Comments on: Capitalist calculations

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:43:50 +0000

Passing Thru,

You didn’t really get what I said on that subject at all did you? :-)

By: PassingThru

PassingThru — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:08 +0000

The Journal spoke to respected economist Graham, regular of Harry’s Place, who commented, “Whose to say Venezuela is experiencing de un invierno de descontento? The economic conditions experienced by the individual are contingent upon how he, or she, chooses to reify the abstract narrative.” Dave S was unavailable for interview.

By: David All

David All — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:48:24 +0000

Perhaps Chavez can exhort Venezuelans to “be Happy in their work” like the Japanese Commandant told the British POWs in “Bridge on the River Kiwi”.

At this rate, under the Benevolent Guidance of the New Maximum Leader, Venezuela will soon be like the Soviet Union in the 1970s where the People pretended to work and the Communists pretended to pay them.

By: Lynne T

Lynne T — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:54:02 +0000

Joe Camel
23 November 2009, 2:17 am

And does the president work for free too?

I’ll take a wild guess that Hugo works on an “expenses paid” basis as opposed to collecting a salary.

Personally, I’m waiting with baited breath for anti-globalization champ Naomi Klein to explain away the Venezualan recession.

By: Red Deathy

Red Deathy — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:50:55 +0000

ISTR actually, when some of the old Eastern Bloc countries converted from Gross Material Product as their method of calculation, their GDP’s suddenly sky rocketted, because they hadn’t counted a lot of government activity.

Don’t forget, kids, breaking windows increases GDP!

By: sharks with frickin lasers

sharks with frickin lasers — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:25:48 +0000

Actually he’s wrong. There are inputs and there are outputs. One has to conclude that money not spent on medical care is otherwise spent, saved or invested somewhere else. Unless El Presidente imagines a money-free economy that functions solely on slogans and Unicorn piss. Which is more or less the Marxist socialist model assuming of course that one never imports any goods or services and only exports, in this case, oil, for hard currency. Alternatively, in the Soviet model, you simply expropriate the inputs you need and ‘export’ armies to keep the peasants in check.

Happiness? I am happy that our Dear Maximum Leader saw fit to not enslave and/or kill us today.

By: eddie

eddie — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:00:07 +0000

Just read Animal Farm. It tells you all you need to know about how these regimes progress. ” Four legs good, two legs better!”

By: reader

reader — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:34:06 +0000

Ok, I’m not defending a clearly wriggling politician, cynically trying to distract from his country’s economic problems. But there is a point about the limitations of GDP as a measure of economic activity.

Child care is one example. If one partner works, and the other stays at home to look after a young child, there’s no measured value. If the same couple set up an arrangement where the working one paid the other a formal salary (just below the tax allowance threshold to avoid losing money) to do this, it would add to GDP. But nothing has been achieved, there is no greater growth – no increase in wealth or income.

Indeed, a cynical government could introduce to a ‘free at point of delivery’ healthcare system a series of charges, increasing GDP, then tax the providers more to recoup that money, increasing GDP, which it could then redistribute in grants to the users, increasing GDP still further. Magical growth that makes no one any better off!

GDP is useful, obviously, but it really does have limitations.

By: mesquito

mesquito — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:24:30 +0000

Muchas palabras, pero no de pollo.

By: Raul

Raul — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:56:05 +0000

How come leftists never deliver, there is always a lot of posturing and the moment they get in its self aggrandizement, rapid deterioration of civil society, conspiracy theories and persecution complex, and this exact same pattern repeats itself every time and yet leftists and their apologists continue make the same excuse about ‘real’ leftists and persist in lecturing the world on how it should be run and seemingly intelligent people pay attention to their ravings.

This is an ideology that has never delivered every single time its been tried in the last 100 years. They leave a huge mess behind which takes decades to clean up and in the interim they rear their ugly head again to exploit the suffering and poverty. The only thing leftists care about is themselves and their opinion, everything else is a vehicle to self importance.