Economics Music Video Contest: Markets Promote Peace

by Edward Stringham

As a professor, I am a  fan of rigorous economic research, but I am also a fan of helping students learn about how important economics is in an engaging way. John Papola did an excellent job with the Keynes Versus Hayek music videos (especially the second one with yours truly), and over the past couple years I have had students make economics music videos. Think it is impossible to have music videos about Supply and Demand or Economic Value is Subjective? Think again! The results of the 2012 Supply and Demand Music Video Contest and the 2013 Economic Value is Subjective Video Contest have  been fantastic and have had more than 100,000 views on Youtube. See the winning entries below.

I am pleased to announce the 2014 Economics Music Video Contest on Markets Promote Peace. Winners get $2,500 and their professor gets $500. According to the great 19th century liberal, Richard Coben, markets help change a relationship between strangers from one of indifference, or even contempt, to one of mutual benefit. People who may not have cared about each other, now see the other party as an ally. Militarism, on the other hand, causes conflict. To Cobden an important, more humane, and more effective substitute for militarism in the international realm is the expansion of markets.

Continue reading about the contest here: http://hackleychair.wordpress.com/2-economics-music-video-contest/

Winners of  the 2013 Value is Subjective Music Video Contest

 

Winners of the 2012 Supply and Demand Music Video Contest

 

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

by Mario Rizzo

Some people rest the case for representative democracy on the idea that its decisions express the “will of the people.” Those who believe this have never thought deeply about what they are saying. I am inclined, in response to these believers, to use my favorite paraphrase of Ludwig Wittgenstein, “You can mouth the words, but you cannot think the thought.”

What is the will of the people?  Whatever it is, it is certainly not without contradictions, illusions, misinformation, and wishful-thinking – just like a lot of individual thought. But as an aggregation of individual thought it is a construct used to justify all sorts of things. In some people’s minds, this construct has claim to moral authority.

Supply and Demand in Music

by Edward Peter Stringham*

Many economists are criticized for being unable to communicate their ideas in am intelligible and non-boring way. How many people, for example, jump to listen about a debate about the Austrian theory of the business cycle? It turns out quite a lot. John Papola and Russ Roberts demonstrated to the world that lots people will actually listen to an economics discussion if presented in an interesting way.  Their videos recently surpassed 4.5. million views. They did an amazing job especially with their good casting decisions for the reporter at the end of the second video.

This year I decided to run a video contest for students to create music videos that help illustrate the laws of supply and demand.

Revolution on Wall Street?

by Chidem Kurdas

Protestors have “occupied” a square near Wall Street for weeks. Hundreds of them were arrested, some 700 while blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. The movement may be spreading to other American cities. At least one demonstrator says: “This is a revolution.”

They complain of joblessness and the inequities of global capitalism, though the sources of their distress vary widely, from having to pay back student loans to the depredations of the internal combustion engine. At this point their immediate, tangible adversary appears to be the New York Police Department. It is easy to make fun of disaffected middle-class kids with Apple computers camping out in Downtown Manhattan. They bask in media limelight while taunting working-class cops. Still, we should try to understand the matter.

Euro Benefited Germany More than Others in Zone

by Andreas Hoffmann

The euro benefited Germany more than others in the zone. Germany exported and won, the others had to import German goods and lost  (link). This seems to be a consensus in the world of politics. The second consensus is that a bail-out package for the euro problem children or even euro bonds are necessary to safe this euro. And obviously without this euro, there would be no EU.

The combination of the two arguments is used to convince the German parliament and public of that the bail-out packages are necessary.

Patriotism

by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Were anyone to call me dishonest or untruthful he would touch me to the quick. Were he to say that I am unpatriotic, he would leave me unmoved. “What, then, have you no love of country?” That is a question not to be answered in a breath.

The early abolition of serfdom in England, the early growth of relatively-free institutions, and the greater recognition of popular claims after the decay of feudalism had divorced the masses from the soil, were traits of English life which may be looked back upon with pride. When it was decided that any slave who set foot in England became free; when the importation of slaves into the Colonies was stopped; when twenty millions were paid for the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies; and when, however unadvisedly, a fleet was maintained to stop the slave trade; our countrymen did things worthy to be admired. And when England gave a home to political refugees and took up the causes of small states struggling for freedom, it again exhibited noble traits which excite affection.

But there are traits, unhappily of late more frequently displayed, which do the reverse.

Confusion Masquerading as Science? Taxes and Spending

by Mario Rizzo

I am always amazed that when many economists give policy advice the sophistication and logical rigor that the discipline so values gets completely lost.

There are many ways to interpret this. One is that the level of precision appropriate to theory and to applied economics is not appropriate to the “art” of economic policy. Of course, I would suggest that maybe this teaches us something about the ultimate value of sophistication in the theoretical product. Do the precise concepts of theory and applied economics have referents in the “real world”? Or is most of the precision lost when we try to understand the world and recommend policies? This is an important question.

However, here I am interested in the sloppiness of the policy-relevant discussions that even very good and respectable economists produce. One interesting example is a recent “Economix” piece in The New York Times by the Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt.

I have two points: first, the confusing mix of science and value judgments; and second, the naïve analysis of the political process.

Sowing and Reaping: The True Sickness of Society

by Mario Rizzo  

There has been much moaning, even before the Arizona shooting incident, about why “we” cannot be civil in our political discussions and why political parties cannot work together for the common good. 

Most of this is pure logorrhea.

There are some simple facts the commentators cannot or will not face. The reason we cannot have a coherent, comprehensive plan to solve the political and economic difficulties of the federal government (and of the state governments) is that people do not have a coherent, comprehensive hierarchy of values beyond the basics of social order.

Mark Potok’s Loony Logical Leap

by Roger Koppl

The tragic shooting in Arizona has sparked a fight about whether today’s right-wing political rhetoric is somehow responsible for egging on Jared Loughner.  The evidence so far is against the claim.

Mother Jones, hardly a right-wing rag, interviewed a friend of Loughner.  It seems that Loughner had a grudge against Giffords after she failed to give him a satisfactory answer to a question he put to her at an earlier event.  Loughner told his friend that he had asked Giffords,  “What is government if words have no meaning?”

Could Sarah Palin Be Right?!

by Mario Rizzo  

In an editorial the Wall Street Journal criticizes Sarah Palin for criticizing Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. The point seems to be that such talk from the Ms. Bully Pulpit is innocuous or benign. The writer makes an analogy with Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. 

Now if Michelle Obama were just a Chicago-based community activist who was organizing a nation-wide propaganda campaign to urge people to eat healthily I would have no objection.  

Anti-Intellectualism and Freedom

by Chidem Kurdas

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, a historian who died in 1970, is very much part of politics several decades after it was written. The past two years brought many charges of anti-intellectualism by left-liberals against people on the other side of the political divide.  The latest in Hofstadter-inspired critiques is an attack on Tea Partiers by Will Bunch — The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.

The term anti-intellectualism does not just denote those who don’t care for intellectuals. Rather, Hofstadter presents it as an ideology, an “ism” that periodically besets American culture and deprives intellectuals of political power. This deprivation disappears under certain administrations. Thus regarding the late 19^th and early 20^th century he wrote that “In the Progressive era the estrangement between intellectuals and power … came rather abruptly to an end.”

Similarly in the New Deal: “Never had there been such complete harmony between the popular cause in politics and the dominant view of the intellectuals.” Unfortunately – from Hofstadter’s perspective – this harmony was disrupted by right-wing reaction against policies associated with intellectuals.

Cafeteria Marvels

 by Mario Rizzo  

The market is a “marvel.” What does that mean? According to Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator and senator, a marvel is something contrary to or surpassing common understanding.  

In that sense, the market is a true marvel – so much so that it even surpasses the understanding of many economists.  

Richard Thaler (a University of Chicago Business School professor) and Cass Sunstein (a Harvard law professor and Obamian regulatory czar) have illustrated the benign qualities of paternalism with a curious example of cafeteria food placement. (An interesting and important exchange between Glen Whitman and Richard Thaler – among others – is now taking place at Cato Unbound.)

Props to Obama

by Roger Koppl

Obama has been a bitter disappointment to me, though not really a surprise.  He is skilled at signaling goodness while concentrating benefits and dispersing costs.  That’s the norm for elected officials, especially at his level.  Bush was an exception because he was only mediocre at signaling goodness and yet a genius at increasing state power.  Still you gotta give Obama your props when he deserves them.  His statement on the prize was beautiful.  That’s the Obama I voted for!  Too bad that’s not the Obama making real choices as this Toronto Star op ed by Haroon Siddiqui chronicles.

In Defense of Reasonable Ideology

 

 

by Mario Rizzo

 

There have been many statements recently to the effect that we should not let “ideology” or “philosophy” stand in the way of solving our economic problems.  Indeed, the Obama Administration (and the previous Bush Administration) are keen to persuade us to drop all of this prejudice and to go after each problem – banking, stimulus, and so forth – on its own terms. We should examine each solution on its own merits.

 

President Obama’s inaugural address includes an apparent attack on ideology:

 

“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works …”

 

 

What appears to be a sensible idea to turn our problems into purely technical ones is, on the contrary, profoundly unscientific and, more generally, anti-intellectual.

 

This is a big subject and deserves comprehensive treatment. Let it suffice here to make a few crucial observations.

U.S. Treasury’s Bailout Framework: Mockery of the Rule of Law

by Mario Rizzo

 

In an attempt to provide greater transparency and predictability the US Treasury has issued the basic “framework” that will determine whether a troubled “financial institution,” defined extremely broadly as the law allows (see my previous post), will receive governmental aid. Many commentators, including this one, have thought that the Treasury policy was in great need of clarification. Instead, what we have gotten is an extremely vague set of standards followed by a statement that targeted investments will be on a “case-by-case basis.”

What is a “Prominent” Economist?

by Mario Rizzo

In a recent article in Time magazine Michael Kinsley implies that no “prominent” economist has come out against economic stimulus as a (partial?) solution to the current mess. My interest here is not whether this true but in what constitutes “prominent.”

Time for Reflection: “The Unity of the People”

by Mario Rizzo

After most presidential elections in recent years there is talk of uniting the country, somehow overcoming differences and working for the betterment of the nation. This is a dangerous idea if it is taken seriously.