Are Republicans more open to new product choices?

The authors below were clearly embarrassed by their findings.  They wanted to find out that Leftists were more adventurous.  So they offer some contorted reasoning to  explain why it was conservatives who were more adventurous.

They need not have worried, however.  What generalizability do findings have that are based on the responses of convenient groups of American college undergraduates?  Non-existent sampling gives non-existent generalizability.

As it happens, I looked at the question some time ago, using proper sampling of the general population.  And I used both measures of general sensation seeking and consumer sensation seeking. And I found the opposite to the report below!  How I interpreted my findings may however be rather uncongenial to Leftists.  I headed my article as:  "Political radicals as sensation seekers"

And I think that fits.  Conservatives are the contented people and Leftists are the restless, dissatisfied  ones.  The journal article summarized below  is "Political conservatism and variety-seeking"

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Some people may think of political conservatives as having a desire to maintain traditions, but a new study shows they also have a more adventurous side that seeks out variety in products.

The new research from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University was recently posted online by the Journal of Consumer Psychology. It includes three experiments in which political conservatives prove they are more likely to choose a variety of consumer products than their liberal counterparts.

"Although political conservatives have been found in previous studies to have a higher desire for control, they have an even stronger motivation to follow social norms when there is no threat to the system or individual," explains Naomi Mandel, professor in the W. P. Carey School of Business, one of the study authors. "Since we have a very individualistic culture in the United States and Europe, people tend to think of others more favorably when they include more variety in their consumption choices. Therefore, political conservatives may seek out that approval and positive evaluation."

In a series of experiments, Mandel and her co-author - Daniel Fernandes, assistant professor of the Catholic University of Portugal - found political conservatives wanted more variety in their products than liberals.

For example, the researchers first used several established scales to question and determine the political leanings of 192 college undergraduates. Then, they told the students to imagine four consecutive weekly grocery shopping trips during which they could select from four brands of snack chips. Overwhelmingly, the politically conservative students chose more variety in their chips for the month than the more liberal students did.

In another experiment, 111 undergrads were polled for their political leanings. Then, they completed other tasks before ultimately being asked to select three candy bars from five options as a reward for participating. Again, the political conservatives exhibited much more variety in the candy bars chosen.

"Differences between liberals and conservatives are rooted in basic personality dispositions that reflect and reinforce differences in fundamental psychological needs and motives," says Mandel. "We wanted to understand how and why a consumer's political ideology could affect his or her consumption choices."

SOURCE

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Greek leeches

By economic historian Martin Hutchinson

"We are not worried. Our team is strong. We have Icarus in the wings" chortled Greek leftist Alexis Tsipras after his election victory. You'd think a Greek would remember that Icarus fell to a watery grave when his wings melted – the country's education system is clearly not what it was. All the same, apart from a few cheap laughs, it's worth reflecting what his victory will bring both Greece and the rest of Europe.

Greece has been a problem for the EU ever since it joined in 1981. The 1980s prime minister Andreas Papandreou was both highly corrupt and thoroughly anti-Western, and developed considerable skill in sucking subsidies and special deals for both Greece and his cronies out of the Brussels bureaucracy. (At that time Greece was both small and much poorer than any other EU member, so playing to the liberal conscience in Brussels generally worked well – it was only taxpayers' money, after all.)

By 2008, buoyed by EU subsidies, Greece had achieved a per capita GDP of $32,000. That was higher than all of central Europe and about three times the level of its neighbors Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania, all of which had been capitalist for a couple of decades by then and were considerably better run.

As an indication of how badly Greece was run even before Tsipras won last week's election, you can look at the ratings for the country by Transparency International, the Heritage Foundation and the World Bank, which between them cover the gamut of political/economic belief in the West. On Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, Greece ranked 69th in 2014, equal with Bulgaria and Romania and below Macedonia. That's actually a 10-place improvement over 2010 – center-right prime minister Georgios Samaras had some genuine if modest progress to his credit. Heritage International's 2015 Index of Economic Freedom ranked Greece an appalling 130th, hugely below its Balkan neighbors, all of which ranked in the 50s. Finally, even the World Bank's left-friendly 2015 Ease of Doing Business ranking put Greece at #61 compared with Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania at #38, #30 and #48 respectively.

Given those ratings, prepared by agencies varying in their worldviews, it's clear that Greece's purchasing power gross national income per capita, recorded by the World Bank at $25,700 in 2013, is still far too high compared with its fellow EU members Bulgaria at $15,200, Romania at $18,400, or better-run non-member Macedonia at $11,500. History has repeatedly shown that there is a limit on the living standards that can be achieved in kleptocratic states, in which there are few returns for legitimate innovation and business capability and massive rewards for insider dealing and corruption. Greece has since 1981 managed to suck resources out of its richer neighbors to raise living standards artificially far above that limit. Tsipras intends to demand a redoubling of that resource transfer; he must be resisted.

Tsipras is right that it is impossible to achieve through government cuts the further austerity needed to get Greek living standards to their appropriate level. The necessary adjustment must instead be achieved by Greece leaving the euro and allowing its currency to float downwards. Northern European taxpayers have been supporting this mess since 1981. Tsipras' election, against a government that was at least modestly improving Greece's position, means that it is time for them to stop doing so.

Tsipras has promised to increase tax compliance, as well as restoring many of the cuts in social programs that were made in the last few years. However, tax increases have already been tried by the previous government; while raising the tax to GDP ratio four percentage points to 33% from 2009 to 2012 that ratio appears to have topped out at that level and to be unable to rise further. Given Syriza's hostile attitude to private wealth, it's likely that tax flight will soar following their election and that Greek tax compliance, already abominable, will fall to hitherto unimagined levels.

After four years of grinding austerity, Greece is currently running a "primary surplus" on its budget. However this is a spurious statistic, much loved by spendthrift Brazilians; it actually means the country is running a massive deficit when interest on its huge debt is factored in. Given the likelihood of capital flight (which after all is a big problem in Russia, which ranked far above Greece on the Heritage survey and immediately below it on the World Bank one) tax collection is likely to decline rather than increase. Needless to say, one would be mad indeed to start a small business under a Syriza government. So a Greek debt crisis appears unavoidable, even with a helpful degree of laxity among the EU's paymasters.

Giving in to Tsipras would be bad news indeed for the euro's future and indeed for that of the EU. Spain's Podemos, which professes the same mad-left belief system as Tsipras' Syriza, would be immensely strengthened, probably sufficiently so as to win the next Spanish election, due later this year. Italy's feeble attempts at reform would halt altogether, as the innumerable special interests in that country would see a chance to preserve their privileges by leeching off northern European taxpayers. France would probably tip over into the ranks of the leechers from the shrinking group of northern European resource generators.

In such circumstances, the euro would be doomed. It's one thing to decree in an academic vacuum that a common currency requires income transfers from the richer states of Europe to the poorer; it's quite another to require such transfers in hard cash from the honest burghers of Munich, Amsterdam and Helsinki to prop up Tsipras and his corrupt leftist looters. Redistribution schemes are generally of pretty dubious morality. In this case the doubtful morality would be plain for all to see, and revulsion to it would be infinitely reinforced by a rebirth of nationalism, in itself healthy but devastatingly bad for trans-national projects such as the euro.

The other alternative would be to throw Greece out of the euro, which should have been done five years ago. It would probably not be necessary to throw Greece out of the EU; there are now enough corrupt ineptly-run Balkan members of the EU (with more to come) that Greece's approach to life sticks out less among the EU's other members than it did in 1981.

In 2010 it was disclosed that Greece was nowhere near fulfilling the Maastricht Criteria for euro membership and never had been and that its 2001 entry into the euro had been accomplished through accounting fraud abetted by Goldman Sachs. Rather than propping Greece up with huge subsidies and a debt renegotiation, on promises of better behavior in the future, the EU authorities should have realized that behavior sufficiently better as to solve Greece's problems was most unlikely to occur, and would cause huge political damage if it was attempted. Had Greece been thrown out of the euro in 2010, its necessary decline in living standards would have been imposed by devaluation of the "new drachma" rather than by the EU or its own government, and so much less political damage would have been caused.

If Greece were to exit the euro now, its currency the "new drachma" would decline rapidly to 50-60% of its previous value, as Greek living standards were brought in line with those of its neighbors in Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia. Following this move, Greek small businesses would find their possibilities immeasurably increased and exporters would thrive, while imports became very expensive indeed for the Greek population. Of course, with Tsipras in power the benefits of this devaluation would almost certainly be absorbed in state bloat and yet further corruption, so that Greek living standards would decline yet further, but that's what the silly people voted for; they deserve it.

Meanwhile, the euro itself would be immeasurably strengthened, as the other weak sisters, seeing the decline in Greek living standards, would redouble their own efforts at public sector austerity. Provided Podemos was defeated in Spain later this year (which would be more likely to happen, since Syriza's success had led not to further handouts but to Greek impoverishment) both Spain and Italy should be able to right their economies with only modest additional effort. The recent revulsion against profligacy in France suggests that there, too, a Greek sacrifice should produce sufficient improvement.

This strengthening of the euro would not remove the political difficulties of the EU, notably the blatant expansionism of its monstrous bureaucracy, but it would provide the great majority of Europeans with a better, more disciplined future than would be available through more handouts. It would at least allow the euro to stagger on towards the next crisis, rather than collapsing as would be the inevitable end-result of a Greek bailout.

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" (Timeo Daneos et dona ferentes) wrote Vergil in the Aeneid two thousand years ago. The EU hasn't seen many gifts from Greece since 1981; instead there has been a steady procession of Greeks demanding gifts, ever more urgently.  It's time for the handouts to stop.

Via email

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When the levy breaks? NM legislator proposes eliminating almost all taxes

Calling New Mexico’s tax system “a mess,” a state senator proposes a plan to eliminate most levies in the Land of Enchantment.

“It’s difficult, it’s confusing, and it’s certainly not fair or simple,” State Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington, said during a news conference Wednesday.

Brandishing a copy of the state’s 1,089-page tax code, Sharer claimed New Mexico could eliminate almost every tax currently levied by reforming the way it collects the gross receipts tax.

“No personal income tax, no corporate income tax, no compensating tax, no vehicle excise tax, no insurance premium tax and about a hundred other taxes go away,” Sharer said.

The GRT would stay, but would be reduced to 2 percent. Currently the state GRT is 5.125 percent, and additional taxes in counties and cities raises the rate in some municipalities to as high as 8.6875 percent.

Sharer cited a study by Lee Reynis at the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business and Economic Research that found a 2 percent GRT would generate more revenue than existing taxes do, provided that all exemptions, deductions and credits were eliminated from the GRT.

Currently, Sharer said, there are more than 300 exemptions, deductions and credits. If these were eliminated, the GRT would be sufficient to pay all the expenses of the state and local governments at current funding levels, without any cuts in spending.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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