Never Quit
On June 17 Bryan Caplan wrote: “My social intelligence is a lot higher than it used to be. I still wouldn’t say that I’m “good with people.” But in my youth, I was truly inept.”
Five days later, he wrote: “I’ve got a little toenail fungus. Now that you’re done cringing in disgust, let’s get to the economics.”
The CBO’s Estimate of the Cost of Waxman-Markey…
…was somewhat misleading, as we explain in this opinionated post at IER. An excerpt:
There are several major flaws with the CBO approach, but perhaps the most outrageous example of sleight of hand is the CBO’s focus on after-tax income. Because Waxman-Markey will raise prices more than incomes, households will necessarily become poorer. This will push households into lower tax brackets—and thus have lower tax liabilities to the tune of roughly $8.7 billion. Normal people would consider this to be a downside of Waxman-Markey. CBO is not normal. It considers this $8.7 billion as an addition to total household income—money from heaven!—and goes about celebrating the effect of this policy without saying a thing about the cause.
…
Beyond the absurdity of translating rising prices into a benefit for households—on the basis that poorer people pay less in taxes—the CBO’s treatment of income tax revenues is inconsistent with its treatment of carbon allowance auction receipts. The CBO study acknowledges that households will pay higher energy prices partly because businesses will “pass on” the cost of buying emission allowances. But CBO didn’t include this component as a net cost to households, because the government could spend the auction receipts and thus recycle some of the money back into households.
Tempted by the Ring of Power
Robert Wenzel sent me the below email, in reference to his hard-hitting financial P.I. site. (He sends me a candy bar every time I use that description.)
This came up as a search today:
“”bob murphy” “council of economic advisors”
The search was done by:
national archives and records administration
Are they setting up for some plans we don’t know about?
I knew this would eventually happen. See, what the clever elite do is, they identify all the really really ambitious and talented people.
And then they buy their silence.
Now I can’t prove the following, of course, but it seems entirely plausible to me: Suppose that Ben Bernanke knows beforehand what his policy decision is going to be; that it is “exogenous” to the central banker, if you want to adopt the terminology of the fancy model builders. And then Bernanke’s actual job is to come up with a big production (and he has many employees, remember) to justify what he’s doing.
Here’s a pop quiz, and hopefully we’ll get some big gun like Scott Sumner to chime in. (Scott is at that awkward state in his blogosphere career where he has to “participate” in podunk sites like mine, just to keep trying to bump his name recognition beyond the tipping point. In that regard, everyone wants to be the next Tyler Cowen. And we hate ourselves for it.)
Anyway here’s the quiz: Is there any school of thought right now that claims Ben Bernanke is doing the right thing? The Austrians think his 0% interest rate is insane, and if I’m not mistaken, there are just as many Friedmanites who think Bernanke is inexplicably failing to use the “ammunition” at his disposal. So if the economy is stuck in a rut for 5 more years, both the Austrians and the monetarists will say, “Duh, we told you this would happen if you ignored us.”
So is Bernanke following any academic blueprint to success? If not, doesn’t that make my hypothesis above more plausible?
Murphy Talk in the Bahamas
Below is the first of nine YouTubes featuring my recent talk for the Nassau Institute. I don’t want to be obnoxious, so I’m not embedding all the windows here. If the below sample turns your fancy, then go here to watch the rest. (You may have to click the arrow to open “–> More From RickLoweBahamas”.)
Murphy Presentation on Energy Markets
At the risk of letting my immodesty show, I must encourage you to check out this presentation on energy markets. It was the 4th lecture of the day at the North Dakota Policy Council, and they just recently added it to the player. They did a good job interspersing shots of my Power Point slides.
(Remember, when you first click on a speech, the wheel spins for a good minute or two. But then it’s not too choppy.)
Politics as Pro Wrestling
Have you heard of the antics in the New York State Senate? It is hilarious. Someone (I think the governor?) called the hijinks and the goings-on a “circus,” but I think pro wrestling is a better analogy.
And you know who the most ridiculous people in pro wrestling are? It’s not the wrestlers, who after all are pretty above average in many respects and are very entertaining. No, the most ridiculous people are the announcers. So to continue the analogy…
"Wake Up Call"
Someone whose opinion I respect told me to watch this movie. Are there any sites dedicated to refuting it, the way the 9/11 Truthers have all of their major points “refuted” at a FAQ?
Say what you will about the above documentary, it has by far the highest “crazy-freaking-claim to sober-sounding-analysis” ratio I have ever seen. If you start watching it, I really encourage you to give it until the part where they discuss the elites’ ultimate plan. The claim makes you laugh out loud, it is so ridiculous, but then they show some clips from Fox etc. that make you say, “Wait a minute…” (cue Twilight Zone music).
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And the good thing about movies like the above, is that even if it’s way off-base, it gets you thinking globally. For example, what if President George W. Bush acted like a cowboy in order to scare foreigners to accepting some major erosion of their liberties? Just as American politicians love to use North Korea and Iran to do whatever they want, by the same token everybody else gets to warn its people, “We need to do this to keep the Americans from Iraq’ing us!”
Hilarious Bush Quote on Fed Chairmen
Someone just sent me this (old) spoof of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” but just watch it for the first sentence.
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