Quiet Declarations

Paul Krugman wrote something in today’s column that’s about as scary as it comes:

There’s a powerful political faction in this country that’s determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from the Katrina debacle — namely, that the government always fails when it attempts to help people in need, so it shouldn’t even try. “I don’t want the people who ran the Katrina cleanup to manage our health care system,” says Mitt Romney, as if the Bush administration’s practice of appointing incompetent cronies to key positions and refusing to hold them accountable no matter how badly they perform — did I mention that Mr. Chertoff still has his job? — were the way government always works.

And I’m not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause.

Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way.

To be sure, a president who doesn’t hold his appointees to a higher standard of accountability isn’t using even the little power he has to affect the incentives.  But Krugman defiantly embraces the fatal conceit — for him, central planning isn’t just better, it’s the moral way to go even if it’s worse!

And for Krugman, those pesky public choice problems don’t seem to be all that big a deal as long as we’ve got the right guys in there — and by right, he means mainly not conservatives, who in his judgment are as a homogenous group not just incompetent but determined to see people dying in the streets of New Orleans and outside hospitals in order to prove their incoherent theories.  But the most dangerous thing about Krugman’s argument isn’t that he thinks government should always be the solution, or that its only real failures occur when guys he doesn’t like are in office.  It’s the last sentence, where he sets up an emotional dichotomy: either you believe government can provide the solution or you’re a heartless bastard who doesn’t care about people, end of story.

Paul Krugman used to be a very well-respected economist who seems to have decided that being an columnist means you don’t have to be an empericist anymore.  If I were going to draw the exact opposite conclusion from the entire life work of James Buchanan, dismissing in the process most of the life work of Milton Friedman, in five sentences, I would probably be looking for better evidence than an ad hominem attack on an entire subset of the population to justify my point.

GOP strategist Scott Reed wonders how low the Republicans can go.  I’d like to know the same thing.  I’d prefer to debate the best people or the best ideas for the country, and that’s pretty difficult when one of the parties has to dance around like it’s trapped in a metal room with a malfunctioning automatic weapon.

It’s a bit hard to swallow when you think of it that way rhetorically, but Jeremy Lott has the rundown on Bruce Barlett’s skewering of the fair tax.

I think the question gets harder if you frame the question morally, as most progressive tax proponents try to do in arguing that the rich don’t “deserve” to keep the same share of their income.  But if your goal is to revise the tax system in a way that minimizes the number of people who are worse off, it seems hard to argue that the fair tax is a better idea than the flat tax.

Everyone’s looking for a political leader who will inspire and transform, who will “clean up the town” and defy the status quo.  And many political leaders are emotionally compelling in their promises to do so.  Why doesn’t it happen more often?

USA Today profiles a few fallen stars and tries to figure out what went wrong.  If you know anything about public choice theory none of this should be surprising in the slightest.  The other legislators and public officials, the media, the special interests, the voters — these are all extremely influential groups that are willing to mount all of the forces at their disposal to take you down if you purport to take action that would not be beneficial to them.  Even if you did find an altruist (and I would argue you won’t) and convince her to run for office, she’s still got an entire world of non-altruists around her to contend with.  When a politician in the limelight falls, it isn’t just a random case of corruption, it’s the way the game is played.

Everyone wants a leader who can change the world.  Bad news, folks: nearly every leader who changed the world did so for the worse, either based on a divided conception of what’s better or worse (i.e. FDR vs. Reagan) or perhaps everyone’s conception of what’s worse (i.e. Hitler).  Think of the people who we generally accept to have changed the world for the better — how many of them were politicians?  And if you can think of such politicians, how many of them changed the world for the better by implementing their predefined agenda, and how many are heroes now because they responded well to the unexpected challenges they faced?

With a system like this, it’s a wonder more people aren’t compelled to vote for the politician who promises to do the least!  Wow, now I’ve depressed myself — at this point I think my primary characteristics for politicians are being able to tolerate seeing their faces on TV every day and having some sound disaster relief training.

Add one more reason (via Reason — ha!) to the litany of arguments for the government to get out of the business of messing with sugar prices!

Is it a great market for laborers?  Nope, just a bad economy.  I vote for subsidies to business owners, an increase in the minimum wage, and tighter restrictions on legal immigration.

Ilya Somin offers some excellent reflections on this issue, that I naturally find excellent in part because I happen to agree with him.  We both feel that most apprehension about cross-ideological dating “stems from unjustified intolerance” with limited exceptions.  Based on my experiences, particularly living in DC and working with ideologues of all flavors as a part of my job, I’m content to support both of Ilya’s suggestions as to why dating across ideological lines ends up being a bigger problem than it ought to be.

People who are otherwise compatible often forget just how similar their lifestyles are outside of their political views.  But even if changing the world is your day job or your lifelong passion, holding everyone you associate with to an ideological purity test ultimately seems an unfulfilling and potentially self-destructive tactic.  For no ideology is this more obvious than libertarianism, where the crazies really do end up in a bunker in the woods by themselves.

Far more concerning to me is Ilya’s second point: “the perception that certain political views are not just mistakes, but proof that the person who holds them has corrupt values.”  He continues:

Partisans and ideologues routinely overestimate the extent to which political disagreements reflect differences in fundamental values rather than divergent evaluations of the best way to achieve the same or similar values. A very high proportion of the disagreements between conservatives, liberals, and libertarians in the US today fall into the latter category.

Offhand I can think of at least three people I’ve dated whose political views are to a large degree shaped by the fact that they view the other guy’s ideology as perenially, inherently corrupt, and the other guy’s supporters as blinded by ignorance or irrationality on this point.  As with Ilya, politics wasn’t the dealbreaker in any of these relationships, but the difficulty in conversing intelligently on any issue where one person draws a line in the sand is rather apparent.  Such lines should be reserved for an extremely narrow set of issues — Ilya cites the racist and the Nazi as examples.

In summary, the problem with cross-ideological dating does indeed seem to be an irrationally-held intolerance for the other side’s views that seeps into the relationship realm in the form of supercharged emotion.  Which is too bad really, since people who are ideologically empassioned tend to be more interesting overall, creating a market-limiting paradox of sorts.

See previous posts from me on DC dating, of a less serious variety…

I used to be fond of saying that Baby Gap killed society, but apparently they aren’t even in the running.

Related: what may have inspired today’s teenagers

The Rangers destroyed the Orioles 30-3 tonight.  Yes, the third worst team in baseball racked up the largest margin of victory since 1897.  Stat of the century nominee:

The Baltimore Ravens, who play across the parking lot from the Orioles, haven’t allowed 30 points since Week 12 in 2005.

Oh, and this was the first game in a doubleheader!  The Orioles deserve some credit for managing to hold their heads up and come out for a second game, albeit they also lost 9-7.

The University of Miami will be playing football at Dolphin Stadium instead of the Orange Bowl next year, due to factors such as the deteriorating quality of the stadium.  The city offered public funds to renovate it and they declined.  An excerpt:

“Is it appropriate for the University of Miami, a private university, to ask the people, the taxpayers of the city, to spend $200 million on six games a year?” Shalala asked.

Ultimately, that answer was no.

Note that the university official raises the consideration, but the reporter adds the conclusion.  Should that cast doubts on whether the ethics of taking public funds mattered to the committee?  Perhaps.  Still, it’s a noble end at least.

As you might expect given recent posts, I support Alex’s “So You Think You Can Be President?” game show idea for choosing a president, or at least for vetting the nominees.  It does make sense, after all, that we determine the president actually possesses the skills to perform his or her constitutionally-defined functions.

Currently the only skill we seem to be vetting for is the ability to form political coalitions to jam poorly-thought-out ideas through the legislative process, and that doesn’t seem to be helping us much.

Why are mayors in large cities such as New York often members of the non-mainstream party?  Or, to ask another way, since most large cities lean heavily Democratic why would they ever have Republican mayors?

Megan McCardle gives an answer I find compelling, though apparently somebody forgot to share this strategy with DC candidates or the voters.

Andrew links to prose about how the calamity that is email has ruined our lives, but he quotes the wrong paragraph in my opinion.  Here’s my favorite:

Email is good for one thing only: flirtation. The problem with flirtation has always been that the nervousness you feel in front of the object of your infatuation deprives you of your wittiness. But with email you can spend an hour refining a casual sally. You trade clever notes as weightless, pretty, and tickling as feathers. The email, like the Petrarchan sonnet, is properly a seduction device, and everyone knows that the SUBJECT line should really read PRETEXT.

But one has many correspondents, and few if any lovers. Individually, they’re all decent people; collectively, they form an army marching to invade your isolation and ransack your valuable time.

I also appreaciate the part about how “the new efficient technology ends up costing far more time than it ever saves.”  But I’d never get rid of email — as dastardly as it may be, it’s wealth creation at its finest.  Cost of letters down, disposable incomes up.  Cost per transaction down, productivity up.  An admittedly irritating example, but an appropriate one nonetheless.

Pat Forde calls it right — the Pac-10 may have a couple of really good teams, but top to bottom the SEC reigns supreme.  Best quote:

The reason is simple: The SEC has to be better than the Pac-10. It’s nonnegotiable.

The quality of life in the South is dependent upon good college football. Local economies, race relations and collective psychological health all would suffer without it. Sweet tea would not be as sweet. Fried chicken would not be as crispy. Country songs would be even sadder.

If SEC football were mediocre, the South might as well be back in Reconstruction.

And who would want to be back in Reconstruction?

By the way, Ivan Maisel says the SEC is superior to the Big 12 as well, as if that surprised anyone.  No word on the Big 10 because ESPN chose to match it against the Pac-10 in their bracket, and the Pac-10 won for what seem to me to be very dubious reasons.

Yesterday I made fun of Democratic presidential candidates who don’t understand economics, or worse, pretend they don’t understand economics.  Someday soon for the sake of balance I’ll make fun of Republican candidates who don’t understand economics, albeit the disregard probably won’t be as comprehensive because this is one of the areas Republicans tend to do far better than Democrats.  In fact, if you know anyone who badmouths Republicans incessantly and then not bring themselves to vote for the Democrat at the end of the day, it’s probably due to the unshakeable fear of just how bad most Democrats abuse the most basic economic principles on a daily basis.  (Ahh, remember those lively intellectual debates in 2004?  “But it’s Bush!  But it’s Kerry!  But it’s Bush!  But it’s Kerry!”)

As for gas prices, what’s my opinion?  I used to be all upset about high gas prices, mainly because I was in college when they started to rise dramatically and gas was one of my main expenses.  So, to be fair, now that I rarely drive it’s not as salient an issue for me.  But, on the other hand, I’m one of the people who changed their behavior in part because of high gas prices, so it’s not entirely like I just got “lucky” or anything.  But I digress…

My first question to politicians about gas prices has always been “what’s your goal?”  If your goal is cheap gas prices, then you ought to be figuring out how to cut gas taxes, cut corporate taxes, reduce trade barriers, reduce barriers on discovering and extracting new oil reserves, and reduce the regulatory costs at every stage of gasoline refinement, at a minimum.  Probably you should also take a look at how foreign policy impacts oil prices, though it’s quite difficult to accurately predict the economic impact of those decisions.  But do keep in mind that these solutions do nothing to reduce use of gasoline or protect the environment.

Is your goal to reduce dependence on foreign oil?  Well, now your best strategy is probably to increase the barriers to obtaining oil altogether, or to reduce the cost of the substitute goods.  This certainly means investment and/or incentives in less oil-dependent technologies (which could be public or private, e.g. the X-Prize!).  It could also mean taxes, regulations, and restrictions — basically the reverse of everything you would do to lower gas prices.  You could also opt to reduce the relative barriers to obtaining domestic oil by increasing extraction of known domestic oil reserves (read: ANWR).  I suppose conquest is an option too, albeit not a cost effective one.  But note that these solutions do nothing to lower gas prices, and in fact will almost certainly raise them.

Or, let’s say your chief concern is the environment.  Now you’re going to want to do everything I just mentioned to reduce oil dependence, but in addition, make life as insanely difficult as possible for every company associated with the oil business.  Think carbon tax, or perhaps you’ve got another creative solution in mind.  Alternatively, you could go the punitive or regulatory route and try to legislate away all the problems.  Just note that higher gas prices and causing economic harm to suppliers, distributors, retailers, and consumers associated with oil is a necessary function of your goal, not something you can avoid in the process.  If your chief concern is the environment, then your problem is that people are getting in the way.

Maybe your goal is punitive: you’re just really really mad at oil companies because oil companies are just bad.  Well, then you could just single them out for punishment — high regulation, “price gouging” (read: supply and demand) investigations, an “excess” (read: you have money and I want it) profits tax, legislative exceptions that single out these companies in particular, etc.  Just remember that this will definitely increase gas prices, increase dependence on foreign oil, harm the environment (by shifting demand to companies that are less efficient and not subject to U.S. law), and increase costs for everyone down the line.

So, next time you’re debating someone about gas prices, first define your goal and get the other person to define hers.  Then ask a few questions to determine the person’s consistency and economic literacy.  This, hopefully, will give you the information you need to know whether or not the conversation will be a productive one.