Livestock Antibiotics, Lithium and PFAS as Leading Suspects for Environmental Causes of Obesity

Link to the post shown above

Link to the post shown just above

Link to the post shown just above

Link to the post shown just above

Last week, with my post “Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity?” I reviewed the first three posts in the slimemoldtimemold.com series “A Chemical Hunger.” This week, I review the next four posts that detail leading suspects as environmental contaminants. The three suspects are livestock antibiotics, lithium and the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used “in stain- and water-resistant fabrics and carpeting, cleaning products, paints, and fire-fighting foams. … [and] for limited use in cookware, food packaging, and food processing equipment.” All of these arguably became much more prevalent in the environment since 1980, so that the timing is reasonably consistent with the acceleration of the rise in obesity beginning in 1980.

Livestock antibiotics are used precisely to make animals fatter, so it isn’t surprising that they might make humans fatter too. Lithium, used to treat bipolar disorder, is well known to cause people to gain weight. Scandalously, not enough experiments have been done to see what the effects of PFAS are on obesity at relevant dosages. Only very high dosages have been studied, which can make lab rodents sick enough that they lose weight. So PFAS are one step more speculative as culprits than livestock antibiotics and lithium. Also scandalously, although we know that lithium can make people fat, we don’t know how much lithium has been in our drinking water; it isn’t routinely tested for.

Getting into water supplies means none of these can be entirely avoided. However, eating less meat can probably reduce (but even going vegan would not entirely eliminate) one’s exposure to livestock antibiotics substantially. Little is known about the degree of contamination of various types of food by PFAS and lithium. For processed food, it could depend on how much was in the water used at the particular factory the food was processed at. And even for whole food, it could depend on the level of contamination of the irrigation water.

In most of my diet and health posts I emphasize strategies such as fasting and eating low on the insulin index that can help any individual who employs them. But by its nature, environmental contamination is something we need collective action on. Fortunately, small groups of people can get the ball rolling by pushing forward relevant research. For example, anyone who measures antibiotics, lithium and PFAS levels in tap water and reports them is making a real contribution. And anyone who studies the effects of PFAS on rodents at previously unstudied dosages is making a real contribution. (There are many different chemicals under the heading of livestock antibiotics and under the heading PFAS, so there is a lot to be done there.)

Note that for us to not already know which environmental contaminants are helping along the rise in obesity (and the argument is good that something is), those environmental contaminants have to somehow be in our blindspot. Besides becoming more prevalent at the time the rise in obesity was accelerating, each of these is in our blindspot: livestock antibiotics because strong commercial interests try to keep them in our blindspot, PFAS because their effects are understudied and lithium because its levels in drinking water are not routinely measured. Of course, until we get them out of our blindspot, we won’t know for sure if they or one or two of them are key culprits.

Numbers IV—VII in the “A Chemical Hunger” series give many more details of the argument. I am persuaded that we should take these hypotheses seriously.

---

For organized links to other posts on diet and health, see:

• Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide

The Federalist Papers #39: James Madison Downplays How Radical the Proposed Constitution Is

The Roman Senate. Image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #39

James Madison was aware that the Constitutional Convention had done something radical. Therefore, he was at pains to argue in the Federalist Papers #39 that the proposed Constitution was not that radical. First, he argued that the proposed Constitution did followed the pattern of state constitutions. Second, to reassure those who thought that the Constitution gave too much power to the national government, he pointed to all the ways in which states still mattered.

As an introduction to the Federalist Papers #39, James Madison gives this definition of a “republic”:

… a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; …

To a modern reader, the restriction back then of the vote to white males with some amount of property betrays the republican stipulation that

It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; …

But of course many governments back then and even now have a narrower basis than even that:

Could any further proof be required of the republican complexion of this system, the most decisive one might be found in its absolute prohibition of titles of nobility, both under the federal and the State governments; and in its express guaranty of the republican form to each of the latter.

Here are some of the points by which James Madison reassures his readers by saying that the proposed Constitution follows the same pattern as state constitutions. I have added bullets to separate passages:

• The House of Representatives, like that of one branch at least of all the State legislatures, is elected immediately by the great body of the people.

• The Senate, like the present Congress, and the Senate of Maryland, derives its appointment indirectly from the people.

• The President is indirectly derived from the choice of the people, according to the example in most of the States.

• Even the judges, with all other officers of the Union, will, as in the several States, be the choice, though a remote choice, of the people themselves, …

• The House of Representatives is periodically elective, as in all the States; and for the period of two years, as in the State of South Carolina.

• The Senate is elective, for the period of six years; which is but one year more than the period of the Senate of Maryland, and but two more than that of the Senates of New York and Virginia.

• The President is to continue in office for the period of four years; as in New York and Delaware, the chief magistrate is elected for three years, and in South Carolina for two years. In the other States the election is annual.

• The tenure by which the judges are to hold their places, is, as it unquestionably ought to be, that of good behavior.

After emphasizing on many points the similarity of the proposed constitution to the existing state constitutions, James Madison argues that it is in one respect more republican than many of the state constitutions: by making more provision for impeachment of the president:

• In several of the States, however, no constitutional provision is made for the impeachment of the chief magistrate. And in Delaware and Virginia he is not impeachable till out of office. The President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office.

But the most important purpose of the Federalist Papers #39 was to answer the charge that the proposed constitution centralized power in the national government. James Madison lays out the charge he is answering as follows:

"But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States."

There is also a charge that the Constitutional Convention exceeded its authority; the answer to that charge is left to another number in the Federalist Papers.

James Madison concedes the following ways in which the central government is given great power under the proposed constitution:

• The House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State. So far the government is NATIONAL, not FEDERAL.

• … the operation of the government on the people, in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceedings, may, on the whole, designate it, in this relation, a NATIONAL government.

• It is true that in controversies relating to the boundary between the two jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide, is to be established under the general government. But this does not change the principle of the case. The decision is to be impartially made, according to the rules of the Constitution; and all the usual and most effectual precautions are taken to secure this impartiality. Some such tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sword and a dissolution of the compact; …

Note particularly the third bullet, which claims a power of the central government against “dissolution of the compact.” This, claim, of course, became important during the Civil War.

But James Madison points to these ways in which the proposed constitution preserves substantial state power:

• the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.

  That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States. It must result from the UNANIMOUS assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves.

• The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress. So far the government is FEDERAL, not NATIONAL.

• The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. The immediate election of the President is to be made by the States in their political characters. The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society. The eventual election, again, is to be made by that branch of the legislature which consists of the national representatives; but in this particular act they are to be thrown into the form of individual delegations, from so many distinct and coequal bodies politic.

• In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.

• If we try the Constitution by its last relation to the authority by which amendments are to be made, we find it neither wholly NATIONAL nor wholly FEDERAL. … In requiring more than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion by STATES, not by CITIZENS, it departs from the NATIONAL and advances towards the FEDERAL character; in rendering the concurrence of less than the whole number of States sufficient, it loses again the FEDERAL and partakes of the NATIONAL character.

James Madison ends with the conclusion that the proposed constitution is somewhere between federal and national:

The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.

Given his goal of getting the constitution ratified, I think James Madison was right to think he should try to display the proposed constitution in as reassuring a light as possible, trying to make it look less radical than it definitely looked from some angles. The dispute over how powerful the national government should be and how powerful the state governments should be has still not been entirely resolved. Disputes on that score continue to this day.

Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #39 to give context to the excerpts laid out above.

---

FEDERALIST NO. 39

The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles

For the Independent Journal.

Author: James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

THE last paper having concluded the observations which were meant to introduce a candid survey of the plan of government reported by the convention, we now proceed to the execution of that part of our undertaking.

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.

What, then, are the distinctive characters of the republican form? Were an answer to this question to be sought, not by recurring to principles, but in the application of the term by political writers, to the constitution of different States, no satisfactory one would ever be found. Holland, in which no particle of the supreme authority is derived from the people, has passed almost universally under the denomination of a republic. The same title has been bestowed on Venice, where absolute power over the great body of the people is exercised, in the most absolute manner, by a small body of hereditary nobles. Poland, which is a mixture of aristocracy and of monarchy in their worst forms, has been dignified with the same appellation. The government of England, which has one republican branch only, combined with an hereditary aristocracy and monarchy, has, with equal impropriety, been frequently placed on the list of republics. These examples, which are nearly as dissimilar to each other as to a genuine republic, show the extreme inaccuracy with which the term has been used in political disquisitions.

If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character. According to the constitution of every State in the Union, some or other of the officers of government are appointed indirectly only by the people. According to most of them, the chief magistrate himself is so appointed. And according to one, this mode of appointment is extended to one of the co-ordinate branches of the legislature. According to all the constitutions, also, the tenure of the highest offices is extended to a definite period, and in many instances, both within the legislative and executive departments, to a period of years. According to the provisions of most of the constitutions, again, as well as according to the most respectable and received opinions on the subject, the members of the judiciary department are to retain their offices by the firm tenure of good behavior.

On comparing the Constitution planned by the convention with the standard here fixed, we perceive at once that it is, in the most rigid sense, conformable to it. The House of Representatives, like that of one branch at least of all the State legislatures, is elected immediately by the great body of the people. The Senate, like the present Congress, and the Senate of Maryland, derives its appointment indirectly from the people. The President is indirectly derived from the choice of the people, according to the example in most of the States. Even the judges, with all other officers of the Union, will, as in the several States, be the choice, though a remote choice, of the people themselves, the duration of the appointments is equally conformable to the republican standard, and to the model of State constitutions The House of Representatives is periodically elective, as in all the States; and for the period of two years, as in the State of South Carolina. The Senate is elective, for the period of six years; which is but one year more than the period of the Senate of Maryland, and but two more than that of the Senates of New York and Virginia. The President is to continue in office for the period of four years; as in New York and Delaware, the chief magistrate is elected for three years, and in South Carolina for two years. In the other States the election is annual. In several of the States, however, no constitutional provision is made for the impeachment of the chief magistrate. And in Delaware and Virginia he is not impeachable till out of office. The President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office. The tenure by which the judges are to hold their places, is, as it unquestionably ought to be, that of good behavior. The tenure of the ministerial offices generally, will be a subject of legal regulation, conformably to the reason of the case and the example of the State constitutions.

Could any further proof be required of the republican complexion of this system, the most decisive one might be found in its absolute prohibition of titles of nobility, both under the federal and the State governments; and in its express guaranty of the republican form to each of the latter.

"But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States." And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some precision.

Without inquiring into the accuracy of the distinction on which the objection is founded, it will be necessary to a just estimate of its force, first, to ascertain the real character of the government in question; secondly, to inquire how far the convention were authorized to propose such a government; and thirdly, how far the duty they owed to their country could supply any defect of regular authority.

First. In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced.

On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.

That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States. It must result from the UNANIMOUS assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

The next relation is, to the sources from which the ordinary powers of government are to be derived. The House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State. So far the government is NATIONAL, not FEDERAL. The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress. So far the government is FEDERAL, not NATIONAL. The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. The immediate election of the President is to be made by the States in their political characters. The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society. The eventual election, again, is to be made by that branch of the legislature which consists of the national representatives; but in this particular act they are to be thrown into the form of individual delegations, from so many distinct and coequal bodies politic. From this aspect of the government it appears to be of a mixed character, presenting at least as many FEDERAL as NATIONAL features.

The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character; though perhaps not so completely as has been understood. In several cases, and particularly in the trial of controversies to which States may be parties, they must be viewed and proceeded against in their collective and political capacities only. So far the national countenance of the government on this side seems to be disfigured by a few federal features. But this blemish is perhaps unavoidable in any plan; and the operation of the government on the people, in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceedings, may, on the whole, designate it, in this relation, a NATIONAL government.

But if the government be national with regard to the OPERATION of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it in relation to the EXTENT of its powers. The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government. Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature. Among communities united for particular purposes, it is vested partly in the general and partly in the municipal legislatures. In the former case, all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme; and may be controlled, directed, or abolished by it at pleasure. In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere. In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. It is true that in controversies relating to the boundary between the two jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide, is to be established under the general government. But this does not change the principle of the case. The decision is to be impartially made, according to the rules of the Constitution; and all the usual and most effectual precautions are taken to secure this impartiality. Some such tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sword and a dissolution of the compact; and that it ought to be established under the general rather than under the local governments, or, to speak more properly, that it could be safely established under the first alone, is a position not likely to be combated.

If we try the Constitution by its last relation to the authority by which amendments are to be made, we find it neither wholly NATIONAL nor wholly FEDERAL. Were it wholly national, the supreme and ultimate authority would reside in the MAJORITY of the people of the Union; and this authority would be competent at all times, like that of a majority of every national society, to alter or abolish its established government. Were it wholly federal, on the other hand, the concurrence of each State in the Union would be essential to every alteration that would be binding on all. The mode provided by the plan of the convention is not founded on either of these principles. In requiring more than a majority, and principles. In requiring more than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion by STATES, not by CITIZENS, it departs from the NATIONAL and advances towards the FEDERAL character; in rendering the concurrence of less than the whole number of States sufficient, it loses again the FEDERAL and partakes of the NATIONAL character.

The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.

PUBLIUS.

---

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

• The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate

• The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America

• The Federalist Papers #2 B: You Trusted the Continental Congress; Trust the Constitutional Convention

• The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to Stumble into War

• The Federalist Papers #4 A: The States Must Be Prepared to Defend against Aggression by Other Nations

• The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the States are United

• The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each Others' Throats

• The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human Motives for War

• The Federalist Papers #6 B: Commercial Republics Also Start Wars with Their Neighbors—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #7 A: Divided, the States Would Fall into Territorial Disputes Likely to Lead to War Between the States—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #7 B: Without Union, Economic Disagreements Would Drive the States to Conflict with One Another—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #8: Without Union, the States Would Either Be Subject to Devastating Wars with Each Other or Would Have Liberty Endangered by their Own Standing Armies—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #9 A: There Has Been Technological Progress in Practical Principles of Republican Government—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #9 B: A Large Confederation May Be More Politically Stable Than a Small Nation—Alexander Hamilton Cites Montesquieu

• The Federalist Papers #10 A: Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #10 B: The Larger the Republic, the Easier It is to Find Thoughtful Legislators and the Harder It is to Put Together a Majority to do Unjust Things—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #13: Alexander Hamilton on Increasing Returns to Scale in National Government

• The Federalist Papers #14: A Republic Can Be Geographically Large—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #15: A Government, to be Worthy of the Name, Must Govern Its Citizens, Not Just Its Subordinate Jurisdictions—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #16: Authority of the Federal Government Directly over Individuals Means States Can Only Thwart the Federal Government by Active and Obvious Resistance—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #17: Three Levels of Federal Power

• The Federalist Papers #18: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison Point to the Weakness of Confederations of Cities in Ancient Greece to Argue for a Strong Federal Government

• The Federalist Papers #19: The Weakness of the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #20: The Weakness of the United Netherlands up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #21 A: Constitutions Need to be Enforced—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #21 B: Alexander Hamilton Complains of the Lack of a Measure Such as GDP Suitable for Apportioning Taxes to the States

• The Federalist Papers #22 A: The Articles of Confederation Lead to Uncoordinated Trade Policy and Military Free-Riding—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #22 B: Supermajority Rules Aren't an Adequate Fix for Departures from One-Person One-Vote—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #22 C: Pillars of Democracy—The Judicial System, Military Loyal to the Constitution, and Police Loyal to the Constitution

• The Federalist Papers #23: The Federal Government Must Be Given Sufficient Power to Accomplish Whatever We Expect the Federal Government to Do—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #24: The United States Need a Standing Army—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #25: Prohibiting a Standing Army in Time of Peace Would Be a Mistake—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #26: Some Part of the Government Must Be Able to Authorize an Army Whenever Necessary, after Being Forced to Fully Debate the Issue—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #27: People Will Get Used to the Federal Government—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #28: The Federal Government and States Can Check One Another’s Power, Reducing the Chance of Abuses—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #29: State Militias such as the National Guard are Not Attractive Tools for Tyrants—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #30: A Robust Power of Taxation is Needed to Make a Nation Powerful

• The Federalist Papers #31: Alexander Hamilton's Attempt at a Formal Argument for a Robust Federal Power of Taxation

• The Federalist Papers #32: The States Retain All Powers Not Explicitly Taken Away by the Constitution—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #33: The 'Necessary and Proper' and Supremacy Clauses Only Make Explicit What the Specified Powers Imply—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #34: War is Expensive. To Defend the Union, the Federal Government Needs an Ample Power of Taxation—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #35 A: Alexander Hamilton as an Economist

• The Federalist Papers #35 B: Alexander Hamilton on Who Can Represent Whom

• The Federalist Papers #36: Alexander Hamilton on Regressive Taxation

• The Federalist Papers #37: Why the Constitution Isn't Perfect—And Why No Constitution Could Be. James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #38—James Madison Analyzes the Proposed Constitution Using the Principle of Opportunity Cost: What is the Alternative to the Consensus of the Constitutional Convention?
  
  

Kurzgesagt: What Happened Before History? Human Origins

Hendrik Sybrandy Interview of Miles Kimball about the Fed and the Pandemic, August 23, 2021

Hendrik Sybrandy interviewed me on August 23, 2021, a few days before the beginning of this year’s “Jackson Hole” monetary policy conference, which actually took place remotely this year. At the top of this post is what actually aired on CGTN. Hendrik was also good enough to send me the second video (just above) which gives my answers in full, but unfortunately doesn’t include Hendrik’s questions. I think you can understand what I am saying anyway, though, especially if you listen to the shorter clip up at the top first.

With the second video (just above) that gives my answers but not the questions, I decided to experiment with getting a transcription from the freemium transcription website otter.ai I had to use Quicktime to export to an audio-only file first, but then otter.ai made the transcript below. So you could see exactly what quality I got from otter.ai, I didn’t edit what is below at all.

---

Oh, no, I know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. on top. Okay. That's a great question. I'm not? I'm not sure I know I been once and I, one of the purposes is for central bankers around the world to have a chance to get to know one another. So this is this is the gathering where central bankers from all around the world are in a large number are in one place?

Well, it, it depends a little bit on which aspect of things. But in terms of monetary policy, I think it's most mostly a myth that you need monetary policy coordination across countries, each country can keep aggregate demand at the level that it wants to all by itself, if it if it uses the full range of policy tools. Of course, I'm a big advocate of negative interest rate policy. And things get more complicated if you kind of irrationally avoid negative interest rate policy. But basically, each country can each central bank can get aggregate demand at the right level, there's a little more reason for coordination on financial stability rules there. If If banks fail in one country, they can cause banks to fail in another country. But what's most important, though, is the exchange of ideas. So you have, you know, you have innovations in central banking, like, like negative interest rate policy that's been innovation in, in Europe and Japan, and it's in there other innovations in monetary policy that Fed is, is inching in the direction of price level targeting, as opposed to two inflation targeting, which is, in some ways is a fairly technical thing, but can matter, potentially can matter a lot. So, so it's, it's the exchange of ideas, if you have a new idea of how to do central banking, better, it's good for them to be rubbing shoulders so that all the good ideas get passed around. Yeah, exactly. I realized that that's not literally true this year.

I don't know what they'll talk about this week, there's, I mean, inflation, there's a real question of how permanent and the effects of inflation are going to be there. The pandemic has messed up a lot of things. And so there's everything, all of the economics is different with the, with the pandemic. And so when when we get that under control, then inflation could be very, very different than it is. And, you know, at this moment, in the pandemic, one of the things that, I think, is, ironically, economists really realized that I think other governments didn't pay enough attention to was that controlling the pandemic, it was the key thing for all the economic issues and we we should have been throwing a lot more money that we should have taken a small fraction of the money we took to bail people out. It's can be appropriate to bail people out during the pandemic, but we should have taken a small fraction of that money to just fight the virus directly. And we would have been way ahead. So I think Economists were very aware of just how many trillions of dollars, it's, it's worth, you know, every every month that the pandemic goes on longer, it has a huge dollar cost to the economy. And so throwing enormous amounts of money at pandemic control is a good idea. We, we didn't throw enough money at trying to tamp down the pandemic.

Well, by mine, a lot of my knowledge is just from reading, reading the newspaper, but they're, they're far from the newspaper. There's some very good reporters who dig into this. And if they're not talking about raising the interest rates for quite some time, maybe not till, maybe not even until 2023. But they're probably going to slow down later this year, they're probably going to slow down their purchases of long term, long term bonds and long term mortgage bonds. So that they'll they'll go very slowly. And by the way, that that's partly it, things are complicated, because of the extra supply problems that you have with with COVID. that's causing inflation to be so high at the moment. But the Fed believes that the underlying inflation rate, once we get out of the pandemic, is is not so high, but nobody knows how high that'll be until we get out of the pandemic. So, if we get out of the pandemic, the Fed, the Fed has said it wants to be slow to raise interest rates, until they see inflation running like two and a half percent or something like that. So. So it used to be that that's partly what price level targeting means that it's if inflation is running below 2%, for a while, then they want it to run above 2% for a while. And so inflation, certainly, you know, like a year or two ago, was running below 2%. And so they're still happy to have it run above and the way they think about this, they, they always tend to abstract from what they think of as temporary movements in inflation. So, you know, folks who are not in central banks, look at whatever inflation is at the moment, but the Fed is trying to look at the underlying inertia of inflation, if you will, you know, if you think about, if you think of spinning and uncooked egg, and then you and then you stop it, and then it keeps going, that that the sloshing around of the liquid in the egg in the middle, that's the inertia of inflation. This is this is a little bit the opposite where the egg is spinning especially fast. But but the Fed is thinking it's on the outside of the egg that spinning fast. The inside is spinning a little slower.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And so they are judging a lot by the low levels of inflation that were there before the pandemic. So they nobody, nobody knows whether the inflation caused by the pandemic is going to be keep on after the pandemic. I mean, we just don't have I mean, this is this is very unusual situation. And so I think the Fed is looking at, well, inflation was pretty low before the pandemic, but besides, they're much worried more worried about low inflation and high inflation these days. And that has to do with their resistance to negative interest rate policy. So the Fed, unlike some other central banks, has been very, very, they they've said very, very, you know, they've been very loath to go to negative interest rate policy, which is unfortunate because what negative interest rate policy allows you to do is to have lower inflation. I mean, the main, the main reason the Fed wants inflation is because they want to have inflation instead of negative interest rates. If If, I mean, some people hate negative interest rates directly, but if you hate them inflation, if you mostly Hate inflation, then you're better off with the willingness to do negative interest rates. Because if you are willing to use negative interest rates, you can have zero inflation and still stay, you know, stimulate the economy when there's a recession. But because what, you know, there's a concept economists have of the real interest rate, basically, it's the interest rate minus inflation that matters. And so it's like an interest rate looks lower, you have to look at interest rates in comparison with inflation. And so interest rates really act like lower interest rates when there's a higher rate of inflation. So, so that's so the Fed is forcing inflation on us because they're afraid to use negative interest rates.

Oh, boy, I mean. Well, I think you I think we just pointed that that I mean, whatever the official program is, how do we read things? When with this EAD pandemic, affecting everything so much?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, actually, that's where I, that's where I think actually economists should be brought into fighting the pandemic more, because it's not just it's not, it's not that what's required is more to see how large systems work, which is something that that economists are trained at so many economists have actually written papers using epidemiological models. And, you know, economists have been at the forefront of saying, Oh, we should have gotten in fast, cheap tests earlier on, we now know, the emphasis has shifted towards vaccination, appropriately, but early on, if we had fast, cheap tests and use them very broadly, it could have it could have helped a lot. So I actually think that economists should have been brought into directly fighting the pandemic more. I mean, they, they economics helps you understand the urgency, it's not just a matter of controlling the pandemic, it's like getting it to end one month, sooner or safety, you know, is is crucial. And that Need for Speed is something that I think, was obvious to economists and in some of the public government policies, we're less focused on speed and controlling the pandemic.

Oh, well, we're in the thick of things. I mean, this it, this delta variant is is causing a lot of economic disruptions. And I think we're still at the stage where it will probably get worse before it gets better. I mean, this delta variant has, I think, I read that it has a reproduction ratio of six. So it spreads about, it spreads incredibly fast. And I think, again, I I think the big issue really is the pandemic itself, and they're useful insights. They're basically it's we're at the stage where, here's, here's one of the bits of perspective. I mean, the point of slowing down the pandemic, was to give everybody a chance to be vaccinated. Once everybody has a chance to be vaccinated, and some people, of course, will refuse, then there's not a big reason to slow down the pandemic anymore. And except for overwhelming hospitals, they're kind of those two issues. You want to get people to get a chance to be vaccinated before the before they're exposed. And, boy, you better get vaccinated soon, or you're you because it's really hard to not get exposed to this delta barrier because it's moving so fast. So it's very urgent for people to get vaccinated if they want to protect themselves. There's the issue of giving kids a chance to get vaccinated, and there's the issue of overwhelming the hospital system. But at some point, people have had a chance to get vaccinated. And other than slowing things down a little to not overwhelm the hospital system, you got to figure this delta variant this so, so spread so easily that everybody's going to be exposed. It's just whether you're going to be protected by vaccination before you're exposed or not. And so the crushing the economy by by trying to do social distancing, I think, at some point is, is a fool's errand because this delta variant is so aggressive, everybody's going to be exposed unless they take really, really extreme measures to isolate themselves. And that, but the point was mainly to get people a chance to be vaccinated first. And it were within a couple of months of saying, people have had their chance. Now, we should. Now Now, we can't afford this shutdown the father me anymore. I mean, we get to get the kids vaccinated if their parents are willing. And let's not hurt the economy too much more beyond that. But so notice, I, again, I think that it's the pandemic policy, and not that, you know, the mitigating economic policy, that's the key issue.

Oh, I think the Fed is, I think the Fed is doing an okay job on its on its immediate decisions. What I really liked them to do is I think the key issue on the Fed is really the appointments to the Fed, who is going to be appointed to the Fed. I wrote a blog post about that. I think that it, I think that it matters, I think that the I, who is if I don't know if this will happen again. But in the past, the vice chair has led these committee meetings to determine the what they call the framework for monetary policy. And that framework, the last time was was very anti negative interest rates, which I think is a problem in emergencies we might face in the future. And so it matters who the new to the new vice chair is whether they're kind of irrationally against negative interest rates or whether they allow us to kind of start moving towards the negative interest rate policy that will allow us to bring down inflation. Several I don't, I don't remember exactly. But they're, they're, you know, they need to appoint a chair. I want one. So what I one thing I said in my blog post is, even though other people would also be good shares, I favor reappointing Jerome Powell, simply to try to depoliticize the fed a little bit more. I mean, I think that if if you have presidents of different parties, you know, nominating the same Fed chair that, that ends up sending a good message that we want to depoliticize the Fed. And so I think, as I say, I think there are many other people who could be good Fed chair. So it's not it's not a disaster to appoint some of the other candidates that people are talking about. It's just that if every time there's a new president, you have a new Fed Chair, I think that politicizes the Fed somewhat more than if you if you have some fed chairs reappointed by presidents of the other party, and everybody thinks Jerome Powell has done a good job on that monetary policy, pretty much I'm sure there. Everybody's way too strong. But there's a pretty good consensus that he's done a good job on that. I think there's a reasonable argument that he could have been tougher on on in having high equity requirements for banks. These are sometimes called capital requirements. But the issue is, if banks are if banks have a decent fraction of financing from stockholders, then the stockholders or people who signed up if the bank gets in trouble, they then accept a lower stock value. If If not, you end up if you don't have enough stock financing of banks, then you wind up with bailouts. And so we should all be quite concerned to have high equity requirements for banks. I think Jerome Powell could have done better on that. But on the other hand, I think that If I think he might well get the message that he should be tougher on that in the future if he's, if he's reappointed. So I think it's great to talk about that. But I think I've talked about that and kind of give Jerome Powell the message, he ought to be tougher in terms of saying bank should be financed a little more by stock holders and a little less by borrowing, then then what he's done in the past. And but I think you'll probably be responsive to that.

Well, I, you know, there, I've got to say, if they did try to convey a message to the Fed, it would be mostly grandstanding, because as far as monetary policy goes, each country can do its own monetary button can do its own aggregate demand management, regardless of what the other central banks are doing. There. There are some countries that are think, in a troubling way trying to keep fixed exchange rates. And I think there there should probably be less of that. And anyway, countries complain about the Fed said other central banks complain about the Fed to hide their own problems and their own failings. That's my view on that.

No, I think I think that's pretty good. There are I these are all important issues. And I hope well, I mean, I guess there's one other issue that's come up, which is a central bank, digital currencies, I think that's a good evolution, it has to be done. Right. And it and one of the things that actually, let me let me highlight a technical issue, which is, I think it's a very good thing that the Fed is regularizing and, and institutionalizing a little bit more. Its use of the its use of the repo markets. Because I think in the evolution of monetary policy, this will be important in the future. So one of the things in terms of so in the middle of writing a paper about us negative interest rate law, which is very interesting. And the the feds repo facilities are actually very important in the legality in insurance, ensuring that negative interest rates are legal under current law, you don't need new law to be passed to make negative interest rates legal because the the the you don't, that you don't need negative interest rates and reserves, you can have the reserve accounts, if the reserve accounts or caps then you have these repo facilities take on some of the functions that have previously been taken on by by the reserves. And these repo facilities clearly are allowed in law to have whatever interest rate you want. The reserves may not be able to have a negative interest rate, but you don't need negative interest rates on reserves if you kept them and use the Reapers facilities. There's there's a lot of flexibility there. And so I think people should keep their eye on these repo facilities. They're going in both directions. Now, both repo and reverse repo where the Fed is letting people lend to the Fed and the Fed is lending to other people. You're having both now. That's it. That's it very, very important development. Keep your eye on those. I think they'll grow in importance over time.

Well, I, I, I think that there are many things that are a distraction for the Fed. I mean, I don't think I think it's a distraction. Maybe this is an unpopular thing to say, but I think the Fed has so many jobs already with monetary policy and financial stability. regulation. I think it'd be better to let them focus on that job and not insist that They they be. I mean, I think we should work a lot on social justice. But I don't think the Fed is the appropriate spearhead for trying to work on social justice, I don't think the Fed is the appropriate, I mean, we should have carbon taxes to deal with global warming. I mean, that's not, that's not a Fed thing. That's it, that's a treasury thing. And that's a matter of getting the political consensus together. And we should be doing research on, you know, put more money into research on solar power, and, and so on. I think this idea that every institution in society has to be involved in those particular fights is a mistake, the Fed, if the Fed does its job on, it messes up all of this stuff, if the Fed puts us into a big recession, because it's unwilling to use negative interest rates, that's really bad for social justice, the Fed should be concentrating on getting its act together on negative interest rate policy, rather than which will help his social justice way more than doing you know, direct stuff on that. And it'll even help in terms of you know, probably even help in terms of climate policy because if we had a giant recession because the Fed wouldn't do negative interest rate policy that would distract the government from making progress on climate policy. So I just think the Fed can contribute way more to climate policy and to social justice by doing it's for mission that it can by directly working on those things. Oh, yeah, so just if you look at them and by the way, I'm on Twitter at at Miles Kimball and also my blog is Confessions of a supply side liberal and you can you can find it there blog dot supply side liberal calm Okay. Great, thank you, you. Right. Oh, yeah. And do do send me do send me all the links and stuff. I'd like to post these these links to this on my blog. Great. See you later.

Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity?

Link to the post shown above

Link to the post shown just above

Link to the post shown just above

Josh Hausman pointed me to a fascinating series on the slimemoldtimemold.com blog on explanations for the rise of obesity. The overall title for the series is “A Chemical Hunger.” In this post here, I’ll react to the first three slimemoldtimemold.com posts in the “A Chemical Hunger” series.

I hope you’ll read the slimemoldtimemold.com posts themselves, but let me summarize them to set up my reactions.

The 1st post presents a series of mysteries about the rise in obesity. In brief:

1. We are a lot fatter than people in the 1890s, but its unclear our diet and exercise are all that much different.

2. The rise in obesity accelerated from 1980 on, but many of the proposed causes slowed down after 1980 or went in reverse after 1980.

3. Obesity keeps going up and up and up with no sign of a pause.

4. As far as carbs, fat and protein, or good and bad carbs, fat and protein go, almost any supposedly bad diet has some group of hunter-gatherers going to the extreme on it. But these hunter-gatherers don’t get fat while living in a traditional way.

5. Lab animals and while animals are getting fatter, not just humans.

6. Highly processed food makes lab animals fat in a way that can’t be accounted for by its carbs, fat and protein content or by its caloric content.

7. People at high altitudes have lower rates of obesity.

8. There are many, many different ways of dieting. None of the many things that people commonly try are very successful at helping people lose weight.

The 2d post in the “A Chemical Hunger” series argues against several common theories.

• Calories In/Calories out is not very helpful; it seems clear there is some regulatory mechanism that makes the effective amount of calories in and calories out very different from what one might think based on one’s conscious choices. Eating huge amounts leads to surprisingly little weight gain. Exercising a lot leads to surprisingly little weight loss.

• Fat never had much affect on obesity. And sugar consumption by some measures has been declining since 2000 with little apparent effect in slowing the rise of obesity.

• No special diet by itself seems to lead to all that much weight loss compared to the overall increase in obesity that has taken place. And the modest effects that are seen from some special diets often reverse themselves within a year.

The 3d post advances a theory of chemical contamination—both in the environment and within highly processed foods. I’ll summarize the argument. To begin with, we know medication can have big effects on weight. So the idea that chemicals could be part of the explanation is plausible. (By the way, I wrote about insulin-related medications having that kind of effect in “Evidence that High Insulin Levels Lead to Weight Gain.” But that isn’t the only kind of medication or other chemical that can cause weight gain or loss.) Then the heart of the argument is that chemical contaminants can explain the mysteries laid out in the first post:

1. There are a lot of chemical contaminants now that weren’t there in 1890 or before.

2. It is quite possible that some chemicals in the environment or in highly-processed foods have become much more prevalent since 1980.

3. Short of a big outcry about some chemical, it could easily be getting worse as each year passes in the 2020s.

4. Hunter-gatherers, whatever they eat—as long as it isn’t highly-processed modern food—are far away from the worst sources of chemical contaminants.

5. Wild animals and lab animals are exposed to environmental chemical contaminants.

6. Some lab animals are fed highly-processed foods.

7. Environmental contaminants would get washed downstream, so that they would hit people lower down in watersheds more. This could help explain why people at high altitudes have less obesity.

8. Most diets don’t cut out all highly-processed food. And even people on a whole-food diet are exposed to environmental contaminants.

One important mechanism through which environmental contaminants and chemicals in highly-processed food might affect obesity is by disturbing the balance of bacteria in the gut. Because we are only barely beginning to understand the effects of the gut microbiome, it is hard to rule anything out in this regard, and many things are plausible, if unproven. But some environmental and food-additive contaminants may have more direct effects. (Here I include as “food additives” things that are “natural” but put in with much different proportions than in typical whole foods and turn out to be deleterious.)

Reactions:

I have often point out in my diet and health posts that (as highly-processed food is currently formulated), going off sugar requires going off almost all highly-processed food as well. That is one way in which going off sugar is different from just reducing the amount of sugar one consumes. Reducing sugar can easily happen by substituting into highly-processed foods with less sugar but with other bad stuff.

To the extent that highly-processed food leads to more obesity by being especially tasty (“palatable”), as an empirical fact, getting that tastiness usually involves adding sugar (or one of the worse nonsugar sweeteners—see “Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective”). So going off sugar also greatly reduces the danger of eating too much because of addictive tastiness if that is your theory of the rise in obesity, following Stephen Guyenet (who is often quoted in “A Chemical Hunger” posts).

“slimemoldtimemold” persuades me that it is hard to explain the facts of obesity without some important contribution from bad chemicals in the environment and in highly processed food. Wild animals getting fatter and the correlation of obesity with altitude are some of the most telling arguments on that score.

Many of the other arguments are in the vein of saying “There isn’t any other explanation, so it must be chemicals.” I definitely think that is part of the explanation. But there is another factor that could potentially explain the facts: changes in the timing of eating.

When I was a kid in the 1960’s, we weren’t allowed to snack much. Most of the eating was confined to three meals a day. Later on in my life, I heard like most other people about a claim that spreading one’s food out throughout the day would help you lose weight. I think the evidence for this was always weak, and not relevant to what people actually did: add in snacks throughout the day without holding the total amount of food constant at all. As an illustrative calculation, if breakfast starts at 7:30 AM and dinner ends at 6:30 PM, that is an 11-hour eating window. On the other hand, if you sleep 8 hours and eat right after waking and right before going to bed, that is a 16-hour eating window—a big increase.

At this point, I don’t know of any easy data set on changes in the timing of eating. That means there is an important factor in obesity—eating all the time instead of in a short eating window—that we don’t have a good handle on historically. It is plausible that the length of the eating window has gone up over time. It is also possible that it went up a lot since 1980. But we don’t know. It would be great for someone to figure out a creative way to get some data on this. For example, detailed-enough time-diary data might help. Time-use scientists may not have focused the attention of the survey respondents on whether they were eating or not during an activity as much as would be good, but it might be possible to learn something. Until reading these “A Chemical Hunger” posts, I have thought mostly in terms of trying to identify changes in the timing of eating from 1890 or so to now, but it looks like changes in the timing of eating since 1980 are especially important for thinking about the rise in obesity in the last 30 years. And that is a period when some time-diary data exist.

(For all of the hunter-gatherers but the Kitavans, regardless of the daily eating window, there are likely to be periods of the year, or random moments with very little food. That enforced fasting could have a big effect on chronic diseases and weight.)

Suppose for a moment, though, that all of the observed rise in obesity is due to chemicals. Avoiding highly-processed food is the obvious first step to avoid part of that. Supporting research on chemicals that could affect obesity is also an obvious things to do. You could even think of moving to Colorado, as, fortuitously, my wife and I did, to take advantage of the altitude effect. But for most of you, all of those things put together aren’t going to get you to a good weight any time soon. Fortunately, a cure doesn’t always have to come through undoing the original cause. It is also possible to simply counteract one force with another force. To repeat what I have said many times in my diet and health posts, fasting (eating nothing, while drinking water) is a surefire way to lose weight. Enough fasting and you can counteract the upward pull of environmental chemicals you can’t fully avoid. And fasting is much easier when you are eating low on the insulin index when you are eating. (See “Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid.”) Making fasting easier or harder is the most important way that what you eat matters. I think I have been consistent in saying that the direct effects of what you eat on your weight are modest, if you don’t bring fasting into the mix.

I want to learn much more on the effects of environmental chemicals and chemicals in highly-processed food on obesity. Please put relevant links in the comments or tweet them to me. I think the rest of the “A Chemical Hunger” series goes there. I’ll blog about what I learn.

I have often thought that the area of diet and health and of understanding obesity is an area where a billion dollars from a philanthropist could finance research that could improve social welfare by the equivalent of a trillion dollars. That trillion dollars isn’t at all easy to monetize without facing temptations that, succumbed to, might destroy any possibility of doing that kind of good, but if approached philanthropically, big improvements in people’s lives are available from figuring out how to use improvements in when and what we eat and in our chemical environment to prevent a substantial fraction of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and other diseases.

---

For organized links to other posts on diet and health, see:

• Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide

For example, you might be interested in these posts on processed food and food additives:

• The Problem with Processed Food

• Another Problem with Processed Food: Propionate

• Open Conspiracies, Exhibit B: Glyphosate

• The Case Against Monosodium Glutamate—Why MSG is Dangerous (as are Other Sources of Free Glutamate) and How the Dangers Have Been Covered Up

• Eating Highly Processed Food is Correlated with Death

The 21st-Century Malaise of Males

Link to the article shown above

While attention has been focused on the dominance of high-end males in our society, low-end males have have been falling behind. Let me quote a few statistics from Douglas Belkin’s September 6, 2021 Wall Street Journal article “A Generation of American Men Give Up on College” (bullets added to separate passages):

• At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group.

• After six years of college, 65% of women in the U.S. who started a four-year university in 2012 received diplomas by 2018 compared with 59% of men during the same period, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

• In the next few years, two women will earn a college degree for every man, if the trend continues, said Douglas Shapiro, executive director of the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse.

• Women increased their lead over men in college applications for the 2021-22 school year—3,805,978 to 2,815,810—by nearly a percentage point compared with the previous academic year, according to Common Application, a nonprofit that transmits applications to more than 900 schools.

Part of this tilt of men away from college may be that higher education has gone off the rails in important ways, especially in serving young men. On that, see “False Advertising for College is Pretty Much the Norm” and “The Coming Transformation of Education: Degrees Won’t Matter Anymore, Skills Will.

Part of the trouble may be that straightforward ways of helping young men are not being taken. Douglas Belkin writes in ““A Generation of American Men Give Up on College”:

No college wants to tackle the issue under the glare of gender politics, said Ms. Delahunty, the enrollment consultant. The conventional view on campuses, she said, is that “men make more money, men hold higher positions, why should we give them a little shove from high school to college?”

I find this an unfortunate attitude. I tweeted this reaction:

An awareness of white male privilege at the high end is keeping help from getting to white males falling behind at the low end. https://t.co/PMW0RGrvc1

— Miles Kimball (@mileskimball) September 8, 2021

But I consider men’s tilt away from college as a symptom of something bigger. As a society, we are failing in our raising of something like a third of our young men. Jordan Peterson reports that when he gives a talk telling young men that life is tough but that by effort they can make their lives better, they are often grateful, saying they hadn’t heard that message before. How could we be failing to get that message across to all of our young men!

It is true that when looking at others, one should be very much aware of how luck, including the accident of what family was born into, affects their lives. But it doesn’t do much good to dwell on the accident of what family one was born into and other dimensions of luck in one’s own life! Everyone, everyone, needs to be taught that effort can better their situation in life.

Noah Smith and I addressed this principle in relation to math in “There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't.” (I followed that up with “How to Turn Every Child into a 'Math Person'.”) But the principle is much more general: effort has a major influence on performance.

Awareness of the difficulties others operate under and this principle of personal responsibility can coexist. Throwing out the principle of personal responsibility for fear it will interfere with an awareness of the difficulties others operate under is a terrible mistake. We need to help others and we each need to help ourselves.

It is a pity when basic principles such as personal responsibility get enmeshed in politics in a way that causes them to be intentionally neglected. Perhaps a key to rehabilitating the principle of personal responsibility politically is to realize that it should never be used to scold others or blame others but only to help others diagnose how they are messing up their own lives.

We debate on the margins about exactly how strong the incentives should be for people to get their lives together instead of messing them up. But everything within the scope of the current political debate would still leave someone miserable if they don’t take responsibility for their own life and much better off if they do take responsibility. After all, on top of the after-tax-and-transfer economic consequences of managing one’s life better or worse, there are the dating and relationship consequences of how well one manages one’s life and one’s character. And letting oneself be drawn into pathologies such as drug addiction (legal or illegal) can lead to deep misery. It is doing young people a grave disservice if we downplay the difference they can make by means of effort in bettering life and character.

The time has come to begin worrying more about young men. They are in trouble. This doesn’t have to take away from efforts to help women. At a moment of crisis like this, we can do what it takes to help both men and women with the somewhat distinct issues they face.

---

Don’t Miss These Posts Related to Positive Mental Health and Maintaining One’s Moral Compass:

• Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life

• On Human Potential

• How Economists Can Enhance Their Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact

• Virtues for Economists

• 'Everything Happens for a Reason' for Nonsupernaturalists

• My Life will be Good When ...

• On Perfectionism

• Forgive Yourself

• Only What is in Our Power is Our Duty

• The Devil of Getting Criticized

• Improving Your User Illusion

• Judson Brewer, Elizabeth Bernstein and Mitchell Kaplan on Finding Inner Calm

• The Four Horsemen of Relationship Destruction

• The Golden Mean as Concavity of Objective Functions

• Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity

• 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills)

• How I Became Optimistic

• Fatal Flaws Don't Have To Be Fatal

• Believe in Yourself

• Breaking the Chains

• Leaving a Legacy

• My Objective Function

• The Unmaking

• A Personal Mission Statement: Keep It Short

• John Locke on the Mandate of Heaven

• Tom Gauld's Sympathy Cards for Scientists

• The Expanding Shoreline of Ignorance

• Contrasted Faults Through All Their Manners Reign

• On Altruism, Externalities and Bossiness

• Bex's Rules for Life

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: The Lost Art of Curiosity

• Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries—Taryn Laakso

• Taryn Laakso: Battery Charge Trending to 0% — Time to Recharge

• Taryn Laakso: Righting Your Ship Before You Capsize

• Kristeen Barth: We Don't Have to Be for Everyone

• Dave Baillie: Calibrate Your Compass

• Gerard Theoret: 3 Turns of the Screw

• Savannah Taylor: Lessons of the Labyrinth and Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom

Life Lessons from Math: Sequencing and Pacing Projects—Joseph Kimball and Miles Kimball

Joseph Kimball

In the last year I have written 3 blog posts on one theme:

• How Fast Should a Project Be Completed?

• Sequencing of Projects

• Sequencing of Projects, Continued

I was motivated just as much by the practical lessons I was learning myself as by the usual blogging motivation of communicating a cool idea. Projects that only really start having a payoff flow after they are completed are very common, so it matters.

Here is what I feel I learned from writing those 3 posts:

• Projects that only start paying off when they are completed should be done at a relatively quick pace, only reined in when the speed with which cost increases with the pace becomes relatively high (technically, that means pushing up the pace until the elasticity of flow cost with respect to pace becomes substantial).

• If there are several projects of this type to be pursued in sequence, the pace of the projects sequenced first should be even faster, since a lot is waiting on them.

• Unless you have a special justification to do otherwise, focus on only one project of this type at a time. One project that is done pays off better than many half-finished projects!

• For the most part, start with the project that has the greatest flow benefit relative to its size.

• When two projects have similar ratios of flow benefit to size, start with the one that has the greater flow benefit. (For somewhat subtle mathematical reasons, the ability to adjust one’s pace from one project to the next makes the size somewhat less important.)

My brother Joseph found these three blog posts intriguing. With his permission, let me share what he wrote about the life lessons he drew from these 3 posts. Below are Joseph’s words:

---

Executive summary: Do one project at a time in your set of projects, do that one as fast as you can, and choose that first project as the one which has the biggest benefit to size-of-job ratio and the biggest benefit to time-to-complete ratio.

In Miles’s post How Fast Should a Project Be Completed? where the project won’t give benefits until it’s complete, the conclusion was to complete the project quickly (as fast as possible without getting excessive).  His assumption about learning languages is that he’ll need to learn quite a bit (about 10,000 words in addition to a reasonable grasp of the grammar) to have functional comprehension for reading (with conversational ability as a nice but not necessary bonus if that happens too).

The math in that post boils down to saying that as long as the cost of doing the project at a particular speed plus the cost of delaying the completion of the project is greater than the cost of doing the project at that speed, then there’s space (elasticity) to do the project faster.  At some point the cost of doing the project faster may become unrealistic, even if you haven’t hit the limit of the equation.  But the greater the cost of delay for finishing the project, the greater the speed to finish should be.

If you’re doing a project that has numbers attached, such as construction (where there are monetary costs for all the pieces, additional costs for speeding up individual pieces, and contract costs for going beyond a specific deadline), it can be fairly straightforward (in the theoretical sense) to plug in the numbers to Miles’ equations and come up with actual numbers for how fast is optimal for that project.  If your project is amorphous, such as learning a language, the equations are still relevant, but become fuzzier and more subjective.  But even with fuzzy and subjective numbers the conclusion is to do the project as quickly as your circumstances allow.

In the Scrum method of project management [which originated as an element of Agile software development], the team does “sprints” to complete specific tasks towards a larger project.  Part of that idea is to have a quick turnaround of a specific small chunk of the project that can be completed, slotted into the larger project, and celebrated.  Then the team moves to the next sprint.

In Miles’s post “Sequencing of Projects,” the conclusion was to complete the first project in the sequence as quickly as possible, so the whole sequence gets done more quickly.  This is true regardless of the order you do the projects in but is even more powerful if you can find the optimal order. 

The graph at the beginning of the post [also shown just above] shows the benefits of the project sequence on the y axis (up), and the time it takes to complete the project sequence on the x axis (right).The curve goes to a limit of infinity at each axis showing the extremes that are mathematically possible (though unrealistic).  Each project has a benefit from completing it and a time it takes to complete.  You can compute the cost of any project as the rectangle defined by its benefit and the time it takes.  If you can shorten the time it takes, the benefit will increase from completing the project.

Shortening a project will increase the cost to complete it, and the limit of the function goes to infinity.  Since we are mortal infinite effort is beyond us, so there’s a limit on how much effort we can put into any project.  This is particularly true if this isn’t the only project we have going on (which is very normal for us mortals).

Looking at the other arm of the limit, we could theoretically get the same amount of benefit by pushing the time to complete the project toward infinity.  However, since we’re mortal there’s a hard limit on how far we can realistically push a project toward this arm.  Again, since this is likely not the only project in our life, we need to be cognizant of fitting the other projects into our mortal timeline.  There are a number of “projects” that would fit toward this arm of the project graph though such as: daily or periodic health and safety (brushing teeth, yearly physical, putting on your seat belt, checking tire pressure in your vehicle, etc.); keeping a daily journal/diary; periodic check-ins with your support group (significant other, family, friends, etc.).  These types of project are never really “completed” but only terminated at the end of our mortal life.  This sort of “never completed” project is beyond the scope of what Miles was contemplating in his article but does follow from examining the graph. 

I think Miles’s idea that learning a language is kind of all-or-nothing is not a good one.  An all-or-nothing project would be more like constructing a building, where you can’t occupy the building until the city inspector has signed off on it.  Thus, the building is useless at 99% complete.  Language learning seems to me to be more of an elongated S graph with utility on the y axis and vocabulary on the x axis (ignoring grammar in this example).  So you get very little utility until you have a good core of vocabulary (at the lower inflection point), then the utility rises pretty quickly until you get to that “10,000 word” level which encompasses all the words in common use (the upper inflection point), then utility increase gets smaller sharply as you add specialty words.

The elongated S graph would also apply to things like sports, where you really can’t do it until you have a base level of knowledge and skill (the lower inflection point), but then you get a lot more out of it as you increase your skill until you hit the upper inflection point.  Beyond that upper inflection point you get Olympic or top-level professional performance.  An example pertinent to me would be martial arts where a “black belt” rank (or equivalent in whichever art you’re studying) is the lower inflection point, and a “master” rank might be the upper inflection point.

Back to Miles’s concept of learning languages though, once you’ve reached that upper inflection point, it’s more a matter of maintaining that level by periodic practice and gradually learning the specialty words you need.  At this point the level of effort you’ll be putting into that language can be reduced to maintenance level and you can begin the next project (learning the next language). If his goal is to learn three languages, then getting that first language to maintenance level as quickly as possible will allow the next language learning to begin sooner.  The benefits of having the first language under your belt can start accruing while you work on the next one.

While doing projects such as learning languages can be done in parallel, you’re not going to get to that upper inflection point where you start getting big benefits for any of the projects until much further in the future since you’re splitting the time you’re working on any one project.  Also, there’s the possibility of “cross-contamination” by which I mean messing up your work on one or more of the projects due to the incorrect application of effort on one into another.  An example of cross-contamination in my life was one year in high school where I took both German and French.  Both teachers hated this since I’d mix the German into the French class and vice versa.  Doing the projects in parallel increases the delay dramatically thus increasing the total cost of delay in getting the benefits.

As a tangent, let me suggest that one of the benefits or completing one project first (to at least the lower inflection point) is that it will enhance the serendipitous connections between projects.  So, if you have enough grasp on the first project, connections can become apparent in the second project as congruent points arise.  An example in my life is that I attained black belt in Shaolin Kempo (the art I currently study) more than a decade ago.  Shortly after that I took classes in historical European martial arts (HEMA) for a while.  I was able to compare and contrast techniques between the arts as I continued to advance in each.  This led to an increase in my understanding of both arts because I had enough knowledge of one to make those kinds of connections.

The mantra of “complete the first project, then move to the next” has some exceptions.  If we come to a point in project A where we’re waiting for someone else, or some event to occur that’s external to the project, then we can put aside project A for project B until that waiting state resolves.  Examples of waiting for an external event might be weather, delivery of a part, another person’s completion of an element of the project you need to integrate into the whole, etc.  If we’re waiting for inspiration to occur related to project A (letting your subconscious process what you’ve worked on so far), then putting it aside for project B may be a good move.  In some cases during longer projects you may find your mental/emotional cost for continuing project A has risen dramatically, and this may prompt a shift to project B until that excess cost state for project A has resolved (if it doesn’t resolve in what you consider an appropriate time you may want to work with a mental health professional). 

In Miles’s third post on this general topic “Sequencing of Projects, Continued,” he gives equations that help us determine which project to do first.  The conclusion is that we should choose to be done first the job which has the biggest benefit to size-of-job ratio and the biggest benefit to time-to-complete ratio.

If you have a moderately sized job that’ll give a big benefit when complete, that’s a good candidate for doing first.  Similarly, if you have a job that’ll give a big benefit compared to the time to complete it, that’s a good candidate for doing first.

Brushing teeth takes about two minutes if done thoroughly.  Immediate benefits are the feeling of clean teeth, and the sense of accomplishment at having completed the task.  Long term benefits include less time in the dentist’s chair and lower lifetime dental care costs.  The comparison of size of job (two minutes per day) to benefits (many hours, thousands of dollars, and possibly significant pain eliminated over the lifetime) suggests this task should be high on the list of projects for your day.

Exercise is a project that has the type of elongated S curve I described earlier.  The benefit of a small amount of exercise – 5-10 minutes per day, which can be as simple as walking around the block and swinging your arms a bit – is big over a lifetime according to the research I’ve seen.  The benefit of extensive exercise – 30-60 minutes of medium to high effort– is significant but has a much smaller benefit to time ratio.  This suggests that a few minutes of moderate exercise should be high on the list of projects for your day, and that more extensive exercise can be further down on your project list.

Both the benefit to size-of job and benefit to time-to-complete ratios should be declining over the series of projects.

---

Don’t Miss These Posts Related to Positive Mental Health and Maintaining One’s Moral Compass:

• Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life

• On Human Potential

• How Economists Can Enhance Their Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact

• Virtues for Economists

• 'Everything Happens for a Reason' for Nonsupernaturalists

• My Life will be Good When ...

• On Perfectionism

• Forgive Yourself

• Fatal Flaws Don't Have To Be Fatal

• Only What is in Our Power is Our Duty

• The Devil of Getting Criticized

• Improving Your User Illusion

• Judson Brewer, Elizabeth Bernstein and Mitchell Kaplan on Finding Inner Calm

• The Four Horsemen of Relationship Destruction

• The Golden Mean as Concavity of Objective Functions

• Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity

• 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills)

• How I Became Optimistic

• Believe in Yourself

• Breaking the Chains

• Leaving a Legacy

• My Objective Function

• The Unmaking

• A Personal Mission Statement: Keep It Short

• John Locke on the Mandate of Heaven

• Tom Gauld's Sympathy Cards for Scientists

• The Expanding Shoreline of Ignorance

• Contrasted Faults Through All Their Manners Reign

• On Altruism, Externalities and Bossiness

• Bex's Rules for Life

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: The Lost Art of Curiosity

• Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries—Taryn Laakso

• Taryn Laakso: Battery Charge Trending to 0% — Time to Recharge

• Taryn Laakso: Righting Your Ship Before You Capsize

• Kristeen Barth: We Don't Have to Be for Everyone

• Dave Baillie: Calibrate Your Compass

• Gerard Theoret: 3 Turns of the Screw

• Savannah Taylor: Lessons of the Labyrinth and Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom

Jordan Peterson Shows How to Engage Your Audience by Respecting Them

You can directly click “play” above, but here is the link to the video above on YouTube.

Can a Fasting-Induced Changing-of-the-Guard for Immune Cells Help Treat Auto-Immune Diseases?

Link to the article shown above

Link to the article shown just above

Evolution could assume many things during the millions of years of human evolution. One was that with the challenges of getting food and avoiding predators and dealing with rivals of their own and related species, hominins would not be sedentary. The other was that hominins would go through substantial periods of time with little or no food. (These assumptions are also good ones for most other animals as well.) As a result of these assumptions, human bodies malfunction when they don’t have some minimum of physical activity. Human bodies also malfunction when they don’t get substantial periods of time with no food.

In particular, there is growing evidence that periods of time with little or no food are the times when our bodies take apart defective and otherwise low-quality proteins—and to some extent defective and otherwise low-quality cells—and use them for spare parts. That quality control protocol may not happen if you always eat three meals a day.

A new study gets quite specific about one dimension of this process, with a detailed study of mice and a confirmatory, though less detailed study of humans. From Fiona MacDonald’s Science Alert article “Fasting Diet Has Been Shown to Ease Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms in Early Trial” comes this quotation:

"During the fasting-mimicking diet, cortisone is produced and that initiates a killing of autoimmune cells," said lead researcher Valter Longo from the University of South California. "This process also leads to the production of new healthy cells."

That part of the description of results gives hope that fasting might help with other autoimmune diseases as well. But there was also one effect more specific to treating multiple sclerosis. Let me add emphasis in bold italics:

"On the one hand, this fasting-mimicking diet kills bad immune cells," said Longo. "Then, after the mice return to the normal diet, the good immune cells but also the myelin-producing cells are generated, allowing a percentage of mice to reach a disease-free state."

Myelin is the protective sheathing around the long axons in nerves, that also helps make particular nerves transmit signals more readily. Problems with myelin producing cells are a big part of multiple sclerosis.

Serious clinical trials should be conducted on the effects of fasting on all the major autoimmune diseases. In addition, for those who have an autoimmune disease and don’t want to wait for the results of those clinical trials, it could be reasonable to decide that fasting is safe enough that it is worth doing an experiments of one’s own.

Autoimmune diseases have been listed among “diseases of civilization.” Our modern dietary practices—including when and how often we eat as well as what we eat—along with our sedentary lives are key suspects for all of the diseases of civilization. Hence, it is worth experimenting with a combination of exercise and periodic fasting as a home remedy for autoimmune diseases. It might or might not work, but the benefit if it does work is likely to be substantial, while the cost if it doesn’t work shouldn’t be that bad.

Let me end on an even more speculative note. Though we don’t yet understand long Covid very well, it is possible that for some people it has an important autoimmune component. After all, many of the people who die of Covid in its acute phase die because of an overreaction of the immune system. It seems possible that long Covid sometimes involves a less extreme overreaction of the immune system. If so, rebooting the immune system through a serious fast might help. Again, this might or might not work, but the mechanism is plausible, the cost is modest and the benefit if it does work is substantial. So it might be worth a try.

---

For organized links to other posts on diet and health, see:

• Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide

For convenience, here are the links in the section on fasting:

• Stop Counting Calories; It's the Clock that Counts

• Fasting Tips

• My Modified Fast

• Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time

• The New England Journal of Medicine Review of the Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging and Disease

• Lisa Drayer: Is Fasting the Fountain of Youth?

• Andreas Michalsen on Fasting

• How to Make Ramadan Fasting—or Any Other Religious Fasting—Easier

• Elizabeth Thomas: Can Time-Restricted Eating Prevent You From Overindulging on Thanksgiving?

• On 'Flipping the Metabolic Switch: Understanding and Applying Health Benefits of Fasting' by Stephen D. Anton et al.

• Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia

• The Benefits of Fasting are Looking So Clear People Try to Mimic Fasting without Fasting

• The New England Journal of Medicine Review of the Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging and Disease

• Fasting Before Feasting

• On My Pattern of Fasting (click here, then on ‘show this thread’)

• Potential Protective Mechanisms of Ketosis in Migraine Prevention

• Ethan Weiss on Fasting

• Jane Brody on Intermittent Fasting

• Inducing Autophagy

• Fasting as a Reboot

Job Posting for a Full-Time Predoctoral Research Assistant

We are posting two positions, one to start as soon as possible, another to start Summer 2022:

• Starting ASAP

• Starting Summer 2022

Dan Benjamin, Ori Heffetz, Kristen Cooper and I are leading a team mapping out the design principles for a national well-being index that can stand as a coequal to GDP.

Come work with us as a full-time research assistant! @econ_ra

Here are details:https://t.co/AzcodIagd3

— Miles Kimball (@mileskimball) August 19, 2021

Can't recommend this enough! A valuable experience in preparing me for grad school. https://t.co/gjMr5sP3t0

— Rebecca Royer (@Becky_C_Royer) August 18, 2021

Fascinating-sounding job here for economics or wannabe economics students. https://t.co/TCSC4dgUTp

— Paula Schaap (@pschaap) August 19, 2021

Quite the project here. https://t.co/IeYuR3zKrF

— Niklas Blanchard Ⓐ☪️⛳☭🚁 (@cheapseatsecon) August 19, 2021

The Federalist Papers #38—James Madison Analyzes the Proposed Constitution Using the Principle of Opportunity Cost: What is the Alternative to the Consensus of the Constitutional Convention?

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #38

In the Federalist Papers #38, James Madison implicitly uses the principle of opportunity cost to argue for the proposed constitution. On page 12 of their Principles of Economics, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers define opportunity cost this way:

The opportunity cost of something is the next best alternative you have to give up.

They add:

The true cost of something is what you have to give up to get it.

James Madison uses the principle of opportunity cost in two ways. First, for those who think of the Articles of Confederation as the next best alternative to the proposed constitution, he points out that the Articles of Confederation would either (a) remain too weak to get an adequate job of governing done or (b) be attributed powers as extensive as the proposed constitution, but with fewer checks and balances.

Second, if it isn’t the Articles of Confederation, he asks for a coherent statement of what the next best alternative to the proposed constitution is. He points out that on almost any dimension, some think further in that dimension would be better while others think less far would be better. While in the Federalist Papers #37, James Madison argues in effect that “The best is the mortal enemy of the good” in relation to the proposed constitution, in the Federalist Papers #38, he argues that the ideal that is better than the proposed constitution—and could possibly be agreed upon—is hard to pin down.

On the Articles of Confederation, the heart of James Madison’s argument is this:

… the Confederation is chargeable with the still greater folly of declaring certain powers in the federal government to be absolutely necessary, and at the same time rendering them absolutely nugatory; and, in the next place, that if the Union is to continue, and no better government be substituted, effective powers must either be granted to, or assumed by, the existing Congress …

James Madison then gives as an excellent example of necessity leading to the assumption of extra powers: the Continental Congress exercising power over new territories in the West:

It is now no longer a point of speculation and hope, that the Western territory is a mine of vast wealth to the United States; … Congress have assumed the administration of this stock. They have begun to render it productive. Congress have undertaken to do more: they have proceeded to form new States, to erect temporary governments, to appoint officers for them, and to prescribe the conditions on which such States shall be admitted into the Confederacy. All this has been done; and done without the least color of constitutional authority. Yet no blame has been whispered; no alarm has been sounded.

On other alternatives to the proposed constitution, James Madison contrasts the consensus of the constitutional convention—which he argues is unprecedented in history—to the total lack of consensus on another alternative. Let me rendering James Madison’s examples of the variegated objections to the constitution into bullet points, otherwise quoting directly:

• This one tells us that the proposed Constitution ought to be rejected, because it is not a confederation of the States, but a government over individuals.

• Another admits that it ought to be a government over individuals to a certain extent, but by no means to the extent proposed.

• A third does not object to the government over individuals, or to the extent proposed, but to the want of a bill of rights.

• A fourth concurs in the absolute necessity of a bill of rights, but contends that it ought to be declaratory, not of the personal rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the States in their political capacity.

• A fifth is of opinion that a bill of rights of any sort would be superfluous and misplaced, and that the plan would be unexceptionable but for the fatal power of regulating the times and places of election.

• An objector in a large State exclaims loudly against the unreasonable equality of representation in the Senate.

• An objector in a small State is equally loud against the dangerous inequality in the House of Representatives.

• From this quarter, we are alarmed with the amazing expense, from the number of persons who are to administer the new government.

• From another quarter, and sometimes from the same quarter, on another occasion, the cry is that the Congress will be but a shadow of a representation, and that the government would be far less objectionable if the number and the expense were doubled.

• A patriot in a State that does not import or export, discerns insuperable objections against the power of direct taxation.

• The patriotic adversary in a State of great exports and imports, is not less dissatisfied that the whole burden of taxes may be thrown on consumption.

• This politician discovers in the Constitution a direct and irresistible tendency to monarchy;

• that is equally sure it will end in aristocracy.

• Another is puzzled to say which of these shapes it will ultimately assume, but sees clearly it must be one or other of them;

• whilst a fourth is not wanting, who with no less confidence affirms that the Constitution is so far from having a bias towards either of these dangers, that the weight on that side will not be sufficient to keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities.

• With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty.

• In the eyes of one the junction of the Senate with the President in the responsible function of appointing to offices, instead of vesting this executive power in the Executive alone, is the vicious part of the organization.

• To another, the exclusion of the House of Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due security against corruption and partiality in the exercise of such a power, is equally obnoxious.

• With another, the admission of the President into any share of a power which ever must be a dangerous engine in the hands of the executive magistrate, is an unpardonable violation of the maxims of republican jealousy.

• No part of the arrangement, according to some, is more inadmissible than the trial of impeachments by the Senate, which is alternately a member both of the legislative and executive departments, when this power so evidently belonged to the judiciary department.

• "We concur fully," reply others, "in the objection to this part of the plan, but we can never agree that a reference of impeachments to the judiciary authority would be an amendment of the error. Our principal dislike to the organization arises from the extensive powers already lodged in that department."

• Even among the zealous patrons of a council of state the most irreconcilable variance is discovered concerning the mode in which it ought to be constituted. The demand of one gentleman is, that the council should consist of a small number to be appointed by the most numerous branch of the legislature.

• Another would prefer a larger number, and considers it as a fundamental condition that the appointment should be made by the President himself.

James Madison’s arguments in the Federalist Papers #38 are a good example of how the principle of opportunity cost doesn’t always make a proposed choice look worse. Sometimes it makes the proposed choice look better in comparison because the next best alternative, when clearly seen, can be seen to have serious bad points.

I’ll end by quoting James Madison’s own explicit explanation of the opportunity cost principle:

It is a matter both of wonder and regret, that those who raise so many objections against the new Constitution should never call to mind the defects of that which is to be exchanged for it. It is not necessary that the former should be perfect; it is sufficient that the latter is more imperfect. No man would refuse to give brass for silver or gold, because the latter had some alloy in it. No man would refuse to quit a shattered and tottering habitation for a firm and commodious building, because the latter had not a porch to it, or because some of the rooms might be a little larger or smaller, or the ceilings a little higher or lower than his fancy would have planned them.

---

FEDERALIST NO. 38

The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed

From the New York Packet
Tuesday, January 15, 1788.

Author: James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

IT IS not a little remarkable that in every case reported by ancient history, in which government has been established with deliberation and consent, the task of framing it has not been committed to an assembly of men, but has been performed by some individual citizen of preeminent wisdom and approved integrity.

Minos, we learn, was the primitive founder of the government of Crete, as Zaleucus was of that of the Locrians. Theseus first, and after him Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome was laid by Romulus, and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa and Tullius Hostilius. On the abolition of royalty the consular administration was substituted by Brutus, who stepped forward with a project for such a reform, which, he alleged, had been prepared by Tullius Hostilius, and to which his address obtained the assent and ratification of the senate and people. This remark is applicable to confederate governments also. Amphictyon, we are told, was the author of that which bore his name. The Achaean league received its first birth from Achaeus, and its second from Aratus.

What degree of agency these reputed lawgivers might have in their respective establishments, or how far they might be clothed with the legitimate authority of the people, cannot in every instance be ascertained. In some, however, the proceeding was strictly regular. Draco appears to have been intrusted by the people of Athens with indefinite powers to reform its government and laws. And Solon, according to Plutarch, was in a manner compelled, by the universal suffrage of his fellow-citizens, to take upon him the sole and absolute power of new-modeling the constitution. The proceedings under Lycurgus were less regular; but as far as the advocates for a regular reform could prevail, they all turned their eyes towards the single efforts of that celebrated patriot and sage, instead of seeking to bring about a revolution by the intervention of a deliberative body of citizens.

Whence could it have proceeded, that a people, jealous as the Greeks were of their liberty, should so far abandon the rules of caution as to place their destiny in the hands of a single citizen? Whence could it have proceeded, that the Athenians, a people who would not suffer an army to be commanded by fewer than ten generals, and who required no other proof of danger to their liberties than the illustrious merit of a fellow-citizen, should consider one illustrious citizen as a more eligible depositary of the fortunes of themselves and their posterity, than a select body of citizens, from whose common deliberations more wisdom, as well as more safety, might have been expected? These questions cannot be fully answered, without supposing that the fears of discord and disunion among a number of counsellors exceeded the apprehension of treachery or incapacity in a single individual. History informs us, likewise, of the difficulties with which these celebrated reformers had to contend, as well as the expedients which they were obliged to employ in order to carry their reforms into effect. Solon, who seems to have indulged a more temporizing policy, confessed that he had not given to his countrymen the government best suited to their happiness, but most tolerable to their prejudices. And Lycurgus, more true to his object, was under the necessity of mixing a portion of violence with the authority of superstition, and of securing his final success by a voluntary renunciation, first of his country, and then of his life. If these lessons teach us, on one hand, to admire the improvement made by America on the ancient mode of preparing and establishing regular plans of government, they serve not less, on the other, to admonish us of the hazards and difficulties incident to such experiments, and of the great imprudence of unnecessarily multiplying them.

Is it an unreasonable conjecture, that the errors which may be contained in the plan of the convention are such as have resulted rather from the defect of antecedent experience on this complicated and difficult subject, than from a want of accuracy or care in the investigation of it; and, consequently such as will not be ascertained until an actual trial shall have pointed them out? This conjecture is rendered probable, not only by many considerations of a general nature, but by the particular case of the Articles of Confederation. It is observable that among the numerous objections and amendments suggested by the several States, when these articles were submitted for their ratification, not one is found which alludes to the great and radical error which on actual trial has discovered itself. And if we except the observations which New Jersey was led to make, rather by her local situation, than by her peculiar foresight, it may be questioned whether a single suggestion was of sufficient moment to justify a revision of the system. There is abundant reason, nevertheless, to suppose that immaterial as these objections were, they would have been adhered to with a very dangerous inflexibility, in some States, had not a zeal for their opinions and supposed interests been stifled by the more powerful sentiment of selfpreservation. One State, we may remember, persisted for several years in refusing her concurrence, although the enemy remained the whole period at our gates, or rather in the very bowels of our country. Nor was her pliancy in the end effected by a less motive, than the fear of being chargeable with protracting the public calamities, and endangering the event of the contest. Every candid reader will make the proper reflections on these important facts.

A patient who finds his disorder daily growing worse, and that an efficacious remedy can no longer be delayed without extreme danger, after coolly revolving his situation, and the characters of different physicians, selects and calls in such of them as he judges most capable of administering relief, and best entitled to his confidence. The physicians attend; the case of the patient is carefully examined; a consultation is held; they are unanimously agreed that the symptoms are critical, but that the case, with proper and timely relief, is so far from being desperate, that it may be made to issue in an improvement of his constitution. They are equally unanimous in prescribing the remedy, by which this happy effect is to be produced. The prescription is no sooner made known, however, than a number of persons interpose, and, without denying the reality or danger of the disorder, assure the patient that the prescription will be poison to his constitution, and forbid him, under pain of certain death, to make use of it. Might not the patient reasonably demand, before he ventured to follow this advice, that the authors of it should at least agree among themselves on some other remedy to be substituted? And if he found them differing as much from one another as from his first counsellors, would he not act prudently in trying the experiment unanimously recommended by the latter, rather than be hearkening to those who could neither deny the necessity of a speedy remedy, nor agree in proposing one?

Such a patient and in such a situation is America at this moment. She has been sensible of her malady. She has obtained a regular and unanimous advice from men of her own deliberate choice. And she is warned by others against following this advice under pain of the most fatal consequences. Do the monitors deny the reality of her danger? No. Do they deny the necessity of some speedy and powerful remedy? No. Are they agreed, are any two of them agreed, in their objections to the remedy proposed, or in the proper one to be substituted? Let them speak for themselves. This one tells us that the proposed Constitution ought to be rejected, because it is not a confederation of the States, but a government over individuals. Another admits that it ought to be a government over individuals to a certain extent, but by no means to the extent proposed. A third does not object to the government over individuals, or to the extent proposed, but to the want of a bill of rights. A fourth concurs in the absolute necessity of a bill of rights, but contends that it ought to be declaratory, not of the personal rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the States in their political capacity. A fifth is of opinion that a bill of rights of any sort would be superfluous and misplaced, and that the plan would be unexceptionable but for the fatal power of regulating the times and places of election. An objector in a large State exclaims loudly against the unreasonable equality of representation in the Senate. An objector in a small State is equally loud against the dangerous inequality in the House of Representatives. From this quarter, we are alarmed with the amazing expense, from the number of persons who are to administer the new government. From another quarter, and sometimes from the same quarter, on another occasion, the cry is that the Congress will be but a shadow of a representation, and that the government would be far less objectionable if the number and the expense were doubled. A patriot in a State that does not import or export, discerns insuperable objections against the power of direct taxation. The patriotic adversary in a State of great exports and imports, is not less dissatisfied that the whole burden of taxes may be thrown on consumption. This politician discovers in the Constitution a direct and irresistible tendency to monarchy; that is equally sure it will end in aristocracy. Another is puzzled to say which of these shapes it will ultimately assume, but sees clearly it must be one or other of them; whilst a fourth is not wanting, who with no less confidence affirms that the Constitution is so far from having a bias towards either of these dangers, that the weight on that side will not be sufficient to keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come forward with his particular explanation, and scarce any two are exactly agreed upon the subject. In the eyes of one the junction of the Senate with the President in the responsible function of appointing to offices, instead of vesting this executive power in the Executive alone, is the vicious part of the organization. To another, the exclusion of the House of Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due security against corruption and partiality in the exercise of such a power, is equally obnoxious. With another, the admission of the President into any share of a power which ever must be a dangerous engine in the hands of the executive magistrate, is an unpardonable violation of the maxims of republican jealousy. No part of the arrangement, according to some, is more inadmissible than the trial of impeachments by the Senate, which is alternately a member both of the legislative and executive departments, when this power so evidently belonged to the judiciary department. "We concur fully," reply others, "in the objection to this part of the plan, but we can never agree that a reference of impeachments to the judiciary authority would be an amendment of the error. Our principal dislike to the organization arises from the extensive powers already lodged in that department." Even among the zealous patrons of a council of state the most irreconcilable variance is discovered concerning the mode in which it ought to be constituted. The demand of one gentleman is, that the council should consist of a small number to be appointed by the most numerous branch of the legislature. Another would prefer a larger number, and considers it as a fundamental condition that the appointment should be made by the President himself.

As it can give no umbrage to the writers against the plan of the federal Constitution, let us suppose, that as they are the most zealous, so they are also the most sagacious, of those who think the late convention were unequal to the task assigned them, and that a wiser and better plan might and ought to be substituted. Let us further suppose that their country should concur, both in this favorable opinion of their merits, and in their unfavorable opinion of the convention; and should accordingly proceed to form them into a second convention, with full powers, and for the express purpose of revising and remoulding the work of the first. Were the experiment to be seriously made, though it required some effort to view it seriously even in fiction, I leave it to be decided by the sample of opinions just exhibited, whether, with all their enmity to their predecessors, they would, in any one point, depart so widely from their example, as in the discord and ferment that would mark their own deliberations; and whether the Constitution, now before the public, would not stand as fair a chance for immortality, as Lycurgus gave to that of Sparta, by making its change to depend on his own return from exile and death, if it were to be immediately adopted, and were to continue in force, not until a BETTER, but until ANOTHER should be agreed upon by this new assembly of lawgivers.

It is a matter both of wonder and regret, that those who raise so many objections against the new Constitution should never call to mind the defects of that which is to be exchanged for it. It is not necessary that the former should be perfect; it is sufficient that the latter is more imperfect. No man would refuse to give brass for silver or gold, because the latter had some alloy in it. No man would refuse to quit a shattered and tottering habitation for a firm and commodious building, because the latter had not a porch to it, or because some of the rooms might be a little larger or smaller, or the ceilings a little higher or lower than his fancy would have planned them. But waiving illustrations of this sort, is it not manifest that most of the capital objections urged against the new system lie with tenfold weight against the existing Confederation? Is an indefinite power to raise money dangerous in the hands of the federal government? The present Congress can make requisitions to any amount they please, and the States are constitutionally bound to furnish them; they can emit bills of credit as long as they will pay for the paper; they can borrow, both abroad and at home, as long as a shilling will be lent. Is an indefinite power to raise troops dangerous? The Confederation gives to Congress that power also; and they have already begun to make use of it. Is it improper and unsafe to intermix the different powers of government in the same body of men? Congress, a single body of men, are the sole depositary of all the federal powers. Is it particularly dangerous to give the keys of the treasury, and the command of the army, into the same hands? The Confederation places them both in the hands of Congress. Is a bill of rights essential to liberty? The Confederation has no bill of rights. Is it an objection against the new Constitution, that it empowers the Senate, with the concurrence of the Executive, to make treaties which are to be the laws of the land? The existing Congress, without any such control, can make treaties which they themselves have declared, and most of the States have recognized, to be the supreme law of the land. Is the importation of slaves permitted by the new Constitution for twenty years? By the old it is permitted forever.

I shall be told, that however dangerous this mixture of powers may be in theory, it is rendered harmless by the dependence of Congress on the State for the means of carrying them into practice; that however large the mass of powers may be, it is in fact a lifeless mass. Then, say I, in the first place, that the Confederation is chargeable with the still greater folly of declaring certain powers in the federal government to be absolutely necessary, and at the same time rendering them absolutely nugatory; and, in the next place, that if the Union is to continue, and no better government be substituted, effective powers must either be granted to, or assumed by, the existing Congress; in either of which events, the contrast just stated will hold good. But this is not all. Out of this lifeless mass has already grown an excrescent power, which tends to realize all the dangers that can be apprehended from a defective construction of the supreme government of the Union. It is now no longer a point of speculation and hope, that the Western territory is a mine of vast wealth to the United States; and although it is not of such a nature as to extricate them from their present distresses, or for some time to come, to yield any regular supplies for the public expenses, yet must it hereafter be able, under proper management, both to effect a gradual discharge of the domestic debt, and to furnish, for a certain period, liberal tributes to the federal treasury. A very large proportion of this fund has been already surrendered by individual States; and it may with reason be expected that the remaining States will not persist in withholding similar proofs of their equity and generosity. We may calculate, therefore, that a rich and fertile country, of an area equal to the inhabited extent of the United States, will soon become a national stock. Congress have assumed the administration of this stock. They have begun to render it productive. Congress have undertaken to do more: they have proceeded to form new States, to erect temporary governments, to appoint officers for them, and to prescribe the conditions on which such States shall be admitted into the Confederacy. All this has been done; and done without the least color of constitutional authority. Yet no blame has been whispered; no alarm has been sounded. A GREAT and INDEPENDENT fund of revenue is passing into the hands of a SINGLE BODY of men, who can RAISE TROOPS to an INDEFINITE NUMBER, and appropriate money to their support for an INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME. And yet there are men, who have not only been silent spectators of this prospect, but who are advocates for the system which exhibits it; and, at the same time, urge against the new system the objections which we have heard. Would they not act with more consistency, in urging the establishment of the latter, as no less necessary to guard the Union against the future powers and resources of a body constructed like the existing Congress, than to save it from the dangers threatened by the present impotency of that Assembly?

I mean not, by any thing here said, to throw censure on the measures which have been pursued by Congress. I am sensible they could not have done otherwise. The public interest, the necessity of the case, imposed upon them the task of overleaping their constitutional limits. But is not the fact an alarming proof of the danger resulting from a government which does not possess regular powers commensurate to its objects? A dissolution or usurpation is the dreadful dilemma to which it is continually exposed.

PUBLIUS.

---

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

• The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate

• The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America

• The Federalist Papers #2 B: You Trusted the Continental Congress; Trust the Constitutional Convention

• The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to Stumble into War

• The Federalist Papers #4 A: The States Must Be Prepared to Defend against Aggression by Other Nations

• The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the States are United

• The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each Others' Throats

• The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human Motives for War

• The Federalist Papers #6 B: Commercial Republics Also Start Wars with Their Neighbors—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #7 A: Divided, the States Would Fall into Territorial Disputes Likely to Lead to War Between the States—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #7 B: Without Union, Economic Disagreements Would Drive the States to Conflict with One Another—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #8: Without Union, the States Would Either Be Subject to Devastating Wars with Each Other or Would Have Liberty Endangered by their Own Standing Armies—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #9 A: There Has Been Technological Progress in Practical Principles of Republican Government—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #9 B: A Large Confederation May Be More Politically Stable Than a Small Nation—Alexander Hamilton Cites Montesquieu

• The Federalist Papers #10 A: Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #10 B: The Larger the Republic, the Easier It is to Find Thoughtful Legislators and the Harder It is to Put Together a Majority to do Unjust Things—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #13: Alexander Hamilton on Increasing Returns to Scale in National Government

• The Federalist Papers #14: A Republic Can Be Geographically Large—James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #15: A Government, to be Worthy of the Name, Must Govern Its Citizens, Not Just Its Subordinate Jurisdictions—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #16: Authority of the Federal Government Directly over Individuals Means States Can Only Thwart the Federal Government by Active and Obvious Resistance—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #17: Three Levels of Federal Power

• The Federalist Papers #18: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison Point to the Weakness of Confederations of Cities in Ancient Greece to Argue for a Strong Federal Government

• The Federalist Papers #19: The Weakness of the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #20: The Weakness of the United Netherlands up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

• The Federalist Papers #21 A: Constitutions Need to be Enforced—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #21 B: Alexander Hamilton Complains of the Lack of a Measure Such as GDP Suitable for Apportioning Taxes to the States

• The Federalist Papers #22 A: The Articles of Confederation Lead to Uncoordinated Trade Policy and Military Free-Riding—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #22 B: Supermajority Rules Aren't an Adequate Fix for Departures from One-Person One-Vote—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #22 C: Pillars of Democracy—The Judicial System, Military Loyal to the Constitution, and Police Loyal to the Constitution

• The Federalist Papers #23: The Federal Government Must Be Given Sufficient Power to Accomplish Whatever We Expect the Federal Government to Do—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #24: The United States Need a Standing Army—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #25: Prohibiting a Standing Army in Time of Peace Would Be a Mistake—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #26: Some Part of the Government Must Be Able to Authorize an Army Whenever Necessary, after Being Forced to Fully Debate the Issue—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #27: People Will Get Used to the Federal Government—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #28: The Federal Government and States Can Check One Another’s Power, Reducing the Chance of Abuses—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #29: State Militias such as the National Guard are Not Attractive Tools for Tyrants—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #30: A Robust Power of Taxation is Needed to Make a Nation Powerful

• The Federalist Papers #31: Alexander Hamilton's Attempt at a Formal Argument for a Robust Federal Power of Taxation

• The Federalist Papers #32: The States Retain All Powers Not Explicitly Taken Away by the Constitution—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #33: The 'Necessary and Proper' and Supremacy Clauses Only Make Explicit What the Specified Powers Imply—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #34: War is Expensive. To Defend the Union, the Federal Government Needs an Ample Power of Taxation—Alexander Hamilton

• The Federalist Papers #35 A: Alexander Hamilton as an Economist

• The Federalist Papers #35 B: Alexander Hamilton on Who Can Represent Whom

• The Federalist Papers #36: Alexander Hamilton on Regressive Taxation

• The Federalist Papers #37: Why the Constitution Isn't Perfect—And Why No Constitution Could Be. James Madison

On 'Digital Currencies Pave Way for Deeply Negative Interest Rates' by James Mackintosh

Link to the article shown above

Even though the monetary policy talk right now is all about when the Fed will reduce asset purchases and then raise interest rates, the development of central bank digital currency has brought negative interest rate policy into the news. In his September 8, 2021 Wall Street Journal article, James Mackintosh writes that “Digital Currencies Pave Way for Deeply Negative Interest Rates.”

James defines central bank digital currencies this way:

… central bank-issued money usable by you and me, just as bank notes are. It might (or might not) pay interest, but it is different to money in an ordinary bank account, which is created by the commercial bank; the existing central-bank digital money, known as reserves, are used only to settle debts between banks and certain other institutions, not available for ordinary use.

James proceeds with a common misconception: that getting rid of paper currency is the only way to get paper currency out of the way of deep negative interest rates:

The main monetary power of the digital dollar comes from the abolition of bank notes. If people can’t hoard physical money, it becomes much easier to cut interest rates far below zero; otherwise the zero rate on bank notes stuffed under the mattress looks attractive. And if interest rates can go far below zero, monetary policy is suddenly much more powerful and better suited to tackle deflation.

…

The main limit is that deeply negative rates would encourage people to switch to bank notes to “earn” zero on their savings, instead of losing money. There are costs to hoarding large amounts of physical money, including storage and insurance against fire or theft, which allows slightly negative rates. But go deep enough, and negative rates would be applied to an ever-shrinking pool of savings, undermining their efficacy and draining the banks.

I’ve written a lot—the most important pieces coauthored with Ruchir Agarwal—about how to keep paper currency around, but modify paper currency policy in ways that get paper currency out of the way of deep negative rates. See my bibliographic post “How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide.”

In addition to the paper currency problem, there are two other problems for negative interest rate policy: the bank profits problem, which is also easy to solve (see “Responding to Negative Coverage of Negative Rates in the Financial Times”), and the political problem, which is more difficult. James has this to say about the political problem:

Deeply negative rates won’t come straight away. Initially, central-bank digital currencies will almost certainly be designed to behave as much like ordinary bank notes as possible, to make their adoption easy and minimize disruption, while use of physical cash will be allowed to wither away. But those close to the development agree that monetary caution is unlikely to last.

On the other hand:

… what once seemed to be an impossibly extreme monetary policy can quickly become the norm.

James argues that central bank digital currency will reduce trouble from the paper currency problem and from psychological attachment to paper currency, and that the development of central bank digital currency is well under way:

How long it takes is up for debate, but some countries have already moved beyond the experimental stage, and policy makers are feeling the pressure from crypto developers, especially so-called stablecoins tied to the value of ordinary currency.

Even though several central banks have gone to negative rates and have already braved substantial political flak, fears of the paper currency problem and the bank profits problem have kept central banks from going beyond mild negative rates. Confidence in solutions to the paper currency problem and the bank profits problem—which I have argued at length is a well-justified confidence—could lead to use of much deeper rates. As James writes:

The ECB has a rate of -0.5%, the Bank of Japan -0.1% and the Swiss National Bank -0.75%. But none think they can go below -1%.

…

The monetary impact of removing, or at least reducing, this effective lower bound, as economists call it, is profound. Instead of turning to new and still unproven tools like the bond-buying of quantitative easing, central banks would be able to keep cutting rates when a crisis hit. And they would cut a long way …

What does all of this mean for investors—and in particular for yields on 30-year bonds whose term might include a negative interest rate period? James makes the good point that, while holding the size of positive rates fixed, negative rates would reduce average short-term rates and so lower the 30-year rate, that the size of positive rates wouldn’t stay fixed. When the economy does better, interest rates tend to be higher:

If negative rates worked, it might not mean a lower average over time. Instead, it might mean higher average inflation, and similar or even higher rates, as the economy could quickly be jerked out of the rut of secular stagnation, and rates and inflation return to normal.

Quite importantly, that means that negative interest rate policy is good for savers. By definition, it will reduce the interest rates they get at some points in time, but it can raise the average interest rate they get over time.

But what does James mean by his proviso “If negative rates worked”? There is, these days a strange notion abroad in the land that interest rate cuts don’t stimulate the economy. There is also another strange notion abroad in the land that stimulating the economy—even stimulating the economy a lot—isn’t likely to cause extra inflation. Both of these notions are false. Interest rate cuts do stimulate the economy and inflation does gradually rise when the economy is overstimulated. These are far from the only things that affect the GDP and inflation, but they do affect them in extremely important ways.

On why interest rate cuts are going to stimulate the economy, see “How the Nature of the Transmission Mechanism from Rate Cuts Guarantees that Negative Rates have Unlimited Firepower,” which is really about the power of any type of interest rate cut, even in the positive region.

Right now the pandemic is making it hard to read what is happening to long-run inflation tendencies, but we might well be headed toward an experiment after the worst of the pandemic is over with an overstimulated economy. So we might be headed for another data point backing up the idea that an overstimulated economy leads to gradually rising underlying inflation, where “underlying” means beyond transitory factors.

In any case, it matters whether you believe that interest rate cuts stimulate the economy. James writes:

Making a decision comes down to how you view monetary policy. If you think it doesn’t really work as stimulus anyway, then negative rates would provide little to no extra support; a Japanified economy with even more negative rates might just have lower bond yields, and still no inflation.

If you agree with the central banks that interest rates are a powerful tool for reflating the economy, then digital money removes the asymmetry that prevents rates being used to tackle deflation. That should remove much of the risk of persistent deflation, justifying higher long-term bond yields.

But there is one other big factor that could affect long-term Treasury-bond rates: the effect negative interest rate policy could have on the inflation targets that central banks set. I write about that in “The Costs and Benefits of Repealing the Zero Lower Bound...and Then Lowering the Long-Run Inflation Target.” The main reason that major central banks have an inflation target above zero is that higher inflation with the same interest rate can get some of the same stimulative effects as a lower interest rate with the same inflation. If you can use deep negative rates, there is no longer the need to use inflation as a substitute for negative interest rates.

My prediction is that if central banks become comfortable with negative interest rate policy, then inflation targets will tend to come down gradually over time. That will in turn tend to reduce the average level of interest rates. Those who have locked in a stream of coupons with a 30-year Treasury bond will be sitting on something very valuable if inflation and so available interest rates come down.

I am glad to see talk of negative interest rate policy in the news. Some of the political cost of negative interest rate policy is because it seems strange and unfamiliar. The more we talk about it, the more familiar it will seem, and the less people will irrationally fear negative interest rates—or to believe fallacious arguments against negative interest rates from those who militate against negative rates out of narrow self-interest. And anything that reduces the political cost of negative interest rates is a good thing because negative interest rates can let us avoid a repeat of the Great Recession. On that, see “America's Big Monetary Policy Mistake: How Negative Interest Rates Could Have Stopped the Great Recession in Its Tracks.”