have
historically fallen due to internal revolts.

Labor Unions and Large employers where literally having gun fights in
the street before FDR started the New Deal. Armed agents of the
government where taking the side of big business, and the number of
middle class working people with families willing to stand up and die
in the street for opposing the government was growing.

Ike lead the caverly charge against protesting vets on the streets of
DC. There was open, armed revolt.

This is not ancient history. My dad lived through those times. He
wasn't in a mining town, he was in ranch country, and he's told me
stories about witnessing unemployed cowboys stand up to rich ranchers
on the streets and being shot for such impunity. Just killed, broad
daylight, everybody saw it, the law ignored it.



>
> Socialized Medicine certainly will tend to do that.
>
> >If you ever find a topic you know anything about you should stick with
> >it -- you don't know anything about this topic.
> >
>
> Pffft.
> I think my meager knowledge of Microeconomics is enough to predict
> what happens when Big Mama Gummint decides she wants to help us go to
> the Doctor.

I think you've pretty clearly demonstrated that it's not.

>
> She has to go through all kinds of maneuvers to give the People what
> they say they want.

You don't think having a healthy workforce is important to the economic
growth of the country?

You don't think that it's cheaper to provide preventive health care
than to provice hospital beds to the chronically ill while refusing
preventive care?

>
> New laws, rules and regulations by those wonderful bureaucrats in DC.
> Guaranteed to do for medical care what they've done for education.

It's not the same thing at all.

I think you'd pretty much have to be an idiot to argue that the
government should not provide public education. Without it I'm not
sure that the industrial revelution would have happened.

I think you're arguement about government provided eduction is about
the federalization of the rules.

If you want to evaluate health care you first need to decide what it is
you want to acheive -- and then argue on the basis of what method best
achieves those goals.

I'm getting the impression that you don't think having a healthy,
educated work force is a valid governmental objective.

Of course government provided education is a form of distribution of
wealth, so maybe you don't think it's a good idea.


>
> You are correct in that I don't know anything about all the
> excruciatingly exquisite details as to how they will get 'er done.
> There are most definitely things I don't want to know, like what the
> kitchen looks like at a restaurant I'm in.
>

Well, I've actually worked in kitchens, and it's something I want to
know. I know it's not difficult at all to keep a clean kitchen, and if
a restaurant has a dirty kitchen then I want to know about it.

But, you can't really have a health care debate without some agreements
about what the goals are.

Hillary failed because she went into the deal with the mistaken beleif
that having a healthy workforce was a common goal. It's pretty clear
that's not a common goal.


Gary Carson

www.garycarson.com

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Numbers Racket: Why the Economy is Worse than We Know
    ... Greenspan predicted a recession but U.S. government officials ... still said the economy was in a good shape. ... Nobel laureate in economics Stiglitz predicted a worst ... President Bush about the prediction of the price of gasoline to be $4 ...
    (soc.culture.vietnamese)
  • Re: Fuel Prices.
    ... |>> This is Supplier Side Economics and Government. ... |>> fuel. ... |>> Now the International Commodities Exchange and Supplier Side Economics ... |>> and price is critical to our economies. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Fischer-Tropsch News Item
    ... :> Then it's not economically viable for government, ... :>:The problem isn't that such a plant would not produce real value. ... :But the price of oil goes down to $10 a barrel or something like this. ... This isn't magic; it's basic economics. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Fuel Prices.
    ... This is Supplier Side Economics and Government. ... There is no shortage of oil. ... and price is critical to our economies. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Trickle-Up Economics
    ... Trickle-Up Economics ... get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise is a ... The real problem with trickle-down economics is that so much of the money ... "spread the wealth" of America: ...
    (rec.audio.opinion)