On a personal front, my very own EYM has struck a blow for informing the squishes of the world. Tired of seeing all the "no farms, no food!" stickers on the MacBook Pros of all his fellow Carrborovians, he got a bumper sticker of his own made.
It's on his computer (it's a used Dell, by the way, at about half the cost of the MacBook Pros that all the sensitive lefties insist on having as a show of their independence from everything but dad's trust fund). (And before you crack wise, EYM has a job, thank you very much).
6 comments:
It should be said, I'm a leftist commie who works for a living, and I detest Macs almost as much as Mac owners.
Most of the cattle I know who own iThings are right of center/libertarian. I don't think they let people like them/y'all into Carboroo, though, so you are forgiven for the inane projection.
Dells suck, too, but at least their OS isn't authoritarian.
Please bring up your disdain for all things Apple at UFC 134, errrrrr, your next appearance on EconTalk.
BTW, I split time between Mac and Windows. Dumped my iPhone for an Android phone and haven't looked back.
Um...Anon: Libertarians are well LEFT of center. You need to get out of Carboroo (I like the spelling, and will adopt it permanently; thanks!) more. For a person of the people, you don't know much about the people.
And I went with the Android phone, and put up with the battery problems, just to avoid having to touch any Apple products. It's working fine for me so far.
I like the bumper sticker.
I blog a lot about about locavores and my best idea was "No factory farms, no food," but his hit them right in the temple. Bravo!
Nice work, EYM, but dude, you gotta ditch the Dell
So his arguments boil down to -
1. Some things are cheaper in terms of average labour cost, and
2. Technologies change
Yet his conclusion was that 'the power of the market' achieved this. To support his conclusion you would have to compare a market economy with some kind of other economy (and what would that be over the past 20 years) and compare just how much better the markets did.
Remember, technologies change even in centrally planned, or what we might call 'high government control' countries. The Scandanavians for example, have much more government control over a wide range of insitutions, yet they still receive that same 'cost of living' benefits of the Amercans, the Chinese, the Australians, and maybe even the North Koreans (you don't get much data on NK).
While of course I believe markets of private participants are good at innovating in order to maximise their private returns, this doesn't nessarily means they are always 'better' than if government had some control.
There are many historical examples of government intervening to improve efficeincy - like the water supply markets of Britian in the 1800s. Government involvemetn reduced duplication and subsequently the cost of water.
The final thing missing from the video is that to maintain a socially acceptable living standard, a household must consume some of these new technologies. Internet, phone, modern transport.
One thing also absent was a discussion of the major expenditure items - cars are more expensive, but what about rents?
Anyway.... rant over
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