The Smoking Gruber Gun?
I had seen people in print refer to this, but it helps to watch the actual video. Many of my libertarian brethren (and sistren) think this is obviously Gruber saying the feds intended for the subsidy carrots to induce the states to set up their exchanges for the ACA. However, the one thing that troubles me in that interpretation is his use of the term “backstop.” Watch the short clip and then consider my two interpretations of what Gruber is saying.
Option #2 (progressive escape hatch): Gruber is saying that if the state doesn’t set up an exchange, then the feds will have to, and of course the people in that state are then eligible for subsidies too. When Gruber warned about the citizens losing out on tax credits, he was merely referring to the interim period when the bungling and slow-moving feds were trying to set up their own exchange.
I am leaning toward Option #1, and my strongest bit of evidence is the “billions of dollars” line. If Gruber had been merely referring to a one-shot missing out of subsidies, would the number have been that big? Well, it’s hard to say, since this is Gruber after all–maybe he had some crazy scenario in mind where the feds drag their feet for years, and he wants the states to do the policy he wants, so why not say whatever pops into his head?
I’m genuinely not sure how to interpret this video. You would think it would be decisive, and yet he doesn’t (in my mind) come down clearly enough in one camp or the other to be absolutely certain.
(Naturally, I am here referring to this one, short video. There is other evidence we could examine to determine whether the infamous four words in the legislation were a typo or not.)
Potpourri
==> Corie Stephens argues that feds honestly had no idea the states wouldn’t just roll over and enact ObamaCare exchanges. I would love to see your links to the best articles making the other side’s case, i.e. claiming that it was a typo.
==> If the claims in this post are right, the alleged “97% consensus” paper is downright fraudulent.
==> This is why I don’t post at Reason…
==> Michael Malice’s luck runs out. Tom Woods is mercifully quick in his justice.
Krugman on 2013, Compared to 1937
This is a long post, but you need to get a cup of coffee and read it slowly. In particular, if we accept Krugman’s excuses for his botched 2013 calls, then he loses the Keynesian story about 1937.
Correction on Weitzman’s Position on Geoengineering
I realized after it posted that in my IER post on Nordhaus’ book review of Weitzman (and his co-author), I misunderstood one of Nordhaus’ passages. I thought Nordhaus was saying that Weitzman (and co-author) wondered whether humans should even be learning more about geoengineering because of its risks, but I learned elsewhere that Weitzman is definitely in favor of learning our options. If you go here, you can see the old and new versions of the paragraph I altered.
Tom Woods and I Discuss Robert Reich
Here. We take apart his video calling for a $15/hour minimum wage.
Using Nordhaus’ Book Review to Outline Flaws in U.S. Carbon Tax Narrative
The more I study climate change economics, the more astounded I become at the chasm between reality and what has been sold to the American public. I give another example in my IER analysis of a recent book review by William Nordhaus. Here’s an excerpt:
What is fascinating is that if you go to the actual book review and read the full discussion, you will see that people like Weitzman and Nordhaus are discussing whether people should even be conducting cursory research into geoengineering options.[New first paragraph:] What is fascinating is that if you go to the actual book review and read the full discussion, you will see that Nordhaus wonders whether scientists should even be conducting cursory experiments to learn more about geoengineering options.
Why in the world would interventionists who think the fate of humanity hangs in the balance not want scientists to broaden the options at our grandchildren’s disposal? What they fear is that if the public realizes there are techniques “on the shelf” that could very quickly and cheaply bring down global temperatures, then it would be hard to get humanity whipped up into a frenzy in spending trillions of dollars to merely reduce the probability of a future unlikely “fat tail” catastrophe.
Remember, the cutting-edge case for aggressive intervention against emissions has stopped trying to claim that a high carbon tax will likely produce large net benefits….
So already the aggressive interventionists have to make the “fat tail” argument of Weitzman and others—they have to say a disaster might occur if humans keep pumping lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But then in that case, it becomes very relevant to know that one of the leading geoengineering proposals would cost $250 million total to limit Earth’s warming. That’s less than Al Gore’s foundation is spending to “raise awareness” on the issue of climate change.
In contrast, if governments around the world implemented Nordhaus’ suggested “optimal carbon tax,” then his own model (in the 2008 calibration which I study here) shows that it would impose economic costs on the world of $2.2 trillion (see Table 4 at the link) in present-value terms.
Does anyone like that deal? Spending $2.2 trillion (in the form of forfeited conventional economic growth) merely to reduce the probability of catastrophe—because after all, we still might have a disaster even with a carbon tax—rather than waiting a bit longer to get more information, knowing that we’ve got the ability to indefinitely postpone global warming for a total cost of $250 million?
Criticizing Robert Reich’s Video for a $15 Minimum Wage
At Mises CA. An excerpt:
Reich then goes on to argue that if the minimum wage in 1968 had kept pace with the growth in the “average productivity” of American workers, then today it would be more than $21/hour. Although Reich doesn’t come right out and say it, he sure implies that the workers on the bottom rungs are really getting screwed, that they are producing $21/hour of output for their bosses and yet only getting paid $7.25/hour (the current federal minimum wage).
Is this remotely plausible? Surely someone who was the Secretary of Labor can’t possibly be this ignorant of how competitive labor markets work?
To give a hint, those “average productivity” figures work by taking total GDP and dividing by the number of workers. So hypothetically speaking, if developments in fracking technology allowed the same number of workers to produce more oil, then “average productivity” would go up. In terms of marginal productivity analysis, this would obviously mean increased rents for the owners of land (which had large mineral deposits), and lesser increases in the earnings of specialized drilling equipment and high-skill workers with experience working in oil fields. There would be no reason at all to expect the statistical increase in “average productivity” to correspond to the same jump in “average wages,” let alone the average wage among unskilled workers.
Callahan on Identity Politics
I’ve been zinging him lately on other matters, so I wanted to shine a favorable light on Gene Callahan’s posts on the (very touchy) subject of identity politics. For example, in this post Gene writes:
The Incoherence of the Dolezal/Jenner Distinction
I am interested in the sharp distinction being made between these two cases as an example of the incoherence of the progressive worldview, and not because of the cases themselves. And commenters attempts to defend this sharp distinction in response to previous posts leaves me more convinced than ever that I am right about this incoherence.
Gene then explains why he thinks the “duh” type explanations of why these cases are allegedly so different, really don’t work.
But then Gene takes it further, to offer a theory as to why progressives were so quick to embrace Jenner but to reject Dolezal:
What is going on is this: complete sexual freedom, “anything goes so long as it is consensual,” and the identification of traditional sexual morality as a barbarous relic are cornerstones of progressive ideology. So anyone who “transgresses” those traditional boundaries is heroic, whether there is any biological basis for those transgressions or not.
On the other hand, racial identity, and in particular the racial identity of oppressed or formerly oppressed people, is an important weapon in the progressive assault on “Eurocentric” civilization. Thus, crossing those boundaries is a very, very bad sort of transgression, and the person who does it is a “fraud” and a “liar.”
Incidentally, strictly speaking this issue has nothing intrinsically to do with religion, and yet I am posting this on Sunday because in the national discussion, it seems that the two are related. I’ll let you folks hash it out in the comments if you think this is a coincidence.
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