Second Hand News---August 17, 2009

Scott Sumner, the monetarist economist blogger, Money Illusion, has some interesting comments about China.  First, it has approximately the same population as North America, South and Central America, Western Europe and Australia/New Zealand combined. That's big. One interesting example of how the importance of size can be ignored is the following. Most developing countries fell further behind the developed countries since 1970. But most people saw their incomes rise faster in the developing world. Yet entities, like the IMF, for example, continue to prop up corrupt Governments in the 3rd world. China has dozens of spoken languages, although only one written language. Hong Kong and the Pearl River delta, Shanghai and the Yangtze River delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin corridor are the boom areas. Sumner believes using purchasing power parity estimates, it is possible China's economy is already equal in size to the US. In "nominal terms", i.e., that which is measured in dollars, they are about 30% the size of the US. But comparable things cost a third as much in dollars, on average. They have low tax rates and generally encourage growth. Sort of what we used to do.

(posted at 5:30 pm by Mike Rulle)

 

Do we need a Federal Reserve? George Selgin thinks not End the Fed? A Not-So-Crazy Idea . This will never happen. But as Selgin points out, there are some good reasons for eliminating it. The U.S. Federal Reserve is reflected in a car as a security officer patrols the front of the building 

Keep in mind, this country went 125 years without one and 96 years with one. As Selgin notes, the Fed's supporters credit it for limiting the number of years the country has not been in recession since its founding in 1914. On the other hand, the compounded growth rate of the economy has been less since 1914. Critics of the Fed's very existence claim that its supporters conflate the causes of the four major panics between 1873 and 1907. If banks were allowed to branch nationwide and issue its own notes, these panics could have been avoided. I have no clear view of this topic. But stepping back, why do we need a government entity trying to force price manipulations and supply manipulations of money on a free economy? On the surface, there is no reason.

(posted at 3:30 pm by Mike Rulle)

 

Maureen Dowd,

(Photo: Albert Watson)

Robert Gibbs and others in the left think of Sarah Pain as the gift which keeps on giving. For an irrelevant dope, they sure spend a lot of time on her. Why is that? Well, they know she is polarizing and has been disliked by the mushy middle; I mean "independents". They assume the mere attachment of her to an idea thereby automatically discredits it. This is the mistake they have been making since the beginning of health care "reform". All criticism is deemed artificial or driven by the "extremists". But that has failed. In her Sarah's Ghoulish Carousel column, Dowd inadvertantly, and without irony, creates a great image of Palin as someone who has a visceral talent for "aerial shooting her favorite prey; cerebral Ivy League Democrats", in particular, Ezekial Emanual, brother of Rahm. She then mocks her for using facebook, which she says is "normally used by kids hooking up and cyberstalking". If she had read the essay by Palin on Facebook, she would have seen a very clear description and critique of what is in the House Bill on "end of life counseling". As far as old Ezekial is concerned, if this concept--Quality-adjusted life year---put forth by Zeke does not bring forth death panels, why does it even exist?

(posted at 3:00 pm by Mike Rulle)