Sunday, October 28, 2007

Wealth Transition

Tyler Cowen presents a powerful argument describing the renewed Government use of Private Contractors for military purposes. Tyler cites the greater experience of employees of Private Contractors, though he does not mention that Private Contractors procure the proper weaponry for the military situation; military organizations, in contrast, restricted to a hidebound weapons complement which in the final analysis must be assigned by Congress. This later Event questionable in the Decision process, as it is deeply affected by lobbyist efforts of both a Rent-seeking industry and a positional leadership of the military. I am a personal advocate of Private Contractors for a much different reason, though; believing the political process could benefit by treating Private Contractor labor availability as a source material to judge the Value of any incursion; Private Contractors quickly adjusting in Price and Employment Recruitment based on the dangers involved, and Employee estimates of the degree of success to be expected. Private Contractor Employees are not young kids with basic optimistic attitude, and they avoid what they consider to be poor career choices, unless the Pay is extremely high. Congress, if it wants Hearings, should sharply question the Employees who cover the ground, not the PR segment of the industry.

Paul Lim takes a studied view of the impact of Inflation, and notes the unrest of many Economists and Fund managers on the question of Inflation. Core Inflation Readings are basically skewed through multi-year usage of the practice, itself skewed by the Price advantage of economies of scale in the production of Core Products. Only adjustment to account the percentage volume of the volatile Products in the economy can give proper prospective; translated in Reader-available terms: Two-Thirds of the economy is enduring 3% Inflation, One-Third of the economy suffers from a 6-9% Inflation rate. The Scenario sounds even worse, understanding than the lower half of all Incomes spend almost twice the percentage of their Income in the more Inflationary segment of the economy than do the upper half of all Incomes, and almost all Utilities base their rates on the Inflationary segment of the economy. The final horror resides in the fact that lower Income Wages must rely on foreign Inflation to provide a Wage increase, while the upper half of Incomes make a great share of their Income in Purchase practices which suppress foreign Inflation.

All Parents and Grandparents should read this article, simply to get a handle on the scope of future Wealth transference to Children. One elderly friend of mine, who is quite well off (a banker back in the Days when it paid to be a banker), took the careful route–setting up Trust funds for his children, and limiting their access to the fund until they were in their own Fifties; indeed, I think one of the prime reasons he is still Living lies in the fact that his children have all reached their own Fifties. I hope the Incentive propels him another half-Century. The real Problem consists for all Parents etc. lies in the fact none of the children have developed the expertise their Parents acquired over a half-Century of hard work to make the fortunes initially. I am doing my heirs a favor by leaving them basically little. lgl

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