Russell Roberts's Blog, page 337

Can Anyone Tell Me…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… why we should take seriously politicians who think that concocting increases in nominal spending power will keep the economy secure in the face of (1) government lockdowns that forcibly prevent a great deal of production from taking place, and (2) government- and media-stirred popular derangement that further dampens actual productive activity?

We are “governed” – a more appropriate term is “lorded over” – by people who, if we judge them by their publicly spoken words, are imbeciles. And these imbeciles, sadly, are cheered on by most intellectuals (some of whom even boast advanced degrees in economics).

Truth Through Humor

(Don Boudreaux)

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J.P. Sears is hilarious. He’s also wise.

Some Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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Devon Williams writes a beautiful eulogy for her father, the great Walter Williams. A slice:

As a father, he was also a teacher. My dad taught me that hard work eclipses talent or natural gifts every day of the week and twice on Sunday. He taught me how to drive like a Philadelphia cabbie and how to parallel park in a space equal to the length of my vehicle. He taught me that the best time to look for a job is when you already have one and that opportunities are often masked as disappointments.

He taught me that play is necessary, but that it’s more fun when your work is finished. He taught me to love my life and the people in it. He taught me to drink the wine and not to save it for a special occasion. And he taught me that family is always my safe place to land.

Also remembering Walter Williams is a former GMU Econ PhD student, Ted Murphy, from long ago. A slice:

Walter’s influence goes well beyond my own education. The thousands of students whom I have taught are unwitting beneficiaries of Walter’s insistence on high standards, yet understanding that none of us not know it all. I attempted to pass on Walter’s focus on problem solving technique and reliance on evidence. Many academics claim to follow the science wherever it leads, but all too many wilt when the results they find are counter-intuitive or politically unpopular. Walter truly followed the evidence wherever it led. In Walter’s case, it often resulted in disagreement with what many people wanted him to believe.

Peter Earle rightly laments the return of the trickle-down ruse. A slice:

Second, no political party, economist, or economic textbook has ever referred to “trickle-down” anything as a policy tool or outcome. As Thomas Sowell wrote in 2014: “The “trickle-down” theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories – including J. A. Schumpeter’s monumental ‘History of Economic Analysis,’ more than a thousand pages long and printed in very small type.” It is a description typically employed by opponents of free markets and economic liberty, and one which like so many others (“fairness,” “hard-working Americans,” “equality“) has become so freighted with political suggestion as to become a near-metonym.

Most important of all, the phrase fails to accurately describe any economic phenomenon or outcome. “Trickle-down economics” is, beyond being a phrase used to evoke an emotional reaction among a certain sector of the populace, a profound illustration of economic ignorance.

Jacob Sullum writes about efforts to rein in the banana-republic practice of civil asset forfeiture.

J.D. Tuccille identifies a silver lining around the dense, dark cloud of lockdown tyranny.

As documented in the Wall Street Journal, the elected officials who gather regularly in Sacramento might, about most economic matters, be dumber than dung. But they are among the world’s leading experts at destroying an economy. Here’s the opening paragraph:

California’s Legislature is considering a wealth tax on residents, part-year residents, and any person who spends more than 60 days inside the state’s borders in a single year. Even those who move out of state would continue to be subject to the tax for a decade—a provision that calls to mind the Eagles’ famous “Hotel California” lyric: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Cato’s Simon Lester corrects many of the errors that infect Farah Stockman’s recent New York Times op-ed on the World Trade Organization. A slice:

There are also problems in the piece related to mythology about 1990s capitalism. In the 1990s, the piece states, “The United States, the world’s sole superpower, embraced an almost messianic belief in the ability of unfettered capitalism to improve lives around the world.” It is certainly true that many people were pretty high on capitalism in the 1990s, given the experiences with socialism around the world, but capitalism was hardly “unfettered” and the U.S. government was certainly not “messianic” about it at this time. Debates about deregulation and privatization have a real impact, and at times various governments move back and forth on the continuum a bit, in one direction or the other. But regardless of any marginal successes we on the free market side have had, we have never come close to making capitalism “unfettered.” There are plenty of fetters still in place. And the U.S. government was always pretty practical in its approach, advocating for and using subsidies and trade restrictions in areas where it wanted to impose them.

Standing and Delivering Against Lockdown Tyranny

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s Van Morrison’s and Eric Clapton’s new protest song against the tyranny of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 37 of John Mueller’s brilliant 1999 book, Capitalism, Democracy, & Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery:

Bankers, often criticized for stodgy, conservative behavior, in fact take more risks in a single business day than many of their critics do in a lifetime.

DBx: Indeed.

Keep this truth in mind when you next encounter the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Marco Rubio, or Josh Hawley, in their profound ignorance of both economics and history, criticize financial markets for failing to allocate capital in ways that these politicians – insufficiently gutsy to put their own money where their mouths are – claim to somehow divine how capital ‘should’ be allocated. These individuals apparently believe that being elected to high office somehow grants them access to knowledge about resource-allocation processes that is more accurate and full than is the knowledge that competitive markets put to use to allocate resources.

The fact that politicians such as these, as well as intellectuals who endorse industrial policy, refuse to put their own money where their mouths are cannot be mentioned too often. Such people wish to fund their dreams and schemes with money taken from other people. This fact alone is sufficient to discredit their proposals.

Martin Kulldorff at the Soho Forum

(Don Boudreaux)

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Great Barrington Declaration co-author Martin Kulldorff recently participated in a Soho Forum Debate on the best strategy to deal with Covid-19. Nick Gillespie introduces the debate; it’s moderated by Gene Epstein.

2020 Compared to 2019

(Don Boudreaux)

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I’m chagrined that I cannot recall the identity of the person on whose Facebook page I found this apt comparison of 2020 with 2019. (My sincere apologies to him or her.)

Yet More on Covid-19’s Risk to Young Adults

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a friendly response to Café Hayek commenter Rob Read:

Mr. Read:

Thanks very much for commenting on the Café Hayek post in which I criticize the authors of a New York Times op-ed for failing to put into context Covid-19’s danger to Americans ages 25-44. This failure creates the false impression that Covid poses a serious risk to people in this age cohort.

Pushing back mildly on my point, you note, in effect, that even my estimated death risk of 0.0329 percent – which, by the way, is surely excessive – is nevertheless high enough for many young adults to take seriously.

Of course, risk preferences are subjective, and so different individuals respond differently to the same objective level of risk. I have no interest in talking anyone out of his or her risk preferences. (I do, however, have a strong interest in preventing that someone from foisting his or her risk preferences on me and others.) But as another commenter, Bruce Berlin, notes, people routinely subject themselves to risks much higher than is the risk that Covid poses to young adults. Therefore, it’s important to do what the New York Times’s op-edists recklessly failed to do – namely, put relative risk-levels in perspective lest a false perception of the risks of Covid create even greater hysteria than it’s already stirred up.

As far as we know now, the chance that Covid will kill an American aged 25 to 44 is roughly 1 in 3,040. Here’s a sample of the lifetime odds of Americans dying from activities or events other than Covid:

– motor-vehicle crashes (1 in 106)

– fall (1 in 111)

– drowning (1 in 1,121)

– fire or smoke (1 in 1,399)

– choking on food (1 in 2,618)

Should the state lower all speed limits to 10 MPH? Should Americans be ordered always to wear bubble wrap and never have their feet more than three feet above the ground? Should government outlaw swimming and bathing? Should the police confiscate all stoves, matches, lighters, candles, firewood, flints, and electrical wiring? Should it be illegal to prepare, sell, and ingest all edible items other than baby food?

Or should we at least publish breathless op-eds in major newspapers advising people to live in greater fear of daily life – fear utterly out of proportion to underlying objective risks? I’m sure you agree that the answer is no.

These New York Times’s op-edists, as well as all who promote their work, want everyone to believe that Covid poses significant risks to young adults. They write “But what we believed before about the relative harmlessness of Covid-19 among younger adults has simply not been borne out by emerging data.”

This claim is preposterous. Not only are Covid’s dangers to young adults, by the authors’ own admission, tiny relative to Covid’s dangers to the elderly, Covid’s dangers to young adults are tiny relative to many other dangers that Americans routinely encounter yet never use as an excuse to pummel civilization.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030

Be Brave in the Covid Age!

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s another short video that is intentionally humorous and that achieves its goal by coming oh-so-very-close to the reality that we now all suffer because of Covid Derangement Syndrome.

The Dangers of Using Hard Consonants During the Covid Crisis!

(Don Boudreaux)

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My Mercatus Center colleague Bob Graboyes sent a short video, prompting David Henderson to share with me the original. I’m happy here to phost the original. Its intentional humor works because it is frighteningly close to the reality that we are all in because of Covid Derangement Syndrome.