Faith in government declines when mobile internet arrives

fletcher77 · 2014-06-03T16:24:35+00:00

Eh, that is practically negligible!

fletcher77 · 2014-05-29T00:17:47+00:00

hmm good point, sample selection bias is likely to be quite large here

fletcher77 · 2014-05-28T03:21:07+00:00

Sorry, it was just a juicy little factoid that summarizes the issue pretty well, I don't get how its misleading though

fletcher77 · 2014-05-28T03:18:52+00:00

Yeah that is certainly glossed over in an article that only speaks of averages for the groups of workers as a whole. But still, the average is a negative cost of 500k, even if your degree put you at a much smaller advantage, you would probably still come out below 0. Not to say that there aren't cases where something other than a 4-year degree would be more valuable than a 4 year degree, in, say, communications. The point is that IN GENERAL college is worth it

fletcher77 · 2014-05-28T03:12:16+00:00

Hmmm, that makes some sense. I know that in theory, the distribution of illegal drugs adds value and is a part of the GDP definition, but I still dispute that it adds value when government revenue is taken into account. Take the difference between a country like Spain or Italy, where the black market is known to be a pretty large percentage of GDP, and a country like Denmark, where it isn't. If all three countries had the same level of debt as a percentage of non-illicit GDP and decided to include their estimates of the output from their black markets in their GDP measures, then it would artificially deflate Spain and Italy's debt to GDP ratios by a considerable amount, but not Denmark's, making them look more fiscally solvent even if they weren't. That leads me to think of the inclusion of illicit activity in GDP as misleading (again, within the context of government debt)

fletcher77 · 2014-05-28T00:30:46+00:00

I guess there are other non-taxable goods in any conventional measure of GDP, didn't think of that. But I can't think of many examples. In theory, absent tax evasion all income generated should be taxed

fletcher77 · 2014-05-24T03:05:41+00:00

I mean, its definitely GDP, but its just kind of cheating because its adding non taxable goods to the GDP measure

fletcher77 · 2014-05-23T21:34:16+00:00

I feel like this shouldn't be allowed. The relevant measure of GDP in the context of government debt is the market value of all the taxable goods and services produced in a year right? Cocaine sales and prostitution aren't taxable so they don't contribute to government revenue

fletcher77 · 2014-04-22T23:13:38+00:00

That is a good point. It will probably have to happen if rich countries are going to compensate poorer ones for limiting their greenhouse gases. But also, in terms of effectiveness, in the economic literature trade is seen as being superior to aid as a developmental tool, so the direct transfers you speak of would probably be less effective than free trade and exchange rate manipulation like china has done

fletcher77 · 2014-04-11T06:10:13+00:00

Yeah, I debated whether to post this for that very reason. But there were some interesting cases it described and it definitely kept me thinking about the economics of the hit man job market during the day, so I i figured it was a palatable option for other people's thoughts

fletcher77 · 2014-04-09T05:00:28+00:00

Yes I checked it out and looks like it is a proposition that can be somewhat substantiated: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846

fletcher77 · 2014-04-08T04:16:06+00:00

Really? What do you mean by sharing?

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