Reply #34: Didn't the documentary 'inside job' talk about economic schools being taken over by Randians? [View All]

[Juche]

So this isn't surprising. A poll of economists before the 2008 election found them supporting Obama over McCain either 2-1 or 3-1. I don't remember which. So I don't know. I am under teh impression, maybe wrongly, that economic schools are Randian while economists themselves may be more liberal.

Did your professor mention that one of the reasons China produces more cheaply than the US is because labor, worker safety and environmental laws are weaker? So in the US those costs would fall onto the companies, in China they are passed onto society. Those costs still exist, they are just being taken off of companies and put onto society. There is nothing efficient about that, that is like me saying that I am being more efficient because instead of spending $20/month on trash pickup I just dump it in the neighbors yard. The trast and the cost to clean it still exists, I've just distributed it to someone else.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-17/china-is-set-to-lose-2-of-gdp-cleaning-up-pollution.html

The costs arising from pollution in China -- including lost productivity due to health issues, crop degradation and losses from pollution-related accidents -- totaled 511.8 billion yuan, or 3.1 percent of GDP, in 2004, the latest figures available, according to the Beijing-based Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.