Noah Smith on port backlogs; John Cochrane on fiscal inflation; Heather Heying on damsels in distress; Scott Alexander on epistemology; Default Friend on Internet harm
Heather Heying referring to the formidable Robert Malone. Despite his claims, Malone is a bit player in a RNA story dating back to 1961. He was one of hundreds of people working in dozens of labs for over 50 years. Patents are assigned to corporations and universities, no longer to any key player. They are no longer used to foster innovation but as veto points on competitiors.
"I am wary of his ideas. He seems to believe in a top-down, centrally planned approach."
That's being unfair to Peterson, who has been consistently sane, effective, savvy, and market-oriented. He's been as clear as he can be that this is a "government failure" and, unfortunately, resolving certain government failures in the short term requires government solutions, especially when it's a matter of a need to change bad rules and remove government-imposed obstacles.
His business depends on the goodwill and cooperation of many layers of government entities, with overlapping jurisdictions and each jealous of their own status and authority, who he is trying to nudge out of their comfort zones into making big changes quickly. That's really hard, and requires some social media-era PR genius (I think Zvi would agree with that) and gentle diplomacy as he can't afford to piss these people off, make enemies, or provoke them into the stubborn entrenchment and circling of the wagons that would be caused by an antagonistic framing of the problem which assigns blame from the outside and, let's face it, implies a lot of the people he needs to persuade shouldn't have their jobs.
Calling for a dedicated federal team to focus on an issue and coordinate the interagency towards implementing reforms in the government's own bad policies which might help the situation is just not at all the same as "believing in central planning." It is really hard to incentivize bureaucrats to listen to businesses and be bold in helping out unless someone can be blamed at least a little bit for future failure. Without a team, there is dispersed responsibility and everyone can point the finger at someone else, often with justice. Creating a team sets up a better, internal blame game dynamic that in the final analysis points right back to the President, which secures the possibility of White House involvement and intervention when necessary. Without that, you won't get the market answer of new port capacity, but just every layer of bureaucracy freezing in place, and having their media friends effectively get the public to blame the price rise pain on evil, greedy big business.
Is it plausible that the reason that inflation has only started to accelerate recently is productivity gains were substantial and undercounted, thus creating a disinflationary release valve?
(Re Heather Heying:) Most of the members of society are weak and confused. That is why *we* [i.e., society] are acting on the delusions of our weak and confused members; they are (most of) *us*.
I think Cochrane is slightly off. Inflation is above the Fed's target because they were using their instruments (mainly asset purchases) without taking account of the supply constraints. Presumably they have now corrected by enough to bring expectations of inflation and the consequent demand for money to achieve their target of 2% PCE growth. Time will tell if additional (or less) correction is necessary.
I see no reason that the City of Oakland could not and would not want to make strategic investments in its port. Presumably it is or should be a money-making asset. Might it be sold off to a private firm? Yes, and maybe that's a good idea, but that should not be the only way to achieve efficient operation of a port.
Port backlogs are locally-caused but have impacts that are in effect central, thus Noah Smith’s call for a central policy solution. If there’s model for global transportation infrastructure that is completely privately capitalized and thrives without government rules and subsidies, maybe we could look to it for a price-based off-ramp for the current port backlog and while we’re at it, the hellscape of passenger air travel. But in the world we live in, central governance and public support of transportation infrastructure are the levers we actually have. Application of orthodox price theory to the port problem presupposes that an entrepreneur will go out and dig another port, overcome labor and capital goods scarcity to make the port functional, and then offer competitively price port services (and that’s presuming no exogenous hurdles like zoning, permits, and regulations)—in short, a a Suez Canal-scale private-sector mega project.
I don't think Peterson has thought deeply about this particular issue and is just talking vaguely to try to appeal to what he thinks will get his company more free national air time. Even China privatized COSCO (no relationship with Costco). Washington DC muppets will smash that 'like' button on anything that provides more control the the muppets, regardless of whether or not it's a good idea.
This is sort of common among contemporary American talking heads, where they just pick some random idea that sounds like it will get likes without really thinking much about it. There's a lot in the interview that is accurate; so accurate analysis is in this case paired with an ignorant and destructive recommendation. CTRL-F "Jones Act," zero results. Instead he just vaguely hand-waves about regulations, likening them to ad spending in which it is hard to identify which portion is wasted. As he knows, identifying waste in ad spending is actually eats up more labor than almost anything else in modern digital advertising, so the metaphor is stupid even as a metaphor, but also quite wrong as it relates to regulation. Economists and others routinely create models to attribute waste to specific regulations. Such models are often core to leaning on the government to fix problems in laws and regulations.
If an engineer analyzes a problem with an existing bridge, but then recommends constructing a replacement bridge that is actually worse and will fall down, that's malpractice. The accuracy of the analysis is better than an inaccurate analysis, but if the credibility generated by the accurate analysis results in a terrible recommendation being accepted, on net it's worse than if the person had never spoken at all.
From the clips I've seen, and the reviews, people are taking entirely the wrong lesson away from Don't Look Up. When the President-character dismisses the scientist-activist-expert-characters, it is done on wholly reasonable grounds. There have been a string of similar scientist-activist-characters who have come through the same office regularly and routinely proclaiming imminent doom and a need for immediate federal or worse, global-government, action to address existential threats.
This cannot be anything other than a toxic scenario. One cannot address that number of global level existential threats; so if they are real, the exercise is pointless; and if not, then the right assumption is to continue concluding that the so-called experts are useless. But the reviewers keep up a drum beat that the President-character is not listening to the scientist-activist-characters and by analogy, the real political leaders should be judged wanting for not listening to their own scientist-activists.
The real lesson is - actually, this is pretty much how it looks in real life, and it teaches leaders that those experts are somehow all very very wrong by the time they get a voice in that venue.
Heather Heying referring to the formidable Robert Malone. Despite his claims, Malone is a bit player in a RNA story dating back to 1961. He was one of hundreds of people working in dozens of labs for over 50 years. Patents are assigned to corporations and universities, no longer to any key player. They are no longer used to foster innovation but as veto points on competitiors.
"I am wary of his ideas. He seems to believe in a top-down, centrally planned approach."
That's being unfair to Peterson, who has been consistently sane, effective, savvy, and market-oriented. He's been as clear as he can be that this is a "government failure" and, unfortunately, resolving certain government failures in the short term requires government solutions, especially when it's a matter of a need to change bad rules and remove government-imposed obstacles.
His business depends on the goodwill and cooperation of many layers of government entities, with overlapping jurisdictions and each jealous of their own status and authority, who he is trying to nudge out of their comfort zones into making big changes quickly. That's really hard, and requires some social media-era PR genius (I think Zvi would agree with that) and gentle diplomacy as he can't afford to piss these people off, make enemies, or provoke them into the stubborn entrenchment and circling of the wagons that would be caused by an antagonistic framing of the problem which assigns blame from the outside and, let's face it, implies a lot of the people he needs to persuade shouldn't have their jobs.
Calling for a dedicated federal team to focus on an issue and coordinate the interagency towards implementing reforms in the government's own bad policies which might help the situation is just not at all the same as "believing in central planning." It is really hard to incentivize bureaucrats to listen to businesses and be bold in helping out unless someone can be blamed at least a little bit for future failure. Without a team, there is dispersed responsibility and everyone can point the finger at someone else, often with justice. Creating a team sets up a better, internal blame game dynamic that in the final analysis points right back to the President, which secures the possibility of White House involvement and intervention when necessary. Without that, you won't get the market answer of new port capacity, but just every layer of bureaucracy freezing in place, and having their media friends effectively get the public to blame the price rise pain on evil, greedy big business.
Is it plausible that the reason that inflation has only started to accelerate recently is productivity gains were substantial and undercounted, thus creating a disinflationary release valve?
(Re Heather Heying:) Most of the members of society are weak and confused. That is why *we* [i.e., society] are acting on the delusions of our weak and confused members; they are (most of) *us*.
The Heather Heying quote does not have enough context for "us" to discern who the “we” are or exactly what it is that we are doing that upsets her so.
I think Cochrane is slightly off. Inflation is above the Fed's target because they were using their instruments (mainly asset purchases) without taking account of the supply constraints. Presumably they have now corrected by enough to bring expectations of inflation and the consequent demand for money to achieve their target of 2% PCE growth. Time will tell if additional (or less) correction is necessary.
I see no reason that the City of Oakland could not and would not want to make strategic investments in its port. Presumably it is or should be a money-making asset. Might it be sold off to a private firm? Yes, and maybe that's a good idea, but that should not be the only way to achieve efficient operation of a port.
Port backlogs are locally-caused but have impacts that are in effect central, thus Noah Smith’s call for a central policy solution. If there’s model for global transportation infrastructure that is completely privately capitalized and thrives without government rules and subsidies, maybe we could look to it for a price-based off-ramp for the current port backlog and while we’re at it, the hellscape of passenger air travel. But in the world we live in, central governance and public support of transportation infrastructure are the levers we actually have. Application of orthodox price theory to the port problem presupposes that an entrepreneur will go out and dig another port, overcome labor and capital goods scarcity to make the port functional, and then offer competitively price port services (and that’s presuming no exogenous hurdles like zoning, permits, and regulations)—in short, a a Suez Canal-scale private-sector mega project.
I don't think Peterson has thought deeply about this particular issue and is just talking vaguely to try to appeal to what he thinks will get his company more free national air time. Even China privatized COSCO (no relationship with Costco). Washington DC muppets will smash that 'like' button on anything that provides more control the the muppets, regardless of whether or not it's a good idea.
This is sort of common among contemporary American talking heads, where they just pick some random idea that sounds like it will get likes without really thinking much about it. There's a lot in the interview that is accurate; so accurate analysis is in this case paired with an ignorant and destructive recommendation. CTRL-F "Jones Act," zero results. Instead he just vaguely hand-waves about regulations, likening them to ad spending in which it is hard to identify which portion is wasted. As he knows, identifying waste in ad spending is actually eats up more labor than almost anything else in modern digital advertising, so the metaphor is stupid even as a metaphor, but also quite wrong as it relates to regulation. Economists and others routinely create models to attribute waste to specific regulations. Such models are often core to leaning on the government to fix problems in laws and regulations.
If an engineer analyzes a problem with an existing bridge, but then recommends constructing a replacement bridge that is actually worse and will fall down, that's malpractice. The accuracy of the analysis is better than an inaccurate analysis, but if the credibility generated by the accurate analysis results in a terrible recommendation being accepted, on net it's worse than if the person had never spoken at all.
I'm glad you're still willing to Heather-post.
From the clips I've seen, and the reviews, people are taking entirely the wrong lesson away from Don't Look Up. When the President-character dismisses the scientist-activist-expert-characters, it is done on wholly reasonable grounds. There have been a string of similar scientist-activist-characters who have come through the same office regularly and routinely proclaiming imminent doom and a need for immediate federal or worse, global-government, action to address existential threats.
This cannot be anything other than a toxic scenario. One cannot address that number of global level existential threats; so if they are real, the exercise is pointless; and if not, then the right assumption is to continue concluding that the so-called experts are useless. But the reviewers keep up a drum beat that the President-character is not listening to the scientist-activist-characters and by analogy, the real political leaders should be judged wanting for not listening to their own scientist-activists.
The real lesson is - actually, this is pretty much how it looks in real life, and it teaches leaders that those experts are somehow all very very wrong by the time they get a voice in that venue.