Reverie

Trade war is an insidious term. The metaphor notwithstanding, trade isn’t war. It’s peace. --Jacoby

 

Arthur Pigou argued in favor of state intervention in private economics.  His logic  goes like this: markets fail (by externalities, asymmetric information, etc.), so the state should act, providing corrective measures. Of course, that would only be a complete prescription if one is reasonably certain that the actual actions of the state are likely to be an improvement over the actual results obtained from the market.

The main thrust of the public choice movement was to correct this naïve optimism about the state. There are two main types of problems identified in the work of James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the other scholars who developed the public choice critique starting in the 1960s.

The first is information: It may be true that prices do not reflect the full opportunity cost, or “social cost,” of resources. But without prices the state is just as blind! The government has an information problem no less profound than market systems’. Knowing the correct level of Pigouvian tax, in the absence of prices, is not just difficult; it’s impossible. The dispersed knowledge of value is possessed by no single individual, and no bureaucratic technique can fully solve that problem. The information problem is not solvable by imagining that the state is an omniscient dictator.

The second problem is incentives: there is no reason to expect that those in power are motivated solely, or perhaps even primarily, by the public good.

(from Munger)


What was....Brook Farm?

For the 20 most dangerous US occupations based on fatality rates per 100,000 workers by industry and occupation in 2016, men represented more than 90% of the workers in 14 of those 20 occupations and more than 85% of the workers in 18 of the 20 most dangerous occupations. Overall, 92.5% of workplace fatalities in 2016 were men (4,492 men vs. 344 women), who experienced a death rate almost ten times higher than women (5.8 male vs. 0.6 female fatal injuries per 100,000 full-time workers).

True liberalism by itself is, as Adam Smith said, “the liberal plan of [social] equality, [economic] liberty, and [legal] justice,” then leaving people alone, with a little help in the form of a modest national defense and some subsidies to elementary education. By contrast, more intentional practices are exactly what we do not need. We’ve tried them, in Brook Farm and in Russian central planning. Believing that we need to “intend” an economic result in order for it to be just and good exhibits the ignorance of economics found in many political theorists, and now in Pope Francis and his economic advisers. (In departments of political science, the ignorance is paired strangely by a group of ardent econo-wannabes reducing politics to game theory.)--McCloskey

Epstein on Warren's goofy "stakeholder" nonsense: "This same woolly notion of stakeholder claims also could reshape nonprofit boards and even governmental institutions. Universities could be required to set aside board seats for local residents, alumni, potential applicants, prospective employers of graduates, and of course university employees. Hospitals could have required seats for drug addicts and chronically ill patients. Churches could be required to put apostates and atheists on their boards. Seats in the Massachusetts Legislature could be reserved for people from other states, and in Congress for aliens."

Caricature: In literature, a caricature is a character who is given a combination of oversimplified and exaggerated characteristics and features. Caricatures can often be used for satirical purposes, or to generalize about a group of people.

The word caricature comes from the Italian word caricare, which means “to charge or load.” While caricatures have been found as early as in cave paintings in Pompeii, they gained more popularity in French and Italian aristocratic circles in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Portraits were painted representing famous people, especially politicians, that were humorous. The definition of caricature thus carries this meaning of being a charged painting.

 

Medscape reports researchers found in “a new systematic review and meta-analysis” that “prostate cancer screening using a [prostate-specific antigen] blood test leads to a small reduction in disease-specific mortality over 10 years, but it is no effect on overall mortality.” The findings were published in the BMJ. This battle will go on and on and, when it is over, the combatants will refuse to leave the field.

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300 billion dollars have been "repatriated" with new tax law so far.

Clean energy marches on. Coal was 37% of energy used in 1997. It is now....37%.

There is a reliever in baseball named Hirano. He is in his first year from Japan. He is impressive. He pitched his 25th consecutive scoreless outing, surpassing the Arizona Diamondbacks' club record, despite the team's 2-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants. I saw him in some trouble in a game and the pitching coach rushed to the mound--with an interpreter. The coach, as is the fashion now, covered his mouth as he spoke to the interpreter. Then the interpreter covered his mouth as he spoke to Hirano.

In Venezuela there is 400,000% inflation rate. A cup of coffee cost one quarter of the average monthly salary. Curiously, its size and natural wealth is quite close to Saudi Arabia's.

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2018/01/sundaythursday.html

There has been a lost if negative Russian news efforts in the U.S. and Europe over fracking. Now there is a significant effort by the Russians to negatively influence the image of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the U.S.. Russia's English-language propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik produced more articles containing "GMO" than five other major news organizations — Huffington Post, Fox News, CNN, Breitbart News and MSNBC — combined.

In San Francisco, the average salary is $117,000, the average house costs $900,000.

Angela Merkel’s position as German chancellor became more precarious after her interior minister rejected a European deal on limiting immigration she championed as insufficient, threatening her government.

So the pro-immigration frenzy is waning?

A friend says her recent trip to Germany surprised her with the animosity to Merkel.

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So Harley-Davidson is going to move a plant to Europe. We are exporting not importing  investments. That's good, right?

 

A great quote from Spencer: Nowhere is there so astounding a contrast between the difficulty of the task and the unpreparedness of those who undertake it. Unquestionably among monstrous beliefs one of the most monstrous is that while for a simple handicraft, such as shoemaking, a long apprenticeship is needful, the sole thing which needs no apprenticeship is making a nation’s laws!

 

Physician jobs are expected to grow 15% from 2016 to 2026. As the demand for physicians grows, certain specialties are more in demand than others. The top two?

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1. Geriatrics		164%
2. Urology		49%

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Tesla’s top engineer, Doug Field, won’t return from his leave of absence, a person familiar with the situation said. (wsj)
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Aaaaaaaannnnnnddddd......a list: