Supply-Side Progressivism—Ezra Klein
I think of the history of “Liberalism” as being much more illustrious than the history of “Progressivism,” and so favor the word “Liberal,” but the “Supply-Side Progressivism” that Ezra Klein has begun advocating is very much in the spirit of the “Supply-Side Liberalism” I have been advocating on this blog since 2012. (See “What is a Supply-Side Liberal?”)
Let me dive into Ezra Klein’s September 19, 2021 New York Times op-ed “The Economic Mistake the Left Is Finally Confronting” in some detail. The phrase “Supply-Side Progressivism” is in the link, making me think that was a working title: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progressivism.html
Ezra begins by detailing a set of policies he calls “demand-side,” but that I would call redistributionary policies. I think of demand-side policies as limited to the management of aggregate demand. (Note that I view redistribution as a very good thing whenever it doesn’t hurt the supply side too badly.) Then Ezra quotes the paper “Cost Disease Socialism” by Steven Teles, Samuel Hammond and Daniel Takashto make the case that costs matter:
We are in an era of spiraling costs for core social goods — health care, housing, education, child care — which has made proposals to socialize those costs enormously compelling for many on the progressive left. This can result in a vicious cycle in which subsidies for supply-constrained goods or services merely push up prices, necessitating greater subsidies, which then push up prices, ad infinitum,” they write.
Ezra goes on to lay out some excellent supply-side policy ideas. Let me list them and quote his explanation of each:
1. Increasing direct government support for drug development while reducing drug prices (through either government price negotiation or lessened patent protection):
We should combine price controls with new policies to encourage drug development. That could include everything from more funding of basic research to huge prizes for discovering drugs that treat particular conditions to more public funding for drug trials. Years ago, Bernie Sanders had an interesting proposal for creating a system of pharmaceutical prizes in which companies could make millions or billions for inventing drugs that cured certain conditions, and those drugs would be immediately released without exclusive patent protections. Focusing on the need to make new drugs affordable while ignoring the need to make more of them exist is like trimming a garden you’ve stopped watering.
2. Focusing on speeding up innovation that will help slow climate change:
Climate change is the most pressing example. If the Biden administration gave every American a check to transition to renewables, the policy would fail, because we haven’t built that much renewable capacity, to say nothing of the supply chain needed to deploy and maintain it. In a world where two-thirds of emissions now come from middle-income countries like China and India, the only way for humanity to both address climate change and poverty is to invent our way to clean energy that is plentiful and cheap and then spend enough to rapidly deploy it.
3. Increasing the national and state role in housing policy (as opposed to almost total control by local governments that don’t internalize the benefit of more housing to people who want to move to that locality):
Biden has proposed an expansive plan to increase housing supply in part by pushing local governments to end exclusionary zoning laws. And in California, that’s exactly what’s happening, as I wrote a few weeks back. A decade ago, progressives talked often of making housing affordable, but they didn’t talk much about increasing housing supply. Now they do. That’s progress.
Ezra Klein could have added:
4. Reducing the overgrowth of occupational licensing:
The Obama-era Treasury did some good work on this. I have touched on the scourge of excessive occupational licensing in several posts. See:
Conclusion. There is a lot more to Supply-Side Liberalism on this blog, but all of these fit nicely within Supply-Side Liberalism. Even in a time of extraordinary political polarization, I think there is the realistic potential for even more bipartisan efforts for 2, 3 and 4. And even 1, drug price controls/lower negotiated prices combined with other incentives and support for drug innovation could succeed given widespread support on the part of the electorate for lower drug prices.
A Fact to Keep in Mind When Parsing the Rise in Obesity: The Decline in Smoking Needs to Be Taken into Account
The decline of smoking has made a huge contribution to health. It has also made the obesity statistics look worse. That is especially important to take into account when making inferences from the time series of obesity about the cause of the rise in obesity. The timemoldslimemold blog made part of its argument for environmental contaminants as a cause of obesity from the increase in obesity after 1980, right when smoking was declining. That isn’t the only evidence for the importance of environmental contaminants: wild animals getting fatter and low altitudes being correlated with obesity are especially persuasive. But the time series is part of the argument. All of these possible causes of the rise in obesity should be taken seriously. A multiple-cause story is much more likely to fit the facts.
Here are my blog posts related to the idea that environmental contaminants help contribute to the rise of obesity:
Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity?
Livestock Antibiotics, Lithium and PFAS as Leading Suspects for Environmental Causes of Obesity
How Lithium May Have Led to Serious Obesity for the Pima Beginning around 1937
Market Opportunities for Helping People Deal with Obesity-Causing Environmental Contaminants
I don’t think I ever relied too heavily on the time series of obesity in judging the argument, since I already thought there were other missing variables—for instance, the distribution in the population of the length of the typical eating window during a day. So I think my posts don’t have to be discounted much at all because of the added complication of the decline of smoking. But some of slimemoldtimemold’s posts that I was riffing on verged a little much toward a monocausal explanation at times.
As I have said many times, the statistical and theoretical issues around explaining the rise of obesity are quite tricky and could be much clarified from having many economists dive deeply into them. Training in economics gives one the right statistical background for epidemiological issues. And economists experiences with economic theory are good mental training for understanding biological mechanisms, despite their different character from economic forces. If you are an economist and want a shot at doing more than $100,000,000,000 worth of good in the world, trying to figure out the causes of the rise in obesity is a great strategy. My advice: Don’t stick to the economists’ lane on this. Go and invade (or be an illegal immigrant in) the territory of the epidemiologists and biologists and dietitians. That is where I think the gold is to be found. If any other economist scolds you for taking on this challenge, I am happy to scold them for scolding you.
Jordan Peterson: No One Gets Away with Anything
The Book of Mormon says 4 times that “no unclean thing” can “dwell with God”/“inherit the kingdom of heaven”/“enter into his kingdom”:
Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever. (1 Nephi 10:21)
And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins. (Alma 11:27)
But behold, an awful death cometh upon the wicked; for they die as to things pertaining to things of righteousness; for they are unclean, and no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God; but they are cast out, and consigned to partake of the fruits of their labors or their works, which have been evil; and they drink the dregs of a bitter cup. (Alma 40:26)
And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end. (3 Nephi 27:19)
(Thanks to https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mormon/simple.html for enabling this simple search of the Book of Mormon.) When I was a believing Mormon, this scared me—in a way that probably had good effects on my behavior.
On a lot of fronts, Jordan Peterson has done a brilliant job of giving powerful nonsupernaturalist interpretation of sacred texts. His book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief goes into the most detail on that front. But his other books, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life do a fair bit of this. In everything I am aware of (which also includes many YouTube videos, though a small fraction of his total stock), he has not touched on the Book of Mormon. Yet, he gives a good nonsupernaturalist interpretation of “no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven” when he says “No one gets away with anything.”
In this post I have two different versions of his bit elaborating on “No one gets away with anything.” The video at the top of this post is a 3-and-a-half minute clip. The other version is last 14 minutes of his lecture on meaning for moderns of the story of Abraham is the other. That starts at the 46:00 mark, where he is saying “You wake up in the morning, and what do you have in front of you?” (The 14 minutes are followed by a Q&A that is also interesting, but deals with different topics.)
Now I’m scared again.
Robert Hicks: The Best Exercises to Improve Your Grip Strength →
This was a very sensible article.
An Example of Ideology Leading to Bad Statistics and Social Injustice
My post “Adding a Variable Measured with Error to a Regression Only Partially Controls for that Variable” scolds statistical practitioners for all too often assume that adding a variable to a regression controls for that variable, when almost all such variables are measured with error. The math then shows that adding a variable measured with classical error yields a result between what one would get with a pristine version of the added variable measured without error and omitting that variable entirely. Thus, adding a variable measured with error only partially controls for that variable.
But there is something worse than pretending to control for a variable by adding an error-ridden measure of it without adjustment for measurement error: not trying to control for confounding factors at all.
To me, a principle of social justice is that we should do more for people who are worse off, especially when being worse off makes the same amount of resources more effective at helping someone. On average, in our society, being a racial minority puts people at a disadvantage. But it is not true that all Black people are worse off than all White people. In the extreme, other things equal, would you rather be a Black billionaire or a White homeless person?
It is a very interesting question how the overall well-being of Black and White people of equal income compares on average. Racism in all probability still makes it harder on average to be Black even at an equal income. But noticing that an important part of the disadvantage of Blacks is reflected in lower income is surely important.
New York’s current policy on the rationing of scarce COVID-19 treatments provides a useful thought experiment to think about both these statistical and these social justice issues. What I know about this is from John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s January 7, 2021 Wall Street Journal op-ed “New York’s Race-Based Preferential Covid Treatments.”
Jon and Ruy begin by saying:
New York state recently published guidelines for dispensing potentially life-saving monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals like Paxlovid to people suffering from mild to moderate symptoms of Covid-19. These treatments are in short supply, and they must be allocated to those most in need.
According to these guidelines, sick people who have tested positive for Covid should be eligible to receive these drugs if they have “a medical condition or other factors that increase their risk for severe illness.” These include standard criteria like age and comorbidities like cancer, diabetes and heart disease—but, startlingly, they also include simply being of “non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity,” which “should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.”
Using racial data would be appropriate in this context if we didn’t have income to go by. But making race a criterion for scarce health resources without also making income a criterion as seems unfair.
As far as we know, COVID-19 is not a disease like sickle-cell anemia where genetic differences put Blacks at greater danger. Jon and Ruy write:
There isn’t any study we have seen that, controlling for other factors, such as income, education and residence, shows clearly that Americans of Hispanic, African or Asian ancestry are at greater risk for severe Covid-19.
Of course race is correlated with Covid-19 incidence, in a big way. The question is whether that is operating through income and education or needs to be accounted for by a separate causality. Jon and Ruy argue:
It is probable that a good part—perhaps most—of the observed racial disparity in Covid effects is attributable to factors that can be loosely grouped under class: income, education, poverty status, occupation, health-insurance status, housing and so on. The way to test this would have been to collect individual-level data on such variables in addition to race, ethnicity, age and gender. But that has not been done, so only racial disparities, uncontrolled for class factors, have been reported.
As one example of what such studies might find, Kaiser Family Foundation survey data on vaccination rates revealed that black and white college graduates were vaccinated at roughly equal (high) rates, while there was a yawning chasm between these college graduates and their noncollege counterparts of the same race. Clearly then, the observed disparities in vaccination rates between blacks and whites have a lot to do with the higher noncollege proportion among the black population.
Many people in our nation face big difficulties. We should be helping people in trouble.
As a side note, there is a crucial underdiscussed dimension in which we don’t treat poor people very well in this country—and in particular don’t treat poor Black people well: rich people use exclusionary single-family house zoning to keep poor people—and perhaps especially poor black people—out of their neighborhoods and out of their kids’ schools. Poor kids (including poor black kids) on average get a worse education and also lose out on the advice and connections that having at least some rich neighbors could help with. To me, this is one of the best examples of structural racism. It doesn’t make any sense to talk about structural racism in general without talking about this elephant in the room (or “elephant in the neighborhood”). I would at least like to have people be put on the spot trying to justify something that has a disparate impact through such an unfair mechanism. I think it would be quite possible for a good reporter to quite appropriately make a lot of people look really bad in this context. And that might lead to some constructive change.
Note that as long as Black people are in an initial condition that leaves them poorer, for whatever reason, anything that is unfair to poor people should count as structural racism because being unfair to poor people is going to slow down any possible convergence in status between Black and White people. And I suspect that there is an interaction between racism and poverty that disadvantages poor Blacks compared to poor Whites more than rich Blacks are disadvantaged compared to rich Whites.
Evan Ingersoll's Beautiful Diagrams of the Human Cell →
I am happy to claim Evan Ingersoll as a cousin. Take a look at these beautiful pictures.
Sanjay Gupta's Five Pillars of Brain Health: Move, Discover, Relax, Nourish, Connect
Sanjay Gupta’s book Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age is all about improving cognitive functioning. Early in the book, Sanjay points to five pillars of brain health. As a teaser for the book, let me quote a bit on each of these five pillars, adding :
Move. … Exercise, both aerobic and nonaerobic (strength training), is not only good for the body; it’s even better for the brain. … Physical exertion, in fact, has thus far been the only thing we’ve scientifically documented to improve brain health and function. … the connection between physical fitness and brain fitness is clear, direct, and powerful. Movement can increase your brainpower by helping to increase, repair, and maintain brain cells, and it makes you more productive and more alert throughout the day. … it’s stunning.
Discover. … picking up a new hobby, like painting or digital photography, or even learning a new piece of software or language can strengthen the brain. Doing something new can even be seeing a 3D movie, joining a new club, or even using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth.
Relax. … Scores of well-designed studies … routinely show that poor sleep can lead to impaired memory and that chronic stress can impair your ability to learn and adapt to new situations. … multitasking can slow your thinking. Stress is particularly subversive. … find ways to unwind …
Nourish. … we finally have evidence to show that consuming certain foods (e.g., cold-water fish, whole grains, extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, fibrous whole fruits and vegetables) while limiting certain other foods (those high in sugar, saturated fat, and trans-fatty acids) can help avoid memory and brain decline, protect the brain against disease, and maximize its performance. … This conversation extends to the health of our microbial partners as well. The human gut microbiome—the trillions of bacteria that make their home inside our intestines—have a profound role in the health and functioning of our brains …
Connect. … A 2015 study, among many others, tells us that having a diverse social network can improve our brain’s plasticity and help preserve our cognitive abilities. Interacting with others not only helps reduce stress and boosts our immune system; it can also decrease our risk of cognitive decline.
On connect and discover, see:
On nourish see:
On all five, see:
Final Thoughts: I think we are a ways away from a technology that can prevent us from eventually dying of multiple organ failure if we don’t die of something else first. But the more I learn the more things people typically think of as part of aging look like slow degenerative diseases from failure to care for our bodies well. For many people, progressively worse backaches can be prevented by seeing a chiropractor before things get too bad. Regular exercise and fasting and essentially no sugar better replicate what our bodies were designed for in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Even having a continuing highly interactive role in society as one gets older is likely to better match the environment of evolutionary adaptation, since when old folks were scarce and writing hadn’t been invented, their memories were a crucial source of accumulated knowledge. And before electric lights, most humans, on many nights, had nothing better to do when it got dark than sleep and have sex. And many would have followed the instinct we still have to take an afternoon nap in the heat of the day. So they probably got more sleep than we do. Going contrary to the design parameters of our bodies is likely to make them go on the fritz. Then we blame it on aging, when aging is only a part of what is going.
There is a lot more to be said about how to live a healthier life, not just for your brain but for everything else. Take a look at my bibliographic post “Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide.”
The Federalist Papers #46: Cities and States Have a Strong Position in Struggles with the Federal Government—James Madison
Because of the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, the Great Depression and the great wars of the 20th century, the US federal government is much stronger now than it was between the ratification of the US Constitution and the US Civil War. Yet state and local governments still have a fighting chance in many battles with the federal government. People often deplore the governments of other states and localities resisting the federal government, but support the government of their state or locality resisting the federal government. On the one hand, Republican-dominated states have gone to court to see which bits of Obamacare they could get away with skipping. On the other hand, Democrat-dominated states and cities have gone to court to see how much more welcoming they could be to undocumented immigrants than the spirit of federal immigration law indicates.
In the Federalist Papers #46, James Madison points to some of the wellsprings of popular support for state and local governments in their struggles with the federal government. He writes:
I proceed to inquire whether the federal government or the State governments will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and support of the people.
First, the source of the authority of state and local governments is every bit as lofty as the source of federal government authority. In both cases, their authority derives from the people:
The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. … the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other.
Seeing federal, state and local government all as agents for the people predicts that the levels of government that promote the policies people like best will have an advantage in the intergovernmental contest for power. To the extent different parts of the country want different things, the ability of state and local governments to tailor the policies they promote to the desires of those in a given area gives them an advantage. To the extent people in a large part of the country want to compel those in a small part of the country to do things a certain way (often because of what is seen as a moral issue), the federal government will have an advantage. More generally, different levels of government may at any given time be more in tune with the people. James Madison says this about what he saw historically and what might happen in the future:
It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the transient enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, that the attention and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own particular governments; that the federal council was at no time the idol of popular favor; and that opposition to proposed enlargements of its powers and importance was the side usually taken by the men who wished to build their political consequence on the prepossessions of their fellow-citizens. If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due …
Second, state and local governments employ more people. (In 2020, the federal government employed 2.93 million people. State and local governments employed 19.77 million people.) This means that professionally, more people have the interests of state and local governments at heart than the number who professionally have the interests of the federal government at heart. And those who professionally have the interest of a given government at heart are likely to influence their family, friends and acquaintances:
Into the administration of these [the state and local governments] a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow. By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided for. With the affairs of these, the people will be more familiarly and minutely conversant. And with the members of these, will a greater proportion of the people have the ties of personal acquaintance and friendship, and of family and party attachments; on the side of these, therefore, the popular bias may well be expected most strongly to incline.
Third, there are some things that are simply difficult for the federal government to do—in part because of the larger number of employees of state and local governments than of the federal government:
… it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered. … members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than the latter will be on the former.
When thinking of other countries where the national government seems to take over many of the jobs that in the US are done by state and local governments, it is important to realize that many other countries only have the population of a US state.
Fourth, a great deal of evidence shows that people who belong to a smaller and a larger group often identify more with the interests of the smaller group. I have spent many hours in meetings demonstrating that academic economists care more about the interests of their Economics department than about the interests of the university as a whole—though they also tend to believe that the interests of the university as a whole would be best served by what the Economics department as a body wants. And typically the economists in each field care more about the interests of their field interests than the interests of the Economics department. James Madison describes this tendency to identify with the local in this way:
A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States. Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. … members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective States, than of impartial guardians of a common interest; that where on one occasion improper sacrifices have been made of local considerations, to the aggrandizement of the federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered on a hundred, from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States.
James Madison goes so far as to use the word “defalcation,” meaning “misappropriate of funds,” to describe how strong an influence state interests can have in federal congressional deliberations:
The motives on the part of the State governments, to augment their prerogatives by defalcations from the federal government, will be overruled by no reciprocal predispositions in the members.
This is the well-known phenomenon of pork-barrel spending.
By contrast, the interests of the national government are no strongly represented in state legislatures and executives. James Madison writes:
If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that State and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending on the State alone. The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.
Fifth, states have many levers of power to resist a measure of the federal government:
… should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
Sixth, if the federal government tried to go against not just the interests of the people in one state, or several, but the interests of the people in almost all the states, the states combined could put up a very strong resistance to the federal government. James Madison explores this case at length. Here are some highlights of that long discussion:
A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter. The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. …
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. … To these would be opposed a militia … officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
To back up James Madison’s argument, imagine the Civil War if twice or almost twice as many states as the Confederacy had arrayed themselves against the federal government. Even now it is hard to see the federal government defeating a coalition of 40 states in armed conflict given how many in the federally-controlled armed forces would desert to the coalition of 40 states.
Some might lament the strength of state and local governments to resist the federal government. But that strength is real, even now.
Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #46 to provide the context for each quotation above:
FEDERALIST NO. 46
The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
From the New York Packet
Tuesday, January 29, 1788.
Author: James Madison
To the People of the State of New York:
RESUMING the subject of the last paper, I proceed to inquire whether the federal government or the State governments will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and support of the people. Notwithstanding the different modes in which they are appointed, we must consider both of them as substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States.
I assume this position here as it respects the first, reserving the proofs for another place. The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other. Truth, no less than decency, requires that the event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents. Many considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States.
Into the administration of these a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow. By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided for. With the affairs of these, the people will be more familiarly and minutely conversant. And with the members of these, will a greater proportion of the people have the ties of personal acquaintance and friendship, and of family and party attachments; on the side of these, therefore, the popular bias may well be expected most strongly to incline. Experience speaks the same language in this case. The federal administration, though hitherto very defective in comparison with what may be hoped under a better system, had, during the war, and particularly whilst the independent fund of paper emissions was in credit, an activity and importance as great as it can well have in any future circumstances whatever.
It was engaged, too, in a course of measures which had for their object the protection of everything that was dear, and the acquisition of everything that could be desirable to the people at large. It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the transient enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, that the attention and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own particular governments; that the federal council was at no time the idol of popular favor; and that opposition to proposed enlargements of its powers and importance was the side usually taken by the men who wished to build their political consequence on the prepossessions of their fellow-citizens. If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due; but even in that case the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered. The remaining points on which I propose to compare the federal and State governments, are the disposition and the faculty they may respectively possess, to resist and frustrate the measures of each other. It has been already proved that the members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared also, that the prepossessions of the people, on whom both will depend, will be more on the side of the State governments, than of the federal government. So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State governments must clearly have the advantage.
But in a distinct and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on the same side. The prepossessions, which the members themselves will carry into the federal government, will generally be favorable to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members of the State governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the general government. A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States. Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States. What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress? A perusal of their journals, as well as the candid acknowledgments of such as have had a seat in that assembly, will inform us, that the members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective States, than of impartial guardians of a common interest; that where on one occasion improper sacrifices have been made of local considerations, to the aggrandizement of the federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered on a hundred, from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States. I mean not by these reflections to insinuate, that the new federal government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than the existing government may have pursued; much less, that its views will be as confined as those of the State legislatures; but only that it will partake sufficiently of the spirit of both, to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments. The motives on the part of the State governments, to augment their prerogatives by defalcations from the federal government, will be overruled by no reciprocal predispositions in the members. Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that State and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending on the State alone. The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.
On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other.
The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter. The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people. On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have been sounded, of a meditated and consequential annihilation of the State governments, must, on the most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them.
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 #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to Stumble into War
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 #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—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 #21 A: Constitutions Need to be Enforced—Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist Papers #24: The United States Need a Standing Army—Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist Papers #27: People Will Get Used to the Federal Government—Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist Papers #30: A Robust Power of Taxation is Needed to Make a Nation Powerful
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 #39: James Madison Downplays How Radical the Proposed Constitution Is
The Federalist Papers #41: James Madison on Tradeoffs—You Can't Have Everything You Want
The Federalist Papers #42: Every Power of the Federal Government Must Be Justified—James Madison
The Federalist Papers #44: Constitutional Limitations on the Powers of the States—James Madison
The Federalist Papers #45: James Madison Predicts a Small Federal Government
2021's Most Popular Posts
The "Key Posts" link in navigation at the top of my blog lists all important posts through the end of 2016. Along with "2017's Most Popular Posts," “2018's Most Popular Posts,” “2019's Most Popular Posts,” and “2020's Most Popular Posts,” this is intended as a complement to that list. (Also, my most popular storified Twitter discussions are here, and you can see other recent posts by clicking on the Archive link at the top of my blog.) Continuing this tradition, I give links to the most popular posts in the 2021 below into six groups: popular new posts in 2021 on diet and health, popular new posts in 2021 on political philosophy, popular new posts in 2021 on other topics, and popular older posts in those three categories. I provide the pageviews in 2021 for each post as counted when someone went specifically to that post.
I am pleased to be able to report 556,084 Google Analytics pageviews in 2021—more than a half a million. Of these, 33,222 were pageviews for my blog homepage. One thing that stands out from the data is how well my back catalog does because of Google search.
Note: This post is still under construction. Numbers at or above 485 are for the whole year. Numbers at below 485 are only for the first half of the year.
New Posts in 2021 on Diet and Health
Livestock Antibiotics, Lithium and PFAS as Leading Suspects for Environmental Causes of Obesity 1,360
Are Processed Food and Environmental Contaminants the Main Cause of the Rise of Obesity? 829
How Many Thousands of Americans Will the Sugar Lobby's Latest Victory Kill? 192
On the Keto Diet 166
Starving Cancer Cells: We Need Metabolic Oncology, Stat! 149
Semaglutide Looks Like the First Truly Impressive Weight-Loss Drug 138
How to Make Ramadan Fasting—or Any Other Religious Fasting—Easier 133
New Posts in 2021 on Political Philosophy
New Posts in 2021 on Other Topics
Friedrich Hayek on John Maynard Keynes: Keynes was Brilliant, but Economics was Only a Sideline for Him (video post) 6,554
On Greg Mankiw 4,061
My Sister Sarah 692
The Economics of Risk and Time (course blog) 625
A Political Economy Externality that Should Be Taught in Every ‘Principals of Economics’ Course 234
Why You Should Impute Equal Credit to Co-Authors in Economics 200
Why Thinking Geometrically and Graphically is Such a Powerful Way to Do Math 175
Reactions to Miles’s Program For Enhancing Economists’ Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact 158
Elizabeth MacBride: Leonardo Da Vinci is History’s Best Case for Wasting Time (link post) 143
Critiquing the Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages on Fiscal Policy 101
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Diet and Health
Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective 47,973
Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid 33,652
Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet 22,105
How Fasting Can Starve Cancer Cells, While Leaving Normal Cells Unharmed 11,933
Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon 4,129
Jason Fung: Dietary Fat is Innocent of the Charges Leveled Against It 2,061
What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet 1,973
Using the Glycemic Index as a Supplement to the Insulin Index 1,565
Carbon Dioxide as a Stimulant for Respiratory Function 1,223
Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time 1,070
The Case Against Sugar: Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes 1,015
The Keto Food Pyramid 1,000
Fasting Tips 936
Meat Is Amazingly Nutritious—But Is It Amazingly Nutritious for Cancer Cells, Too? 929
Layne Norton Discusses the Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes Debate (a Debate on Joe Rogan’s Podcast) 856
David Ludwig: It Takes Time to Adapt to a Lowcarb, Highfat Diet 855
Cancer Cells Love Sugar; That’s How PET Scans for Cancer Work 730
My Giant Salad 582
Kevin D. Hall and Juen Guo: Why it is So Hard to Lose Weight and So Hard to Keep it Off 516
Anthony Komaroff: The Microbiome and Risk for Obesity and Diabetes 504
Best Health Guide: 10 Surprising Changes When You Quit Sugar 495
After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Insulin Goes Down Before Weight Loss has Time to Happen 481
How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue? 464
Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia 216
A Low-Glycemic-Index Vegan Diet as a Moderately-Low-Insulin-Index Diet 167
Eggs May Be a Type of Food You Should Eat Sparingly, But Don't Blame Cholesterol Yet 158
Is Milk OK? 112
The Case Against the Case Against Sugar: Seth Yoder vs. Gary Taubes 101
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Political Philosophy
John Locke: The Only Legitimate Power of Governments is to Articulate the Law of Nature 2,253
John Stuart Mill’s Vigorous Advocacy of Education Vouchers 1,634
John Locke: Freedom is Life; Slavery Can Be Justified Only as a Reprieve from Deserved Death 1,500
John Locke on Punishment 1,667
John Locke: People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases 703
John Locke: The Law of Nature Requires Maturity to Discern 687
John Locke: How to Resist Tyrants without Causing Anarchy 669
John Locke: Defense against the Black Hats is the Origin of the State 653
John Locke's Smackdown of Robert Filmer: Being a Father Doesn't Make Any Man a King 648
Freedom Under Law Means All Are Subject to the Same Laws 628
John Locke: By Natural Law, Husbands Have No Power Over Their Wives 520
Social Liberty 512
On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership 235
John Stuart Mill on the Protection of "Noble Lies" from Criticism 226
John Locke: If Rebellion is a Sin, It is a Sin Committed Most Often by Those in Power 168
John Stuart Mill on Balancing Christian Morality with the Wisdom of the Greeks and Romans 160
John Locke: The Right to Enforce the Law of Nature Does Not Depend on Any Social Contract
John Locke Off Base with His Assumption That There Was Plenty of Land at the Time of Acquisition 134
John Locke on Monarchs (Or Presidents) Who Destroy a Constitution 134
John Stuart Mill on Being Offended at Other People's Opinions or Private Conduct
On Despotism 114
The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate 104
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Other Topics
Adding a Variable Measured with Error to a Regression Only Partially Controls for that Variable 3,047
The Medium-Run Natural Interest Rate and the Short-Run Natural Interest Rate 1,951
An Optical Illusion: Nativity Scene or Two T-Rex's Fighting over a Table Saw? 1,912
Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit 1,501
How Economists Can Enhance Their Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact 1,449
The Mormon View of Jesus 1,319
The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists 1,259
How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide 1,142
The Deep Magic of Money and the Deeper Magic of the Supply Side 936
Indoors is Very Dangerous for COVID-19 Transmission, Especially When Ventilation is Bad 849
Reactions to Miles’s Program For Enhancing Economists’ Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact 742
Why I Write 697
The Logarithmic Harmony of Percent Changes and Growth Rates 683
How Even Liberal Whites Make Themselves Out as Victims in Discussions of Racism 582
The Complete Guide to Getting into an Economics PhD Program 487
There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't 483
Ezra W. Zuckerman—On Genre: A Few More Tips to Academic Journal Article-Writers (link to pdf) 479
Returns to Scale and Imperfect Competition in Market Equilibrium 461
The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work 455
Supply and Demand for the Monetary Base: How the Fed Currently Determines Interest Rates 453
How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide 235
Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Three Basic Types of Business Models 227
An Experiment with Equality of Outcome: The Case of Jamestown 197
James Wells: The Discovery of the Higgs Boson Opens Up Other Puzzles in Particle Physics 190
The Mormon Church Decides to Treat Gay Marriage as Rebellion on a Par with Polygamy 171
When the Output Gap is Zero, But Inflation is Below Target 163
The Coming Transformation of Education: Degrees Won’t Matter Anymore, Skills Will 160
The Complete Guide to Getting into an Economics PhD Program 159
100 Economics Blogs and 100 Economists Who Are Influential Online 152
Forgive Yourself 151
How Even Liberal Whites Make Themselves Out as Victims in Discussions of Racism 127
My Dad 121
18 Misconceptions about Eliminating the Zero Lower Bound 120
How Mormon Scripture Declares the US Constitution to be the Work of God 107
Lumpers vs. Splitters: Economists as Lumpers; Psychologists as Splitters 106
On Ex-Muslims 105
Negative Interest Rate Policy as Conventional Monetary Policy: Full Text 104
What to Call the Very Rich: Millionaires, Vranaires, Okuaires, Billionaires and Lakhlakhaires 104
Sticky Prices vs. Sticky Wages: A Debate Between Miles Kimball and Matthew Rognlie 102
Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life 101
New Year's Gratitude on the Occasion of the Marshall Fire
It is said that, on average, Olympic winners of a bronze medal feel happier than winners of a silver medal. For a bronze medal, the salient alternative is no medal at all, while for a silver medal, the salient alternative is a gold medal.
Our house in Superior is in the subdivision just south of the southeast end of the Marshall Fire that has raged in Superior and Louisville Colorado the last few days. Valiant efforts of firefighters to contain the fire mostly kept it from reaching as far as our house. And finally snow has put an end to the fire. My heart goes out to all the people who did lose their homes. And I know that we could easily have been among them had the wind pushed the fire a little further south to our home instead of pushing the fire almost due east.
We have felt no grumpiness at all about having to evacuate to a comfortable Hampton Inn in Lakewood (west of Denver and east of Golden, quite a bit south of the fire), because we feel so lucky that our house is still standing and intact, unlike the houses of so many of our fellow citizens of Superior and its twin city of Louisville.
Because the snow would have made driving dangerous from our distance, we have not yet seen our house again. Our wonderful next-door neighbor Bob went in to turn the water off and run what was then left in the pipes out in order to avoid frozen pipes.
Our son Jordan and his fiancee evacuated with us to Lakewood. We are enjoying their company here instead of in Superior. It is mostly safe to go back, but we might hold off a while from concern over all the exotic chemicals that burning buildings would have put into the air.
I usually read the news rather than watching it, but yesterday morning and the night before that I spent a lot of time watching the news trying to learn exactly how far the fire would go. One scene memorable to me had the Safeway we shop at on Coalton road in the foreground with giant flames a few blocks behind. In the end, the fire came right up to the strip mall that Safeway is in. Now I am grateful to be worrying about what other places we usually shop at still stand or how soon they can be repaired instead of worrying about all the many idiosyncratic useful things about our house or things in our house.
For the community as a whole, there is great reason to be grateful that no one lost their life as a result of this fire. With a few horrible exceptions, insurance will spread out the financial losses over tens of millions of people around the country who have an ownership interest in insurance companies (often the policy-holders themselves). But a lot of the emotional and time burden of rebuilding and replacing what was lost falls on the residents of the destroyed houses and workers in the destroyed commercial buildings. That is a heavy burden my wife Gail and I had reason to contemplate, but are spared. We will try to be conscious of that burden on others in our town that we interact with in the coming months and years. We will be reminded of that burden for a long time by the long tail of visible effects of the fire.
Update, January 3, 2022: The fire began on Thursday, January 30. On Friday, January 31, our neighbor turned off our water to avoid ice damage to the pipes and in the process verified our house was fine. On Saturday, New Year’s Day, Gail and I returned to a cold house because we knew we had to be present to let the natural gas people in to restart our gas. Fortunately, we did have electricity and could use electric heaters. I took a walk as far as Coalton road and saw the destroyed houses in the front row facing Coalton from the north. Our neighborhood south of Coalton was spared. On Sunday, January 2, we did get our gas restored and learned that it would be a loooooong time before those who have intact houses in blasted neighborhoods will be able to have gas restored because of the damage to the gas infrastructure in those neighborhoods. Today, Monday, January 3, we had internet access restored. (Before that, cellular was iffy enough we mostly couldn’t get phone-based wifi hotspots to work.) We are very grateful that personally we now only face a “boil water” advisory and wondering which of the businesses we patronize are now gone or how long they will be offline for repairs. The more relieved we are about our personal situation, the sadder we feel for everyone who has suffered more grievous harm.
Today was a beautiful sunny day. I went on a walk and saw neighbors talking to each other on the street—something I haven’t seen on my many previous walks. Those who have been through a tragedy together can bond over that tragedy.
Update, January 6, 2022: Our tap water was declared safe without boiling today. Maps have come out showing where homes were destroyed or damaged. It is saddening.
Ugly Economists
In many professions, it is a huge advantage to be good-looking. In economics, one can be quite ugly and still honored—just look at a lot of photographs of Nobel laureates in economics sometime. As other professions draw in the especially good-looking folks because being good-looking is an advantage there, one can predict that economics will be left, at all levels, with folks who are less good-looking than other professionals. There is some evidence for this among academics, shown above. A nice blog post on “hotness” across disciplines can be found a few years back at crookedtimber.org.
To me, it is a credit to economics—or at least a blessing of economics—that it is the sort of discipline in which one can be successful despite being ugly. It points to an ability to determine reasonably well whether someone is doing good work, rather than have the quality of someone’s work often so unclear that one is tempted to rely on looks as a proxy for the quality of the work. Looking at the data, that certainly is not the only factor affecting the average hotness of those in a discipline, but it accounts for the data on quite a few disciplines, and then other interesting explanations come to mind for disciplines for which this doesn’t explain the data. (Look for particularly large advantages that good looks would give one in a discipline on the one hand, and an ability to blunt the negative effects of bad looks on the other hand.)
Ruchir Agarwal and Markus Brunnermeier Debate Negative Interest Rate Policy
Ruchir starts at the 4 minute mark. Markus does a good job of discussing what some of the key issues are. None of those issues is deadly to negative interest rate policy.
Here is a link to this video on the Peterson Institute website.