Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

American Spectator review of The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review ,”a comprehensive attack on the doctrine of judicial supremacy,” by Larry D. Kramer, Dean of Stanford Law:

KRAMER ENDS THE BOOK with a call for ordinary citizens to “lay claim to the Constitution ourselves.” He suggests that we must censure judges rather than submissively yielding to whatever the Supreme Court decides. As for more concrete actions, Kramer does note that judges can be impeached, the Court’s budget cut, and the Court’s jurisdiction curtailed. But, unfortunately, he spends little time developing these themes. For example, a more thorough discussion is warranted of Congress’s power to impeach and why this power has become but a scarecrow. Also, Kramer never addresses whether “mobbing” — or other such elements of 18th century political behavior — should be revived as part of popular constitutionalism.

Despite these foibles, The People Themselves is a valuable addition to constitutional scholarship.

Nice to hear that someone else is thinking about solutions.

"http://www.weeklystandard.com/check.asp?idArticle=166&r=bwgdz">James
D. Miller’s ($) “The Patient’s Right Not to Sue” from The
Weekly Standard has a good idea captured in the first two
paragraphs:

I DON’T WANT THE ABILITY to sue my health insurance company. Lawyers
are expensive, so if my insurance providers know that I might sue
them, they’ll charge me more. Other people, in contrast, might want to
pay for the ability to sue. A true patients’ bill of rights would give
all of us the choice.

Unfortunately, the congressional sponsors of the patients’ bill of
rights now heading for a House-Senate conference this fall seem to
have forgotten the difference between rights and obligations. They
want to force everyone to pay higher health insurance premiums in
return for the ability to sue. But if I hate broccoli, forcing me to
buy it increases my obligations, not my rights.

So many laws presented as giving people rights are, instead, taking them away– the right to social security (meaning you have to pay payroll taxes) and medicare (ditto), or to an 8-hour day (meaning you have to accept that length of day) or to unionize (meaning, in many states, that if your company has a union, you must join it).

I just heard a talk by Oliver Curry at the Workshop on evolutionary biologyand economics. Some of my notes might be worth putting up on my weblog.

What matters, I think, is what questions evolutionary biology
helps answer that economists cannot answer well now. It’s hard when you’re calling for a start to
work, but if you can find just one or two examples of where
biology helps, that would be a good invitation.

Here’s a way to approach it: Rather than say, “You need to
learn a lot more complicated theory”, say “Here are some
exmaples where a simple addition to your theory explains
something you couldn’t explain before”. “Why young men overestimate their ability” is one example. Most examples I can think of involve explaining tastes rather than thinking, but you could have examples both thinking and tastes. Economists *are* interested to some extent in explaining tastes.

Note, though, that even the “Young men overestimate” idea doesn’t need the gene– it just uses evolution and the simpler idea of “organisms try to maximize reproductive fitness”.

The “invitation to learn a new tool” approach is why economics has been so successful in law. It has proven useful for explaining lots of things that didn’t have good explanations before. Lawyers can bring it in for specific applications without having to use it for everything, though some then decided to learn it systematically and use it for everything.

As opposed to behavioral economics, evolution adds an
explanation for behavior rules, and a suggestion that the
rule would be the same for all humans, as oppposed to
history-dependent (culture-dependent). Thus, we avoid having
a big collection of entirely unrelated rules. We could have a
research rule of saying that you should always try to find
an evolutionary explanation for a behavioral rule.

The WSJ has a story on the continued attacks by the ACLU on the Boy Scouts. Interesting, isn’t it, that attacking the Boy Scouts is so popular with liberals? (And that other evil, the Salvation Army?) The Boy Scouts are against homosexuality (in the mild sense of not wanting homosexuals to go camping with boys) and for religion. Those “bads” trump the good the organization does– yet another example of how liberals, despite their protestations, really don’t value children (a provocative statement, I know, but how many liberals like large families? How many bother to homeschool? How many think it is nobler for a woman to be a mother than an office worker?)

Ever since the Supreme Court upheld the Scouts’ First Amendment right to bar Scoutmasters who are openly gay, the ACLU has looked for softer targets. The suit against the military is one of a series aimed at getting communities to deny access to public facilities. The original lawsuit also challenged the city of Chicago’s sponsorship of troops in public schools, another venue where sponsors aren’t always easy to find. The city settled.

In Connecticut the ACLU has succeeded in getting the state to remove the Scouts from the list of charitable institutions to which public employees may make voluntary contributions. And earlier this year it settled a suit against the city of San Diego, which agreed to evict the Scouts from a public park they have been using since 1918. The Scouts countersued, lost, and the case is now on appeal before the Ninth Circuit.

The question no one seems to be asking is, who’s better off as a result of these lawsuits? Surely not the 3.2 million Boy Scouts, whose venerable organization is part of the web of voluntary associations once considered the bedrock of American life. If anything, the purpose of the ACLU attacks is to paint Scouts as religious bigots. Other losers are communities themselves, which are forced to sever ties to an organization that helps to build character in young men.

It’s been 20 years since the ACLU brought its first suit against the Scouts. If there’s one thing we’ve learned by now, it’s that the ACLU offensive says more about the degraded status of the civil liberties group than it does about the Boy Scouts.

The sermon today at ECC mentioned 1 Peter 2:9 [+/-]1 Peter 2:9 [9]But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (ESV)
:

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye
should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out
of darkness into his marvellous light:

I realize I am a member of three “peculiar peoples”: Christians, conservatives, and scholars.

1 Peter 2:9 [+/-]1 Peter 2:9 [9]But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (ESV)
is about Christians, the continuation of the Jews, who consider themselves special and chosen by God, and are considered, when they are serious, “peculiar” by the other peoples of the world. Christians are like the freed prisoners of Plato’s Cave, who see the reality that casts the shadows seen by the prisoners as their only reality, but who cannot be understood well by the prisoners. Christians constantly face the temptation to pretend to still be prisoners, seeing the same things as everyone else. It is an insidious temptation, because the main thing it requires is silence, which comes easily to us anyway.

Conservatives are another peculiar people, at least nowadays. The Left has largely won the Culture War. The preacher today said bravely that he was going to do something unusual and make a political statement in church: that he was against the state lottery. But that is not a political statement; it is a moral statement. He may be wrong, but the morality of gambling, and whether the state should promote it, is definitely a subject for discussion in the churches. But it is now framed as merely a political issue. On a number of topics, the conservative position, even if perhaps a majority position, has become marginalized, without outspoken support in the media or from politicians. But we wait, and remember the similar position of economic conservatives in 1960.

And then there are the scholars. Even in universities, not everyone thinks that the life of the mind is important, or even is really conscious of it as a possibility. In business schools, CEO’s are as admired as professors, and it is my impression that in the liberal arts TV anchormen are seen as people worthy of admiration. Are the sciences different? I hope so. The way to progress is to see the 1st-year graduate student as a being superior to the corporate lawyer and the cardiac surgeon, and infinitely superior to the sports hero.

This is pride, of a sort, and hence for a Christian is dangerous ground, but I don’t think it is pride of a bad sort. Anyone can, with God’s grace, be a Christian, if he is willing to be despised by the world. Anyone can, even without God’s grace, be a conservative. To be a successful scholar does require special talents, but mostly it requires an attitude, and even the aspirant is treated as more important than those who achieve success in mundane fields. So the pride is mostly that of being on the right side, a matter of personal choice, and not a choice you made for material gain or social acceptance.

Steve Sailer’s “The 2004 IQ Wars: So Much For The Candidates–What About The Voters?”
is good. Exit polls are the standard way to check on the income and education of voters for particular candidates. As Sailer says, we have good reason now to mistrust the quality of the polls, but here is what they say:

Income. Not surprisingly, given Bush’s tax-cut agenda, voters with incomes over $100,000 went for Bush over Kerry 58-41 .

Education. In 2000, the self-reported educational level of the average Bush and Gore voters was virtually identical. In the 2002 House races, Republican voters did quite a bit better with the well-educated, winning 58-40 among college graduates and even winning a majority among those who had undertaken some graduate study. (The latter’s ranks are inflated by Democratic-voting public school teachers who have done post-grad work in the easy field of Education.) v

But in 2004, as you may have noticed, Bush ran a pretty dumbscale campaign. The Democrats normally win by a landslide among high school dropouts. This time, however, Bush wrestled Kerry to a draw among that segment. Bush ended up with an average voter with only a month and a half less schooling overall than Kerry’s typical supporter.

Sailer quotes Professor Lindgren on the interesting fact that General Social Survey data (the standard sociology dataset) shows that conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats are both above average in education and do better on short word tests compared to moderates.

I was struck by Sailer’s observation that “people with some graduate work” really means “public schoolteachers”. He’s quite right. Their Master’s and Doctoral degrees, despite meaning very little, are extremely numerous, swamping real advanced degrees. So it is not the liberal professors who are driving the liberalism of people who have done graduate work. In fact, the professors are probably swamped even by the MBA’s and MD’s.

Much of his article debunks the comparison of Bush states with Kerry states, making obvious points such as that in the South, Bush voters almost certainly have higher IQ’s than Kerry voters. But he also raises a problem with the plausibility of the data we are told about.

Everyone familiar with IQ testing scoffed at the validity of the hoax data that claiming the average IQ in Connecticut was 113 and in Utah was 87. To see why, it’s important to understand how IQ tests are scored.

The mean is typically set at 100 and the standard deviation is 15. This implies that Utah’s average person would fall 26/15ths (or 1.73) standard deviations lower than the average person in Connecticut.

Using the Normdist function in Microsoft Excel, you can easily put this on a percentile basis. This hoax data therefore implies that a Utah resident of average intelligence (50th percentile) would be only at the 4th percentile in Connecticut. The average person in Connecticut (50th percentile) would suddenly be at the 96th percentile if he moved to Utah.

When phrased like that, the numbers appear obviously wrong.

Alex Tabarrok has a good post at Marginal Revolution on how one kind of health care cost has actually fallen:

Laser eye surgery has the highest patient satisfaction ratings of any surgery, it has been performed more than 3 million times in the past decade, it is new, it is high-tech, it has gotten better over time and… laser eye surgery has fallen in price. In 1998 the average price of laser eye surgery was about $2200 per eye. Today the average price is $1350, that’s a decline of 38 percent in nominal terms and slightly more than that after taking into account inflation.

Why the price decline in this market and not others? Could it have something to do with the fact that laser eye surgery is not covered by insurance, not covered by Medicaid or Medicare, and not heavily regulated? Laser eye surgery is one of the few health procedures sold in a free market with price advertising, competition and consumer driven purchases.

I don’t know that there hasn’t been decline in the price of other procedures– or every procedure– as they become better known, but this is still a striking example of how competition drives down price.

There is another example of falling health costs which is so obvious one might miss it: the fall in the price of drugs when their patents expire. One reason to be nervous about the Bush Medicare drugs bill is that pharmaceuticals have been such a successful part of health care.

See the updated version at http://www.rasmusen.org/x/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=924

I was wondering what had happened to welfare spending over time. The adjacent table from the 2003 Statistical Abstract shows changes in income-tested government transfers during the 1990’s. Compare 1990 and 2000, in constant dollars. Federal and state medical benefits rose from 69 to 225 billion dollars per year. Cash payments went from 61 to 91, peaking at 109 in 1995. Food went from 29 to 34, peaking at 49 in 1994. Housing went from 21 to 34 billion, peaking at 36 in 1996.

AFDC, a cash benefits program, was reformed in 1996– the well- known “welfare reform”– but other programs were not. As a Heritage Foundation report says,

Only one federal welfare program–AFDC–was reformed in 1996. The other 69 major means-tested programs, including food stamps, housing, and Medicaid, were left largely unchanged with no requirements to be engaged in constructive activity, such as work or education, as a condition for receiving aid.

The rate of caseload decline varies enormously among the 50 states, which shows that welfare policies were the key factors behind falling dependence, not economic conditions. If economic conditions were the main factor driving down caseloads, the variation in state reduction rates would be linked to variation in state economic conditions. But the relative vigor of state economies had no statistically significant effect on caseload decline….

Another Heritage report, on poverty and inequality, has evidence on the peculiarity of the official definition of poverty:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio….

According to the Census Bureau and other various government reports, nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars…

Today, the typical American defined as poor by the government not only has a refrigerator, a stove, and a washing machine, but also has a car, air conditioning in his home, a microwave, a color TV, a VCR, and a stereo. His home is in good repair and is not over-crowded. He is able to obtain medical care. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and in the past year, he had sufficient funds to meet his essential needs.

While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of poverty conveyed by politicians, the press, and activists. Most of America’s “poor” live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.

Remember the Bush steel tariffs? Here is the latest from
the
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36261-
2004Nov9.html">Washington Post.

The European Union has requested talks with the U.S.
government over antidumping duties that have hit a British
steel firm in the first step toward asking the World Trade
Organization to condemn the U.S. tariffs, EU officials said
Tuesday.

The EU maintains that the United States is breaching the
rules of global commerce through its tariffs of almost 126
percent on imports of stainless steel bars made by Firth
Rixson Special Steels Ltd.

Washington imposed the duties in March 2002, claiming the
company was unfairly dumping cheap goods on the U.S.
market….

Last year the Bush Administration removed “safeguard”
duties imposed on imported steel to protect domestic
producers after they were declared illegal by the WTO.

So we imposed extraordinary steel tariffs, waited for the
WTO to declare them against WTO rules (which they obviously
were) and then lifted them. We still, however, have some
steel tariffs, through the ordinary process of having the
U.S. International Trade Commission say that dumping
(charging unfairly low prices) is going on.

There was much complaint about Bush’s extraordinary
steel tariffs, but little against the ordinary process. This
illustrates a general point: what is most dangerous in
government is not the special favors, but the routine ones.
Special favors come and go; routine favors stay and stay.
The same thing goes on with appropriations (porkbarrel
spending on senior citizen centers, for example) and
entitlements (Medicare). Appropriations get the attention,
but entitlements are a bigger problem. Appropriations do go
down sometimes; entitlements, almost never. The only
example I can think of is the welfare reform of the 1990’s,
and I’m not sure that actually reduced spending.

This makes me more forgiving of the extraordinary steel
tariffs and the rise in appropriations spending under Bush
of which many people complain. If those payments are
necessary to get support for more important things such as
the war in Iraq or confirmation of judges who won’t violate
their oaths, they’re worth it.

On the other hand, it makes me less forgiving of the
Medicare drug benefits that Bush passed. Like the Americans
with Disabilities Act that Dole helped pass, those drug
benefits will be with us a long time, and with little
political benefit.

Professor Hummels visited here Friday and taught me a few things. Here are some notes from a paper of his, Hummels \& Klenow’s “THE VARIETY AND QUALITY OF A NATION’S TRADE”:

Gallup, Sachs and Mellinger (1998) find that a country’s access to navigable waterways is strongly related to its trade and development. Gallup, Sachs and Mellinger (1998), “Geography and Economic Development,” NBER Working Paper #6849, December.

Frankel and Romer (1999) find that distance from other economies is very negatively related to its trade and per capita income. Frankel, Jeffrey and David Romer (1999), “Does Trade Cause Growth?,” American Economic Review 89(3), 379-399.

Professor Hummels gave a seminar here, and explained part of the paper to me. Suppose a large country expands its exports. Three things might happen:

1. Products are homogeneous, and each firm produces more. This reduces the price they can get on the world market. This is the traditional, 1960’s trade model.

2. Products are differentiated horizontally– by variety. When prices start to fall with increased output, it becomes more profitable to start producing new products. So prices don’t fall- they stay the same. This is the Krugman-style, monopolistic competition model.

3. Products are differentiated vertically– by quality. When prices start to fall with increased output, it becomes more profitable to start producing a higher-quality product. So prices don’t fall- they rise (though costs rise too). This isthe model of Hummels and Klenow.

What is the purpose of law? To make people behave well. Under Holmes’s
“Bad Man” theory in “The Path of the Law”, laws are for the men who will not do good without the threat of punishment. That, however, neglects other purposes of laws which are important if secondary. One is the “expressive” purpose– that expressing that something is wrong is satisfing to the public. Related to that is the educational purpose of law. Even the good man does not know everything, and the law teaches him.

Psalm 119 [+/-]Psalm 119 [119:1] Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! [2]Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, [3]who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways! [4]You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. [5]Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! [6]Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. [7]I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules. [8]I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me! [9]How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. [10]With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! [11]I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. [12]Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! [13]With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. [14]In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. [15]I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. [16]I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. [17]Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. [18]Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. [19]I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! [20]My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. [21]You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments. [22]Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. [23]Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. [24]Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors. [25]My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word! [26]When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes! [27]Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. [28]My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! [29]Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! [30]I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. [31]I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame! [32]I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! [33]Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. [34]Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. [35]Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. [36]Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! [37]Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. [38]Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. [39]Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. [40]Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life! [41]Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise; [42]then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your word. [43]And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules. [44]I will keep your law continually, forever and ever, [45]and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. [46]I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, [47]for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. [48]I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. [49]Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. [50]This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. [51]The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. [52]When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD. [53]Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. [54]Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. [55]I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law. [56]This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. [57]The LORD is my portion; I promise to keep your words. [58]I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. [59]When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies; [60]I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments. [61]Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law. [62]At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous rules. [63]I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts. [64]The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love; teach me your statutes! [65]You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word. [66]Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. [67]Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. [68]You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. [69]The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts; [70]their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law. [71]It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. [72]The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. [73]Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. [74]Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word. [75]I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. [76]Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. [77]Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. [78]Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. [79]Let those who fear you turn to me, that they may know your testimonies. [80]May my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame! [81]My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word. [82]My eyes long for your promise; I ask, "When will you comfort me?" [83]For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes. [84]How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me? [85]The insolent have dug pitfalls for me; they do not live according to your law. [86]All your commandments are sure; they persecute me with falsehood; help me! [87]They have almost made an end of me on earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts. [88]In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth. [89]Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. [90]Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. [91]By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants. [92]If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. [93]I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. [94]I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts. [95]The wicked lie in wait to destroy me, but I consider your testimonies. [96]I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad. [97]Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. [98]Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. [99]I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. [100]I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. [101]I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. [102]I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. [103]How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! [104]Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. [105]Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. [106]I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules. [107]I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word! [108]Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules. [109]I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. [110]The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. [111]Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. [112]I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end. [113]I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. [114]You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word. [115]Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God. [116]Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! [117]Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually! [118]You spurn all who go astray from your statutes, for their cunning is in vain. [119]All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross, therefore I love your testimonies. [120]My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments. [121]I have done what is just and right; do not leave me to my oppressors. [122]Give your servant a pledge of good; let not the insolent oppress me. [123]My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise. [124]Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love, and teach me your statutes. [125]I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies! [126]It is time for the LORD to act, for your law has been broken. [127]Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold. [128]Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right; I hate every false way. [129]Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. [130]The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. [131]I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments. [132]Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. [133]Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me. [134]Redeem me from man's oppression, that I may keep your precepts. [135]Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. [136]My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. [137]Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules. [138]You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. [139]My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words. [140]Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. [141]I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. [142]Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. [143]Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. [144]Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live. [145]With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O LORD! I will keep your statutes. [146]I call to you; save me, that I may observe your testimonies. [147]I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. [148]My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise. [149]Hear my voice according to your steadfast love; O LORD, according to your justice give me life. [150]They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose; they are far from your law. [151]But you are near, O LORD, and all your commandments are true. [152]Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. [153]Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. [154]Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise! [155]Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. [156]Great is your mercy, O LORD; give me life according to your rules. [157]Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. [158]I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. [159]Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. [160]The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. [161]Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. [162]I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. [163]I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. [164]Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. [165]Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble. [166]I hope for your salvation, O LORD, and I do your commandments. [167]My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. [168]I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you. [169]Let my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word! [170]Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word. [171]My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes. [172]My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right. [173]Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. [174]I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight. [175]Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me. [176]I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.
says

97 MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the
day.

98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than
mine enemies: for they are ever with me.

99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy
testimonies are my meditation.

…

104 Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I
hate every false way.

But for the law to achieve this purpose, it must be a trustworthy guide. We must trust the lawgiver to be willing to learn from the law. God’s law is trustworthy. If nothing else, it tells me what God wants, and that is important in itself. Human law is less reliable. If I see a law saying that it is illegal to perform haircuts without a license, I do not conclude that unlicensed haircuts are immoral, or even unsafe, because I think the legislature is wiser than I am. Rather, I conclude that either the legislature has been fooled, or they have been bribed by the barbers to restrict entry.

The Bible is a comfort to Christians because it is a reliable source of law. It still has many difficulties– notably, knowing what law in the Old Testament is still applicable after the Resurrection– but Christians at least have a basis for right and wrong beyond what their culture teaches them. Traditionalists are less grounded, but they at least can find grounding in the axiom that their tradition is reliable. Liberals, despite the confidence they commonly show, are more at sea. They cannot retreat to their culture, since it is a recent and ever-changing one. They are at risk trying to appeal to logical principles grounded in a few generally accepted axioms too, since they often profess a relativism which rules out logic. But that, I think, is what they commonly try to do anyway. John Stuart Mill is an example. He tried to ground morality on the rule of not hurting others, and that is common today too. But the rule turns out to be empty, since anything to which anybody objects hurts them and since it is by no means self-evident that we shouldn’t hurt other people (think of the hurt caused by winning a contest with others, or by starting a new business in competition with them).

I’ve commented before on the CIA’s hostility to President Bush, here and on this good National Review article and in relation to the Plame-Wilson affair.. The Weekly Standard has a couple of good articles on what is happening now that Bush has replaced Director Tenet with Goss, who is already driving officials from the agency. From “”Anonymous” Names Names: Former CIA counterterrorism expert Michael Scheuer reveals who it was at the agency who gave him “carte blanche” to criticize President Bush”:

Scheuer told reporters on Friday that, traditionally, he would have to arrange interviews through the CIA public affairs office. Each interview would have to be cleared before Scheuer was allowed to talk. With Imperial Hubris, however, that wasn’t the case. The book’s advance publicity had hyped the fact that a CIA officer was anonymously breaking with the administration’s anti-terror strategy. Interview requests flooded in. But Scheuer said that Harlow told him, “We’re giving you carte blanche.” Harlow’s condition? Scheuer was supposed to let the public affairs office know who he talked to–after the interview(s) had taken place.

“The book was misunderstood,” Scheuer said on Friday. “It’s a book about the failure of senior intelligence officers,” not an ad hominem attack on the president. During his first round of publicity interviews, he tried to set the record straight. “Once I turned it around,” however, “and talked about leadership in the intelligence community,” Scheuer said, “well, that was the end of the day.” Since Bush was no longer his target, Scheuer had been gagged.

Of course, one reporter asked, Harlow couldn’t have made the decision to promote Scheuer’s book alone. Scheuer nodded. He said that Harlow would’ve needed authorization from his superiors for such a move. Harlow’s superior at the time? Former CIA director George Tenet.

The other article is about Goss’s housecleaning, “Porter’s House: CIA Director Porter Goss takes charge”. Whether Goss was firing the right people or the wrong ones, we’d expect what we see– charges that he was firing good people and criticism of him for being partisan. These things do, however, rule out the possibility that he is failing by doing nothing, so I take them as a good sign.

Michael
Barone’s retrospectives on over thirty years of the
Almanac of American Politics makes interesting
reading. He goes over his analyses and predictions
with the benefit of hindsight and the openness of someone
whose wisdom is well enough established that he can admit to
mistakes. Here’s an example, on the 1982 almanac:

This Introduction includes summaries of the battles for the
Democratic and Republican nominations which I think stand up
very well. It has a neat summary of John Anderson’s
candidacy which also stands up well, but is a bit too snide;
and it ends by noting that Anderson emerged with a mailing
list three times larger than that of the Democratic party
and that therefore “Anderson has the potential of reviving
his candidacy in 1984 and may be an important political
factor in the years in between.” Nothing like that happened
at all, and I should have had the good judgment to see that
it wouldn’t. The summary of the general election reads well,
and I wouldn’t change it today. The crux: “Voters wanted to
reject Carter and were looking for reassurance that Reagan
was acceptable. In the debate they got it. Reagan made no
obvious mistakes; he stressed convincingly his desire for
peace. He presented himself as an amiable and knowledgeable
man, and one capable of inspiration.” But I didn’t mention
his famous words, “Are you better off than you were four
years ago” (they are mentioned later in the Introduction)
and “There you go again.”

Yesterday I had my students play this lobbying game in
class:

For this game, some of you will be Manufacturing firms
and some Agricultural firms. The President is deciding
between two policies. Free Trade will yield $10 million in
benefit to each agricultural firm. Protectionism will yield
$10 million in benefit to each manufacturing firm. In each
year, each firm will write down its favored policy and its
lobbying expenditure, amount X, on a notecard and hand it
in. Whichever policy has the most lobbying wins. If your
favored policy wins, your payoff is 10-X. If it loses, your
payoff is -X.

In my class, which lasted 50 minutes, I had 11 Ag firms
and 10 Manufacturing firms. I imposed a limit of X=10 for a
firm’s annual lobbying. The pattern of lobbying went like
this:

Year  Protection  (Manufacturing)   Free Trade (Agriculture)

1                    49                       48
2                    48                       61
3                     0                       30
4                    52                       43
5                    21                       25
6                    56                       42

It’s interesting that the total expenditure was often near
the total value of the policy prize over all the firms–100
or 110. Note, too, that the lobbying swung from high to low
a couple of times.

Within each industry, the amount of lobbying varied
tremendously, with lots of zeroes. The student who had the
highest payoff over all rounds had a payoff of 30, because
his policy won three times and he never did any lobbying.
We’d expect that– the free rider always does best, even
though if everyone free-rides, the industry does badly
because it always loses the policy battle.

This game is variant on the “all-pay auction”, with the
twist that the prize is a public good, going to any firm in
the industry rather than just the one that bids highest.
Thus, it adds that free-riding element. The theoretical
equilibrium is in mixed strategies– carefully chosen
randomizations each year.

My

lobbying game scoresheet
and overheads of lessons and caveats is up on the G202 course website. This is a good game for classroom use, not
just for teaching about free riding but also because it is
administratively easier than a lot of classroom games. The
payoff structure is very simple. After explaining the game,
I made each student a separate firm, and gave them each a
notecard on which to write their lobbying expenditure. Each
student brought up his notecard to me, except in the last
round, when I allowed an industry rep to collect them all
(which allows for enforcement of deals they might make to
all lobby high). For the first few rounds, I did not allow
talking, and then I did allow it. The students were
eager to talk with each other, and seemed to enjoy the game.

What percentage of your wealth would you give up to
eliminate a risk of losing 10% of your wealth? Less than
10%, of course, but how much less? The table below, from
Table 2.1 of Christian Gollier’s The Economics of Risk
and Time, says what your “relative risk aversion”
coefficient is if you have constant relative risk aversion
utility.

  Relative risk aversion    10% risk   30% risk
    .5		               .3%       2.3%
    1			       .5%       4.6%
    4			      2%        16%
    10			      4.4%      24.4%
    40			      8.4%      28.7%

If you would give up 2% of your wealth to avoid a 50-50
risk of losing or gaining 10%, then you have a coefficient
of relative risk aversion of 4. That’s about where I am, I
think, for the 10% risk. That implies, though, that I would
give up 16% of my wealth to avoid a 30% gamble, which I’m
less sure about.

One of the hard things in doing this kind of
introspection is that it matters how we define “wealth”. It
matters whether it is lifetime wealth (including the value
of my human capital– the wages I can earn) or just the
amount of wealth I have in hand right now. If I lost 30% of
my non-human capital this year, that would not be nearly so
serious as if I lost 30% of the value of my future wages.
The cleanest theoretical model is to think of lifetime
wealth, and we all make our investment decisions based on
that. But, knowing, for example, that we can fall back on
our wages, and that we can modify our investment policy in
case of disaster, we can look very risk-loving with respect
to our investments.

It is important for anyone who blames Bush for poor relations with France to remember not only France’s past support for Saddam Hussein and profit from dealings with him, but also the harsh words France has for us. From the London Times

M Chirac, speaking to British journalists, including The Times, soon after General Powell’s announcement, revealed that he had urged Mr Blair to demand the relaunch of the Middle East peace process in return for backing the war.

“Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I’m not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically.”

In other remarks that will sting the Bush Administration, he again outlined his vision of a “multipolar” world in which a
united Europe would be equal with the US, and mocked Donald
Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, for his division of Europe into old and new.

M Chirac said that there would be no division between Britain and France.

“It is like that nice guy in America ” what’s his name again? ” who spoke about ‘old Europe’. It has no sense. It’s a lack of culture to imagine that. Imagining that there can be division between the British and French vision of Europe is as absurd as imagining that we are building Europe against the United States.”

Surely it is well past time to stop thinking of France as being any more our ally (or enemy) than Russia is.

Update, Nov. 17: My old link to the quote went bad. I think this one is to the same report, in pdf: report on U.S. trade with Brazil:

I just came across the interesting fact that franchising has been highly successful in Brazil.

After nearly two decades of success in Brazil, the franchising system continues to boom. As of 2002 it accounted for 25% of the gross revenue in the retail segment with around 800 franchise chains and 56,000 franchise units, divided into approximately 30 business segments, generating over 350,000 jobs. …

Between 2001 and 2002 the Brazilian franchising system boasted more than eight billion dollars in sales. According to ABF, the continued growth of franchising in this market has strengthened Brazil’s franchising system to such that it is now one the world’s third strongest, outranked only by the United States and Japan.

According to local sources, the continued success of the Brazilian franchising system is in part due to the increase in participation of already consolidated businesses exploring alternative avenues of expansion. Local Brazilian companies form the vast majority of franchises in Brazil (about 90%), however, foreign groups, particularly from the U.S., are making their way into the market too.

Strict regulations preventing foreign franchises from remitting royalties to their headquarters contributed to the dominance of Brazilian franchises over their foreign counterparts. However, the reform of the Franchising Law in 1994 has granted greater investing opportunities to foreign franchises. Foreign franchises are now allowed to remit royalties to their countries of origin. However, U.S. franchisors must adapt to meet required market norms and standards, invest in market research, test market receptivity through pilot projects and adjust their concepts to Brazilian business practices and consumer tastes. In Brazil, franchise consultants refer to this process as the “tropicalization” of the franchise.

This sounds like an opportunity for businesses in other Third World countries.

Continuing my series of quotes from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (here and here and here and there) is the first lines of Epistle 2:

Know, then, thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:

I certainly feel that way. The last two lines might be appropriate for my project on God concealing Himself. They also remind me of a conversation at Lily’s First Birthday Party last night. We were discussing whether finding utilitarian reasons for ethical behavior was a worthwhile project, or whether it was better to take our gut moral feelings as reliable signs of what is moral and give up on explaining them more basically (all in the context of natural law rather than divine). One point I raised was a reason that someone– I think Richard Posner– gave for why we should not expect a liberal education to make people behave better. The uneducated person knows of no moral code expect what his parents taught him, and hence often faces a choice between behaving morally or behaving immorally. The educated person can pick and choose among moral theories, and has learned to rationalize and argue to himself very well, and so can always find a moral reason for whatever foul thing it is he wishes to do.

My wife commented recently that everything is getting blended together. Men and women, children and grown-ups, are dressing alike. Good and evil are mixed, and their difference denied. Honor and respect, which are based on difference, are dwindling away. What is left is celebrity– the mere fact of being known to many people, for it matters not what. We eat foreign foods, and foreigners watch American TV. Aesthetically, the world is becoming a boring place.