Recently in Unintended Consequences Category
Well. At least they are playing along with project subsize me:
Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.
Abstract:In all seriousness, WalMart does some pretty abhorent things, but the company isn't all evil. Sam Walton would have been disgusted at the human resources practices that have gotten the company in trouble in the last decade. But in shaking their fists at big corporations, people tend to forget that they have pretty big benefits. The fact that WalMart makes a ton of stuff affordable to people with lower incomes is NOT trivial.
We estimate the impacts of Wal-Mart and warehouse club retailers on height-adjusted body weight and overweight and obesity status, finding robust evidence that non-grocery selling Wal-Marts reduce weight while grocery-selling Wal-Marts and warehouse clubs either reduce weight or have no effect. The effects appear strongest for women, minorities, urban residents, and the poor. We then examine the effects of these retailers on exercise, food and alcohol consumption, smoking, and eating out at restaurants in order to explain the results for weight. Most notably, the evidence suggests that all three types of stores increase consumption of fruits and vegetables while reducing consumption of foods high in fat. This is consistent with the thesis that Wal-Mart increases real incomes through its policy of "Every Day Low Prices," making healthy food more affordable, as opposed to the thesis that cheap food prices make us eat more.
Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.
Speaking of Ezra, he has a nice piece about how our Biofuel subsidies are responsible for about 1/3 of the current global food crisis.
I've said this before.
Seriously. This has reached ridiculous levels. I understand that no one that works in the agriculture industry will agree with me (i.e. the ones that benefit from the $8.9 billion that our government put directly in the pockets of large agra firms last year), but the rest of you, COME ON.
Write your congressman/woman. Tell him/her that you get it. You know they saw "An Inconvenient Truth". You know they watched Al Gore get the Nobel Prize. You know they are really worried about being perceived as doing something about global warming. And you need to tell them, RIGHT NOW, that:
a) You will still vote for them even if they don't pass every damn energy efficiency bill or alternative fuel source bill that comes within ten miles of their freaking desk. Quantity is not Quality.
a) You WON'T vote for them if they keep placing politics above smart decision making. Unintended Consequences really freaking matter. PEOPLE ARE DYING HERE. This isn't a joke, and this isn't harmless pandering to some green-earth hippies.
I am genuinely worried about global warming, really. And I am all about reducing greenhouse gases. I'm in favor of the Pigou Club (I think the $1/gallon proposal of the Pigou Club is too cheap, actually), tolls on freeways, an end to coal-powered electricity, etc. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and in a way that isn't popular; pay the price at the gas pump every week and you feel it. But if the government just gives your money away in farm subsidies it feels "free" to you.
But get real here. We (yes, we, as in YOU and I) are starving our brothers and sisters. One hundred million people are going to move from "poor" to "absolute poverty" in the coming year. Not "food stamp" poverty. "Death, Starvation, Famine, Disease" poverty. ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE. This must stop! Write your senators and congressmen/women now!
One last addendum.
Good People of Iowa. I understand that much of your economy is dependent on corn (but probably not nearly as much as YOU think it is). But you seriously need to tell Sen. Charles Grassley that shit like this is so not OK:
I've said this before.
Seriously. This has reached ridiculous levels. I understand that no one that works in the agriculture industry will agree with me (i.e. the ones that benefit from the $8.9 billion that our government put directly in the pockets of large agra firms last year), but the rest of you, COME ON.
Write your congressman/woman. Tell him/her that you get it. You know they saw "An Inconvenient Truth". You know they watched Al Gore get the Nobel Prize. You know they are really worried about being perceived as doing something about global warming. And you need to tell them, RIGHT NOW, that:
a) You will still vote for them even if they don't pass every damn energy efficiency bill or alternative fuel source bill that comes within ten miles of their freaking desk. Quantity is not Quality.
a) You WON'T vote for them if they keep placing politics above smart decision making. Unintended Consequences really freaking matter. PEOPLE ARE DYING HERE. This isn't a joke, and this isn't harmless pandering to some green-earth hippies.
I am genuinely worried about global warming, really. And I am all about reducing greenhouse gases. I'm in favor of the Pigou Club (I think the $1/gallon proposal of the Pigou Club is too cheap, actually), tolls on freeways, an end to coal-powered electricity, etc. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and in a way that isn't popular; pay the price at the gas pump every week and you feel it. But if the government just gives your money away in farm subsidies it feels "free" to you.
But get real here. We (yes, we, as in YOU and I) are starving our brothers and sisters. One hundred million people are going to move from "poor" to "absolute poverty" in the coming year. Not "food stamp" poverty. "Death, Starvation, Famine, Disease" poverty. ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE. This must stop! Write your senators and congressmen/women now!
One last addendum.
Good People of Iowa. I understand that much of your economy is dependent on corn (but probably not nearly as much as YOU think it is). But you seriously need to tell Sen. Charles Grassley that shit like this is so not OK:
"If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?" Grassley asked in a conference call with reporters.Are you ****ing kidding me? Write your representative now.
The price of food is starting to hurt. I've blogged about this before, but Paul Krugman has brought it up again in his column in the NY Times (Grains Gone Wild), and the mainstream media is starting to pay attention to this. If you travel to poorer countries it can't escape your attention -- my wife recently e-mailed me from southeast Asia and asked "Hey, mr. economist guy, me and my friends want to know why wheat is getting so expensive!" because it is a big story in that area of the world. There are lots of reasons including the fall of the dollar and the rising cost of energy (read: oil), but as Krugman says (and I did in my previous post on this subject), it basically boils down to:
And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.Again, Ethanol == EVIL.
Hat tip to David Berri on this one.
I'm pretty sure Pop is proud of his defense when he holds opponents to 30% from the 3point line, and you want to put a guy out there who averages 30%?
Really!?
And this is better than the best point guard in the game HOW?
Avery should know that, very much unlike Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Kidd is actually aware of the fact that he isn't one of the team's better shooters. Jerry is the very worst kind of bad player: the kind who thinks he's a really good player.
And I have to give some extra credit for confirming the 4th principle of economics to Mark Cuban. It appears that he was really upset about giving up Jerry Stackhouse, so when he had the opportunity to re-do the deal using Keith Van Horn, he decided to keep Jerry. At the risk of repeating myself: Jerry Stackhouse is NOT good. Again, look beyond the scoring totals. And getting rid of Stack was at least half of what made this such a great trade!
Seriously, this isn't rocket science. Every single one of you that plays in regular pick-up games knows this. You know the guy. He's the alpha dog of the gym. Takes all the shots. Hogs the ball a lot. Always wants the ball to go through him. Thinks he's the best player in the gym. At least half the gym thinks he is, too.
But you know in your heart that if you took 12 shots per pick-up game, you'd get 5 of your team's 11 too. Hell, if YOU took 12 shots a game, you'd get 8 of your team's 11. In fact, whenever you get that many shots, you do usually get 8 points. Trouble is, you don't get the ball that much. And you aren't as good at "creating your shot" as that guy. Someday I am going to write a whole blog post on how bullshit the whole "creating your own shot" myth is (hint: how often does the creator create a good shot? Really? There are tons of guys in the NBA who can create their own shot, but only about a half dozen of them regularly create good ones.). So you only shoot 4 shots a game. And everybody respects this guy as one of the best players. But seriously, if you're ever captain, who do you pick: the 6'7" muscled guy who grabs all the boards and plays really good D, or this guy who's really good at creating his own shot? And which team wins more often?
This title is going to become one of my recurring themes, for sure. Ethanol is EVIL. It doesn't help reduce global warming, it isn't cheaper or more efficient than petrol, but worse, some (also pretty evil) PR people have somehow managed to convince everyone that its a weapon in our fight to reduce global warming. As a result, politicians in recent years have lined up to pump money into the (did I mention it's EVIL yet!?) Ethanol industry.
So, this is why economics matters. This is why economics should be a requirement in every high school, rather than an elective that some business majors take and then promptly work really hard to forget. A tiny, tiny bit of economics is all anyone needed to know in advance that these subsidies were Really Bad Things.
Food prices have risen 75% since 2005 (in inflation adjusted terms). This matters a LOT to poor families. And why? Ethanol subsidies.
From the Economist:
The bolded part is pretty amazing. And all the people everywhere patting themselves on the fucking back for how they're helping reduce global warming. The sad part about this is that aside from the Economist, I haven't seen a single mainstream media outlet run ONE FUCKING STORY about how useless Ethanol is, and how reckless and destructive ethanol subsidies are. Oh, sure, every once in a while a biochemist gets 30 seconds on CNN and mentions that Ethanol only really offers about a 1% fuel-efficiency savings over regular gasoline, but the interviewer is always quick to move on.
I'm a big fan of Greg Mankiw's Pigou Club, a huge opponent of agricultural subsidies (especially for EVIL PRODUCTS).
So, this is why economics matters. This is why economics should be a requirement in every high school, rather than an elective that some business majors take and then promptly work really hard to forget. A tiny, tiny bit of economics is all anyone needed to know in advance that these subsidies were Really Bad Things.
Food prices have risen 75% since 2005 (in inflation adjusted terms). This matters a LOT to poor families. And why? Ethanol subsidies.
From the Economist:
"But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks."
The bolded part is pretty amazing. And all the people everywhere patting themselves on the fucking back for how they're helping reduce global warming. The sad part about this is that aside from the Economist, I haven't seen a single mainstream media outlet run ONE FUCKING STORY about how useless Ethanol is, and how reckless and destructive ethanol subsidies are. Oh, sure, every once in a while a biochemist gets 30 seconds on CNN and mentions that Ethanol only really offers about a 1% fuel-efficiency savings over regular gasoline, but the interviewer is always quick to move on.
I'm a big fan of Greg Mankiw's Pigou Club, a huge opponent of agricultural subsidies (especially for EVIL PRODUCTS).
House democrats have reached a deal on a bill that will enforce a 40% increase in fuel efficiency by 2020:
Sigh. I have some bad news for the politicians. Fuel efficiency gains do not decrease consumption. This is something that lawmakers have been confused about for decades. Just make stuff more efficient, and we'll use less energy, right?
Wrong. In fact, the opposite is true. Yes, that's right, fuel efficiency gains lead to increased consumption. this concept is illustrated quite beautifully in the book "The Bottomless Well" by physicists Peter Huber and Mark Wills.
If you think about it, it should be obvious why. Say you own a car that gives you 20 mpg today. What happens if I give you a car that gets 40mpg and take your gas guzzler away? That's right, you drive more. This is essentially the law of demand in action.
Notice that if you make "Price" be the cost of driving one mile, and you make "Quantity Demanded" the miles driven, what happens to the miles you drive as the fuel efficiency of your car rises?
The same is true of electricity and other fuels. If things become more efficient, we simply find more things to use that consume energy. LCD Screens are far more energy-efficient than CRT Displays. So we scrap the 23" Magnavox and buy a 50" Sony flat screen. We throw away the giant 19" CRT monitor and buy two 20" LCD Monitors. We're using less energy per device but aren't consuming less energy in aggregate.
Energy efficiency is NOT going to solve global warming. It's not even going to help in the battle.
Automakers would be required to meet an industrywide average of 35 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks, including SUVs, by 2020, the first increase by Congress in car fuel efficiency in 32 years.
.....
"It is a major milestone and the first concrete legislation to address global warming," declared Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was involved in the discussion with House Democrats as the agreement with Dingell was worked out.
Sigh. I have some bad news for the politicians. Fuel efficiency gains do not decrease consumption. This is something that lawmakers have been confused about for decades. Just make stuff more efficient, and we'll use less energy, right?
Wrong. In fact, the opposite is true. Yes, that's right, fuel efficiency gains lead to increased consumption. this concept is illustrated quite beautifully in the book "The Bottomless Well" by physicists Peter Huber and Mark Wills.
If you think about it, it should be obvious why. Say you own a car that gives you 20 mpg today. What happens if I give you a car that gets 40mpg and take your gas guzzler away? That's right, you drive more. This is essentially the law of demand in action.
Notice that if you make "Price" be the cost of driving one mile, and you make "Quantity Demanded" the miles driven, what happens to the miles you drive as the fuel efficiency of your car rises?The same is true of electricity and other fuels. If things become more efficient, we simply find more things to use that consume energy. LCD Screens are far more energy-efficient than CRT Displays. So we scrap the 23" Magnavox and buy a 50" Sony flat screen. We throw away the giant 19" CRT monitor and buy two 20" LCD Monitors. We're using less energy per device but aren't consuming less energy in aggregate.
Energy efficiency is NOT going to solve global warming. It's not even going to help in the battle.
