Category: Current Affairs

Sentence of the Day – French Edition

Unexpected violence broke out in Lyon when a march of about 2,500 Turks
protesting against a memorial to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre in
the then Ottoman Empire crossed paths with the anti-CPE demonstrations.

(From Reuters
regarding today’s huge protests in France against the new bill allowing
firms to fire young workers in their first two years of empolyment if
they don’t work out.)

Facts about the Mexican middle class

1. The ranks of the middle class — defined as $7,200 to $50,000 a year — have risen to about ten million families.

2. That is almost 40 percent of all Mexican households.

3. The country is in the middle of a housing boom.  560,000 new homes were built last year — a record — and 750,000 are expected for 2006.

4. Annual inflation is down to about three percent and over the last two years interest rates on 20-year mortgages have fallen from 18 to 8 percent.

5. Sales of home appliances have tripled in the last ten years.

Those facts are from Business Week, 13 March edition.  Each time I visit Mexico, the more I am convinced that country has turned the corner.  Here is an earlier post on undervalued nations.  See here also.

Caught my eye

1. Amartya Sen reviews Bill Easterly

2. Peter Leeson argues that anarchy is better for Somalia; most indicators of progress have gone up since the government fell.  This is an excellent paper but I wonder how much "the end of war" drives the results, and is the current situation of warlords really "anarchy"?

3. Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels, the title says it all.  Some might find the text insulting ("…underneath the garb, Yossi was just a guy who liked Adam Sandler movies and country music…") but it offers a fascinating look at how small groups resist pressures for assimilation.  Try also Paul Kriwaczek’s new Yiddish Civilization for a broader historical perspective; Born to Kvetch rounds out the recent trilogy.

4. Which countries are most proud of themselves? Venezuela does well, or poorly, depending on your point of view.

5. Here is a map of where the world’s ships are located (NB: this link doesn’t always work), hat tip to kottke.org.

6. Chris Masse’s yearly Prediction Market Awards.

7. Dave Schmidtz on when inequality matters.  Here is Dave’s new book, Elements of Justice.

8. "Stichomancy," the art of fortune-telling through randomly-chosen book passages.  Check out Caterina’s blog more generally.  She links to this post on turning parking spaces into parks

9. Netbanging: street gangs who slug it out over the Web.

Markets in Everything: Politicians

Prosecutors call it a corruption case with no parallel in the long
history of the U.S. Congress. And it keeps getting worse. Convicted
Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham actually priced the illegal services he
provided.

Prices came in the form of a "bribe menu" that detailed how much it
would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar
government contracts…the California Republican’s "bribery menu"… shows an escalating scale for bribes,
starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense
Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value
required a $50,000 bribe.

The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.

What’s most disturbing about this is how low the prices were, $50,000 for $1 million in contract value.  Now let’s remember Econ 101, what makes prices low?  That’s right, competition.  So who was Cunningham competing with?

The Dubai port deal

I know little about how a port is run (try Matt Yglesias and Dan Drezner for contrasting perspectives), but my take is simple.  If Arabs have a role in running our ports, we will, rightly or wrongly, be more worried about port security.  Might we institute tougher inspection requirements for containers?  If the deal is approved, I predict port safety will go up, and this would be in lieu of a rather stagnant status quo.  Perhaps we should go further and send some equity shares in the Port of Baltimore to Osama bin Laden, no?  The funny thing is, if you haven’t been reading MarginalRevolution for a while, you probably think I am joking.

China skepticism

How long will it take before China cracks up?

To most Western observers, China’s economic success obscures the predatory characteristics of its neo-Leninist state. But Beijing’s brand of authoritarian politics is spawning a dangerous mix of crony capitalism, rampant corruption, and widening inequality. Dreams that the country’s economic liberalization will someday lead to political reform remain distant. Indeed, if current trends continue, China’s political system is more likely to experience decay than democracy. It’s true that China’s recent economic achievements have given the party a new vibrancy. Yet the very policies that the party adopted to generate high economic growth are compounding the political and social ills that threaten its long-term survival…

The Chinese state remains deeply entrenched in the economy. According to official data for 2003, the state directly accounted for 38 percent of the country’s GDP and employed 85 million people (about one third of the urban workforce). For its part, the formal private sector in urban areas employed only 67 million people. A research report by the financial firm UBS argues that the private sector in China accounts for no more than 30 percent of the economy. These figures are startling even for Asia, where there is a tradition of heavy state involvement in the economy. State-owned enterprises in most Asian countries contribute about 5 percent of GDP. In India, traditionally considered a socialist economy, state-owned firms generate less than 7 percent of GDP.

Here is much more, and I will go on record in agreement.  More specifically, how about a bone-crunching, bubble-bursting, no soft landing, Chinese auto crash-style depression within the next seven years?  This is also my biggest worry for the U.S. economy, I might add.

If you are not convinced, raise your right hand and repeat after me: "China in the 20th century had two major revolutions, a civil war, a World War, The Great Leap Forward [sic], mass starvation, the Cultural Revolution, arguably the most tyrannical dictator ever and he didn’t even brush his teeth, and now they will go from rags to riches without even a business cycle burp."  I don’t think you can do it with a straight face.

Had I mentioned that Yana and I are going to Shanghai in April?  I’ll ask you all for tips when the time comes.  I hear MarginalRevolution is banned there…

In defense of polygamy

I’m not convinced by Tyler’s arguments against polygamy.  Let’s clear away some misconceptions.

First, it’s important to note that polygamy (specifically polygny) not monogamy is the norm in human society – some 75% of the known human societies have approved of polygny. 

Second, we sometimes look around the world, note that polygny is approved of in societies such as Saudi Arabia that are not exactly women-friendly and conclude that polygny must be against the interests of women.  The problem with this argument is that most societies with monogamous marriage have also not been women-friendly.  Women can’t drive in polygnous Saudi Arabia but they couldn’t vote in monogamous United States until circa 1920, nor could they easily get a credit card in their own names or easily go to law school as late as the 1960s.

The basic economic argument that polygny increases the demand for women  – under polygny Bill Gates can have two wives which by demonstrated preferences makes at least the second wife better off – suggests, but does not prove, that polygny can favor women.  (Consider polyandry – would men complain if Angelina Jolie could have two husbands?)   

Third, let’s consider Tyler’s argument that polgyny reduces investment in children.  It is true that to the extent that polygny increases the number of any particular man’s children that his attention will be divided.  But there are two counter effects.  First, there is a selection effect.  The men with more children will be the wealthier and healthier men – the better providers.  If polygny increases the number of children that Bill Gates (oh what the hell my wife doesn’t always read the blog, or me!) has then average child quality over society as a whole will increase. 

Moreover, if child quantity is the problem then that problem ought to be addressed directly.  Does Tyler support a tax on children ala China?

Also, Tyler puts too much attention on the man.  Polygny probably increases the fertility of the polygnous man but it also decreases the fertility of the polygnous woman (not by as much as it increases the fertility of the man because women are already much closer to the physical limit on children than are men but by an appreciable amount), thus the attention of mothers will increase.

Aside: Tertilt argues that polgyny decreases investment but on the basis of a model which combines polygny with many other factors such as brideprice being paid to the bride’s male relatives – this would not apply in the contemporary United States.  (It also appears to me on a quick reading that the Tertilt argument may commit the Junker fallacy.)

Polygny could be very well suited to a modern society in which women work.  Working women already contract out child care services – a second, stay at home wife, is not that different.

Polygny will be bad for poor men who lose out in the competition for
first wives to rich men who are on their second.  This already happens,
by the way, because of serial polygamy – older men divorce their older
wives and marry younger ones leaving older women unmarried and some
younger men without young wives.  Bad for the young men but not
necessarily bad for the young wives.  For this reason it’s probably
true that polygny cannot be countenanced in a democracy.  At least not
until the supply of young men is reduced enough so that every many can
have at least one wife even if some can have two.

On the whole, therefore, I see no strong arguments that banning polygamy (either polygny or polyandry) is socially optimal but due to the power of the patriarchy I don’t expect polygny to be approved of in the United States any time soon.

Comments are open.

Interesting links

1. Creativity in the fashion industry might be a more general model for the entertainment industry.  But let us not forget differing levels of fixed and capital costs.

2. People in small, tribal societies have the most violence in their dreams.

3. Richard Epstein’s new book.

4. Markets in Everything, this time Hasidic reggae.

5. "Brincos" are special sneakers, equipped with secret storage compartments, for illegal aliens to cross the border.  Now they are hip.

6. Matt Yglesias on the bureaucratic infighting behind the resignation of Larry Summers.  Here is more.

7. Quantum computers that work even without running.

Innovative Solutions for Iraq

At the event on Iraq I blogged about earlier, Ivan Eland, director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, discussed partitioning Iraq.  Ivan is looking more and more prescient.  (My colleague Roger Congleton has also been an early and vocal proponent of partition.) You can see Innovative Solutions for Iraq on CSPAN at the following times:

Saturday, February 25, 9:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. PT) and
Monday, February 27, 6:20 a.m. ET (3:20 a.m. PT).

Bush the Impostor

George W. Bush is widely considered one of the most conservative
presidents in history. His invasion of Iraq, his huge tax cuts, and his
intervention in the Terri Schiavo case are among the issues on which
people on the left view him as being to the right of Attila the Hun.
But those on the right have a different perspective–mostly discussed
among themselves or in forums that fly below the major media’s radar.
They know that Bush has never really been one of them the way Ronald
Reagan was. Bush is more like Richard Nixon–a man who used the right to
pursue his agenda but was never really part of it. In short, he is an
impostor…

That’s Bruce Bartlett making his case in a Cato Policy Report and don’t miss his book, Impostor.  See also Stephen Slivinski’s report How Republicans became defenders of Big Government in the Milken Review.

Budget

Finally in related news, the leading contender for Bush’s Presidential library, Southern Methodist University, seized the needed land using eminent domain.

Addendum: Donald Coffin and Marty O’Brien point out that the article in the New York Sun linked above is misleading, there is a lawsuit contending that SMU is using nefarious shenanigans to get some land for the library but, since SMU is a private entity, eminent domain is not involved.  Virginia Postrel has a better write-up on the situation.

Holocaust denial and hypocrisy

David Irving, the British historian, was sentenced in Austria today to three years in jail for denying the holocaust in two speeches he gave in 1989.  I have little sympathy for Irving but support the right to free speech.  How can we in the West take a principled stand against radical Muslims who riot and kill to protest depictions of Muhammad when we jail those who attack our sacred beliefs?

       
         
         
            

Iraq

Lt. General William Odom (Ret.), former Director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, shocked the crowd yesterday when he called for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq.  Odom was speaking at Innovative Solutions for Iraq, the inaugural event for the Independent Institute‘s Washington office (I am director of research for the Independent Institute).   Odom was then seconded by Lawrence Korb, former Vice President and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan.

Withdrawal may seem like a radical suggestion, but this time around the push for withdrawal isn’t coming from radicals but from seasoned, well-respected, establishment figures.

During the event Odom and others referred to Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the lessons we should have learned from that war.  It was really stunning, therefore, when during question period a man stood up to praise Odom for speaking out in a way that no figure of his stature had done during the Vietnam war.  The speaker was Daniel Ellsberg.

CSPAN will air the event in about a week.

Caught my eye

A U.S. firm is implanting silicon chips in some employees, to prevent them from entering secure areas.

Spotsylvania police have been consummating their dealings with prostitutes before arresting them.  Furthermore this sounds like official policy.  One officer left a $350 tip [TC: still looking for humorous comment to make here], and only unmarried detectives are assigned to such cases.

There is a long waiting list to adopt children with Down syndrome.

Blogofdeath.com focuses on obituaries of the famous and not-so-famous.  When I go away on trips, this is the one piece of news it is hard to catch up on.

Buy Bruce Bartlett’s new book, available here, and thank academic freedom on the way out the door.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is the first transcendentally great movie of the year.  Imagine a rural Mexican sensibility applied to Weekend at Bernie’s, and you have some idea where this one is coming from.

Dan Drezner has a sense of humor about Dick Cheney.  Revere at EffectMeasure has a different take.

This web site is basically Digg.com for videos.