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Posted: **Mon 08 Sep 2008, 03:34:00**

mr bill

wow thanks

Posted: **Mon 08 Sep 2008, 03:44:00**

The point being that the market without sanctions (negative subsidies) that or incentives (positive subsidies) can appear to be functioning well even when it's producing a pile of crap. The invisble hand effectively gives a million votes to the millionaire and 0 to the poverty stricken in deciding what is useful. What chances slavery re-appearing PPO if it isn't effectively with us already.

Markets are clearly a useful tool for effective distribution of certain goods, but as I previously said 'a good servant but a bad master'.

BlueGhostNo2 wrote:Quinny the whole point of the 'floss' argument is that GDP does not necessarily measure things you care about. O.K. however this does not mean that GDP NEVER measures things you care about.

So your logic has nothing to do with subsidies.

Posted: **Mon 08 Sep 2008, 19:32:37**

cube wrote:Those 2 points probably make up 75% of the disagreements between ME and FM supporters.

I'm not an ME or FM. I am strongly in favor of regulation to create efficient markets, probably closer to FM but given the whole idea of 'free markets' has been used to champion de-regulation I can't see how I'd really fit into that box.

I'm not generally in favor of government intervention in markets, although they have a place when you simply can't have a decent market for whatever reason, but all my thoughts on this are TOTALLY outweight by my hatred of seeing the tail wag the dog - companies should not be able to have any impact on government spending, let alone the blackmail and lobbying we see in the US. Companies should not be able to have any impact on consumer spending (outside of selecting the goods they provide and the price they provide them at).

Deviations from this are terrible terrible ills for society.

Anyway I'm getting on a plane in 12 hours and flying out to Aus then NZ to complete my 2 month emigration reccy so I'll probably be posting a little less often.

Hope everything goes well for the PO peeps in my absence.

Adios.

Posted: **Mon 19 Mar 2018, 22:45:42**

Everyone likes a puppy. You get a puppy you’re immediately in love. You never want to get rid of it. Puppies also come in all sizes. Look at that face! The same is true for energy subsidies. The government essentially decides on what type of behavior (e.g., using public transport instead of your personal car to go to work) or purchase (e.g., electric vehicles instead of gas guzzling SUVs) to encourage and then hands out monetary incentives. Everyone loves them! Politicians and regulators can hand out “free” money to firms and consumers, who will be happier, and more likely to vote for them later. Everyone wins! It’s like the Oprah show, but at scale. Even Chicago economists should like puppies, I mean subsidies, in some settings. Econ 101 tells us that there are some good reasons to subsidize certain activities.

Subsidies and Puppies

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Subsidies and Puppies