Monthly Archives: March 2013

Government Transfers and GDP

I have started reading through the Captain’s Enjoy the Decline and in the 2nd chapter he talks about proving the US is in a permanent decline. He brings up his old point here about how GDP is growing at 2.2% rather than the 4% of yesteryear, and how we could have an average income of $100,000 if the government didn’t interfere. He was also talking about how government is now almost 40% of GDP. That got me thinking about the government and the GDP.

The most common method of calculating GDP is is through the use of this formula:

GDP = C + I + G + (X – M)

Or, in English:

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports – imports)

What I’m going to focus on here is G. As per wikipedia:

G (government spending) is the sum of government expenditures on final goods and services. It includes salaries of public servants, purchase of weapons for the military, and any investment expenditure by a government. It does not include any transfer payments, such as social security or unemployment benefits.

When calculating GDP, the measure of government contribution to the economy is NOT the value of goods and services the government produces; it is the measure of the value of the resources the government consumes. G in the GDP measures what the government takes out of the economy, not what the government puts into the economy.

For example, if the the government spent $200-million building a road it would count the same as if the government spent $200-million moving rocks from point A to point B and back to Point A. As long as the government wasn’t using the resources for transfer payments, they could bury the money and GDP would increase. (See the Broken Window Fallacy).

For the rest of this post, we will refer to C, I, & (X-M) as “actual GDP” and G as government spending.*

Here are the annual real GDP growth rates for the US since 2008:

2008: -0.3
2009: -3.1
2010:  2.4
2011:  1.8
2012:  2.2

Here’s G:

2008: 2,497.4
2009: 2,589.4
2010: 2,605.8
2011: 2,523.9
2012: 2,481.3

and growth in G:

2008:  2.6%
2009:  3.7%
2010:  0.6%
2011: -3.1%
2012: -0.6%

Over the last 5 years, since the housing crash, the portion of GDP that is made up of G has declined by 0.6%. US GDP on the other hand, has increased by 6% over the same time period.

Originally, when starting this post, I was wondering if increased government consumption was resulting in a higher G, inflating GDP numbers. In other words, I was suspicious the government was simply consuming more resources (whether for productive or unproductive tasks) from the private sector to mask a decline in actual GDP.

The data says it has not; in fact, the opposite is true, G has somewhat declined as a percentage of GDP. I was tempted to just junk this post as my suspicion and the point I was thinking I might make proved to be incorrect, but I decided I’d post this information here anyway for anyone who’s curious.

****

This however, brings up another point for my post.

According to Table 1.1 here, federal government spending has increased by 27.1% between 2008 and 2012. This new spending represents 6.0% of 2012 GDP. Total government spending has increased by 10% in the same time period, representing 3.6% of 2012 GDP. Interestingly (and completely surprising to me), non-federal government spending (total minus federal) has actually decreased by $323.8 billion, or 6.6% over the same five years, representing 2.4% of 2012 GDP.

As mentioned above, G only measures what the government consumes or invests in, it does not include government transfers.

G has more or less stayed the same (and has actually declined as a portion of GDP), while government spending has increased by over a quarter.

What this means is that the none of the new government spending is from the government actually consuming or investing in anything. None of the new government spending is new roads, new hospitals, new schools, or new jet fighters; none of it has even gone to increased bureaucrat’s salaries, buying heroin for the homeless, or burying resources in the desert. None of the new spending was used on anything remotely productive or even on a program pretending to be productive.

All 27.1% of the new federal spending has gone to increased transfers.

In other words, since 2008, the federal government has forcibly taken an extra 6% of the entire economy from some people and transferred it to other people with not the slightest pretense of it being for the public benefit or as an investment in the future.

This is naked robbery.

In addition, part of this extra federal spending has come at same time that state spending has been reduced, further centralizing government spending.

Just federal transfers, not including state transfers or federal consumption of investment as found in G, now make up about 20%** of the economy. Six percentage points of that came from the last five years.

The federal government has taken an extra 6% of the entire US economy from the producer class and given to the parasite last five years and currently spends an one-fifth of the economy simply in transferring money from producers to parasites.

If this pattern continues, the US will become a centralized socialist state.

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* All dollar amounts are 2005 US$ and in billions.
** May be slightly off, but not by more than, maybe, a percentage point. 2012 #’s were used for GDP and federal outlays, but I could not find a 2012 number for federal G, so I used the 2011 number.

Feminist Self-Annihilation

It seems it’s now a thing that women feel guilty about desiring a long-term relationship. As per that liberal rag, the Atlantic:

As a sociologist who’s interviewed several 20-something women on their sexual development, I’ve found straight young women aren’t necessarily embracing hooking up because they’re masters of their own destiny, as suggested by Hanna Rosin here a The Atlantic but because they face a new taboo and it’s not about sex or money or power. Instead, it’s a taboo about that traditional province of women: relationships. Ambitious young women in their 20s feel they shouldn’t want relationships with men at this phase in their lives.

I can’t believe this is a thing. I knew some feminists wanted the right to be sluts without shame, but what the hell?

What could possibly possess a person to feel guilty about desiring a human relationship?

But what really got me about this piece was this:

Some young women deeply desire meaningful relationships with men, even as they feel guilty about those desires. Many express the same sentiment again and again: “Why do I, a young and highly educated woman in the 21st century, value relationships with men so highly?” To do so feels like a betrayal of themselves, of their education, and of their achievements.

Really? I can’t even really feel anger over this, just sadness.

Women value relationships with men because humans were created (or evolved) to live with each other, to love each other, and to form relationships. We are social creatures; relationships define who we are.

To not value human relationships is to engage in self-annihilation.* The desire for companionship is the most human part of you, to fight against it is to destroy yourself and your humanity.

Meet a girl named Katie:

Katie, a 25-year-old woman I spoke with as part of my research, confided that she worried her single-minded pursuit of a graduate degree might limit her ability to meet a man with whom she could build a life. This realization—that she might want to prioritize a relationship over a career—felt shocking to Katie, and she did not admit to it easily. She felt deeply ashamed by such thoughts, worried that they signaled weakness and dependence, qualities she did not admire. To put such a high premium on relationships was frightening to Katie. She worried that it meant she wasn’t liberated and was still defined by traditional expectations of women.

Read that again: “She worried that it meant she wasn’t liberated and was still defined by traditional expectations of women.”

This women is destroying herself, destroying the things that are real in her life (relationships, family, and her desires for such) over ideological cant.

Dear Katie, if you are not pursuing what you truly desire because you are worried about signalling weakness and dependence, then you aren’t liberated and you are weak. If you are denying your human desire for companionship to “signal” independence, you are a slave, not of the body, but much worse, of the mind.

You are still letting others define you, you have just changed which group is doing the defining.

Also, which do you think you will value more in a decade: a man who has loved you for the last decade or an over-priced piece of paper that you are still paying off?

I have heard Katie’s dilemma from countless young women. Many feel ashamed about being too relationship-oriented in their 20s. Parents warn, “Do you really want to settle down so early? We just don’t want to see you miss out on any opportunities.” Friends intone, “How will you know what you like and want if you don’t play the field? You’re only young once. Now’s the time to explore.”

I think these parents and “friends” are going to have a lot to answer for on judgment day. What kind of idiotic advice is that?

Like Hamilton and Armstrong’s respondents, many young and aspiring women with whom I spoke felt as though it were counterproductive to their development to prioritize a relationship with a man.

Because human relationships are not a part of self-development?

This is a new phenomenon that goes against the grain of centuries of female socialization.

Because the desire for human relationships is something socialized?

Anxiety is difficult to tolerate, and rather than experience it, many of the young women I interviewed and work with in my psychotherapy practice split their desire for a relationship off from their professional and self-development desires. Confused about freedom and desire, young women often split their social and psychological options—independence, strength, safety, control, and career versus connection, vulnerability, need, desire, and relationships—into mutually exclusive possibilities in life. Romantic relationships then often become something to be avoided and denigrated rather than embraced.

Wow. Why would any women tolerate this kind of psychological self-annihilation?

Why? Why would women put up with an ideology that required them to destroy themselves?

I find this more sad than maddening, but if I were a women, I would be pissed over this.

****

Slate XX commented on this. Read:

How can you want a relationship if you have no prospects? Unless you’re actually casually dating someone (or have a secret crush on someone you interact with regularly), actively “wanting” a boyfriend seems rather silly to me.

Really? It’s silly to desire the basic human need of companionship?

Ellen Tarlin: I disagree. I think it’s almost unavoidable. Relationships are so romanticized and overvalued in our society! We are plagued by images of them.

Materialistic nihilism on full display.

Laura Helmuth: I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but I am kind of thrilled that this is considered embarrassing among smart young women.Having a boyfriend and/or being well on the way to marriage used to be the default for twentysomethings. It’s fascinating that the social stigma has reversed so dramatically.

I am thrilled that women are denying their basic human desires and needs to pursue empty corporate work and a consumerist lifestyle.

Hanna Rosin: I feel like this moment we’re in now of shame about the boyfriend is great and necessary for progress and all that but will recalibrate and settle down.

Is she a fucking sadist?

Emma Roller: On the other side of this, I feel a lot of guilt for having a wonderful, stable relationship with my boyfriend of two-plus years. I’m  anxious about missing out on what the zeitgeist says the 20s lifestyle “should” be (playing the field, etc.), but what if I’m happy where I’m at?

Please re-read that, and just think about it for a minute. “I feel a lot of guilt for having a wonderful, stable relationship with my boyfriend of two-plus years.”

Juliana Jimenez: I hear you. I sometimes get a bit anxious over that as well—that I’m missing my 20s and I’m really living a 30s kind of life with my stable boyfriend and what not.

Again, consider that.

Meg Wiegand: I guess I’m the minority here: I’m in my late 20s, perpetually single, and very much worried about not finding someone. I know I’m absolutely fine on my own, and like Aisha, I’ve rarely met anyone I would ever want to consider being ”attached” to. But I continue to bounce on and off online dating sites and go on dates with friends of friends (mostly just ending up with great cocktail fodder) in hopes of finding someone who could be a partner.

Part of me is embarrassed by this—that I’ve escaped small-town Ohio and lived abroad and have a master’s degree but can’t find a partner. The other part feels that society already tells me that I should be ashamed of my body fat and short legs and hair that isn’t straight and blond, so why should I take this any more seriously? And why is this any different than feeling lonely because my family members and close friends are a plane ride away?

Wow. You could write an entire post just on these two paragraphs. It’s like every manosphere stereotype of modern American women rolled into two paragraphs.

Alyssa Rosenberg: What strikes me as weird about this conversation, and why this shift in priorities doesn’t seem like a complete feminist victory, is that it discounts the idea that a relationship can be an incredible source of support for career and life goals. Having someone who, say, helps with chores to give you more time to study or work, or who encourages you when you’re discouraged, or works in a similar field and helps you with ideas, who backs you publicly, etc? All this stuff can make it much easier to work harder and in a more productive way or to work through difficult challenges. I’m not sure we should get psyched by the idea that young women don’t want relationships but rather by the idea that women want more from their relationships or that we view relationships as part of a larger matrix of things that can work well together.

Alyssa here is comparatively rational. She sounds almost human and not like she had her heart replaced by the archives of Jezebel.

Ellen Tarlin: Because twentysomething men are selfish! (Joke. Sort of.) No, I’d say because these ideas about what women should be or do die hard. Your boyfriend or husband may support the ideals of feminism, but when he gets home, maybe he’d just really like it if you would make dinner, too. (Who wouldn’t?)

Read that again: “No, I’d say because these ideas about what women should be or do die hard.”

Think on it for a minute. You should now realize how insane this whole thing.

These women are sitting around discussing a sadistic, near-psychopathic (feminist) societal expectation that is causing women to annihilate themselves and their base human desires, and celebrating it because it destroys older societal expectations.

Dear women, why do you listen to people like this?

Why do you take the advice of people like this?

Why?

I don’t know, there’s not much left to say. This makes me sad.

****

* Severe autists, clinical psychopaths, and others with a natural inability to form human relations excepted.

Lightning Round – 2013/03/06

Things 18-year-olds should know.

Modernity is the problem.

The guide to getting things done.
Related: Real men are busy.

Be thankful we don’t live in this Orwellian society.

A must-read post, Capitalism: a Hate Story.
Related: What we have is not capitalism.

Shit-giving.

I pooped.
Related: Two words women need to hear: You done?

De-framing.

Give them something real.
Related: The essence of game: Be the best version of yourself and be real.

A lot of people don’t want help or the truth. Don’t give it to them unless asked.

Alpha is relative.

Take each other for granted.

Male Settling Order. Aiming for #3 and will settle for naught less: I’ve always preferred cute (pretty) to hot anyway.

7 reasons not to seriously date women over 30.
Related: Advice to a women in her 30’s.

5 signs you should marry her.

Judgy Bitch with a great rant.

STD testing and sluttiness.
Related: Virginity and sluttiness.

Chick crack.

Using PoF.

Hugo Schwyzer’s big idea: make men more feminist by sodomizing them. Makes sense: a catamite would generally be more feminine, less masculine, more submissive, and an almost literal mangina, so I could see any man willing to be sodomized as more likely to be a feminist. If you’re willing to degrade yourself sexually, why wouldn’t you be willing to degrade yourself in other ways. Also, I love how feminists define “secure in their masculinity” as meaning having not even a tiny ounce of either masculinity or self-respect.

The ponzi life.

Hoplophobia.
Related: The consequences of hoplophobia.

3D-printed guns keep getting better.

It’s been 20 years since the FBI murdered 76 people.

Manpower: The most abundant and renewable resource.

God doesn’t forgive the unrepentant and neither should you. Good comments as well.
Related: On judgment.

A sterile culture.

Some red pill humour. More. More. More.

Putting the pieces together results in shame.
Related: Liberal champions of white supremacy.

Why old people don’t get respect.
Related: A battle is coming.

Eat fats.

Women: in poor shape because they do less housework.

The effectiveness of single-sex classrooms.

Yet another reason to homeschool your kids.
Related: You’re screwing your kids.

Mark Steyn tears one out of the anti-bullying campaign.

Science: Boys get worse grades than their test scores should indicate, except when they act like girls.

How about that: it seems women are the actual sexist bosses.

Why men are wrong and need to be more like women. Anyway, I think a advice blog dedicated to giving red pill answers to those with questions would be pretty nifty.

When guys do the same things as girls, guys are mean.

Women, men, and biology.

Equality is more important than safety.

What if everything you know is wrong.

Half of employers say college grads are a disappointment.
Related: Almost half of college students don’t graduate in six years.

The banks are unprofitable without subsidy.

How Amazon published the “Keep On and Rape A Lot” shirts.

Anarcho-fascism.

Everyone finds a religion.

Hipsters growing up.

Science: Pessimists live longer.

Nothing to see here. The Department of Homeland Security needs 2700 tanks for something, something.

Teen stops armed gun man, gets suspended.

Hehe… some take a bit longer to notice reality.

Shit. I smirk, talk in a tone of absolute certainty, and use sarcasm; I must be abusive.

Really? I highly doubt that a 6-year old is aware enough to identify as transsexual without the parent’s pushing. Also, you can tell this is the parent’s using their child as a political pawn as they called their male child “Coy”. Using your own children as a sociological experiment is hideous.

Crimethink in Canada.
Related: I’m disgusted is not an argument.

If only the socialists were always this concerned about government thugs.

The neo-feudalism of the ruling class.

Virginia man charged for following Biden’s advice.

Man thrown in jail for saying panties.

New Atheist courage on display.

On the differences between economists and others.

Is the jury system breaking down because people are stupid?

It seems the White House threatened a journalist. I’d be more concerned if I was remotely surprised or believed the media wasn’t already the slave of the government (or vice versa).

Not much for partisanship between the Republicrats, but this is funny:

Her contact information.

(H/T: BoingBoing, Instapundit, Maggie’s Farm, Save Capitalism, ar10308, SDA)

Matthew Yglesias is an Idiot

Today, I’ve decided to highlight more economic stupidity.

Here is something from one Matthew Yglesias (whose name I always want to spell Yggdrasil). He is the economic “expert” for Slate magazine. In other words, he is paid solely to “think”* and write about economics. Some of you may also know that Matt is a vulgar Keynesian of the Krugmanite variety. You could almost call him a lesser Krugman.** Because of his vulgar Keynesian, Yglesias has never met a government program and government spending he does not support (except when it inconveniences him personally).***

With that small introduction to this professional master of economics, we can turn to what he wrote recently on Amtrak:

In the main part of the country where people actually ride intercity trains and where intercity trains form an important part of the transportation infrastructure, we have operating profits. In a decent national rail policy, those operating profits could finance infrastructure improvements in the northeast corridor where rail is important and useful. Everyone knows that the Acela is a joke version of high-speed rail by European or Asian standards, and there’s a lot that could be done incrementally to improve that with upgraded rolling stock and targeted improvements to straighten tracks or improve tunnels and grade crossings. Instead we’re stuck in a dynamic where all these trains are running in places where nobody rides them and the local voters and elected officials aren’t supportive and Amtrak ends up sigmatized for its dependence on federal subsidies. But operating passenger rail where people want to ride intercity trains turns out to be perfectly viable without huge subsidies. And it could do a much better job of serving the needs of the communities where rail is useful and valued if those operating surpluses were used to cover infrastructure costs rather than soaked away covering operating losses elsewhere.

It’s almost like the train system could benefit from being put in places where people value it and not put in places where people do not want to use it.

This train system would make excess operating surpluses from extracting fares from people who value it. These fares could then go to whomever decided to provide the trains as an incentive to provide trains where needed. The provider of trains could use these surpluses to profit himself and to reinvest in more and better trains for greater surpluses in the future.

If only we could think of a system where people with resources, incentivized by the possibility of profiting off of providing trains, would invest those resources in providing trains in places people valued them in exchange for being able to take an operating surplus from collected fares. It would solve all our train system problems and the government wouldn’t even need to subsidize the train system, saving those tax dollars for something more important, like buying homeless people heroin.

Where, oh where, could the government possibly find a system like this?

What kind of system could possibly cause people to invest resources in providing valued services to others in an efficient manner solely so they can profit from operating surpluses?

A system that utopian must be impossible to create. I guess we must all suffer by paying taxes for trains no one uses.

****

In case you’re oblivious, that was sarcasm.

There wasn’t much of a point to this post, but this: Matthew Yglesias is an idiot.

I would generally use some superlatives here, but I don’t think my limited writing talents could possibly do justice to his ignorance, as his stupidity is positively Krugmanite.

If his head wasn’t rammed so far up his vulgar Keynesian ass, the supremely obvious solution to this supposed quandary might be able to penetrate his inordinately thick skull and he might actually be of some use other than as a paid stooge of the internet wing of the Cathedral press corps.

On the other hand, if his head wasn’t buried so deep in his rectum that methane and anaerobic bacteria were his primary means of subsistence, Slate wouldn’t hire him for the cushy job of confirming idiot liberals’ a priori emotional beliefs with a few hundred daily words of scientific-sounding economic nonsense.

So, maybe he’s smarter than I thought.

I wish I got paid for the nonsense I write and the Cathedral probably pays better than anonymous blogging.

Maybe I should start writing academic-sounding blather that validates the unthinking prejudices of the economically illiterate and makes them feel smart.

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* In this case, the word ‘think’ is used in the loosest definition of the term possible.

** Yes, I know you’re wondering if it is actually possible for there to be a something intellectually lesser than Paul Krugman since he became a paid shill for the Cathedral in the NYT. In this case lesser refers to popularity with fools and usefulness to the Cathedral rather than to any intellectual or analytical (in)abilities.

*** Hint: The definition of a bad government program in the Coocooland of vulgar Keynesianism is any that is personally inconvenient to a liberal shill. The definition of a good government program is any that increases the power of government but does not inconvenience a vulgar Keynesian or a friend of the same.

Lost Kipling Poems – The Press

As long-time readers may know, I’m a fan of Kipling, and I think you should be too.

The news out of Britain is that that 50 new Kipling poems have been discovered. They are being put in a new collection that will contain all of his known poems? I haven’t drooled as much over a book since the Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Sadly, the $295 price tag is a bit higher than I’m willing to pay at this time. Hopefully, they’ll release a paperback version in the future at a more reasonable price.

Here’s one of the new poems:

The Press by Rudyard Kipling

Why don’t you write a play –
Why don’t you cut your hair?
Do you trim your toe-nails round
Or do you trim them square?
Tell it to the papers,
Tell it every day.
But, en passant, may I ask
Why don’t you write a play?

What’s your last religion?
Have you got a creed?
Do you dress in Jaeger-wool
Sackcloth, silk or tweed?
Name the books that helped you
On the path you’ve trod.
Do you use a little g
When you write of God?

Do you hope to enter
Fame’s immortal dome?
Do you put the washing out
Or have it done at home?
Have you any morals?
Does your genius burn?
Was you wife a what’s its name?
How much did she earn?

Had your friend a secret
Sorrow, shame or vice –
Have you promised not to tell
What’s your lowest price?
All the housemaid fancied
All the butler guessed
Tell it to the public press
And we will do the rest.

Why don’t you write a play?

It’s a solid poem, far better than the works of most poets, but nowhere near the level of his best poems, such as: If, Hymn Before Action, or Hymn to Physical Pain.

I find the title’s kind of odd as he already has a poem called The Press.

Anyway, Kipling’s awesome and his ‘new’ poem is solid. I can’t wait to read the other poems once they become available at a reasonable price (or on the internet).