Interesting Fact of the Day: Greece vs. Maryland
In terms of economic output in 2010, the GDP of Greece at $305 billion was just slightly larger than the GDP of America's 15th largest state economy, which is Maryland at $295 billion.
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Monday, October 03, 2011
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Previous Posts
- Congress Considers Raising Taxes on American Consu...
- What if NFL Played by Unionized Teachers' Rules?
- Yo, For Real - Ali G Interviews Andy Rooney in 2004
- The Shale-Gas Boom Comes to the U.K. and How The M...
- Happy 60th Birthday, Color TV: 1951 -2011
- How N. Dakota Became Saudi Arabia: Interview with ...
- America's Latest Crime Wave: "Educational Theft"
- Markets in Everything: Mobile Booty Lounge
- Reporter Asks Buffett: You Support Higher Taxes So...
- More Fact-Checking of Warren Buffett
15 Comments:
Hard statism is usually murmured in soft, soothing, beguiling terms: Regulation is about cleaner air, healthier restaurants, safer children's toys. Sounds so nice. But federal regulation alone sucks up 10% of GDP. That's to say, Americans take the equivalent of the Canadian economy and toss it down the toilet just in complying with federal paperwork. Obama and the great toxic alphabet soup of federal regulation — EPA, OSHA, SEC, DHSS — want to take that 10% and crank it up to 12%, 14%, 15% -- Mark Steyn
Another interesting fact.
Maryland is pretty socialist, but no where near as bad as Greece.
how about comparative debt?
re: Obama bad
99 44/100% of regulations were in place BEFORE Obama became President but he is blamed for all of them.
yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah
wasn't it Richard Nixon that created the EPA?
"wasn't it Richard Nixon that created the EPA?"
Nixon??? I thought Love Canal created the EPA.
And what created Love Canal???
The race for profits at any cost ("pure Capitalism") in an unregulated environment.
We need entrepeneurs, we need profits....AND we need regulation.
I get tired of the people who constantly argue that the world would be all rosy if we just got rid of "regulation".....been there, done that....and it wasn't pretty. Quit bellyaching and get back to work!
"And what created Love Canal??? The race for profits at any cost ("pure Capitalism") in an unregulated environment." - TC
And what created the environmental nightmare in the Soviet Union, which was worse by orders of magnitude?
"I get tired of the people who constantly argue that the world would be all rosy if we just got rid of "regulation"..... blah, blah, blah" - TC
I get tired of people who erect straw men for the purpose of knocking them down.
If I had a dollar for every time that some half-wit blamed capitalism for the crimes of government, I would be a grotesquely fat asshole in a baseball cap.
Thanks for making my point Che....
"the environmental nightmare in the Soviet Union"...I almost mentioned that but the post was getting a little long.....
At the extreme ALL systems are failures...been proven over and over. The trick is to get balance.
Sort of like in discourse...if you loose your cool and start calling people half-wits and assholes, your chances of convincing them of your point of view are slim to none. You live in a democracy so....
I know, Iknow....hard concepts to grasp. Maybe one day you'll get it...but I'm not holding my breadth;)
"I know, Iknow....hard concepts to grasp. Maybe one day you'll get it...but I'm not holding my breadth ;)" - TC
Thanks for making my point for me.
Keep in mind:
Population Greece: 11,283,293
Population Marylan: 5,699,478
So Maryland, with its evil capitalism, is twice as productive as the lovably social Greece?
Truth or Consequences: Obviously Capitalism needs regulation - I just have a feeling you and I disagree on what type of regulation. I think "regulations" should be market based and based only on keeping the market as free as possible. That would be "pure" capitalism. What kind of regulations do you want?
I get tired of this straw man argument as well - the left is always arguing that "pure capitalism" or " a purely free market" means anarchy. Hardly - for a free market, you need a functioning legal system that supports private property rights, some kind of anti-trust mechanism and some sort of notice mechanism. What it doesn't need is price controls, social engineering and mechanisms to enforce whatever your version of "fairness" is.
"At the extreme ALL systems are failures...been proven over and over. The trick is to get balance."
This is what I am talking about and it really burns my oatmeal. I bet you are thinking that communism, taken to an extreme is bad, but so is free market capitalism. I am betting that you are also thinking that you are thinking that examples of free market capitalism include company coal mining towns, oil barons, exploited children a la Upton Sinclair. But those are not examples of free markets to the extreme - those are examples of a lack of freedom taken to an extreme. Just give me one example where a truly free market system was an "extreme" that failed?
You can't use an example of unfree markets to show why free markets are bad - and yet I hear that from people all the time!
How ironic. Both devote a huge part of their economies to government activities.
truth or consequences: And what created Love Canal???
The race for profits at any cost ("pure Capitalism") in an unregulated environment.
This is going to be long, so here's the short version:
You are 100% incorrect.
Literally, Love Canal - the canal itself - was created in a failed government attempt to pick the winner before the free market could speak. In spite of massive government subsidies and other forms of assistance, the company digging it failed in mid-construction - and nobody was willing to pick it up - because it was obvious that some new nearby rail lines eliminated any need for it.
Love Canal the toxic waste dump was created by a private company under heavy regulation. However, the private company VOLUNTARILY CHOSE to go WELL BEYOND what regulations required of it; it was quite possibly the best-run and best-secured toxic-waste dump in the country during the entire time of its operation. When it was full, it was sealed in clay - again far better than what regulations required - and the land over it sold with heavy restrictive covenants prohibiting digging past a certain depth for any reason whatsoever - and explaining why!
The company thus cleared itself of any legal liability whatsoever. It could have walked away and never looked back.
It did not. It continued to monitor the area and attempt to enforce the restrictive covenants, a job which legally belonged to local government.
Love Canal the ecological disaster was created when *the local school district* chose to seize some of the land in question by eminent domain, void the restrictive covenants on the land seized, and dig up part of the dump itself in order to make room for the basement of a new school. Some of the muck taken from *inside the toxic-waste dump* was used to landscape playground areas.
The company that had once operated the toxic-waste dump, but had no remaining legal responsibility whatsoever, had engineers and lawyers at public hearings telling the school officials just why this was a really bad idea. To no avail. The district was determined that the school had to be in that location, no matter what.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Post a Comment
<< Home