Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

Ricky Gervais Tweets Atheism

I realize it would be more scholarly to discuss Aquinas, but sometimes it’s fun to engage the popular culture. Consider this the theological analog of me critiquing the State of the Union address.

A bunch of my Facebook Friends thought this was hilarious and deep:

Moreover, the people sharing it insisted that it had nothing to do with whether God existed or not. Gervais had really put his finger on a silly debating technique by Christians, they insisted, regardless of whether Hell exists.

By the same token, I am sure my Facebook Friends would Share the following tweets:

PAUL KRUGMAN
@conscientious
“An Austrian telling a Keynesian that low interest rates are fueling an unsustainable boom is about as scary as a child telling a grownup they won’t get any presents from Santa.”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
@MissionAccomplished
“An isolationist telling a neoconservative that bombing the Middle East will cause blowback is about as scary as a child telling a grownup they won’t get any presents from Santa.”

BOB MURPHY
@BobMurphyEcon
“An atheist telling a Christian that making analogies of atheist arguments will have no effect is about as scary as a child telling a grownup they won’t get any presents from Santa.”

Now try this one for size:

If you ponder that tweet for a few moments, you realize that Gervais just proved that we all must officially disavow any belief in any empirical proposition whatsoever. For example, you don’t KNOW for sure that the sun is bigger than the Earth. You must be agnostic on this point, by definition. And so because of this, you must not believe that the sun is bigger than the Earth.

(Granted, you might come back and say, “What do you mean, Bob? There are good arguments for the sun being bigger than the Earth.” But then I would reply that there are good arguments for the existence of God. Gervais’ tweet boils down to, “Atheists have considered the arguments for God and do not find them persuasive. That’s why they are atheists.” It’s not as deep when you put it like that.)

One last note of irony: Ricky Gervais is quite possibly the most confident man on Earth that he is a very good person and that the people he singles out for criticism are absolutely morally horrible and deserve to be condemned.

P.S. I think Gervais can be hilarious in stand-up, and this clip with Liam Neeson is brilliant.

The U.S. Situation and Danny’s Song

So far everyone has been nonplussed by this.

Keynesian Bask

I want to figure out how much a standard Keynesian thinks that holding interest rates 0.5 percentage points too high, will increase unemployment (in percentage terms).

For example, suppose a recession hits and that a Keynesian thinks full employment requires the Fed to set interest rates at 2 percent, but instead the Fed for some reason only cuts rates down to 2.5 percent. Instead of unemployment falling to the natural rate, it will be higher. But how much higher?

As always, if you actually know what you’re talking about when you give me your answer, that would be swell.

Murphy Twin Spin

==> Even I was surprised by how quickly (36 days) Jerry Taylor put a non-revenue-neutral carbon tax back on the political table, after he had just issued a study assuring conservatives that no such animal existed.

==> At Mises CA, I complain about an anti-import bumper sticker I saw in the parking lot. Hijinx ensue.

The Market for Parenthood

I wrote a FEE piece responding to Abigail Hall’s argument for allowing cash payments in the adoption market, and I tackle Gene Callahan’s objection. An excerpt:

Right now, some human beings have the legal status of parenthood vis-à-vis other human beings. Right now, it is perfectly legal to transfer that status to another willing party. Right now, it is even legal to accept financial compensation to effect such a transfer, so long as it is limited to the expenses of undergoing a healthy pregnancy and birth. Right now, it is also common for adoptive parents to pay tens of thousands of dollars to private-sector brokers and government bureaucrats to facilitate all of the above.

The only thing right now that is illegal is to make a pure side payment (i.e., not tied to out-of-pocket expenses) to the party giving up the parenthood. This is the point on which the critics put all of their moral weight, arguing that it is here that “slavery” begins.

Spiritual Life Is Real Life

Lately on his blog Gene Callahan has been lamenting the free-market economist’s tendency to reduce all human choices to economic ones. First Gene was horrified at a recent argument in defense of allowing monetary payments for adoption, but then Gene switched his target to this passage from Mises in Human Action:

“All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference.”

Gene was saying this is clearly not the right way to look at people, because it would mean (for example) that we have to picture Jesus saying to Himself, “Well, I certainly have a great absolute advantage at producing loaves and fishes. And I do think that Galilee offers tremendous opportunities for opening a chain of loaf and fish stores. On the other hand, just how much utility will I really gain from that whole ‘dying on the cross’ business?””

I have a few responses:

==> Gene is quite obviously mischaracterizing Mises’ position when he (Gene) says in his first volley that Mises “famously treated moral choices as just another species of economic choice.” No, Mises didn’t do that at all; Mises explicitly denied that he was doing that.

==> If you don’t take my word for it, take the word of this guy in his book popularizing Austrian economics:

The dominant
school of economics, often referred to as the Neoclassical
School, seems to describe people behaving in ways that
are hard to relate to the human activity we see around us
every day. The textbook humans seem robotic, rigidly obeying
a set of equations that “maximizes their utility” based on
a set of parameters. The equations themselves are said to
“cause” supply and demand to meet at an equilibrium price—
one that sets the quantity demanded equal to the quantity
supplied. What place do humans have in such a system of
equations? It seems difficult to relate those mathematical constructs
to the world in which we live. How is the idea of man
as a utility equation solver relevant to an Islamic revolution,
to Mother Teresa, to Jimi Hendrix, or to your own decision to
take a vacation that you “really can’t afford,” but really need? [p. 11]

The Austrian School of economics is an alternative to the
mainstream approach. It places economics on a sound, human
basis. It avoids the traps that plague most of modern economics:
the assumption of selfishness as the basic human motivation,
a narrow definition of rational behavior, and the overuse
of unrealistic models. [p. 12]

Although we often use profit to refer to monetary gain, it
also has a wider sense, as in, “How does it profit a man to
gain the world but lose his soul?” We perform all of our
actions, whether buying a stock or retreating to a mountain to
meditate, with an eye to profiting in this psychic sense. As the
above quotation indicates, if we choose to lead a pious life in
poverty, it is because we expect the end result to benefit us
more than the cost of surrendering the pursuit of worldly
goods: we expect to profit from the choice. [p. 24]

Austrian economics does not attempt to decide whether
our choice of ends to pursue is wise. It does not tell us that
we are wrong if we value a certain amount of leisure more
than some amount of money. It does not view humans as
being only worried about monetary gain. There is nothing
“noneconomical” about someone giving away a fortune, or
turning down a high-paying job to become a monk. [p. 25]

The question of whether or not there are objective values
does not concern economics. Again, that should not be taken
to mean that Austrian economics is hostile to any religion or
system of ethics. I personally know of Austrian economists
who are Catholics, atheists, Orthodox Jews, Buddhists, Objectivists,
Protestants, and agnostics, and, if I only knew more
economists, I’m sure I could mention Muslims, Hindus, and so
on. Economics should, quite properly, leave comparing values
to ethics, religion, and philosophy. Economics is not a theory
of everything, but simply a theory of the consequences of
choice. In studying economics, we take human ends as an
ultimate given. People, somehow, do choose ends and do act
to pursue them. The goal of our science is to explore the
implications of these facts.

Mises said in the introduction to Human Action:

“Choosing determines all human decisions. In making
his choice man chooses not only between various
material things and services. All human values
are offered for option. All ends and all means, both
material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base,
the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row
and subjected to a decision which picks out one
thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at
or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement
into a unique scale of gradation and preference. The
modern theory of value widens the scientific horizon
and enlarges the field of economic studies.” [p. 26]

==> Continuing with the above-quoted author’s idea to look at Scripture where obedience to God is treated as “economic,” consider this verse: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

==> More generally, I think it is wrong to compartmentalize our actions, as Gene–following Collingwood–wants to do. (This is a bad habit that I often fall into, and my Bible study partner often Ctrl-Alt-Deletes it.) A Christian, for example, isn’t supposed to do holy stuff on Sunday, and secular stuff the other six days. No, even when he gets up on Monday morning to go to work and make the donuts, he should be doing that to glorify God. This is definitely purposeful behavior, and is an example of human action. If someone says, “Immoral actions are off the table,” that’s fine, but I don’t see how that adds anything to the analysis; it certainly doesn’t seem like a fruitful category of analysis to me.

But whether or not it is fruitful, for sure it is clear that Mises wasn’t saying, “All moral choices can be viewed as economic” (if that means anything narrower than merely “purposeful”) and there’s nothing odd in imagining Jesus considering disobeying His Father’s will but choosing to obey. After all, Jesus was (famously) tempted by Satan to pursue a worldly life, and Jesus chose to reject him.

(We are getting into some deep theological issues here–did Jesus have the power to sin?–but surely Gene doesn’t think Jesus rejected Satan’s offers the same way people sneeze when pepper is blown in their faces.)

Bernanke the Consultant

Reuters explains Ben Bernanke’s new gig:

Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is joining bond giant Pimco as a senior adviser, as the firm seeks to bolster its star power following the departure of co-founder Bill Gross.

The move may be questioned by some competitors who had criticized the Fed during Bernanke’s reign for being too close to Pimco, whose full name is Pacific Investment Management Co. The critics suggested that could have potentially given the Newport Beach, California-based firm an advantage in interpreting monetary policy.

In an interview, Bernanke, who only last week announced he’d signed on to consult for the hedge fund Citadel, said he will restrict his Wall Street advisory roles to just the two firms. He also works at the Brookings Institution.
…
“The Fed does not regulate Pimco or its parent or any other firm that is affiliated with it,” Bernanke said. The same situation obtains with Citadel, he said. “So there is no contact.”

Now there is some concern over hanky panky:

In late 2008, the Fed hired Pimco, along with three other big Wall Street firms, to implement enormous purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities to keep interest rates low and spur the U.S. economy. Pimco also managed the commercial-paper assets for the Fed during that period.

“If they were employed to do that kind of thing, that was in their professional capacity,” Bernanke said. “I had nothing to do with selecting them or I had no involvement with them myself.”

When asked if he has advised Pimco to prepare for an expected interest rate hike this year, Bernanke said: “No, I haven’t given them any advice on that. I will be speaking broadly about the economy and markets.”

All told, Bernanke said: “From my perspective, they are a firm that the way they operate is by taking a macro view — they try and decide how they see the economy evolving both in the United States and abroad and they base their investment strategies on that macro view. That’s something where I believe I can be helpful, thinking about where the economy is going.”

That sounds entirely plausible. Just look at Bernanke’s resume when it comes to forecasting movements in the macroeconomy:

Potpourri

==> Benjamin Zycher has an interesting reaction to a (pro-)carbon tax event that some of his colleagues at AEI recently hosted.

==> My colleagues at IER put together this interesting post on oil and gas production on federal versus other lands.

==> Phil Magness on the alleged misrepresentation of the “Austrian” School.

==> At Mises CA I take on the claim that labor unions gave us the weekend.

==> A man has been released after decades in prison when it turns out the FBI confused a dog hair at the crime scene with his hair.

==> Tom Woods and I talk carbon taxes.