If Joe Blow decides to launch a business and sell widgets, if won’t be long before he figures out whether or not this was a good idea. If he doesn’t sell enough widgets to cover his costs....he is not going to stay with this too long. Not making money is some serious NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.
Consider the philosophy professor at a government subsidized university. If he is a bad teacher, where is his negative feedback? Maybe a low rating in a student guidebook? He certainly doesn’t lose any money after a poor job of teaching one semester. He may flounder for years and still not lose his job.
Others insulated from negative feedback are 99% of government employees, much of the unionized workforce, journalists, and generally anyone in a very secure job – usually marked by monopolistic or government involvement.
A person’s job is their main intersection with the economy. The secure jobs with no negative feedback effectively insulate these workers from connecting with capitalism. It is no surprise that such people are collectively the most economically illiterate. They are the ones that think jobs descend out of nowhere, that prices are arbitrarily set by old men in Texas or Enron executives, that high wages and benefits are an entitlement, and that the President can flip a switch to lower gas prices or create the jobs to which they feel entitled.
These are the people that vote for politicians that are “pro-jobs” and yet anti-business.
These are the dummies unaware of the dangers of taxing the rich.
These are the Morons that I blog about all of the time.
There is, by inference at least, a constitutional right to be a Moron. These econo-illiterates are a blight on the country even though their condition may be accidental.
Consider Massachusetts, which has, in my limited travels, revealed itself to me as the most economically illiterate place I have ever been. For the most part, the people here are economically illiterate by default. Essentially, despite the dense population, there is no thriving economy up here.
Demographically, Massachusetts is dominated by the elderly. They are all on fixed incomes with very little money to spend. So there are very few high end clothiers and restaurants – instead there are probably a billion Dunkin Donuts, hospitals, and discount retailers. Forget about a vibrant service economy and its jobs. Also, Puritanical regulation of liquor licenses also retards new restaurant and bar development.
Now adding to the poor demographics is a very hostile anti-business political climate. High corporate tax rates, onerous unemployment benefits, meddling politicians like Tom Reilly and William Galvin(BoA/Fleet merger, Gillete merger, NStar), etc. You can’t build anything here because of the restrictive zoning. This list goes on and on.
Some big developer was going to develop the Fan Pier on the Boston waterfront, but at the last second meddling pols stepped in and demanded that they build a ridiculously expensive parking garage, all sorts of public access, a marina, space for civic institutions, and a deal-killing expensive seawall. Needless to say, the developer (Boston Properties REIT) walked away, paying a $2.5 million fee, rather than be extorted. Moronic pols celebrated their success with one Legislator exclaiming that he wasn't there to enrich a private individual from another state.
HEY DOPE, A REIT IS NOT A "PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL".
Maybe the Fan Pier will be developed before the Big Dig, but regardless this one example is a microcosm of how Bostonians retard development. (That Big Dig link is worthwhile reading as a case study in government ineptitude.)
I want to comment on mass transit up here. Let’s just say that it basically sucks. The commuter rail doesn’t run that often (actually closed on Sundays). You can’t even buy a monthly pass from a vending machine. You have to wait in line at South Station and buy it from the booth AND you have to show identification. Why they need to see ID to sell you a train pass is mysterious and it doesn’t exactly speed up the wait in line. Also the trolleys wait for everyone to pay before they move and have to stop at all of the same traffic lights as cars.
As far as I am concerned they don’t have mass transit here.
Nobody uses it because it is cumbersome and impractical so everyone has to own a car and drive around town. Obviously this makes traffic worse and parking very expensive.
Forget about cabs, they are a complete jam-job. Not sure about now, but in 2004, the same 2.8 mile cab ride in Manhattan that cost $6.85 was averaging $10.08 in Boston. That was an astounding 47% more expensive.
These taxi rates are set by politicians, explaining the disconnect. The retarded Boston pols want the cab drivers to earn a good living AND want to limit the number of taxis on the streets. How the bleep is this good for most Bostonians? Instead of having a few more cabs on the streets, Boston gets a ton more passenger cars.
So nobody will take mass transit and nobody will take cabs…..how does that mitigate the traffic and parking problems?
Boston should float a ton more taxi medallions and drastically lower the fare rates. There is no justifiable reason why cab drivers in Boston need higher incomes than NYC drivers. The cost of living in NYC is still much higher.
Devil’s Advocate: Wait a minute, C-Nut…..Boston cab drivers don’t get the same volume of business as do their brethren in NYC so they need a higher rate, no?
CaptiousNut: They would get more volume if they lowered the damn rates to a reasonable level!!!!!!!! Now shut up DA, you are always wrong.
NewsFlash...Boston just raised cab rates last month, ostensibly to offset rising gasoline costs. The deplorable Boston Globe has the story.
The city of Boston has approved a 50 cents per ride gasoline surcharge on cab fares, which are already among the highest in the nation
City officials did not say how far gas prices would have to drop before the surcharge was rescinded.
The fare relief comes at a time when the city is also mandating that cabs must have transponders in their vehicles so they can use Fast Lanes on the Massachusetts Turnpike and tunnels.
The move is unpopular with many taxi drivers, who do not want to face a huge Fast Lane bill every month.
"I've had a transponder, and the average bill was $800 to $900 a month," Meister said.
That’s right, the already sky high taxi rates for everyone in Boston have been raised and the Boston Globe calls it “fare relief”.
And can you believe that the cab drivers actually don’t want to have Fast Lane (even though the tolls are a direct surcharge to the riders)?
But then again, why should they be any different than the rest of the dopes up here that prefer to wait in the cash lanes?
The idiocy up here seemingly never ends, pick any topic, talk to almost any person, open any newspaper and your jaw will drop at the depth of ignorance in Boston.
Let me give another example. I just grabbed a copy of The Bulletin, a West Roxbury local newpaper. Consider the headline Harvard expansion raises expectations, real estate values
Harvard University’s decision to expand into Allston has some residents concerned about the growing number of students inhabiting the area and the threat of increased traffic.
Now, as the proposed project draws closer, another fear has emerged - the likely rise in cost of homes in the area.
A home at 62-64 Kirkwood Rd. in Brighton has been put on the market with an asking price of approximately $1.6 million, an out-of-the-norm price that has some local activists uneasy about what could be a market shift set in motion by Harvard’s plans.
Local activist Bill Haas said he is "tremendously amazed" at how high the price has been set for the home on Kirkwood Road.
"To put a home up for sale at $1.6 million is just crazy," Haas said. "This could drive up other prices in the area and make Brighton unaffordable. I hope this is an anomaly because it is so way out there, but on the other hand, everything else in the area can go up with it."
Haas said he thinks the cost of the home is proof that Boston College students are "driving the rental income through the roof."
"If there is a condominium in a complex that decides to sell their unit for a much higher cost than everyone else - then the costs all eventually go up because everyone thinks that they can get much more for their property. It’s just amazing."
“Local activist”? Why don’t they aptly call him some local Moron?
He thinks that simply listing a house at a high price will “drive up other prices in the area”?
I love how that article bemoans the "cost" instead of the value of homes. Almost as if real estate appreciation is categorically a bad thing. I am sure all of the homeowners in that area are PISSED at the prospect of their houses appreciating.
With Perma-Commi Naysayers, both the appreciation and the depreciation of real estate are ripe talking points.
Yeah it is the listing that drives home prices up, not fundamentals or demand. I hate to even spend one sentence debunking these dopes but include such only for purposes of econo-illiteracy illustration. It is not like these Morons are harmlessly wallowing in their ignorance, they pervade media stories, politics, and public policy.
Okay, I went off in a slight tangential rant, but this is where any discussion of Boston takes me. Back to the cycle of economic illiteracy. To reiterate, we have fossilized demographics with fixed income and the resultant blah service sector. We have a socialized political climate that away scares and taxes away businesses. We have poor transportation infrastructure.
On the other end of the demography side is the considerable college and university populations. Whatever the issue, Boston Globe writers will find some university professor to back their pre-conceived claim. The whole city’s obsession with these schools numbs the mind.
These academics are absolute Morons. Everytime an esteemed university economist open their mouths, they say something profoundly ignorant like,
"consumers are irrational when they leave tips at restaurants that they will probably never return to..." or
"tax cuts are trying to take credit for 'normal' growth..."
Red Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell used to slide into first base and sportswriter Bob Ryan just had to go find some MIT Physics professor assert its folly (i.e. that a baserunner would not be optimizing their speed by sliding.)
It is another variation of Selective Metric Fishing. The columnists start out with conclusions and then go looking for dignified evidence. Most people think a Harvard professor is an unimpeachable source, which I think is laughable in and of itself.
No disrespect to teachers, on the contrary I have the highest respect for the profession. I even aspire to teach some high school myself one day. BUT, teachers represent one of the most economically illiterate demographics out there. This goes from elementary school educators all the way to Harvard professors. Working in a socialized industry completely insulates them from the real world and negative feedback.
Recently I asked my mother, a high school teacher, whether she thought we were in a recession or not. She paused, accurately sensing entrapment and replied,
"I don't know......that is your thing (to know about)..."
Now that was a much more satisfying answer than the "yes...we are in a recession" response of an astounding 43% of the public, but it still leaves much to be desired.
How can someone who is a homeowner, taxpayer, grandparent, consumer, and voter not bother themselves with knowing an inkling about the economy in which they are inexorably immersered?
One more note about teachers. John Stossel of ABC was on Bill O'Reilly last night promoting his upcoming show on how bad government schools are and he dropped this nugget:
"In the last two years, out of over 80,000 teachers in the New York City School system, only 2 have been fired for incompetence."
This is what I mean when I talk about insulation from NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.
I would venture to guess that substantially more than 2 highly competent teachers quit teaching in NYC over that same period because of work conditions, bureaucratic BS, the socialistic pay scale, etc.
Such ignorance is par for the course up here in Massachusetts mostly because nobody works in the private sector. Growing up in Central Massachusetts, I barely knew a handful of people who had jobs in the private sector - everyone either worked for the government, in education, or healthcare.
That is right, HEALTHCARE IS NOT PART OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR.
Because of the hostile business climate there simply are no private sector jobs which forces new workers into the un-competitive sectors. Entreprenurial types move out of state and it is not hard to see how this cycle is self-sustaining. What's left is a economically illiterate public that elects representative idiot politicians.
Are you getting the impression that I hate this state?
Sticking me, a self-appointed econo-illiteracy cop in Taxachusetts is like sentencing Emeril to a lifetime of McDonalds or banishing an avid golfer to Antarctica.
Massachusetts is nothing but a bunch very old people with no life experience, pandemic economic illiteracy, and the formidable inertia of dumb ideas. Ideas so stupid that they scare good hardworking people out of state, leaving a monolith of Morons in their wake.
I'll end this post with a sign of economic vibrancy on Harvard's campus.
Yeah that will look great on your resume.
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