Open Letter to President Barack Obama

 Below is my open letter to President Barack Obama.

CC:	Vice President Joe Biden
	All Interested Parties

Dear Mr. President:

Today I write with an impassioned plea to continue staying strong against the opposition you face and to, if necessary, use your executive power, as granted by the Constitution of the United States to raise the debt ceiling and end the federal government shutdown.
Mr. President you face an opposition that is willing to use the livelihood of our citizens as a bargaining chip to advance a political agenda. You face an opposition inspired by an ideology guided not by altruism, but one devoid of all empathy. You face an opposition that claims that government is the enemy of the people. Yet they forget that our government is one for the people, by the people. It takes tremendous determination to face such a motivated, yet misguided, adversary. I commend you and your colleagues for efforts to stand with the American people. This is why I urge you on behalf of all Americans to not give concessions on any safety net programs that Americans fought so hard over the years to obtain.

To give in to concessions on programs that provide Americans with a hand-up out of poverty would be heinous. It would limit aid the distressed and reinforce our opposition's position by making government less helpful to those that need it most. All citizens have paid into this system. We have given up far too much already. 

Mr. President I urge you to end this shutdown and raise the debt ceiling by using your executive power if required. Your restraint and deference to the Constitution in using this power is admirable. Your concern of the repercussions demonstrates your deference to the founding principles of this nation. Using these powers is not to be taken lightly. I cannot begin to imagine the pressure you face given the circumstances and your duties as President.

Through it all please remember that the American people are behind you. We are seeking strength from the executive in this crisis and will recognize your consummation of it as your willingness to courageously represent us in the face of opposition.
I am making my correspondence an open letter. I ask your permission to make your response to me available to the public as well. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,


Andres C. Vogel

Lets Put Politics Aside for Thanksgiving

I enjoy a spirited debate about many things, but lets put politics aside for Thanksgiving and think about things we should all be thankful for on this day. Let's forget about the reasons and history of the day for now, which I might get into another time.  I'm just going to focus on celebrating the things we should be happy about, and I think we all have a lot of those. It doesn't matter what your faith (or lack thereof) or politics are.

This country is a great country, where we still have the opportunity to express ourselves.  I am thankful to live in a place that lets me be open about what I feel and express it to anyone. I can do so with little fear of becoming a political prisoner.

I am thankful to live in a place where there exists fewer barriers to rise in socio-economic status and have more opportunity for myself and provide more for my future children. Most countries in this world cannot provide their citizens with that much opportunity, despite leaps and bounds in their economic growth.

I am thankful to be able to share a country with a diverse set of individuals, many of whom I may disagree with. It is only through having the chance of spirited debate that doesn't devolve into violence that we can learn from each other. And I have learned so much more from disagreeing with others, than from agreement. For this, I am also thankful.

I am thankful to be with someone that admires, respects, trusts, and loves me. Of course they do more things, and the list is not all inclusive. Few of us have the opportunity to meet someone that is such a perfect match for them. I myself did not expect to ever meet someone as perfect for me as I have.

So many people don't have a family to spend Thanksgiving with, or they are estranged from theirs. For this I am thankful. Even though we may not agree, or choose our families  they are ours. Though I myself have disagreed and even cursed my family at times, I am grateful to have them.

I'm sure there are so many things that I have missed that I am, or should be, thankful for. The goal of my post was not to be all inclusive, but to inspire us to think about these things on this day. Happy Thanksgiving.

How pro-America do you have to be to Break up the United States of America?

I hope that the people in states with petitions to secede from the union get their wish.  I know it's unconstitutional, but frankly I think we should make a Constitutional exception this time.  And with it, the Federal government can withdraw funding for education, the National Guard, FEMA, and earmarks for politicians among other things.  Give them all what they want.

Maybe it's a good thing that we go the way of Europe.  Perhaps it does make sense to divide the US into different countries.  It does seem like we are becoming more than one country.  So I say, let them have what they want.  Perhaps it will help them understand the err of their rugged individualism when they go broke.  Will they issue their own currency?  Of course, it will be interesting to see what happens in the event of a disaster.  Or perhaps a terrorist attack?  I wonder if they will want the help of the US military if terrorists attack their state.  Will they have enough of an economy and infrastructure to provide for the defense of their citizens against such events without the US Armed Forces?

Honestly I await with interest in finding out how this plays out.  However, like previous secession cries, they just seem like more hot air.  To me it shows that they don't believe their own rhetoric about individualism, since they subconsciously know better.  They know damn well they would be destitute, and it would be nightmare to establish currency, commerce would be destroyed.  A random question comes to mind as well--how un-American is it to break up the United States of America?  People that want to secede have revoked their justification to ever call anyone un-American ever again.  Have they ever though of trying to fix the country they are in?  Just more divisiveness, and more walls.

There have been novels written in the cyberpunk literature about a new US civil war.  Many Japanese anime that take place in the near future, portray the US as a fractured state in civil war.  It is funny how prophetic these authors might turn out to be.  How the culture war, might actually turn into a real war.
I wouldn't want a civil war--it would be stupid to devolve to that point.  It would be best to grant those that want to secede, the right to leave the union.  I feel it is, frankly, to their own demise.  I'm not buying that any of the states that would secede would be able to compete by themselves in the global marketplace, or against other states when pitted against each other.  Sadly, there is no precedent, except civil war (perhaps this might be a good thing, to discourage this.)  Statehood cannot be revoked, it is one of the reasons why there used to be so much back and forth about Puerto Rico becoming a state.  Many people wanted to, but were weary they could not turn back from the decision.

Russell Kirk's 10 Conservative Principles: a Rebuttal

Russel Kirk is a learned conservative writer that wrote up an interesting essay about conservative values.  I was pointed to the essay thanks to the magazine, The American Conservative.  It's a rather good magazine, and the essay is well written and enjoyable read.

First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. 

This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth.

A solid morality are a principle common to many philosophies.  It can be established that certain ethical choices lead to outcomes that are provably better.

A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize;

Moral order, a sense of right and wrong, and personal convictions about justice and honor will only be as good as the society that establishes them.  Moral truths must be subject to empiricism for verification.  Take for example Nazi Germany.  They had a strong, though deluded, sense of right and wrong and a sense of justice and honor.  After all, Nazism was borne of a powerful nationalism and pride of the German state.  Nazi Germany was not a good society.  Morals are only as good as the society that make them, just as promises are only as good as the people that make them.  Preempting any suggestion of comparing conservatism to Nazism, it suffices to say it is simply an easy to use example of moral absolutes being subverted for bad purposes.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions.

Though it's rather catchy, (custom, convention, and continuity has a nice ring to it,) but at least one of these isn't like the other.  Indeed they are all different.  Kirk attempts draw a false equivalency between them.  Indeed it makes it ironic for Kirk to point out the abuse of the term convention here.  Conventions are far more fluid than a set of customs, are generally broader in scope, and in practice often more grounded in evidence based reasoning.  People's traditions and customs aren't really bound by restrictions on nonsense.

Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription.

There is a lot to learn, and much that can be applied from what our ancestors have established.  That said, we don't just learn from their prescriptions, we learn from where they were mistaken as well.  Call it, "negative prescription," or what not to do, which is just as important; if not more so.  Our predecessors might be able to provide us with significant wisdom, and it is important to acknowledge that.  However, it is because people stand on the shoulders of giants they are better informed than the generation the preceded them.  It is thanks to our improved vision that we can dismiss our ancestors "prescriptions" when we get more accurate data.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.  Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.

Checking the problems with Burke (he was opposed to the American and French revolutions after all) at the door, it is important to judge decisions and choices for the long haul.  In addition, since new information is constantly received about the progress of existing structures, it is prudent to empirically evaluate their long-term consequences and validity, irregardless of tradition.

Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.

Kirk's candor must be commended here.  More conservatives should come out and say how they really feel about inequality.  Indeed, if his position wasn't more clear, it would make sense to commend his sense of humor in framing inequality as "variety."  It grates against our observations to call egalitarianism deadening when it has been demonstrated empirically to be strongly positively correlated with human progress and functioning healthy societies.  Inequality is not a "preservation of a healthy diversity."  Surely we are more creative as a species than to call that "diversity."

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created.

It must be difficult to reconcile, on the one hand, a desire to maintain established norms while at the same time understanding that these norms, themselves products of human nature, suffer from those grave faults.  Upholding the virtues of such norms, while acknowledging they are faulted would seem to indicate a lack of yet another conservative principle previously alluded to:  reflection.

Humans have faults.  Understanding faults exist and what they are is half the battle, the other half is actively working to fix the faults or remove or diminish their impact.  It is asinine and fatalistic assume perceived faults are irremediable.  Part of what is observed of conservative principles is the claim that human nature is unfixable, while making it part of conservative philosophy to never actually try.  What a truly insipid and empty philosophy!

Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

Again the truth sneaks through in pieces.  Kirk is simply reverting back to the principles used by Aristocracies to dominate their people.  The implication that people are too weak, stupid, or violent to govern themselves.  It is interesting to note that we often fear in others the faults we see in ourselves.  If this was the case, there is no point to democracy.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. 

There is no such thing as private property.  The only thing that exists is property that you claim is yours, no one else claims as theirs, and a common structure in place to enforce that distinction.  It is not private; it requires state protection to ensure you retain ownership.  In effect the reason you can own things is because society collectively establishes that you can.  Whatever you believe about how rights are derived, it requires a government to ensure that those rights have meaning in the real world.  A right is only as good as the ability to actualize it.  Without governance, you have no rights.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community.

Another contradiction, is observed here.  Collectivism by definition requires all parties to consent.  Otherwise its not collectivism it's bullying and coercion.

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.

Certain restraints on power and human passions are necessary for ensuring that other's passions and autonomy are not unreasonably restricted.  A state in which an individual or small group dominate the wills of one's fellows is a state of mind control.  Joking aside, and in agreement with Kirk, states which allow a single person or group to seize control rather than through democratic elections are fundamentally flawed.  He continues

When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy...

Again no disagreement here either.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects.

The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other.

The fact that Kirk feels it necessary to point out that conservative philosophy is not opposed to social improvement, is remarkable.  It wouldn't have occurred to me to think that anyone would be opposed to social progress.  And considering that he has bisect such as broad a gap as that between liberals and totalitarianism, just to insert conservatism as a reasonable middle.  That would be like one inserting their views between that of a selfless doctor doing candlelight surgery and a serial killer.  Then saying they not as bad as a serial killer and claiming it as an insightful demarcation.  Oh how sad are these principles that neither challenge nor inspire!

For one not necessarily opposed to societal improvement, Kirk sure has a marked cynicism of progress that seems to characterize conservatism in general.  Where is his aforementioned principle of prescription when you need it.

Since the establishment of civilization in the Middle East,  quality of life for human beings has measurably improved.  Life expectancy has improved, death from infectious diseases has declined, and quality of life has improved for large numbers of people.  That is considering that there are vastly more humans on the planet than in ancient times.  There has been progress in the absolute sense, and to be so cynical of progress in the modern age is not conducive of our modern society of which Kirk is a beneficiary.

Kirk's essay is impressive the first read through.  Though still a good read, upon further analysis, the same contradictions repeatedly appear, and eventually it cracks at the seams.  Disappointingly, conservatism continues to be the vapid philosophy fit for cowardly tools it has always been.  The basic synopsis of conservatism as per the words contained in these principles are, "We have affection for and are weary of changes to a deeply, irreparably, and gravely flawed society of people who assume responsibility for their successes or failures despite us knowing they can't change anything."  With a political philosophy so devoid of meaning, it is no wonder they must turn to religion to fill the gap.  This happens frequently as the initial excitement of having found what is believed to be a solid conservative argument gives way to emptiness.  It's almost like conservative ideas are much like rainbows, initially eye catching and appealing, but ultimately lacking substance and simply retreating to emptiness as you approach. 

Additional Musings on Free Markets

Further elaboration on my previous post about free market economics and its flaws was noted.  There were a few things of note that would make the last article more clear.  Clarification on what it means for a problem to be non-convex was noted to be necessary.  It was also found that additional comments from the main cited publication should have been included, which were of importance.  Additionally, there were just more ideas to share on the topic, and what these structural issues mean.

Non-convexity in the case of economics refers to the set of preferences for a given market participant.  It means that some prices for goods support two separate optimal states.  Quoting from the Wikipedia article on non-convexity with regards to economics

For example, we can imagine that, for zoos, a lion costs as much as an eagle, and further that a zoo's budget suffices for one eagle or one lion. We can suppose also that a zoo-keeper views either animal as equally valuable. In this case, the zoo would purchase either one lion or one eagle. Of course, a contemporary zoo-keeper does not want to purchase half of an eagle and half of a lion (or a griffin)! Thus, the zoo-keeper's preferences are non-convex: The zoo-keeper prefers having either animal to having any strictly convex combination of both.

The fact that two different mutually exclusive states can yield equally valuable outcomes, is not a stretch of the imagination.  It is this very property that is very troublesome for economics and the free market, because it is also what makes computing optimal decisions no better than random in the aggregate for a lot of common cases (failing you do not have an insider edge in the market in question.)  There are additional things of note about the findings of Papdimitriou¹

Firstly, it is NP-complete to distinguish between economies that have no price equilibria or in marginal prices, and those that have both.  Computing allocations that are optimal are FΔ^P₂-complete. Furthermore it is FΣ₃^P-complete to compute the optimal plan preventing defections from the economy.  Though optimal solutions exist, the inefficiencies caused by complexity equilibrium is unbounded.

The consequences of these results are that the natural state of free markets is a state of inefficiency.  Since there are infinite families of allocations, this means that polynomial time agents (agents operating within normal human time time constraints) will nearly always be stuck at inefficient allocations.

While there is mathematical tools for converting non-convex problems to approximate convex ones to obtain quasi-optimal solutions,, it is not an easy task for lay persons.  For more information on non-convexity and its role in producing many of the market conditions we observe empirically as well as providing prescriptive actions on the response of public agencies acting in the greater interest.  See  Salanié² on this issue.  The book makes a very strong case against deregulation in its contemporary promoted form.  Additionally, it points out that the solutions are not production ready for imperfect competition

At this stage of research it is very evident that the transposition of the Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model to an economy where competition is imperfect poses too many problems that have not yet been solved.  p 138  Salanié²

Frankly these troubles will probably never be solved, since they are based upon the bounds of the physical universe and what we know about competition.  These problems place limits on what the meaning of being successful  within the market framework really represents.  Considering the large amount of uncertainty and intractability of deciding what the correct allocations of resources, courses of action, or even if the solutions exist in a given context.

Further Reading & References

¹Papdimitriou, Cahristos H., and Christopher A. Wilkens. "Economies with Non-Convex Production and Complexity Equilibria." (n.d.): 1-19. http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cwilkens/pubs/PapadimitriouWilkensComplexityEquilibria.pdf. Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley, CA, 94720 cwilkensg@cs.berkeley.edu, christos@cs.berkeley.edu. Web. 25 Sept. 2012.

²Salanié, Bernard (2000). "7 Nonconvexities". Microeconomics of market failures (English translation of the (1998) FrenchMicroéconomie: Les défaillances du marché (Economica, Paris) ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 107–125. ISBN 0-262-19443-0, 978-0-262-19443-3.

Calculating GPI

The Genuine Progress Indicator or GPI is an economic indicator made up of many societal revenues and expenditures.  It's goal is to be a GDP like index, that takes into account things that GDP doesn't to give a more balanced picture of overall human development and progress.  This post is about putting the calculating front and center, making it superfluous to dig through websites or PDF files to figure it out.
First we compute the Income Distribution Index, \(IDI\), from the Gini index, \(G\).  The latest numbers the US Census Bureau has are from 2010, though they can be calculated, which this post won't go into.  The 2010 precalculated Gini Index, \(G = 0.469\).  The \(IDI\) is based on the 1968 Gini Index, \(G = 0.388\).
\[
IDI = \frac{G - 0.388}{0.388}*100
\]
We now take the total personal consumption, \(C_t\), weight it by \(IDI\), and
obtain the weighted personal consumption, \(C_w\).
\[
C_w = \frac{C_t*100}{IDI}
\]
Compute the value of non-economic activity, \(V_n\), summing the value of housework and parenting,\( v_h\), the value of education, \(v_e\), the value of volunteer work, \(v_v\), the services of consumer durables, \(s_c\) and the services of highways, \(s_h\).
\[
V_n = v_p + v_e + v_v + s_c + s_h
\]
Compute the costs of societal ills, \(C_s\), by taking the negative of the cost of crime, \(c_k\), subtracting the loss of leisure time, \(l_t\), subtracting the costs of under-employment, \(c_u\), subtracting the costs of consumer durables, \(c_d\), subtracting the costs of commuting, \(c_c\), subtracting the costs of household pollution, \(c_p\), costs of auto accidents, \(c_u\), costs of water pollution, \(c_w\), costs of air pollution, \(c_a\), costs of noise pollution, \(c_n\), loss of wetlands, \(l_w\), loss of farmland, \(l_f\), loss of primary forest, \(l_p\), resource depletion, \(r_d\), carbon emissions damage, \(e_c\), cost of ozone depletion, \(c_z\).
\[
C_s = -c_k-l_t-c_u-c_d-c_c-c_p-c_u-c_w-c_a-c_n-l_w-l_f-l_p-r_d-e_c-c_z
\]
Now compute the GPI by summing \(V_n\), \(C_s\), net capital investment, \(I_c\), and net foreign borrowing, \(F_b\).
\[
GPI = V_n + C_s + I_c + F_b
\]
The model takes into considering quite a few values, and there are extensions to creating models from the index to predict future index values.  The GPI is correlated to a variety of public policy decisions, and is a useful stand alone model for drawing conclusions about a given economy.

If you would like to add LaTeX math rendering to your site or blog copy paste this HTML code to your webpage. It was a pretty neat find that made this post cool looking.

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What GDP can Tell Us (and What it Can't)

Debt/GDP Ratio, co. The Market Ticker

GDP is an oft quoted figure for conveying the economic output of economies.  The figure is useful in conveying a broad sense of how much value is being produced by an economy.  I say a broad sense, since the figure is more like gross income on your paycheck rather than net income.  And while gross income might be useful for some purposes, the money you actually take home is net.

More specifically GDP is the upper bound on the productive output of the economy.  Of course, it's very hard to actually determine exactly what the productive output of a large economy is precisely.  Furthermore, different ways of measuring GDP will actually give different values.  Again, because of it's nature as an upper bound this really isn't worrisome.  It is probably more worrisome that GDP heavily overstates it's case.  Nonetheless, because it is a best possible estimate, comparing it to the national debt (a figure that is bound to be understated) and finding national debt exceeds it, should bring some pause.

There are additional cases where using GDP as an indicator won't distort what economic facts you are trying to discern.  In the case of excess credit in the system, as has been noted repeatedly by Denninger, it is clear that since GDP is an upper bound, if what you are measuring paints a dire picture, you can be assured that the reality is far worse.  For indicators like this, sadly it also means that optimistic news is always going to be overstated.

The problem is in how GDP is computed.  GDP is a simply the product of the sum of the credit and cash in the system with the velocity--the number of times the money changes hands.  The reasons that money is being exchanged don't matter.  If you buy $1000 of capital equipment to expand your business, it affects GDP the same as if you spent $1000 on an insurance deductible, because flood destroyed your existing equipment.  It has the same mathematical effect on GDP.

It is no surprise that  this measurement of value suffers from a failure on the common-sensical level.  Clearly buying $1000 additional equipment is going actually increase the overall societal value, whereas replacing destroyed equipment has a neutral effect.  We don't have people run around and destroy things for the sake of increasing societal value.  Though, some people will do that in poor neighborhoods and split the cash received from an insurance company with the insured.

Luckily other methods have been developed for determining "real" overall societal value.  Sadly GDP cannot be viewed this way, because of the aforementioned distortions.  Using GDP per capital doesn't really convey the true contribution of each citizen.  The mean is going to be positively biased due to the nature of there being a small fraction of companies contributing to a large majority of GDP, along with it already being inherently overestimated.

GPI/GDP Divergence Over the Last 30 Years

GDP v GPI per Capita in yr 2000 USD

An indicator that better states its case is the Genuine Progress Indicator or GPI¹.  Looking at historical calculations, GDP has diverged ever more from then GPI.  It doesn't take a remarkable inductive leap to conclude that externalities, that are not accounted for by GDP, are to blame.  These observations, along with an increase in GDP per capita, are highly suggestive of a simultaneous privatizing of profit while imposing externalities on society.  Of course GPI includes societal costs, like crime, that aren't the result of conducting business.
GPI has many benefits as an indicator.  It captures a large amount of important costs borne by society like natural disasters and healthcare that GDP doesn't.  Additionally, it adds in human progress indicators like income disparity to better represent actual life quality.  Looking at the GPI per capita, it is observed that US residents have made no human progress or even negative progress since the 1970's.

The indicator is not without it's critics.  Take Landefeld's² take of GPI as too "subjective" tainting GDP.  That is of course true, as any attempt to accurately asses the value of an economy will at it's core be subjective.  GDP suffers from the same flaw, resulting in multiple ways computing it; each method giving different values.  Despite the dense and deep mathematical material, economics is a multidisciplinary field, where the rigour must eventually come to grips with human social behaviour.

It's important to have econometrics to be able to make societal and public policy decisions in the first place.  All economic indicators are going to be subjective, so it makes sense to try and come up with a more complete picture of the economic pie.  Since it includes less tangible benefits to society though volunteering as well as accounting for losses like healthcare and leisure time, the indicator draws a more complete picture of reality.  Perhaps GPI is more objective, taking into account additional factors that people consider relevant to their well being.

Further Reading & References

¹Denninger, Karl.,  The Market Ticker. (Sept 12th 2010.)  http://market-ticker.org.  Web.  12 Sept 2012.
²Talberth, John Dr. Cobb, Clifford. Slattery, Noah., The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006. A Tool for Sustainable Development. (2006) Redefining Progress Oakland, CA.  http://rprogress.org/publications/2007/GPI%202006.pdf.  Web.  12 Sept 2012
³Landefeld, Steve.,  Economist Debates: GDP Proposition: The House Believes That GDP Growth Is A Poor Measure Of Improving Living Standards.  The Opposition's Opening Remarks.  (Apr 20th 2010.)  http://www.bea.gov/about/pdf/Newsclips_GDP_group.pdf.  Web.  12 Sept 2012.