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Monthly Archives: October 2014

Risk Takers and Ingrates

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Cafe Hayek, Carpe Diem, Don Boudreaux, Mark Perry, Markets, Oil Prices, Price Mechanism, Short Position, Shortage, Speculation, Surplus

≈ 1 Comment

Jack Beanstalk Commodity

Just a few months ago, reactionary leftists were eager to blame “evil speculators” for driving up oil prices. Mark Perry asks: why don’t leftists give any credit to speculators when oil prices fall?

In the spring, there were concerns about Iraqi and Libyan oil supplies, as well as the usual seasonal increase in gasoline demand. In fact, under such conditions, it is never in any speculator’s interest to bid oil prices upward to “excessive” levels, above what is justified by underlying conditions. That would be a losing bet for the speculator. But when they bid prices upward in anticipation of tightening market conditions, speculators and market prices are broadcasting a forecast, providing information upon which other interested parties can act. In particular, the upward price movement encourages reduced consumption and conservation, and it creates incentives that bring forth additional supplies. Thus, by taking risks, the speculators play a valuable social role. Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek posted a letter he sent to Senator Ben Cardin on this topic back in June. It’s a fun read, but I doubt that it had any influence on Cardin.

As it happened, oil prices peaked in June. The increase in U.S. production from the shale boom has helped to ease conditions, as has strong Saudi production. Speculators can profit under such conditions by taking short positions in oil. In so doing, they encourage prices to fall, sending a signal to the market that production is too strong and that costly conservation measures have less value. The upshot is that such price adjustments prevent a surplus of oil and wasteful use of resources. Again, speculators take significant risks in the hope of earning an adequate return, and in so doing they fulfill a valuable social function. If anything, they should be lauded, not vilified.

We Need Trolleys Like We Need Excuses For New Taxes

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Coyote Blog, Delmar Trolley, Federal Grants, Forest Park, Judy Garland, Resource Costs, Streetcars, The Atlantic, The Show Me Institute, Transit Taxes, Trolleys

lite-rail

Streetcars and trolleys seem to evoke romantic notions, but they are a gigantic waste of resources. They are costly to build relative to alternatives by about an order of magnitude. After construction, the revenue they produce generally pays only a fraction of ongoing operating costs, contributing nothing to the original capital costs. It’s a loser all the way around. The “economic development” mantra is a fallacy. Relative to what alternative? Assertions of “environmental benefits” are even more bogus, as if pouring resources valued in the millions down the hole to build a new civic toy did not have negative environmental implications. Waste is waste.

Here is a recent article in The Atlantic that covers the poor performance of many new streetcar and trolley systems. They defend the rail concept, provided that it is dedicated and not competing with auto, bike, bus and pedestrian traffic for lanes. This problem has been encountered by a number streetcar systems, including one in Washington, DC. Coyote Blog has some additional thoughts on the DC line and the urbanist streetcar obsession in general:

“What we see over and over again is that by consuming 10-100x more resources per passenger, rail systems starve other parts of the transit system of money and eventually lead to less, rather than more, total ridership (even in Portland, by the way).”

A trolley project is underway in St. Louis that is typical of other systems in terms of waste. It would link a popular district called the University City Loop with Forest Park. Nostalgic images of Judy Garland riding the trolley to the World’s Fair in the park must dance in the heads of supporters. Clang, Clang, Clang! Here is a short piece on the Delmar Trolley:

“The total construction cost will reach close to $45 million — almost $20 million per mile of track. … taxpayers will finance most of the project’s construction and operational costs. … The plan’s proponents have not presented any kind of cost-benefit analysis to the public. ”

Ah, but a $25 million federal grant was approved for the project back in 2012, and that’s just a free lunch for locals, right? How many local planners around the country think in those terms? Short answer: too many!

Taleb’s Crock Pot: Whip Statistical Theory and Rhetoric To a Fine Agitprop

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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Biofortified, Black Swans, David Tribe, DebunkingDenialism, Emil Karlsson, Fat Tails, GMO Pundit, GMOs, Luddites, Nassim Taleb, NeuroLogica, Precautionary Principle, The Motley Fool

scary-crockpot

Nassim Taleb, a well-known statistical theorist, and two coauthors (a physicist and a philosopher) have written a working paper in which they purport to show that GMO’s should be banned worldwide lest we flirt with complete ruination, quite possibly the end of humanity. The paper may come to represent sacred writ to anti-GMO activists, as it seems to imply that their position is supported by statistical theory. Ultimately, the paper merely uses statistical theory in the service of rhetoric. It relies on a series of ill-defined dichotomies that the authors use to classify genetic plant engineering into the most “ruinous” category of processes. Among other things, GE is categorized by the authors as a “top-down” technology, it creates global risks and systemic risks, it involves interconnected factors, it is irreversible, its outcomes can be characterized by a probability distribution with “fat tails,” its true risks are “unknowable,” and (worst of all?) it is “human-made,” as opposed to a natural process devoid of human intervention. Perhaps the last condition is meant only to classify processes into the so-called “precautionary approach” to policy assessment, rather than “standard risk management,” but it may reveal something significant about the predisposition of the authors toward human technological endeavors.

The statistical theory presented by the authors is fine, as far as it goes. I have admired some of Taleb’s earlier work, such as Fooled By Randomness, which sought to demonstrate the irrationality of assigning likelihood or even meaning to chance events. Taleb achieved real stardom following the publication of The Black Swan, which warned of severe “outlier” events so rare that they cannot be predicted or even assigned probabilities by humans. The true risks are “unknowable.” Applied work involving “fat-tailed” distributions of possible outcomes, which characterize a wide range of phenomena, is typically supported by prior experience or data, but that is not possible with “ruinous” black swans. Perhaps “extremely long- and fat-tailed” is more descriptive of distributions giving rise to black swans, but of course the extreme outcomes might not be observable ex post.

Taleb, et al, contend that development and cultivation of GMOs carry risks of a black swan ecocide. “Significant” risks? Wait, that involves statistical precision… and data! “Excessive” risks? That implies measurability of one sort or another, not to mention a coherent tradeoff of some kind. “Any” risk of a certain qualitative nature (as defined by the “precautionary approach,” with possible ruin on any time scale)? Of course, the authors are not biologists, agronomists, or geneticists (neither am I), but they claim to have sufficient knowledge to make this judgment:

“Ecologically, in addition to intentional cultivation, GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably, and thus their risks cannot be localized. The cross-breeding of wild-type plants with genetically modified ones prevents their disentangling, leading to irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides.” [emphasis added]

The article contains a comparison of GMOs to nuclear energy risks, which seems intended to defuse criticism that the authors are simply Luddites. They express guarded optimism that nuclear power-generating risks are “local” in nature, and that problems associated with long-term storage of nuclear wastes are manageable. Clearly, however, those risks are just as “unknowable” as those associated with GMOs. We might add to the list of dangerous human endeavors all research and development of artificial intelligence. After all, a complete ban on AI research would prevent the coming singularity, when we’ll otherwise be lorded over by ruthless, self-serving machines! On a less sarcastic note, I do not discount the possibility of a singularity, but we have the luxury of some time to develop AI in a cautious way, just as we have time to minimize risks in the continuing development and application of GE.

Here is a subset of the many assertions made by Taleb, et al in support of their view:

  • GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably.
  • Healthwise, the modification of crops “impacts” everyone.
  • GMO risks are associated with “fragility” (essentially increasing costs).
  • GMOs imply monocultures.
  • GMOs are qualitatively dissimilar to selectively-bred crop varieties.
  • Selective breeding does not remove crops from their evolutionary context.
  • GMOs remove crops from their evolutionary context.
  • The ecological implications of releasing modified organisms into the wild are not tested empirically before release.
  • The health effects of GMOs have not been tested sufficiently.
  • Incremental varieties of GMOs cause the risk of ecocide to increase.

All of these points are debatable to one extent or another. For example, the common assertion that GMOs promote monocultures reflects a common confusion over GMOs versus adequate crop rotation in mechanized farming. The authors exploit this confusion by linking monocultures and GMOs to reduced genetic diversity (apparently within single crops) and assert that this makes crops more vulnerable to blight, though it is hard to see why this is a foregone conclusion regarding the effects of introducing desirable traits.

More fundamentally, Taleb, et al give short shrift to the idea that there is a risk-reward tradeoff in the use of GMOs, that there are potential benefits and risks of GMO alternatives, and the fact that GMOs do not, in fact, suspend evolutionary processes. If a mutation embodied in a GMO also confers an evolutionary advantage, chances are the mutation will be propagated. If not, the mutation will tend to vanish. This is a safety mechanism provided by nature. Of course, anti-GMO activists seek to conjure images of mad geneticists whipping up monster “Audrey” GMOs with evolutionary advantages, but that is not the character of biotechnology.

Taleb, et al, also wish to equate GMOs with Monsanto. The fact that they are so eager to invoke the company’s name in a negative context within an ostensibly academic paper is a giveaway that the paper is agenda-driven. Monsanto and GMOs are not synonymous, and it is highly misleading to conflate the technology with a single company.

The authors attempt to upstage critics with the choice of the adjective “non-naive” to describe their use of the precautionary principle to guide their policy prescription:

“… it is essential to distinguish the PP so that it is neither used naively to justify any act of caution, nor dismissed by those who wish to court risks for themselves or others. The PP is intended to make decisions that ensure survival when statistical evidence is limited—because it has not had time to show up —by focusing on the adverse effects of ‘absence of evidence.’”

So, they excuse themselves from bringing anything empirical to bear on the issue of GMO risks because, they contend, “unknowability” is the very nature of the risk/ruin problem, despite the fact that evidence supporting GMO safety does exist, in scads!

Here are a few other sources who have commented on the article:

This post on the NeuroLogica blog questions Taleb’s understanding of biology and genetic engineering. The author, Steven Novella, also notes that Taleb, et al, do not assess the risk of alternatives:

“Growing enough food for 7 billion people has consequences, in terms of land use, fertilizer, pesticides, and displacing natural ecosystems. GMO as a technology can potentially add to our efficiency. Banning GMO means relying more heavily on other technologies that may have even more risks.”

In addition, Novella says:

“… Taleb’s arguments to still come down to hyping the risk of unforeseen consequences due to the inherent limits of scientific knowledge. I don’t agree, however, that GMOs have the potential for global ruin. This is still largely based on a naive belief that transgenes are inherently risky, when there is no scientific reason to believe that they are. …  He failed to make a compelling argument that his principle of zero risk should apply to GMO.”

The Motley Fool, generally an admirer of Taleb’s previous work, also believes that he is off-base in the case of GMOs.

David Tribe at the GMO Pundit refutes a couple of assertions made by Taleb, et al. about natural variation and the “track record” of nature as an evaluator of risk.

And at DebunkingDenialism, Emil Karlsson is particularly galled, as he should be, by the comparison the paper makes of the risks of Russian Roulette to GMOs. He writes that Taleb and his coauthors fail to understand basic biology:

“In the end, the authors have clearly demonstrated that they do not care about biology, medicine or rational risk analysis. They have negligible knowledge of molecular biology, plant breeding and genetic engineering. It does not matter how much knowledge they have of statistics. If your model is based on flawed premises, then the application and conclusion of that model is going to be flawed. Garage in, garbage out.”

Taleb, et al have adorned their paper with statistical theory, and they are certainly correct that “unknowable” risks may be ruinous. But their case against GMOs ignores the substantial body of known evidence on GMO safety. They bring absolutely no evidence to bear to the contrary. Their arguments mislead by relying on false premises and arbitrary classifications. Unfortunately, that won’t stop reverent anti-GE crusaders from heralding Taleb’s “proof” that GMOs are ruinous and must be banned.

Labeling Exemptions Subvert Law’s Phobic Intent

26 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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AAAS, Colorado, Commerce Clause, Compliance Costs, Denver Post, Farmer's Daughter, GMO food, GMO labeling law, Oregon, Oregonian, sworn statement, Unintended Consequences, Vermont

Sierra Exif JPEG

Predictably, Vermont’s new GMO labeling law is proving to be another classic failure of big government, as noted by The Farmer’s Daughter. Her post provides some of the gory details, including specific exceptions written into the drafted rules and “sworn statement” exemptions, both of which mean it will be of much less value to the public as a informational mechanism.

“The statement requires the signer to swear the food was not made from genetically engineered seeds and it was not co-mingled with any other GMO food. As you can imagine, such a system creates an odd set of regulations. On the one hand, a farmer has to keep all the GMO and GMO-free food separate, fill out these statements for each product, hope that nothing got mixed up, and risk perjury if it did. Alternatively, the grocery store has to keep the food separate, keep track of which sworn statement goes with which product (will they keep them in the display?), and hope that customers don’t mix up the products in the display.”

Obviously, the law will impose substantial compliance costs on farmers and grocers, and it will create barriers to trade across Vermont’s state lines that might ultimately meet a challenge under the Commerce Clause.

Meanwhile, debates over GMO labeling rage in a few other states, such as Oregon and Colorado, with measures on their ballots this November. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of Science magazine) is opposed to the Oregon’s initiative, as is the Oregonian newspaper, which published this editorial:

“Choice, in fact, is one reason to support the status quo, which provides organic and voluntarily labeled non-GE products for anyone who cares to buy them, usually at a higher price. The poor are protected, meanwhile, because, as the Washington report notes, ‘Volunteer labeling concentrates the costs on the target group able and willing to pay more for GMO-free products’ while ‘mandatory labeling imposes costs on everyone and not just those that desire GMO-free goods.’”

Here’s the Denver Post’s opinion on the Colorado measure:

“Colorado’s sugar beet growers could be seriously undermined. They grow genetically modified beets, so sugar from them would have GMO labels. Yet the beet growers argue that the end product is indistinguishable from other sugar because the GMO protein in the beets is removed in processing.

The same is true of vegetable oils from corn or canola seed that come from GMO plants.“

Does THC Hold a Cure For Cancer?

23 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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Alzheimer's, Cancer, Cannabinoids, Classical Values, Curing Cancer, National Cancer Institute

Cancer

Cancer research is proceeding along a number of promising avenues, but there is an apparent gulf between the promise of one class of potential cures and the emphasis it receives in terms of publicity and funding: cannabinoids. Contrary to what some might suspect, when I say that cannabinoids show promise, it is not grounded in pseudoscientific balderdash, a topic on which I posted last night! Indeed, there is a brief but solid history of research showing the potential of cannabinoids in fighting cancer, as shown at this page on the National Cancer Institute website. The Classical Values blog has a post with quotes from the site; and CV bemoans the lack of attention devoted by the media to this type of research.

Unfortunately, until more effort is devoted to studying the effects of cannabinoids on cancer in humans, including optimization of its delivery, those cancer victims with an awareness of the research will be consigned to using covert and undoubtedly less effective means of ingestion, and many others will go uninformed. A disclaimer: it should go without saying that cancer victims should not undertake experiments with cannabinoids to the exclusion of other treatments recommended by personal physicians or specialists.

Cannabinoids may hold promise in treating other prominent disorders. Again at Classical Values, this post discusses their potential usefulness in preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease, quoting a study conducted at the University of South Florida.

Precautionary Genocide

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Biotechnology, conspiracy theories, Farmer's Daughter, food purists, GMOs, natural healing, Precautionary Principle, Pseudoscience, Skeptical Libertarian

LifeCoachCartoon

The claims of radical food purists, promoters of natural healing, medical skeptics and conspiracy theorists carry a high cost. For an articulate delineation of some major varieties of this sort of hogwash, take a look at “‘What’s The Harm’: The Body Count of Pseudoscience” at The Skeptical Libertarian blog:

“The answer is that the cost of misinformation is too large to ignore. It is real. It is devastating. It is counted in billions of dollars wasted on junk cures, in billions spent on treating preventable diseases. It is measured in lifetimes shortened, bodies crippled, eyes blinded, and children lost.

The costs of medical conspiracy theories and baseless fear-mongering are immense and ghastly. Millions upon millions of people are hurt and killed because [of] them every year. It is a veritable holocaust of ignorance. But it is a holocaust that is still happening, year after year, extinguishing countless of lives that could have been saved by good science, free markets, and sound policy.”

The bogus scientific claims are often simply examples of the precautionary principle gone berserk. Medical and biotechnology that has been proven safe and effective is rejected at the urging of activists whose goals are political, or snake oil salesmen whose goals are pecuniary, while innocents are put at risk. The author(s) of the post linked above cover several areas of pseudoscience worthy of condemnation. Read the whole thing, as they say.

One special topic mentioned in the post is scaremongering related to GMOs, which have demonstrated potential to enhance agricultural productivity and nutrition. That such anti-GMO nonsense can gain any traction with the public and policymakers is a tribute to effective promotion of bad science disguised as legitimate research. The Farmer’s Daughter USA blog has a couple of recent posts on GMO safety worth reading: “Just Ignore Those 2,000+ Studies Showing GMOs are Safe!” and “1 Trillion Meals Later: The GMO Safety Debate Is Over“. From the latter:

“Anti-GMO activists always refer to “scientific” studies done on animals eating genetically modified food with horrid results as proof that biotech isn’t safe. Yet, we have never encountered similar side effects or results in animal agriculture. Unlike the claims of tumors in rats, inflamed pig stomachs, or infertile sheep, animal agriculture has not encountered these problems while feeding their animals GMO feed.

Never.“

Enabling Disparate Impact Seekers

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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ABA, Disparate impact, Inclusive Community Project, Investors Business Daily, Racial Discrimination, Section 8 Housing, Supreme Count

State Gobbles Man

The cause of racial unity is not well-served by abusive application of the “disparate impact” doctrine. A dispute has reached the U.S. Supreme Court over tax credits for Section 8 (low income) housing in the Dallas area, which are dispensed by the Texas Department of Housing. The Inclusive Community Project (ICP) alleges that too many permits are issued in low-income areas, leading to segregation of minorities. Of course, housing prices may limit the feasibility of Section 8 housing in higher-income communities, so the result is a natural consequence of reasonable decision-making. The case is of  broad importance, however, as discussed in this IBD opinion.

Established business and social practices based on sound principles may have, as a by-product, a disproportionate or disparate impact on disadvantaged minorities. For example, if a minority population has less savings, on average, than non-minorities, they will tend to require higher loan-to-value ratios when applying to lenders for similar mortgage amounts. They are therefore more likely to have their applications declined or priced less favorably. This obviously differs from outright discrimination against the minority, and it should not rise to a cause of action against a lender who merely attempts to protect investors from excessive risk or to comply with regulations against excessive risk-taking. From the IBD opinion piece:

“‘The risk of disparate-impact lawsuits, in the absence of guidance from the court, pressures the residential mortgage lending industry to arrive at particular outcomes and end numbers to avoid such lawsuits,’ the American Bankers Association wrote the high bench in a joint amicus brief. …

Such pressure can force lenders to water down underwriting standards and take on more risk, since ‘down-payment requirements, debt-to-income requirements, loan-to-value requirements, and other neutral, risk-based underwriting requirements can all affect various racial and ethnic groups differently,’ ABA added.”

Policy goals should be at least compatible. Whether or not the plight of disadvantaged populations justifies some form of redistributive “justice,” there is no reasonable excuse for undermining prudent business practices that are otherwise free of any intent to discriminate against minorities. And in any case, a less efficient economy diminishes society’s capacity to redress such ills. Indeed, it’s more likely to aggravate them and allow disharmony to fester.

Truthy’s In The Eye of The Beholder

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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Ajit Pai, Civil Liberty, Free Speech, Government Spying, NSF, Snooping, Social Media, Steven Colbert, Truthy, Twitter

Snoop on Civil Libs

Over the top: The federal government, through the NSF, is funding the development of a tool  to “mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate.” Oh really? Should anyone find this reassuring? FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai condemns this initiative in the Washington Post. The project’s name is “Truthy,” a term credited to Steven Colbert, who otherwise seems to have nothing to do with it. Pai sums up the project nicely:

“Hmm. A government-funded initiative is going to ‘assist in the preservation of open debate’ by monitoring social media for ‘subversive propaganda’ and combating what it considers to be ‘the diffusion of false and misleading ideas’? The concept seems to have come straight out of a George Orwell novel.

The NSF has already poured nearly $1 million into Truthy. To what end? Why is the federal government spending so much money on the study of your Twitter habits?

Some possible hints as to Truthy’s real motives emerge in a 2012 paper by the project’s leaders, in which they wrote ominously of a ‘highly-active, densely-interconnected constituency of right-leaning users using [Twitter] to further their political views.’”

Does anyone of good faith on the Left actually think this is a good idea? And make no mistake: technology of this sort can be reversed. If anyone on the Left thinks it’s a good idea, are they willing to live with the consequences if things don’t go their way, say, if their avowed enemies take power? Have some more Pai:

“To those who wish to shape the nation’s political dialogue, social media is dangerous. No longer can a cadre of elite gatekeepers pick and choose the ideas to which Americans will be exposed. But today’s democratization of political speech is a good thing. It brings into the arena countless Americans whose voices previously might have received inadequate or slanted exposure.

The federal government has no business spending your hard-earned money on a project to monitor political speech on Twitter. How should it instead have reacted when funding for Truthy was proposed? The proper response wouldn’t have required anywhere near 140 characters. It could have been, and should have been, #absolutelynot.“

“Credit” On Nanny’s Terms

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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CFPB, Credit, Dodd-Frank, Elizabeth Warren, FEE, Layaway, regulation, The Freeman

dentures_on_lay_away

Senator Elizabeth Warren would have you believe that buying on layaway is a wonderful deal. In “Layaway: Live After Death” in The Freeman, the authors discuss the horrible economics of layaway, Warren’s predilection for the practice, and the reason why it has risen from the dead.

First, the economics: these programs allow consumers to defer possession but “keep the dream alive” for a limited time, for a small down payment, which might be forfeited if the balance isn’t paid by the deadline. What a deal!

“In a sense, customers do not actually need Walmart to offer a layaway program; they can simply start saving the money themselves. Layaway essentially offers Walmart an interest-free loan. Put another way, while credit cards allow consumers to enjoy their goods today and pay later, layaway reverses this transaction by allowing Walmart to enjoy the customer’s money today and pay back the customer in the form of goods later. Layaway thus represents a shift in credit away from consumers and toward corporations. So much for consumer protection!”

But will supplies last? Usually they do. What if the availability of a “hot new item” is limited? That’s when the availability of credit can be extremely valuable. It’s up to the consumer as to whether the cost of buying the product on credit is worthwhile, but immediate possession is certainly of value. Ah, but statists like Warren want to intrude, er… help, so Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act. It established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) to regulate the financial industry, and in so doing, the agency has succeeded in limiting the availability of many forms of credit, especially to potential borrowers who pose high risks. The increasing availability of layaway programs is an attempt to fill the breach, though their similarity to real credit is slight. Or perhaps “slight of hand” is a better description.

Fostering Dependency: The Candyman’s Conundrum

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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extended unemployment benefits, financial crises, Great Recession, Mortgage debt, real estate booms, Richard Rahn

extend unemp benefits

I’ve been taken to task before for asserting that extended unemployment benefits aggravated the increase in the jobless rate during the so-called “Great Recession.” New research finds that those extensions actually were a primary contributor to the increase. Richard Rahn describes a new study that draws this conclusion by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From Rahn:

“The irony here is that President Obama and the congressional Democrats kept voting to extend the unemployment benefits, which had the effect of keeping unemployment far higher for a much longer time than if they had not done so. …

The money to pay the unemployment benefits had to come from higher taxes on the employed; greater borrowing, which sucked potentially productive capital out of the economy; or money creation, which undermines the value of money for everyone. All of these are big economic downers. As the Fed researchers explained: ‘Our results lead us to expect that the stimulative effect of higher spending by the unemployed is largely offset by the dramatic negative effect on employment.’”

Incentives are powerful. The recession itself was largely induced by government policy — deductible mortgage interest, community lending programs, favorable regulatory rules for bank mortgage assets, subsidized lending through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with increasingly risky credit standards — that encouraged over-investment in housing fueled by excessive mortgage debt. Here is a summary of a recent paper showing that “real estate lending booms are chiefly responsible for financial crises and weak recoveries.” But the government’s role in the sluggish recovery goes well beyond that, and the extended jobless benefits are one more example.

Rahn goes on to discuss the myriad ways that government inhibits employment growth; in particular, he emphasizes the continued burgeoning of federal regulation during the Obama administration. The government plays a broadly obstructive role in the process of economic growth and alleviating poverty, as Sacred Cow Chips has emphasized in the past:

“More often than not, government policies erect obstacles to employment (e.g., taxes, wage floors, licensure, regulations, mandates, and negative work incentives created by many aid programs). Reversing those entanglements is imperative if we are to foster broad self-sufficiency.“

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  • Your Well Wisher Program
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Ominous The Spirit

Ominous The Spirit is an artist that makes music, paints, and creates photography. He donates 100% of profits to charity.

Passive Income Kickstart

onlyfinance.net/

TLC Cholesterol

Nintil

To estimate, compare, distinguish, discuss, and trace to its principal sources everything

kendunning.net

The future is ours to create.

DCWhispers.com

Hoong-Wai in the UK

A Commonwealth immigrant's perspective on the UK's public arena.

Marginal REVOLUTION

Small Steps Toward A Much Better World

Stlouis

Watts Up With That?

The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change

Aussie Nationalist Blog

Commentary from a Paleoconservative and Nationalist perspective

American Elephants

Defending Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

The View from Alexandria

In advanced civilizations the period loosely called Alexandrian is usually associated with flexible morals, perfunctory religion, populist standards and cosmopolitan tastes, feminism, exotic cults, and the rapid turnover of high and low fads---in short, a falling away (which is all that decadence means) from the strictness of traditional rules, embodied in character and inforced from within. -- Jacques Barzun

The Gymnasium

A place for reason, politics, economics, and faith steeped in the classical liberal tradition

A Force for Good

How economics, morality, and markets combine

Notes On Liberty

Spontaneous thoughts on a humble creed

troymo

SUNDAY BLOG Stephanie Sievers

Escaping the everyday life with photographs from my travels

Miss Lou Acquiring Lore

Gallery of Life...

Your Well Wisher Program

Attempt to solve commonly known problems…

Objectivism In Depth

Exploring Ayn Rand's revolutionary philosophy.

RobotEnomics

(A)n (I)ntelligent Future

Orderstatistic

Economics, chess and anything else on my mind.

Paradigm Library

OODA Looping

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