Under 10% of personal income, social welfare spending has no discernible effect on net new investment as shown by the horizontal best-fit line.

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But it has some important exceptions: Even in the late middle ages, the theologians-cum-proto-economists realized that the arbitrage effect is net of transportation costs.

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"You could say that this is just a distraction factor and that it could have the effect of making people think something has been done to address the threat when the net effect will be almost negligible, " he said.

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