25 Jan 2009

Quick Thoughts on Luke

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During my (attempted) daily Bible chapter reading, I finished Exodus the other day and just couldn’t bear to jump right into Leviticus. So, I decided to take a break by reading random chapters from the Gospels for a few days. I happened upon Luke 12 one night, and wow it is really just chock full of amazing stuff. You could write an essay on every two verses.

4 “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!

My church in Hillsdale once did a series on “What are you afraid of?” or something like that. And they interviewed people on the street who said stuff like, “Losing my job” or “dying” or other normal answers.

It didn’t surprise me that my pastor said you shouldn’t be afraid of those things. But what did surprise me is that he said, “You should have a healthy fear of God.” But it slowly sunk in that it made sense (and of course it was scripturally based). Just for purely psychological reasons: People are going to be afraid of stuff, just like “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” So it’s good to focus that fear and anxiety towards wondering if you are pleasing to God, as opposed to wondering if you are pleasing your boss or your spouse or your parents. (And yeah yeah, I get it, if you are an atheist you think you don’t need to fear anything or serve anyone but yourself. I think you are mistaken. And since I believe Satan exists–though I know you don’t, and really, I do get it how hokey it sounds to you–you will be easy pickings for him.)


8 “Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. 9 But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

This passage always makes me squirm because it reminds me of another occasion at Hillsdale when a group of people we would often hang out with, would start ripping Christianity (because a lot of the Powers That Be at Hillsdale made it easy to rip Christianity). I didn’t laugh, but I didn’t say anything either. Wuss. Some people go to the stake, and I am afraid of causing slight social awkwardness.

10 “And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven.

I’m still not really sure what to do with that one. But I make sure I don’t blaspheme the Holy Spirit! (Fortunately when I slip and take the Lord’s name in vain, it is either the Father or the Son.)

11 “Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. 12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

That passage gives me goosebumps.

13 Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” 15 And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

This one is fascinating. Assuming the translation is good, I think Jesus might be playing coy here, the way I think He is with the “render unto Caesar” response, or the “Why do you call Me good?” query. Because obviously Jesus is judge over them, and He was appointed so by God. So in context, it sounds like Jesus is saying that He isn’t the judge of the guy, but that’s not actually what He said.

24 Jan 2009

Barro vs. Krugman on World War II

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UPDATE below

All right, I’ve been letting the tabs accumulate on my browser, so I’d better blog this and knock them down to a reasonable number. As many of you probably know, Robert Barro published an article in the WSJ saying that back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the multiplier on World War II military spending is 0.8, not the 1.5 figure Team Obama is using for its rosy predictions.

Before turning to Krugman, let me note two things about Barro’s piece:
(A) He is using military spending during World War II because that avoids a simultaneity problem. (I hope I’m using the right econometric term; it’s late and I’m going to wing it.) If you just tried to run a regression of government spending against real GDP, that wouldn’t be a fair test of the Keynesian ideas, because they only implement stimulus during recessions. (Actually that not true of course, but go with me on this one.) It would be like doing a regression of police spending versus violent crime, and concluding that cities who hire more cops get more murders. (Actually, that’s probably true, but again, go with me on this.) So anyway, since World War II didn’t have a direct connection to the Depression (or did it?), Barro is focusing on that episode as a truly “exogenous” shock to government spending, and then trying to assess its impact on real GDP.

(B) I’m pretty sure Barro is using a funky definition of multiplier; what he calls a multiplier of 0, I’m pretty sure in undergrad macro is a multiplier of 1. Now I don’t know if he and Team Obama are using PhD-level Keynesianism, in which they have a different starting point, but if not–i.e. if Team Obama’s figures are using the same scale that I taught in undergrad macro–then that means Barro’s results show Team Obama is understating the stimulus multiplier (!).

OK, Paul Krugman comes along to respond to Barro’s piece. Krugman, bonehead that he is, fails to realize my point (B) which would have allowed him to say, “Barro you dolt, you just proved government spending raises GDP!”

So instead of doing that, Krugman panics because the single episode where it kinda looks like government spending pulled the economy out of recession, now collapses according to Barro’s (mis)calculation.

So what does Krugman do? He says that Barro is a bonehead for thinking World War II was ever supposed to be an example of fiscal stimulus boosting real GDP. (!!!!) I am not making that up. Tyler Cowen busts Krugman on this absurd response, and note Tyler also makes the point about Barro’s change of scale, though he doesn’t make the point I do, that Barro’s adjustment flips the conclusion.

Now, the thing that finally pushed me over the edge to blog this, is Krugman’s latest blog. Krugman reminds us of Barro the Bonehead:

You see, Robert Barro made much of the fact that private spending actually went down during World War II — which he took as evidence of “crowding out”. But what types of private spending fell, and why?

So how does Krugman deal with this allegation that government military spending crowded out private spending? He says:

The answer is that (1) There were draconian building restrictions in effect — in fact, the end of those restrictions helped set off the postwar housing boom, and (2) new cars weren’t being produced, because the factories were making tanks instead (and if you did manage to acquire a car somehow, gasoline was rationed).

Why anyone thinks that private spending during those years is a model for what will happen as a result of fiscal stimulus now is beyond me.

Everyone got that? Krugman is mystified that Barro thought military spending would crowd out private spending, when what really happened is that military spending crowded out private spending.

Final thing before I leave in a huff: If you bend over backwards you can come up with an explanation for Krugman’s responses. Maybe he means, if Barro ran the numbers in 1941,* he would have gotten a bigger multiplier, since the 1940 unemployment rate was higher than the 1943 unemployment rate. And maybe he means in his subsequent post, that the government’s rationing was dumb, and the public could have spent more and bought houses and new cars, without affecting the military purchases.

But I am done giving him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he means those things, I think he is putting on a show, and in his flippant haste decided that “we stimulus proponents have always been at war with the claim that World War II boosted the economy.”

* I tried doing it myself, but I got huge multipliers–like 4 through 6–for some of the earlier years, and I got big numbers for 1943 and 1944 too. So since I didn’t replicate Barro’s 0.8, I can’t say what his technique would have yielded for earlier years.

UPDATE: OK I calmed down; I realized Jesus would want me to always give Krugman the benefit of the doubt. I think I “get” what is going on now:

==> I think what’s happening is that the multiplier in undergrad macro is a gross figure; it is saying, “If the government had $100 billion from heaven to spend, how much would GDP end up rising?” But then if the government has to get that money from borrowing or taxing, you have to contrast the effects of the government spending with the possible reductions in GDP from the way you raised the money. And so Barro (I think) is right, that Team Obama (and Krugman) is saying that ON NET, if they borrow and spend $800 billion, then real GDP will rise by $1.2 trillion. So if Barro did his math right, then yes, he is getting a multiplier much lower than Team Obama’s apparent figure.

==> Regarding Krugman being mystified about the “crowding account”: OK, even though it’s tough, we have to remember that Krugman has now convinced himself that World War II was not an example of fiscal stimulus creating jobs. So he is saying, “Sure, no kidding if we are at full employment, then the government spending more to create tanks will force consumers to spend less on cars. But we’re not at full employment right now, so what the heck is Barro talking about? If the government spends more on bridges, that won’t cause anyone in the private sector to spend less, since the bridge construction will just draw on idle resources.”

The problem here is that Barro was trying to compare the Depression condition with the World War II condition, and trying to gauge how much military spending could have been responsible for the transition. I.e. Barro was not looking at a full-employment peacetime economy, and then showing that government military spending caused significant crowding out. (In fairness to Krugman, Barro was very cryptic about what he actually did to come up with his 0.8 figure, so I can understand if Krugman misunderstood what Barro was doing.)

==> Last point, we should just drop this by saying, “Thank you Professor Krugman for clarifying that World War II was not an example of job creation through deficit spending. The next time someone brings it up as a great case where fiscal stimulus ‘worked,’ we will refer him to your blog post.”

24 Jan 2009

"Would You Chinamen Stop Saving So Much?!?!"

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You might expect such analysis from The Dishwasher or The Water Boy, but no, it’s from The Economist (HT2 Tim Swanson). I don’t even need to read this article. Even if it were somehow true that Chinese savings are causing “global imbalances” and hence our financial crisis, that would just prove to me our current financial system is screwed up. (But I don’t think it’s true anyway.) You gotta love this picture:

Incidentally, I know that “chinaman” is not the preferred nomenclature.

24 Jan 2009

Obama Makes His Bones as President

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…by ordering Predator strikes that allegedly killed at least 3 children. (HT2 LRC) Some of the comments at the Times UK site were great; the featured 3 (when I clicked on it) were:

There are few places in the West where a man could be convicted on the basis of the evidence we have seen concerning the events of 11 September, and glaring discrepancies abound in the news clips of that day, but we occupy Afghanistan and attack Pakistan on the basis of vague connections.
—-Luke, Liverpool, NS, Canada

If Bush had ordered this Pakistan strike it would have been the old warmonger at work again. Now, according to one gushing journalist elsewhere, it is Obama proving he is a leader and not afraid to use the military option. My ohmy, how much has changed since last Tuesday,
—-Donald Last, Worthing, UK

where is the change Mr Obama?
—-kal, London, UK

I really hope to be proven wrong on this, but I still think Obama will stand up for peace the way I thought (in 2000) George Bush at least would be a free market kinda guy.

23 Jan 2009

WIll Krugman Defend Thain’s Stimulus?

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In case you haven’t heard, former Merrill CEO John Thain resigned today, presumably because of this scandal (HT2 Gene Callahan for the video):

UPDATE: This video was messing up my precious Google ads, so I took it down. You can click the link above to watch it.

On his show today Rush made the great point that people should be congratulating Thain for creating jobs. Rush was kidding of course, but really, it works: If Thain hadn’t spent that money, Merrill / Bank of America would just be sitting on it. So the politicians are simultaneously yelling at the banks:

(A) “What are you doing, playing it safe with your loans? We gave you those billions so you would get it out into the community, putting people to work on infrastructure.”

and

(B) “What are you doing, taking money that we gave you and wasting it on fixing up your office building?! Be careful with those taxpayer funds!”

23 Jan 2009

Stephan Kinsella Launches New Journal

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It is unclear if he is asserting copyright to it.

23 Jan 2009

Lew Rockwell Podcast with Bob Murphy

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Available here. (Note: Don’t let the .mp3 ending fool you; the hyperlink takes you to a page where you can play the podcast from your browser.)

23 Jan 2009

Motley Being a Fool on "Enterprise Value"?

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A colleague asked me about “enterprise value” and passed along this discussion:

Enterprise value (EV) represents a company’s economic value — the minimum amount someone would have to pay to buy it outright. It’s an important number to consider when you’re valuing a stock.

You may remember that market capitalization (the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding) also serves as a company’s price tag. But market cap ignores debt, and with some companies, debt is substantial enough to change the picture significantly. Enterprise value, on the other hand, is a modification of market cap that incorporates debt.

To better understand the concept of enterprise value, imagine that you’re looking at two companies with equal market caps. One has no debt on its balance sheet, while the other one is rather debt-heavy. If you owned the latter company, you’d be stuck making lots of interest payments over the years, so you probably wouldn’t pay the same price for each company.

At the risk of saying something foolish that I will later have to retract…the above strikes me as ridiculous. It’s like asking if a pound of feathers is lighter than a pound of lead. Investors presumably understand how debt works, and so if they are valuing a debt-heavy company at $50 billion and a debt-free company at $50 billion, the first company must be superior in other respects.

Just look again at the last sentence in the quote above: The writer is saying “You would pay more for the first $50 billion company than for the second $50 billion company.” Huh?

If you still don’t see it, try this one:

Suppose you have one million-dollar-property in a low-tax region, and a different million-dollar-property in a high-tax region. Because you would have to make lower tax payments, you would be willing to pay more for the first property than for the second.

Let me kick this thing one more time, just to make sure you realize how crazy it is. Let’s go with the guy in his example. Because of the huge popularity of Free Advice, millions of people read the Motley Fool analysis, slap their foreheads, and say, “Holy cow! It never occurred to me to look at a company’s debt before buying its stock. Let me go investigate this new angle.”

The two companies originally had a market cap of $50 billion a piece. Now, because of the Motley Fool revelation, investors pay more for the shares of the debt-free corporation and less for the shares of the debt-heavy company. The debt-free market cap rises to $51 billion, while the debt-heavy market cap sinks to $49 billion.

The same process happens with every corporation on the exchange. Investors suddenly take debt into account when bidding on stocks.

Now, after the dust settles, we once again look for two companies of equal market cap, but with vastly different debt loads.

Can we once again use the Motley Fool article to prove that these companies are obviously mispriced?