Marx: A Complete Guide to Capitalism
Some of Marx’s ideas were good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bmX0hZoiJM
Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Some of Marx’s ideas were good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bmX0hZoiJM
Chinese economic growth has slowed despite not yet being a rich country.
Instead of allowing free market actors to flourish, the Communist Party is clamping down so that private actors won’t be a threat to their control. This will damage their attempt to return to high economic growth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GayROZqY15U
Do we need to restructure policy to create a capitalism that produces good middle class jobs?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCnX0r11Rs
The United States is doing way better than seemed likely since the end of the Cold War as far as its economic power compared to the rest of the world. Improving efficiency rather than protecting jobs is the best way to maintain prosperity. The federal debt is a major concern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udKsziNqRQ
“Were Trump to implement Musk’s vision while simultaneously honoring his promise to avoid cutting entitlements and the GOP’s commitment to avoiding defense spending cuts, then he would need to slash all other government programs by 80 percent. That would involve gutting all social services for low-income Americans, food inspections, air safety, health insurance subsidies, and infrastructure investments, among countless other things.
This would abruptly and massively reduce demand in the US economy, potentially triggering a recession.
There is little reason to expect such severe and haphazard spending cuts to benefit the economy in the long term. After all, government investments in education and infrastructure often increase the economy’s growth potential — slashing funding for such programs could impair America’s economic performance in the coming decades.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/381637/elon-musk-donald-trump-2024-election-temporary-hardship
“Economic freedom isn’t just some wonky concept debated in academic halls. It’s about whether a government protects property rights or seizes assets at will; whether regulations are sensible or suffocating; whether you can trade freely or face a maze of obstructions; whether your money holds its value or your purchasing power gets eroded by government mismanagement; and whether you can count on courts to enforce contracts fairly.
The 2024 index, using the latest available data from 2022, measures precisely these factors across 165 countries, as it has done since 1996. The results are striking.
The freest economies enjoy an average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita about 7.6 times greater than that of the 25 percent least economically free places. They have cleaner environments, better health care outcomes, and longer life expectancies—by a lot. Even the poorest citizens of free countries fare better than the middle classes in economically repressive nations.
Who are these lucky countries? “Hong Kong (1st), Singapore (2nd), Switzerland (3rd), New Zealand (4th), the United States (5th), Denmark and Ireland (tied for 6th), Canada (8th), and Australia and Luxembourg (tied for 9th).” It shouldn’t be lost on my readers that Denmark, which Sen. Bernie Sanders (D–Vt.) often uses as an example of a socialist democratic regime, has far more in common with the United States than with a truly socialist country.”
https://reason.com/2024/10/31/countries-with-economic-freedom-are-far-better-off/
In Argentina things got worse after electing a new president, but there are signs that things are starting to turn around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bxCfN204PM
The Economic Theory That Explains Why Americans Are So Mad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4CrSLiTlxA
“In a rare instance of agreement, Republicans and Democrats have converged on the idea that “Buy American” provisions should be expanded in order to increase American jobs. But a new paper finds that existing federal rules impose high costs on consumers.
A September 2024 working paper published by the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) found the Buy American Act has created more than 50,000 jobs. Just one catch: Each one of those jobs costs the economy more than $100,000.”
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“The economists say “they find scant evidence of the use of Buy American rules as an effective industrial policy.” The BAA does not promote economic growth; it’s a costly “employment measure” that benefits a few by robbing all.”
https://reason.com/2024/10/04/federal-buy-american-rules-cost-over-100000-per-job-created/
“three-year pilot of Sam Altman’s that provided $1,000 a month to 1,000 people in Texas and Illinois and compared that group to a control group of 2,000 people who got $50 a month. Every participant was between the ages of 21 and 40.”
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“”saturation” pilots where entire communities receive basic income instead of only individuals spread across a large area. When basic income is provided to people here and there, local economies aren’t stimulated by the spending of the money and new jobs aren’t created by employers needing to hire more employees to meet higher demand. It’s one thing to provide money to an entrepreneur. It’s another to do that and also provide their business lots of customers with money to spend.”
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“Employment can increase or decrease along two measures: the binary state of working a job or not and the number of hours worked. On average, those who got basic income were two percentage points less likely to be employed and worked about 1.3 fewer hours per week.”
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“The employment of both groups greatly increased.”
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“A weekly drop of 1.3 hours works out to about 15 minutes a workday. That’s an extra break or a slightly longer lunch. On an annual basis, it’s equivalent to 8 days a year. That’s a week-long paid vacation.”
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“there were no significant decreases in employment status and hours worked among childless adults or those over age 30.”
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“”Recipients who were single parents at the time of enrollment were about 3.9 percentage points less likely to be employed and worked an average of 2.8 hours less per week than single parent control participants. For recipients who were not single parents at enrollment, we do not find statistically significant effects on employment or hours worked.””
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“The reason that parents respond differently should be obvious. They aren’t working less. They are switching from paid work to unpaid work. They’re putting their kids first.”
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“”There was no statistically significant effect on employment or hours worked for recipients over 30. In contrast, recipients under 30 were roughly 4 percentage points less likely to be employed and worked an average of 1.8 fewer hours per week compared to control participants. We also observe larger effects on formal education among those in this age group, suggesting younger adults may be more likely to use the money to enroll in post-secondary education and work fewer hours while in school, though this alone would not account for the observed differences in employment.””
https://www.scottsantens.com/did-sam-altman-basic-income-experiment-succeed-or-fail-ubi/