Pursuing pro-market reforms does not imply facing a trade-off between efficiency and social justice. In this sense, pro-market policies are “left wing”, if that means reducing the economic privileges enjoyed by “insiders”.
Fra artikkelen “Why the Left should learn to love liberalism” skrevet av de to italienske økonomene Alesina og Giazazzi, som også har skrevet en bok om dette temaet. Denne burde definitivt legges på nattbordet til Martin Kolberg.
Hvorfor tjener kvinner mindre enn menn? En av grunnene kommer Harvard-økonomen Alberto Alesina og Andrea Ichino fra Universitet i Bologna indirekte inn på i en artikkel i FT:
The supply of labour of women is more responsive to their after tax wage, so a reduction in taxes increases the labour participation of women substantially. Men’s labour supply is more rigid so an increase in taxes does not reduce their labour supply by much, if at all.
Når marginalskatten heves, slutter flere kvinner enn menn å arbeide, tjener (enda) mindre, og blir mer hjemme. Og motsatt: når marginalskatten senkes, vil fler kvinner enn menn arbeide mer, og minske lønnsforskjellene.
Sagt med andre ord: høy, progressiv inntektsskatt skyver kvinner ut av arbeid og hindrer likestilling.
‘Attendance is now compulsory for every young witch and wizard,’ he replied. ‘That was announced yesterday. It’s a change because it was never obligatory before. Of course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their parents had the right teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred. This way, Voldemort will have the whole wizarding population under his eye from a young age.’
Always use the word “Africa” or “Darkness” or “Safari” in your title. Subtitles may include the words “Zanzibar”, “Masai”, “Zulu”, “Zambezi”, “Congo”, “Nile”, “Big”, “Sky”, “Shadow”, “Drum”, “Sun” or “Bygone”. Also useful are words such as “Guerrillas”, “Timeless”, “Primordial” and “Tribal”.
Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
You’ll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out. Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
“Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.”
He raised his hand and pointed.
“If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.”
Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction.
“Or you can go that way and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.”
He paused and stared into the officer’s eyes and heart.
“To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do. Which way will you go?”
Går vi mot en ny istid eller mot global oppvarming? Vel, det riktige svaret på det får man i hvertfall ikke fra avisen. Her er fire avisoverskrifter fra New York Times fra de siste 100 år:
Sept. 18, 1924 “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age”
March 27, 1933 “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776”
May 21, 1974 “Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate is Changing: A Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevitable”
Dec. 27, 2005 “Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming”
Men i følge et ferskt paper fra International Institute of Forecasters, så bør vi heller ikke stole på IPCCs spådommer. Forfatterene av paperet finner at IPCCs prognoser bryter 72 prinsipper for korrekte vitenskapelige prognoser. Mange av bruddene var i seg selv kristiske for utfallet. De konkluderer med at prognosene er uvitenskapelige: “In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing.”
I konklusjonen skriver de:
People will continue to believe that serious manmade global warming exists as they will continue to believe other things that have no scientific support (e.g., the biblical creation story, astrology, minimum wages to help poor people, and so on), and public opinion can be intense on such issues. Public policy makers should, however, be concerned with how to move away from emotions and towards rational scientific analysis.
One might say that it is important to consider steps to prevent global warming, but we have the same level of confidence in saying that we should take steps to prevent global cooling.
At Niels Chr. Geelmuyden (han uten .Kiese) ikke bare har et av Norges vanskeligste navn, men også en av Norges skarpeste penner beviste han i sitt kåseri som han holdt på Civitas sommerfest:
Sannheten er at folk flest heller vil dø enn å tenke. I virkeligheten er det da også det de gjør. Folk snører livene sine fast i rutiner og tvangshandlinger. Ferdinand Finne sa en gang til meg: Livet er så kort at de fleste bare rekker å gjøre det unødvendige. Vi fyller ørene med tankeløs musikk og øynene med tankeløs lektyre. Til sammen er det visstnok tre prosent av den norske befolkning som lytter til radiokanalen P2. Ibsen anslo i sin tid at det til sammen finnes 25 selvstendig tenkende individer her i landet. Det er grunn til å frykte at tallet ikke er gått oppover siden den gang.
Jeg er i gang med å sette opp min liste… Og jeg kan røpe at ingen av de har adresse i Akersgata.
I et working paper skriver Di Tella (Harvard) og MacCulloch (Princeton) om sammenhengen mellom fattigdom og venstreretorikk fra myndighetene. De har data som tyder på at det er korrupsjon som gjør at velgere snur ryggen til kapitalisme og vil heller ha en intervenerende stat som oppfattes som mindre korrupt.
We find anecdotal evidence suggesting that governments in poor countries have a more left wing rhetoric than those in OECD countries. Thus, it appears that capitalist rhetoric doesn’t flow to poor countries. A possible explanation is that corruption, which is more widespread in poor countries, reduces more the electoral appeal of capitalism than that of socialism. The empirical pattern of beliefs within countries is consistent with this explanation: people who perceive corruption to be high in their country are also more likely to lean left ideologically (and to declare support for a more intrusive government in economic matters). Finally, we present a model explaining the corruption-left connection. It exploits the fact that an act of corruption is more revealing about the fairness type of a rich capitalist than of a poor bureaucrat. After observing corruption, voters who care about fairness react by increasing taxes and moving left. There is a negative ideological externality since the existence of corrupt entrepreneurs hurts good entrepreneurs by reducing the electoral appeal of capitalism.
Uten å ha studert datasettet så nøye, tror jeg så gjerne denne oppdagelsen har mye for seg som forklaring på hvorfor Latin-Amerika har sittet fast i venstrepopulistisk kvikksand i så mange tiår. Den supplerer William Easterlys forklaring, som er at det er IMF og Verdensbankens paternalistiske innsalg av markedsliberale reformer som gjør at kapitalismen er upopulær.
Paul Collier anmelder i juni-utgaven av Prospect Magazine (via The Economists blogg) den nye boken til professor Erik Reinert “How Rich Countries Got Rich … and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor”. Eller: anmelder er her et dårligt valgt ord, for det impliserer at artikkelforfatteren har en slags respekt og anerkjennelse av forfatteren og hans verk. Det har ikke Collier:
Reinert cites approvingly American protection of steel and cotton, and European protection of agriculture. Yet these are not instances of shrewd economic strategies for national prosperity, but grotesque abuses of economic policy by sectional interests. For this support of rich country protectionism alone, Reinert’s self-description as “one of the world’s leading heterodox development economists” should be read in the same sense as would be the description, “one of the world’s leading quack doctors“
Ikke at dette er helt ukjent kost for Reinert. Økonomiprofessor Kalle Moene leverte i Morgenbladet i forfjor en uforbeholden slakt av Reinerts forrige bok:
I stedet for å delta i den faglige diskusjonen av slike spørsmål skyter Reinert bomskudd med ”The Other Canon” mot læreboksteorier han ikke helt forstår. Det hjelper lite at han mener det godt. Begeistringen for boka som flere kommentatorer har vist, skyldes nok at den har de politiske korrekte standpunktene mot globalisering, mot Verdensbanken og mot Pengefondet – og at den inneholder et politisk korrekt skremmebilde av økonomifaget.
Nå har ikke jeg lest den nye boken til Reinert, men jeg -prøvde- å lese den første. Omtrent halvveis i boken fikk jeg nok av omtrentlighetene, karakteristikkene og de elementære misforståelsene. Mye kan tilgis hvis grunnpoenget er korrekt og interessant. Men ikke når grunnpoenget ER en omtrentlig misforstått karakteristikk, som i Reinerts tilfelle.
Dessverre har jeg ingen grunn til å tro at den nye boken hans er noe bedre. Vi får bare håpe at ingen leser den (noe jeg dessverre ikke tror på), og at ingen utenlandske lesere forbinder Reinert med økonomifaget i Norge (noe jeg heldigvis ikke frykter).
For i så fall vil Erik Reinert ha til felles med norske Grand Prix bidrag at han gjør det pinlig å være norsk.
The economic and political forces will operate even if we all close our eyes and say “I do believe in free lunches, I do believe in free lunches” as hard as we can.
Foreign Policy har nå lagt ut den tidligere nevnte artikkelen til Verdensbank-dödaren William Easterly. Til artikkelen følger tre imponerende illustrasjoner av Mike Benny:
Fra konklusjonen til Easterly:
The ideology of Development should be packed up in crates and sent off to the Museum of Dead Ideologies, just down the hall from Communism, Socialism, and Fascism. It’s time to recognize that the attempt to impose a rigid development ideology on the world’s poor has failed miserably. Fortunately, many poor societies are forging their own path toward greater freedom and prosperity anyway. That is how true revolutions happen.
The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based. (…) And this aid proudly claiming to “know better” is itself what first turned the third world into what we mean today with that term. It has thrust aside indigenous, religious, ethical and social structures, and filled the resulting vacuum with its technocratic mindset. The idea was that we could turn stones into bread, instead our aid has only given stones in place of bread.
I
Det første bud er ganske lett.
De som er flest har alltid rett.
II
Tenk alltid på hva folk vil si.
Og ta den sterkestes parti.
III
Og tviler du, så hold deg taus
til du ser hvem som får applaus.
IV
Tenk nøye ut hva du bør mene.
Det kan bli dyrt å stå alene.
V
Følg ingen altfor høye krav.
Men si, hva du har fordel av.
VI
Si alle hva de gjerne hører.
Gå stille gjennom alle dører.
(For sannhet bringer sorg og nød,
mens daglig løgn gir daglig brød.)
VII
Gå aldri oppreist. Snik deg frem.
Og gjør deg varm i alle hjem.
VIII
Husk: Ingen mann kan roses nok.
Slik bygger man en venneflokk.
(Og i et brødre-paradis
har du den beste livspolis.)
IX
Av sladder husker du hvert ord
til bruk i neste sjefskontor.
(Men ingen taktfull sjel forteller
et ord til han som ryktet gjelder.)
X
Hvis siste bud blir respektert,
da er din fremtid garantert!
Følg dristig med i kamp mot troll,
men vis fornuftig måtehold!
Skrid tappert frem i livets strid,
én time forut for din tid.
I månedens utgave av Foreign Policy skriver NYU-professor og tidligere Verdensbankøkonom William Easterly:
A dark ideological specter is haunting the world. It is almost as deadly as the tired ideologies of the last century — communism, fascism, and socialism — that failed so miserably. It feeds some of the most dangerous trends of our time, including religious fundamentalism. It is the halfcenturyold ideology of Developmentalism. And it is thriving.
Like all ideologies, Development promises a comprehensive final answer to all of society’s problems, from poverty and illiteracy to violence and despotic rulers. It shares the common ideological characteristic of suggesting there is only one correct answer, and it tolerates little dissent. It deduces this unique answer for everyone from a general theory that purports to apply to everyone, everywhere. There’s no need to involve local actors who reap its costs and benefits. Development even has its own intelligentsia, made up of experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United Nations.
The power of Developmentalism is disheartening, because the failure of all the previous ideologies might have laid the groundwork for the opposite of ideology—the freedom of individuals and societies to choose their destinies. Yet, since the fall of communism, the West has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and with disastrous results. Development ideology is sparking a dangerous counterreaction. The “one correct answer” came to mean “free markets,” and, for the poor world, it was defined as doing whatever the IMF and the World Bank tell you to do. But the reaction in Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia has been to fight against free markets. So, one of the best economic ideas of our time, the genius of free markets, was presented in one of the worst possible ways, with unelected outsiders imposing rigid doctrines on the xenophobic unwilling.
Artikkelen er ikke tilgjengelig i sin helhet hos Foreign Policy. Men Easterly, the cheeky bastard, har lagt ut artikkelen på sine egne NYU nettsider.
“Some observers have presented the struggle as an ideological war between Hamas’s Islamism and Fatah’s secular nationalism. But a more appropriate analogy is to the gangland mob drama The Sopranos.”
Kioskvältaren Freakonomics har skapt en bølge av tilgjengelige økonomibøker (les: uten nyttefunksjonsgraf) om mer eller mindre viktige temaer. Nå sist Robert Frank i The Economic Naturalist hvor han blant annet forteller om hvorfor noen biler har tanken på høyre side, og andre på venstre side.
In the United States and other countries in which motorists drive on the right hand side of the road, it is easier to turn right than to turn left across oncoming traffic. A majority of drivers will thus buy gas at stations they can enter by turning right. Suppose tanks were always on the driver’s side of the car. Drivers would then have to park on the right side of an open pump in order to fill their tanks. During crowded hours, all spots on the right sides of pumps would be filled even while most spots on the left sides of pumps remained empty.
Putting the fuel filler doors on different sides of different cars thus means that some cars can access pumps from the left. And this makes it less likely that drivers will have to wait in line for gas.
Dette er forøvrig en glimrende anledning til å anbefale The Undercover Economist av Tim Harford. Hvis du tror at økonomi er uinteressant, uforståelig eller handler om kroner og øre, vil denne boken få deg til å skifte mening.
Trenden i de siste måneders meningsmålinger viser at to av de tre tidlige Front Runners, “Rudy McRomney” sliter. Både McCain og Giuliani har mistet 7-8 prosentpoeng i løpet av våren. Romney ser ut til å være inne i positiv trend, og ligger svært godt an i flere av de viktige småstatene Iowa og New Hampshire.
Men den som for alvor har skapt bevegelse i den republikanske leieren er senatoren og skuespilleren Fred D. Thompson. I løpet av vårmånededene har han gått fra 0 til mer enn 15%. Og det på tross av at FDT enda ikke har offentliggjort sitt kandidatur, noe han ventes å gjøre 4. juli. Det gjenstår å se om den positive trenden fortsetter når han ikke lenger kan spille outsider, og han må stå sammen med de andre kandidatene og lire av seg 60 sek sound bites. Men som utøvende skuespiller bør han ha bedre forutsetninger til det enn de fleste.
“Other than economic growth, there is no way to double the salaries of a 100 million people (and growing).”
“Charity cannot take place on an adequate scale to solve global poverty.”
“Act locally, think globally: Shop Wal-Mart.”
“When a Mongolian student at a U.S. workshop on globalization heard U.S. college students denounce sweatshops, he shouted: Please give us your sweatshops!”
“Pro-aid campaigners argue that providing aid to accountable governments is a means of stimulating their economies. This is nonsense. Giving aid to poor countries and working exclusively through their government agencies makes accountability worse rather than better. It makes the governments more accountable to foreign donors than to their own people.”
“Africa’s only viable and sustainable strategy for economic growth is one based on trade and not aid.”
“For the G8 countries, the continued refusal to open your markets and trade fairly with Africa is not sustainable”
“The G8 should be renamed the G9: the pompous U2 singer had a stately presence and an obscene amount of influence at the latest summit.”
“Bono’s rise has been facilitated by the unholy marriage of politics and celebrity. No political campaign seems complete these days without a celebrity fronting it or even forcing it through. As Mick Hume has argued on spiked: ‘As serious public and political life has withered, so celebrity culture has expanded to fill the gap, often with the encouragement of political leaders desperate for some celebrity cover.’”
5. Og så til slutt, Ricky Gervais (aka David Brent) redder Afrika:
"En protagonist var opprinnelig den som hadde hovedrollen i et gresk drama. I dag brukes gjerne ordet om en som engasjerer seg sterkt for en sak. Protagonisten er helten i en historie har gjerne en motstander, antagonist."
Denne protagonisten er 26 år, bor på St. Hanshaugen og heter Anders Tunold Kråkenes. Når han ikke skriver her, hender det han leser tykke bøker eller aviser, tenker på et leserinnlegg han burde ha skrevet, pugger kinesiske gloser, studerer, eller jobber.
Min antagonist er kunnskapsløshet, dumskap, fanatisme og venstrepopulisme.
