OFF: Re: HW: Tour Shirts

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> => Sure, but most of the time we don't need to.  There's a good economic
> => argument that an election is just such a time: In Britain, the
> => difference between what the two parties propose as state spending is
> => around 2% of GDP.  That's about 20 billion quid.  Call it 40 million
> => adults in the UK and that's 500 quid per year each.  Let's be generous
> => and say that the state is 40% less efficient at using cash than private
> => industry in terms of spending on what the individual actually wants and
> => we get a total cost per annum of getting the vote wrong of 200 quid.
>
> That seems to imply that people are only interested in or affected by
> economic policy.  I don't buy that. :-)

I wouldn't expect you to. Nevertheless, since that's all the difference
between the major parties, that's all there is for the average person to
gain, however much they might hope otherwise. The only clear exceptions
are external policies which affect the overall level of GDP, for example
wars, or more than usually profitable trading arrangements with other
nations. Hopefuly we can agree that war destroys wealth overall and
short of merely being the weapons supplier to someone else's war, we
aren't going to be getting richer quickly by that route. There's anyway
scant difference between the military policies of the two major parties.

That leaves foreign trade. The only real difference here is that one
party is keener on Europe than the other. Inasmuch as the European
economy is sclerotic at best and is likely to remain so in the medium
term (because things still aren't bad enough to persuade Germany and
France to make necessary changes) and the longer term (because the
demographic curve runs against mainland economies and we're already
reaching the limits of tolerance for immigration).

Of course people do value non-eceonomic policies such as who's going to
ban them from watching what as opposed to who's going to ban them from
saying what or owning what. Again the two major parties differ more in
what they'll ban than whether. Authoritarianism is the flavour of the
era, and this time we don't even get smart uniforms.

> Even were it true, the
> percentage of GDP could be allocated very differently depending upon
> the party.

Since we're talking about *average* distribution, that doesn't really
matter. I've already conceded that in the fairground shyster game that
is politics, some people can win any given round, but unless wealth is
created, they can only do this at someone else's loss.

> For example, Party A could pour lots of money into the
> military, prisons, and border patrols because they wanted to appear
> "tough on law and order and weapons of mass destruction."  Party B, on
> the other hand, might sink lots of money into hospitals and schools.
> The net effect of that spending may differ dramatically in terms of
> personal impact (especially if you're trying to afford prescriptions
> and medical treatment).

Indeed, but my point is that nobody is proposing any large scale canges
here (nobody who can win anyway) and even then, the gain of the doctor r
patient is paid by the loss of the family of the soldier.

> Besides that, not many people spend their
> money building nuclear weapons, so the fact that they could have done
> it 40% more efficiently than the government is cold comfort.

Indeed, and neither party is proposing to legalise even handguns, never
mind nuclear weapons. More likely we'll see knives banned on the basis
that only those comporting with terrorists won't be happy to see their
food arrive pre-chopped into bite-sized chunks by the governent.

> The above also does not appear to factor in the impact of social
> policy and potential legislation that may be introduced by Party A or
> Party B in terms of personal freedoms; reinstating national service;
> banning abortion; etc.  How many quid does that work out as per annum?

It varies between individuals and can only be discovered by selling such
services in a free market. Again, the point is that while it's nice to
imagine a more consumer-friendly fairground shyster showering us in nice
things, their aren't any to vote for, and even were there, they couldn't
win. Worse, even if there were, and they could, they'd still be limited
to showering us at best in pecisely the amount of goods to match the
price of the tickets we bought. Since they don't bring any of their own
money to the raffle, the very maximum we can win on average is what we
put in, and effectively the only way to win that much is to quit the game.

> => They have a 50% chance of just guessing the best way to vote and so
> => game-theoretically we can halve that cost to 100 quid, or 2 quid per
> => week.
> =>
> => Call the average wage about 20K, or 400 Pounds per week, and that means
> => that anyone who spends more than 10 hours in a year, or 12 minutes per
> => week, even thinking about how to vote has pretty much wasted their time.
> => Even at minimum wage you'd only just over double it to say half an hour
> => per week, which is less than most people will spend reading a newspaper
> => anyway.
>
> Even sticking purely in an economic vein, how does this amortise the
> future cost of disastrous policies?  Say, for example, a leader is
> voted in whose economic policies drive up the national deficit to
> record levels such that ones own offspring will be hard pressed to pay
> it down.  How does your short-term game-theoretic gamble account for
> sustained future well-being?

Admittedly staying in the game might well result in the losses of all
tickets sold, or anything up to that.  However we can hopefully accord
that at most times at least, a smallish probability (though of course I
subscribe to the view that there's currently a probability of financial
disaster of over 90%).  However, for the individual voter spotting such
a scenario, it'd probably pay better to take steps for the ersonal
avoidance of disaster than hope to avert it on a societal scale by
voting or even persuading others. The problem again is that there's no
substantial difference in what's being offered by the two competing
shysters. (For the scenario I see, it's already too late anyway, and
it's merely a question of who'd do least damage in the aftermath).

Personally I just go in and write "None of the Above" because I feel
better having let at least the election agents know of my disdain for
the entire game.

FoFP