Free Markets – Page 24 – artdiamondblog.com

“The Real Economic Heroes of Capitalism: the Self-Made Entrepreneurs”

(p. A19) Much of the resentment felt by citizens toward the massive investment companies . . . stems from the perception that capitalism is rigged toward the most powerful. When the owner of a small retail outlet or medium-sized service firm gets into financial trouble — who steps in to help? Why are the rules to start a business so onerous, why is the bureaucratic process so lengthy, why are the requirements for hiring employees so burdensome? When does the entrepreneur receive the respect and cooperation he deserves for making a genuine contribution to the productive capacity of the economy? Equal access to credit is sacrificed to the overwhelming appetite of big business — especially when government skews the terms in favor of its friends. It is time to pay deference to the real economic heroes of capitalism: the self-made entrepreneurs who have the courage to start a business from scratch, the fidelity to pay their taxes, and the dedication to provide real goods and services to their fellow man.
. . .
Who would have guessed that it would take a Frenchman to remind us that hope is the limitless source of power that drives the human spirit to create, to improve, to achieve its dreams; it is the greatest civilizing influence in our culture. Yet it was Mr. Sarkozy, speaking before Congress last November, who offered the most profound assessment of our nation’s gift to the world. “What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind,” he said. “America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who — with their hands, their intelligence and their heart — built the greatest nation in the world: ‘Come, and everything will be given to you.’ She said: ‘Come, and the only limits to what you’ll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.'”

For the full commentary, see:
JUDY SHELTON. “A Capitalist Manifesto; Markets remain our best hope for a better future.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., OCTOBER 13, 2008): A19.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Making a Profit Selling Solid Houses to Citizens of New Orleans

“The Everhouse.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A9) Tomorrow, tens of thousands of people who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina and are still living in federally owned trailers will be forced to find a new place to live. After nearly three years, the federal government’s temporary housing is coming to an end.

These folks are not going to have an easy time of it, because affordable housing in the Gulf Coast region is scarce. The problem has persisted despite billions in government aid – and the efforts of large private developers – because of a shortage of skilled laborers and sky-high insurance rates.

Yet now there is hope, in the person of John Sawyer. Not only does this 64-year-old Bostonian believe he can build houses people can afford to buy and insure; he says they will withstand the next big storm. And, by the way, he intends to makes a tidy profit.
. . .
The dwellings will arrive in the form of kits that can be assembled in as little as 14 days. With walls of reinforced concrete, there isn’t much wood, and so mold won’t pose a major problem if the houses are ever flooded. They can “take a bath” as the locals say. Everhouses also cost $68 a square foot, less than half the going rate for affordable housing in New Orleans.

The upshot of the house’s durability and cost is that it’s easy to insure.

For the full commentary, see:
JAKE HALPERN. “A Market Solution to Hurricane Risk.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 31, 2008): A9.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Musings on the Financial Crisis and the Paulson Plan

A few people have asked me for my views on the current financial turmoil. Below, is an email that I sent this morning (10/1/08) to my brother Eric.

Hi Eric,
I’m with Abby in the ‘stewing’ department. I’m way conflicted.
On the one hand I believe that the least government is usually the best. On the other hand, I’ve read a couple of books recently about the Great Depression, and I’d rather keep that title in the “history” folder than in the “personal experience” folder.
I’m mad about the irresponsible home loans taken on by irresponsible consumers, and encouraged by irresponsible, and sometimes dishonest, mortgage pushers, and government and quasi-governmental agencies (aka Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).
I’m also mad at investment bankers who created totally nontransparent securities based on these mortgages, garnering huge bonuses for themselves, without creating any value for consumers.
And I’m most mad that the fallout from this will almost certainly result in more government, and more taxes, that will reduce innovation, economic progress, and freedom.
In the long-run, I think we need to get the government out of the business of encouraging, and selling mortgage loans. And investment banks need to change the incentive structure for their high flyers, to make surer that they’re rewarding good judgment, rather than rewarding opacity and unjustified risk-taking.
But the short-run gives me trouble. I have no sympathy for the investment banks. They deserve to go down.
The problem is the claim that the investment banks are an integral part of the financial infrastructure of the country. If that is true, then letting them totally fail, will take down many firms and taxpayers, who had no responsibility for the problems.
One crucial question is whether in fact, letting the investment banks fail would result in systemic collapse of the financial infrastructure. And I do not know the answer. This is a difficult question, outside my area of specialization.
But in the Great Depression, something sort of like that happened. And historians/economists have blamed Mellon/Hoover for adopting a position something akin to what the rebel house Republicans are adopting.
I have never met Ben Bernanke, and have never read any of his articles. But my impression is that he is a conscientious, serious scholar, who is generally friendly to free markets, and whose main research focus was the economics of the Great Depression. So when he looks worried, and says that something major needs to be done, I give that credibility.
I don’t like growing the government in this way. But if we don’t act, and if the collapse comes, then the proposed growth in government in the Paulson proposal will look petty ante, compared to what will follow.
I believe the government should provide national defense, police and courts. On infrastructure I’ve always been conflicted. I think a lot of infrastructure can be usefully privatized, and when it can, I favor it (although when I’m talking to Mom, I try not to mention my admiration for Mitch Daniels ;).
On the other hand I usually don’t lose much sleep about government infrastructure like the Omaha streets and FDIC insurance.
It’s a stretch, but maybe you can kind of think of what they are proposing as an emergency extension of infrastructure?
I didn’t mean to write a long message. But I couldn’t think of a good short one.
Cheers,
Art

EPA Mandates that Texas Keep Digging Ethanol Hole

“At the Reeve plant near Garden City, Kan., grain is made into ethanol, and the byproducts are fed to cattle in the adjacent feedlot.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Unfortunately, the EPA rejected Gov. Paley’s request, discussed in the article quoted below:

(p. C1) The ethanol industry, until recently a golden child that got favorable treatment from Washington, is facing a critical decision on its future.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks.
Mr. Perry says the billions of bushels of corn being used to produce all that mandated ethanol would be better suited as livestock feed than as fuel.
Feed prices have soared in the last two years as fuel has begun competing with food for cropland.
“When you find yourself in a hole, you have to quit digging,” Mr. Perry said in an interview. “And we are in a hole.”
His request for an emergency waiver cutting the ethanol mandate to 4.5 billion gallons, from the 9 billion gallons required this year and the 10.5 billion required in 2009, is backed by a coalition of food, livestock and environmental groups.
Farmers and ethanol and other biofuel producers are lobbying to keep the existing mandates.

For the full story, see:
DAVID STREITFELD. “Uprising Against the Ethanol Mandate.” The New York Times (Weds., July 23, 2008): C1 & C5.

Medicare Pays $110 for Walker that Wal-Mart Sells for $60

Source of table: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. C1) On Wal-Mart’s Web site, you can buy a walker for $59.92. It is called the Carex Explorer, and it’s a typical walker: a few feet high, with four metal poles extending to the ground. The Explorer is one of the walkers covered by Medicare.
But Medicare and its beneficiaries aren’t paying $59.92 for the Explorer or any similar walker. In fact, they’re not paying anything close to it. They are paying about $110.
. . .
(p. C5) In the abstract, fixing the health care system sounds perfectly unobjectionable: it’s about reducing costs (and then being able to cover the uninsured) by getting rid of inefficiency and waste. In reality, though, almost every bit of waste benefits someone.
Doctors who perform spinal fusion surgeries, despite decidedly mixed evidence that they’re effective, are making a nice living. Hospitals that order $1,000 diagnostic tests, even when a cheaper one would work just as well, are helping their bottom line. Medical equipment makers selling walkers for $110, while Wal-Mart sells them for $60, are fattening their profits.
The current fight to protect those profits is a microcosm of what you can expect to see if a larger effort to rein in health costs ever gets going. The defenders of the status quo won’t say that they are protecting themselves. Instead, they’ll use the same arguments that the medical equipment makers are using — that a change will destroy jobs, bankrupt small businesses and, above all, harm patients.
. . .
But this is a case in which the market can clearly do a better job than a government-mandated fee schedule. Just look at Wal-Mart’s Web site or, for that matter, the bids that Medicare has already received.
By standing in the way of this competition, Congress is really standing up for higher health care costs.

For the full commentary, see:
DAVID LEONHARDT. “ECONOMIC SCENE; High Medicare Costs, Courtesy of Congress.” The New York Times (Weds., June 25, 2008): C1 & C5.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Cubans Skeptical of Their Government

“Cubans used a cellphone to take photos in Havana recently after Cuba’s government lifted some restrictions on consumer items.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A16) MEXICO CITY — A rare study conducted surreptitiously in Cuba found that more than half of those interviewed considered their economic woes to be their chief concern while less than 10 percent listed lack of political freedom as the main problem facing the country.

“Almost every poll you ever see, even those in the U.S., goes to bread-and-butter issues,” said Alex Sutton, director of Latin American and Caribbean programs at the International Republican Institute, which conducted the study. “Everybody everywhere is interested in their purchasing power.”
The results showed deep anxiety about the state of the country, with 35 percent of respondents saying things were “so-so” and 47 percent saying they were going “badly” or “very badly.” As for the government’s ability to turn things around, Cubans were skeptical, with 70 percent of those interviewed saying they did not believe that the authorities would resolve the country’s biggest problem in the next few years.
The study, to be released on Thursday, was conducted from March 14 to April 12, after Raúl Castro officially took over the presidency.

For the full story, see:

MARC LACEY. “In Rare Study, Cubans Put Money Worries First.” The New York Times (Thurs., June 5, 2008): A16.
(Note: the order of some of the article content differed in the print and online versions; the version above is consistent with the print version.)

Keynes Was Relying on the Invisible Hand of the Market in 1946

Source of book image:
http://www.tbpcontrol.co.uk/TWS/CoverImages_0/074/757/0747579857.jpg

(p. B7) As Mr. Kynaston sets his scene, what immediately becomes clear is that the recent past is not so recent. “Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food. … No launderettes, no automatic washing machines, wash day every Monday, clothes boiled in a tub, scrubbed on the draining board. …Abortion illegal, homosexual relationships illegal, suicide illegal, capital punishment legal. White faces everywhere.” And with all those white faces was the single overwhelming, blanketing fact of deprivation, a bare-bones existence. Britain had just prevailed in a struggle for its very survival, but victory never looked so grim.
. . .
The Labor Party won the 1945 election in a landslide on a promise of national planning. The debate now was how far to take socialism, with the Laborites divided between the hell-bent nationalizers and the more market-oriented Keynesians. In 1946 Keynes himself admitted (though privately) that “I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the invisible hand” of the market, “which I tried to eject from economic thinking 20 years ago.”
. . .
Almost invisible in Mr. Kynaston’s sparkling panorama is a sign of what was to come. One Conservative politician was out of step not only with Labor’s policies but even with the prevailing views of her own party. Margaret Roberts was just about alone in condemning the welfare state as “pernicious,” destructive of the national character. In 1951, a year after Labor’s second postwar electoral victory, she got married. Her husband’s name was Thatcher.

For the full review, see:

Barry Gewen. “Books of The Times – In Postwar Britain, the Grim Face of Victory.” The New York Times (Thurs., June 12, 2008): B7.
(Note: ellipses within the Kynaston quote are in the original; ellipses between paragraphs are added.)

FDR Turned Schumpeter into a Fan of Ludwig von Mises

From McCraw writing about Schumpeter:

(pp. 318-319) The New Deal struck him as still another prelude to authoritarianism. He became convinced that Roosevelt’s program represented a step toward either fascism or socialism, and in either case potential dictatorship. He wrote a friend that Roosevelt was like a child mindlessly breaking a machine because he didn’t understand its design. The president “is going to turn me into a fan of [Ludwig von] Mises,” his classmate at the University of Vienna who had become a free-market fundamentalist and an opponent of almost all government intervention.

Source:
McCraw, Thomas K. Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2007.

“The Low Prices Today Seem Almost Ridiculous”

In 2008 dollars, a basic Brooks Brothers suit cost $788 in 1998 and costs $598 in 2008. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. E1) As luxury fashion has become more expensive, mainstream apparel has become markedly less so. Today, shoppers pay the same price for a basic Brooks Brothers men’s suit, $598, as they did in 1998. The suggested retail price of a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans, $46, is about $4 less than it was a decade ago. A three-pack of Calvin Klein men’s briefs costs $21.50, only $3.50 more than in 1998. Which is the better buy?
Factoring for inflation, each of these examples is actually less expensive today. In current dollars, the 1998 suit would cost $788, the jeans would be $66 and the underwear would be nearly $24.
. . .
(p. E9) Anyone who has spent time walking along 34th Street in Manhattan recently, from Kmart to Macy’s to Forever 21 and H&M, would think that the economic outlook is rosy. Shoppers there are still laden with bags from Payless and Victoria’s Secret, and several said they perceived fashion to be a better buy, with more variety and style at lower prices, than a decade ago.
“You can buy a lot more with your money today than before,” said Joanna Eliza, a recent graduate from the Fashion Institute of Technology, shopping on 34th Street on Tuesday. “Stores like H&M and Forever 21 make it more affordable for people who want to be fashionable, and that makes me feel really good.”
Over all, apparel prices have gone down primarily because of two factors: the overwhelming movement of manufacturing to countries with cheaper labor, where the clothes are made, and increased competition between traditional retailers and discounters, where the clothes are sold.
In some cases, the low prices today seem almost ridiculous. Steve & Barry’s sells celebrity-branded shoes and dresses for $8.98 or less. Target offers a silk faille ball gown from Isaac Mizrahi on sale for $129.99. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, promotes an Op T-shirt for 97 cents.

For the full story, see:
ERIC WILSON. “Dress for Less and Less.” The New York Times (Thurs., May 29, 2008): E1 & E9.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

How to Save a Species by Eating It

Source of book image:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61cDbDl665L._SS500_.jpg

(p. D1) SOME people would just as soon ignore the culinary potential of the Carolina flying squirrel or the Waldoboro green neck rutabaga. To them, the creamy Hutterite soup bean is too obscure and the Tennessee fainting goat, which keels over when startled, sounds more like a sideshow act than the centerpiece of a barbecue.
But not Gary Paul Nabhan. He has spent most of the past four years compiling a list of endangered plants and animals that were once fairly commonplace in American kitchens but are now threatened, endangered or essentially extinct in the marketplace. He has set out to save them, which often involves urging people to eat them.
Mr. Nabhan’s list, 1,080 items and growing, forms the basis of his new book, an engaging journey through the nooks and crannies of American culinary history titled “Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods” (Chelsea Green Publishing, $35).
. . .
(p. C5) Some of the items on the list, like Ojai pixie tangerines and Sonoma County Gravenstein apples, were well on their way back before Mr. Nabhan came along. But other foods are enjoying a renaissance largely as a result of the coalition’s work.
The Makah ozette potato, a nutty fingerling with such a rich, creamy texture that it needs only a whisper of oil, is one of the success stories. It is named after the Makah Indians, who live at the northwest tip of Washington state and have been growing the potatoes for more than 200 years.
The Seattle chapters of Slow Food and the Chefs Collaborative adopted the rare potato. In 2006, Slow Food passed out seed potatoes to a handful of local farmers and gardeners, and chefs like Seth Caswell at the Stumbling Goat Bistro in Seattle began putting them on the menu.
Mr. Caswell says they are delicious roasted with a little hazelnut oil for salads or cut into wedges to go with burgers made with wagyu beef and Washington State black truffle oil.
There have been other revivals, the moon and stars watermelon and the tepary bean among them. The effort to reintroduce heritage turkeys to the American table was a precursor to the work of Mr. Nabhan and his collaborators.
The meaty Buckeye chicken, with its long legs suitable for ranging around, is considered one of five most endangered chicken breeds. Last year over 1,000 chicks were hatched and delivered to breeders, Mr. Nabhan said.
Justin Pitts, whose family has raised Pineywoods cattle in southern Mississippi for generations, credits the coalition with saving those animals. The small, lean cattle that provide milk, meat and labor spent centuries adapting to the pine barrens of the deep south, raised by families who can trace their herds back as far as anyone can remember. There are less than a dozen of those families left, and at one point the number of pure Pineywoods breeding animals fell to under 200. In the past few years, it has grown to nearly 1,000.
Mr. Pitts, who has “90 head if I can find them all,” sells New York strips and other cuts at the New Orleans farmers’ market and to chefs.
“I can’t raise cattle fast as they eat them,” he said.
He supports the notion that you’ve got to eat something to save it.
“If you’re keeping them for a museum piece,” he said, “you’ve just signed their death warrant.”

For the full story, see:
KIM SEVERSON. “An Unlikely Way to Save a Species: Serve It for Dinner.” The New York Times (Weds., April 30, 2008): D1 & D5.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Reference to book:
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2008.

Moon and stars watermelon. Source of image: http://bp0.blogger.com/_Tyq14YRMHCI/SBlWLE9tynI/AAAAAAAAAD8/gphhc3wgK-4/s1600/purplewatermelon266.jpg

“We Educate Them and Then Tell them to Go Home”

(p. C3) The United States may be synonymous with the high-tech revolution, but it is in danger of losing its high-tech edge, according to Cybercities 2008, a report released Tuesday by AeA, a technology industry trade association.
Because the federal government does not issue a sufficient number of green cards or work visas to talented foreign students studying here, there are a “tremendous number of unfilled jobs,” said Christopher Hansen, AeA’s chief executive.
“We educate them and then tell them to go home. This is absurd,” said Mr. Hansen, whose group has lobbied to increase the number of visas for foreign technology industry workers.

For the full story, see:
ERIC A. TAUB. “U.S. High Tech Said to Slip.” The New York Times (Weds., June 25, 2008): C3.