11 ms·

America needs supply-side reform

133 points by jseliger 4y ago

favflam 4y ago
So, make it cheap to be poor so the bottom 80% of Americans can generate free cash flow on the family/individual level. * free health care * free/cheap public transit (trains, bicycles, walking; energy efficient) * cheap real estate (not only housing, but cheap retail/office space) --> density + kill zoning And let the IRS do tax returns for people. Kill the Intuit strangle hold on tax returns.
rossdavidh 4y ago
That, in the wake of energy shocks from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and everything-else shocks from the zero-covid policy in China, the author can still say with a straight face that free trade will solve our supply problems, can only be the product of motivated reasoning. It's one thing to supplement your domestic production with a bit of temporary outside help, but to allow whole industries to go overseas and have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA, makes no sense. Free trade is what got us here. It's like the author slept through the last three years.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA The US very much still has a domestic manufacturing sector, it just happens to be the case that fewer people work in it.[1] In fact the US manufacturing output is the second largest in the world, on par with China.[2] Insofar as the US does struggle, I don't see the connection to free trade. The US has one of the largest domestic economies, and free trade only comprises about 23% of the American GDP. That makes the US the third least free trade reliant country in the world. Compare that to Germany or South Korea, two strong manufacturing countries in the developed world, where trade is about 4 times(!) as important. [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN [2]https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... [3]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_rec...
  - baybal2 4y ago
- cowpig 4y ago
  Can you explain the connection between free trade, covid/russian agression, and the economy? It's not obvious to me
  - metabagel 4y ago
    That's not what parent is saying. They are saying there is a connection between Covid and the Russian war in Ukraine; and supply shocks and inflation. They are saying that free trade policies are unrelated and won't solve the current supply shocks and inflation. I agree.
    - beebmam 4y ago
      It's just an opinion. There's no serious argument being made in the comment everyone is replying to. It's just apriori reasoning, not based in evidence, about how the world works. It's fun to read, but it's not founded on reality (evidence), and people should not take it seriously, just like virtually all comments on social media sites.
  - metabagel 4y ago
    The other argument which I think is being made is that free trade has led to supply chains which lack redundancy and are susceptible to shocks.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Free trade—if it results in greater reliance on foreign suppliers, which it pretty much always does—comes at some national security risk, since you're depending on sources beyond your control for the supply of more goods and resources. To illustrate by extreme example: that your country has realized its greatest Ricardoan(?) comparative advantage potential and has efficiently converted its entire productive capacity to making teacups is not great if there's a global food shortage and you don't produce any food. Shocks to supply and to the economy (so, things like Covid or Russia invading a neighbor) can cause that risk to be realized as harm, or at least cause the risk to be more evident.
  - idontpost 4y ago
recursivedoubts 4y ago
"who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like clothes, but we'll manufacture high end stuff like refrigerators." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like refrigerators, but we'll manufacture high end stuff like TVs." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like TVs but we'll manufacture high end stuff like computer chips." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like computer chips but we'll manufacture high end stuff like bored ape NFTs."
- quartesixte 4y ago
  Which is a shame because the low-end stuff is what makes an economy tick. And is the training grounds for engineers and tradesmen. I also think it will help us as a society if we let people work rather mundane jobs that make essential products and receive good living wages. “I make a living making the bolts that keep your fancy EV together.” Service economy be damned. That boat has long since sailed I’m afraid but maybe we can bring it back somehow. I remain hopeful.
  - dgb23 4y ago
    Also more sophisticated industries evolve out of more basic ones in non-intuitive ways. For example in CH, pharma evolved from dyeworks. Imperialism isn’t a necessity or even a proper answer. You need local expertise, education and decent living standards.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      CH as in Confoederatio Helvetica?
      - wyldfire 4y ago
        CH is an abbreviation for Switzerland (ISO country codes).
        hotpotamus 4y ago
Animats 4y ago
The author assumes this is related to economic policy, although he mentions the "depression economics" problem. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's related to antitrust policy. If you're a monopoly or oligopoly, a situation where there's not quite enough supply lets you crank up prices and run your factories at their most profitable point. You don't have to worry about losing market share to a competitor. If you're a monopolist in a range of products, you can deal with someone trying to move into part of your space by lowering prices for the competed items only, until the new entrant cracks. Known examples are generic drug companies, cable TV companies, cellular phone companies, and bulk agricultural product wholesalers. It seems to take at least four real competitors before price competition happens. That's from an EU study. Once you're down to three players, the magic happens, the margins go way up, and supply shortages become profitable.
- amelius 4y ago
  > Once you're down to three players, the magic happens, the margins go way up, and supply shortages become profitable. That's because three is the maximum amount of CEOs that fit in a golf buggy (with equipment).
newaccount2021 4y ago
_ea1k 4y ago
We've seen this with solar panel tariffs. We add tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing, but instead of domestic factories we just get cutbacks in installations and less employment overall. There the impacts are direct and obvious, but I worry that similar things happen in other industries as well. There are certainly a lot of people that think copper, steel, and aluminum tariffs are leading to workarounds that involve more imports of finished goods. Is the US ultimately hurting or helping domestic manufacturing with these policies? I don't think the answers are clear.
- dan_quixote 4y ago
  It's almost as though we've been warned for decades that tariffs are mostly harmful. Time and time again we prove that R&D has a massive ROI, yet it's always being trimmed since it doesn't pay off in a short-enough time frame to keep the accountants happy (<6 months).
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    You need to buy C-level for any long term investment. You can't buy MBAsed C-level who intents to drop out with a golden parachute after two years.
lkrubner 4y ago
The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714 By Christopher Hill Copyright © 1961, 1980 by Christopher Hill In 1601 a member of Parliament asked, when a list of monopolies was read out, ‘Is not bread there?’ His irony exaggerated only slightly. It is difficult for us to picture to ourselves the life of a man living in a house built with monopoly bricks, with windows (if any) of monopoly glass; heated by monopoly coal (in Ireland monopoly timber), burning in a grate made of monopoly iron. His walls were lined with monopoly tapestries. He slept on monopoly feathers, did his hair with monopoly brushes and monopoly combs. He washed himself with monopoly soap, his clothes in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen, monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread. His hat was of monopoly beaver, with a monopoly band. His clothes were held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. They were dyed with monopoly dyes. He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants, monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters. His food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper, monopoly vinegar. Out of monopoly glasses he drank monopoly wines and monopoly spirits; out of pewter mugs made from monopoly tin he drank monopoly beer made from monopoly hops, kept in monopoly barrels or monopoly bottles, sold in monopoly-licensed ale-houses. He smoked monopoly tobacco in monopoly pipes, played with monopoly dice or monopoly cards, or on monopoly lute-strings. He wrote with monopoly pens, on monopoly writing-paper; read (through monopoly spectacles, by the light of monopoly candles) monopoly printed books, including monopoly Bibles and monopoly Latin grammars, printed on paper made from monopoly saltpetre. He exercised himself with monopoly golf balls and in monopoly-licensed bowling alleys. A monopolist collected the fines which he paid for searing. He travelled in monopoly sedan chairs or monopoly hackney coaches, drawn by horses fed on monopoly hay. He tipped with monopoly farthings. At sea he was lighted by monopoly lighthouses. When he made his will, he went to a monopolist. (In Ireland one could not be born, married, or die without 6d. To a monopolist.) Pedlars were licensed by a monopolist. Mice were caught in monopoly mousetraps. Not all these patents existed at once, but all come from the first decades of the seventeenth century. In 1621 there were alleged to be 700 of them. Apart possibly from beer and salt, these were not quite necessities. But monopolies added to the price of just those semi-luxuries which were beginning to come within the reach of yeoman and artisans whose standard of living was rising. They affected the daily life of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen. By the end of the sixteen-thirties they were bringing nearly £100,000 a year to the Exchequer. Monopolies interfered with the normal channels of trade. Merchants were prohibited from landing their cargoes at the most convenient port whenever a monopolist’s right of search chanced to require their unloading elsewhere. By the late sixteen-thirties the economy was beginning to suffer. The clothing industry was hit by increased cost of soap and alum, and by the scarcity of potash caused by suppression of imports. The Greenland Company lacked oil. The salt monopoly embarrassed the Fishery Society. The rise in the price of coal hit nearly all industries. ‘No freeman of London,’ said a pamphlet of 1640, ‘after he hath served his years and set up his trade, can be sure long to enjoy the labour of his trade, but either his is forbidden longer to use it, or is forced at length with the rest of his trade to purchase it as a monopoly, at a dear rate, which they and all the kingdom pay for. Witness the soap business.’ Nor was the objection to monopolies only economic. Buckingham, the great monopoly-monger, had popish connections. The soap monopoly, which promised the King £20,000 a year in the sixteen-thirties, was attacked not only because it doubled the price and its inferior product blistered the hands of washer-women, but also because the monopolists were Papists. If we think of monopolies simply as a tax, then we can regard them as a crude anticipation of the excise, the value added tax on consumption later developed under Parliament’s auspices. The fiscal benefit to the crown from monopolies was considerable, but it could not compare with the injury done to the consumer and industry by the rise in prices. Every 1s. charged at the customs brought 10d in to the Exchequer; but 1s increased cost to consumers by monopolies brought a bare 1 1/2d to the Exchequer: the soap monopoly brought less than 1/2d. The rest went into the pockets of patentees and courtiers. Since monopolies were enforced by the royal prerogative and the prerogative courts, they gave rise to constitutional conflicts. Parliament, the representative institution of the men of property, favoured greater industrial freedom. In 1624 Parliament declared that monopolies were opposed to the ‘fundamental laws of this...realm’. Because of its invasion by the prerogative, this Statute of Monopolies was described by a contemporary as ‘a bill against monarchy’. Charles evaded it by disregarding the common-law courts, and bringing cases affecting monopolies before Star Chamber, on the ground that his prerogative was being questioned. Sale of monopolies was the line of least resistance for governments in financial difficulties, and was extensively used in the sixteen-thirties. The knowledge that their patents would be attacked if Parliament ever met encouraged monopolists to aim at quick profits. Indeed, the King himself was not above selling the same patent twice over, so no patentee could be squeamish about consumers’ interests. It was a vicious circle. The industrial revolution could not have happened if the system of monopolies had remained in place.
ParksNet 4y ago
- clairity 4y ago
  that's an incoherent set of policy recommendations. we sorely need regulatory reform that focuses less on specific, ideological goals and more on market dynamism and fairness, but your list is a mishmash of more regulation and less. and just sugar, really? not the fertilizer industry? or farm equipment? or corn? or anything else? you fall down the rabbit hole really fast this way. moreover, punishing old people and single parents isn't going to make us more competitive. removing the mortgage tax deduction would though, as it'd make the housing market more efficient and dynamic, fueling growth and innovation. get rid of the implicit subsidy to housing via the government-backed mortgage companies, and we'd really get somewhere. let's remove subsidies and price in externalities across the board, not just in some ideological subset, then you don't have to finely regulate every market and commodity, which is just begging for more regulatory capture and corruption.
- AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
  1. Consumers will prefer safer conventional vehicles over shitty EVs 2. People will just burn oil 3. Add more regulations on farms - and the food will also be imported from China. 4. It probably has been decided at some point that it's cheaper to intervene while the person in their childhood, rather than dealing with adults who grew up in miserable conditions 5. It will increase labor force supply, therefore decreasing salaries. Is it the intent?
- softcactus 4y ago
  This list is emblematic of optimizing for a metric without considering the reason why we are optimizing for said metric in the first place. The reason why it is good to have a competitive labor force is so that wages and quality of life can go up. 1,4, and 5 are in opposition to the underlying goal we want to achieve by having a competitive labor force. These propositions are trying to mitigate human suffering by... increasing human suffering? There is zero consistency here. Just looking at #5, this is essentially a de facto ban on retirement, but it also doesn't make sense in practice because companies are already discriminating against older workers. I suppose you could argue that a shorter period of retirement would lead to decreased saving, and increased consumer spending, but I don't think the major problems with the US are currently caused by a lack of consumption.
killjoywashere 4y ago
Table 1 made me realize you could probably protect the rainforests and improve American health and help US ranchers with a small tariff on Brazilian beef. I'm sure most Brazilians would be 1) happy to each cheaper beef and 2) welcome reduced pressure on their rainforests. Even the Brazilian ranchers don't necessarily lose. They still have beef to sell. They just won't have to invest as much in land-clearing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mtoner23 4y ago
  But you would unfortunately get kicked out of office as the politician who made beef expensive
  - killjoywashere 4y ago
    I doubt it. Tariffs are unilateral actions of the executive branch. It would be lost in the sauce.
rdxm 4y ago
acd 4y ago
I think globalization is in a reversing trend due to freedom and control over supply chains. I also think cheap consumer non sustainable goods are reversing. If you buy too cheap goods you sell your future freedom.
N1H1L 4y ago
The financialization of American industry has been an unmitigated disaster, whose proportions we still haven't grasped. The sugar rush that comes from a bump in stock prices when you hire ex-MBB MBAs is corrosive to societal fabric and national security in the long run.
revscat 4y ago
America doesn't change policies, only parties.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
fennecfoxen 4y ago
The current administration's ideas of supply-side reforms starts with the Defense Production Act and ends with Executive Order 11615. The opposition party's idea of supply-side reforms involves looking for additional ballots in Georgia. Hang onto your inflation hedges, because it doesn't look very good for America.

133 points by jseliger 4y ago

So, make it cheap to be poor so the bottom 80% of Americans can generate free cash flow on the family/individual level. * free health care * free/cheap public transit (trains, bicycles, walking; energy efficient) * cheap real estate (not only housing, but cheap retail/office space) --> density + kill zoning And let the IRS do tax returns for people. Kill the Intuit strangle hold on tax returns.

rossdavidh 4y ago

That, in the wake of energy shocks from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and everything-else shocks from the zero-covid policy in China, the author can still say with a straight face that free trade will solve our supply problems, can only be the product of motivated reasoning. It's one thing to supplement your domestic production with a bit of temporary outside help, but to allow whole industries to go overseas and have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA, makes no sense. Free trade is what got us here. It's like the author slept through the last three years.

Barrin92 4y ago
>have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA The US very much still has a domestic manufacturing sector, it just happens to be the case that fewer people work in it.[1] In fact the US manufacturing output is the second largest in the world, on par with China.[2] Insofar as the US does struggle, I don't see the connection to free trade. The US has one of the largest domestic economies, and free trade only comprises about 23% of the American GDP. That makes the US the third least free trade reliant country in the world. Compare that to Germany or South Korea, two strong manufacturing countries in the developed world, where trade is about 4 times(!) as important. [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN [2]https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... [3]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_rec...
- baybal2 4y ago
cowpig 4y ago
Can you explain the connection between free trade, covid/russian agression, and the economy? It's not obvious to me
- metabagel 4y ago
  That's not what parent is saying. They are saying there is a connection between Covid and the Russian war in Ukraine; and supply shocks and inflation. They are saying that free trade policies are unrelated and won't solve the current supply shocks and inflation. I agree.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    It's just an opinion. There's no serious argument being made in the comment everyone is replying to. It's just apriori reasoning, not based in evidence, about how the world works. It's fun to read, but it's not founded on reality (evidence), and people should not take it seriously, just like virtually all comments on social media sites.
- metabagel 4y ago
  The other argument which I think is being made is that free trade has led to supply chains which lack redundancy and are susceptible to shocks.
- corrral 4y ago
  Free trade—if it results in greater reliance on foreign suppliers, which it pretty much always does—comes at some national security risk, since you're depending on sources beyond your control for the supply of more goods and resources. To illustrate by extreme example: that your country has realized its greatest Ricardoan(?) comparative advantage potential and has efficiently converted its entire productive capacity to making teacups is not great if there's a global food shortage and you don't produce any food. Shocks to supply and to the economy (so, things like Covid or Russia invading a neighbor) can cause that risk to be realized as harm, or at least cause the risk to be more evident.
- idontpost 4y ago

recursivedoubts 4y ago

"who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like clothes, but we'll manufacture high end stuff like refrigerators." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like refrigerators, but we'll manufacture high end stuff like TVs." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like TVs but we'll manufacture high end stuff like computer chips." "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like computer chips but we'll manufacture high end stuff like bored ape NFTs."

quartesixte 4y ago
Which is a shame because the low-end stuff is what makes an economy tick. And is the training grounds for engineers and tradesmen. I also think it will help us as a society if we let people work rather mundane jobs that make essential products and receive good living wages. “I make a living making the bolts that keep your fancy EV together.” Service economy be damned. That boat has long since sailed I’m afraid but maybe we can bring it back somehow. I remain hopeful.
- dgb23 4y ago
  Also more sophisticated industries evolve out of more basic ones in non-intuitive ways. For example in CH, pharma evolved from dyeworks. Imperialism isn’t a necessity or even a proper answer. You need local expertise, education and decent living standards.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    CH as in Confoederatio Helvetica?
    - wyldfire 4y ago
      CH is an abbreviation for Switzerland (ISO country codes).
      - hotpotamus 4y ago

Animats 4y ago

The author assumes this is related to economic policy, although he mentions the "depression economics" problem. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's related to antitrust policy. If you're a monopoly or oligopoly, a situation where there's not quite enough supply lets you crank up prices and run your factories at their most profitable point. You don't have to worry about losing market share to a competitor. If you're a monopolist in a range of products, you can deal with someone trying to move into part of your space by lowering prices for the competed items only, until the new entrant cracks. Known examples are generic drug companies, cable TV companies, cellular phone companies, and bulk agricultural product wholesalers. It seems to take at least four real competitors before price competition happens. That's from an EU study. Once you're down to three players, the magic happens, the margins go way up, and supply shortages become profitable.

amelius 4y ago
> Once you're down to three players, the magic happens, the margins go way up, and supply shortages become profitable. That's because three is the maximum amount of CEOs that fit in a golf buggy (with equipment).

newaccount2021 4y ago

_ea1k 4y ago

We've seen this with solar panel tariffs. We add tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing, but instead of domestic factories we just get cutbacks in installations and less employment overall. There the impacts are direct and obvious, but I worry that similar things happen in other industries as well. There are certainly a lot of people that think copper, steel, and aluminum tariffs are leading to workarounds that involve more imports of finished goods. Is the US ultimately hurting or helping domestic manufacturing with these policies? I don't think the answers are clear.

dan_quixote 4y ago
It's almost as though we've been warned for decades that tariffs are mostly harmful. Time and time again we prove that R&D has a massive ROI, yet it's always being trimmed since it doesn't pay off in a short-enough time frame to keep the accountants happy (<6 months).
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  You need to buy C-level for any long term investment. You can't buy MBAsed C-level who intents to drop out with a golden parachute after two years.

lkrubner 4y ago

The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714 By Christopher Hill Copyright © 1961, 1980 by Christopher Hill In 1601 a member of Parliament asked, when a list of monopolies was read out, ‘Is not bread there?’ His irony exaggerated only slightly. It is difficult for us to picture to ourselves the life of a man living in a house built with monopoly bricks, with windows (if any) of monopoly glass; heated by monopoly coal (in Ireland monopoly timber), burning in a grate made of monopoly iron. His walls were lined with monopoly tapestries. He slept on monopoly feathers, did his hair with monopoly brushes and monopoly combs. He washed himself with monopoly soap, his clothes in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen, monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread. His hat was of monopoly beaver, with a monopoly band. His clothes were held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. They were dyed with monopoly dyes. He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants, monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters. His food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper, monopoly vinegar. Out of monopoly glasses he drank monopoly wines and monopoly spirits; out of pewter mugs made from monopoly tin he drank monopoly beer made from monopoly hops, kept in monopoly barrels or monopoly bottles, sold in monopoly-licensed ale-houses. He smoked monopoly tobacco in monopoly pipes, played with monopoly dice or monopoly cards, or on monopoly lute-strings. He wrote with monopoly pens, on monopoly writing-paper; read (through monopoly spectacles, by the light of monopoly candles) monopoly printed books, including monopoly Bibles and monopoly Latin grammars, printed on paper made from monopoly saltpetre. He exercised himself with monopoly golf balls and in monopoly-licensed bowling alleys. A monopolist collected the fines which he paid for searing. He travelled in monopoly sedan chairs or monopoly hackney coaches, drawn by horses fed on monopoly hay. He tipped with monopoly farthings. At sea he was lighted by monopoly lighthouses. When he made his will, he went to a monopolist. (In Ireland one could not be born, married, or die without 6d. To a monopolist.) Pedlars were licensed by a monopolist. Mice were caught in monopoly mousetraps. Not all these patents existed at once, but all come from the first decades of the seventeenth century. In 1621 there were alleged to be 700 of them. Apart possibly from beer and salt, these were not quite necessities. But monopolies added to the price of just those semi-luxuries which were beginning to come within the reach of yeoman and artisans whose standard of living was rising. They affected the daily life of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen. By the end of the sixteen-thirties they were bringing nearly £100,000 a year to the Exchequer. Monopolies interfered with the normal channels of trade. Merchants were prohibited from landing their cargoes at the most convenient port whenever a monopolist’s right of search chanced to require their unloading elsewhere. By the late sixteen-thirties the economy was beginning to suffer. The clothing industry was hit by increased cost of soap and alum, and by the scarcity of potash caused by suppression of imports. The Greenland Company lacked oil. The salt monopoly embarrassed the Fishery Society. The rise in the price of coal hit nearly all industries. ‘No freeman of London,’ said a pamphlet of 1640, ‘after he hath served his years and set up his trade, can be sure long to enjoy the labour of his trade, but either his is forbidden longer to use it, or is forced at length with the rest of his trade to purchase it as a monopoly, at a dear rate, which they and all the kingdom pay for. Witness the soap business.’ Nor was the objection to monopolies only economic. Buckingham, the great monopoly-monger, had popish connections. The soap monopoly, which promised the King £20,000 a year in the sixteen-thirties, was attacked not only because it doubled the price and its inferior product blistered the hands of washer-women, but also because the monopolists were Papists. If we think of monopolies simply as a tax, then we can regard them as a crude anticipation of the excise, the value added tax on consumption later developed under Parliament’s auspices. The fiscal benefit to the crown from monopolies was considerable, but it could not compare with the injury done to the consumer and industry by the rise in prices. Every 1s. charged at the customs brought 10d in to the Exchequer; but 1s increased cost to consumers by monopolies brought a bare 1 1/2d to the Exchequer: the soap monopoly brought less than 1/2d. The rest went into the pockets of patentees and courtiers. Since monopolies were enforced by the royal prerogative and the prerogative courts, they gave rise to constitutional conflicts. Parliament, the representative institution of the men of property, favoured greater industrial freedom. In 1624 Parliament declared that monopolies were opposed to the ‘fundamental laws of this...realm’. Because of its invasion by the prerogative, this Statute of Monopolies was described by a contemporary as ‘a bill against monarchy’. Charles evaded it by disregarding the common-law courts, and bringing cases affecting monopolies before Star Chamber, on the ground that his prerogative was being questioned. Sale of monopolies was the line of least resistance for governments in financial difficulties, and was extensively used in the sixteen-thirties. The knowledge that their patents would be attacked if Parliament ever met encouraged monopolists to aim at quick profits. Indeed, the King himself was not above selling the same patent twice over, so no patentee could be squeamish about consumers’ interests. It was a vicious circle. The industrial revolution could not have happened if the system of monopolies had remained in place.

ParksNet 4y ago

clairity 4y ago
that's an incoherent set of policy recommendations. we sorely need regulatory reform that focuses less on specific, ideological goals and more on market dynamism and fairness, but your list is a mishmash of more regulation and less. and just sugar, really? not the fertilizer industry? or farm equipment? or corn? or anything else? you fall down the rabbit hole really fast this way. moreover, punishing old people and single parents isn't going to make us more competitive. removing the mortgage tax deduction would though, as it'd make the housing market more efficient and dynamic, fueling growth and innovation. get rid of the implicit subsidy to housing via the government-backed mortgage companies, and we'd really get somewhere. let's remove subsidies and price in externalities across the board, not just in some ideological subset, then you don't have to finely regulate every market and commodity, which is just begging for more regulatory capture and corruption.
AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
1. Consumers will prefer safer conventional vehicles over shitty EVs 2. People will just burn oil 3. Add more regulations on farms - and the food will also be imported from China. 4. It probably has been decided at some point that it's cheaper to intervene while the person in their childhood, rather than dealing with adults who grew up in miserable conditions 5. It will increase labor force supply, therefore decreasing salaries. Is it the intent?
softcactus 4y ago
This list is emblematic of optimizing for a metric without considering the reason why we are optimizing for said metric in the first place. The reason why it is good to have a competitive labor force is so that wages and quality of life can go up. 1,4, and 5 are in opposition to the underlying goal we want to achieve by having a competitive labor force. These propositions are trying to mitigate human suffering by... increasing human suffering? There is zero consistency here. Just looking at #5, this is essentially a de facto ban on retirement, but it also doesn't make sense in practice because companies are already discriminating against older workers. I suppose you could argue that a shorter period of retirement would lead to decreased saving, and increased consumer spending, but I don't think the major problems with the US are currently caused by a lack of consumption.

killjoywashere 4y ago

Table 1 made me realize you could probably protect the rainforests and improve American health and help US ranchers with a small tariff on Brazilian beef. I'm sure most Brazilians would be 1) happy to each cheaper beef and 2) welcome reduced pressure on their rainforests. Even the Brazilian ranchers don't necessarily lose. They still have beef to sell. They just won't have to invest as much in land-clearing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mtoner23 4y ago
But you would unfortunately get kicked out of office as the politician who made beef expensive
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  I doubt it. Tariffs are unilateral actions of the executive branch. It would be lost in the sauce.

rdxm 4y ago

acd 4y ago

I think globalization is in a reversing trend due to freedom and control over supply chains. I also think cheap consumer non sustainable goods are reversing. If you buy too cheap goods you sell your future freedom.

N1H1L 4y ago

The financialization of American industry has been an unmitigated disaster, whose proportions we still haven't grasped. The sugar rush that comes from a bump in stock prices when you hire ex-MBB MBAs is corrosive to societal fabric and national security in the long run.

revscat 4y ago

America doesn't change policies, only parties.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

fennecfoxen 4y ago

The current administration's ideas of supply-side reforms starts with the Defense Production Act and ends with Executive Order 11615. The opposition party's idea of supply-side reforms involves looking for additional ballots in Georgia. Hang onto your inflation hedges, because it doesn't look very good for America.