Thursday, May 12, 2005

Old Versus New Europe, Taxes and Growth

To dull the relentless assault of pain and agony that we call “life” I employ a wide sort of medicines and remedies. Sometimes I submerse myself in work, making sure the finances are all secure and that future sources of revenue are certain. More recently since February I have worked out, running and lifting weights to kill the time during slow season (and may I say with a little pride, added to my peck-age and bicep-age). And then there is always video games; ahhhh yes, video games, where you can go to a foreign, make-believe world and fool yourself into thinking that somehow you’re actually doing something for society like killing Nazi’s or shooting aliens. But last night I opted for booze, which I have laid off recently, and made up for last night.

The problem is when I drink I typically do it at a bar. And when at the bar I usually bring some work to do or something to read. Of course work and reading do not mix well with booze, so it has been on more than one occasion that I had a poor recollection of the articles I’ve read and had to double check my work from the night before.

But drunk as I was, even a liberal high on pot, heroin, Windex, and a Krugman article combined would have been able to draw the connection between two charts I saw.



And since this post has been made on a Thursday morning, I’m going to assume most of you are at work and reasonably sober, and therefore can make the connection yourself.

2 comments:

Scribblings of a Sinner said...

FANTASTIC POST CAPTAIN...

what are ur thougts on the bans on chinese textiles imports.. ?

Captain Capitalism said...

I'm very literally in favor of a free market. And if Americans can't produce textiles cheaper than the Chinese, then by God, let the Chinese produce as much textiles as they want. It increases our purchasing power (read a while ago that real prices for clothing have dropped 30% in the past decade, largely due to China, Bangledesh, etc.) and frees up our resources to pursue more profitable and attractive industries.

Of course, that would require us to increase our education in the fields of engineering and the sciences. And since the majority of American kids these days opt to major in fluff and feelings (read, sociology, journalism, etc.), we should not be surprised we're running a current account deficit of 6%.

Anyway, apologize for the short explanation, but a more thorough take you can find here, might help explain free trade a little better;

http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2004/10/right-should-own-issue-of-foreign.html