What is fair share?

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:02 am

Scrat wrote: Minks hit pretty close to the mark. We and the rest of the world can debate this until AFTER we are in our graves about what the EU wastes and what America has (what we do to have what we do is another subject) materially, the world infrastructure ect. It isn't going to and never will solve the problems of say, Africa.

You have to give people fishing poles, not fish then you need to do one of the easiest things there is to do. Provide stability. Don't let pther people take those fishing poles away.

Belarus has a tightly controlled almost communist (?) economy. It is much like the French economy in many ways. Now the country is growing albeit very slowly in infrastructure but when you get to entrepreneural type enterprises it is doing quite well. Restaurants abound, pizzarias, small clothing stores and farmers markets. Not to mention a thriving blackmarket, where you can get anything.

Regardless of what you think of the government one fact stands out. The country is stable. There are no insurrections, civil wars, warlords running amuck tearing up the country. The people there are not extremely wealthy in a western sense but all of the people seem to make it in one way or another and have a DECENT standard of living. From what I have seen Belarus is better off than Poland and many parts of Russia.

We need to create stability in the 3rd world. Creating 3rd world countries by destabilizing them may suit countries like America in the interest of the status quo but it does not create conditions where people can live.

I know what you are saying and you are more or less right. One of the problems particularly of Europeans advising Africans about how to stabilize their continent is that becuase of the colonial hostory of africa, many africans are deeply suspicous of what Europeans say, and most European leaders don't have the moral courage to just say or do what needs to be done becuase its policitally incorrect and can be interpreted as European arrogance. Also, frankly they don't care enough as like all politicans they are mostly interested in their own country's interests, which is unavoidable. Personally I think its tosh and certainly their is lot that we could do in Europe to help stabilize many parts of africa with help from the U.S. and others, but whether that happens remains to be seen.

Ultimately all county's fates are in the own hands though, no matter what other countries try to do to help, its the choice that africans themselves make that will in the long run turn that troubled continent around, both the leaders and the ordinary people. Africa has been terribly let down by its own leaders in recent decades, I hope that in the future that will change.

koan · Post by **koan** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:12 pm

Adam Smith needed revision

Basic (Micro-Economics) Definition:

A Nash Equilibrium is a set of mixed strategies for finite, non-cooperative games between two or more players whereby no player can improve his or her payoff by changing their strategy. Each player's strategy is an 'optimal' response (cf. optimality) based on the anticipated rational strategy of the other player(s) in the game.

On the value of Nash equilibrium:

"The concept of a Nash equilibrium n-tuple is perhaps the most important idea in noncooperative game theory. ... Whether we are analysing candidates' election strategies, the causes of war, agenda manipulation in legislatures, or the actions of interest groups, predictions about events reduce to a search for and description of equilibria. Put simply, equilibrium strategies are the things that we predict about people." - P. Ordeshook ...

source

Everyone seems to think they know what people will do if left to their own devices or that classic time-worn phrases sum things up. Perhaps, if we want to look at economic theories, those of Nash would be best suited.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:46 am

News report made me immediately think of this thread.

Eight killed in rush to grab handouts

The Australian - 23 hours ago

AT least eight people have been and nearly 50 injured in stampedes in Bangladesh while trying to grab clothes being handed out to the poor ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival, police have said

so whose point does this prove, if any?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:15 am

koan wrote: Adam Smith needed revision

Basic (Micro-Economics) Definition:

A Nash Equilibrium is a set of mixed strategies for finite, non-cooperative games between two or more players whereby no player can improve his or her payoff by changing their strategy. Each player's strategy is an 'optimal' response (cf. optimality) based on the anticipated rational strategy of the other player(s) in the game.

On the value of Nash equilibrium:

"The concept of a Nash equilibrium n-tuple is perhaps the most important idea in noncooperative game theory. ... Whether we are analysing candidates' election strategies, the causes of war, agenda manipulation in legislatures, or the actions of interest groups, predictions about events reduce to a search for and description of equilibria. Put simply, equilibrium strategies are the things that we predict about people." - P. Ordeshook ...

source

Everyone seems to think they know what people will do if left to their own devices or that classic time-worn phrases sum things up. Perhaps, if we want to look at economic theories, those of Nash would be best suited.You claimed you killed the thread with this post. Perhaps if you gave it a little push by expanding on your last paragraph? Because I can't see through the academia.

Dumb it down for us Yanks, will ya?

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:26 am

Accountable wrote: You claimed you killed the thread with this post. Perhaps if you gave it a little push by expanding on your last paragraph? Because I can't see through the academia.

Dumb it down for us Yanks, will ya?

I give you more credit than that. It doesn't need dumbing down. If I had posted the mathematical equation for the equilibrium theory then I'd see the point.

The last paragraph is to direct how economic theory might be applied to the subject of distribution of goods within and among societies. That is, essentially, what countries fight over. It comes out looking like we are fighting about concepts such as "democracy" but we are really just disagreeing on how wealth should be distributed. If this is expanded to be called a game in which one player is hoping to win then game theory is applicable.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:39 am

koan wrote: I give you more credit than that. It doesn't need dumbing down. If I had posted the mathematical equation for the equilibrium theory then I'd see the point.

The last paragraph is to direct how economic theory might be applied to the subject of distribution of goods within and among societies. That is, essentially, what countries fight over. It comes out looking like we are fighting about concepts such as "democracy" but we are really just disagreeing on how wealth should be distributed. If this is expanded to be called a game in which one player is hoping to win then game theory is applicable.Okay, I follow so far, I think. Go on......

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:42 am

Accountable wrote: Okay, I follow so far, I think. Go on......
I started the other thread because I'm not overly familiar with Nash's work and hope that more can be discovered about it there without derailing this one as a general discussion.

Can it be agreed that a countries define themselves in order to protect resources for the use of their populations?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:48 am

koan wrote: I started the other thread because I'm not overly familiar with Nash's work and hope that more can be discovered about it there without derailing this one as a general discussion.

Can it be agreed that a countries define themselves in order to protect resources for the use of their populations?No, not in the African countries we've been discussing. There, population be damned, the leaders are getting theirs.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:38 am

Accountable wrote: No, not in the African countries we've been discussing. There, population be damned, the leaders are getting theirs.
That is a result not a cause.

The point of agreement at the moment is on why the borders were formed.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:30 am

Galbally wrote: One of the saddest facts about humanitarian intervention is that in some ways it inevitably helds in keeping the crappy status quo going in many countries, and also allows these governments to continue with irresponsible policies and then plead to rich countries about the suffering of their people when their policies result in disaster. Truer words were never posted. It's true about governments, it's true about individuals, too.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:28 am

Because we don't force our govts to trade fairly we end up paying several times twice. Once in subsidies to farmers and then again in higher prices in the shops. Then being generous people we also give aid to countries that is used to support the population while the world bank continues to extract debt repayment from those countries. It's absurd to give aid with one hand and then have banks continue taking money back from those self same countries. It's all too easy to blame corrupt governments although they have to take part of the blamne as well.

Both the EU and US have a lot to answer for in the unequal trading positions we force third world countries to put up with.

To take one commodity-cotton.

http://www.panos.org.uk/global/tradingp ... ture14.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/debt/Story/0,,1859175,00.html

Chauvin said the research didn't prove that debt relief was a waste of money - but it did show that multi-billion-dollar debt cancellation alone was unlikely to be effective.

The authors also found that, in general, debt relief hadn't been directed to the poorest countries in the world, or to those that are the most indebted.

Personally I don't have any snappy answers but in the past priests used to cut open sheeps entrails, peer at them and pretend they could see a pattern and predict the future. Or they would cast rune sticks.

Nowadays economists use spreadsheets and mathematical models and pretend they can see a pattern and predict the future. I am not comnvinced it is actually a better method.:-3

Spinner · Post by **Spinner** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 5:49 pm

Accountable wrote: Truer words were never posted. It's true about governments, it's true about individuals, too.

I see one of the main problems being that we no longer have real, lawful money, which is gold and sliver... Federal Reserve IOU notes are not lawful money but monopoly money. It may be "legal tender for all debts public and private" but it is not lawful money since only Congress can coin money.

And this is why (as I comprehend it) the Euro is so strong. It is backed by some gold... (I also think this is the real reason for America the the Middle East. America is the "police" for the International Monetary Fund, which is run by the Bank for International Settlements. Their [bankers] ultimate goal is to have all the gov'ts of the world use the script and forfeit their gold and silver.)

So..while everyone is complaining about the price of items going up...they are really viewing the situation back wards. Prices aren't going up...the dollar is falling and actually is valued at about 4 cents.

This is an article that y'all may enjoy. Great site too BTW.

http://www.mises.org/story/2325

Wage Gaps, Inequality, and Government

By William Anderson

Posted on 10/12/2006

Spinner