We can have no confidence that the Stiglitz model captures the essential aspects of real world economizing that it purports to. We therefore can have no confidence in any belief that rests upon this or similar theories that government has a proper role to play in increasing economic efficiency or social welfare by use of taxes, subsidies, and transfer payments.
A smarter and more resolute government would not fritter away scores of billions of dollars annually on producing, deploying, and maintaining an array of weapons systems fit only for fighting a USSR that no longer exists.
I've ignored all the goings on with the LP platform for the same reason that most people have. It appears to have all the significance of a subdivision homeowners meeting at which the main point of contention concerns the placement and type of shrubberies in common areas.
Once and for all, I'm going to target the main motivation for minimum wage advocates in academia: politics.
Government officials have the incentive and the ability to manipulate economic statistics. The lesson is: don't be fooled by government statistics.
The problem for the survival of a market economy arises when the voters permit or encourage the expansion of government power to such an extent that private businesses can gain short-term profits through the intervention into the competitive market by state officials.
Free-market capitalism allows for a degree of coordination that no other system can match. Those who hold capitalism to a standard of perfection ignore the fact that activist governments have failed to attain anything better, and have often made matters worse.
In this article we have shown that causality cannot be established by statistical means without a coherent definition of what money is and how it is related to the prices of financial assets. Contrary to various experts who dismiss the importance of money in driving the stock prices, we have shown that this dismissal is based on a wrongheaded framework of thinking.
What the American worker needs is more of what Wal-Mart offers and less of what the government offers. If we could then fix the Fed so that it would no longer water down the value of our money, we'd never have to worry about declining real wages again.
I heartily await other fortunes that discuss capital theory, interest rates, the business cycle, and perhaps even price controls.
