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Brussels notes

I strongly recommend a visit, as the different currents of contemporary Europe swirl together here like nowhere else.  You can see high culture, high taxes, dysfunctional governance, bickering linguistic groups, EU bureaucrats, tourists, Art Nouveau, Turks and Moroccans, and cops carrying submachine guns, all within minutes of each other.  It is cheaper than most other major European cities, and has excellent architecture, art, and food, including ethnic food and some of the continent’s best African food (try Resto Bar Tam-Tam).

Unlike in Paris, the immigrant neighborhoods are often no more than a ten or fifteen minute walk from the major non-immigrant neighborhoods.  That is the geographic feature which gives Brussels its special feel.  Here are my notes on Molenbeek, a short stroll from city center.

The area near the European Commission reminds me of the part of Washington with the World Bank and IMF.  Hard to believe, I know.

I don’t find the chocolate here better than in say France, but Brussels does show that chocolate competition lowers prices.

Here is Ian Buruma on Brussels.

Why Brexit happened and what it means

Yes, I am still pro Remain, and also generally pro immigration, and I am still hoping the Brits take a cue from DeAndre Jordan.  (I also see geopolitics and national security as a significant reason to favor Remain, just ask Putin; furthermore the transition problems are looking worse than many had expected.)  But I am growing distressed by the material I am seeing from the Remain side.  At some point we have to limit our moralizing about the vote and start treating it more like data, if only to figure out how to best overturn or reverse it.

As I interpret what happened, ultimately the vote was about preserving the English nation, and yes I use those last two italicized words deliberately; reread Fintan O’Toole.  Go back and read English history.  For centuries, England has been filled with English people, plus some others from nearby regions.  Go visit Norfolk and also stop in Great Yarmouth, once described by Charles Dickens as “…the finest place in the universe,” and which, for whatever decline it may have experienced, still looks and feels like England.  London does not.

As Zack Beauchamp notes (in a piece which is mostly an example of what I am criticizing): “…the number of foreign-born people living in the UK has gone from 2.3 million in 1993 (when Britain joined the EU) to 8.2 million in 2014.”

In terms of distribution and influence, the impact of those numbers is much larger yet.  London, the cultural center, business center, and political capital of England for many centuries, is now essential a global and indeed foreign city.  I spent almost two weeks in London in 1979, and while I clearly prefer the new version the difference is glaringly obvious to me, as I am sure it is all the more to most English people.  (And that contrast is clearest to the older English of course, and that helps explain one of the most pronounced demographic features of how people voted; it is inappropriate how many Remain supporters are cursing the arguably better informed preferences of the elderly.)

Cities such as Bradford, while still predominantly white, no longer feel as English (and German!) as they once did.  And if you are thinking that voting “Leave” does not at all limit Pakistani immigration, you are truly missing the point; this vote was the one lever the English were given for sending a message to their politicians.

It would be a falsehood and exaggeration to say “Islam is now the major religion of England,” but given low rates of Anglican church attendance, it is not an entirely absurd claim to at least wonder about.  And for better or worse, a lot of people just won’t put up with change that is so rapid and far-reaching.  Believe it or not, they are not persuaded by my “British Muslims must lead the global Islamic Reformation” conviction.

All of this migration has brought a “cultural trauma” arguably more significant than anything for England since the Norman Conquest.  In fact, under a lot of estimates the Norman Conquest was no more than about 10,000 men, relative to an estimated English population of 1.7 million at that time.

Quite simply, the English want England to stay relatively English, and voting Leave was the instrument they were given.  That specific cultural attachment is not for Irish-American me, no, I feel no sentiment, other than perhaps good humor, when someone offers me “a lovely biscuit,” or when a small book shop devotes an entire section to gardening, but yes I do get it at some level.  And some parts of the older England I do truly love and I am talking the Beatles and Monty Python and James Bond here, not just the ancients like Trollope or Edmund Spenser.

Much has been made of the supposed paradox that opposition to immigration is highest where the number of immigrants is lowest.  Yes, some of that is the racism and xenophobia of less cosmopolitan areas, but it would be a big mistake to dismiss it as such or even to mainly frame it as such.  Most of all it is an endowment effect.  Those are the regions which best remember — and indeed still live — some earlier notion of what England was like.  And they wish to hold on to that, albeit with the possibility of continuing evolution along mostly English lines.

One way to understand the English vote is to compare it to other areas, especially with regard to immigration.  If you read Frank Fukuyama, he correctly portrays Japan and Denmark, as, along with England, being the two other truly developed, mature nation states in earlier times, well before the Industrial Revolution.  And what do we see about these countries?  Relative to their other demographics, they are especially opposed to very high levels of immigration.  England, in a sense, was the region “out on a limb,” when it comes to taking in foreigners, and now it has decided to pull back and be more like Denmark and Japan.

The regularity here is that the coherent, longstanding nation states are most protective of their core identities.  Should that come as a huge surprise?  The contrast with Belgium, where I am writing this, is noteworthy.  The actual practical problems with immigration are much greater here in Brussels, but the country is much further from “doing anything about it,” whether prudently or not, and indeed to this day Belgium is not actually a mature nation-state and it may splinter yet.  That England did something is one reflection of the fact that England is a better-run region than Belgium, even if you feel as I do that the vote was a big mistake.

Of course, USA and Canada and a few others are mature nation states based on the very idea of immigration, so they do not face the same dilemma that England does.  By the way, the most English of the colonies — New Zealand — has never been quite as welcoming of foreign immigrants, compared to say Australia.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have much less interest in “the English project” and of course they voted for Remain at high levels; the Welsh are somewhat closer to the English perspective and they had a majority for Leave.  I also would argue that Scotland and Northern Ireland have in fact never been truly coherent nation states, with many of the Irish in chaos for centuries and Scotland piggybacking on a larger Great Britain.  They (correctly) see the EU as a vehicle to attaining greater coherence, and thus it is no surprise that EU membership led to a nearly successful Scottish independence referendum, with perhaps another independence vote to follow.

Adam Ozimek has some good remarks on debating immigration.  Here are some interesting accounts of those who voted Leave.  Note that voting “Leave” may not even end up giving the English/British control over their immigration policies, once a new deal is struck with the EU.

Restoring and maintaining what is English?  “Too little, too late!’ says I, “you should instead find a way of strengthening and redefining English identity under the status quo ex ante,” I might have added, but of course I was not given the deciding vote or indeed any vote at all.

Most of all, I conclude that the desire to preserve the English nation [sic] as English is stronger than I or indeed most others had thought.  There is a positive side to that.  And if all along you thought there was no case for Leave, probably it is you who is the provincial one.

Sunday assorted links

1. Does gender equity cause sex differences to grow bigger? (speculative)

2. Tenure extension policies may not always benefit women (NYT).

3. MIE: swastika golf balls.  And a mobile phone with a rotary dial.  And Stefan Zweig biopic coming.

4. How Africans will lose from Brexit.

5. Silicon Valley’s robot pizzeria.

6. What are the costs of daycare?

7. TLS summer reading recommendations.

The very first Brexit?

In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus withdrew troops from northern and western Britain, probably leaving local warlords in charge. Around 410, the Romano-British expelled the magistrates of the usurper Constantine III, ostensibly in response to his failures to use the Roman garrison he had stripped from Britain to protect the island. Roman Emperor Honorius replied to a request for assistance with the Rescript of Honorius, telling the Roman cities to see to their own defence, a tacit acceptance of temporary British self-government. Honorius was fighting a large-scale war in Italy against the Visigoths under their leader Alaric, with Rome itself under siege. No forces could be spared to protect distant Britain. Though it is likely that Honorius expected to regain control over the provinces soon, by the mid-500s Procopius recognised that Britannia was entirely lost to the Romans.

That is from Wikipedia on the end of Roman rule in Britain.  I smiled at this sentence, though it does not exactly reflect my view of the current situation:

The Empire’s historical relationship with Germanic tribes was sometimes hostile, at other times cooperative, but ultimately fatal, as it was unable to prevent those tribes from assuming a dominant role in the relationship.

I still think there is a twenty percent chance that the contemporary Brits reverse themselves, starting with inaction and culminating in a new election and referendum.  The EU has to “play nasty” in the meantime, but perhaps they too have heard of the Coase theorem.  Imagine an equilibrium where each EU nation “leaves,” for purposes of expressive voting, and then shortly thereafter re-enters.

British Parliamentarians and Republican Party delegates need to study up on their coordination games quite soon!

Saturday assorted links

1. Fish out of water are more common than thought: “New research shows 33 different families of fish have at least one species that demonstrates some terrestrial activity and, in many cases, these behaviors are likely to have evolved independently in the different families.”

2. Can schooling increase IQ and fluid intelligence?

3. Google vs. Apple maps.

4. The Mystery of Millennial politics.

5. “As people get older, they become choosier about how they spend their time and with whom they spend it. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 23 find, based on a series of experimental and behavioral studies, that similar changes take place in Barbary macaques.”  Link here.  Is this a theory of Brexit voting?

6. Paul Krugman on Brexit.  Linton Kwesi Johnson on Brexit, sort of, video.  And a region’s recent change in income does not predict its Brexit vote, though income level does to some extent.  And here is Reihan on Brexit as an immigration backlash.

Why are some lower-income groups becoming more nationalistic?

Here is David Goodhart writing about the UK:

…while many people in the top 20 or 30 per cent of the educational and economic hierarchy have become less attached to national social contracts in the past couple of generations, most people have actually become MORE attached to them. There are several reasons for this. The welfare state has been expanding not contracting in recent decades—think tax credits and the rise of housing benefit—and although state employment overall has been in decline, if you live in some of the most run down parts of Britain you are more likely than ever to be employed by the state. The fragmentation and disappearance of a once familiar industrial working class culture and the declining status of much non-graduate employment may also have contributed to a greater attachment to the symbols and benefits of national citizenship. The loss of tight local communities may have produced a stronger attachment to the imagined community of the nation. And the benefits of national belonging CAN be diminished by European integration and rapid, large scale immigration: this is not merely false consciousness.

The article is of more interest generally, and for the pointer I thank Alex X.

Brexit reactions from Twitter

Heard in Baghdad: “I never thought Britain would break up before .”

That was from Ben Wedeman

I’m afraid we are about to find out that most, if not all, the Remain economic warnings were true

That was from John Gapper

CNH at 6.65. Forget Brexit. If PBOC piggybacking on this, this will be the new story

That was from Christopher Balding

worth remembering that no European country has had an election/referendum explicitly pitting national vs EU where EU won. None.

That was from Austan Goolsbee

Weird night for Netflix to drop the first live episode of Black Mirror.

That was from Le Vine

ITV now reporting that Sinn Fein calling for new vote on united Ireland. Brexiters were adamant that this wouldn’t happen.

That was from Simon Nixon

Thank goodness the world economy has the steady hand of the American voter to steer it to calmer waters.

That was from Justin Wolfers

My sympathies with Mexicans out there wondering why their currency has been smashed by 5.6% on a UK election result.

That was from Toby Nangle

No political change was ever postponed because it would freak out traders.

That was from Kristi Culpepper

Though I don’t drink, some nights I need to stay up a little later.

That was from me

Molenbeek notes

Molenbeek is the “Islamist” section of Brussels which recently became well-known as a breeding ground for terror attacks; it is sometimes described as a kind of desperate hell hole.  The Time Out guide for Brussels doesn’t mention it at all.  Naturally I wanted to see it.

I visited yesterday morning and saw the fruit, vegetable, and clothing market, and then walked around for another two hours.  It was charming, everyone was friendly to me, and I never felt threatened.  I bought some excellent cherries at a very good price (“cheap cherries,” and the surrounding streets offer “cheap charcuterie” as well).

Most of the people seem to be either Moroccan or Turkish.  The high ratio of Muslim women to Muslim men in the market was striking.

On the vegetable but not the clothing end of the stalls, I saw a fair number of blond Belgian women pushing their baby strollers and buying produce.  On my way in from the airport, my (white) Belgian cab driver told me he lived in Molenbeek and loved it, including the low rent — my apologies to Thomas Friedman of course.

Inside the boundaries of the market is a well-known Art Deco church from the 1930s, which upon first glance appeared to be an old mosque tower.  At that moment I was surrounded by hundreds of Muslims, and so was primed for the mosque look I suppose.  I walked up the stairs of the church to the door, and found it was barred and showed no signs of life.

One plaintive-looking Belgian man was standing on the steps, and he asked me quietly (in French) “Are you here for Mass?”  “Yes,” I said, not wanting to end the conversation.  “You’ll have to wait, then,” was his dead pan response.

Molenbeek

Here are ten reasons you should never visit Molenbeek.

Thursday assorted links

1. Japan’s hard-core minimalists.

2. Kill cull green iguana markets in everything, Cayman edition.

3. Should you watch television using fast forward?  And the sporting culture that is Iceland (short video).  I read that about eight percent of the country’s population was in France for the game.

4. Is the brain training industry just a placebo?

5. The Panama Canal improvements aren’t going very well, an excellent public choice account (NYT).  I would give this piece a Pulitzer Prize.

6. Farmed rice is older than we had realized.

Brexit fact of the day

“The betting is just massive,” says Mike Smithson, founder and editor of PoliticalBetting.com, a website that is something like a Bloomberg terminal for people who wager on political events. He characterizes the referendum as “the biggest political betting event of all time, anywhere.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday alone, the Brexit vote attracted wagers worth more than £3 million ($4.4 million), most of it via online transactions, and three-fourths landing on remain, Mr. Smithson estimated.

Yet in contrast:

William Hill estimates that the bookmaking industry will rack up wagers of £500 million ($735 million) on the European Championships. A World Cup final alone tends to attract £200 million ($294 million) in wagers to William Hill’s books.

That is from the NYT.  Last I saw the odds on Brexit were down to about 12 percent.  I also walked by the European Commission in Brussels, and saw not the slightest sign of panic or for that matter interest.  Nor was anyone in Molenbeek this morning gazing at the Brexit odds on their smart phones — most were too busy selling vegetables.

My Conversation with Cass Sunstein

There is audio, video, and transcript at the link.  I introduced Cass like this:

The Force is strong with this one. Cass is by far the most widely cited legal scholar of his generation. His older book, Nudge, and his new book on Star Wars are both best sellers, and he was head of OIRA [Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs] under President Obama from 2009 to 2013. Powerful, you have become.

So tonight I’d like to start with a survey of Cass’s thought. We’re going to look at legal theory and then go to Nudge and then consider Star Wars, how it all ties together, and then we’re going to talk about everything.

On every point Cass responded clearly and without evasion.  We talked about judicial minimalism, Bob Dylan’s best album, the metaphysics of nudging, Possession, the ideal size of the Supreme Court, the wisdom of Yoda, Hayek, why people should choose their own path, the merits of a banned products store, James Joyce, why the prequels are underrated, and which of the first six movies is the worst of the lot.  Here is one bit:

COWEN: Let’s take a concrete example from real life: Jedi mind tricks. Obi-Wan comes along and says, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” And what does the stormtroooper do? He goes away. Now, is that a nudge?

SUNSTEIN: No, it’s a form of manipulation. So — .

[laughter]

COWEN: OK, but how do you draw the metaphysical categories? It seems like a nudge that just happens to work all the time.

SUNSTEIN: OK. I’ll give you a quick and dirty way of getting at that…

Here is another:

COWEN: If you were to pick one character from Star Wars who would nudge you — you get to elect them; you’re the only vote. Even Samantha doesn’t get a vote, just Cass — not your children — which character would you pick? Whom would you trust with that nudge? It’s a universe full of Jedi here, right?

SUNSTEIN: Yoda.

COWEN: Yoda?

SUNSTEIN: I trust that guy.

COWEN: But I worry about Yoda.

SUNSTEIN: I trust him.

Finally:

SUNSTEIN: Thank God for libertarian paternalism, that Luke has a choice. The Sith, by the way, like the Jedi, respect freedom of choice. In the crucial scene in Episode III where the question is whether Anakin is going to save the person who would be emperor, he says, “You must choose.” And so there’s full respect for freedom of choice. Nudgers have that. Good for them.

COWEN: Bad guys always tell you the deal, and then they say, “Choose evil.” It seems the good guys always mislead you.

There’s this funny tension. Star Wars makes me more nervous about nudge. I’m not like this huge anti-nudge guy, but when I look at Obi-Wan and Yoda lying to Luke — “Ben, Ben, Ben, why didn’t you tell me?” How many times have I heard that in these movies?

SUNSTEIN: It’s fair to ask whether Obi-Wan and Yoda had it right.

There is much, more more…self-recommending!

https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/cass-sunstein-star-wars-nudge-a7c874f3ce8c#.am5grz4nh

Wednesday assorted links

1. Was the Antikythera Mechanism actually a textbook?

2. Austin launches sting operations against informal ride-sharing services.

3. Markets in cuddling (only) NYT.

4. “Life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has increased dramatically in recent decades – from 25 in 1983 to 60 today.

5. Is racial inequality actually rising?

6. Good Sam Tanenhaus review of various electoral books (NYT).

Art as a wartime investment the asset that is countercyclical

From a new Economic Journal article by Kim Oosterlinck:

During World War II, artworks significantly outperformed all alternative investments in Occupied France. With the surge in demand for portable and easy-to-hide (discreet) assets such as artworks and collectible stamps, prices boomed. This suggests that discreet assets may be viewed as crypto-currencies, demand for which varies depending on the environment and the need to hide value. Regarding art market valuation, this paper argues that while some economic actors derive significant utility from conspicuous consumption, others value the discretion offered by artworks. Motives for purchasing art may thus vary over time.

The pointer is from Kevin Lewis.  And via Samir Varma, here is a new piece on how the returns to fine art have been overestimated.