Thursday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. Bee thieves!

2. A new model for the art show?

3. Questions and research ideas from Alexey Guzey, recommended.

4. Caplan on the CWT with Krugman, and public choice.  And more from Bryan on same.

5. Singapore’s driverless hover-taxis will begin test flights next year.

6. Are Piketty’s data replicable for the UK?

Comments

rayward

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4. More straw men than the Wizard of Oz.

Gabe Atthouse

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Care to elaborate?

Brett

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By definition, government has to fix itself, however it decides to do that. Plus it's a pretty big stretch to claim that Krugman lets government off the hook unless it's a total garbage-fire.

Gabe Atthouse

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1) I'm not sure what the government fixing itself has to do with strawmen
2) Fair, but I think his main point is that the asymmetry between these two ostensibly similar concepts, i.e a failure in this sphere versus that sphere, is problematic.

Myerson

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I tend not to like the framing of things whenever libertarians/liberals argue with each other. Too much abstraction and naive idealism leads to red herrings and not too mention these debates are so disconnected from reality. No wonder people voted anti-establishment.

Crikey

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1. Someone stole my bees. Probably mailed them to America. Maybe it was the neighbors that did them in. They were always complaining about "allergies" and "fatal reactions" and saying that just because a swarm of bees moved into the wainscotting of my house it didn't make me a bee keeper. I don't know what they were complaining about. Epipens are like $14 here.

therussians

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we apologize
we are the russians
and we stole your bees.

Crikey

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No doubt setting up a honey trap.

therussians

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not to allowed to talk about it
lets just say
your bees have been redistributed according
to our needs

Crikey

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Well, the bees did have a queen and Communism always struck me as being a reaction against feudalism rather than against capitalism, so I suppose this was to be expected.

Brett

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5. There is no word in that description that I didn't like. And clicking through, it's just as cool as I thought.

JWatts

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Even the word "next"?

thisiswhywehatechristmas

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Volocopter said in a statement, " it can withstand minor turbulence..."
looks like if theres 2 people in the volocopter you would wannna
make sure it can withstand more than minor turbulence

Jeff R

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But as far as I can tell, Paul’s only proposed remedy for democracy’s deep structural flaws is to elect more Democrats. No matter how poorly our government performs, we must grin and bear it.

Let's be fair, here. Krugman doesn't get paid to think about abstract policy issues or push around words and symbols for a living. He's not devoting a lot of time to public affairs. And of course, the news environment he's in is — leave aside the Times' partisanship — tends to be very information scarce.

JWatts

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"When markets fall short of perfection, Paul cries for government to fix them. When government is an ongoing disaster, Paul prays for government to fix itself."

I think Caplan is under the mistaken impression that Krugman has two different standards, but I think he's wrong.

Paul Krugman wants his ideologues running both business and government and he complains bitterly whenever that's not true. Sure, it's partisan, but it's not really a double standard.

Jeff R

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Far from having two standards, he actually has none? I guess that's one way of looking at it.

JWatts

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No, he has a standard. It's just a partisan standard.

dearieme

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#6: "This article utilizes a replication exercise to evaluate the reliability of ..." is clumsy English. Do economists swear a secret oath to write in such a style?

Willitts

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How would you rewrite the sentence?

Aside from changing "utilize" to "use," I dont see how to make it more simple. I'm assuming that "replication exercise" is a common term of art.

Crikey

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3. (6.) Clearly, instead of just developing Strong A.I. we need to develop pathetic and needy A.I. to make humans feel better. (Not a joke.)

Brian Donohue

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Dogs?

Jeff R

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Too hairy.

sweetfanceymoses

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Yoga de la cabra?

Crikey

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Dogs are good, but not eveyone's a dog person. Maybe some kind of inept servant?

Brian Donohue

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Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide?

Crikey

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I think the presence of Marvin would actually cheer me up. But then I find gloomy songs tend to make me feel cheerful.

I guess I'm just a contrary person.

Brian Donohue

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It feels like there is something Kierkegaardian in what you are saying.

Al

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#4 -- Bravo.

Fantastically well put. Should be required reading.

EverExtruder

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#2 Several places in recent years have had the equivalent of a live-sex show taking place right in the middle of the room, albeit with Boskey on the walls...for extra culture.

Strip clubs are now galleries so long as they put Hirst prints on the walls by these metrics. Galleries are boring. Yes.

Hreb

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There's almost nothing in this list that hasn't already become boring at art shows somewhere.

& points off for: misspelling Mr Rogers' name (this blogger can NOT be old enough to have seen the show when Rogers was still alive)

and for recommending that all too credible music.

Willitts

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4. The first issue is the equivocation on the meaning of "failure." With market failure, economists mean the failure to achieve the optimal solution, if it exists. In this context, the term government failure as used in Public Choice literature means exactly the same thing.

In common parlance there is a divergence. Leftists view "failure" as the market not providing sufficient rents to their favored classes. For those with an economics background, it is a justification for state intervention. When markets are known to he failing but the extent of that failure is unquantifiable, this is virtual cartel blanche for government action without limit. The most obvious example is banning a good for which there is some theoretical negative externality. It is uncontroversial that the externality exists but it is equally clear that a total ban is likely welfare reducing. This puts the burden on opponents of regulation to prove that government over reached its goals.

Krugman et al frequently play this equivocation game. The author is correct that there is a double standard in their eyes.

Part of the problem is that while the administrative state must, by law, demonstrate the efficacy of a proposed action, Congress need not do so; it can be as stupid as it wants to be. Put another way, "necessary and appropriate" has legal teeth for agency rulemaking but "necessary and proper" in the Constitution has none for Congress.

Willitts

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6. Does this imply that Picketty fudged his data intentionally?

Say it ain't so.

Erik

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Looks like he made some arbitrary and non-transparent decisions that allowed him to present data in a way that supports his conclusions

> Taken in sum, these newer data as well as their HMRC antecedents suggest a century long
pattern that actually breaks somewhat from the internationally observed U-curve. The full set of U.K.
figures actually appear to resemble more of an L-shaped pattern. Although starting at a higher level than
most of the developed world, U.K. wealth concentration fell precipitously across the 20th century until
flattening in the mid-1980s where it has remained ever since, subject only to modest fluctuations. This
L-curve differs from the United States, where some (though by no means all) post-1980 estimates of
wealth concentration depict a rebound that actually surpasses the one found in the problematic series
from Piketty’s figure.6
The L shape of the U.K. experience may therefore actually run somewhat counter
to the claim that a clear and synchronous inequality U-curve may be observed in most developed
economies over the same period.

Comandante Garcez

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#4 is plain BS.

Erik

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Have you read #3?

But have you read #3 *on weeeeed*

But really #3 is great

Also I love all things about bees (#1). Maybe I'll find an article about flow hives and mead...

#4 I don't know why some here are so protective of Paul Krugman. He's a dippy partisan, of course he says some dumb things.

#6 so, after all the fuss, maybe Piketty is just... false? that would be anticlimactic.

JWatts

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"4. Caplan on the CWT with Krugman, and public choice. "

This is one of the bests posts I've ever read by Caplan.

I think he took the wrong approach by tying it all together with Krugman however. Krugman is a partisan blogger with a large megaphone. Caplan made some very good points, but now the whole idea will be buried after the inevitable Krugman counter post.

Caplan has a good mind, but his posts are tactical and not strategic.

A lot of commentors complain about Tyler Cowen's posts, but their almost always good strategically even if they suffer tactically.

Cyanoman

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#4 Krugman complains about partisanship without even a smidgen of irony.

Meanwhile, he has a position as a professor at a taxpayer funded university but he doesn't teach any classes - he does not help carry the teaching load.

What a bum he is.

Engineer

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Krugman is boring and predicable, sort of a high end NPC. It’s really rather sad.

Glenn Mercer

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#5 Somehow we evolved from Helicopter to Flying Car to Electric VTOL to Hover Taxi. Sure looks like a helicopter to me. Battery powered rather than ICE powered. And quieter, yes. But how much of present-day innovation is mostly just label innovation? This thing takes off and lands vertically, so IMHO it's a helicopter. Uber sends a car to drive you somewhere. So IMHO it's a taxi. Why not just call the former an electric helicopter and the latter an app-summoned taxi? Maybe it's for the extra billions in valuation....

jack

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#6, Those readers who find Piketty's focus on human envy enlightening will be sure to check out the interview with him in today's South China Morning Post (once a respectable newspaper, now under the ownership of Jack Ma an organ of the Chinese Communist Party) where he ascribes Trump's actions regarding China an effort to distract the mass of Americans from their miserable lives at the hands of the bosses and wealthy.

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