Report on MPS Meeting in NYC
This past weekend I attended the special meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society was the called to address the financial crisis that we are facing. Speakers included Nobel Prize economists such as Ned Phelps and Gary Becker; famous economic thinkers such as Anna Schwartz, Arnold Harberger, Axel Leijonhufvud, and Harold Demsetz; leading economic policy makers such as Richard Cooper and Justin Lin; major contemporary economic theorists and policy makers such as John Taylor; leading financial journalists such as Martin Wolf; and perhaps the leading financial historian of our age Niall Ferguson. The program was put together by Deepak Lal.
Ferguson worries that right now we are in the midst of the “Great Repression”, where our governments – not New Zealand’s though – are actually repressing the financial crisis with their (our) vast resources, but that the crisis won’t go away because the stimuluses are misdirected.
The most common question Ferguson is asked is whether this crisis proves the “death of capitalism”. His response is “no, but it is the death of Basle 2” – the ineffective attempt by global financial regulators as recently as 2004 to ensure that a mess just like this one wouldn’t happen. Similarly, the Sarbanes-Oxley law of 2002 was a US congressional attempt to do much the same thing, constraining investment banks and auditors, but with little macro benefit.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Moral Bankrupcty
Megan McArdle, over at The Atlantic, makes a very key point:
Undoubtedly many of my readers think that that sort of thing is different because we don't have a moral obligation to repay our debts to corporations the way we do to people. This strikes me as fundamentally wrongheaded in two ways. First, the bourgeois belief that an honorable man repays his debts if he is able is one of the unnoticed underpinnings of a stable, prosperous democracy. Countries that believe that one can pick and choose whom one is obligated to repay on the basis of how good a person the lender is, how tight their relation to you, or whatever, are low-trust societies with extremely high transaction costs and underdeveloped markets. If you think you're only obligated to repay regular folks like yourself, then no one but your close friends and family will lend you money. This makes capital formation tricky.
Undoubtedly many of my readers think that that sort of thing is different because we don't have a moral obligation to repay our debts to corporations the way we do to people. This strikes me as fundamentally wrongheaded in two ways. First, the bourgeois belief that an honorable man repays his debts if he is able is one of the unnoticed underpinnings of a stable, prosperous democracy. Countries that believe that one can pick and choose whom one is obligated to repay on the basis of how good a person the lender is, how tight their relation to you, or whatever, are low-trust societies with extremely high transaction costs and underdeveloped markets. If you think you're only obligated to repay regular folks like yourself, then no one but your close friends and family will lend you money. This makes capital formation tricky.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Presidential rankings from HHN
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Presidential Rankings
Predictably, last year's presidential election and the subsequent inauguration of Barak Obama brought forth a new set of historical rankings of United States presidents.
Hummel summarizes three books that deals with the presidency and lists his least worst and worst presidents.
HNN Breaking News
Search HNN:
Breaking News
Departments
o News
o HNN Articles
o Hot Topics
o Roundup
o Blogs
o Books
o Features
o HNN Videos
o HNN Podcasts
o Student Shortcuts
o Teacher's Lounge
o Jobs
Print this Page
Log In
Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Presidential Rankings
Predictably, last year's presidential election and the subsequent inauguration of Barak Obama brought forth a new set of historical rankings of United States presidents. The London Times presented their rankings in October, whereas C-Span offered theirs on February 15. These rankings are always based on surveys of prominent historians, political scientists, and other scholars, and as the Wikipedia entry on the subject reveals, the variation since the first Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., poll of 1948 is fairly minimal. Conventional historians and political scientists suffer from a nationalist bias that makes them appreciate a strong executive who lastingly contributes to the growth of central authority. They thus have a particular weakness for wartime presidents. Unless the commander-in-chief turns out to be utterly inept, war allows him to show off forceful, dynamic leadership, which is what impresses these authorities.
Fortunately, libertarians have begun to challenge the Statist bias of presidential ranking. One of the first works to do so was a Mises Institute collection (to which I contributed a chapter), published back in 2001 and edited by John V. Denson: Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. More recently the Cato Institute has published Gene Healy's The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power (2008), and the Independent Institute has published Ivan Eland's Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty (2008). Only Eland's book actually ranks all the presidents, although the Denson volume contains a wonderful article by economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway offering a tentative ranking based on the growth of government.
I have been privately circulating for some time my own rankings, so I thought this might be an appropriate occasion to update and unveil them to the general public. They differ significantly in some respects from Eland's. I cut off obviously before Barak Obama and don't count William Henry Harrison, who was in office only a month. The one ranking I've actually elaborated on in print is my choice of Martin Van Buren as the least bad president. The article appears both in the Independent Review and the Denson collection (which kept my preferred title, "Martin Van Buren: The American Gladstone"). And of course, my book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, implicitly explains why I rank Abraham Lincoln the worst.
Except for the first ten in both the "Least Bad" and the "Most Horrible" categories, my judgments are all subject to some revision. Further study or arguments might persuade me to shift them around slightly. One of the most important criteria in my rankings is the body count. I have the idiosyncratic belief that presidents merit high marks for keeping the country out of war rather than dragging it into one. Overall my rankings are based on explicitly libertarian criteria. Those who rolled or held back government intervention get points, those who increased government power lose them.
Least Bad U.S. Presidents (starting at best):
1. Martin Van Buren
2. Grover Cleveland
3. Calvin Coolidge
4. Warren G. Harding
5. Thomas Jefferson
Most Horrible U.S. Presidents (starting at worst):
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Woodrow Wilson
3. Harry Truman
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt
5. Lyndon Johnson
6. George W. Bush
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. George H. W. Bush
9. Herbert Hoover
10. John Adams
11. William McKinley
12. James Madison
13. James Knox Polk
14. John F. Kennedy
15. George Washington
16. Millard Fillmore
17. John Quincy Adams
18. William Howard Taft
19. John Tyler
20. Jimmy Carter
21. Franklin Pierce
Presidential Rankings
Predictably, last year's presidential election and the subsequent inauguration of Barak Obama brought forth a new set of historical rankings of United States presidents.
Hummel summarizes three books that deals with the presidency and lists his least worst and worst presidents.
HNN Breaking News
Search HNN:
Breaking News
Departments
o News
o HNN Articles
o Hot Topics
o Roundup
o Blogs
o Books
o Features
o HNN Videos
o HNN Podcasts
o Student Shortcuts
o Teacher's Lounge
o Jobs
Print this Page
Log In
Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Presidential Rankings
Predictably, last year's presidential election and the subsequent inauguration of Barak Obama brought forth a new set of historical rankings of United States presidents. The London Times presented their rankings in October, whereas C-Span offered theirs on February 15. These rankings are always based on surveys of prominent historians, political scientists, and other scholars, and as the Wikipedia entry on the subject reveals, the variation since the first Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., poll of 1948 is fairly minimal. Conventional historians and political scientists suffer from a nationalist bias that makes them appreciate a strong executive who lastingly contributes to the growth of central authority. They thus have a particular weakness for wartime presidents. Unless the commander-in-chief turns out to be utterly inept, war allows him to show off forceful, dynamic leadership, which is what impresses these authorities.
Fortunately, libertarians have begun to challenge the Statist bias of presidential ranking. One of the first works to do so was a Mises Institute collection (to which I contributed a chapter), published back in 2001 and edited by John V. Denson: Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. More recently the Cato Institute has published Gene Healy's The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power (2008), and the Independent Institute has published Ivan Eland's Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty (2008). Only Eland's book actually ranks all the presidents, although the Denson volume contains a wonderful article by economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway offering a tentative ranking based on the growth of government.
I have been privately circulating for some time my own rankings, so I thought this might be an appropriate occasion to update and unveil them to the general public. They differ significantly in some respects from Eland's. I cut off obviously before Barak Obama and don't count William Henry Harrison, who was in office only a month. The one ranking I've actually elaborated on in print is my choice of Martin Van Buren as the least bad president. The article appears both in the Independent Review and the Denson collection (which kept my preferred title, "Martin Van Buren: The American Gladstone"). And of course, my book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, implicitly explains why I rank Abraham Lincoln the worst.
Except for the first ten in both the "Least Bad" and the "Most Horrible" categories, my judgments are all subject to some revision. Further study or arguments might persuade me to shift them around slightly. One of the most important criteria in my rankings is the body count. I have the idiosyncratic belief that presidents merit high marks for keeping the country out of war rather than dragging it into one. Overall my rankings are based on explicitly libertarian criteria. Those who rolled or held back government intervention get points, those who increased government power lose them.
Least Bad U.S. Presidents (starting at best):
1. Martin Van Buren
2. Grover Cleveland
3. Calvin Coolidge
4. Warren G. Harding
5. Thomas Jefferson
Most Horrible U.S. Presidents (starting at worst):
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Woodrow Wilson
3. Harry Truman
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt
5. Lyndon Johnson
6. George W. Bush
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. George H. W. Bush
9. Herbert Hoover
10. John Adams
11. William McKinley
12. James Madison
13. James Knox Polk
14. John F. Kennedy
15. George Washington
16. Millard Fillmore
17. John Quincy Adams
18. William Howard Taft
19. John Tyler
20. Jimmy Carter
21. Franklin Pierce
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Peace and Free Trade - Cafe Hayek
Peace and Free Trade
Don Boudreaux
"If soldiers are not to cross international borders, goods must do so" - so wisely said a now-forgotten aide to F.D.R.'s Secretary of State Cordell Hull. And Ed Glaeser makes this important case in yesterday's Boston Globe. Here's his closing paragraph:
Other countries provide us with clothes, cars, markets for exports, and lending for the government and banks. Shutting our markets will make life more expensive for us and hurt the rest of the world. In the 1930s, legislators embraced high tariffs, but putting America first led to a devastating world war. Today, US lawmakers need to choose hope over fear, and stick with free trade.
Don Boudreaux
"If soldiers are not to cross international borders, goods must do so" - so wisely said a now-forgotten aide to F.D.R.'s Secretary of State Cordell Hull. And Ed Glaeser makes this important case in yesterday's Boston Globe. Here's his closing paragraph:
Other countries provide us with clothes, cars, markets for exports, and lending for the government and banks. Shutting our markets will make life more expensive for us and hurt the rest of the world. In the 1930s, legislators embraced high tariffs, but putting America first led to a devastating world war. Today, US lawmakers need to choose hope over fear, and stick with free trade.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
From Greg Mankiw's Blog
Somewhere, Milton Friedman is smiling
According to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, 59% of voters still agree with Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address statement that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.
According to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, 59% of voters still agree with Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address statement that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
2009 Teaching Economics Conference Cal State Fulleton
Worth Publishers is proud to sponsor a series of one-day teaching symposia meant to explore our economic and teaching landscape in these uncertain times. In partnership with premiere Economics Departments across the country, Worth publishers is committed to bringing educators together to meet with leading faculty, administrators, authors, and economists to attend workshops and to trade insight and teaching strategies. Our distinguished list of speakers represents leading economists and educators from across the country including 2008 Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman.
Krugman slides - here.
We received an updated version of
http://www.krugmanonline.com/books/the-return-of-depression-economics-and-the-crisis-of-2008.php
Agenda - http://www.worthpublishers.com/econsymp09/socal/agenda.html
April 24 and 25th meeting at
Tangeman University Center
University of Cincinnati
Uptown West Campus
265 Tangeman University Center
Cincinnati , OH 45221-0220
http://www.worthpublishers.com/econsymp09/midwest/agenda.html
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Foundation for Teaching Economics
Understanding Liberty and Choice:
Free Trade and Globalization
Russell Roberts, author of The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity and The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protection.
Co-sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc.
When: May 14-16, 2009
Where: Washington D.C., Hotel TBD
What: Working conference, including:
* Keynote address and extended Q and A with Russell Roberts.
* Required pre-conference readings (298 pages) and 2.5 hours of podcasts.
* Small group Socratic seminars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
