I seem to be in a polling mood of late, probably because I'm having serious problems getting real work (beyond training of Thuji) done this summer so far.

Anyway, this one is a draft poll that I'm trying to put together for the part of my principles course where we talk about "the types of macroeconomic policy and their costs/benefits." (In a typical semester this would occur approximately 3/4ths of the way through the class, but I'm thinking of moving it forward to fall a week or two before the election.)

The question is straightforward, but the answer is hard since I am not allowing "all are important" or "several are important" or "more than one are important" as answers. What I think is the more interesting question is relative importance -- which do you think is more important that the next administration get right?

For those who haven't had an econ course (or who have tried hard to forget the bad memories it provided), the terms used in the poll questions have about the meaning you would expect. In brief:

"Fiscal policy" covers decisions about taxation and government expenditure. How much should taxes be decreased/increased? Which taxes? On whom? How much should government spending be increased/decreased? Which spending categories should be increased/decreased? How should taxes/spending be split among federal/state/local governments? And so on. I've split "taxes" and "spending" into separate categories.

"Monetary policy" is the one that economists of most ideologies tend to emphasize. It generally means trying to influence the economy through changes in the money supply and its rate of growth. (It's often phrased in terms of "changing interest rates", but this is inaccurate -- with one exception (rarely used) the government can't change interest rates directly. Interest rates are decided by the actual borrowers and lenders of funds.

Aside: any time the combination of taxes and spending yields a "deficit", monetary policy is involved: the government either prints more money to pay the excess, or (more often) borrows money to pay the excess and then hopes it will have more revenue by the time the loan comes due.

"Trade policy" technically refers only to "international" trade, even though about 90 percent of any advanced country's actual trade is internal. Anything designed to affect exports and imports fits here -- tariffs, immigration laws and other restrictions on the movement of labor across borders, technology transfer rules, foreign aid, etc.]

"Regulatory policy" is just what it sounds like. Anything not counted in the first three that is designed to regulate how we deal with others -- OSHA, FCC, FDA, NRSB, consumer protection laws, environmental rules, speed limits, white collar crimes, etc etc etc.

"Other" -- anything that does not seem to fit above. Constitutional questions, perhaps. Police and national defense, perhaps.

So, which of the four do you consider the most important to our future?

Discuss.

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Telling people to discuss on a forum is like telling people to eat at a restaurant. Friggin political pirate!

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You have a button for "all of the above"? This administration is tragically clueless, and the people that voted for it are so ego-driven on a personal level that they cannot admit to the stupidity of having done so in the first place, as they were "so right" at that time, as evidenced by the television shows they chose and choose to watch- news-wise.

Nice.

Pavlovian dogs.

The collective ignorance (results) is getting rather expensive, but the sheer sad entertainment value on a personal level...it works for me.

You go, libs!

That's why I ask you guys....you're just like my students...you ignore my instructions unless I hit the right button.

Not a political pirate....just a self-interested educator pirate trying to "go outside the box" in course planning.

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My main beef with discussing politics on forums (not that I don't get drawn in anyways):

*Someone makes claim*
*Refutes claim with sources and explanation*
*Third person comes in and makes a related comment*
*First person ignores second person, addresses third person*

That, and I'm always right, and this forum is not full of Mes. But a lot of you are close enough.

I started a thread once and said Let's Discuss and it's the longest fuckr we've ever had.

Regretedly, this one isn't off to a good start.

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Well you are a bright young guy - but me thinks you need some more hard times to become wise.

20 years ago, I probably would have agreed with you a lot more, but the road I've had to travel has taken me to much different viewpoints.

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and you saying lets discuss has about as much impact as a telling a prostitute to have sex.

I think Rourke started the longest thread here.

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Eh, I've had enough hard times for my tastes. If you think I'm a punk now, you should have seen me as a teen/young adult :P

Screwing up college twice, being unemployed for a year, working in two different factories over the course of a month gave me a ton of life lessons, I got lucky and found a job I was at for 5 years (just ended it a couple weeks ago) which helped put all my past mistakes in focus. I'm sure I'll screw up again and in new ways, I just hope I'm still smart enough to learn from them.

Of course said road obviously took you close to Minnesota too many times, so your viewpoints are almost as whacked as theirs.[grin1]

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I don't think this thread has a long future, but I'll try to stimulate it a bit.

My answer was "regulatory policy".

I didn't choose monetary policy because examples from Hoover to Bernanke, from the Spanish empire to the euro, have shown humans completely unable to choose money policy wisely.

I didn't choose taxes, because changing taxes can only redistribute wealth not create it.

Same with more than half of government expenditure. On the other hand, some particular government expenditures (protecting against invasion, enforcing criminal law and protecting contracts) are necessary. But taxes and government spending, much as I dislike most of them, are more symptom than cause.

The national debt is too big, but neither tax reform (either lib or conservative varieties) nor spending cuts (same) are going to put a dent in it. The only hope is economic growth that finds a way to increase output enough (and thereby indirectly increases tax revenues by taking from a larger and larger pie. You can't eliminate the debt by redistributing wealth from rich to poor or by redistributing from poor to rich; you can eliminate it only by increasing the wealth available to tax.

I didn't choose trade policy, partly because I'm a free trader, but mostly because of that 90% rule. Our problems aren't solvable by whacking/redoing/concentrating on 10 percent of our economy, no matter what part of the economy it is.

Which leaves regulatory policy. What effects that 90 percent more than anything else is 100,000+ pages of new regulations every year. Take a buzz saw to regulation and you'll see the real wealth of the USA (its human capital of ingenuity, inventiveness, and imagination) give a growth of GDP capable of eliminating our deficit/debt problems.

The Napoleonic Wars left Great Britain with a national debt more than twice as big in percentage terms as ours today. Look it up: the work of Mitchell, Feinstein, and others shows Britain's debt in 1815 was 200-225% of its GDP! Yet within a decade or so, thanks to the continuing power of the "industrial revolution," it was gone. And the knowledge and information and skills we have to work with today exceeds theirs by (conservatively) an order of magnitude.

But they are potential going to waste because we've made lawyers and accountants and lobbyists (and their abilities to create and navigate this regulatory morass) more valuable than the creative and innovative people who put that stock of knowledge and information and skills to work creating more wealth.

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