- Caplan reviews World on Fire. Foseti reviewing the same book.
- Sonic Charmer on the God-metric. My name is Aretae, and I endorse this message.
- Kent McManigal on preference vs. law. I hereby outsource the venting of my libertarian rage to Kent. He just does it better than I do...and more frequently too.
- Dan Mitchell discussing flat tax/fair tax differences. This is the big discussion on what sucks least for inefficiencies in taxation.
- Kling sends us to Wagner Today discussing William Easterly on "guy named Bob" theory. I encourage you to follow all 3 links. Summary: Benevolent autocrats suck. Next choice?
- Ken Anderson @ Volokh quotes the Mark Perry in the WSJ on US Manufacturing: We make more stuff than ever before...we make more stuff than China, with 1/4 the people China has...the shrinking US manufacturing sector is almost 100% a result of huge productivity gains.
- Foseti links to Mangan's on Texas (unsanitary link -- Mel). Instapundit links to Rick Perry on Federalism. I grew up in California, but am nonetheless a native Texan, having spent 10 years there. Furthermore, I think this is another test-case for economics vs. HBD folks. I believe that Texas continues to be a better and better place to live, as growth skyrockets, and growth drives all good. HBD folks think that (yes, simplified) IQ/race drives all good. Texas, with fabulous growth and crappy (from HBD perspective) demographics should provide a solid point of Bayesian updating. Anyone want to bet a beverage?
- David Henderson expands on John Goodman on Government Failure.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
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7 comments:
Anyone want to bet a beverage?
Name the fluid and the metric.
Growth drives all good? Why does Nigeria suck and Germany rock?
Texas will post overall good numbers for awhile, as long as it retains a smart fraction. Areas will decay. We're looking at a Mexico-Brazil-South Africa-Zimbabwe trend if things continue.
Fred,
The metric is hard. I spent some time thinking, and failed.
Nigeria sucks because it's run by a kleptocrat...and specifically because it doesn't seem to have the institutions which are necessary precursors to rule of law.
Natural resources TEND to not be a boon to countries. Indeed, of the top ~30 best countries to live in in the world...almost all of them are resource poor.
This MIGHT be because resource-poor dispels the illusion that you can go it without trade. It might be because resource wealth allows easy capture by kleptocrats.
And Brazil is a HUGE success story in the last 20 years. It was a laggard in South American growth, but then took off, based on good economics... and has nearly closed the gap on Chile/Argentina/Mexico.
Do you have metric thoughts. (This isn't weaseling...it's that it's a hard problem).
I'm thinking one could put together a quality of life index that uses crime rates, personal income, and government spending on research and the arts. Get a base line of Texas and the surrounding states today, then compare ten years down the road.
The problem here I guess is about a future inflexion point. After all, the good public finances are a result of a White conservative demographic as HBDers would say. Once the inflexion point is reached where even voting as a block, Texas Whites will no be able to choose the administration and legislature, all will go downhill.
Fred,
Texans like me of course prefer less government spending of all sorts. Government spending on the arts is a negative value?
I'd love to do crime rates + GDP/Capita (mean + median + mode / 3 ?) + ...?
completionist,
The question is whether the Texas culture can convert the immigrants to Texans before the votes happen...Having lived in Texas, I'm inclined to say yes.
I was wanting to include the Arts in a measurement, e.g. the local NAM school gets about 5 people to come to a school play, while the boutique White community over the hill is sold out 2 weeks in advance (similar sized schools and auditorium.)
Likewise the Sciences. I would guess support for basic research would fall in Texas's future as institutional spending shifts more towards transfer payments for consumption.
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