Breakfast Links

Waves of blacks leaving blue states. Wonder why?  Could it be they are sick of their managed neighborhoods, and are going where the jobs are?

I wish they wouldn’t call it supply side economics.  But, they had a conference and came up with solutions to the fine mess we have gotten ourselves into. Apologies to Laurel and Hardy, but there is a very good reason they call it supply side economics.  As everyone knows, there are two basic curves in economics, supply and demand.  

Demand curves always have negative slope, and hence slope down.  Secondly, there are really three main controls on demand; price, taxes, expectations or subsidy.  You can increase or decrease demand by manipulating each of them.  Lower prices increase demand, taxes decrease it, and subsidy increases it.  Higher price also decreases demand. Salt water economists embrace demand.

Supply curves always have positive slope, and go up. Supply curves are much more controllable. There is a lot of randomness in supply chains that you can control.  Supply can be influenced by price, taxes, subsidy, expectations and technology. Because you can control supply with more precision, it’s better to focus on supply. Fresh water economists focus on supply inputs.

This is the crux of the debate between salt water economists and fresh water.  Fresh water econs are much more willing to let unfettered free markets allocate capital and make things happen.  Salt water econs see themselves as puppet masters. That translates to government too-guess who favors limited government?

6 Verbs for the next two decades of the connected world.

According to Time Magazine, here are the 140 best Twitter feeds. Yesterday I downloaded the Seesmic Twitter app, along with the Stocktwits plug in. It’s awesome. Follow Points And Figures on Twitter here.

Groupon 2; a solution to the Groupon hangover for merchants.  It’s actually called Sundrop.

Ever wonder what it looks like in the guts of a cell phone switch?  Here is where your dropped calls drop.

Alan Greenspan weighs in on Dodd-Frank.  It was a total waste of time.

Patrick Cronin thinks Coase works better than missiles.

HEY LEBRON, MAN UP you girlie man! Great player, but he is no Michael Jordan. Couldn’t carry Jordan’s jock. Don’t think he is good enough to wash Kobe’s either. Have you ever heard of a player hiding in the locker room so he didn’t have to face the wrath of paying fans. He is a wimp.

Two Republican Senators introduce a balanced budget amendment.  This is pure political grandstanding, Hatch is under pressure from the Tea Party in Utah.  I am against a balanced budget amendment.  There are macroeconomic cases to deficit spend.   The trick is not building huge fixed deficits via entitlements etc.  No doubt the US is way over extended.  But a balanced budget amendment would be non-productive.  Better to reform entitlements, drastically cut spending and eliminate government departments.  Heck, it might be Net Present Value positive to give everyone a lump sum that the US govt owes, issue debt to cover it, end the programs and lower taxes to around 10% flat and try to grow your way out!  I haven’t done the math on it, but it is something radical to consider.  Balanced budgets are nice sounding to the ears, but the government isn’t a business nor is it a family.  It’s a government.  It should be small and limited.

Perhaps this is what Wisconsin should have done with the union sympathizers at the Capitol.

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