Category: Economics

More Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics

Leftyblogs have been going gaga over a map that supposedly shows a dramatic fall in median income nationwide — however, as Megan McArdle finds the methodology used to produce the map tries to compare apples to oranges:

Given that there was huge divergence between the 1999 income figures from the Census, and the 2000 figures from the ACS–a rather obvious spot check–I personally would never have dared make such a comparison in print, even with footnotes. All their graph really tells us is that the new ACS produces lower estimates of median income than the Census long form. The ACS may well be more accurate. But it doesn’t matter; you can’t compare apples to oranges just because the apples are prettier.

Journalists generally aren’t statisticians — they’re looking to sell you a story, and they’ll massage the facts in whatever way they can to make that story more dramatic. However, that doesn’t make the argument true. Since the media seems unwilling to check its facts, one has to look at everything presented with a jaundiced eye, and the more dramatic the story, the more the likelihood that the media has gotten it wrong.

Gas Prices Down, GOP Hopes Up?

Pejman Yousefzadeh notes that analysts are predicting significant drops in gas prices over the next few months as supplies increase and consumption grows at a rate that is slower than expected.

Gasoline tends to be an inelastic commodity, but a year of high prices do have an effect on people’s willingness and ability to reduce fuel usage. With the airlines being socked with even more restrictive security requirements, their fuel usage is down as well as more flights are cancelled due to security and fewer passengers. The end of summer means less driving and an end to some federal regulations demanding more expensive fuel blends.

Politically, there seems to be some correlation between gas prices and Presidential approval. That’s understandable, as gasoline prices are the most singularly visible sign of he economy’s overall health, and have a rather significant effect on the pocketbooks of American voters. A decrease in gas prices may ease some pressure on the GOP majority which is taking some of the blame for the increase in prices.

Will this be enough to have a significant effect on the election? It’s quite possible, although midterm elections tend to be more about local issues than national ones. However, the GOP needs all the help it can get, and if gas prices are closer to $2 than $3, voters will be less inclined to throw out incumbent politicians than they otherwise might be.

The Democrats’ “Dumb Economic Populism”

Sebastian Malaby has an interesting op-ed in The Washington Post on how the anti-Wal-Mart movement is taking over the Democratic Party. He argues that this kind of “dumb economic populism” is ultimately going to hurt the Democratic Party with the low-income to middle-class voters that they need to win.

I tend to agree — despite the fact that I can’t stand Wal-Mart, the silliness of the Democratic anti-Wal-Mart campaign shows just how far the left the Democrats have gone. The issue of Wal-Mart has been described as one of the top issues in the country — a statement that’s rife with a sense of misplaced priorities.

Wal-Mart as a political football riles up only two groups of people: rich white liberals and union members. Both of those groups are already firmly in the Democratic camp. It has no resonance with the rest of the American electorate. In fact, Malaby is right that the Democrats’ attempts at cheap economic populism could hurt them with voters who depend upon Wal-Mart to meet their daily needs. As Malaby notes:

or a party that needs the votes of Wal-Mart’s customers, this is a questionable strategy. But there is more than politics at stake. According to a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, neither of whom received funding from Wal-Mart, big-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families’ food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart’s price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government’s $33 billion food-stamp program.

How can centrist Democrats respond to that? By beating up Wal-Mart and forcing it to focus on public relations rather than opening new stores, Democrats are harming the poor Americans they claim to speak for.

Granted, I’m not a fan of Wal-Mart, and I suspect very few people are proud Wal-Mart shoppers, but they do ensure that their suppliers are as efficient as possible — which keeps overhead low even if we don’t shop there. No other big box retailer provides the kind of benefits that activists demand Wal-Mart provide. The selective outrage over Wal-Mart seems quite suspicious.

In the end, Wal-Mart as a political issue will appeal only to a narrow segment of the electorate, one which the Democrats should already have sown up. Trying to exploit economic populism in a time of unprecedented global interconnectedness, when millions of Americans owe their jobs to world trade, is simply poor politics. The Clinton Administration was far more “progressive” than the so-called progressives in liberalizing world trade, helping to usher in a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Unfortunately, the increasingly radicalized Democratic Party of today have jettisoned their own best ideas in favor cheap populist rhetoric.

UPDATE: Another Rovian Conspiracy notes an article showing that low-income and minority consumers have an incredibly positive view of Wal-Mart. That isn’t all that surprising to me — and it again shows why the Democratic attempts at playing the economic populism card are so politically foolish. Attacking Wal-Mart will alienate the low-income voters that the Democrats need to win elections. Then again, the Democrats seem to be more about Air America than Middle America these days.

UPDATE: A leftyblog called the “alternative hippopotamus” gives the anti-Wal-Mart perspective:

As you know, the left half of the blogosphere recently appointed me spokesperson. So, I’ll explain why there is much ado about Walmart. It has nothing to do with people being treated fairly, or workers being forced to go to ER’s instead of receiving health benefits. It has nothing to do with Walmart forcing out the family businesses. It has nothing to do with a time when “Made in the USA” didn’t mean a sweat shop in the Marianas islands.

No, we just don’t like people from Arkansas. That’s why.

Let’s examine these implicit charges.

First of all, what constitutes workers being “treated fairly”? That’s a rather nebulous charge. Retail is hard work. It’s not all that fun. Wal-Mart, for all its real and imagined sins, gives people who wouldn’t otherwise have any job a chance at gainful employment. I don’t have the figures, but I would imagine that Wal-Mart hires more minorities as a percentage of their workforce than anyone else. It is a lot easier for someone to find a better job when they’ve had something before.

I would be quite curious to see how long the typical Wal-Mart employee goes before finding better work. Contrary to the usual stories about the “working poor” most people don’t stay in those entry-level jobs forever.

Again, what other retailer gives health benefits to its retail employees? Why is Wal-Mart being singled out for special opprobrium? There’s a reason why no one gives health benefits to hourly retail employees: because they can’t afford to do so. As a question of public policy is it better to have people with no job and no health insurance or a job that gives them skills and experience that can get them to a point where they can have health benefits? The workers who would get laid off by Wal-Mart are going to still be going to the ER for illnesses — and they’re also likely to be on food stamps as well.

Wal-Mart employees thousands of underprivileged and minority workers. It gives them valuable job experience, it gives them a decent wage, and it gives them the dignity of employment. Being a stocker at Wal-Mart is not designed to be a lifetime position. However, it’s an important start.

No retail store can provide health insurance for all of its workers and still turn a profit. Millions of disadvantaged and minority people depend on Wal-Mart, not only for their own low prices, but for the efficiencies that Wal-Mart creates for other retailers. The reason why Wal-Mart works is that they realized that millions of people weren’t being served by existing retail outlets and were overcharging people due to inefficient supply chain management. Over the last two decades or so they’ve changed all that and have produced a retail environment that is much more efficient and gives low-income consumers more choices than ever before.

The small businesses that Wal-Mart “forced out” were businesses that weren’t as efficient, and simply couldn’t compete in an open marketplace. In terms of social good, Wal-Mart’s probably better in the long run. None of those Mom and Pop stores were going to offer health benefits either. None of those Mom and Pop stores can employ as many people as Wal-Mart does. None of them can charge the type of prices that Wal-Mart does, meaning that if they were the only options the effective budgets of millions of low-income people would be much less than they are.

As much as I like small businesses, and make it a point to shop locally when I can, if it weren’t Wal-Mart, it would have been Target, or Costco, or someone else. Economics is all about reaching efficiencies, and not all small businesses can survive. Furthermore, there’s no credible economic evidence that suggests that Wal-Mart has had a negative economic effect — quite the opposite in fact. Even small businesses benefit from a supply chain that’s more efficient than it was 20 years prior.

And I don’t even like Wal-Mart. I can’t stand shopping there. However, the arguments against Wal-Mart could easily be applied to any other retailer and are grounded in a profound economic ignorance. No one holds a gun to anyone’s head and demands that they shop at or work at Wal-Mart. People do of their own free volition and if they stopped Wal-Mart would go away in fairly short order. Wal-Mart is thriving not because they’re more evil, but because they’re more efficient and provide goods of decent quality at a price people can afford.

The people who make the most fuss about Wal-Mart tend to be rich white liberals. I suspect that the reason why the anti-Wal-Mart crowd hate Wal-Mart so much is because it refuses to acquiesce to the demands of the unions and the fact that they’re extremely successful at what they do. The fact is that no matter what the intent of these rich white kids filled with a sense of noblesse oblige wrapped in the veneer of “social justice” may be, the end result is that they want to take the ladder to success for millions of disadvantaged and minority workers and saw the bottom rungs off.

Europe Turning Away From Socialism?

Newsweek has an interesting piece on a revival in interest in capitalism among European youths. With European countries like Germany and France continuing to have excessively high rates of unemployment and a social safety net that is rapidly becoming torn and tattered, it’s not surprising that many young Europeans are rediscovering some of their own intellectual tradition:

In Germany, the Banking Association is helping change attitudes by supplying instructional materials explaining markets to more than 20,000 teachers. “A few years ago the Education Ministry would have kicked us out,” says the association’s Wilhelm Bürklin. One participating social-studies teacher, Christel Stoldt at Winkelmann High School in the town of Stendal, reports rising interest among students about how the market economy works. “I have to overcome a lot of prejudice against companies and entrepreneurs,” she says. In France, the Centre de l’Entreprise has sent several hundred teachers on internships to companies. Director Jean-Pierre Boisivon says they often return astonished that the corporate world isn’t the Darwinian struggle between bosses and workers they’d been taught it was. Junior Achievement, a U.S. organization promoting student entrepreneurship, now has three dozen European chapters and plans to reach 5 million students by 2010. JA Europe chief Caroline Jenner says that 30 percent of the kids who participate in its programs later start their own companies, compared with just 7 percent in the general population. “How else are we going to get jobs for 19 million unemployed Europeans if we don’t teach kids that entrepreneurship is OK?” she asks.

Indeed, she’s right. Europe’s stagnating political and economic culture is greatly influenced by the way in which the state has wormed its way into every facet of life. The disconnect between the grandoise promises made by European governments and the reality of high unemployment, low economic growth, and less opportunity grows larger every day. Europe has the benefit of a highly educated populace, excellent infrastructure, and centuries of culture – all they need know is for the state to get the hell out of the way. However, given the way in which the state has traditionally controlled key sectors of the economy, the cozy relationships between big businesses like Airbus and the government also provide an additional barrier to competition.

When a country like Ireland can go from virtually Third World conditions to one of the most advanced and vibrant economies in Europe, people take notice. As the old saying goes, nothing succeeds like success, and as the experiment in European state socialism founder, many Europeans are discovering that their own noble tradition from Adam Smith to Fredrich von Hayek provide a guide for a better future.

Why Socialized Medicine Doesn’t Work, Waiting List Edition

Will Collier notes that many trusts in the British National Health Service are instituting mandatory waiting times in an effort to control usage of the NHS healthcare system:

Doctors are also resigning. One gynæcologist said that he spent more time doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures. Since January, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, with a deficit of £41 million, has used a 10-week minimum wait for routine GP referrals to hospital. Watford and Three Rivers PCT, £13.2 million in the red, has introduced “demand management”: no in-patient or day case is admitted before five months.

Despite the Democrat’s constant clamoring for more and more socialized medicine, such a system would be an unmitigated disaster for this country. Not only do such schemes have a tendency to fail, but they don’t scale well at all. A system like the NHS scaled up to try and meet the healthcare needs of 300+ million people would collapse even faster than the NHS has.

It’s not that the American system is perfect – it’s that we still try to divorce users of healthcare from providers of healthcare. Employers don’t provide food, housing, or utilities to their workers – nor should employment and healthcare coverage be linked together. The more one tries to separate users and producers, the more distorted the market becomes. Putting the government into the mix only makes things infinitely worse. Imagine if healthcare in this country were imbued with all the efficiency and compassion of the typical DMV office – it is rather hard to argue that such a system is really desirable.

Moving further towards the broken NHS model will provide the illusion of coverage without meeting the actual goal of making medicine more affordable without sacrificing quality of treatment. Medical care will always be expensive by nature – trying to pretend that Uncle Sam can foot the bill without sometime giving way is a fool’s errand, and the massive structural problems with the NHS in the UK demonstrate precisely why.

It Doesn’t Pay To Get Hitched

Forbes has an interesting article on how the economics of American society make it financially difficult to get married:

Marriage has a way of making people grow up and think about the future. Nights out with friends and crawling stores for clothes are replaced by eating in together and saving for a house. But while that priority shift eventually creates more stable finances, in the short term, it puts a squeeze on your wallet.

On a month-to-month basis, marriage just doesn’t pay. At least not far beyond the honeymoon phase, after which the happy couple invariably decides to leverage their new status into better living quarters, nicer cars and more “mature” spending priorities like insurance and church donations.

Despite the end of the marriage penalty in the tax structure, the economics of marriage still aren’t all that good. Marriage is good for society. Healthy families are important in developing a healthy civil society and a strong democracy. Yet our current system of economics tends to create a disincentive towards family-building. Ultimately, it becomes a vicious cycle: the breakdown of the American family erodes society and causes more societal problems, which cause a further drain on national resources which then causes an increased demand for services and higher taxes which then makes it less beneficial to start a family. From a viewpoint of societal engineering, it makes sense for a society to want to promote stable marriages and strong familes – yet the economics just aren’t there.

That’s why (as loathe as I am to say it), Hillary Clinton’s “American Dream” schtick could be the right political message for the Democrats. Rightly or wrongly, the American middle class feel squeezed out. The rise in gas prices only cements that notion, and while the reality of the economy is that we’re much better off than we’ve been since the “boom” years of the 1990s, the perception is at odds with the reality. Even though unemployment is low, outsourcing is largely a phantom menace, and job growth is steady, people have been fed a steady diet of scaremongering and after so long those messages begin to stick. Clinton is just doing what the Clintons are good at doing: reading the political tea leaves.

Ultimately most of society’s problems are less about economics and more about personal choices, but that doesn’t mean that economics aren’t a factor at all. One of the strongest assets the GOP has is being known as the pro-family party, while the Democrats are viewed as being hostile to traditional family values. However, if the Democrats start getting smart about playing into the fears of the American middle class, that could threaten the GOP’s chances in 2006 and 2008. (Of course, given the way in which moderates are treated by the coastal, secular left, that may not be much of a threat afterall.)

If it doesn’t make economic sense to get married, stay married, and have children, then fewer people will do those things, and society as a whole will lose out. There are some costs associated with marriage that can’t be legislated away – a house will always be a significant investment, saving for retirement will always require sacrifices, and raising a child will always involve massive expenditures of energy, time, and money. However, if we value the American family, we need to do more to make raising a family a more economically attractive choice. The GOP needs to speak to the needs and fears of the middle class to keep their majority, and right now many in the middle class are wondering if our political leadership really cares about their situation. Letting those doubts fester isn’t sound politics, nor is it sound policy.

UPDATE: Hotline has a breakdown of some of Clinton’s “American Dream” initiatives. Some of it is typically giveaways that will cost more than Clinton says they will, but a lot of it could resonate with fiscal conservatives – like cutting wasteful programs, restoring PAYGO rules, and reducing corporate subsidies. Then again, it’s also packed with budget-busting and employment-killed rules about mandating that every business provide health care to its employees, which is a phenomenally bad idea. Still, there’s enough meat there that GOP strategists should be worried.

Surprising? Not Hardly!

The New York Times finds what they call a “surprising” increase in tax revenues this year. And where is this revenue coming from?:

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.

On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year’s levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.

The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

Since 2003 they say? I wonder what might have kicked that off…

Of course, the Times can’t help but try to give everything an anti-Administration spin, as John Hinderaker astutely observes:

Note, first, that the partisan divide is acknowledged, but resolved on the side of the Democrats: “many independent budget analysts” agree with the Democrats, none, apparently, with the Republicans. Who are they? Who knows? But note the claim that the Times attributes to the Democrats and their “independent analysts”: overall revenues have “barely climbed back to the levels reached in 2000.” This assertion is ridiculous.

Hinderaker points to this chart which makes it clear that revenues are well above their 2000 levels. The Times has a pathological need to ensure that no good economic news gets reported straight – they can’t help but inject their own partisan spin into the matter. The fact is that it is not mere coincidence that tax revenues are booming, especially in sectors that benefitted from the 2003 tax cuts. Tax cuts are not revenue negative – they encourage economic growth with raise revenue. This just illustrates that we were on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve prior to the 2003 marginal rate reductions.

The Times laments that tax revenues haven’t increased at the rate of economic growth, which is natural since the rate of economic growth has been a strong 11.4% in constant 2000 dollars during the Bush term. Tax revenues tend to be a lagging indicator – this surge in revenue comes from the economic advancements made in the prior year, the groundwork for which was laid prior to that. So long as the economic growth of the US economy remains steady, and there’s no reason to believe that it will not, the rise in tax receipts could continue. Then again, if Americans do something harmful – like electing Democrats in the next round of elections – that rate of strong growth could evaporate.

The biggest challenge we face is not raising revenue, it’s lowering spending. The Bush Administration needs to reform the fiscal timebombs of Social Security and Medicare, reduce wasteful spending on earmarks, and reduce the rate of growth for government. We may be seeing the deficit slowly play down, but that won’t last so long as Congress has an unending appetite for pork and the Administration isn’t willing to put them on a diet. Bush’s tax plans may be creating a more positive economic future for this country, but his record on spending is abysmal. Ultimately the gains made by one can be undone by another if both are not kept in check.

The Morality Of Taxation

Recently, a group of wealthy Minnesotans wrote an open letter demanding that they pay more taxes. The incomparable Katherine Kersten asks some tough questions of them – undoubtedly to remain unanswered. Ironically enough, one of the signers was Jim Pohlad who’s family is responsible for the creation of a new Twins Stadium – apparently they’re willing to pay more taxes, but not pay for their own damn ballpark.

Kersten does an excellent job of piercing the sanctimony behind this statement. Exactly what is preventing these people from cutting a check to the Minnesota state government right now? The fact is that they want others to be forced to meet their ideals. This isn’t about some noble guesture, this is about shoving their worldview down the throats of others.

Compare that to the recent announcement by Warren Buffett that he intends to give away nearly his entire fortune to charity: specifically the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The essential difference between Buffett’s actions and the Gang of 200 is that Buffett is trying to lead by example, while the Gang of 200 are reveling in their own hypocrisy. Buffett’s choice is his own: and while certainly I don’t agree with everything he says, his generosity is self-evident.

And therin lies the essential moral difference between demanding higher taxation and giving to charity. There is nothing generous about taxation: the government can imprison you if you don’t pay your taxes. Agitating for them to take more is demanding that the government force others to pay for what you find to be the public good. There is no real personal sacrifice to higher taxes, and as Kersten so astutely notes, those demanding higher taxes can easily afford to pay – many others cannot.

In the article on Warren Buffett, another key argument comes to light:

Mellody Hobson, “Good Morning America’s” financial contributor and president of Ariel Capital Management, said Buffett’s act of generosity was a defining moment in the history of business and philanthropy.

“Fortune magazine ran a cover story after Hurricane Katrina about the failure of government and how business did a better job after the hurricane,” she said. “There are some really smart people in government, but business leaders are often in a better position to help because they are not encumbered by the status quo and can more easily think out of the box.”

Not only is it not all that charitable to demand higher taxes, it’s not particularly efficient either.

If the Gang of 200 wants to really improve the quality of life in Minnesota, they have the power to do so now without resorting to petulant demands for more taxation. Want to improve education? Start a foundation to give loan forgiveness for quality teachers who choose to teach in inner-city or underserved schools. Want to improve health care? Start a foundation to provide low-cost or no-cost drugs to those in need. Start a program that would pay for the education of doctors who agreed to serve in under-served areas. Want to improve transportation? How about allocating the money that would create another ballpark for the Twins and give it to a road-construction fund?

There are plenty of ways rich Minnesotans with burning senses of noblesse oblige can give back to society without compelling others. There are plenty of agencies which provide valuable services to Minnesotans and do it with a greater efficiency and less cost than government does. If the goal here is to maximize the amount of public good done per dollar, putting more into the coffers of state government is the last way of going about it. Governments are not generally known for their fiscal rectitude nor their efficiency. When you’re spending other people’s money on other people, one is generally less inclined to care about how much money is spend or where it goes.

Make no mistake, this isn’t about true morality or true charity. This is about compelling Minnesotans who make $45,000/year or more (which in the Twin Cities Metro is hardly an extravagant sum to live on) to pay more for someone else’s idea of the public good. That isn’t charity, it’s arrogance and sanctimony.

Those who want to pose and preen about “paying for a better Minnesota” should put their money where their mouths are: if they want to pay more, then they can pay more. The second they demand that others follow suit – under penalty of the law – they drop any pretense of anything other than arrogant sanctimony.

Death And Taxes

Jane Galt has an interesting look at the politics and policy of the death tax. She notes that the tax is hardly effective at “leveling the playing field” as the left claims:

…America’s widening income distribution cannot be blamed on bequests. According to Piketty and Saez, while in 1929 the wealthiest Americans derived more than 70% of their income from invested capital, and only 30% from wages or entrepreneurship, by 1998 the very rich got only 20% of their income from investments. Wealth may be more worrisome, but it’s hardly a growing problem right now–though there’s a decent argument that it might be, without the estate tax. Currently, however, it seems the problem is shrinking, not growing. In 1985, over half of the Forbes 400 had inherited at least some of their wealth, but only 145 of the people on the 2005 list said the same, even though estate tax collections have been at historically low levels in the interim. These days, the most important things affluent Americans bequeath to their children seem to be expensive educations, soaring ambition, and the right connections–all difficult to tot up for the taxman.

The death tax, at best, provides a piddling amount of revenue to the government. Because it’s so easy for the über-wealthy to shield their assets from taxation, it mainly hits small business owners and farmers – those who don’t always realize how much they have in assets. The Hilton family can easily shield their estates from taxation through as series of charitable trusts or other shelters. Hilton Family Farms generally doesn’t worry about such things – although they should. It’s hardly surprising that 120 ultra-rich Democratic activists are campaigning against the death-tax repeal – they’re unlikely to pay much of it, and when you’re a multi-billionaire, who cares if you lose up to 60% of your assets after you die? A few trust funds can ensure that their relatives still grow up filthy, stinking rich, rather than merely filthy and stinking.

Galt observes why the death tax doesn’t do Democrats any favors:

This may be why, despite the superficial allure of sending Paris Hilton to the poorhouse for a dose of reality sans television, Americans don’t seem very keen on the estate tax. That explains why the Republican congress is focused on abolishing this rather insignificant tax, rather than serious tax reform—even among registered Democrats, polls show support for lowering or abolishing it. Abolition looks politically unlikely. But even with a tough midterm election looming in November, the odds Republicans will secure some sort of reform look almost as certain as, well, death and taxes.

The battle over the death tax works well for the Republicans – it motivates Republican voters while most others are ambivalent about the issue at best – and it further cements the idea of the Democrats being the party of higher taxes. All in all, having the death tax repeal being defeated is probably a net political win for the GOP, even if it is a policy setback.

Le SimBudget

The French government is using an online game to get suggestions on how to balance the budget. I may have to give that one a try – although my French is more than a bit rusty.

The problem with exercises like that is that it undoubtedly makes assumptions about the way an economy works that aren’t necessarily true. For instance, the article mentions that it treats tax cuts as if they were an expenditure – which isn’t true, and especially isn’t true in an over-taxed country like France. Tax cuts don’t always pay for themselves (at least not in the short term in an industrialized economy), but they do produce additional revenue over time. Likewise, this simulation doesn’t include the incredible burdens of bureaucracy which can act as an anchor on economic growth. Balancing a budget on paper is far different from balancing a budget in real life.

The game can be found at http://www.cyber-budget.fr/.