Can You Tell The Difference Between Economics And Politics? (@EconTalker, @EconLib, #economics, #politics)

These days, it is trendy to practice political punditry under the guise of a thoughtful economist handing out enlightened “economic policy” suggestions.

A recent case in point is the interview with Harvard’s Ed Glaeser with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts, wherein Glaeser shared the following ideas about reforming city governance with respect to “historic preservation districts”:

In the case of the city historic preservation districts I would probably replace the ever-increasing swatch of territories–15% of the land area in Manhattan south, in the bottom half of Manhattan excluding Central Park as an historic preservation district right now–and areas go into historic preservation districts but they rarely come out of them. So, it seems like it’s going to be an ever-increasing swath of the city. I don’t much like the idea of cities being museum pieces. There are a few which are appropriate, like Bruges, but I think it’s good that cities change and that they develop new space, combination of new activities and people. So, I would in terms of preservation–my father was an architectural historian so I do really believe in the value of preserving some old, beautiful buildings–but I would have a fixed number of the total number of buildings that they are able to set aside as being preserved rather than allow them to just keep on getting new areas for preservation districts.

Here is what an economist would say:

Land and property use should be conditioned on “most highly valued use”, as evidenced by voluntary exchanges agreed to by participants in the property market. For some, purchasing historic properties for the purposes of preserving them, perhaps for commercial exploitation as a tourist attraction or simply to be kept out of the hands of the public or those who might privately redevelop them, might be the “most highly valued use” for which a person would exchange their wealth to control these properties. For others, tearing the historic buildings down or otherwise modifying them from their original, historic state, may be the “most highly valued use”, perhaps for the purpose of providing new housing or areas of commerce and industry.

There is no moral reason why future generations should be beholden to the land-use decisions of ancient generations, and even if there was, it is not an economist’s place to discuss such topics.

Notice– Glaeser said none of this, and in fact violated the statement at the end while complementing it all with a bit of arbitrary personal psychological projection, the idea that because his father was an architectural historian he has some kind of special need or special knowledge into the value of preserving historic properties that necessitate the violence of the State to protect such value impositions.

In fact, the closest Glaeser came to say anything “economic” about the subject was his attempt to calculate a “fixed number of total buildings” which would be available for historic preservation. But even here, his theorizing falls flat on its face, for Glaeser does not explain how his arbitrary calculus would be superior to the outcomes of voluntary exchanges between market participants.

How many is a “fixed number”? What constitutes a “building” for purposes of this policy? Which “buildings” shall be a part of this “fixed number” and which shall remain outside it, and how are such decisions evaluated in an objective way?

Such policies are an invitation for gross, arbitrary and wild government intervention and special interest group politicking that Glaeser claims earlier in the interview he is strongly against. Yet, he opens the intellectual door to them in moments like these when he places his economist costume over his political self and attempts to perpetrate a theoretical deception.

Observations On Expectations (#publicschool, #expectations, #psychology)

A story of expectations met and unmet, in two parts.

Part the first. I spoke in front of a group of students at a local continuation high school this morning. The original topic was my career (what do I do? what do I like/dislike about it? etc.) and my career path (what’s my background? education? how’d I get to where I am?) but I never quite got there. I mostly ended up talking about economics as I was speaking to an economics class, nominally, and the program coordinator kept prompting me on that subject.

I introduced two economic concepts to the assembled: TNSTAAFL/opportunity cost, and subjective value theory. I tried to apply them to “real life” to make them tangible and interesting to the audience. I talked about how everyone got suckered into the Housing Bubble, which cost a lot of people their homes, their personal finances, their jobs and sometimes more. I suggested that a person who understood that TNSTAAFL wouldn’t have gotten suckered in because he would’ve recognized the bubble for what it was and played it safe as he could. Subjective value theory I used to explain why we have an economy and why people work jobs, to serve each other’s subjective needs. I encouraged the class to think about their own values and to pursue them, and recognize that when people tell them what to do they’re simply telling them they should follow subjective values other than their own. I tried to highlight the role opportunity cost plays in pursuing subjective values, for example, people often get into traps such as pursuing money to provide for their families in such a way that they don’t get to spend time with their families. This opportunity cost is forgotten or ignored.

I also covered time value of money and the function of credit during a brief tangent, prompted by the program coordinator emphasizing the importance of personal finance principles.

The instructor goaded the students into applauding me before I had even spoke, as some kind of polite welcome for someone who had taken the time to stand before them and pontificate on a subject they cared little about. I said, “We’ll see if you still feel like applauding me at the end” and then began my talk. At the end of it, as the students rose to leave at the sound of the Pavlovian bell, one of the young men closest to me in the front of the room turned to his classmate and said in a quite intentionally audible way, “Thank GOD that is over!”

The morning’s events completely met my expectations and as a result, I was satisfied with myself when I myself left. I had entered a prison, whose inmates were being held against their will, by force of law, who had been assembled before me because they had no other choice save punishment and who had little to no interest in the subjects I had been invited to speak about before them. You certainly can’t blame a person in such circumstances for being disengaged, melodramatic and at times downright hostile.

If you put me in a cage I’d be uncomfortable and not in a friendly mood, either.

I didn’t expect to touch anyone, change a life or spark a fire or interest in anyone for the subjects I spoke about (economics, careers, my career, me) and if I happened to do that despite my intentions, that’s fine. I expected to go in there, treat the poor beasts with respect and maybe a bit of sympathy, having once been caged in a similar manner myself, and deliver my thoughts as articulately and coherently as I could. I expected to get practice speaking before an audience and trying, not necessarily succeeding, at making a foreign subject engaging or relatable for them.

In this, I met my expectations and so I believe I succeeded and thus I felt satisfied.

Part the second. For some time now I have watched in despair as a previously favorite blog of mine has gone into seemingly terminal decline. What was once a source of original thinking, unique coverage and respectable ideological consistency has in time become a haven for hacks and simpletons, its content hollowed-out and refocused on a few topics I just don’t have much interest in. The purveyor of the site has taken numerous opportunities, on his blog and his new webcast radio show, to demonstrate qualities of his personality I’ve found surprising, disappointing and at times reprehensible.

My distress with this reached a fever pitch early this week when a long-awaited debate on the subject of “intellectual property” was joined by the purveyor and another popular blogger on the subject. While the purveyor’s behavior leading up to the discussion gave me no reason to believe it’d be an intelligent, objective attempt at sussing out the truth by the two parties, but rather much evidence that it would be a battle of wills and ego characterized by willful blindness of reason and savage emotional assaults on each respective victim, the final product was so shockingly extreme in terms of all the undesirable qualities I suspected it would contain that I almost couldn’t believe these two adults had allowed themselves to be recorded, their outrage to be shared in front of a public audience of strangers.

I found myself so disappointed with the whole thing. It was anti-intellectual and truly uncivilized, the kind of stuff blood feuds at made of (gusto about sacred honor and the like that can never be satiated by way of reasonable argument). I knew both men were capable of a bit of underhandedness, but at least in the past the underhandedness seemed to have some kind of productive point. This time, after I finished sitting through two and a half hours of two middle-aged men calling each other names and screaming at one another, waiting for a point, I realized too late that there was none beyond sharing pure hate and distrust.

Who was to blame for my dissatisfaction in this instance? Initially, I found myself disgusted with these two people for subjecting me to this idiocy. “How dare they!” Then I thought about it some more. They are who they are. Their current skills and capabilities with regards to interpersonal communication and intellectual reasoning are aspects of their identity that exist as they do, whether I find them appealing or satisfying or not. I expected them to work hard to please me in their debating efforts (despite, I should add, much evidence that they were capable of no such thing) and when they didn’t live up to my expectations, I was disappointed.

Not by them, but by myself. For expecting people to live to serve my intellectual and emotional needs.

In the first part, I participated in something that could easily be seen as a disastrous waste of everybody’s time. Yet, I walked away from it in a positive state of mind. In the second part, I witnessed a true social tragedy and felt depressed and upset. Both circumstances were undesirable, but my reaction was different each time because my expectations were different.

Expectations can glorify our existence or cast the light of our lives down a dark abyss. I hope to remind myself of this fact more often.

The Best Interview On Gold, The Gold Market And Investment Implications I’ve Ever Read (#gold, #economics)

In “What is the key for the price formation of gold?” at GoldSwitzerland.com, SF-based software developer Robert Blumen covers a lot of fascinating and, to my eyes, original ground in an interview with the site’s host.

This has got to be the best interview on the subject of gold in general, the functioning of the gold market and the implications for investors that I’ve ever come across. Blumen not only covers these specific subjects related to gold, but also discusses the Chinese economy, the US economy and the state of monetary and fiscal affairs and even the attitudes of value investors, demonstrating thoughtful familiarity with all he touches. Blumen is well-versed in Austrian economic philosophy and applies this theory to the various practical considerations resulting in surprising new perspectives on common themes.

It’s a long interview and it will only fully reward those determined to dive all the way in. Here’s an excerpt:

There are two different kinds of commodities and we need to understand the price formation process differently for each one. The first one I’m going to call, a consumption commodity and the other type I’m going to call an asset.

A consumption commodity is something that in order to derive the economic value from it, it must be destroyed. This is a case not only for industrial commodities, but also for consumer products. Wheat and cattle, you eat; coal, you burn; and so on. Metals are not destroyed but they’re buried or chemically bonded with other elements making it more difficult to bring them back to the market. Once you turn copper into a pipe and you incorporate it hull of a ship, it’s very costly to bring it back to the market.

People produce these things in order to consume them. For consumption goods, stockpiles are not large. There are, I know, some stockpiles copper and oil, but measured in terms of consumption rates, they consist of days, weeks or a few months.

Now for one moment I ask you to forget about the stockpiles. Then, the only supply that could come to the market would be recent production. And that would be sold to buyers who want to destroy it. Without stockpiles, supply is exactly production and demand is exactly consumption. Under those conditions, the market price regulates the flow of production into consumption.

Now, let’s add the stockpiles back to the picture. With stockpiles, it is possible for consumption to exceed production, for a short time, by drawing down stock piles. Due to the small size of the stocks, this situation is necessarily temporary because stocks will be depleted, or, before that happens, people will see that the stocks are being drawn down and would start to bid the price back up to bring consumption back in line with production.

Now let’s look at assets. An asset is a good that people buy it in order to hold on to it. The value from an asset comes from holding it, not from destroying it. The simplest asset market is one in which there is a fixed quantity that never changes. But it can still be an asset even when there is some production and some consumption. They key to differentiating between consumption and asset is to look at the stock to production ratio. If stocks are quite large in relation to production, then that shows that most of the supply is held. If stocks are small, then supply is consumed.

Let me give you some examples: corporate shares, land, real property. Gold is primarily an asset. It is true that a small amount of gold is produced and a very small amount of gold is destroyed in industrial uses. But the stock to annual production ratio is in the 50 to 100:1 range. Nearly all the gold in the world that has ever been produced since the beginning of time is held in some form.

Even in the case of jewelry, which people purchase for ornamental reasons, gold is still held. It could come back to the market. Every year people sell jewelry off and it gets melted and turned into a different piece of jewelry or coins or bars, depending on where the demand is. James Turk has also pointed out that a lot of what is called jewelry is an investment because in some parts of the world there’s a cultural preference for people to hold savings in coins or bars but in other areas by custom people prefer to hold their portable wealth as bracelets or necklaces. Investment grade jewelry differs from ornamental jewelry in that it has a very small artistic value-added on top of the bullion value of the item.

So, now that I’ve laid out this background, the price of a good in a consumption market goes where it needs to go in order to bring consumption in line with production. In an asset market, consumption and production do not constrain the price. The bidding process is about who has the greatest economic motivation to hold each unit of the good. The pricing process is primarily an auction over the existing stocks of the asset. Whoever values the asset the most will end up owning it, and those who value it less will own something else instead. And that, in in my view, is the way to understand gold price formation.

Many of the people who follow and write about this market look at it as if it were a consumption market and they look at mine supply and industrial fabrication as the drivers of the price as if it were tin, or coal, or wheat. People who look at gold as if it were a consumption market are looking at it the wrong way. But now you can see where the error comes from. In many financial firms gold is in the commodities department, so a commodities analyst gets assigned to write the gold report. If the same guy wrote the report about tin and copper, he might think that gold is just the same as tin and copper. And he starts by looking at mine supply and industrial off-take.

I wonder if more equity analysts or bond analysts were active in the gold area, if they would be more likely to look at it the same way they look at those assets.

 

Brilliant Economist Proposes Bold Solution To Education Crisis From Comfort Of Keyboard (@noahpinion)

I saw this on the Atlantic Monthly’s website, written by an economist (/physicist? /finance professor? /midget wrestler?) named Noah Smith. He came up with a plan for solving the nation’s college education crisis. I am so out of touch, I didn’t even know the nation was having a college education crisis! There are too many crises today, it’s hard to keep up with them all so I hope you’ll forgive me.

Anyway, I read through it and my take-away was that economists like Noah Smith have given up on the whole “voluntary social cooperation” style of getting shit done and have decided it’s more effective to just crack a few whips and get people on board with their objectives that way:

So here’s my idea for increasing the supply of college: A system of federal universities. Currently, we have no such system, but it is not unconstitutional. After all, the federal government runs the United States Military Academy at West Point. My idea is simple: The federal government provides start-up funding for a large number of new universities, offering attractive salaries to professors.

I just realized something. Racism isn’t unconstitutional, but if we don’t amend the Constitution, pronto, someone might decide that the fact that racism isn’t unconstitutional is reason enough to be racist.

Why federal universities instead of state universities? State spending is likely to focus on the existing state university systems. But that will have a limited impact on total college availability, for two reasons. First, increased state funding for existing universities may simply displace alumni funding or tuition funding. That could lower the net price of college, but would have a limited impact on enrollment. Second, there are many geographic areas that don’t yet have elite universities, or only have a few (Ohio comes to mind, as well as much of the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest). Federal universities could fill these gaps. Finally, it’s very difficult to coordinate policy between states, and if we want to create new universities on a large scale, only federal government can do it. [bold emphasis added]

Damn straight! We don’t want any of these puny, fancy-pants small scale universities. If we’re gonna get serious about this crisis, we gotta put our big boy pants on and hire the big guns, FedGov-style!

My take? Dragooning national labor and capital into massive social development projects at the federal level is a great idea, Noah. And I agree, public goods, like education and pyramids, can’t be built any other way.

It’s like I’ve always said– if it’s good enough for the Pharaohs, it’s good enough for our education system!

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy Noah Smith’s glowing praise of a man who is “an important and positive figure in America today,” Michael Moore. I love being helpful.

*UPDATE* (11/19/12)

I stand corrected! A reader is also a writer and e-mails in a correction:

It is unconstitutional for the government to be racially biased–See the Equal Protection Act of the 14th Amendment. It’s why affirmative action is getting to the court so much these days.

I think I might still have a technical case in saying that the Average Joe isn’t prevented from being racist by the Constitution itself, but this is close enough that I might as well retract that little bit of wit.

Politicians Open The Oil Supply Floodgates Post-Sandy; Lessons Learned Or Lost? (#economics)

In “Flared Tempers Over Gasoline Lines Prompt Supply Waivers” at Bloomberg.com, we learn that politicians at the state and federal levels of government are temporarily suspending existing rules, regulations and taxes to increase the supply of gasoline  available in storm-stricken areas while simultaneously lowering the price:

The Obama administration said today that it waived the Jones Act, which requires ships moving goods between U.S. ports to use U.S.-flag vessels. The action, which applies only to refined products, will increase the number of tankers available to transport fuel from Gulf Coast refineries to the East Coast.

In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie suspended requirements that restrict filling stations from buying gasoline from out-of-state suppliers, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo waived taxes and regulations to accommodate more fuel tankers and process them more quickly.

To the average observer, it may seem that these powerful political leaders are able to work economic miracles. Merely by suspending laws, a vast new supply of much-needed gasoline appears out of thin-air to come gushing forth to the masses, alleviating them of their post-hurricane energy stress.

But did these poles really create these refined oil products themselves? Did they create them and summon them into existence through sheer force-of-will and a few expert penstrokes?

No, of course not! This supply of energy existed the whole time, but it wasn’t able to service the people of the affected East Coast regions because rules, regulations and taxes, imposed and enforced by these very politicians, had forcibly prevented and impeded its efficient and cost-effective arrival!

This is an excellent example of Bastiat’s emphasis on the unseen. When the storm arrived and devastated the normal supply-demand equation, it became transparently obvious to everyone that these interventions impose real, dangerous costs to everyone in society and it became politically necessary to suspend them for the benefit of all. But the costs of these programs and policies do not come and go with the storms– they are with us all of the time, imposing unseen costs because the “margin” of economic activity that is thus proscribed is further and further away from the central attention of the average person.

Because these policies impose costs and undue social burdens all of the time, not just in the aftermath of natural disasters, it follows that if and when — though “temporary” increases in government power almost always prove to be anything but, temporary decreases in government power rarely become permanent — these rules and regulations are reimposed, their costs will return as well. And this means everyone will be the poorer for it.

Who will remember this hands-on lesson with the real economic and social costs of government regulations which senselessly restrain trade and commerce? Who will cry out in anger that the politicians deem it necessary to hurt them once again, having tasted this bit of freedom? How many will stand up and ask, “Why? Why are you doing this to us?”

My guess is almost no one, and the few voices which may sound will quickly be muffled, condemned and ultimately ignored.