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Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Bone to pick
John Lewis Gaddis remarks that communism did comparatively well in the 1930s by preserving full employment when the rest of the world was suffering in the depression.
I suppose it's easy to maintain full employment with forced labor and killing between 15 to 20 million of your own citizens. As far as I can tell, that's about 12% of its then 165 million population. If the US had killed 12% of its 125 million population, the unemployment rate would sure have looked a lot better (somewhere between -4 and 12%)
It's frightening to hear anyone say that the Soviet Union did comparatively well at anything during the 1930s. Except democide. That they were good at.
Moreover, the unemployment rate is just not a good statistic to compare countries with free and forced labor: it tells you nothing about the productivity of labor or its remuneration.
I suppose it's easy to maintain full employment with forced labor and killing between 15 to 20 million of your own citizens. As far as I can tell, that's about 12% of its then 165 million population. If the US had killed 12% of its 125 million population, the unemployment rate would sure have looked a lot better (somewhere between -4 and 12%)
It's frightening to hear anyone say that the Soviet Union did comparatively well at anything during the 1930s. Except democide. That they were good at.
Moreover, the unemployment rate is just not a good statistic to compare countries with free and forced labor: it tells you nothing about the productivity of labor or its remuneration.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Green Energy
By and large, I am enthusiastic about the possibilities for safe and clean energy. I look forward to a world with more wind turbines, solar panels, recycling, and who knows what has not yet been invented.
But, and there's always a but, we need to be careful when considering policies that promote these energies. The fact that green energy costs more than fossil fuels means that in some very relevant sense: they cost more in resources.
To simplify the intuition: if Joe Coalminer needs to mine more coal in order to buy his Toyota Prius to replace his F-150 truck, it's not clear that the environment wins out. Of course, if Roger Recycler has to recycle more so he can purchase his Prius, everyone wins.
The point is that prices signify a cost in resources and in a relatively "dirty" economy it looks like higher prices for clean energy mean an extra expenditure of dirty resources to buy clean ones.
Yes, you have to start somewhere, and yes you have to make sure prices signal relative scarcity but let's not immediately sanctify everyone who buys into the green economy. (Much the same could be said of high priced Organic farming, I think)
But, and there's always a but, we need to be careful when considering policies that promote these energies. The fact that green energy costs more than fossil fuels means that in some very relevant sense: they cost more in resources.
To simplify the intuition: if Joe Coalminer needs to mine more coal in order to buy his Toyota Prius to replace his F-150 truck, it's not clear that the environment wins out. Of course, if Roger Recycler has to recycle more so he can purchase his Prius, everyone wins.
The point is that prices signify a cost in resources and in a relatively "dirty" economy it looks like higher prices for clean energy mean an extra expenditure of dirty resources to buy clean ones.
Yes, you have to start somewhere, and yes you have to make sure prices signal relative scarcity but let's not immediately sanctify everyone who buys into the green economy. (Much the same could be said of high priced Organic farming, I think)
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