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April 09, 2005
Sweatshops And Inflation
The Blogfather's new photo correspondent has this to say about the local bazaar, emphasis added:
Here are some images from the local bazaar that is held at Kandahar Air Field (KAF). Not many soldiers are allowed off KAF to go into the city of Kandahar to go shopping, due to a few obvious and not so obvious reasons. The obvious is for safety and the not so obvious is that the US Army does not want to flood the local economy with dollars and ruin it with inflation.
First of all I'm glad to know that the Army commanders over in Kandahar are paying attention to that sort of thing. Secondly, it made me think of the extremely misguided WRC protests from before my first year at Oregon.
What would happen if all of a sudden workers in, say, rural Chinese factories, were getting $7.00 an hour instead of $1 a day. Well, let's assume that they kept working long hours (we'll go with 12), their income has gone up to $84 a day, or 84 times. Man, great for them, right? Wrong. All you've just done is spike the money supply up real fast and thusly gone and caused a whole lot of inflation. In all likelihood, with an expansion that fast (instant) you'll probably end up causing hyperinflation, which is very bad.
The other question is whether or not the guy in the factory is better off than he would be if he was still either 1) unemployed or 2) subsistance farming. If he's willing to make the trade-off, then he must be gaining from the situation because he doesn't have to work in the factory.
Does this mean that the plight of poor, destitute folks in the third world should be ignored? Certainly not, but it does me that we should ignore hippie protesters who're too damn stupid to realize that the best chance for those folks is through further economic development and greater individual freedom. Get rid of the tinhorn, two-bit tyrants running the place and give people the freedom to develop their own economies. Oh, and while we're at it, let's get rid of all the agricultural subsidies and tariffs in the West. That ought to help too.
Posted by Timothy at 04:45 PM | TrackBack
Congress VS. Marriage
In response to my same-sex marriage post a couple of days ago, a friend asked me if I'd support Congressional action that eliminated all government ties to marriage. I am incredibly tempted to say yes. Tempted like the serpent tempted Eve, only I'm not a girl and I don't see any fruit lying around. However, as a matter of principle, I must say no.
I don't want Congress involved with marriage at all, even if it's to dissolve government marriage and send it all back to private arrangements between parties where it belongs. While the Congressional intervention would achieve a desired outcome, it would also set a bad precedent for future Congressional overreach. Just look at the recent silliness over a vegetative Florida bulimic, driven by what amounts to a family spat: Congress certainly violated every principle of federalism to intervene, and they only did so in a misguided attempt to secure what they felt was the right outcome.
Marriage has always been a state issue, and I think it'd be wrong to make it a federal one. So, leave it up to the states, even if we get some crazy Congress that wants to do away with government marriage to achieve the appropriate outcome.