Re: Postrel on liberalization

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is hopeless to engage Alan Issac.  He engage not to debate but to attack.  The term
"nominal value" was intrduced by him, not by me.  I suggested that the $1 a day dis not
fully take into account real inflation.

Alan Issac arbitrarily decides what is relevant and what is non-sequitur to suit his
fixation.  I have no time for this type of exchange.

He thinks the world is in great shape thanks to markets.  Good luck to him.

Henry C.K. Liu

Alan G Isaac wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Aug 2002 12:19:18 -0400 "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Just as I suspected, if 1985 values of $1/day only gets you $532/year in 1996, I
> > would like to buy your house at the same inflation rate.
>
> First of all, you suspected no such thing.
> You claimed that he used nominal values.
> He did not.
>
> Second of all, please indicate the price index
> you rely on to suggest he has chosen the inflation
> rate inappropriately.  He works with about 4%/yr,
> which tracks the CPI over that period.
>
> > Also, you may notice that under market fundamentalism, the $1/day is achieved by the
> > government abandonoing free health care, education, subsidized housing and all other
> > social programs. Some progress!
>
> This is simply a non-sequitur.  The issue is simple:
> who is more accurately representing the trends in
> world income distribution?
>
> Attacking a study because you do not like its conclusions
> is not very pretty, but it is even less pretty when the
> attacks grow so desperately irrelevant.
>
> Cheers,
> Alan
>
> PS Health care and education are of course never free.  I
> happen to agree that they should be government subsidized,
> and in particular that adults should be taxed to ensure that
> kids get access, but let's not pretend that they are not
> paid for.  Of course this is all entirely tangential to any
> discussion of the validity of Sala-i-Martin's results.