Oct
18
2024

Emma Camp Responds to a Debbie Downer

She provides some one-minute brilliance for us:

Cheer up!

Also of note:

  • Good job doing the thing we tried to stop you from doing. Kamala Harris, yesterday:

    Today, Israel confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, is dead and justice has been served, and the United States, Israel, and the entire world are better off as a result.

    But lest we forget:

    And from back in April, Dementia Joe:

    Yeah, yeah. We know what you meant, Joe.

  • They should have given it to Bryan Caplan. Deirdre McCloskey is unimpressed with the latest recipients of the Econ Nobel Prize: A Statist Nobel.

    The Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu this October received the Nobel Prize in economics. The other two who got it are his co-authors, the economist Simon Johnson and the political scientist James Robinson. Neither were essential. It’s nice of the Swedish Academy to spread the joy around. And it’s nice for Turkey to have a Nobel. Erdogan will be pleased, because Acemoglu’s theme fits the current regime. Top down. Hurrah for the Masters. Bigger government. Ah, glorious.

    Acemoglu was fated to get the prize eventually. He has been writing for twenty years in favor of two claims. One is that the state is all wise. The other is that all we need for the good society are institutions such as a supreme court, an election, and a time clock in the factory. Such institutions will suffice to ensure that good decisions about free speech will be enforced, that the wisest leaders such as Lula and Bolsonaro will come to power, and that workers in every Brazilian factory will always work hard and for eight hours, to the minute.

    But at Reason, Ronald Bailey. says, if I may summarize, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Deirdre?"

    Oddly, fine economic historian Deidre McCloskey in her recent column for the Brazilian publication Folha denounces Acemoglu a "statist Nobel." She claims that Acemoglu believes that "the state is all wise." Contrariwise, Acemoglu and Robinson both flatly assert, "You can't engineer prosperity." In Why Nations Fail, the two write: "What can be done to kick-start or perhaps just facilitate the process of empowerment and thus the development of inclusive political institutions? The honest answer of course is that there is no recipe for building such institutions." These observations are not all that statist. Her tight focus on the cultural roots of liberalism has perhaps led her to misconstrue as somehow "statist" an institutionalist account of how economic liberty produces prosperity.

    I lack a dog in this fight. But also see David R. Henderson's. take in the WSJ, where he points to another reason for libertarian concern:

    You might think that Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson would be strong believers in economic freedom. Their work is consistent with the findings in the Fraser Institute’s annual Economic Freedom of the World report, which finds a strong positive correlation between economic freedom and real gross domestic product per capita. While the two authors do favor private property rights, Mr. Acemoglu advocates a high minimum wage that adjusts for inflation. He also favors strong antitrust laws.

    You might think that Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson would be strong believers in economic freedom. Their work is consistent with the findings in the Fraser Institute’s annual Economic Freedom of the World report, which finds a strong positive correlation between economic freedom and real gross domestic product per capita. While the two authors do favor private property rights, Mr. Acemoglu advocates a high minimum wage that adjusts for inflation. He also favors strong antitrust laws.

    It’s good to see a Nobel Prize awarded to economists who understand the importance of private property and the rule of law. Unfortunately, Mr. Acemoglu’s understanding is incomplete. He recently signed a statement supporting the Brazilian government’s move to rein in freedom of speech for Brazilians who want to communicate using X. Only time will tell whether Mr. Acemoglu will favor further undercutting of the rule of law. Let’s hope he doesn’t.

    So, a glass-half-full/empty situation? Maybe 65-35?

    Finally, we have Ryan Young at the CEI blog:

    This year’s economics Nobel Prize winners are Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. They are frequent collaborators, often collectively called AJR. Much of their work is about institutions. Institutions are things like the rule of law, a country’s regulatory process, or the way it treats property rights. Think of institutions as the rules of the game, rather than the game itself.

    Those of you familiar with CEI’s work, especially on regulatory reform, know that one of our policy mantras is that institutions matter. Since Nobels often honor a sub-field or a research program more than the individual honorees, from that perspective this is a gratifying prize. In many ways, AJR’s work complements previous institutions-matter economists like Douglass North, Oliver Williamson, Elinor Ostrom, and James Buchanan. And yet, it feels incomplete.

    While AJR are right that institutions matter, they do not explore institutions’ deeper roots. They have also fallen for recent political trends, especially Acemoglu. These trends include populist anti-tech animus, cozying up to illiberal governments, and asking the fashionable questions about inequality instead of the right ones.

    'Twould be a shame if Acemoglu got the Nobel because of his embrace of illiberality.

  • A Way to Avoid Social Security Doomsday? Veronique de Rugy thinks that might have been found: We Can't 'Leave Social Security Alone,' But We Can Protect People Who Need It.

    Specifically, Vero notes the thing that (for example) neither Trump nor Kamala want to deal with: when the "Trust Fund" is exhausted, "Social Security benefits will be cut across the board by 21%". And there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    Democrats would like to keep all the benefits and raise taxes on higher-income people quite dramatically. This is a ridiculous idea. The damage caused by jacking up the payroll tax to the level required to restore solvency isn't worth the benefit.

    There is an alternative that makes far more sense. Today, seniors are generally wealthier than younger workers and are overrepresented in the top income quintile. Keeping every dime of your Social Security whether you are rich or poor means the program effectively redistributes money from younger and poorer people to richer people. That's not right. We should have a system that redistributes money only to those who need it the most.

    Enter Andrew Biggs and Kristin Shapiro. In their new paper, "A Simple Plan to Address Social Security Insolvency," they note that if the scheduled 21% cut is implemented on "an equal percentage basis for every retiree," it would "double the elderly poverty rate and reduce total income for the median senior household by 14 percent."

    Instead, they suggest that when a program becomes insolvent, "the executive branch in fact possesses considerable discretion to allocate those limited funds in a reasonable manner." The idea is that the president at the time of the trust-fund exhaustion would pay full Social Security benefits to those in greatest need first.

    Specifically, starting in 2033, if Congress hasn't reformed Social Security, cap monthly benefits to $2,050. That would cover full benefits for about 50% percent of retirees, arguably those who depend the most on Social Security. The benefits for the other half of retirees, the higher-income ones, would be distributed on a progressive basis. The higher one's income, the larger the necessary cut would be.

    Ah. Well, that would kick me in the nards, assuming I live that long. And (certainly) a lot of the people who get a big SS payment every month would scream bloody murder. Still, it seems like a reasonable option.

  • Learning is good, because then, y'know, you learn stuff. And congrats to Jeff Maurer, who says: I Tried to Learn Something From Megolopolis. That being Francis Ford Coppola's recent movie. And… well, don't sugarcoat it, Jeff:

    Megalopolis is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, ever will see, or ever could see. It’s like The Room, but with a $120 million budget. The film is more masturbatory than your typical OnlyFans live stream, and it made me embarrassed not only for the actors, but also for the crew, America, and Thomas Edison for having invented the movie camera in the first place. This movie is the most thorough destruction of a famous person’s reputation that didn’t involve a brutal stabbing at 875 South Bundy Drive, and I have probably (rightly) been placed on an FBI watch list just because I sat through the entire 138 minute run time.

    OK, I guess I'll wait until it comes to one of the streaming services I get.