Patrick Collison on vaccines to beat COVID; Lee Bressler on cultural degradation; The Zvi on a failed cash-grant experiment; Bressler and Tyler Cowen on Germany's Greens;
I share your impression that quite a few people do poorly with the freedom to pursue "deviance," although I suspect we'd quibble over the percentages.
But I don't consider it ethical to treat these folks like children, policing their behavior either by law or by uniform enforcement of petty social sanctions (which is just another variety of cancellation, in today's parlance). The new way seems more defensible than the old, even if it comes at the price of some disorder.
To Arnold’s point about “deviancy” being a former sin - pride used to be one of the 7 deadly sins, now we celebrate it for a whole month every year. Not my quote, but captures the idea in an interesting way.
That excerpt on German energy policy sounds a bit too conspiracy minded to me. It's like those cases where a big protest happened in a country and the CIA paid some guy 50$ to print pamphlets and this gets interpreted as the CIA masterminding the whole thing.
The reason for Germany moving away from nuclear was that it's been very unpopular for decades and also building new reactors isn't actually cheaper than alternatives (due to the extremely strict security regulations). The Fukushima disaster gave the remaining reactors the rest and they were put on an accelerated shutdown schedule.
Coal was being reduced due to it being very polluting and being bad for the climate.
The only remaining option is natural gas to make up for shortfalls in renewables and the cheapest source (by far) is Russia. Especially since local fracking is also extremely unpopular (due to pollution fears.)
Did Russia gleefully support all this to create this dependence? Sure, but I believe that we would have been in the same place even if Russia did none of that. The main thing where Russia made a difference is probably with creating direct pipelines to Germany rather than ones that go through Eastern Europe. But that actually didn't work. (It was supposed to enable Russia to blackmail Germany into not supporting Ukraine/Poland.)
‘… we could roll out pan-variant COVID vaccines before the end of 2022. ‘
For variants that don’t yet exist. Just like ‘pan-variant’ ‘flu vaccines? What do you mean they need a new vaccine each year based on the latest observed emergent variant? Surely not! They must have pan-variant vaccines from the magic money-making pharma machine.
And why don’t we have pan-variant Cold virus vaccines - four of those virus are coronavirus so if it can be done for the lates coronavirus, why not the older ones?
Re: "Compare: a regime of means-tested entitlement programs, like Medicaid and food stamps, where earning money makes you lose benefits; with a small universal basic income—say, $10,000 for a family of four."
Two issues are conflated here:
1. Should welfare eligibility be means-tested?
2. Should welfare be cash (e.g., AFDC)? Or in-kind (e.g., Medicaid and Food stamps)?
Means-testing is more efficient than universal eligibility. (Administrative costs of means-testing are smaller than costs of giving everyone welfare.)
Cash payments to needy recipients reduce administrative costs (in comparison to means-testing), but require more social trust. Political psychology of paternalism depends on majority trust that the welfare benefits support basic needs: food, shelter, healthcare. (Majorities don't put much stock in subtleties about fungibility, budget relief, post-allocation trade of food-stamps for cash, and so on.)
In a nutshell, most people, mostly, support welfare or charity for needy people, for basic needs.
Is there room for smarter design of income-based phase-out of means-tested benefits, to encourage recipients to work? If so, people would favor this reform over UBI, I think.
Now, there are striking, massive exceptions to the rule of need-targeted welfare: public schooling and philanthropy for elite universities.
Re: UBI. See the economic analysis by Hilary Hoynes and Jesse Rothstein, "Universal Basic Income in the United States and Advanced Countries," Annual Review of Economics 11 (2019) 929-58:
The data in Figure 6 indicate low take-up of welfare benefits by the poorest, who fall through the cracks. Perhaps their lives are so chaotic that they can't achieve stable use of social workers and welfare benefits?
Have you ever considered that enthusiasm for Trans minors occurs in upper middle class homes in which divorce is considered a lifestyle option right up to retirement?
Where has the discussion of the impact of divorce on children gone? Is it squeezed out by talk of surgeries to remove breasts and penises and create faux vaginas and plastic dongs for kids? I can imagine that ending the discussion on the negative outcomes of divorce can be rather liberating for a family where the adults are forever looking around the corner for a new relationship that seems to promise increased self-actualization.
“If anyone can help them, it is probably local charity, not national programs of any kind.” This seems to contradict one of Mr. Kling’s principles, namely that for-profit companies and institutions are better suited to meet people’s needs than non-profits. All the UBI proposals I’ve seen, and I don’t make seeing these a priority, require government funds. Government taxes wealthier people in order to provide universal payments to all people. It’s inexplicable to me how it is that so many libertarians favor this approach. What would a for-profit solution look like? I suspect it would look something like Wal-Mart: provide low-cost products and services, and employ the otherwise unemployable.
Bressler’s story about Germany was interesting and plausible, but I would like to have see some evidence for the claims. It isn’t clear we need Russians when we have Schwab or Soros, though I would hate to insufficiently spread the blame around.
I share your impression that quite a few people do poorly with the freedom to pursue "deviance," although I suspect we'd quibble over the percentages.
But I don't consider it ethical to treat these folks like children, policing their behavior either by law or by uniform enforcement of petty social sanctions (which is just another variety of cancellation, in today's parlance). The new way seems more defensible than the old, even if it comes at the price of some disorder.
To Arnold’s point about “deviancy” being a former sin - pride used to be one of the 7 deadly sins, now we celebrate it for a whole month every year. Not my quote, but captures the idea in an interesting way.
That excerpt on German energy policy sounds a bit too conspiracy minded to me. It's like those cases where a big protest happened in a country and the CIA paid some guy 50$ to print pamphlets and this gets interpreted as the CIA masterminding the whole thing.
The reason for Germany moving away from nuclear was that it's been very unpopular for decades and also building new reactors isn't actually cheaper than alternatives (due to the extremely strict security regulations). The Fukushima disaster gave the remaining reactors the rest and they were put on an accelerated shutdown schedule.
Coal was being reduced due to it being very polluting and being bad for the climate.
The only remaining option is natural gas to make up for shortfalls in renewables and the cheapest source (by far) is Russia. Especially since local fracking is also extremely unpopular (due to pollution fears.)
Did Russia gleefully support all this to create this dependence? Sure, but I believe that we would have been in the same place even if Russia did none of that. The main thing where Russia made a difference is probably with creating direct pipelines to Germany rather than ones that go through Eastern Europe. But that actually didn't work. (It was supposed to enable Russia to blackmail Germany into not supporting Ukraine/Poland.)
‘… we could roll out pan-variant COVID vaccines before the end of 2022. ‘
For variants that don’t yet exist. Just like ‘pan-variant’ ‘flu vaccines? What do you mean they need a new vaccine each year based on the latest observed emergent variant? Surely not! They must have pan-variant vaccines from the magic money-making pharma machine.
And why don’t we have pan-variant Cold virus vaccines - four of those virus are coronavirus so if it can be done for the lates coronavirus, why not the older ones?
When will this nonsense stop?
Re: "Compare: a regime of means-tested entitlement programs, like Medicaid and food stamps, where earning money makes you lose benefits; with a small universal basic income—say, $10,000 for a family of four."
Two issues are conflated here:
1. Should welfare eligibility be means-tested?
2. Should welfare be cash (e.g., AFDC)? Or in-kind (e.g., Medicaid and Food stamps)?
Means-testing is more efficient than universal eligibility. (Administrative costs of means-testing are smaller than costs of giving everyone welfare.)
Cash payments to needy recipients reduce administrative costs (in comparison to means-testing), but require more social trust. Political psychology of paternalism depends on majority trust that the welfare benefits support basic needs: food, shelter, healthcare. (Majorities don't put much stock in subtleties about fungibility, budget relief, post-allocation trade of food-stamps for cash, and so on.)
In a nutshell, most people, mostly, support welfare or charity for needy people, for basic needs.
Is there room for smarter design of income-based phase-out of means-tested benefits, to encourage recipients to work? If so, people would favor this reform over UBI, I think.
Now, there are striking, massive exceptions to the rule of need-targeted welfare: public schooling and philanthropy for elite universities.
Re: UBI. See the economic analysis by Hilary Hoynes and Jesse Rothstein, "Universal Basic Income in the United States and Advanced Countries," Annual Review of Economics 11 (2019) 929-58:
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/Hoynes-Rothstein-annurev-economics-080218-030237.pdf
The data in Figure 6 indicate low take-up of welfare benefits by the poorest, who fall through the cracks. Perhaps their lives are so chaotic that they can't achieve stable use of social workers and welfare benefits?
Have you ever considered that enthusiasm for Trans minors occurs in upper middle class homes in which divorce is considered a lifestyle option right up to retirement?
Where has the discussion of the impact of divorce on children gone? Is it squeezed out by talk of surgeries to remove breasts and penises and create faux vaginas and plastic dongs for kids? I can imagine that ending the discussion on the negative outcomes of divorce can be rather liberating for a family where the adults are forever looking around the corner for a new relationship that seems to promise increased self-actualization.
“If anyone can help them, it is probably local charity, not national programs of any kind.” This seems to contradict one of Mr. Kling’s principles, namely that for-profit companies and institutions are better suited to meet people’s needs than non-profits. All the UBI proposals I’ve seen, and I don’t make seeing these a priority, require government funds. Government taxes wealthier people in order to provide universal payments to all people. It’s inexplicable to me how it is that so many libertarians favor this approach. What would a for-profit solution look like? I suspect it would look something like Wal-Mart: provide low-cost products and services, and employ the otherwise unemployable.
Bressler’s story about Germany was interesting and plausible, but I would like to have see some evidence for the claims. It isn’t clear we need Russians when we have Schwab or Soros, though I would hate to insufficiently spread the blame around.
Thanks for Lee Bressler link. Very interesting. Had not heard of Mr. Bressler before today.
Germany is not a serious country.