Friday, February 20, 2009

Economic Lessons From Slumdog Millionaire


New from
Reason.tv, what the celebrated film "Slumdog Millionaire" can teach America about economic stimulus:

Since the early 1990s, India has cut its poverty rate in half. About 300 million Indians—equivalent to the population of the entire United States—escaped the hunger and deprivation of extreme poverty thanks to pro-market reforms that increased economic activity.

Yet here in America we're turning away from market reform. Says Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at Reason Foundation and native of India, "It's just this great conundrum that at the same time that deregulation and markets have produced such dramatic results in India, they are falling into suspicion in America." Dalmia's prescription for India is at odds with what politicians have chosen to "stimulate" the United States. "What India needs to do is continue apace with its liberalization effort, but expand it to include the poor. Release them from the shackles of government corruption and government bureaucracy."

9 Comments:

At 2/20/2009 3:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

India learned the hard way that socialism doesn't work. People in the US are generally ignorant of the effects of socialism in economic life in general. So, it is easy for the demagogues to hood-wink people with the socialist line. Couple that with the consumerism and failure to provide marketable job skills that occurs in the government schools, and you have a country ripe for extremists to take over. One of those demagogues, Howard Dean, was spewing out his socialist rot about health care this morning on CNBC. So it goes on 24/7.

 
At 2/20/2009 5:39 PM, Blogger KO said...

Even Communist China is using capialism to create a growing middle class, and millionare class. Of course they stamp on property rights once in a while, but letting people keep the rewards of their accomplishments is the general rule.

Note as soon as they really opened things up they went from exporting cheap manufactured products to high tech products in less than 2 decades.

 
At 2/20/2009 10:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So Alan Greenspan is a communist?

 
At 2/21/2009 4:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No anon,

Alan Greenspan is a confused Keynesian, who can't figure out why his economic theories that are accepted by everyone (that allowed him to make nebulous and unintelligible comments on the economy for years) are failing.

Keynesians are capitalists that are ripe to turn into socialists or communists when their "manipulation of aggregate demand" fails.

 
At 2/22/2009 4:24 PM, Blogger sethstorm said...

Well, how about the idea that the United States is a place where citizens seem to be given second fiddle in the workplace?

For what we know, we may have already tried socialism in some form and had it work. Just that we don't call it socialism when it occurs with business or the stock market.

One lesson is that the Third World (India, China) is merely a benefactor of evasionary tactics. The other is that it's only called socialism if business doesn't benefit.

OA said:

Note as soon as they really opened things up they went from exporting cheap manufactured products to high tech products in less than 2 decades.

Well, the quality remains the same - junk. The only difference is that it is more complex junk that fails a bit later.

Never mind that you still have the issue regarding slave labor. Those like Meitai have plenty of apologists in the economics realm.

 
At 2/23/2009 7:50 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 2/23/2009 7:59 PM, Blogger KO said...

Chinese brands are generally inferior, but check your American or Japanese branded products for where they were made. My AT&T cordless phone - made in China. My Playstation 3 - made in China. My Samsumg (Korean) LCD tv - made in China. My Canon printer - made in China. I must be such a sucker to buy such junk.

That's about all I understood from your comment. The rest I can't figure out.

 
At 2/24/2009 6:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Slumdog Millionaire is really a great movie, i'm happy for the Oscar !

 
At 2/24/2009 11:53 AM, Blogger misterjosh said...

Socialism absolutely does work.

For the poorest people;
for the most unmotivated people;
for the most unambitious people; and
for a limited amount of time.
but it does work.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home