Stimulans

Često se u kontekstu ekonomske politike pominje "stimulans", što je termin Kejnzijanske doktrine i podrazumeva korišćenje mera fiskalne i monetarne politike da bi se podstakao rast ekonomije (npr. niskim kamatnim stopama centralne banke, rastom javne potrošnje itd) . Ipak, da bi bilo jasnije šta to u suštini podrazumeva, sledi kraća priča iz teksta koji je Richard Rumelt napisao za Fortune magazin na ovu temu:

In the mid-1960s, when I was in college, one of my best friends dropped out. An indifferent student, Paul had a girlfriend and wanted to get on with life, so he went to a school for big-rig truckers. When I saw Paul again after two years, I was shocked. His eyes were sunken and shadowed and his body had gone to fat. Yet he smiled and proudly pointed out an award on his wall announcing that he was the "Driver of the Year."

"How did you get that?" I asked. Paul dug into his pocket and pulled out a clear envelope holding a number of large black torpedo-shaped pills.

"These are west coast turnarounds," he explained. "They let you drive from New York to San Francisco, turn around, and come back without stopping."

I spouted the usual cautions about what he was doing.

Six months later, Paul's girlfriend called me because she couldn't wake him up. I arrived at their apartment at the same time as Andy, one of Paul's truck driver colleagues. Paul sputtered awake when Andy poured water on his face. Then, Andy offered Paul some strong coffee because he "needed a stimulant."

A chemical stimulant provides a temporary speed up, a boost that must be paid for later. Notwithstanding Paul's award for "Driver of the Year," taking stimulants is not a path to long-term productivity. Andy's diagnosis that Paul needed "a stimulant" was dead wrong. Paul had been living on stimulants for so long that his body could no longer respond to them. Paul needed to recover and get back to normal.

Like its chemical analog, an economic stimulus is a temporary jolt aimed at helping the economy over a rough patch, with the cost of the jolt paid for out of normal-times incomes. Unfortunately, like Paul, the U.S. has been taking economic stimuli every quarter for a decade, pretending that a sequence of temporary jolts is the same thing as economic growth. But true per-capita economic growth is the outcome of productivity-increasing innovation. You cannot engineer true economic growth by fiddling with fiscal or monetary policy or by financing excess consumption with shaky loans.

U istom tekstu se nalazi i pregled mera koje su u ovom kontekstu sprovedene u SAD tokom poslednjih 10 godina i njihovih efekata.

Rep i ekonomija, treći deo

Nakon što su debate Hajeka i Kejnsa dobile svoje rep verzije (ovde i ovde), sada postoji i rep pesma u vezi sa trenutnom debatom oko povećanja zaduživanja u SAD.



Tekst se takođe nalazi na youtube stranici.

The Boat that Rocked (2009)

Citat iz filma:

You see, that's the whole point of being the government. If you don't like something you simply make up a new law that makes it illegal.

Ovde je video sa tom scenom, a ovde trejler za američko tržište gde je izašao pod nazivom Pirate Radio.

Koja je najsigurnija investicija?

Diploma fakulteta, prema nalazima jednog istraživanja:

On average, the benefits of a four-year college degree are equivalent to an investment that returns 15.2 percent per year. This is more than double the average return to stock market investments since 1950, and more than five times the returns to corporate bonds, gold, long-term government bonds, or home ownership. From any investment perspective, college is a great deal.

Grafik daje poređenje internih stopa prinosa diplome fakulteta sa ostalim investicijama na finansijskom tržištu:

Ceo tekst se nalazi ovde.

Economic Freedom & Quality of Life

Minimalna zarada i osobe sa invaliditetom

Popularno je shvatanje da minimalna zarada štiti zaposlene, garantujući im određen nivo primanja. Međutim, iz ugla tržišne ekonomije, time se deformiše tržište rada, budući da su oni koji su spremni da rade za manje od minimalne zarade onemogućeni da stupe u radni odnos, zbog čega se povećava nezaposlenost.

Philip Davies, član britanskog parlamenta, govori o štetnosti minimalne zarade za određene kategorije nezaposlenih, kao što su osobe sa invaliditetom:

"My view is that for some people, the national minimum wage may be more of a hindrance than a help. 

If those people who consider it is being a hindrance to them, and in my view that's some of the most vulnerable people in society, if they feel that for a short period of time, taking a lower rate of pay to help them get on their first rung of the jobs ladder, if they judge that that is a good thing, I don't see why we should be standing in their way."

Mr Davies was challenged over his remarks by fellow Tory MP Edward Leigh who told him: "Forget the fact there is a minimum wage for a moment. Why actually should a disabled person work for less than £5.93 an hour. It is not a lot of money, is it?"

Mr Davies replied that, irrespective of whether it was "right or wrong", that was "just the real world that we operate in".

To je iz teksta sa sajta BBC-a. A šta o tome misle osobe na koje se ovo odnosi? Ziggy Encaoua u tekstu pod nazivom "Not all disabled people want socialism" se ne bavi konkretno pitanjem zapošljavanja osoba sa invaliditetom, ali daje neke odgovore na pitanje statusa ovih osoba u društvu i načinima pomoću kojih im se želi pomoći:

My views have evolved from a combination of my own experiences as a disabled person and the treatment of disabled people in society. I believe that socialistic government helps to foster an attitude in society that there will always be a social worker or an institution to care for the disabled, and so why should any individual care so long as it's someone else's job.

But the bigger problem with social workers is they need people to be messed up because the more messed up people that there are then the more social workers can justify their jobs. I found this out when I used to be involved in a charity for people who had mental health problems. ... the charity relied upon government funding and the government didn't measure funding by how many people the charity helped to rehabilitate but by the number of people who were on their books. 

The more people the charity had, the more funding there was. And the social workers who worked there looked out for their job prospects. So instead of helping people get ahead and become useful members of society they decided generally to spoon feed them and wipe their backsides. 

Ceo tekst se može pročitati ovde. 

Levica sve manje popularna

The Economist daje grafik koji pokazuje broj levičarskih vlada u EU od 1993. godine do danas. Vidi se konstantan pad popularnosti levice od 2000. godine, tako da trenutno u EU 27 ima samo 5 levičarskih vlada.

Tekst se nalazi ovde, a post na istu temu ima i Daniel Hannan, na svom blogu, gde daje tumačenje ovog trenda:

Why? Mainly because people see that the money has run out. During the boom years, voters were happy enough to indulge big-spending parties. Now, they simply want competence.

Whether they will get it is a different matter. The single currency, and the associated plans for fiscal integration, seriously limit the ability of free-market parties to pursue growth strategies. The awful truth is that, as long as your country is in the euro, it doesn’t much matter how you vote.