Economic Facts and Fallacies. If only more people knew this stuff...
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Our buddy John Hawkins at RightWingNews interviewed Thomas Sowell late last week. Discussing his latest book, Economic Facts and Fallacies, Sowell offered a few tidbits showing why he has few peers when it comes to the subject:
what we're really saying is that there are lifestyle differences that have profound effects on economic outcomes. So, obviously it's not just simply the act of getting married, it's that there are a whole set of commitments and values and whatnot that differentiate those who get married from those who have a more adventurous lifestyle.
Who can disagree? Many people-- not, all, mind you-- have only the face in the mirror to blame for their woes. Think about your co-workers and their particular station in life, and what is in many cases obvious causes to the variation of outcomes despite similarity in paychecks.
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John asks Sowell to
Give us an economic fallacy that conservatives tend to believe.
Eliciting the answer that I have come to believe:
...There are some conservatives, for example, who are arguing that we are losing jobs to our overseas competitors and therefore, the government should step in to stop that..What bothers me when people talk this way, whether they're conservatives or liberals, is that they never compare how many American jobs are going overseas with how many overseas jobs are coming to the United States..I mean Toyota, I don't know how many tens of thousands of people are manufacturing Toyotas right here in the United States. Siemens, Honda, all kinds of other companies, have American employees just as American companies employ people overseas..But again, in order to have some kind of rational discussion about that, you'd have to compare the number of jobs and take other factors into account, too. If the country becomes more prosperous as a result of this, there will be more domestic jobs in the United States. So, even if we lost jobs on net balance in terms of movement in and out, we'd still have more jobs than we would have without all this process. It troubles me that very few people even attempt to weigh how many jobs we wouldn't have except for this outsourcing in both directions.
Read the whole interview. John and Mr. Sowell discuss the causes of present problems plaguing black Americans, the subprime mortgage crisis, and even the reason for the Great Depression:
--the Great Depression got started while we were still on the Gold Standard. That doesn't save you from foolish government policies and I think foolish government policies were the real problem that caused us to get into the Great Depression and to take a whole decade to get out of it.
Something surely to keep in mind as the government creates "stimulus" package in an attempt to manage the economy...
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Comments
Posted by: Michael Kitch | February 5, 2008 11:50 AM
Posted by: mer | February 5, 2008 12:29 PM