On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:50:57 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip
with a need for
open, if not free, trade in the Ricardo model of comparative advantage.
snip
==========

As the movie dialog states "show me the money."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_M...ous_quotations

This is what is flogged in the standard economic development
texts, but even Ricardo noted when the means of production
[capital] is free to move comparative advantage does not
exist, and only absolute advantage remains. I find it
amazing the number of people who use Ricardo's Theory of
Comparative Advantage as justification for Multilateral
Investment Agreements, when the more transnational
investment there is, the less comparative advantage exists,
especially as this promotes the evasion of tax and other
regulations.

The median American per capita income has been in decline
for at least 30 years when adjusted for inflation, loss of
benefits, and especially for taxes. For a while this could
be offset by having additional adults in the family work,
and/or working longer hours, but this reached its limit
several years ago, and the only other legal recourse was to
increase debt to maintain a material standard of living,
which indeed grew exponentially. The traditional 3rd world
"solutions" of petty crime, tax evasion, and an
informal/underground economy are now booming.
Scan
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/...o-bananas.html
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcon...lin_william s
and then
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2009/...nk-and-growing
http://www.kingslow-assoc.com/images...Lit_Review.pdf
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/network-for-stu..._of_America%3F
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcon...lin_william s


Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).