mailbag

On pandemiconomics, part two.

/ VDV / 1 Comment

Last time I left off with a promise that I’d resume my blathering on Thursday, which was pushed back to Friday in one of the comments. That clearly didn’t happen, so there goes my credibility. Anyhow, I don’t think the stimulus is actually going to stimulate, but I also don’t think it was a mistake. This is an odd position for me to be in, because my list of “economic stuff the government should do” is much shorter than most. (Proceeds to rattle off three things.)

I think that generally, the best things a government can do to help an economy out of recession are [A] to ease excessive tax or regulatory burdens on the economy, [B] keep inflation slow and low (given government control of the currency), and [C] nothing. [A]’s pretty straightforward and obvious; note the use of the word “excessive.” [B] will get me in trouble with my more hardcore libertarian/free-market readers, but I only have, like, three readers so we’re talking about one guy. [C]’s cool, but as I’ve said before, [C] loses elections unless you do the nothing early enough in your term that the nothing pays off and the economy recovers in time for the election. But if [A] and [B] are in place, then the government should do [C] so the market can work its wonders.

So why isn’t this “stimulus,” or as the letter from Presidente Donald J. Trump, printed in both English and Spanish, more appropriately calls it, this “Economic Impact Payment” necessarily a mistake?

Because in this case, the government– Trump, the feds, the governors, the states– forbade a lot of the economic activity that falls under the rubric of “the market working its wonders.” Those of you who took econ classes, you know how, like, supply and demand seek equilibrium when unfettered? How if butchers aren’t making money, then fewer butchers will butch and they’ll start looking for other work? Or if brewers are making lots of money, then more brewers will enter the industry to soak up the economic profits? Or if bakers are charging too much, then Q-sub-D will fall until– you know what, I’m not going to reteach the entire class here, you get the idea.

The invisible hand can’t work its magic if the butcher, the brewer, and the baker aren’t allowed to work.

The economic impact payment (EIP) isn’t going to stimulate the overall economy; I think production is going to drop too much for that to be possible. But what it might do, what it hopefully will do, is serve as a temporary bailout for those who aren’t allowed to work. (Warning: callousness ahead.) I don’t mean bail out everybody who’s out of work– because I guarantee that the invisible hand wants to shift many of those folks into different jobs. If I lose my job as a public school teacher because the marketplace falls in love with online teaching and I become redundant, then that’s on me to find or create new work, same as if times were normal. But if I’m not allowed to do my job,* then I think that’s a violation of my rights– perhaps a necessary one given the pandemic– and the government owes compensation.

Here’s the tricky, maybe weaselly** part: it’s tough to distinguish those who are out of work because of structural changes underway (i.e., the economy is transforming and demand for different types of jobs is shifting) from those who are out of work solely because the government says so (for good reason, granted). In some cases, someone may be out of work for a combination of the two reasons. So rather than sort the two groups out, and rather than determine how responsible the government is for your unemployment, the feds just sent checks to everybody because it was fast and simple. They said they’ll clean up the mess later (which means they won’t ever clean up the mess, but ignore that for now).

So: the EIPs aren’t going to stimulate, but they aren’t a mistake because the government needs to make up for putting people out of work. Yes, it was out of apparent necessity and an abundance of precaution, but the feds need to make up for it.

More analysis soon. Night night for now.

*I should specify: “my private sector job.” The public sector has the right to take away “my” public sector job.

**”Maybe weaselly” because I’ll concede the possibility that I have abandoned principle in the face of economic disaster. But I didn’t like stimulus checks in 2008, and I didn’t like them in 2001, and I have no reason to believe they would have helped in 1982, or 1973, or 1946, or 1929, and so on. This is a case of Uncle Sam saying “You’re not allowed to earn money for the next few weeks.” That didn’t happen in any other recession I can think of (though you could argue that conscription of labor and other resources in our major wars might be analogous). So if Trump tells me I have to close my store, and won’t allow me to make a go of it with social distancing and masks and proper hygiene and occupancy limits, he’d better cut me a check.

On pandemiconomics, part one.

/ VDV / 3 Comments

Here’s a continuation of my response to “Just a former student.” JAFS wrote…

I wanted to hear […] your thoughts on how this COVID-19 pandemic will affect our economy. Do you think the government handing out coronavirus stimulus checks was a good idea? Or is increasing our national debt going to end up being a mistake?

The correct answers are, respectively, “I don’t know but I hope so” and “I don’t know but I hope not.” These are the correct answers because I only have intermittent access to the alternate universe where information and judgement are perfect. So allow me to ramble a bit and insult your intelligence by assuming you don’t already know this stuff.

Politically speaking, the government had to hand out stimulus checks. The government shut businesses down left and right, costing millions of people their incomes. Those people have mouths to feed, bills to pay, rent, mortgages, car notes, and so on. The government put them in this situation, or was forced to put them in this situation because of COVID-19, so the government had to make up for it by giving those people cash ASAP. “Do-nothingism,” whether right or wrong, causes politicians to lose their jobs.

Furthermore, by shutting businesses down without due process, I think government is constitutionally bound to compensate people for their losses based on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Why? Well, there’s a pair of Due Process Clauses in there (I don’t remember hearings or trials before shutting everyone down), there’s the Equal Protection Clause (some folks were forced out of work, others weren’t), I think you could squeeze in that Eminent Domain Clause (“took” property for public purposes, thus must compensate), and there’s a badly underused Privileges and Immunities Clause that I think needs to be dusted off just to make sure it still works.

Economically speaking, it’s a tougher call. I think stimulus is less effective than most economists do, but that doesn’t mean it never works. The downside of stimulus is harder to see than the upside, because the downside takes longer to kick in, and by the time it does there are plenty of other factors to consider and actors to blame for these problems that seem to have come up out of nowhere.

Allow me to continue dodging your question by answering a different one. What are the downsides of stimulus? For starters, every dollar that Uncle Sam spends has to be paid for by taxes, inflation, or borrowing. Taxes make it harder to buy and sell stuff, inflation is a hidden tax because it weakens the dollars in your wallet or bank accounts, and borrowing drives up the national debt, which has to be repaid via taxation or inflation. None of those options are good, but of course they’re not good: this is about the downside, remember? If the taxes, borrowing, and inflation outweigh the good done by the stimulus, then it was a bad call. But that’s a tough judgement to make, costs and benefits take time to become apparent, and they do so unevenly.

Stimulus runs additional risks that I think I can boil down to two more statements:

  • Stimulus runs the risk of encouraging activities that aren’t that valuable anymore. Imagine giving a stimulus check to a buggy-whip manufacturer in the midst of the Model T Ford boom. Or, to work from current events a bit, imagine giving a stimulus check to the owner of a wet market right now. Whether or not wet markets were actually to blame for the outbreak, that wouldn’t make much economic sense, would it?
  • Stimulus also runs the risk of failing to encourage activities that are becoming more valuable. Imagine you get furloughed or fired due to the COVID-19 shutdown, and then Uncle Sam sends a stimulus check. Mightn’t that check make you a little more likely to try to ride out the tough times and resume your old job, and a little less likely to go looking for a job in a growth industry? Say in delivery, or in nursing, or working in an Amazon warehouse?

…so stimulus sometimes allows economic problems to continue, or discourages pursuit of new economic solutions.

I don’t think this stimulus is going to stimulate, but that doesn’t mean it was a mistake. And I will explain why on Thursday because my brain is fried and I need sleep.

On pandemucation.

/ VDV / 5 Comments

“Just a former student” writes:

I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during these tumultuous times.

I wanted to hear how you’re coping with working from home and more importantly, your thoughts on how this COVID-19 pandemic will affect our economy. Do you think the government handing out coronavirus stimulus checks was a good idea? Or is increasing our national debt going to end up being a mistake?

Also, how is PSAS handling graduation?

Thanks!

I am safe and healthy aside from severe eye strain. Thank you for asking, and I hope you are well too, whoever you are.

Let me address the school stuff for now and the economic stuff in a later post, because there’s so much to be said. Teaching from home has generally been much tougher than teaching at school. Here’s a short list of my difficulties:

  • Learning how to use Microsoft Teams for tele-teaching, for conferring with colleagues, making announcements, etc.
  • Addressing student questions and concerns… though having a chat window where I can see their questions helps.
  • Maintaining test security. Test security in this environment doesn’t exist.
  • Monitoring student performance. Given the strain on the internet and the various degrees of internet access at home, the students can’t all turn their work in at the same time, so I can’t examine it all at the same time, and can’t give them feedback all at the same time.
  • Adjusting lessons/lectures based on student feedback. This is partly due to the same concern mentioned above, partly due to not being able to see looks of confusion or contemplation, partly due to not being able to interpret the tone of a question if it’s typed in a chat window. Note that this doesn’t mean I’d actually change anything; I give exactly the same lectures every single year.

But there’s been some upside:

  • Microsoft Teams makes it easier to get content to my students in case of absences– mine or theirs. And now I know how to use it.
  • The commute to work is much easier and less tiring, though I now avoid my office like the plague, no pun intended, during my “off hours.”
  • I’ve had time to think more carefully about what productive teaching entails. My conclusion is that I’ve been right all along and I’m going to keep talking at people. It works.

I think this whole mess could lead to some big structural changes in education. I’ll have more to add once I’m out of Internal Assessment Grading Mode, which should occur by Friday of this week. In the interest of helping us cope with the cancellation of the IB exams, IB decided to make my grading process 9.2 times harder this year by requiring commentary on 92 papers instead of a random sample of 10. So my brain is fried right now and is crying for sleep.

We don’t yet know how graduation is going to be handled, and I hesitate to share my own ideas for fear of getting blamed for a second wave of starting in late May or early June.

That’s it for now. More later.

…

EDIT: A quick Google search reveals a grand total of zero hits for “pandemucation.” I’m calling it now, and first.

On universal basic income.

/ VDV / 1 Comment

The first mailbag post in a while– first of any type of post in a while– is brought to us from “F.A.”, who writes:

Hey Mr. V, I don’t know if you’ve been following the Democratic party and all that jazz at all but since you have a background in economics, I wanted to hear your take on Andrew Yang’s platform, namely his policies and ideas on universal basic income? I’m doing some research and listening to a lot of what he has to say and it sounds great on the surface level but I wonder if its actually a good idea from an economist’s perspective.

…

I’m opposed. I am against any proposal that creates any new tax without eliminating old taxes. I am also against any proposal that creates new social programs without eliminating old social programs. Yang’s proposal creates new taxes (e.g, the VAT) and a new type of social program (the Freedom Dividend) without eliminating anything, so I am opposed.

Reducing some taxes and social programs while consolidating others isn’t good enough. Nothing in Yang’s proposal would actually keep the old taxes low or restrain spending on the old social programs. And those old taxes would eventually go back up, guaranteed, and the spending on the old social programs would eventually go back up, guaranteed. And then we’d be stuck with higher taxes and higher spending on social programs.

My position on this matter is supported by the entire history of federal taxation and spending. Every major social program in American history has cost more than originally projected. And every tax aimed at funding those programs is higher than originally promised. The same would be true of Yang’s proposal. There is absolutely no reason not to believe this.

Look back at this poorly written post from ten years ago to get a sense of a UBI plan that I might sorta kinda be willing to support. Seriously, read it. I’ll wait here.

…

Back? Good. Today I’d probably oppose even Murray’s plan because I have virtually no faith that the costs would be controllable, but set that aside for now. The reason I might sorta kinda be willing to support it is that it would replace every form of federal social spending without raising taxes. But that’s assuming projections go to plan, and that’s assuming the pressure to raise the payout is somehow structurally and constitutionally contained, and that’s assuming we ratify a constitutional amendment restricting federal social spending to this one program.

I won’t belabor that point anymore. I have other concerns.

I don’t think automation will be as dangerous or disruptive as Yang and others do. I think interfering with market processes will be more dangerous than Yang and others do. The more they tinker, the faster labor is replaced by capital. I’m too tired to explain that right now, and I’m trying to watch the Patriots-Steelers game. I actually like Belichick a lot due to his background in Economics.

I think it is socially and psychologically dangerous to give people something for nothing. Workfare programs have the virtue of giving a dollar to someone who’s earned it, and thus are relatively popular in the US. But giving UBI to a bunch of no-good soy-latte-sipping cravat-wearing goateed neo-Gramscian beatniks who vape fair trade vegan CBD oil in their rent-controlled solar safe space hippy communes and snap their soft fingers to laments about the evils of earning money? That wouldn’t play in Peoria. Neither would giving UBI to a bunch of lazy Nazis. If someone can work, you really shouldn’t incentivize them not to work.

In short, Yang’s take on UBI looks nice on paper but would be very, very bad.

I appreciate your question, because I’ve been far too slack with the blog for far too long.

On Wal-Mart’s higher wages.

/ VDV

From the mailbag:

(Blonde) directed my attention to a Gray Lady article that asks “How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales?” and then answers “It Paid Its People More” and then asks “Can the answer to what ails the global economy be found in the people in blue vests at your neighborhood Walmart?” Click here to read it yourself.

Long story short: in 2015, Wal-Mart’s revenues dropped for the first time since God was a child, customer satisfaction was down, and so they decided to pay their employees more. Their revenues went back up while the rest of the retail market was down, and customer satisfaction improved. However, the stock price underperformed and profits dropped a bit.

So is attracting better workers via higher wages the “answer to what ails the global economy”? As any well-trained economist proficient in hedging his bets would tell you, it depends. I suppose that sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t.

Maybe Wal-Mart’s experience validates the concept of the efficiency wage. Or, since their profits are down, I should say “may soon validate” the concept. Maybe higher profits are right around the corner. Maybe profits will continue to lag and then there’ll be a hiring freeze, or a wage freeze until inflation eats away the value of the wage. After all, the stockholders are trying to make money, too– maybe for raw profit, maybe for retirement, maybe for a health savings account, who knows why?

I’m not surprised that offering a higher wage brought in better workers, though I would like more elaboration on this little nugget:

But at the store level, managers describe a big shift in the kind of workers they can bring in by offering $10 an hour with a solid path to $15 an hour. “We’re attracting a different type of associate,” said Tina Budnaitis, the manager of Walmart No. 5260 in Rogers. “We get more people coming in who want a career instead of a job.”

If I were a cosmic justice warrior, I might take that bit about “a different type of associate” and play the “what’s that supposed to mean?” game. But I’m not, so instead I’m going to play the “what happens to the original, ‘pre-different’ type of associate?” game. Here I go:

What happens to the original, “pre-different” type of associate? If that person’s out of a job, then all else being equal might there be no net gain in employment? And if profits are still down, or stay down after hiring the “different type,” then what was gained on net by hiring the “different type”?

Anyway. Maybe it’ll work, maybe not. It makes perfect sense that if you want more productive workers, maybe you should up the bid for those workers by offering higher wages. Those workers can increase profits, but it’s also possible that the revenue gains won’t offset the higher labor costs.

Those’re just a couple of ramblings, I haven’t done much blogging in a while. Just been feeling kind of off, and I guess I’m not as– wait. Wait a minute. I just noticed some minimum wage stuff in this article. Hold on.

Forgive me for being presumptuous, forgive me for impugning your motives, maybe I’m wrong, but is this story supposed to boost support for a higher minimum wage? To chip away at my opposition to minimum wage laws and living wage laws? Is that why you sent it? “Pay people more; we’ll finally have cleaner Wal-Marts that actually have more than two lines open?”

Well, first, we already have cleaner Wal-Marts that actually have more than two lines open. They’re called Targets.

Second, as I’ve said before, minimum wage is a restriction on the worker as much as it is a restriction on the employer. Say we raise the minimum wage to whatever New, Improved Wal-Mart is paying. Remember the original workers? Not the new “different type,” I mean the original workers they had before their profits started dropping off? Some of them just got put out of work, or didn’t get hired, because they’re not the right type of different. And as I’ve said in past posts, you’ve made it harder for them to get hired, to gain experience, to make contacts, and so on.

Third, minimum wage isn’t just an economic issue. It’s a matter of rights, specifically the freedom to make contracts. This often invites a comeback along the lines of “yeah, the right to get exploited” or “yeah, the right to get paid less,” to which I respond “I’d prefer to be exploited for not-enough-money than not exploited for zero money.” And I prefer it because I’ve been there.

Let’s pretend for a moment that this’ll work out as hoped for Wal-Mart: higher revenues, more customer satisfaction, cleaner stores, shorter lines, higher profits. If paying higher wages works out for Wal-Mart, does that justify forcing other businesses to pay higher wages, too?

…

So, again, if it works out for Wal-Mart, great. Let others voluntarily follow their path. If it doesn’t, oh well. Hopefully others learn from it.

…

I need to get back to blogging more.

On the 2016 field, so far.

/ VDV / 5 Comments

Rogue Economist asked recently, i.e., three months ago, “Any commentary on the presidential race thus far?”

I apologize for taking my sweet time to respond, but I will do so now that the field’s a little smaller. My commentary is mostly negative. I’ll keep it brief and proceed in alphabetical order. Here goes.

Jeb Bush: Saturday’s debate was his best, and may have given him a lifeline, but… I can’t really think of much to say about him one way or the other. Just sorta meh. His problem isn’t that he’s a Bush, his problem is that he’s less like W or Barbara (i.e., cutthroat when necessary) and more like his dad (coasted into the Presidency in Reagan’s wake) or his brother Neil (never even ran for governor; black sheep of the family). Nothing radical about him; wouldn’t rock the boat too much as President. He just has to start winning sometime soon.

Ben Carson: He’s the wrong kind of nice for the White House. His affect is a bit off; he does not come across as authoritative or commanding in any field outside medicine and morality. After he drops out of the race, he should run for the House of Representatives from a conservative district, where he can fill in that public morality niche.

Chris Christie: Our times are such that appearance, sadly, matters too much compared to substance. So that doesn’t help Christie unless he wins the nomination— Bernie and Hillary are no prizes at their advanced ages. He has two problems. First is that he’s pissed off way too many Republicans over the years to have a good shot at winning the nomination. Second is that Trump has already staked out the brash, loudmouthed, New York/New Jersey straight-talk territory. There’s no room for Christie.

Hillary Clinton: In the most recent Democratic debate, Hillary claimed that she— former First Lady, former Senator, former Secretary of State, would’ve been President except she screwed up the 2008 primaries, frontrunner in the current campaign with tons of cash on hand— is not part of the Democratic establishment. If you need evidence that she’s establishment, here it is: the fact that the DNC didn’t dump a candidate who they have to hide from the general public as much as possible because they dislike her the more they see her, combined with the fact that the DNC didn’t dump the only candidate in the race who is teetering on the verge of federal indictment, combined with the fact that the DNC couldn’t find anyone willing to run against her, clearly demonstrate the Democratic establishment’s preference for Hillary. That she could be that brazen in making such a patently absurd statement is truly Clintonesque. Bill would be proud.

Seriously, though, I don’t like her. She is the single most corrupt person in this campaign.

Ted Cruz: Probably the sharpest thinker and campaigner in this whole mess, and of those left he probably cares the most about the Constitution, and he somehow won Iowa despite his opposition to ethanol subsidies. However, he looks like he’s wearing a Ted Cruz mask most of the time and his cadence is a little weird. Plus, the Canada thing could conceivably come back to bite him in las nalgas.

Carly Fiorina: At this stage she has no shot at the nomination, which is a shame, because she comes across as authoritative, collected, and prepared. Plus, she got most of these questions correct. Any GOP nominee would be damned foolish not to put her at the top of the VP list. I think she’ll stick around a while longer as a sort of tryout for Veep.

John Kasich: I’m sure he has some good ideas but good Lord, he just drones on and on about… about… I’m not even sure what about. He seems like he’s running for Mayor of Sleepy Midwestern Town or Dogcatcher or Step-Dad or something. He should’ve run back in 2000, when he— oh. Never mind.

Marco Rubio: He had one big problem, now he has two. The first big problem was amnesty. The second big problem was his response to Christie’s challenge in the most recent debate. Rubio’s a nice guy, and may represent the bright future of the party. But the second big problem was his response to Christie’s challenge in the most recent debate. He was an effective Speaker of the House here in Florida, and as Senator he struck the biggest legislative blow against ObamaCare so far. And the second big problem was his response to Christie’s challenge in the most recent debate. As an aside, I know Rubio’s older brother, and it was neat to hear Marco talk a bit about Mario in the most recent debate. The second big problem was his response to Christie’s challenge in the most recent debate.

Bernie Sanders: Two old Cold War phrases come to mind: “useful idiot” (полезные дураки) and “fellow traveller” (попутчик). But the galling thing about Bernie isn’t his economic illiteracy, it’s the fact that he could do the world a favor by tearing Hillary to shreds in the debates and he simply won’t do it. So much for speaking truth to power.

Donald Trump: First, I would like to apologize on behalf of my birth state, the glorious State of New Hampshire, if they go ahead and give Donald Trump his first primary victory tomorrow. In lieu of offering detailed analysis of the man and his campaign, allow me to me offer a transcript of some online back-and-forth with the esteemed Dr. Hmnahmna during last Monday’s Iowa caucuses, edited for dramatic effect:

VDV: People in Iowa are actually voting for Trump– NOW is it the end of the world?



DR. HMNAHMNA: Yes. I recommend you start drinking heavily.



VDV: Hosted a party last weekend. Let’s see what’s left.


VDV: Cheap red wine



VDV: Whiskey



VDV: Arsenic



VDV: Battery acid



VDV: O Great Cruz. Please save us from Donald. [Moderator notes: If it turns out Iowa was the beginning of Trump’s downfall, Cruz deserves a medal.]


DR. HMNAHMNA: Bloomberg will save us all.



VDV: Thank God. Here I was thinking my cup can fit a little too much soda in it, but BAM– Bloomberg to the rescue.



VDV: You know, just six months ago I was thinking, this might be the best group of GOP candidates we’ve seen in a while. Solid governors, up-and-coming senators, good representation of different wings of the party… and now I’m sitting here offering livestock to Ba’al in hopes of stopping Trump.



…

I think Cruz (or maybe Rubio) and Sanders represent the ideological wings in the race. I mean that descriptively, not perjoratively. I think that if you could install Bush, Christie, Clinton, or Kasich (or maybe Rubio) as President, you wouldn’t see a whole lot of boat-rocking, just some drift off to the left or right. I’d throw Trump in with that group if anyone could just him up, tape his mouth shut, and put him in one of those YES/NO wheelchairs like Captain Pike.

That said, last week I was presented with a scenario in which I could see myself voting for Trump. Here goes:

Obama strings along the feds’ investigation into Hillary Clinton to weaken her as much as feasibly possible. When it becomes apparent that she’s going to beat Sanders, Obama springs the trap. Hillary gets indicted and has to drop out. The DNC simply won’t let Sanders be the candidate, and so they throw Joe Biden’s hat in the ring. Uncle Joe will “reluctantly” take on the burden of being handed the nomination, campaign on taking up the Obama mantle, brag about forcing Obama’s hand on gay marriage, and remind us of his family tragedy at every possible opportunity, germane or not.

If that happens, then I swear to you and God Almighty that I will do whatever I must to make Trump the Republican nominee, thereby ensuring the best damn Presidential debates ever. Those two hair-plugged, brain-addled gasbags bloviating at each other would make for the most glorious spectacle in televised political history.

“Its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness.”

/ VDV / 2 Comments

Noutheo writes:

I’ve been reading a lot of works by the late economist Murray Rothbard, and he’s turned me into a proponent of money backed by commodities. “What Has Government Done To Our Money” was especially interesting as he explored the history of money and the gold in the USA. So I was wondering what your thoughts were on the gold standard and whether or not we should return to it (or some other commodity).

First, allow me to explain in simple terms what a commodity standard is. Simply put, it means that the value of money is legally based on the value of a particular good or set of goods. Therefore, a gold standard mandates that the value of money is linked to the value of gold. A commodity standard is distinct from a fiat standard. A fiat standard means that money’s value is not linked to the value of any particular good or set of goods. Fiat money is backed by government mandate; it is valuable because the government says so. The US dollar has been pure fiat currency since 1971.

This is a topic that used to be quite near and dear to my heart. My college honors thesis dealt with the gold standard, and at least one of my college profs was a gold bug.

I haven’t read Rothbard’s writings about gold in a long time, so I can’t comment directly on him. Send me some links to the particular articles you’re reading because I’d like to look at them.

I’ve spent several days trying to figure out a clear way to respond, but haven’t had much success. So allow me to ramble via bullet point a bit before answering your question directly.

1. I don’t believe that inflation is inherently worse than deflation, or that inflation of X% over a given timeframe is inherently worse than deflation of X% over an equal period.

2. That doesn’t mean that using gold, which is usually deflationary, is as good or as bad as using fiat paper, which is usually inflationary.

3. I’m not convinced that a gold standard would bring discipline to monetary or fiscal policy. Governments find workarounds, whatever standard you’re on. In my opinion, our currency standard is pretty low on the list of problems with our government that need to be fixed ASAP.

4. You do not have the right to have the monetary value of your stuff remain constant relative to other stuff. In other words, you are not entitled to have your stuff’s monetary value increase via deflation or decrease via inflation.

So, should we return to a gold standard or some other commodity standard? If you’re interested in reversing inflation and tending towards deflation, then yes, using a gold standard would accomplish that, though it would not be a panacea.

But if you’re interested in optimizing human liberty, and given your email I assume you are, then no, we shouldn’t have a gold standard, or a commodity standard, or a fiat standard. We should have a free market in money.

If you accept money backed by gold, or silver, or land, or oil, or any other commodity, and other people will accept it in trade, good for you. If you accept money that I just drew on a piece of paper, and other people will accept it in trade, awesome. If the government prints money backed by nothing but faith in the US government, and you accept it, and others accept it in trade, great. If Bitcoin works out in the long run, then yippee! And if Gene Roddenberry’s vision comes true and we just plain stop using money (never mind all the different types of money that get mentioned all the time in Star Trek) and people are happy with it, then so be it.

I don’t think anyone should be punished for using anything as money, so long as buyer and seller agree to the exchange freely, without fraud or force. So, in the interest of advancing liberty, we shouldn’t have any official monetary standard.

…

P.S. A cobalt-iodine dirty bomb would not render gold radioactive for anything close to 58 years, so don’t get any ideas.

5304.

/ VDV / 1 Comment

An anonymous reader sent the following:

A friend of mine recently posted this link on SharePoint. I thought you may enjoy interacting with the ideas presented.
http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-need-to-pay-people-more-2014-3

In short, Blodget argues that employers don’t pay employees enough,  thus the economy’s in trouble. To support his assertions he shows four charts, all of which depict data from 1940 to the present:

  • Chart one shows corporate profits as a percentage of GDP. They are higher than ever.
  • Chart two shows wages as a percentage of GDP. They are lower than ever.
  • Chart three shows civilian employment as a percentage of the population. It is lower than it has been in decades.
  • Chart four is, for all intents and purposes, a repeat of the second graph, though meant to seem scarier.

Because my brain hurts and I want to go to sleep, I won’t criticize the article, aside from asking a few questions and letting all y’all fill in the rest.

1. Where’s the chart that shows non-wage benefit compensation to workers, and how dramatically said compensation has grown over the last 30 years?

2. Where’s the chart that shows retirement funds, stock portfolios, bond portfolios, mutual funds, real estate holdings, etc., and how dramatically the value of such has grown over the last 30 years?

3. Where’s the chart that shows total compensation to workers?

4. If you are going to complain about the last 30 years (1984-2014), shouldn’t you at least mention that in the 30 years before that (1954-1984, when, apparently, everything was fine), there were more recessions and more time was spent in recession?

5. What are the ideal values of the ratios of corporate profits to GDP, wages to GDP, and civilian employment to population?

6. How do or can you know the answer to #5?

7. Can you think of any plausible explanation for the fact that the ratio of civilian employment to population has shown no real sign of recovery since bottoming out in mid-2009?

A brief grumbling about the NSA.

/ VDV

Anonymous asks: “Off topic: What do you think of the ruling of the court case over the NSA data-collection-whatever?”

I haven’t studied the case or ruling beyond what was in the headlines and a few articles. However, I think it’s safe to say that capturing virtually all internet traffic is unreasonable and unwarranted (and I have a pretty broad definition of “reasonable”), thus violating the Fourth Amendment.

I think I could tolerate the NSA capturing all internet traffic if it were reasonable. But is there any evidence to show that it’s reasonable? Has there been any effort made to demonstrate that it’s reasonable?

I’d like to be able to defend the NSA here. After all, the world is a scary place, national security is an increasingly complex matter, and the bad guys use the internet, so why not monitor and use the internet to catch them?

More specifically, I’d like to be able to defend the NSA by saying something along these lines: “Because the world is a scary place, national security is an increasingly complex matter, and the bad guys use the internet, the NSA needs to be able to do A, B, and C. But doing D, or anything beyond that, would clearly be going too far, so it can’t and doesn’t do D.”

But over the last few years, we’ve learned that the NSA does do D. And E. And F. Come to think of it, when’s the last time you saw a story confirming that the NSA does not have a particular ability or capacity? That there’s some limit to its data collection or intelligence gathering or spying? Hasn’t literally every NSA story been about how it has more power than we knew?

I’m sure that the Obama folks would simply say, just like the Bush folks did, “At some point, you have to trust us.” But if the left didn’t trust Bush with this sort of power, and the right doesn’t trust Obama with this power, and the middle doesn’t trust anybody with this power, then… we have a problem. Go after the bad guys, sure, but… Jeez.

I already assume the President won’t do anything to reign in the NSA; it’s not in the nature of the office or the office-holder, regardless of party. We’ve seen a federal court show that it’s willing to do something; hopefully other courts and the Congress will follow suit.

…

Another point, that might’ve been worth considering, say, 14 or 15 months ago: Will anyone ever again believe that a President doesn’t spy on his campaign opponents? Or can we safely assume that every President from here on out is a Lyndon Edgar Nixon?