SOME ECONOMICS

Hong Kong: still on top "Its territory may be small in size, but Hong Kong's achievements are substantial. Hong Kong's gross domestic income per capita was $24,690 in 2002 -- more than that of Canada, France, and Germany. At the heart of Hong Kong's success is its economic system, which for the last three decades was the freest in the world....

"Nothing could raise our standard of living more than freeing the economy from our meddling government. When people are able to live free of government regulation, they prosper -- goods become cheaper, standards of living go up, and individual liberty is expanded."

Specious reasoning: "A recent article in the Wall Street Journal is a perfect example of how bad economic arguments in support of good ends can be easily twisted and used to confuse the general public (Gwendolyn Bounds, 'Argument for minimum-wage boost,' 7/27/04, p. B3). When we engage in poor reasoning and faulty economic logic in support of a noble cause, we can end up doing much more harm than good in the pursuit of liberty and economic freedom."

Apologists for poverty: "People, poor, rich, tall, short, American or South African -- you choose the variety, it will still be true -- are all capable of making better or worse choices. There are a few totally incapacitated ones of whom this is not the case, but the bulk of us are moral agents. But that is exactly what many on the political left deny to the poor. They attack their dignity by declaring them helpless, inept, in constant need of meddlesome intruders and the paternalist state."

A good quote from Henry George: "The aim of protection is to diminish imports, never to diminish exports. On the contrary, the protectionist habit is to regard exports with favor, and to consider the country which exports most and imports least as doing the most profitable trade. When exports exceed imports there is said to be a favorable balance of trade. When imports exceed exports there is said to be an unfavorable balance of trade. In accordance with this idea all protectionist countries afford every facility for sending things away and fine men for bringing things in. If the things which we thus try to send away and prevent coming in were pests and vermin -things of which all men want as little as possible -this policy would conform to reason"

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