If Economics were a required high school course in every state in the United States, our politicians would not be able to to “BS” us to get our vote.

I am actually an independent voter having voted for George Bush in the first election in 2000 and having voted against Bush in 2004. The two video clips below are NOT a political statement since I am unsure who I will vote for this November. I provide these two clips only to show you how politicians can say different things on the same economic issue.

Both political candidates speak of “NAFTA” (North American Free Trade Agreement) which is a free trade agreement signed by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada back in 1993. There are very few economists, if any, that believe the agreement was bad for any of the three nations. But, listen to the perspectives of the two candidates for U.S. president:

What are your reactions to this video? Are both candidates correct? Is one candidate misleading us on this one issue to get your vote?

Managing Globalization: To reduce poverty, money isn’t everything – International Herald Tribune

Two developing countries: Venezuela and Brazil. Two ideologies underpinning economic growth and development: command in Venezuela versus free market in Brazil. Which system has worked better for the people of these two large South American countries?

How much can governments do to fight poverty? In South America, a couple of answers are emerging in the growing economies of Venezuela and Brazil. Both governments have publicly pledged billions of dollars to raise living standards – but have they succeeded?

Overall income is moving upward in both countries, if for different reasons. Venezuela is riding the black tide of high-priced oil, while Brazil’s relatively firm economic policies have built confidence in its business prospects among both locals and foreigners.

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, has portrayed himself as an ardent socialist and a disciple of Fidel Castro. Reducing inequality is fundamental to his agenda, whether by dividing up Venezuela’s oil wealth or, as he has obliquely suggested this month, through land reform. His consolidation of executive power has brought Venezuela closer to a centrally planned economy and, as such, has given him the opportunity to invest heavily in social programs.

But identifying the results isn’t easy. The poverty rate in Venezuela was about 50 percent when Chávez’s presidency began in 1999, according to the government’s own figures. Since then, roughly equal numbers of people have fallen into and out of poverty at various times, with a spike to more than 60 percent in 2003 and a drop below 40 percent in 2005…

Rodríguez also questioned whether Chávez’s programs could be completely effective because of the way they were managed. Some of the world’s most successful initiatives for improving the well-being of the poor, he said, linked families’ benefit payments to useful actions like their children’s attendance in school or visits to the doctor. In Venezuela, he said, the link is to political loyalty instead.

“The level of political polarization has become so high that not only is loyalty to the regime the key determinant of your access to benefits, it is also the key determinant of your capacity to be involved in the administration of those benefits to others,” Rodríguez said.

One example of this problem was a program intended to improve literacy. “The government had no system of accountability to monitor performance other than the reports of its own administrators,” Rodríguez said. “When program administrators learned that it was more important to show loyalty to the regime than to effectively run the program, any incentives that they had to administer resources efficiently, from a social point of view, disappeared.”

In Venezuela, president Chavez’s socialist inspired, command policies, paid for by the sale of expensive oil to the rest of the world have led to benefits primarily for those citizens willing to show political loyalty to Chavez and his party. Hard work and productivity is not rewarded as much as loyalty and support for the government. This system of incentives leads to some poor outcomes. The result? Only mediocre improvements in poverty rates, literacy, employment and health of the people.

In Brazil, where free market principles underlie much of the economic development policies, monetary benefits for development workers and the families they serve are linked not to political affiliation but to actual behavior of households and government employees. The result, not surprisingly, has been real improvements in education, health, and poverty levels amongst Brazilians.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, progress appears to have been more widespread. Figures compiled last year by Rômulo Paes de Sousa of the Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger, covering the period from 1999 through 2004, painted a rosy picture: School attendance was up, while illiteracy was down. Life expectancy was up, but hospital visits were down. Employment was up, and child labor was down.

Again, however, it’s difficult to say with certainty where the credit should go… [perhaps] to the simple fact that Brazil’s monetary benefits for families are indeed linked to actions like attendance in school, prenatal care and childhood vaccinations?

The lesson here? In a command economy like Venezuela’s, in which the government decides how resources are to be allocated, it appears that real improvements in people’s lives are not as important as political loyalty. Because most people involved in economic development work for the government, they focus on making themselves appear more dedicated and loyal to president Chavez, in order to make sure they get paid more and promoted up the ladder.

In Brazil’s free market economy, on the other hand, rewards are based on performance, not political loyalty. Brazilians have enjoyed access to a wider variety of efficiently run development programs than Venezuelans, despite Hugo Chavez’s pledge to alleviate poverty. Correct incentives explain why the market system is more efficient and effective than a command system, and the examples of Venezuela and Brazil illustrate this observation quite nicely

Discussion Questions:

1. Why do command economies fail efficiently allocate resources to where they are needed the most?
2. What does Brazil do that Venezuela does not that has led to real improvements in people’s lives?

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Palin’s Intellectual Bipolar Disorder – Mises Economics Blog

Jeffrey Tucker at the Mises Economics Blog wonders what’s up with the conflicting statements coming from Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

One the one hand, she assails Obama as favoring big government, more taxes, more control from Washington, and everyone goes nuts denouncing government. Then only a few sentences later, she is blasting Obama for not favoring war enough, for wanting to give people too many rights, for not wanting military victory over the entire planet. People cheer that too.

Do these people not realize that the same government that controls from Washington is also the institution that she is proposing have a world empire? Do these people not realize that global military occupation costs money that comes out of the pockets of American citizens? Do they not realize that a government that cares nothing about the rights of foreigners is not going to have much respect for the rights of its citizens either?

Sarah Palin – VP acceptance speech – Sep 3, 2008 pt1

Palin makes it sound so simple: Obama wants to take money out of Americans’ pockets and make us all poorer. Here’s his plan from Obama’s own website:

Thanks to my friend Jerry from Shanghai for posting this cartoon to his Facebook profile!

How timely, just as my year 2 IB Economics class is studying the pitfalls of expansionary fiscal policy in times of economic slowdowns. Now, many critics would say that Clinton was the luckiest president of recent decades as he happened to ride a wave of technological innovation fueled by the internet that led to unprecedented grown in income and tax revenue during the 1990s. Sustained 5% growth combined with a period of relative peace on the foreign fronts in between the two Gulf Wars allowed Clinton to balance the budget and begin putting a dent in the country’s $3 trillion deficit during his final years in office.

Along come the “fiscally conservative” Republicans and their faithful leader GWB, just in time to evaporate our budget surplus and add $6 trillion to our national debt over the next eight years. Today, after a long period of “fiscal conservatism” the debt stands at $9.3 trillion, and last year’s budget deficit of $400+ billion broke a record for the largest gap between tax revenue and government spending in US history.

Yeah, you can blame it one the times: a War on Terror costing the US roughly a billion bucks a day, a slowdown in new technology creation, diminishing returns on internet investments, out-sourcing of American industry and jobs, yada yada… but the cartoon does hold some truth. The Democratic Party, long labeled as the “tax and spend liberals”, managed to do what few other administrations have done since the ’60s in balancing the budget, proving that the old stereotype is simply wrong.

Some now consider the Democrats the fiscally conservative party, based only on the simple observation that they tend to spend closer to what they collect in taxes. The Republicans, on the other hand, have had no qualms about spending what they DON’T collect in taxes, in other words, running up huge budget deficits through borrowing from the public and abroad. Are the Republicans the an even worse incarnation of the “tax and spend liberals”? Are they the “DON’T tax and STILL spend Conservatives”?

Discussion questions:

1. How did the Bush administration’s $160 billion “fiscal stimulus package” that sent $600 checks to every American worker demonstrate the Republican party’s willingness to deficit spend.
2. What effect will deficit spending by the government have on interest rates and private investment in the economy? What is this effect known as?
3. In times of weak aggregate demand, as in the US earlier this year, what sort of approach would a “supply-sider” recommend as an alternative to Bush’s deficit-financed expansionary fiscal policy?

Capitalism and democracy: friends or foes? | Free exchange | Economist.com

How Capitalism Is Killing Democracy – Foreign Policy (abstract only)

“Why is FREEDOM so important in a market economy? If people in society are not free, can a market economy truly succeed?”.

Friday’s class discussion focused on the different answers to the basic economic questions offered by centrally planned versus market economies. 

The question I left them to ponder over the weekend had to do with an apparent paradox visible in China today: that of a free market economy seemingly thriving in a society where political and social freedoms are severely limited by the communist dictatorship. It has long been claimed that free markets will be followed closely by political freedom, and vis versa. The two are thought to go hand in hand. According to the Economist.com’s blog, Free Exchange:

The late Milton Friedman emphasized that economic freedom promotes political freedom and is also necessary for the sustainability of political freedom over time. His underlying logic is that competitive capitalism separates economic power from political power. One could point to Chile, Taiwan and South Korea as examples where Friedman’s logic seems to hold.

So if, as Friedman said, free markets lend themselves to free societies, then how has China’s thriving market economy not resulted in a freer society, even after 30 years of economic liberalization? Robert Reich, writing in the Foreign Policy Journal examines the issue in some depth:

Conventional wisdom holds that where either capitalism or democracy flourishes, the other must soon follow. Yet today, their fortunes are beginning to diverge. Capitalism, long sold as the yin to democracy’s yang, is thriving, while democracy is struggling to keep up. China, poised to become the world’s third largest capitalist nation this year after the United States and Japan, has embraced market freedom, but not political freedom. Many economically successful nations ”from Russia to Mexico” are democracies in name only. They are encumbered by the same problems that have hobbled American democracy in recent years, allowing corporations and elites buoyed by runaway economic success to undermine the government’s capacity to respond to citizens’ concerns.

Of course, democracy means much more than the process of free and fair elections. It is a system for accomplishing what can only be achieved by citizens joining together to further the common good. But though free markets have brought unprecedented prosperity to many, they have been accompanied by widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and environmental hazards such as global-warming.

What can explain the recent divergence of capitalism and democracy in countries like China, Russia and Mexico? The Free Exchange blog explains:

The cause of this divergence, Mr Reich contends, is that companies seeking an advantage over global competitors have invested increasing amounts of money in government lobbying, public relations and bribery. This process of corporations’ writing their own rules has weakened the ability of average citizens to have their voices heard through the democratic process.

So it appears that as capitalism and free markets have flourished, freedom of the individual has been trumped by freedom of the corporation to lobby and thus influence government into creating favorable environments for investment and growth, often times at the expense of society’s health and the best interests of the public as a whole. We will learn a term for this kind of activity in AP and IB Economics: rent-seeking behavior.

As firms grown larger and industrial and commercial power becomes concentrated in powerful multi-national corporations, the priorities of governments seem to be shifting away from individual freedoms and civil rights and towards the interests of the corporate world, whose money and influence run deep through the veins of the world’s governments.

So perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Milton Friedman was wrong too. Perhaps the 21st Century has bred a new relationship where free market capitalism is wed not to democracy, but to a new kind of corporatocracy, a term used by Noam Chomsky, in which governments bow not to the will of the people they govern, rather to the pressures from corporate entities. Freedom and justice for all (firms, that is). Gives you something to think about, huh

Discussion Questions:

1. Do free markets lead to free societies?
2. Is political freedom a prerequisite for a successful market economy?
3. Has “corporatocracy” surpassed democracy as the dominant influence in the rich, developed countries of the world?
4. In what ways could economic strength come at the expense of individual freedom?

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Now is that time of year when thousands of students across the world, from Zurich to Zimbabwe, will be taking their first economics course. Perhaps it will be a basic, high school introductory course or perhaps an even more challenging AP or IB course. Perhaps you are taking an introductory college course.

It seems like all economic text book authors seem make the point, usually in their chapter 1, that a primary benefit of studying economics is that it transforms us into more effective citizens by enabling us to better understand and conclude on the economic positions and promises of those running for public office.

I couldn’t agree any stronger!

In my classroom, I like to informally call the study of economics “the 180 degree science” because as the student studies this science for the very first time they often develop opinions and conclusions that are precisely the opposite of what they had originally believed before taking the course.

For example, here are 3 of my favorite “180 degree moments”, which are applicable to the United States’ economy but are generally applicable to all global economies, that you will probably learn in your first year economics’ course:

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “We don’t make anything anymore in America. America’s manufacturing prowess is in a state of constant decline.”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “I disagree. The dollar value of manufactured goods in the United States, restated for price level changes so the comparison is accurate, is up over 50% in the last 12 years! Yes, it is true that the U.S. has lost several million jobs in manufacturing over that same time period, but that is primarily due to rising productivity (think machines & technology), where the U.S. can now produce more valuable manufactured products than ever before with many less people freeing those workers to be employed in more lucrative service-related businesses. Moreover, the US has maintained its share of global manufacturing product over that same aforementioned time period, whereas other manufacturing countries, such as Japan and Germany, have actually decreased their percentage share of global manufactured product. But, I think I understand where you may have gotten that mistaken notion that manufacturing in the U.S. is in decline; from the U.S.’s shrinking automobile industry, the lower employment in manufacturing due to higher productivity, and from the negativity inherent in the media and press which focuses mostly on the lost jobs.

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “The U.S. government’s national debt of $9.6T is out of control. Imagine our country having to borrow $9.6T to pay its debts because it has no fiscal control!”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “The United States’ current level of national debt is both affordable and consistent with most nations. National accounting statistics show that the U.S.’s 67% national debt/national income percentage is average compared with other modern economies. Moreover, the level of U.S. national debt as a percentage of national income (67%) is at the same ratio as it was back in 1997 and 1992, and is much less than it was in 1950! The ‘”trick” is that debt must be benchmarked to income. It interesting that if someone knows that Bill Gates owes someone $10M they quickly can figure out that he’s probably fine, but if the guy at Starbucks finds out that the U.S. owes $9.6T they think the country is fiscally out of control!”

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “International trade is hurting our economy as we have lost millions of jobs to lower wage countries. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement between U.S., Mexico, and Canada) has really hurt us by having million of American jobs being lost to Mexico.”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “I challenge you to find me a reputable economist who will tell you that NAFTA, or any other free trade agreement for that matter, has not been beneficial for the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Over the past 15 years, independent and numerous studies show that free trade agreements increase employment, incomes, and standards of living in ALL countries and NAFTA is no exception to this rule. Sure, free trade does cause certain industries to lose out to better competitors but, overall, international trade increases competition with the nation’s citizens benefitting through increased product quality, lower product prices, and increased incomes and standards of living.

I really hope you work hard in your economic course so that, you too, will see your nation’s economy, and our global economy, in a whole new light. As an AP Economics’ teacher in the U.S., I see it as an especially “sweet year” for a first time economics’ student due to a presidential election.

Let the YouTube video-analysis clips of Barack Obama and John McCain begin! Our “economic analysis” hats are on… and we are ready to apply what we have learned and conclude on their economic positions.

One of the many reasons that I find the study of economics so fascinating is that what so often appears to be a negative situation to the average citizen is actually a positive one. In other words: “down is often up” and “black is often white”. One of my favorite examples of this “180 degree moment”, and why I love to teach AP Macroeconomics, relates to the study of unemployment.

Clinton thinks suspending the gas tax for the summer is good for Americans. She says that any revenue lost can be made up for by taxing the profits of oil companies.

Obama thinks it will cause more harm than good to the economy. He says the $9 billion of government revenue foregone could have done more good for the economy through job creation and road maintenance than the $25 each American driver will save with a suspension of the gas tax.

They’re both using their positions on the gas tax to garner more support among Democratic voters in Indiana and North Carolina, where next week’s key primaries will be held.

Greg Mankiw, Harvard economist, has this to say about Hillary’s plan:

I don’t know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal. More common is the reaction of a friend of mine (a veteran of the Clinton administration) who calls the idea “ludicrous.”

Sometimes a candidate’s position on one particular issue, even a relatively minor one like a federal gas tax that most Americans probably didn’t even know they were paying when they filled up their tanks, draws clear lines around a candidate’s values.

Clinton’s ‘Trouble’ ad

Obama Takes On Clinton and McCain on Gas Tax Holiday

It should be noted that while Obama is probably right that a gas tax suspension will only save drivers a pittance, his economics is slightly flawed. Here’s Tim Haab of Environmental Economics blog responding to Obama’s claim that a gas tax holiday could actually increase demand for gas thus raise gas prices:

Wrong, wrong, wrong: A lower gas price causes quantity demanded to increase as consumers move down the demand curve. The only things that cause gas demand to change are changes in income, prices of substitutes and complements, tastes and preferences and expectations… I demand a retraction.

Who are these “some economists” that Obama is talking about? Did they get their degrees from an SEC school or something? Name names so that we can have an econoblogosphere beatdown! Out these blasphemers!

Note: I think Obama got the $25 to $30 number correct.

Mr. Haab is technically correct when it comes to basic economic theory. Repealing the gas tax should shift supply out, not demand, as taxes are a determinant of supply. Rather than demand changing, quantity demanded by drivers will increase, in response to the increased supply and lower prices.

What I do think could happen, however, is that expectations of future price increases might incentivize drivers to increase their demand for gas over the summer. This Mr. Haab seems to oversee. When August roles around and drivers know that come Labor day the gas tax will kick in again, they may chose to take a family road trip that they otherwise would have postponed, shifting overall demand for gas out, driving prices up.

In the case of a temporary suspension of an excise tax on any good, there is always the expectation that the price will increase again in the future. This could lead to hoarding or stockpiling of the good, increasing overall demand and driving the price up before the tax has even returned.

Shanghai American School Economics Student Blog » You Hate Taxes, I Hate Taxes… Let’s Hug- by Alice Su

I’m repeatedly amazed at the intelligence and maturity of the young economists here at Shanghai American School. After only nine months of econ instruction, these students already know more about sound economic policy than politicians of 40 years! Case in point: SAS senior Alice Su offers an stinging critique of John McCain’s proposed tax plan over at the SAS Economists Blog. Read below…

It’s easy to see how politics and sound economic policy may not mix very well; in fact, trying to put the two together usually ends up in contradiction and confusion that puts economically concerned voters in great distress. (Example: Remember that one econ class when Welker was talking about taxes, trying to decide if he was more liberal or conservative, and then got so agitated that Jeff said “You’re having a midlife crisis” and Welker threw a smartboard marker at him yelling “I’M 29!!”? Case in point. )

In this case, McCain’s speech about his economic policies on Tuesday contains so many contradictions, both with classroom economic theory and various parts of his own policy platform, that I find myself questioning whether he is taking a solid stance on the economy at all, or is simply trying to say whatever will appeal to his audience the most.

First, McCain’s economic plan, dripping with supply-side sentiment, is centered around a series of tax cuts. In addition to making Bush’s tax cuts permanent, he also calls for cutting corporate taxes, phasing out the alternative minimum tax, doubling the value of exemptions for each dependent to $7,000 from $3,500, and giving people the option of using a simpler, shorter tax form. As a finishing tax-cut touch,

One of Mr. McCain’s tax proposals would take effect even before the Republican Convention: he called on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent a gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Mr. McCain said that doing so would provide “an immediate economic stimulus,” but some environmentalists said that the change might encourage more people to use their cars, while Mr. McCain has made combating global warming central to his campaign.

Hmm. Here’s where the first hints of contradiction kick in. Besides the conflict between wanting to end global warming and yet encouraging more cars on the road, we’ve all studied the Laffer Curve, and I think I can speak for all the SAS Economists when I say that the U.S. Economy is not at a place where further tax cuts will lead to an increase in tax revenue or benefit the economy. Furthermore, what about the enormous budget deficit that Mr. Bush has so graciously left us with? As the author of this article discreetly points out, McCain seems to have forgotten that he previously promised to balance the budget by the end of the first term; rather than offer the economic stimulus that McCain is claiming it will, the tax cuts would probably just plunge the nation deeper into debt.

What answers do McCain’s economic policy have to offer these questions? Well, he also proposes a one-year freeze on most “increases in discretionary spending” while he reviews every federal program, department, and agency… with the exception of spending on the military. Supposedly, the money saved from eliminating earmarks as well as getting rid of unnecessary “discretionary spending” will add up to $100 billion annually, and that is how McCain says he will pay for the lowered business taxes. However, he neglected to address the issue of all the money being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether any of that might be categorized as unnecessary “discretionary spending”, or whether we should be spending anything over there in the first place.

An analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal think tank, estimated that the overall cost of Mr. McCain’s tax cuts would be three times as much as the $100 billion he estimates that he can save. And they questioned whether his programs would really save $100 billion a year.

While I’m not saying anything in support of Obama or Clinton’s economic policies, McCain’s plan seems so shaky that I would think twice before buying into how he’s going to save our country. Personally- especially since this tax-cut-focused speech was given on the day of the deadline for filing taxes- it looks to me like another plan designed for the purpose of politics, and not with sound economic policy in mind.

Bush pushes Congress to vote on Colombia trade pact. – Apr. 14, 2008

Click on the graphs for full-size versions

The benefits of trade, while visibly demonstrated by two basic economic models, the production possiblities curve and a simple supply/demand diagram, are not as straightforward when politics is involved. Case in point: the Bush administration has been trying to push through a free trade deal with Columbia, one of our key allies in a region ripe with anti-American sentiment. The White House views the trade deal as a win-win for the American economy:

The administration insisted the deal would be good for the United States economically because it would eliminate high barriers that U.S. exports to Colombia now face, while most Colombian products are already entering the United States duty-free under existing trade preference laws.

On the surface it appears the US has nothing to lose from extending trade relations with Columbia, since few if any American jobs will be lost by such a deal; so why are some Democrats resisting the trade deal?

In explaining their opposition, Democrats have cited the continued violence against organized labor in Colombia and differences with the administration over how to extend a program that helps U.S. workers displaced by foreign competition.

As is so often the case, what’s best for the economy does not seem to be what’s in the best interests of Americans. Our values extend, in some cases, beyond our pocketbooks. The White House argues that the US/Columbia free trade agreement only promises to increase demand for American products while doing little to affect domestic employment. The fact that most Columbian imports are already tariff-free probably confirms this. But the Democrats oppose this deal on the grounds that it would appear that America endorses the anti-labor activities of the Columbian governments.

Labor is a touchy political issue in America, where union membership among workers has fallen from around 40% in the 1950′s to around 13% today. As Columbia and other developing economies become integrated into the global economy, there is increasing pressure for governments to liberalize their domestic labor markets, weaken unions, lower wages in order to attract more investment from abroad, lower the costs of production, thus increase the quantity of their exports demanded abroad. Labor market flexibility and liberalization is certainly an important step in attracting investment and demand to developing countries, but if it comes at the expense of the well-being of the citizens of a poor country, then perhaps standing against such anti-labor actions is a just cause.

The free trade deal with Columbia poses more of a moral dilemma than an economic one. From America’s stand-point, it appears to be a win-win situation. But from the perspective of international labor standards, approving a trade deal with Columbia threatens to undermine another set of American values: those of human rights.

Discussion questions:

1. Why do you think the White House is so adamant about pushing through the trade deal with Columbia?
2. Are the Democrats correct to oppose a deal that could create jobs in America while at the same time make more goods available to Columbian consumers at lower prices?
3. Should America be trying to dictate the labor standards of its trading partners? Why or why not?