IER’s Green Jobs Critique Now Available
The suspense is over! IER’s new study (by Robert Michaels and me) looks at four of the leading “green jobs” studies and finds serious flaws. We are not delving into the climate issues on this one, and so our critique alone doesn’t prove that a cap & trade etc. are bad ideas. However, just glance through this thing. I think Bob and I found some serious shortcomings in these analyses. And again, this isn’t a critique of Pelosi’s offhand remarks, we are here analyzing the official reports put out by PhDs from left-leaning think tanks. (They are the Sith to our Jedi, if you will. Except there are hundreds of them and only two of us. I will now discontinue this analogy.)
Far cooler than our analysis is the cover graphic our man Andrew G. (not sure if he wants his full name published for fear of Greenpeace retaliation) whipped up:
Potpourri: 1/3 Information, 2/3 Narcissism
* Blackadder recommended this Russ Roberts podcast with card-carrying Keynesian Steve Fazzari. I highly recommend it as well. Fazzari is so confident that he tripped up Roberts at one point (and I confess, I was momentarily befuddled as well). Roberts didn’t go in for the kill, either because he didn’t want to make the guy uncomfortable or because it’s a lot easier to look 3 moves ahead in the comfort of my kitchen while I’m listening to the show. In some forum I will pick Fazzari’s arguments apart, but here’s a hint: He is inconsistent in what he holds constant in his discussion of an increase in saving (by the family who had been dining out) and an increase in borrowing (by the stimulating government). That’s the whole trick. If he had been consistent, then either (a) the government stimulus wouldn’t increase total income either, or (b) the family’s decision to save wouldn’t decrease total income.
* The Atlanta-Journal Constitution ran my op ed on the problems with stimulus. (“You mean the #22 ranked AJC?” Yeah, that one.) I am quite frankly (pleasantly) shocked at how little they changed it. Really, look at how “abstract” they left it. I think this financial crisis is so bad that people are willing to really think hard about economics.
* Now we know why John Stossel is so well-informed.
Praise for My Piece on "Depression Economics"
My recent Mises.org piece on Krugman/Thoma’s “the normal rules don’t apply in a depression”-argument is getting a lot of commentary, as these things go. Mario Rizzo gives it a plug, and David Henderson wrote a very nice post today over at EconLog. My favorite line: “But you can unbundle Murphy’s package.” To learn the context of that (complete) quotation, you will have to read the post.
Bloomberg Story on IER "Green Jobs" Critique
Here is a Bloomberg story about our forthcoming report on Green Jobs. (I will post the link tomorrow when it’s available.) If you want to learn who funds the Center for American Progress, you will need to do your own research.
Bernanke Gets a C- For His Answer on the Austrian School
This is pretty funny. Reader Zach Kurtz alerted me to this Q&A where a Human Events guy (at around 2:05) asks Bernanke why they are pursuing Keynesian remedies, rather than Austrian ones. And like an undergrad who didn’t study for the test, Bernanke just mentions that the Austrians believed in the aggregation of information (he means Hayek’s point that prices communicate dispersed information so everybody correctly takes into account the system-wide scarcity), but he totally dodges the actual question. And like a really bad student, he rambles on and on instead of admitting he can’t (or won’t) answer the question. I had to turn the thing off at the 6:00 mark.
Skirting Regulations in Nigeria
Here is an interesting story:
Police in Nigeria have arrested scores of motorcycle taxi riders with dried fruit shells, paint pots or pieces of rubber tire tied to their heads with string to avoid a new law requiring them to wear helmets.
The regulations have caused chaos around Africa’s most populous nation, with motorcyclists complaining helmets are too expensive and some passengers refusing to wear them fearing they will catch skin disease or be put under a black magic spell.
I was very excited about the dumb paternalism when I thought it was all about cost, but the last part there took the wind out of my sails.
Idle Resources: Does "Depression Economics" Change the Rules?
I argue “no” at mises.org. This article is on the long side, but I really thought it important to carefully pick apart the claim that tradeoffs disappear when there are unemployed workers and other resources lying around. An excerpt:
Although Krugman and Thoma have made the only rhetorical move left to salvage their disastrous recommendations, their claim is wrong: the normal rules of scarcity do still apply, even in the middle of a depression. No matter the scenario, government spending channels resources away from the private sector. Even if the project employs workers who were previously unemployed, this still retards the genuine, private-sector recovery from the slump, because that is one less worker available to be hired by an entrepreneur.
If the government wants the economy to recover as quickly as possible, the solution is simple: cut spending, cut taxes, stop inflating the money supply, and stop changing the rules every three days. But this solution won’t be adopted, since it doesn’t allow the politicians to pose as generous saviors.
Of Flat Taxes and Idols
(As happened last week, this week my Sunday “religious” post is spilling over into Monday morning.)
I have nothing too profound to report today. In my reading of Exodus I came across three items that I hadn’t noticed before:
(1) In Exodus 30:11-16, God shows that He is no proponent of progressive taxation:
11 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 12 “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. 13 This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the LORD. 14 Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the LORD. 15 The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when you give an offering to the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves. 16 And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves.”
(2) In the famous scene where the Israelites ask Aaron to make a golden calf, it’s not so much that they all of a sudden decide to become pagans:
1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
That seemed interesting to me, that it was Moses’ unexpectedly long session with God that prompted their construction of an idol. They wouldn’t have chosen a gold object over the Lord right while He’s parting the Red Sea, for example, but if they haven’t heard from Him (or His messenger) in a while, then all bets are off.
(3) Another interesting aspect to the golden calf episode: When the Israelites start worshipping it, they say: “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
When I read that, I was flabbergasted. After all, it’s one thing to discard your old friend for a new, flashier one. But this was much worse; it would be as if you started telling stories about how your (new) friend saved your life when you were 7 years old and drowning in the pool, even though it really had been your old (and now discarded) friend who did it!
But then I realized that maybe what the Israelites were doing (in their own minds) was building something tangible to focus their praise of the true God, since their previous symbol (Moses) was AWOL. Obviously I am at the mercy of the translators, but from this particular rendition it seems that the Israelites’ sin may have been more understandable than I remember when hearing this story as a child. (Unfortunately, a lot of the “shocking” things I’m reading in the Old Testament don’t seem like such a big deal, this time around. Uh oh.)
Recent Comments