4 ms·

According to Heritage's Economic Freedom Index, the US economy is no longer classified as "Free (market)" but now as "mostly free": http://www.heritage.org/inde

According to Heritage's Economic Freedom Index, the US economy is no longer classified as "Free (market)" but now as "mostly free": http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates

tobinfricke 12y ago
The Heritage Foundation is hardly an objective source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation
- maratd 12y ago
  There's no such thing as an objective source.
  - randyrand 12y ago
    only repeatable and verifiable objective facts. yay science! note: I have no idea if the source we're talking about is repeatable or verifiable.
- lupin_sansei 12y ago
  Time to learn about logical fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
  - AlexandrB 12y ago
    The Economic Freedom Index is an index created by the Heritage Foundation itself, not some law of nature. As such it's basically political opinion - how is the organization's political leanings/bias exempt from scrutiny in this case? Edit: from Wikipedia: > An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Note that "irrelevant fact" does not really apply here since the political biases of an organization publishing a political index are very much relevant to the discussion. For example: http://www.heritage.org/index/government-spending http://www.heritage.org/index/government-spending The position that more government spending always means less freedom is a political one, as is their choice of growth curve. > The scale for scoring government spending is non-linear, which means that government spending that is close to zero is lightly penalized, while levels of government spending that exceed 30 percent of GDP lead to much worse scores in a quadratic fashion (for example, doubling spending yields four times less freedom). Only extraordinarily large levels of government spending—for example, over 58 percent of GDP—receive a score of zero. Let's take a look at labor freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/labor-freedom http://www.heritage.org/index/labor-freedom and http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/employing-workers http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/employing-workers Now we see that that economic freedom in this case actually means freedom for employers to exploit their workers, with negative factors like "rigidity of hours" being determined by paid vacation days. Yet nowhere are factors like regulations on non-compete and no-moonlighting employment clauses factored in. So again a political opinion on what freedom of labor means - the freedom to exploit labor rather than the freedom of labor to seek work or change jobs.
    - lupin_sansei 12y ago
      No it's an index with data that you can double check along with their methodology: http://www.heritage.org/index/book/methodology http://www.heritage.org/index/book/methodology You are lazily dismissing their data and workings by attacking their character (politically bias) - the very essence of an Ad-hominem fallacy. Economic freedom is a great predictor of GDP per capita. So there is some law of (human) nature down in there somewhere: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dX5-CL7Zaac/TZfhtnxCz0I/AAAAAAAAAa0/Jy732vQDppE/s1600/gdpEconomicFreedom.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dX5-CL7Zaac/TZfhtnxCz0I/AAAAAAAAAa...
      - AlexandrB 12y ago
        See my edit. Their methodology is informed by their political bias. To pretend otherwise is comically naive.
      - krschultz 12y ago
        Just posting a link doesn't disprove the point. The methodology is completely based on their ideology. "The property rights component is a qualitative assessment" They score the US as an 80. Based on their own ratings, I think the US should be a 90. The [Fiscal Freedom] score is derived from three quantitative factors: The top marginal tax rate on individual income, The top marginal tax rate on corporate income, and The total tax burden as a percentage of GDP." That is pure ideological bullshit. Total tax burden as a % of GDP is an actual measure, but why is the only marginal tax rate that matters the top one? The difference in marginal tax rate is actually larger at other steps in the US Tax code, but they want to focus solely on the top one? Also, why measure the marginal corporate tax rate but not the effective corporate tax rate (as they correctly do for personal taxes). The "Business Freedom" index is trying to measure how much regulation there is - which is what you would think this entire ranking is about. It does a pretty poor job of it, though I think this is a hard task. It goes downhill from there. Thanks for the providing the link, it proves the original point that the index is ideological nonsense very well.
      - NotAtWork 12y ago
        The methodology you linked to might as well be called "how to lie with numbers". The methodology's way to assign numeric values to things doesn't relate to intrinsic things about the objects under study, but rather, is a numeric score reflecting the subjective opinion of the reviewer. That something uses numbers doesn't make it objective, and this is a prime example.
  - veidr 12y ago
    Shorthand pithy summarization is a fundamental building block of human communication, and doesn't constitute a fallacious argument. Allow me to translate what tobinfricke said: "The Heritage Foundation is hardly an objective source on the topic of the advantages of the so-called 'free market', considering the fact that they are an organization dedicated principally to promulgating and evangelizing the concept of the 'free market' (by which they essentially mean a market in which the regulatory structures that benefit incumbent businesses are preserved, but new regulatory frameworks that would affect the status quo are discouraged). Oh and, here's a link to some basic information on the topic. If I were to say to you that Frito-Lay is not an objective source about whether Doritos are delicious and healthy, that does not actually meet the criteria for argumentum ad hominem.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Pointing out someone's potential bias is not a valid response to a logical argument, but it is a valid response to an appeal to authority.

tobinfricke 12y ago

The Heritage Foundation is hardly an objective source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

maratd 12y ago
There's no such thing as an objective source.
- randyrand 12y ago
  only repeatable and verifiable objective facts. yay science! note: I have no idea if the source we're talking about is repeatable or verifiable.
lupin_sansei 12y ago
Time to learn about logical fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
- AlexandrB 12y ago
  The Economic Freedom Index is an index created by the Heritage Foundation itself, not some law of nature. As such it's basically political opinion - how is the organization's political leanings/bias exempt from scrutiny in this case? Edit: from Wikipedia: > An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Note that "irrelevant fact" does not really apply here since the political biases of an organization publishing a political index are very much relevant to the discussion. For example: http://www.heritage.org/index/government-spending http://www.heritage.org/index/government-spending The position that more government spending always means less freedom is a political one, as is their choice of growth curve. > The scale for scoring government spending is non-linear, which means that government spending that is close to zero is lightly penalized, while levels of government spending that exceed 30 percent of GDP lead to much worse scores in a quadratic fashion (for example, doubling spending yields four times less freedom). Only extraordinarily large levels of government spending—for example, over 58 percent of GDP—receive a score of zero. Let's take a look at labor freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/labor-freedom http://www.heritage.org/index/labor-freedom and http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/employing-workers http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/employing-workers Now we see that that economic freedom in this case actually means freedom for employers to exploit their workers, with negative factors like "rigidity of hours" being determined by paid vacation days. Yet nowhere are factors like regulations on non-compete and no-moonlighting employment clauses factored in. So again a political opinion on what freedom of labor means - the freedom to exploit labor rather than the freedom of labor to seek work or change jobs.
  - lupin_sansei 12y ago
    No it's an index with data that you can double check along with their methodology: http://www.heritage.org/index/book/methodology http://www.heritage.org/index/book/methodology You are lazily dismissing their data and workings by attacking their character (politically bias) - the very essence of an Ad-hominem fallacy. Economic freedom is a great predictor of GDP per capita. So there is some law of (human) nature down in there somewhere: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dX5-CL7Zaac/TZfhtnxCz0I/AAAAAAAAAa0/Jy732vQDppE/s1600/gdpEconomicFreedom.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dX5-CL7Zaac/TZfhtnxCz0I/AAAAAAAAAa...
    - AlexandrB 12y ago
      See my edit. Their methodology is informed by their political bias. To pretend otherwise is comically naive.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      Just posting a link doesn't disprove the point. The methodology is completely based on their ideology. "The property rights component is a qualitative assessment" They score the US as an 80. Based on their own ratings, I think the US should be a 90. The [Fiscal Freedom] score is derived from three quantitative factors: The top marginal tax rate on individual income, The top marginal tax rate on corporate income, and The total tax burden as a percentage of GDP." That is pure ideological bullshit. Total tax burden as a % of GDP is an actual measure, but why is the only marginal tax rate that matters the top one? The difference in marginal tax rate is actually larger at other steps in the US Tax code, but they want to focus solely on the top one? Also, why measure the marginal corporate tax rate but not the effective corporate tax rate (as they correctly do for personal taxes). The "Business Freedom" index is trying to measure how much regulation there is - which is what you would think this entire ranking is about. It does a pretty poor job of it, though I think this is a hard task. It goes downhill from there. Thanks for the providing the link, it proves the original point that the index is ideological nonsense very well.
    - NotAtWork 12y ago
      The methodology you linked to might as well be called "how to lie with numbers". The methodology's way to assign numeric values to things doesn't relate to intrinsic things about the objects under study, but rather, is a numeric score reflecting the subjective opinion of the reviewer. That something uses numbers doesn't make it objective, and this is a prime example.
- veidr 12y ago
  Shorthand pithy summarization is a fundamental building block of human communication, and doesn't constitute a fallacious argument. Allow me to translate what tobinfricke said: "The Heritage Foundation is hardly an objective source on the topic of the advantages of the so-called 'free market', considering the fact that they are an organization dedicated principally to promulgating and evangelizing the concept of the 'free market' (by which they essentially mean a market in which the regulatory structures that benefit incumbent businesses are preserved, but new regulatory frameworks that would affect the status quo are discouraged). Oh and, here's a link to some basic information on the topic. If I were to say to you that Frito-Lay is not an objective source about whether Doritos are delicious and healthy, that does not actually meet the criteria for argumentum ad hominem.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  Pointing out someone's potential bias is not a valid response to a logical argument, but it is a valid response to an appeal to authority.