Utopia, you are standing in it!

In a very helpful blog post, Paul Krugman tries to make sense of Wal-Mart’s recent statement that it is already reaping some gains from raising wages via reduced turnover costs. Krugman’s main point is as follows. If worker productivity is a function of the wage (through improved morale, lower turnover, etc.), and Wal-Mart was initially maximizing profits, then a small change in wages will leave profits largely unchanged.

As Krugman points out, this is logic of the “envelope theorem.” What I want to clarify in this post is that the logic behind this argument is more general than the particular efficiency wage model Krugman works through.  Any time firms are choosing wages to balance various concerns—as opposed to simply accepting a “market wage” as a constraint—the logic of the envelope theorem applies.  What’s more, two types of empirically relevant models of the labor market—monopsonistic competition and efficiency wages—look pretty similar in this regard, and can be thought of as…

Mercatus Center Associate Director of Academic and Student Programs Rosolino Candela joins the podcast to talk about price theory. In an example-filled episode, we discuss free parking at shopping centers, lighthouses and lightships in 18th-century Britain, and the sugar contents of Fanta. Dr. Candela also talks about who he considers the best price theorists: Mises, Hayek, Buchanan, Tullock, Alchian, and Demsetz. Marcus Shera cohosts.

Loose, Vague, and Indeterminate is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, RadioPublic, PocketCasts, and Breaker. You can listen and catch up on old episodes on any of those platforms in addition to our Anchor page at go.gmu.edu/LVI.

Federal lands are governed by a complex thicket of laws built up over more than a century, often with too little thought to how the different generations fit together. The Supreme Court confronted that problem last week, when it considered whether federal permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are void because the pipeline would pass several hundred feet below the Appalachian Trail.

The challengers argue that only Congress can approve a pipeline right-of-way because the trail is the equivalent of a national park. Because Atlantic Coast’s permit was from the Forest Service, they argue, it is invalid. From there, things get complicated quickly.

The trail isn’t a national park. But the Secretary of Interior has delegated the trail’s management to the National Park Service. So the challengers argue that the trail is “lands in the National Park System”–which, they further argue, means it has to be treated as if a…

Warning: This blog post contains strong and sometimes challenging imagery, including depictions of slavery, violence and suffering.

Baroque Britain

When I visited the Baroque Britain exhibition at Tate Britain I was surprised that there was a Content Warning at the entrance to the second room. This warned us that some of the images were disturbing and might upset visitors. Specifically, a massive painting by Benedetto Gennari the Younger which shows black people in collars and chains. Slaves, in other words.

Portrait of Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin by Benedetto Gennari the Younger (1674)

A handful of other paintings show rich people – men and women – being served or accompanied by black servants, but this is the only one where the black people (all boys, I think) are wearing very obvious metal slave collars round their throats.

William Blake

This is the second warning notice I’m aware of Tate putting…

The figure above provides an update (to 2018) on global decarbonization rates (that is, rate of reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels divided by global GDP, in 2011$ PPP).

• Annual decarbonization 2000-2018 = 1.6%
• Implied by a 50% reduction (from 2000 emissions) by 2030 = 8.4%
• Implied by an 80% reduction (from 2000 emissions) by 2050 = 6.0%

For details on methods and significance, see The Climate Fix (2010).

It is election day in Israel. Again. I probably have not followed an Israeli election so loosely since some time before the 1990s. If I am feeling this indifferent, I can only imagine how the average Israeli voter feels.

Polling throughout the period since the last election–only last September–shows little sign of any fundamental change in the political deadlock that has been a feature since the elections of last April. That is why I put “2020a” in the tile above. It is not inevitable that there will be a “2020b” election, but it is unclear how it will be avoided.

The potential governing scenarios are about the same now as they were when I last wrote, in November. Maybe one of these will happen this time, or maybe today’s results will surprise and the bargaining situation will be markedly different.

The lineup of parties is pretty much the same as

A common term used in online left-wing discourses is ‘tankie’. It has been used to describe those who are self-identified Marxist-Leninists and those who defend ‘actually existing socialism’ in its various guises (such as the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea). As an extension of this, ‘tankie’ has also been used to describe people who defend regimes in alliance with Russia and China in the twenty-first century, primarily concerning the Assad government in Syria nowadays.

The connotation of the term alludes to the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979 (as well as martial law Poland in 1980), suggesting that those who supported the Soviet Union in these incursions were endorsing the use of tanks to crush their opposition (supposed counter-revolutionaries, the bourgeoisie, imperialists, etc). Although China opposed both the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

Funadhoo Airport set to open on February 1 | Corporate Maldives

“Action must be powerful and wide-ranging.
After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment.
It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will.
Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it.
We need to dismantle them all.”
–– GretaThunberg™️

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Hat tip @yota_berlin

IN 1988, environmental ‘authorities’ and the United Nations predicted that the Maldives’ 1,196 islands would be underwater by 2018.

‘Sea level is threatening to completely cover’ Maldives’ 1,196 islands within 30 years…

Missed It By That Much | Real Climate Science

*

TWO years on from the drowning of the Maldives, the situation is dire…

Maldives to open four new airports in 2020 – Maldives Insider

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ALARMISM PAYS

THE Maldivian government, along with other “disappearing” (cash-strapped) coral island nations have a well…

I’ve been dipping into the official New Zealand Pandemic Action Plan  –  all 193 pages of it –  a bit in the last few days.  The document has evolved over the years and now describes itself as

This edition of the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan reflects the sophistication of a third generation, risk-based plan that promotes collaboration across all levels of government, agencies and organisations when planning for, responding to and recovery form a pandemic event.

and

Pandemics by their nature are unpredictable in terms of timing, severity and the population groups that are most affected. This version of the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan establishes a framework for action that can readily be adopted and applied to any pandemic, irrespective of the nature of the virus and its severity.

It isn’t really clear what status the document has at present.  It was finalised late in the term…

(Ranbaxy plant in Mohali, India)

The other day I was chatting with my doctor and I mentioned to him that he should consider reading Katherine Eban’s recent book, BOTTLE OF LIES: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE GENERIC DRUG BOOM.  He was not familiar with the title but as we chatted about the role of India and China in reverse engineering American brand name medications his eyes lit up.  My physician is of Indian descent and he described to me what he witnessed when visiting India and the practices pursued by Indian generic drug manufacturers, particularly Ranbaxy.  He described disingenuous practices, fraud, corruption, the lack of government oversight and a myriad of illegal practices pursued by companies that went against the FDA’s best practices protocols.  Since 40% of all generic drugs are produced in India and 80% of the active ingredients in all drugs are produced in India and China his…