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The Opportunity Cost

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You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.  It’s a silly old saying with a huge dollop of folk wisdom hidden in the middle of it.  But money spent is sometimes more than just money gone – in an integrated world it’s a choice to make one connection when another one might have been a better choice.

Rather than just measure how much money is going in and out, it might be better to understand what we could buy with the same money.  The technical term for this is “Opportunity Cost”, or what we give up by making the choices we do.

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Government 101

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What does it take for a developing nation to move ahead and join the ranks of the developed world?  For all the tremendous advances for at least some developing nations in the last decade or more, there is still a gap.  Brazil is not quite developed nation yet on the eve of their 2 year long coming out party due to start with the World Cup next year.  It’s not that the people aren’t trying, it’s not that the nation doesn’t want to be there.  It’s that it’s hard, dedicated work.  It’s that … the problem is almost too simple to understand.

The fundamentals of running a government always seem to slip between the cracks of the politics that define any nation.  The US is no different from any other in that regard – look no further than the calls to first push us over a “fiscal cliff” and now perhaps shut down the government for the lack of a budget (or continuing resolution).  But that’s what it’s all about, regardless.  And in developing nations we can see what the global leadership crisis really looks like – a lack of Government 101.

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Cabinet Government

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There are basically two types of Democratic-Republics in the world – Parliamentary, or a Prime Minister led government, and a strong President based system.  Hybrids of various kinds involving monarchs and other systems with varying degrees of power abound, but every democratically elected government in the world falls into one of these categories.  The person who shows up at the international conferences has one of these titles.

But is that the only way to go?  The situation in Egypt, among other places, has led me to wonder if there is some way a nation with a history and tradition of strong leadership might do better under a system of more than one nationally elected leader with defined roles and a real balance of power between them.  I call it an “Elected Cabinet”, and the inspiration comes from the laboratories of democracy, the US States.

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Where does Minnesota Stand?

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The Minnesota Legislative session is less than a month away.  With the DFL in control of the House, Senate, and Governor’s office for the first time since 1990 we can expect that, at the very least, everything will operate differently than it has in a long time.  This is a good time to look around and back to a complete understanding of the state of the state budget.  The most contentious parts have always been taxes, so we should start with them.

As noted before, there is a structural deficit of $1B per year that is hidden by some awful gimmicks.  Fixing that gap will likely be easy, but it begs for more fundamental reform that Governor Dayton is eager to implement.  Before we get too far into it, two obvious questions stand out – where does Minnesota government income stand in relation to other states as well as where we have been historically?

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Restructuring Our Economy

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It’s time for a repeat – this one from 18 months ago, but it still needs to be said.  Over and over.

It’s one thing to complain about the economy – anyone can do that.  But what should be done to fix it?  Longtime readers know that I believe that our economic situation is a Managed Depression and that only a fundamental restructuring will end it.  This is my Six Point Plan to do exactly that.  It describes action by the Federal Government, which is to say that it is a political platform – meaning it is incomplete and taken from a certain perspective.  If you have questions, please follow the links.

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