From the Globe and Mail:
Flaherty dismisses deficit 'speculation': “I see speculation. I don't see a lot of evidence. I see editorial
comment without numbers, without analysis,” Mr. Flaherty said.
Of course, that's exactly what we see coming from the Department of Finance. If Finance is so sure of its numbers, it should be publishing the details of the analysis that generated them. It's not complicated. All we need to know is
- Finance's model for translating macroeconomic variables into revenues, and
- Finance's projections for those variables.
We're all doing the best we can to figure things out with the meagre resources available to us. If Flaherty thinks we're doing it badly, he could at least explain to us why we're wrong.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Coming from a guy who hid a $6 billion deficit while Minister of Finance of Ontario, forgive me if most of us don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
Well I don’t doubt he’d be willing to cut spending if he were in a (majority) position to do that, his rhetoric about him balancing the budget w/o increasing taxes or cutting spending is the standard hogwash of a person in power. Even before the stimulus, he/they increased spending and cut taxes. Here we are. Something’s gotta give.
It’s not that you’re wrong. It’s that your conclusions are inconvenient. Flaherty is and always will be all about the politics. He hates the idea of transparency because it might require that he admit uncomfortable truths. Like the truth that there is a structural deficit, it’s mainly caused by the GST cut, and the government will either have to cut services or increase taxes in order to fix it.
Flaherty is not identifying the key points that need to considered; based on comments he has made in the days following the PBO report he will not even acknowledge the seriousness of the revenue shortfall.
The key points are that the current year revenue shortfall is far greater than expected a year ago, and secondly that current expectations of GDP growth are far less than Finance used in 2009.
As for the current year revenue shorfall, the most recent information available is contained in the Fiscal Monitor for October which was released by Finance in mid-December. It shows that revenues are down by 12% compared the same seven-month period in 2008/9. In view of the fact that we are looking at current year information, it is reasonable suggest that revenues for 2009/10 will be 88% of the prior year revenues of $233B. Using this basic approach, it appears that 2009/10 revenues will be about $205B.
The last time the federal government provided an estimate of 2009/10 revenues, the figure was $216B. It was contained in the September “Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections”. That document was based on data and assumptions that would have been available in August 2009. The situation has deteriorated since then, and Flaherty is not acknowledging this problem.
Further, the September “Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections” uses forecasts of GDP growth which are clearly outdated. Table 2 shows the out-of-date projection for 2010-2014 of annual GDP growth of 2.9%. The PBO uses a more current forecast of 1.9% GDP growth.
Rather than waiting for Flaherty to produce detailed modelling which can be evaluated (since he will not do so), I think that Canadians can discuss the real problem: federal revenues have dropped dramatically this year, and low economic growth is not expected to bring them back to 2008/9 levels for several years.
Flaherty is not engaged in a genuine consultation process at the moment. In an interview yesterday he said that an increase in the GST is “off the table”. The revenue shortfall is so serious that Canadians need to discuss tax revenues, even if Flaherty is not willing to do so.
I think they are eyeing another election before they settle down to deal with the problem. If they get a majority, so much the better. However, until after the election it’s going to be deny, deny, deny.
Flaherty was interviewed by BNN a short while back. He mused that deficits were good because they discipline government spending.
The same arguments were used to justify the enormous deficits the Reagan government generated in the USA of the 1980s.
BTW, Anybody here vote Reform in the old days? Whaddya think of these Harper Conservatives?
Ah yes, the “Starve the Beast” strategy:
1) Cut taxes.
2) Cut taxes again.
3) Oh my goodness, we have a deficit. We must cut spending!
westslope: Good question. I keep hoping that that Cheryl Gallant will step-up to the mic and enlighten us on what policies a majority Conservative gov’t would like to pursue.
BTW, Anybody here vote Reform in the old days? Whaddya think of these Harper Conservatives?
Preston Manning, the only leader of the Reform Party, has a B.A. in Economics. Stephen Harper has the Master’s.
🙂
Starve the beast seems to have been amply demonstrated to be a terrible strategy and an utter failure.
Christopher, Flaherty didn’t hide a deficit. If you remember, when Dalton McGuinty came into office, he began adding spending to that years budget which left a deficit. He did something called, “amending a money bill”. McGuinty went around saying that it was the Harris years, which it was in fact not.
Remember the Martin years? Remember how nobody ever spoke of the 30-35billion in corporate subsidies he gave away back in 94′? And the budget deficit was around that. Paul Martin, like McGuinty, amended the budget bill for 93′. Of course by 94 the GST was swallowing up most of the deficit as boom times started again. He kept giving corporate subsidies and I believe there are still quite a few around.
Supply-side economics is often good in a country such as Canada, which by word made deficits taboo. And cutting spending is a good thing. If we all follow those fairytale stories given from statisticians and Marxists about redistribution of income, then there’s no point in even talking about this, why don’t we just embrace socialism? I love reading about people who say they believe in free-markets, but yet they talk about redistribution schemes, makes me think of when Ludwig von Mises got up and screamed in a room of some Chicago schools economists that they were damn socialists. Capitalism was suppose to have inequality in wages in order to create a price system designed for needs and hard work.
Stephen, you seem surprised that they’re doing this? Spending cuts is something that the Tories wanted to do, keep in mind that Harper loved Hayek, it hurt him to introduce a deficit budget, but he did so to improvise. I’m glad they’re finally starting to get in line for spending cuts and putting the Liberals and their special interest out of government.
“why don’t we just embrace socialism”
Indeed! Whither socialism?
“Starve the beast seems to have been amply demonstrated to be a terrible strategy and an utter failure.”
Yes, because it just hides the true cost of government from people.
Socialism is a failed project, and misguided philosophically due to its lack of understanding of human action.
Why don’t governments attack economists and expose how many variables that aren’t shown or taken into account? Why don’t they just attack economists for being immoral and not even being able to define between short and long-term? Why are we still listening to economists who couldn’t predict an economic recession, as they say their the masters analysis and predictions?
I love attacking mathematically-oriented economists 😛
The cost of government is one of the highest, it destroys peoples lives with small alterations to taxes by forcing individuals to work longer, it makes people lose their jobs through regulations and anti-competitive behaviour, it kills opportunities by creating terrible labour laws allowing unions to be protected and creates unemployment, it makes people lose their houses, life,etc… due to the manipulation of the money supply. They all say that the “redistribution of wealth” helps, it doesn’t, it actually kills opportunity for hard working individuals and creates unequal payments followed by a drastic increase in the amount of lazy bureaucrats.
Wow, after that rant it makes me want to write a blog over Krugman’s most recent ridiculous statement of saying that Europe is a better place due to social democracy and the large welfare state.
Justin, you should probably learn just a little tiny bit of economics before serving up this half-baked nonsense. You will look back on this and be embarrassed.
Justin: Too bad reality doesn’t conform :
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/01/podcast_the_awesomest_economy.html
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/01/podcast_tax_me_please.html
Ron, I’ve read quite a bit of literature on the different schools of thoughts and the methodologies used to analyze economic action, I probably won’t regret this or be embarrassed. If I explained in detail I would probably run-up the comment box. So explain your difference of opinion that you have, instead of using belittling comments.
Patrick, I always look at those surveys, I actually took a class with a guy from Denmark, he complained about the entire system. Denmark on paper looks wonderful and many Danish folk will back their system such as Canadians would be happy about Canadian health care, but we know that our health care system has huge flaws and causes many individuals to die from waiting for care, each year. A lot of the different statistics don’t reflect the real problems that they have. The Business School economist in the link you sent me said that it fixes the problem which he says is a lack of opportunity for “poor families”, I disagree because if you didn’t have any regulations or devaluation of the currency, people could get a college degree or anything else if they simply work for it, prices would drop accordingly to income and the availability to make a profit or to at-least receive an income for those professors and other workers. He then goes on to argue that researchers stay in Denmark, but yet again, he’s trying to quantify research instead of its subjective nature of how it truly understands the problems at hand. It’s just like saying that the larger number of researchers of people with university degrees means that the society is better, and realistically we know that to be entirely untrue, most individuals don’t study everything and create barriers to their thought because they were encouraged. Keep in mind that the individuals who love the high taxes, and as the business professor said, they want everything now instead of working for it, they also tend to be individuals who embraced that philosophy to hate the rich(because the rich are so evil and should not of had worked so hard). If you have your basic necessities met, then you can say that it’s wonderful but yet it still doesn’t give you the personal choice and quality over your life, the services are government-run, and the private sector costs more money while still having to subsidize everyone else. The incentive to take care of yourself goes out the window, how many doctors in Canada and abroad in public-systems, who leave to go to the US, or stay and complain about how many individuals come to them for a cold after 2 days, they all rather tell them to go home and never come back. Specially with the argument over poverty, keep in mind that Denmark has a very small population and the extremely generous welfare state, nothing can last for long and it will stop later on once the rich leave and the poor don’t want to work, and keep in mind the high euro/krone which permits a lot of that for now. The economist in question did mention the structural problems going further. EI for up to 4 years? (I’m assuming after a year or two there are special requirements, I will have to look into that one). But even to that, they are lowering taxes for the highest income earners because they see these people leaving, their really starting to follow the British third way and slashing high income taxes due to the constant loss of these people to properly fund the tax system. One last point that really gets me about Denmark, is the lack of knowledge that people often ask with regards to the political agenda in Denmark. Denmark is a very xenophobic country, such as many other heavily-social democratic countries. Xenophobia is just one of the usual issues related to this and then the hateful views of other countries on a world stage. These socialist systems have a lot of intolerant views that they create with regards to other countries and other systems, the Danish don’t have it so good, they often have strained relations and have a tendency to sit there and criticize every single individual, except themselves(as a people). It can also be compared to the French, who have created this hatred of other countries, they even have propagated a cultural view that American products are “evil”, I love talking to the French and always getting that same answer, “The United States and its people are evil”. Or watching danish or french news with the constant commentators attacking the US jointly, then attacking non-socialist countries.
Although I started by arguing about deficit history, my comment began to get this off topic, I’m sorry Stephen.
I would like to see Flaherty release numbers so he can put it up on the fridge, maybe he could argue that he doesn’t believe in mathematical formulations and predictions, but he does, so he should explain himself.
I’m a student at Carleton University, where I study political science and contribute to economic thought.
“Appositives can be tricky things.”
I just wrote that when I was registering my blog, I will fix that, thanks for the reminder.
“instead of using belittling comments.”
OK, sorry for the tone. My bad.
I’m not really interested in debating the points you bring up, as I disagree with pretty much every sentence you have written and it would take hours and hours to go through all the factual and theoretical errors that you have committed IMO. there’s no real common ground there, and I doubt there is anything I could say that would change the mind of an anarcho-capitalist. I understand the appeal of a simple elegant solution to basically all of our problems, but the real world is a lot more complicated than the stylized version of it promoted by Ayn Rand, von Mises etc. One day you will (hopefully) understand.
Anyways, my basic point is this: You seem like a fairly intelligent guy, but you are young, you’re still learning and forming your ideas. You should probably wait a little while before coming out in public with them under your own name. Your website states that you are studying political science. I’m not sure what direction you are planning on after graduation, but if you are posting this stuff under your real name, you are giving yourself huge, lifelong liabilities. Just based on a quick perusal of your blog, you will never be able to hold any significant position in any major political party, or in any sort of thinktank (even right-wing ones). One google search, and they won’t touch you with a ten foot pole. I honestly hope that you are not using your actual name.
In the media discourse, there line is almost always ‘we must cut spending because raising taxes is politically toxic’. Whether coming from Flaherty, Drummond or Orr. Read TD’s latest report on government finances and it’s something like 10 pages on how to cut spending and 1 paragraph on why tax hikes are bad.
After years of constant tax cuts, I just don’t understand this. My latest trip to the hospital was really depressing. Just looking around thinking ‘this is what Starve the Beast means’.
Umm… ironic much?
“These socialist systems have a lot of intolerant views that they create with regards to other countries and other systems”
vs.
“it makes me want to write a blog over Krugman’s most recent ridiculous statement of saying that Europe is a better place due to social democracy and the large welfare state”
Justin sounds exactly like every tiresome poli-sci student who ever infiltrated an undergraduate economics lecture. He just happens to be of the right-leaning variety so he’s even more tiresome, but probably smells better than his counterparts on the left.
Just looked a Justin’s blog there. Yikes. It reads like an affirmation of faith, rather than an exploration or testing of ideas. We get it. You love Austrians and Ayn Rand, hate socialists and environmentalists. You think this makes you a radically free thinking political philosopher with a uniquely clear grasp on what makes society affluent and free. Just like every other 18 year old with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.
Ron nails it:
“I disagree with pretty much every sentence you have written and it would take hours and hours to go through all the factual and theoretical errors that you have committed IMO. there’s no real common ground there, and I doubt there is anything I could say that would change the mind of an anarcho-capitalist. I understand the appeal of a simple elegant solution to basically all of our problems, but the real world is a lot more complicated than the stylized version of it promoted by Ayn Rand, von Mises etc. One day you will (hopefully) understand.”
There’s more to examining a country than simply grouping social democracy and a welfare state. Krugman praises Europe when he doesn’t look at its consequences on social views, and its long-term effects. His partisan rant is also another problem when he’s eying for a political appointment, often it seems as he’s looking to become the next Fed chairman.
The hatred of other countries is founded through the hatred of economic systems, but then stems to unfounded and illogical hatred of their people, they associate both after a few years. Europe is really a war zone in many ways, and the EU, such as socialism, is a devil in disguise. As Friedman and Hayek said on a regular basis, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Some of the best examples are: France, Italy, Denmark and Norway. Keeping in mind Italy has gradually been cutting down the welfare state, but it still shares the values that the socialist system instilled for many years.
Brendon: I’ll take it as a compliment, haha.
Myron: I don’t have faith, I have looked at ideas and how they have been tested, but in society that can cause many problems. I love Austrian in general, although I am tempted by some other schools, I give credit when I see it. I hate Ayn Rand with a passion, she hated Libertarians and thought that she was some revolutionary figure, she wanted to make a name for herself and probably didn’t even believe in what she was preaching, makes me think of Keynes. I dislike socialist ideas because they have failed and permit special interest or individuals to abuse the system. I don’t hate environmentalists, I haven’t been convinced that CO2 is an issue we should interest in, because it has been proven wrong as the last 9 years, temperatures have gone down 4 C. Truth be told, I’m a big fan of free-market environmentalism and strongly agree with strengthening property rights, which in terms would increase the protection from large-scale disasters, which I might add have been caused because of government regulations for business or government-run institutions. And no I don’t think of myself as a political philosopher, I consider myself as another individual which falls into the category of individuals who enjoys theorizing about different issues and discussing what effect they have on society, through a historical and theoretical approach.
And with regards to Ron’s argument, I’ll deal with the second part in which Mises and Rand never advocated anarcho-capitalism, and yes, society is complex and the large complexity is created from many simply procedures that economists implement such as monetary manipulation when they clearly don’t understand its effects or capable predictions, as Austrians say, “human actions is too complex to be diminished to mathematical formulas and central planning”. I’m waiting to see how I’m simplifying everything? The argument against math in economics is one which even to a moderate degree, Keynes or Marshall, have argued against the extensive use.
Um… so your critique of socialism is essentially a moral one (it makes people hate other countries)?
Krugman was actually responding to the US right’s critique of health care reform with vilification of any reform as essentially importing european-style socialism. (I.e, let’s just see how awful european “socialism” is — hmm, maybe it’s not the end of the world. And maybe it’s not even that socialist). Is the attack he was responding to any different from your criticism of “socialists who hate other countries”? Do you not see the irony here?
“because it has been proven wrong as the last 9 years, temperatures have gone down 4 C.”
Um… yow. Guess this explains your argument against math.
Moral, and political observation of bureaucracy. The centralization of power and the social values it instills is dangerous. Corruption, laziness, etc…
2.Krugman has made his attack day in and day out on Reagan or any other individual on the Right, even criticizing Mankiw, his rants often call for European socialism. I do see the irony, I’m criticizing what he is criticizing, very common in society to embrace such a pattern of critique. The problem is that Krugman goes further in denieing that these reforms will have incentives to embrace socialist health care down the road. The democrats original bill called for a government-run insurance company which would offered subsidized rates for all Americans, thus using tax money. Kill off competition by subsidizing health care, destroy the private sector, because the government can insure everyone by running a deficit, and then nationalize it. Krugman praised the idea like an Obama cheerleader. So far, a lot of the bills I’ve seen does as Canadian health care does, on a smaller scale, but close, lower quality care and hiding the true cost. The US has the greatest health care professionals in the world, if they want to keep the incentive for good doctors but cover more people, how about removing regulations for HMO’s, and return to tort law for economic contracts and let market forces work, enough of this state by state regulations, let insurance companies answer to individuals and stop covering small expenses, insurance is for emergencies, not for a shopping spree. Krugman also has a distorted view of the great depression in which he neglects a lot of legislation and other changes that influenced it. Let’s just say that Krugman is very partisan and his argument is entirely for aristocratic socialism, every single post I ever read or article of his neglects basic issues that have arisen, and does it to support his political beliefs.
Nick and Stephen, could you guys maybe start a post on socialism, mixed-economy, and pure capitalism? Great argument!
For the deficit, I wonder if the Liberals are going to offer their plan this week, they’re having their retreat, when they said they would be working all the time in Ottawa, makes me laugh, politicians and their lies. From what I’ve heard from some friends who are staffers, it seems that there has been thoughts of monetary policy as the issue to solve the deficit, by quantitative easing, changing governors if Carney wouldn’t follow, GST hike, and some have actually spoken about a tax on the high income bracket. But that’s all their options and I see the GST as a very risky one, and a tax on the high income can be argued against with the doctor question, so monetary policy?
Flaherty has said he will slow spending, probably not matching inflation, but my real question is whether he would as a last resort follow with a higher inflation target? Any thoughts on that? I haven’t studied Flaherty as an individual, except for his brief record. I never really understood his monetary views, if he’s a believer in the central bank or a market money?
Myron: I don’t want to get into another environmental debate, temperatures have gone down globally, I fail to see how that correlates with my rejections of math as a tool of economic analysis?
Hilarious.
Reminds me of my fellow political science undergraduate students once upon a time. Some of them could go on for hours on the faults of quantitative analysis. None of them understood quantitative analysis. No one.
Only political science students could proudly defend debilitating innumeracy.
Pathetic.
BTW, Anybody here vote Reform in the old days? Whaddya think of these Harper Conservatives?
Preston Manning, the only leader of the Reform Party, has a B.A. in Economics. Stephen Harper has the Master’s.
🙂
And both are devout Christians. 🙂 Maybe that’s why Harper treats his constituencies like they are flocks of dumb sheep.
I voted Reform once and at the time I certainly didn’t think I was voting for the anti-Christ. What happened to Harper? 😉
Justin, my point is 4 degrees is A HELLUVA LOT. And it is sad you don’t even realize how much, and have founded your rejection of the very idea of CO2 reduction on your innumeracy. Plus you didn’t even pick up what I was getting at. Just.. wow.
And your last post there. My goodness. You’re not actually at Carleton yet, are you? (He said while removing Carleton degree from basement den wall)
Westslope: The majority of political science students disregard quantitative analysis primarily because they don’t like math. I see a very different effect, and you can take a philosophical angle to it. The analysis can also be that your playing with numbers and not really getting good samples to make a good interpretation.
Myron: I’ve read some literature, I’m no expert, but from what I have read and many reviews from different academics in the fields related to climatology, it seems like a scam, but science does have different views and interpretations. My argument is that, yes, 4 degrees is a lot, but it has been gradual over 9 years. Let’s just agree to disagree, and not start a new debate. And what’s wrong with my last post?
Justin, there is significantly less Arctic sea ice (by volume) than there once was, and various natural processes sensitive to temperature have also been occuring earlier in the season, flowers blooming and birds migrating. There is a preponderance of evidence for both, and both point quite strongly to global warming. Sorry chap, but the planet is not cooling. There will be be years where we do not break records for global average temperatures, but the trend is pretty obviously there. Drawing your own cherry-picked trendlines from El Nino years to La Nino years in order to find that temperatures is no longer rising is intellectually dishonest.
Justin, does every single discussion you’re involved in have to turn into one about climate change?
This is getting annoying, to say the least. Stay on topic, or find someplace else to say the damn thing over and over again.
Justin, there is a reason I am at the WCI and have no interest in going to the Justin blog. Please understand I think most people reading the WCI feel the same way.
Justin: “Flaherty … a higher inflation target”
The finance minister doesn’t set the inflation target, the BoC does. I think we can say with almost 100% certainty that the BoC would not raise the inflation target at the request of the finance minister. In any case, he wouldn’t ask. But if he did ask, the answer would certainly be ‘no’.
Stephen: Agreed, climate change is such a tempting example for different reasons, but agreed on the excessive use of it, I’ll make sure to not mention it again.
Mark: After perusing through the WCI website, I don’t really want to go to it again, haha. Most people reading the WCI would hate my blog, the WCI says that GM is real, so it offers policies based on the idea that markets and people won’t stop the problem so the “elite government” must stop the problem by using economic methods such as cap and trade, which I will admit if government were to do something, a carbon tax would be more effective(equal and accountable, in it’s taxation methods). I haven’t asked people to check my blog out either, so, can we stick to the subject at hand?
“The finance minister doesn’t set the inflation target, the BoC does.”
Doesn’t the federal government set the BoC mandate?
“I haven’t asked people to check my blog out either, so, can we stick to the subject at hand?”
I think his point is that you sometimes turn posts into the Justin show by going off on tangents that are pretty controversial. Hijacking, essentially.
Patrick: The BoC and Finance Minister agree to a rate every few years, started in 1991. I remember reading one of David Dodge’s speeches, he went on about it. Isn’t it up for renewal in 2011? I did see that Carney was being asked by Maxime Bernier, questions about inflation and if we should even engage in it or just keep a stable supply of money. If inflation was higher, it could meet the Harper targets for the budget, but then again, Bernier is talking about slowing inflation.
Andrew: True
Even a cactus will eventually die if it isn’t watered.
Yup, they do agree on a regime every 5 year, if memory serves. My point was that the BoC is extremely unlikely to change the inflation target on the fly at the request of the finance minister.
I think Bernier is talking rubbish, but this isn’t the place to get into it.
To bring things back to a discussion about government revenues…
While Flaherty and the Ministry of Finance aren’t discussing their numbers, there are three areas of increasing government revenues that may keep the deficit smaller in upcoming years than appearances suggest. Notably, the PBO report didn’t deal specifically with these, as they fell outside of its particular methodology:
1. Increases in revenues collected from the RRSP-RRIF dance. The PBO report noted that productivity is set to decline as more Canadian workers enter retirement, as part of its calculation of GDP. However, the model does not take into account the revenues to be collected through taxes to retirement savings as they are being cashed out. Hence, retired, ‘unproductive’ people will be generating revenue for the government and increasing overall GDP through their spending (and revenue for government through taxes on their spending). I’ll leave it to the number nerds to figure out how to estimate this. Why didn’t the Minister of Finance bring this up? As this involves taxes (that is, collecting more revenue from taxes), I can see why the Minister of Finance, in a tax-phobic environment, would not want to talk this up — reminding an influential voting block (seniors) that they are being taxed on their savings doesn’t go over well!
2. Increased GST revenues from expanding the HST into Ontario and BC. While it is not clear how much more will be collected through this vehicle, we do know that more tax revenue for the feds (not to mention the provinces)will be generated through the GST-HST conversion. If the efficiencies created do turn out to help the economy as planned, this effect will be multiplied; hence, more government revenue. Again, I can understand why this is not being talked up by the Minister or his Ministry. Again, I’ll leave it to the number nerds to work out how much more revenue will come in from this source.
3. As has been discussed elsewhere, the EI program may be coming to the rescue. Rates are going to be increased to collect revenue that will then be spent to ‘re-balance’ the EI fund…when the money will, of course, just go into the consolidated revenue fund.
As I read it (and please correct me if I am wrong), EI revenue may be higher than the PBO report anticipates: the authors do not state in their assumptions (see P. 14 / P.18 for the measure of elasticity that they use) if increased EI revenue is strictly a consequence of rising employment, or if it also takes into account what will happen to EI revenues collected when rates rise (and, subtracting the subsequent GDP hit from losses to employment that may result from an increase in EI rates). To be a broken record, I can understand why Flaherty wants to remain quiet, etc, etc…And, to be a broken record, again, I’ll let the number nerds, etc, etc…
All to say — there are billions in revenue lurking out there that are not being accounted for / discussed because: 1) some models do not take some revenues into account, because that’s the way some models are; and, 2) the guy at the centre of all of this can’t discuss where his hidden numbers come from because they all point to how he is depending on anticipated increases to revenue being gathered from seniors, consumers, and the employed.
Justin: I once reckoned that undergraduate political science students were incapable of understanding over 40% of the peer-review articles published political sociology journals.
Their understanding of much new and highly relevant scholarly material was limited to the introduction and the conclusion.
It is sad to think that most political science undergraduate students will never understand political science professor Elinor Ostrom because she deploys elementary math on occasion.