Book Signing!
Some photos from last week’s book signing in Nashville. Credits go to Ned the babysitter:
How Am I Like Jenny McCarthy?
We’re both blond and sex symbols, but that’s not the connection. See Comments #5 and #7 here for the answer.
And I’m sorry guys but I’m trying for ratings. Click here for a topless photo.
Obama (and Bernanke and Bush) Finally Solved the "Immigration Problem"
One of the most sensitive subjects for me to write about is immigration, since so many people who “think like me” on 99% of the issues disagree with me on this particular matter. (For the record, I think it is economically destructive and immoral for INS agents to force people outside the borders of the US merely because of their birthplace.)
But Lew Rockwell explains that we can all get along now, because foreigners realize that they don’t want to sneak in here anymore.
Anthony Gregory’s comment on Rockwell’s piece is fantastic:
As much fun as it is to debate immigration, I always feared one day the debate would become moot and the question would become emigration.
Of course, a border system powerful enough to keep them out can also keep us in. Time for the anti-Obama right to stop calling for more border security, if they want to ensure their freedom to leave.
Rizzo 15, Keynesians 0
Mario Rizzo has been doing great work over at ThinkMarkets during the last few months, puncturing Keynesian myths. Unlike some critics, Rizzo doesn’t simply say, “That justifies Big Government so therefore it’s stupid!” (appealing though that argument may be). Rather, Rizzo takes the Keynesian claim at face value and follows through to the logical implications, and ends up showing (a) it doesn’t justify the government policy in question and often (b) Keynes himself agrees with Rizzo.
Anyway, here is Rizzo’s latest post, this one on stimulus spending to boost “confidence.”
Rothbard on the History of the Fed
I watched the below video over at Robert Wenzel’s site; I started it when I was balancing my checkbook, and I watched the whole hour+ thing.
But what I want to comment on here is the guy pestering Rothbard at about the 1:00:00 mark in the Q&A. The guy makes a point that I hear a lot in email whenever I write about the Fed. It goes something like this: “The Fed doesn’t actually create money, it creates credit. This means the economy owes the Fed not just the principal but interest too. Thus the Fed has to keep injecting more and more money/credit in order for people to be capable of paying back the previous injection. So at some point, the system will collapse.”
I think there are many things wrong with this. First, as I’ve mentioned before (and I can’t find the link right now), the velocity of circulation (to use a concept from the monetarists) can increase. Forget the Fed; even if we are using gold as money, no more gold is mined, and we have 100% reserve banking, nominal interest rates can be positive. There’s nothing mysterious about this: E.g. I can borrow 10 oz. of gold from my neighbor at 10% interest, and then do a stream of chores for him over the course of the year that work down my debt. We can pass the same physical gold back and forth each time such that the accountant at the end of the year says I paid him off with interest.
But second, this type of objection misses the fact that the Fed doesn’t (typically) lend the money “into the economy,” unless we’re talking about loans from the discount window. No, in the standard open market operation, the Fed buys something outright (like a Treasury bond), and then increases the reserves of the bank who ultimately gets the check written on the Fed. Those reserves aren’t temporary; they are as good as cash.
With the larger pool of reserves, the banks then lend the money “into the economy.” But to induce people to borrow the larger amount, the interest rate drops. If people really weren’t able to afford to pay back the loan plus interest, then they’d stop borrowing so much and interest rates would drop.
Anyway, I was glad to see that Rothbard was flummoxed by this guy’s question. He even says something like, “I don’t understand your point. I call my checking balance ‘money’ and so does everybody else.”
Correcting Joe Romm on IPCC’s Cost Estimate
At MasterResource today I take on our good friend Joe Romm:
In a provocative post, Joe Romm argues that even “strong climate action” would be well worth the effort. Yet Romm’s claim that stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases at 445–535 ppm (CO2-eq) would cost only “one tenth of a penny on the dollar” (through 2050) understates the IPCC’s actual cost estimate by about 95%. In reality, the IPCC’s reported estimate translates into a mitigation cost of about 2.2 cents on the dollar–far far higher than Romm’s figure. Romm’s mistake has nothing to do with climate science: he simply confuses the rate of growth in income, with income itself.
After deriving my own figure (of 2.2 cents rather than Romm’s 0.1 cents) I quote the IPCC to show that its figures refer to a textbook case of perfect implementation of these policies for a century. If any major government buckles, even if just for a few years, then the cost estimates would rise above the number Romm and I are taking as a given.
Wages Are Too Flexible Downward
Von Pepe rises above the call of duty and points out that many businesses are cutting wages: they’ve stopped matching 401(k) contributions and scaled back other benefits.
Jesus Was More Than a Man
One of the more interesting testimonials to the divinity of Jesus Christ was the (apparent) remark by Napoleon along the lines of, “I know men, and Jesus Christ was no man.”*
What always amazes me is Jesus’ strength of will when He asked His Father to forgive His murderers. The very same people who not a week earlier had literally worshiped Him were now calling for Him to be tortured and nailed to a tree, where He would hang until He suffocated. And what had He done for these people during His life? He literally healed them of sickness and gave them amazing words of hope and encouragement. The crucifixion of Jesus was the most despicable crime in human history. (I am open to the argument that Judas’ betrayal was the most despicable sin in human history, as opposed to a crime.) We could not be more despicable and criminal than that.
Now a very just and merciful man, after coming back from the dead (just go with me on this), could be expected to forgive his killers. An amazing man could be expected, as he is hanging in agony, to be able to say, “Forgive them” if someone in the crowd yelled, “What should God do to these fiends?!”
But only a man who was also the son of God could possibly on his own decide that among all the other things He had on His mind at that moment, to call out to His Father to forgive His torturers and murderers.
* Yes yes, atheist libertarians feel free to say, “Ha ha ha, Bob is so delusional now because of his irrational beliefs that he is citing Napoleon with approval.”
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