Urgently needed drugs developed under Operation Warp Speed are at the mercy of officials working at “bureaucrat speed.” I rarely like the titles that editors choose for my op/eds and articles. But this title that my Hoover editor chose is way better than mine. Here are the first three paragraphs of “Vaccines’ Last Hurdle: Central Planners,” Defining Ideas, December 4, 2020: First, the good news. We now appear to have at least two viable vaccines with high efficacy in preventing the awful disease known as COVID-19. On November 9, Pfizer/BioNTech announced that the efficacy of its vaccine exceeds 90 percent. On November 16, Moderna announced that its vaccine’s efficacy exceeds 94.5 percent. Take that, Pfizer! Seriously, though, both announcements are great news. Let’s put those percentages in perspective. I get a flu vaccine every year without fail. Is that because the vaccine is 90 percent effective? No. At best, it’s 60 percent effective, and its effectiveness is often well below 50 percent. There’s even more good news. Even when the vaccines don’t prevent COVID-19, they make it substantially less severe. For example, in a study of thirty thousand volunteers for the Moderna test, of the eleven cases in people who got the vaccine, no case was severe, versus thirty severe cases for people who received the placebo. It’s risky to generalize from a sample size of thirty thousand, but still, the numbers are extremely encouraging. There’s also good news for us elderly. I was talking with a healthy seventy-seven-year-old woman at pickleball last week who was delighted that she, as an elderly person, would be one of the first to get it. I just turned seventy and my wife is seventy-one, and so presumably we will be on the priority list. But the bad news for people who live in California is that California’s state government will slow things down. This might happen in New York and in some other states also. Let’s start by focusing on California, the state I know best. California’s government will slow things down in two ways: one is intentional and the other is unintentional. Read the whole thing. (0 COMMENTS)

2020 has gone from being an all bad news year, to what I guess can be described as a good news/bad news kind of year.  The good news?  We have several very promising vaccines that should be available fairly soon – in fact in record time.  The bad news is that public distrust about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine is surprisingly widespread; and it’s particularly high among African-Americans, according to NPR.  Three former presidents- Clinton, Bush and Obama- have all volunteered to receive the vaccine live in order to reassure the public over its safety. Just last year before the pandemic hit there was a lot of discussion about the problems that have arisen as a result of the decisions by so-called “anti vaxxers-” those who refuse to take vaccines or have them administered to their children for either religious reasons or because they doubt the veracity of the science behind them.  I don’t need to make a lengthy case that such beliefs fly in the face of reality, so I won’t.  If you think vaccines cause autism you’re just dead wrong. And yet as Ron Bailey over at Reason has adroitly noted – vaccines don’t in and of themselves solve the problem unless the vaccinations are widespread enough to help achieve herd immunity.  Public officials have to convince the public that the vaccine is effective in helping to solve the pandemic and safe.  As I have noted elsewhere, at the moment public trust in our political leadership is not especially high, for good reasons. So what should a liberty-minded person think about the role that the state should play in getting the public as widely vaccinated as soon as possible?  Initially, one might believe that a libertarian would make this an individual decision – a person has the right to decide to do what she sees as best.  However, libertarians and liberty-minded individuals also very much believe in John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle”.  The harm principle states that the only reason to restrict the actions of individuals is to prevent harm to others.  By not getting vaccinated individuals make hitting the herd immunity threshold a longer and more difficult goal to achieve, putting others directly at risk.  So for those of us who defend the concept of liberty, vaccines seem to be an example where perhaps the state can and should use its coercive power to force citizens to be vaccinated, assuming the vaccine is deemed safe and effective.  While this runs contrary to the intuition one might expect, individuals who reject the vaccine are obviously violating the harm principle. Should those of us who defend liberty endorse the idea that the state should set up mandatory vaccination clinics and drag people out of their homes in the night to vaccinate them?  Obviously not.  But just as schools require children to be vaccinated before attending, it seems to me that requiring a COVID vaccine for certain activities is a way to “encourage” such behavior.  One might even use the rather unpopular word “nudge”.  Want a driver’s license?  Show me your COVID vaccination.  Care to enter a public building?  You need to document you’ve been vaccinated.  Private businesses should take the same steps.  I would much rather peacefully and comfortably comb the aisles of Walmart and Costco without a mask but with my vaccination certificate. Freedom and responsibility are tied at the hip, and we are at the point where we must individually agree to act swiftly and responsibly to help save lives – let’s get vaccinated as soon as possible and save the lives of others.  But let’s also accept that we must allow for the prospect that the state might have a role to play here.  If cigarettes are regulated because of the risk of secondhand smoke, encouraging COVID vaccination seems like a no-brainer. (0 COMMENTS)

Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich, one of the most dynamic and insightful theorists writing on property rights, reflects on his experience in economics. With characteristic sagacity and humor, he demonstrates the power that empirical cases can bring to bear on theoretical problems. Born in Belgrade, Pejovich is Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University, where he taught for over twenty years, and the author of many influential articles and books including The Economics of Property Rights: Towards a Theory of Comparative Systems and Law, Informal Rules, and Economic Performance: The Case for Common Law. In the late 1970s, he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Dallas, where he also served as President. In conversation with Bill Jersey, Pejovich speaks openly about his life, which began under the tyranny of the Nazis, came into maturity subject to the despotism of the Communists, and was eventually transformed by a move to the United States. Under a government based on ideas of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he found a new home in Texas—an expansive land where his vision of economic freedom and cultural vitality was realized.   “Every time you think you know an answer to a problem, the time has come to be asked to be convinced once again.”   Below are some prompts for further conversation:   Early Life in the Soviet Union 1- How did ideology affect every aspect of life in the Soviet system? What most surprised you about Pejovich’s account of his personal experiences under communism? 2- How does self interest regulate the economy, according to Pejovich? 3- What does Pejovich mean when he says that every choice is a contract? How do such choices create an unpredictable and spontaneous order?   Changing the World 4- Pejovich insists that the only way you can serve society is to make money, and that how much you make is an index of how well you are serving society. To what extent do you agree with this assertion? Explain. 5- Should profit guide the “non-profit” sector as well? What might this look like in practice? (Think about Pejovich’s comments regarding the Peace Corps, which he says were it profitable, would not need to rely on taxpayer money.)   The Road to Capitalism is Bumpy 6- All communities- from neighborhoods to nations- have their “rules of the game.” When members of a given community disagree with the community’s rules, what two alternatives do they have? 7- Related, Pejovich argues that any time you change the rules, you’re going to change the game. What are the two levels of social activity in this analogy, and what questions do these suggest for economic analysis? 8- Capitalism is not an economic system, according to Pejovich? What, then, is it?   Law, Culture, and Economics 9- What is the proper function of law, according to Pejovich? How does he argue we are to bring about justice or fairness in society? 10- In what way(s) is law an evolutionary process? 11- How does Pejovich describe the effects of law and culture on the economy? What happens when there is a conflict between a nation’s rules and its customs?   The Laboratory of the American West 12- How does the example of the American West prove that you don’t need a state to decide claims and resolve disputes? What do you need? 13- How does cutting down a tree help the environment, according to Pejovich? How does thinking abour interest rates help answer this question? (Put another way, how should we determine the optimal time to cut down a tree?) 14- What does Pejovich mean when he says of wealth, “To think only of the monetary components is very primitive economics.” How does this square with his discussion of cutting down trees?   Hayek’s Road to Serfdom 15- How does Pejovich liken living under communism to being a domesticated animal? Why doesn’t Pejovich resent any of the limitations imposed on him by a capitalist ecoomy? 16- What does Pejovich mean when he says, “The government does not create wealth. It can only distribute wealth?” 17- When the conversation turns to the prospects for socialized medicine, Pejovich tells Jersey, “I cannot tell you if you are right or wrong; I can only tell you the consequences.” What are the consequences of such a propsal as Pejovich describes them? 18- What does Pejovish see as his obligation(s) as a teacher?   “If you never had the right to choose, you cannot even imagine what that means.”   Related References: Svetozar Pejovich, Economic Analysis of Institutions and Systems Svetozar Pejovich, Fundamentals of Economics: A Property Rights Approach Svetozar Pejovich, The Economics of Property Rights: Toward a Theory of Comparative Systems Svetozar Pejovich, Law, Informal Rules, and Economic Performance: The Case for Common Law Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill, The Not-So-Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom   Entries from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Communism, Bryan Caplan Capitalism, Robert Hessen Socialism, Robert Heilbroner Property Rights, Armen Alchian Opportunity Cost, David Henderson Friedrich Hayek biography Economic Freedom, Robert Lawson   Other Econlib Resources: Profile in Liberty: Friedrich A. Hayek Bryan Caplan, The Idea Trap Richard McKenzie, How the Collapse of Communism Has Undermined Faith in American Capitalism   EconTalk Podcasts: Terry Anderson on the Environment and Property Rights Caplan on Hayek, Richter, and Socialism George Shultz on Economics, Human Rights, and the Fall of the Soviet Union       As an Amazon Associate, Econlib earns from qualifying purchases. (0 COMMENTS)

The COVID pandemic has disrupted our lives in innumerable ways. For those with children, the disruption to schooling is likely at the top of the list. In this episode, EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes back economist (and parenting guru!) Emily Oster to talk about the pandemic’s effects on schools. Oster and team have been tracking COVID cases and precautions in schools since early in the outbreak. The ultimate goal of this massive data collection exercise is both to track COVID cases in schools and learn how outbreaks or cases are affected by mitigation practices. We realize this is a fraught subject for many, and that our questions for further thought and conversation are likely to rouse some strong feelings. Our aim, as thoughtfully expressed by Russ, is NOT to further politicize the conversation, but to learn together. With that, we hope you’ll consider sharing your thoughts with us below.     1- What has Oster found thus far regarding the relationship between school and community spread? What does she think this means for decisions about whether to (re)open schools? To what extent do you agree?   2- Roberts and Oster both note that the situation differs between K12 schools and colleges. Why does it seem that colleges, but not K12 schools, are “superspreaders?”   3- Oster and Roberts spend a great deal of time discussing the trade-offs inherent in all COVID mitigation efforts. How would you suggest the socioeconomic and geographic inequities (with regard to schooling) should be addressed?   4- Roberts describes a recent visit to his dentist, and notes the feelings of other people who feel “obligated” to work in contact with others during the pandemic. To what extent  ought teachers be similarly obligated? Under what conditions? What does the pandemic response to schooling suggest about the way we value teachers and education?   5- What are the things Oster says she has learned from her COVID research? What does she mean by recommending a “scalpel” versus a “sledgehammer” approach to COVID? (0 COMMENTS)

I receive this from my friend Antonio Foglia. It seemed brilliant and worth sharing (with his permission). Last night I saw the documentary on George Soros directed by Bob Dylan’s son. To explain how Macro investing works, George explains in an old interview that he was once skiing in St. Moritz and had picked up the FT before going skiing. Reading it on the chairlift he learned that the UK government was bailing out Rolls Royce. Looking at the company’s history that should have happened in February, 1971. Informational advantages were often part of Macro trades at least since Rothschild’s pigeons were carrying messages from the Waterloo battlefield. But George’s case his edge has always rather been his ability in processing information and foreseeing developments faster and further than anyone else I ever met. George says in that interview that by the time he got to the top of the mountain he had decided to instruct his broker to sell short Gilts, the UK government’s bonds. The interviewer looks at him perplexed an George explains that such a huge corporate bailout would have caused the UK government deficit to rise, would have required the issue of more Gilts to finance it, and hence Gilt yields would have to rise to attract buyers and their price would fall. This would have allowed him to buy them back cheaper than at the price he had originally sold them short. Now that was back in 1971. At the time there were controls on capital movement in the UK, the Gold standard and fixed exchange rates prevailed and no futures markets where to easily sell Gilts short existed. Today we think of that period as an era of barbaric financial repression that allowed socialist governments to do all sorts of turpitudes to capital to the detriment of economic efficiency and growth. You don’t need a rich fantasy to immagine the same scene Today. First, Rolls Royce is in trouble again. Immagine the UK government bails Rolls Royce out once more after fudging with EU rules that in theory would forbid corporate bailouts. Other EU governments have already bailed firms out and Brexit is happening shortly anyway. If a Macro manager had been smart enough to anticipate the collapse of Rolls Royce, and had already sold short the stock, the fudge is likely to cause him losses as the stock would now rise because of the governmental help to the company. Say that Today’s macro manager reasons like George and decides to short Gilts. Tough luck, since the Bank of England is buying tons of them in the secondary market sustaining their prices in order to keep interest rates low. But no, the Bank of England assures you, this is Quantitative Easing, nothing to do with monetisation of government debt which only happens when they buy on the primary market. This may satisfy the layman, but not a sophisticated Macro manager who knows that part of a Central Bankers’ job is to say whatever lie policy requires with a straight face. So, the Macro manager thinks, if we have monetisation in the UK and rates are kept at artificially low levels surely the Pound Sterling must weaken against currencies with a stronger economic backdrop. Hence our Macro manager sells Pounds and buys Swiss Francs. After all Switzerland has a modest amount of government debt, its Covid induced deficit is easily financiable and its current account surplus has been extremely high for well over a decade. If the Macro manager is really sophisticated, he might even have noticed that Swiss pension funds have hedged for a decade their substantial purchases of foreign securities, implying that the local professionals also expect an appreciation of the Swiss Franc. Tough luck again, though. The Swiss National Bank is selling all the Swiss Francs anyone may want to buy to keep it from appreciating. And this is happening in an extraordinary rich country considered a bastion of free market economy and with a vast surplus in its international trade balance. Deprived of any opportunity to help the markets price events rationally, and to profit in the process, our contemporary Macro manager drops on his sofa and switches on his TV. Just in time to hear the end of a very recent interview with George Soros who laments that Today’s economic policies set by “free markets fundamentalists” are ruining the world. (0 COMMENTS)

In a rare bit of good news out of DC, it seems as though the “stimulus” part of the new fiscal package may be dropped: Direct cash payments to most American households were one of the most popular and efficient measures Congress enacted as part of its response to the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, but lawmakers seem to have lost interest in another round of checks. Legislators this week resuscitated talks over a new coronavirus relief package, which includes new unemployment assistance, money for vaccine distribution and more aid for businesses and state governments. But none of the potential compromise proposals includes another round of stimulus checks. “We’re sending money out as a relief for people in distress, as opposed to a stimulus. This is not a stimulus bill,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told HuffPost about bipartisan $900 billion legislation he is crafting with other moderate senators. The main factor holding back the economy is not a lack of disposable income; indeed areas where people are free to spend (retail sales, housing, etc.) are booming.  Rather the recession is heavily concentrated in services where social distancing is a problem.  Once the vaccines are widely available in the early spring, those sectors will bounce back strongly.  Many people who skipped summer vacation this year will be anxious to take a vacation next summer.  As an analogy, consumption rebounded strongly after the WWII-era rationing came to an end.  The postwar depression predicted by Keynesian economists never happened. I have not examined the proposed legislation in detail and thus don’t have a position on the overall bill.  But right now the economy does not need fiscal stimulus.  If any fiscal package is going to be enacted, it makes sense to focus on those who are negatively affected by the crisis, especially the unemployed and small businesses adversely affected by Covid-19.  There is no obvious reason to send $1200 checks to Americans with good jobs. I wouldn’t be opposed to a bit more monetary stimulus, although I suspect the Fed will hit its 2% average inflation target sooner than most economists expect.  The Fed did not actually do very much monetary stimulus in 2020.  They have plenty of ammo. (0 COMMENTS)

Epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) is important because it underlies the problem of truth in economics and in all other area of rational research and discourse. Epistemology is also relevant to conspiracies theories. As philosopher Robert Nozick pointed out, in the social sciences, invisible-hand explanations are always preferable because otherwise the conclusion is planted in the premises–a vindication of Adam Smith and classical-liberal economics! The Ptolemaic system of astronomy also faced an epistemological trap in explaining the movement of planets and stars with the help of epicycles (cycles moving on other circles). When an empirical observation contradicted the system’s predictions, the astronomer only needed to add an epicycle to make the theory fit the fact. Similarly, adding one new conspirator or a new conspiratorial component can always explain away, ad infinitum, any objection to a given conspiracy. Only much later, with the work of mathematician Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier in the 18th century, did we start understanding that any smooth curve or movement in space can be approximated with a sufficient number of epicycles. Ptolemy’s theory was more complicated than needed to understand, and to better understand, the movement of planets and stars. Just like Ptolemaic astronomy, conspiracy theories (at least complex ones) violate Occam’s razor, that is, the principle that “pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate,” or “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” In other words, of two explanatory theories, the simplest one should be preferred ceteris paribus. Granted that it is not always clear what “the simplest” means. Conspiracies are not impossible, but the more complex and the less incentive-compatible they are, the lower their probability. (See my post “Why a Vast Election Fraud is Highly Implausible” and its complement, “Implausible Conspiracy and Unfair Election.) The shaky epistemological status of conspiracy theories can be illustrated by a recent Facebook post of mine and the comment of Professor Sinclair Davidson, an economist at RMIT University in Australia. I posted: Here is another [I should have written: “the correct”] conspiracy theory: The Deep State approached Trump around 2015 and asked him to run for president, assuring him of their support. “We know how to run elections,” they told him. The Deep State needed some puppet or clown who would make individual liberty (including the 1st and 2nd Amendments) look totally cranky, thereby preparing the terrain for a future dictator. They told Trump that only he, with his genius, his legendary honesty, and his golf game, could play this important role. Alas, Trump fell in love with the job (as he did with the North Korean dictator), the tweets, the honors, the constant attention, and broke with his Deep State handlers. We saw the consequence on November 3. Sinclair Davidson brillantly commented: I have a different theory: Deep state approached Trump exactly like you said but lost control of the 2016 election. He was the patsy meant to lose. Now we see 2020. Conspiracies can explain any event (even in the physical world if the gods, like Greek gods, engage in conspiracies), and a large number of different conspiracies can explain the same event. Hence conspiracy theories are generally useless, at best. (0 COMMENTS)

With 5 more states legalizing pot last month, there are now 15 states where the drug is legal and 35 where medical marijuana is legal. Most people assume that complete legalization is more libertarian that merely legalizing medical marijuana. That’s been my view as well. A recent article in Politico, however, makes a strong case for the proposition that Oklahoma has the nation’s freest pot market, despite not legalizing recreational marijuana. There are two parts to this argument: 1. It’s so easy to get a medical marijuana license in Oklahoma that for all intents and purposes the drug has been fully legalized: Oklahoma is now the biggest medical marijuana market in the country on a per capita basis. More than 360,000 Oklahomans—nearly 10 percent of the state’s population—have acquired medical marijuana cards over the last two years. By comparison, New Mexico has the country’s second most popular program, with about 5 percent of state residents obtaining medical cards. Last month, sales since 2018 surpassed $1 billion. . . . If a patient can persuade a doctor that he needs to smoke weed in order to soothe a stubbed toe, that’s just as legitimate as a dying cancer patient seeking to mitigate pain. The cards are so easy to obtain—$60 and a five-minute consultation—that many consider Oklahoma to have a de facto recreational use program. 2. The supply of marijuana is much less heavily regulated in Oklahoma than in even states that opted for full “legalization”: To meet that demand, Oklahoma has more than 9,000 licensed marijuana businesses, including nearly 2,000 dispensaries and almost 6,000 grow operations. In comparison, Colorado—the country’s oldest recreational marijuana market, with a population almost 50 percent larger than Oklahoma—has barely half as many licensed dispensaries and less than 20 percent as many grow operations. In Ardmore, a town of 25,000 in the oil patch near the Texas border, there are 36 licensed dispensaries—roughly one for every 700 residents. In neighboring Wilson (pop. 1,695), state officials have issued 32 cultivation licenses, meaning about one out of 50 residents can legally grow weed. (I use scare quotes for “legalization” as the drug is still illegal at the federal level, which restricts access to the banking system and increases the cost of production.) All of this is occurring in a very conservative state: “Turns out rednecks love to smoke weed,” Baker laughs. “That’s the thing about cannabis: It really bridges socio-economic gaps. The only other thing that does it is handguns. All types of people are into firearms. All types of people are into cannabis.” Indeed, Oklahoma has established arguably the only free-market marijuana industry in the country. Unlike almost every other state, there are no limits on how many business licenses can be issued and cities can’t ban marijuana businesses from operating within their borders. In addition, the cost of entry is far lower than in most states: a license costs just $2,500. In other words, anyone with a credit card and a dream can take a crack at becoming a marijuana millionaire. Pot legalization is one of those rare issues where the biggest divide is not left vs. right; rather it’s elites vs. average people: Though polls indicated the measure was getting roughly 60 percent support from voters, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin and practically every member of her cabinet opposed the legalization referendum, as did the entire Oklahoma congressional delegation. Police and prosecutors came out against it, along with every major religious organization, the Oklahoma State Medical Association and most of the business community, including the State Chamber of Oklahoma. Even the Democratic Party elites have been slow to warm to the idea, which is why conservative states that allow referenda often legalize pot faster than liberal states (like New York) where the legislature determines the issue.  Even President-elect Biden is skeptical of the idea. Age is another factor, and Biden is of course from the “silent generation” that preceded the Baby Boomers. Perhaps now Oklahoma can begin to repair the damage done to so many of its citizens: At that time, the overwhelming consensus among the state’s lawmakers was that the best way to deal with illegal drug use—including marijuana consumption—was to lock up lots of Oklahomans for long periods of time.“ I knew that we were ruining families,” Sapp says of the state’s harsh criminal penalties. “It literally will take generations to repair the damage that we’ve done to people and their children and their grandchildren.” (0 COMMENTS)

Like many who have studied economics at George Mason University during the last forty years, I had the great privilege of studying price theory with Walter Williams. The class was very much taught in the UCLA price theory tradition of Armen Alchian. His personal history—growing up in a housing project in Philadelphia, serving in the army, fighting for civil rights, working his way from cab driver to economics professor, and his nearly fifty year marriage to a woman he was clearly deeply in love with—were also important in his teaching. Economics is about the real world and he’d never let you forget it. His autobiography Up From The Projects and the short documentary film Suffer No Fools are both excellent windows into his thoughtfulness, courage, and kindness. And I say that having never met an economist who wasn’t also a bit prickly, and knowing very well that many who read this will likely know that side of him better than I. Williams never shied away from tough ideas and delighted in challenging the preconceived notions of his students and his readers. His book The State Against Blacks, now in its third printing, is full of thoughtful economic insight, important history that should not be forgotten, and ideas that many will find uncomfortable. Getting uncomfortable when exploring the big questions is important exercise, regardless of what you ultimately decide to keep and what you decide to leave behind. He was so committed to this work that he worked right up to the last days we were lucky enough to have him with us here on the mortal plane. Here are a few articles by Williams that I find challenging and informative. I make no claim to them being his best or most important—he was prolific enough to make that determination tricky, and there are many others in a better situation to make that call than I am anyway—but I believe they are a fair representation of his work and priorities. “Discrimination: The Law vs. Morality” (2003) explores the concepts of discrimination and prejudice, and what the state can and should be about such matters. His conclusion could be summed up as a kind of Hippocratic oath for economic policy: above all, governments need to stop interfering in ways that exacerbate discrimination. Indeed, in a much earlier article entitled “Why The Poor Pay More: An Alternative Explanation,” Williams makes that exact point: “the first thing that researchers and policymakers must insure, when dealing with the problems of poverty, is that they do no harm. To insure against doing harm requires dispassionate analysis that avoids the mere characterization of behavior” (1973, p. 379). The main point of this article is that in focusing too much on observed outcomes around creditworthiness, the true struggles of those facing poverty and discrimination are obscured. He pick up this issue again later in “False Civil Rights Vision and Contempt for Rule of Law.” This is a short, critical piece in which he discuss the importance of prioritizing equality of process over equality of outcome. As Williams writes, the levers that are available to us to manipulate an observe outcome may not have any relationship to the actual cause of an injustice. As such focus on outcomes rather than equality in rights and process “allows the true villains to go undiscovered and therefore unconfronted” (1991, p. 1782) “How Business Transcends Politics” (1987) addresses apartheid in South Africa, another case he studied in depth along with that of Jim Crow law and Civil Rights in the United States. He reminds us in this article that markets make racial discrimination costly, and that there are many examples of governments forcing people to behave in prejudiced ways for one political reason or another. In short, sometimes the solution is actually the problem. In “The Argument for Free Markets: Morality vs. Efficiency” (1996), Williams lays out his argument in favor of a moral argument for free markets, lamenting the “invisible victims” of minimum wage and other interventionist policies who are overlooked both by advocates of those policies and those who focus exclusively on the efficiency of markets. If you are so moved, I think reading one of these today—even and maybe especially if it makes you a little uncomfortable—would be an excellent tribute. (0 COMMENTS)

I ignore the news, in part, because I deem it unreliable.  That’s right, “I don’t trust the media.”  But what exactly do I mean by this seemingly conspiratorial statement? All things considered, when I hear the media report on direct observations, I believe them.  If they say rioting is happening in DC, I am highly confident that rioting is happening in DC.  If they quote a politician, I am highly confident that the politician said the quote.  If they say that a person was convicted of a specific crime, I believe that the person was indeed convicted. But my trust largely ends there.  When the media makes claims about any of the following, I habitually roll my eyes. 1. Causation. I distrust media claims about causation – about claims like “X caused event Y” as well as “Event Y caused Z.”  If the media says a politician won an election, I believe them.  When they try to tell me why the politician won, however, I scoff.  If they try to tell me what will happen as a result of the politicians’ victory, I scoff again.  Why?  Because causation is notoriously difficult to untangle, and few journalists have the slightest training in causal inference.  (They are however masters of hyperbole). 2. Meaning. I distrust media claims about what events mean – about claims like “X shows Y” or “X is part of broader trend Z.”  Why?  Because putting any particular event in context requires long-term statistical reasoning, and few journalists have more than mediocre training in statistics.  So if journalists claim that a notorious crime illustrates a general pattern about crime, I skeptically shrug. 3. Importance.  Whenever the media cover a story, there’s a subtext.  And the subtext is: This is important! The goes goes when the media ignores a story.  The subtext is: This is not important! Even if I knew nothing about the world, I would wonder, “What qualifies these people to adjudicate events’ importance?”  And since I do know a great deal about the world, I am convinced that the media’s sense of importance is radically defective.  These are the kind of people who would rather cover an insensitive tweet than Uighur concentration camps.  They would rather report a fatality-free nuclear accident than the vastly greater health damage of coal.  They would rather investigate the latest terrorist attack than discuss the global murder rate.  These are not isolated shortcomings.  The media’s main function is to distort viewers’ priorities. 4. Politics. Even on utterly apolitical issues, I consider the media deeply unreliable on causation, meaning, and importance.  Once causation, meaning, and importance become political, however, I deem it absurdly, insultingly unreliable.  Why?  Most obviously, because of the media’s overwhelming left-wing bias.  You can tell simply by reading the headlines; diction alone is a dead giveaway.  Less obviously, because of the media’s unthinking nationalism.  Despite their cosmopolitan pretensions, even very left-wing journalists are nationalists at heart.  That’s why a minor terrorist attack against fellow citizens gets a hundred times as much attention as mass murder of foreigners.  That’s why token cuts in domestic welfare programs outrage the media a hundred times as much as massive cuts in the admission of refugees.  When critics attack the media as “globalist,” it’s a case of 99% nationalists lashing out at 90% nationalists.   Personally, I should add, journalists almost always treat me very well.  When they interview me, they’re not just consistently fair and respectful; they also accurately report my positions.  What gives?  Much of the reason must be self-selection: Journalists who interview me tend to be favorably disposed.  A secondary reason, though, is that journalistic vices are often a response to consumer demand.  On some level, most journalists know that plane crashes are grossly over-covered; but alas, “If it bleeds, it leads.”  In a one-on-one conversation, though, the media is more thoughtful and open-minded than their output suggests.  Another possibility, admittedly, is that when you interview someone as averse to Social Desirability Bias as myself, you can get a good story without bending the truth… (1 COMMENTS)