Tonight's Presidential Candidate Debate...

@Thomas,

Well, after review, I guess that's right. I don't know, however, if the change to a freer-market economy is solely responsible for their growth since then.

It is quite interesting to note that income inequality in India has skyrocketed during the post-1990 period. Seems that this is a regular feature of capitalism everywhere...

Cycloptichorn

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One conclusion I come to is these debates only show who is the best actor. Mitt certainly won on that account. That doesn't have much to do with who is the best president. Reagan proved that.

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@Robert Gentel,

Agreed

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

India was formerly a 'government managed' economy? I thought the giant GDP growth they are experiencing was due to a large variety of other factors, the largest of which being a rapid rise in standard of living amongst much of their gigantic population. Are you sure you want to stick with this statement?

I think you are confusing cause and effect. The improved standard of living now enjoyed by the people of both China and india is the result of their more rapid growth - not the cause of it. In both India and China, though the details are far different, that increased economic growth was the direct result of increased free market activities.

I'm not saying the presence or absence of free market conditions are the only factorrs that influence economic growth. Rather that freer market economies generally perform much better overall than do more regulated or managed ones. This is true today, just as it has been true throughout recorded history.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It is quite interesting to note that income inequality in India has skyrocketed during the post-1990 period. Seems that this is a regular feature of capitalism everywhere...

Cycloptichorn

That too is an observable fact. However, human nature is the same in Socialist & free market countries. As a result some degree of inequality is universal. In authoritarian socialist syatems those with better political connections do very well. That is generally a feedback loop that leads eventually to mediocrity, stagnation and finally collapse. A greed & individsual achievement based system has its defects as well. However, they tend to sustain the overall performance of the economy far better than their alternatives.

There was a fair degree of economic security and equality in the Soviet system - at least to those who kept their political views to themselves. However the "nomenclatura" political elite lived far better than the ordinary inhabitants of the socialist paradise. Eventually though the system ran down largely as a result of its own internal contradictions in terms of humsn motivation. Individual freedom was the first casualty of the system, and even the promised economic welfare and equality part collapsed as well.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Rather that freer market economies generally perform much better overall than do more regulated or managed ones. This is true today, just as it has been true throughout recorded history.

This is BS, and it's political polemic, neither economics nor history. You have a fuzzy set of terms there which attempt to conflate regulation with a "managed" economy--the term usually used is a command economy. Bush gutted the SEC, so that they had little regulatory or enforcement power left. One of the consequences of that was the insane financial cowboys with their sub-prime mortgage "comodities" market, the melt-down of which (on Bush's watch) was the single most significant factor in our economic woes. The SEC was created precisely because an unregulated securities market in the 1920s tanked the economy. You're peddling ideology, not economics or history.

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@georgeob1,

I do think it is amusing that your economic arguments inexorably return to criticisms of the Soviet system.

It's a grey world we live in, and the argument today isn't between the Free Market and Soviet Russia, it's between various flavors of capitalism. It's foolish to think that only one direction of movement, be it in taxes or regulation, is the eternally best idea for our society; it's not a fact that removing regulations and lowering taxes on the wealthy always leads to growth or prosperity. But that seems to be the way that Romney is presenting the argument, as if that were a given...

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I do think it is amusing that your economic arguments inexorably return to criticisms of the Soviet system.

It's a grey world we live in, and the argument today isn't between the Free Market and Soviet Russia, it's between various flavors of capitalism. It's foolish to think that only one direction of movement, be it in taxes or regulation, is the eternally best idea for our society; it's not a fact that removing regulations and lowering taxes on the wealthy always leads to growth or prosperity. But that seems to be the way that Romney is presenting the argument, as if that were a given...

Cycloptichorn

The comparison is often useful precisely because it clearly illustrates some nearly polar extremes. In particular the abject failure of the political & moral philosophy behind it, which promised the creation of a "worker's paradise".

I agree that there is a spectrum of managed free markets and that the extreme of no regulation or very little of it has seriously adverse effects, especially if continued, unmodified over time. Just how much regulation and subsidy is too much, depends on a number of physical and cultural factors, whose effects we can only crudely estimate. However, if one considers the present state of Europe - a region that involves a significant (but limited) degree of cultural and political uniformity, there is a pretty clear correlation of healthy economic performance with precisely the factors we have been discussing.

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Ah, a politician--saying almost nothing with as many words as possible.

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@georgeob1,

I guess that depends on what one blames the problems Europe is experiencing on, at the end of the day. Their primary issue (that they have a unified currency and no unified political system, preventing member nations from taking traditional actions to solve the problems they are experiencing) doesn't have much to do at all with the centrality of their economic systems in each country itself.

You state,

Quote:

Just how much regulation and subsidy is too much, depends on a number of physical and cultural factors, whose effects we can only crudely estimate. However

Well, I agree with this. But Romney's platform relies on a blithe assurance that this isn't true, and that it's not a crude estimate. Indeed, he - as you put it earlier - relies upon a magical explosion of growth, as soon as he's elected, to solve our economic problems.

I do find it funny that one of his prime economists, running his campaign's economic strategy and arguments, is one of the authors of Dow 36,000, a piece almost unparalleled in it's erroneous conclusions.

To return to the topic - it was MADDENING to watch Obama not make these simple points during the debate. He had rejoinder after rejoinder and simply did not offer them in any sort of confrontational fashion. Romney never got challenged seriously and was never thrown off his game, and so dominated the debate.

My hope is that during the next debate, Obama is much sharper on his criticism of what Romney says, and then transitions that into a direct trust argument: 'If you are willing to say one thing on the stump, and a completely different thing in a debate, why should anyone trust what you say at any moment? If you won't provide details of your economic plans, and won't explain how you will balance out giant tax breaks, why should anyone trust you to actually balance them out? Your predecessor Republicans didn't, your Republican allies in Congress have no desire to balance out tax breaks whatsoever and you've shown nothing that would make anyone believe you want to increase your OWN tax rate...'

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

On the chart you posted (which with only two year's data aren't a very good test of the point) China and India led the world in contributionsd to world GDP growth.

I couldn't find a long-term version that would fit - and the pic is very much the same going out 10 - 15 - 20 years. It's lovely.

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@ehBeth,

What do you suppose is the cause of the economic success China & India are enjoying and, according to your post, forecast to continue enjoying?

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I have to say it's interesting howso many big time pro-Obama pundits and talking heads are expressing such a degree of anger over his performance last night.

I wonder if they're thinking:

"We've sacrificed what little journalistic integrity we had covering your ass all these years, and you can't be bothered to show up last night. Hell, we've spoon fed you about a hundred attacks points to use on Romney and all you could say was you love the middle class and Romeny's not specific?"

Maybe they've sensed all along that he holds them in as much disdain as their counterparts in the conservative media, and so when he let them down, they went ballistic.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

There was a fair degree of economic security and equality in the Soviet system - at least to those who kept their political views to themselves. However the "nomenclatura" political elite lived far better than the ordinary inhabitants of the socialist paradise. Eventually though the system ran down largely as a result of its own internal contradictions in terms of humsn motivation. Individual freedom was the first casualty of the system, and even the promised economic welfare and equality part collapsed as well.

I speak Russian just well enough to have heard some of the stories about how well socialism/communism ever worked in Russia. Most of those stories describe realities which are all but incomprehensible to Westerners. For instance the question as to why anybody would go out to the black market (На лева ) and spend 10 kopecks on a dead light bulb, that would be totally incomprehensible to you or me. The answer is that in the entire nation an ordinary citizen would never be able to buy a working lightbulb on his/her own; the idea was to buy the dead one, take it to work, unscrew a working lightbulb and switch the two as if the working one had died a natural death, and then take the working one home. See what I mean??

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I guess that depends on what one blames the problems Europe is experiencing on, at the end of the day. Their primary issue (that they have a unified currency and no unified political system, preventing member nations from taking traditional actions to solve the problems they are experiencing) doesn't have much to do at all with the centrality of their economic systems in each country itself.

That';s only partly true. The EUROZONE does, as you wrote, have a real problem with sustaining the common currency in the face of mostly independent political systems and policies. However there are very real and readily observable differences in the economic performance of the member states. More to the point, it is precisely those with the most generous welfare systems, restrictive labor laws. and highest levels of government spending relative to GDP that are facing serious economic issues - issues that are themselves independent of the common currency and will persist even if they leave the EUROZONE..

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It is quite interesting to note that income inequality in India has skyrocketed during the post-1990 period. Seems that this is a regular feature of capitalism everywhere...

As I said in an earlier response to George, it depends on what you compare capitalism with. I agree if you compare relatively pure variants of capitalism with Social-Democratic variants. But if you compare it with Communist countries, you're wrong. In East Germany, for example, income may been more evenly distributed on paper than it was in West Germany. But your ability to spend it depended on access to shops that had merchandise in stock. That access, in turn, depended on your membership in the party elite --- as did access to interesting jobs. I wouldn't say West German society was more unequal than East German society. It was just more honest and transparent about its inequality.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Interesting observation, Thomas, one often overlooked in these discussions.

I think also that the example of India's recent economic development might be instructive. Prior to about 1997 the Indian economy was badly hampered by a tradition blended from the bureaucracies of the British Raj and the socialist ideas that so captivated the post colonial world (and the British as well) when India cast off British rule. For decades he Indian government managesd the economy following more or less benevolent, but socialistic and protectionist economic principles that tended generally to stifle both competition and innovation through regulation and permits required for most services and manufacture. There were many forms of social and economic inequity, but most of long standing tradition.

Since the introduction of even mild liberal economic reforms, innovation and economic performance have taken off, particularly in those service and industrial areas directly involved in the new, evolving economic liberation. This process is still incomplete as India struggles with the idea of admitting foreign capital and investment in new market sectors. Partly as a result the access of the people to the new opportunities has been highly unequal, with educated, connected, city dwellers having much greater access to new opportunities than others. However we can also see a continuing spread of innovation to an ever wider than others segment of the economy (though not always without social stresses and friction).

Is this a good thing or a bad one? I think most of us would agree that is is overall very good for the people of India, though much depends on how the process evolves.

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Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/obama-plans-to-change-approach-before-next-presidential-debate-with-romney/2012/10/04/b6e24df6-0e3f-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html?hpid=z1

Gosh but this is pathetic.

A befuddled Obama in an environment he can't control lays an egg but then goes before his adoring throngs, turns on his revival minister cadence, and gets all butch.

It reminds me of kids who ran from fights with the explanation that they didn't want to kill the kid who would have pummeled them.

It was sad then and it is sad now. The difference is that then it was a scared little kid and now it's the president of the United States.

Just reinforces my opinion that it is more than possible that we will see a nasty ass Obama in the next debate.

Oh, I hope so.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Is this a good thing or a bad one? I think most of us would agree that is is overall very good for the people of India, though much depends on how the process evolves.

The Jesuits probably taught you how you should answer this as a faithful Catholic. According to Catholic Social Teaching, you'd have to look at the effect of India's reforms on the poorest members of Indian society. Did they gain more from the increased efficiency of freer markets than they lost from their increased inequity? (Incidentally, Cycloptichorn as a Liberal should be asking the same question, according to Liberalism's leading political philosopher, John Rawls.)

I don't know the answer, but here's how to find out. The CIA's World Factbook records each country's GDP, as well as the share of it earned by the poorest ten percent. From that, calculate the income of India's poorest ten percent. Then compare the figures from the 2012 Factbook with the ones from 1997 (*). If the lowest 10 percent have gotten richer, you should approve of India's free-market reforms. Otherwise you should disapprove.
___________
(*) you want to make sure all comparisons across time are adjusted for inflation, and all comparisons across countries, for purchasing power.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Sure didn't take you long to revert to form.

Cycloptichorn

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