Streetwise Professor

J. D. Vance has been nominated as the Republican candidate for Vice President. I wrote about Vance, and his book Hillbilly Elegy, about 3.5 years ago. The end of the piece talks about the venom directed at Vance and those he wrote about when the movie version of the book came out:

In sum, Hillbilly Elegy is a Rorschach Test. Show it to me, and it evokes the attributes and deep flaws and great struggles of my family–struggles that made it possible for me to have an unbelievable blessed life that has been able to grab the boundless opportunities America offers. Show it to the coastal “elite” and it triggers all they hate about America, and many who live in it.

Streetwiseprofessor.com

That disdain and vituperation has been turned up to 11 since Trump announced him as his VP choice. It’s fair to say that VDS–Vance Derangement Syndrome–has spread faster than the Spanish Flu on the left.

It’s hard to choose the most insane of the criticisms, but I think this gem from some MSNBC lunatic (but I repeat myself) is a heavy favorite:

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner accused Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance of dropping an “easter egg of white nationalism” by mentioning that he hoped to be buried in his family’s plot in Kentucky during his speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night:

MSN

It’s easy to understand why Trump chose Vance. Trump wants to be an impactful president. He wants to leave a lasting legacy. A MAGA legacy. Of all national political figures, Vance is most closely aligned with Trump ideologically. He is young. There is no one more fit to make MAGA a historical era, rather than a transient phase tied to a particular personality.

And perhaps it is this that is driving the left even more insane than usual about a decision (choice of a vice president) that is seldom of great and lasting importance.

Trump wisely rejected all of the traditional criteria for choosing a VP, specifically ideological, geographical, and identity balancing. Picking a say Nicky Haley as VP would have ensured that Trump’s impact would be evanescent (except on the mental health of the left). Historically such decision making has worked out badly–G. H. W. Bush being perhaps the best example.

As for Vance, he truly does tick all of the Jacksonian boxes identified by Walter Russell Mead in his famous article of decades ago. Most notable is his belief in the primacy of what Mead called the American “folk community” (something that was a big part of his acceptance speech) as opposed to newcomers and foreigners. This is precisely the thing that the progressive left considers a barbarous atavism, especially considering those whom Vance considers to be the bedrock of the folk community. Hint: they don’t live in Brooklyn, NY. (Some in Brooklyn, MI maybe).

Relatedly, no globalist he. With that comes a foreign policy vision starkly at odds with the Uniparty consensus that harkens back to Republicans of an earlier era, like Henry Cabot Lodge and (fellow Ohioan) Robert Taft, and indeed to George Washington with his aversion to foreign entanglements. He is an anti-Wilsonian–and hence an anti-Bushian and anti-neocon, which is why people likely Lindsey Graham looked so glum when Vance spoke in Milwaukee. And keep Vladamir Zelensky away from sharp objects.

This mission to protect the folk community also leads him to favor trade protectionism, also something of a throwback to historical Republican policy–the Republicans were the protectionist party, and the Democrats the free traders, through the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is also well-disposed to various forms of industrial policy and minimum wages and has said nice things about antitrust loon Lina Khan.

Another Jacksonian trait is his intense hostility to the political establishment, the economic elite (corporations now, the Bank of the US in Jackson’s day), and the federal bureaucracy.

I share many of Vance’s views, and so I heartily support his candidacy–especially when considering the alternatives. Where I part ways is on economic policy (which is true of Jacksonianism generally). Protectionism for the purpose of supporting domestic industry is highly inefficient: one could have a debate about the merits of substituting tariffs for other forms of taxation that also have distortionary effects (e.g., capital taxation) but the flaws of protecting dying industries are beyond dispute. Minimum wages are another disaster. If the current experience in California’s fast food industry isn’t convincing enough, he’s not capable of being convinced on this.

Various forms of industrial policy, which in the end come down to picking winners and losers, propping up the winners with subsidies and protection and entry barriers, are also disasters in waiting that have no chance of achieving their stated objectives and which inevitably wreak huge collateral damage.

The best way to rejuvenate American industries is to lift the appalling regulatory burden that has been heaped on them for decades–a process that has reached a frenzied level under Biden. Here Vance’s antipathy to the bureaucracy could be the spur to meaningful action.

In brief–slash away at existing policies and regulations: don’t add new ones. That would help the American folk community immensely.

Of course, all policy views are aspirational. Given that Jacksonians are hardly a major presence in Congress, the media, or the bureaucracy, the ability of Trump and Vance to realize their aspirations is doubtful, at best. But at least it will help to have the executive pushing in the right direction and against the DC consensus, rather than pushing it forward with all its might (as with the current administration).

I had been hoping that Trump would choose Vance, and did so fully aware of my areas of disagreement. On the biggest issues–the overawing power of the federal government and its abuse thereof, immigration, and a more restrained, non-globalist, non-Wilsonian foreign policy–Vance is on the right side. Where he’s not, I can live with.

But precisely because of where he stands on those big issues, he has achieved Derangement Syndrome Status faster than perhaps faster than anyone in history. Considering those he has deranged, that’s the biggest endorsement of all. He has all the right enemies. May he destroy them–he has already driven them mad.

I usually rely on Hanlon’s Razor, the proposition that one should never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. And I am usually pretty generous in determining what is plausibly deemed incompetent. But as the facts pile up in the attempted Trump assassination–the failure of which was only plausibly due to the hand of God, and I do not say that lightly or blasphemously, but quite seriously–it is becoming harder and harder to conclude that what transpired on Saturday was within even the most generous possible drawing of the bounds of incompetence. Which leaves malice–and by whom and for what purpose.

Matthew Crooks was about as stealthy as a funny car out of the starting gate or an F-15 taking off. Everybody saw him doing obviously suspicious and threatening things, and being in places where he obviously should not have been and where he obviously posed a threat to Trump. Crucially, the Secret Service and local law enforcement saw him and did nothing until it was too late. Nothing. They all make the Uvalde, TX police look good by comparison.

All of that is incomprehensible. But what makes me conclude that Hanlon’s Razor doesn’t cut it is the series of bullshit excuses emanating from the Secret Service. Each is worse than the next. Some of the most outrageous ones:

• No sniper team was posted on the roof from which Crooks fired because it was too steeply sloped, which would have endangered a countersniper team’s safety. Which it wasn’t. Indeed, it was sloped less than the roof on which the countersniper team that eventually took him out is. And it obviously wasn’t too steeply sloped for Crooks to use as a shooting position. And is Cheatle the head of the Secret Service, or its OSHA manager?
• Trump’s security detail was staffed the way it was because he’s only the former president, and former presidents get less protection. For the love of God, this isn’t G.W. Bush, about whom no one GAF anymore, that we’re talking about here. We are talking about a man who is not just a former president, but a current candidate, and in the most febrile political environment since the 1850s. And one who has been labeled an existential threat, and who has been the subject of both assassination porn and assassination fears for years. Killing GWB or Obama would be horrible–but that would be nothing compared to what would occur to this country if Trump is killed.
• And here’s the best one, from the Secret Service’s loathsome official spokesfuck, Angelo Cangelosi (who is only slightly less loathsome than his boss, Kimberly Cheatle): “With counter snipers, you’re usually so far away, it’s not usually clear whether an individual is an imminent threat. It’s harder to discern. Once they discern whether that person is a threat to life or serious bodily injury, they can take the shot.”
• RUFKM? The countersnipers have optics that would have allowed them to count the hairs in Crooks’ nose from that distance. And for crissakes, U.S. military snipers routinely identify, evaluate, and take out threats from 1000 yards plus, not 100 yards plus. I mean seriously, you fuckwit, watch American Sniper. Or Blackhawk Down. Or watch the old History Channel show on snipers. Read about Carlos Hathcock or Chuck Mawhinney. Read about Marine Scout Snipers and their training. These men are trained to discern threats, at long distance and in seconds, and act without hesitation based on what they observe and what they know.

It’s hard to know whether these utterly bullshit excuses that would embarrass a toddler caught being naughty demonstrate their lack of intelligence or their opinion of ours. But the fact that they are unwilling or unable to come up with remotely reasonable explanations leads me to conclude that they have something to hide, and that something is far more sinister than mere incompetence.

The latest regime story makes things worse, not better. You see, Trump’s security had been beefed up because the US had detected an Iranian threat to assassinate Trump.

You people actually think that makes you look better? Mother of God, if that charlie foxtrot was beefed up security, how shambolic was it before?

I also note that when Iraq launched an assassination plot against G. H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton-yes, Bill Clinton-launched missiles at Baghdad. Any missiles headed to Tehran due to this alleged threat? Of course not.

Yes, I agree with el gato malo (whom you should all read regularly) that communications seams between the Secret Service and local LE with security responsibilities over different parts of the venue are a potential point of failure. But the point is that this is a very well known known (to steal from Rumsfeld, who stole it from psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham) and should therefore be a priority in planning. It’s such an obvious potential problem that it should never be an actual problem.

But the scope of the failure and the utterly farcical excuses offered up for it are such that I don’t believe Hanlon’s Ginsu could cut through it. Which again leaves us with malice.

If Trump had not turned his head this nation would now be in the grips of utter chaos at the very least and likely in outright rebellion. (Which, of course, the regime and its media lackeys would blame on the rebels, not on the regime’s failures or malicious acts that caused it). Trump–and we–literally dodged the most lethal bullet in American history. And yes, that counts those that did to Lincoln and JFK what Matthew Crooks intended to do to Donald Trump.

Chalk another one up for Bismarck: “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” If not, I doubt that there would be enough ruin in America to survive it (to paraphrase Adam Smith).

Americans deserve answers. Americans deserve scalps. And we are already 72 hours past the time we should have had them.

Who is going to raise hell to get them?

In Day of the Jackal, the English would-be assassin pulls the trigger and watches with astonishment as his target–Charles DeGaulle–bends over to kiss a la français the veteran he had just decorated in a ceremony in Paris. The bullet whizzes just behind DeGaulle’s head. A kiss spared his life.

Imagine my shock and astonishment at waking up in France to read that a turn of the head may have saved Donald Trump from a would-be assassin. Trump came closer to his doom than the movie DeGaulle–a bullet actually clipped his ear.

Unlike the Jackal, the Trump shooter was clearly no trained killer. Was he trying for a head shot because he thought Trump would be wearing a protective vest? Because a center mass shot was available and would have been a pro’s choice. Or was he just a bad shot? The fact that Matthew Crooks squeezed off 8 rapid shots spray-and-pray fashion suggest that he was. His prayers were not answered. Ours were.

Though clearly not everyone’s. Trump assassination porn has been a thing for some time now. And there are clearly many choking back anger not at the attempt–but at its failure.

On 8 July, 2024 President Joe Biden said that “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

Will the media and the Democratic Party go after Biden the same way that they went after Sarah Palin for the far more innocuous act of releasing a campaign ad with a picture of a bullseye over Gaby Giffords’ district–not over her picture, or her name?

Yeah, right.

All of those who screeched stridently that Trump is an existential threat created an environment in which a loser–which I am sure Matthew Crooks will turn out to have been–believed he could achieve status and fame by killing the bête noire. They are accessories before the fact, in all their legions.

And the media has managed to achieve even new lows, as astounding as that might be given the Marianas Trench-like depths to which they had already descended. CNN said that Trump was rushed offstage after he “fell.” As if he was Joe Biden on stairs or an Air Force Academy stage. Other mainstream media also went with the “fell” thing, adding details such as he did so after “popping sounds were heard.” As if it was just somebody stepping on bubble rap or cracking their knuckles.

Then there was the the-real-danger-here-is-the-right-wing-backlash mantra:

On CBS, Margaret Brennan and Samantha Vinograd talk up "retaliatory violence" from right-wingers, and then we hear of January 6. Knew this line was coming…. pic.twitter.com/JO9572UlXn

— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 14, 2024

These people are all about the backlash, and totally ignore the first lash. Because that comes from their side.

This is obviously a colossal failure by the Secret Service. An unsecured roof with a sightline to Trump’s podium. Their thumb-up-the-ass running around when people were shouting “he’s got a gun” and pointing at . . . a guy with a gun. The hesitation by the sniper who finally took out Crooks.

Yet another institutional failure.

Will there be accountability? As if. Not unless and until Trump is inaugurated. This regime will run serious cover for Secret Service, DHS (of which it is a part), and the FBI (which is supposed to be ferreting out such threats, but appears to be more interested in Latin Mass Catholics, abortion protesters, senior citizen J6ers, and phantom right wing resistance groups).

Will the head of the Secret Service be fired? The question should really be: why the fuck hasn’t she quit? If this was 1930s Japan the streets of DC would be slick with the guts of law enforcement and national security officials humiliated by their obvious failure. But in 2020s DC it’s cover your ass not spill your guts.

This event is likely to be of historical importance–though not as important as if the 5.56 round had gone an inch to the right. Trump’s immediate response–“Fight! Fight” while shaking his fist–was epic. A real baller. He reminded me of Churchill’s remark: “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.” (But this “fight!” response was exactly what triggered the backlash brigade).

The contrast between Trump’s near-TR-like response to being shot to Biden’s frailty and mental incompetence could not be more pronounced. The assassination attempt coming right on the heels of a week when Biden’s mental and physical decline took up all the political oxygen just makes the contrast all the more stark.

Can Biden credibly continue to say he is the only candidate who can beat Trump? As dubious as that proposition was on Friday, it is utterly farcical now. But will the Democrats be able to induce Biden to concede to reality? If so–who among them will not look almost as pathetic as Biden in contrast to a guy who faced down an assassination attempt? And if not–will they engage in backroom chicanery to select such a pathetic figure that will make the situation look worse, not better?

And coming on top of what was increasingly perceived as a politicized persecution of Trump, missing murder by a hair’s breadth will no doubt have many saying that the demonization has gone too far. This must stop. Now.

Which blows to smithereens the Democrat’s one and only campaign pitch: Trump must be stopped, by all means necessary.

Last week the election was clearly tipping towards Trump. A near miss in Pennsylvania will likely turn it into an avalanche.

The recent Supreme Court session was one of the most significant in recent memory. A major thrust of many of the most important rulings was a fundamental shift in the allocation of authority among the branches of government. The decisions made clearer who can drive in what lane.

In the most important decisions, Congress was the winner, although it might not be happy with the prize because it shifts responsibility to the legislative branch, a past master at shirking responsibility.

Loper struck down “Chevron deference,” meaning that administrative agencies cannot expansively assert their authority in the face of statutory ambiguity or lacunae. It requires judges to interpret statutes to determine whether a regulator has the authority to do what it wants. This sharply circumscribes the power of the executive. Although it would be more accurate to say that it sharply circumscribes the power of a de facto separate branch of government operating outside the tripartite structure created under the Constitution: although formally part of the executive, unaccountable bureaucratic agencies are largely outside its control.

The bump stock ruling in Cargill constrains agencies from straying from explicit statutory language and arguing that since X is kinda like what is explicitly defined and outlawed in a statute the agency can outlaw X too even if it does not meet the statutory definition.

Both of these shift responsibility for regulation back to Congress, and puts the onus on the legislature to write laws that clearly delineate agency powers. Like I said above, this probably doesn’t make members of the legislative branch happy because it forces them to work hard, work carefully, and work precisely. So much easier to say “we delegate the formulation of the specifics of the law to three letter agencies.”

In Jarkasy the Court limited the enforcement power of agencies by requiring jury trials in Section 3 courts in lieu of proceedings before in-house administrative law judges.

Thus, these major decisions can be summarized: agencies lose power, Congress and the courts gain power. Or perhaps more accurately, powers that have been usurped by agencies are returned to their proper Constitutional homes.

The most controversial but arguably least impactful decision for the long term was the ruling on presidential immunity in Trump. The Court formalized a three part division of presidential acts, granted absolute immunity in one (explicitly Constitutionally recognized powers), strongly (but not completely) presumptive immunity in a second (“official acts”), and no immunity in a third (“unofficial acts”). The Court recognized that drawing the line between what is official and what is unofficial is a fact-intensive exercise and mandates that lower courts undertake this exercise seriously with appropriate fact-finding procedures. It sharply criticized the DC circuit court in Trump for rubber stamping the government claim of no immunity rather than engaging in the necessary fact-finding.

The left is hysterical about this decision, but they have no one to blame but themselves. The issue of the extent of presidential immunity has always been fraught with uncertainty. But by pursuing Trump in two federal cases the Biden administration forced the Supreme Court to open the legal Schrödinger’s box to rule that their beloved cat is dead.

That is why I say this ruling will be among the least impactful in the long term. The Republic operated very well with the uncertainty and widespread acknowledgement that presidential immunity was quite expansive until the Biden administration forced the issue with lawfare against Trump. The ruling will sharply reduce the ability and incentive to engage in such lawfare and thereby return the country to a very workable status quo ante. That is, the impact is almost purely situational and relates to an unprecedented situation created by the current administration.

Another situational impact of the decision may come from Justice Thomas’s concurrence that questioned the legality and constitutionality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Judge Cannon. (And she apparently has taken the hint, scheduling hearings on this issue in the classified documents case in Florida).

As for the other decisions, they will likely have enduring impact, but how much remains to be seen. The demise of Chevron is clearly important–it has already put some major agency rules, such as the FTC’s non-compete rule and the FCC’s net neutrality rule, in jeopardy. But the “major questions” doctrine that was revitalized by earlier Supreme Court decisions already cut back on agency power: the incremental effect of Loper remains to be seen. And no doubt agencies will press their luck in court rather than meekly stay in their lanes, if for no other reason than to learn how far the ruling reaches, or to play the legal lottery. The application of Loper by highly ideologically diverse district and appeals courts means that agency interpretative powers aren’t dead yet and some courts may side with agencies. Ditto goes for Cargill. Jarkasy is more clearcut, but its scope is narrower than the other two decisions.

But overall, the movement is in the right direction. Reining in agency powers is essential. The war is not over by a long shot, but these decisions change the correlation of forces in that war.

The dissents in these cases were embarrassing. They relied on emotional and consequentialist arguments rather than legal and Constitutional ones. For example, in Cargill the argument was that the Las Vegas shooter used a bump stock, so we should ban bump stocks even though Congress (that has had ample opportunity to do so) has not: this is an argument for the courts to usurp legislative powers based on the emotional reaction to one extreme event. In Trump the dissent offered up a parade of horribles, such as the presidency becoming a monarchy or the president unleashing SEAL Team 6 to dispatch political opponents. None of which transpired in the status quo ante that the decision restores.

The most amusing response was from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe who lamented the effect of Loper on all of those sturdy professors and practicing lawyers toiling in the fields of administrative law. Oh! The humanity! And insofar as professors are concerned, this is incumbency bias. Big new decisions create big research opportunities opening up the field to new scholars. Creative destruction, as it were.

The most disappointing decision was in the free speech case, Murthy. Here the Court refused to rule that government suasion of social media companies of the “nice little platform you got here, shame if anything happened to it” variety was an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights. This unleashed a righteous–and right–dissent from Judge Alito.

Here the game is not over. It is possible that when the issue is adjudicated in the lower courts it will return to SCOTUS and be resolved correctly on the lines Alito forcefully argued.

One of the most revealing aspects of the just-completed term is the behavior of Amy Coney Barrett who had her coming out party as the new version of Anthony Kennedy or Sandra Day O’Connor. What is it with justices with Irish surnames appointed by Republican presidents that makes them wishy-washy “balancers” apparently trying to remain in the good graces of the DC establishment?

On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts exceeded expectations.

Every Supreme Court term is just a battle in a war that has waged since Marbury v. Madison. This term is no different. But it represents a signal victory for those opposed to the trajectory of government since the New Deal. Yes, there were losses, but that is true of every battle. And maybe it is just the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end, for the administrative state in particular. But that’s not nothing.

Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance–if you can call it that–requires no comment from me. All I will say is that the “we’re SHOCKED!” reaction from Democrats and the media (yes, I repeat myself) is the world’s most powerful emetic. These fuckers have known this all along, but they’ve gaslit us non-stop. Well, barely breathing Joe did manage to blow out the flame, and the explosion from the resulting gas leak has been earth shaking.

Right now all of the speculation is whether, but more how, Biden can be discarded like his used Depends.

The obstacles to this are immense.

Can Joe be persuaded–or forced–to quit? Over Jill’s dead body. And do not underestimate the control a grasping, demented wife has over a severely diminished husband. Just look at how she has been front and center ever since the debate ended.

If Joe is somehow defenestrated, what about the nominating process, and the delegates committed to Biden-Harris as a result of the primaries? It is my understanding that Kamala Harris would be slotted in, and she would get the delegates–certainly no one else can. The prospect of her running against Trump is even more frightening to them than letting Joe stagger to November.

And only Biden or Harris can use the massive campaign warchest that has been amassed.

So let’s say they defenestrate Kamala too. Then what? An open convention?

What a spectacle that would be. Bobcats in a bag would fight, bite, and claw less than the likes of Hillary, Newsom, Whitmer, Pritzker, Buttigieg, and whatever other left wing wingnut has presidential aspirations would brawl in the backrooms in Chicago in August.

And how is this process supposed to work? Will it be like selection of the Pope? What color smoke will they use? Who will make up the College of Cardinals?

Whoever emerges from such a process will have NO legitimacy whatsoever. Zero. Zip. Nada.

And this from the Party that constantly lectures us in the most reverent tones about “our sacred democracy” and that warns us in an alarmed voice about the mortal risks posed to it by the possibility that Trump may win a popular election.

And whoever is anointed–they will still be starting from zero money-wise because the Biden-Harris stash cannot be gifted to them.

Look. These fuckers rigged the game in 2020. They rigged the game in 2024. This is their prize. Congratulations! Sorry, no exchanges or returns. You made this tar baby–you’re stuck with it.

If the aforementioned obstacles force them to go with Biden or Harris, they will not meekly stand aside and watch their candidate go down in flames. No. They will open other fronts, no holds barred.

How?

For one–you think you’ve seen lawfare before? Just wait. Against Trump. Against the Republican Party. Against every election-related Republican public official. Against the voting rules in every state.

For another–vote fraud that would make Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley blush.

And I’m sure there are other ways that I am just not twisted enough to imagine. But they are.

The fact is, whatever path the Democrats end up taking it will involve colossal violations of the law and if they actually succeed in getting a Democrat inaugurated in January 2025 (note I said “inaugurated” not “elected”–with this lot those events do not completely overlap) said person will be completely, utterly illegitimate.

That is the real threat to our republican system of government. And that is the kind of thing that could actually spark a rebellion that descends into civil war.

I tend to shy away from apocalyptic predictions about impending civil war. But a party willing to do anything that is necessary to win (and the Democrats are) could truly cause one, especially when, as is the case now, what is necessary would involve gutting every law and norm that has kept partisan strife within reasonable, non-violent bounds for the last 160 years.

UMass-Amherst associate professor Isabella Weber is a darling of the Eurocrats (and presumably of Davos). Per her own telling, she is a superstar:

Her first book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate is the winner of the Joan Robinson Prize, the International Studies Association Best Interdisciplinary Book Award and the Keynes Price and has been recommended on best book of 2021 lists by the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Project Syndicate, ProMarket and Folha de S.Paulo among others. The book has been translated into five languages. Isabella has become a leading voice on policy responses to inflation and has advised policy makers in the United States and Germany on questions of price stabilization. For her public policy work she has been profiled in the New Yorker, recognized as one of TIME100 Next, Bloomberg’s 50 Ones to Watch, Germany’s 100 women of 2022 and Capital 40 under 40 and has been awarded the Kurt Rothschild Prize and the 2024 Hans-Matthöfer Prize. For her work on China’s market reforms she has won the International Convention of Asia Scholars’ Ground-breaking Subject Matter Accolade and the Warren Samuels Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in History of Economic Thought and Methodology. Isabella is an Open Society Foundations Ideas Fellow.

www.isabellaweber.com

She is also an idiot.

The evidence for this proposition is profuse: just look at any one of her opeds or articles. Rather than bore you with her corpus, I will just focus on one of her most recent retchings, on a subject that is clearly in one of my lanes–commodity storage, commodity prices, and speculation.

Weber and her co-authors Merle Schulken, Lena Bassermann, Lena Luig, Jan Urhahn (no changing names to protect the guilty on SWP!) recently released a “policy paper” called “Buffer Stocks Against Inflation.” (NB: “policy paper” is a tell for lack of rigor. The tell is quite accurate here). The Guardian shared Weber’s deep thoughts from the paper in a long article. (NB: another accurate tell).

The gravamen of the argument:

Weber’s new paper, published on Thursday, looks at how grain prices spiked in 2022 as Covid snagged supply chains and Russia invaded Ukraine. The price hikes helped to drive record profits for corporations while pushing inflation higher and increasing global hunger. In the paper, Weber and colleagues call for the creation of buffer stocks of grain that could be released during shortages or emergencies to ease price pressures.

The Guardian.

And what is the root of this volatility? Can you say speculation? I knew you could:

Speculation causes prices to swing wildly even though the prices are often detached from the physical reality of the commodity. While Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion led to temporary local threats of physical grain shortages, the global supply of grain always remained well above levels to meet demand in the medium term, the paper notes.

The Guardian

The need for a government-run storage system presumes that private storage is inadequate or inefficiently small. Of course Weber et al don’t even attempt to demonstrate this. And no, volatility–including extreme price movements like those following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is not sufficient to demonstrate inadequate storage.

Optimal storage is the solution to a dynamic optimization problem. This solution frequently involves “stockouts” when storage is drawn down to near zero. Prices tend to be highly volatile in such circumstances. Recent events in the cocoa market are a near textbook illustration of this. This is a characteristic of an efficient market, though it is all too often taken (by people such as Weber) as prima facie evidence of inefficiency. If you say that, you are betraying your ignorance.

These episodes can be avoided only by holding excessive stocks. This is wasteful because (a) storage is costly, and (b) it means that some resources that are produced are never consumed. Paying money to hold something you never use (and which was costly to produce) is obviously dumb.

Insofar as uncertainty is concerned, inventories are a form of economic shock absorber. Efficient, competitive storage depends on the amount of underlying economic uncertainty. In chapter 5 of my book on storage I show that higher fundamental uncertainty leads to greater storage. Indeed, this model shows that the kind of price movements Weber bewails actually reflect efficient storage decisions.

Specifically, the invasion of Ukraine clearly increased economic uncertainty. The rational response to this is to increase storage of commodities (including corn and wheat) affected by this uncertainty. The only way to increase storage is to reduce consumption. Therefore, the increase of uncertainty alone caused an increase in price over and above the effect of the invasion on output or trade. This creates the outsized price movements that give Weber and her ilk the vapors.

Weber also seems to overlook the fact that government stocks are substitutes for private stocks, and that increased government stockholding will result in decreased private storage. Meaning that government stocks are bigger than the amount by which such a policy increases stocks.

Government stockholding also injects a new form of uncertainty into the market. Private stockholders have to forecast what the government stock policy decisions will be. When will they accumulate stocks? When will they release them? Will the decision be driven by economics or politics? If the latter, political uncertainty is an important consideration. And it could have particularly detrimental impacts on private stockholding. The main benefit of holding stocks is the ability to sell them at a high price under tight supply and demand conditions. Release of excessive stocks by the government during such conditions seriously undermines the incentive for private entities to hold stocks.

There is actually rigorous economic analysis of public storage by actual economists, Brian Wright and Jeffrey C. Williams. They show that public storage can be efficiency enhancing if there is some other sort of “market failure.” Ironically, the market failure that Wright and Williams focused on was . . . government policy, namely price controls. Irony alert! Weber is a BIG booster of price controls.

Wright and Williams also show that the details of government policy and uncertainty about them plague such schemes. One important point that they make is that government storage policies are subject to time inconsistency problems (a la the important work of Kynland and Prescott in the ’70s) (also referred to as subgame imperfection). That is, a government may design an efficient policy but cannot commit to it. Under some circumstances the government will find it desirable (for it!) to deviate from the policy. Thus, the abstract existence of an optimal policy does not mean that it can be implemented in practice. Moreover, trying to figure out when time inconsistency is going to kick in is a source of uncertainty that feeds back to private decisions.

Weber’s writing betrays no contaminating exposure to economic analysis like Wright and Williams’.

In Wealth of Nations Adam Smith pointed out some of the irrationality of government policies regarding storage. In the laws he discussed, English governments thought that private traders were holding excessive stocks, and punished such “hoarders” and “engrossers.” Which obviously undermined the incentive to accumulate inventories in the first place.

Yes, these policies are different from the one that Weber advocates, but they illustrate how political forces lead to highly destructive interference in storage decisions.

Insofar as speculation is concerned, all I can say is: “Really? Not this shit again.” The title of an article wrote in Regulation 14 years ago summarizes Weber to a “T”: “No Theory? No Evidence? No Problem!”

Weber has no theory of how speculation distorts prices or causes excessive volatility. She has no evidence that it does. But no problem! She blames it anyways.

I guess she is proving her green credentials by recycling discredited ideas.

Ironically, Weber does not discuss a prominent example of her preferred policy–Chinese state reserves of commodities like corn, cotton, and pork. To say that his has been like most centrally-planned schemes–that is, an unmitigated cluster-F–would be an understatement. For example, and I hope you are sitting down for this, corn goes bad when you store it too long: in the past China ended up holding vast stocks of dodgy corn. I could go on.

You’d think that a policy paper would include analysis of the recommended policy in practice. In Weber’s case, you’d be wrong.

Looking at Weber’s corpus you will see that all of the disqualifying defects described above are rife. She is a sworn enemy of markets, but her analyses betray zero careful analysis of how markets actually work, or what causes their problems. She is a huge fan girl of government intervention, but never contemplates the possibility of government failure, being instead a slave to the Nirvana Fallacy.

Her latest work on storage is arguably a minor sin compared to some of her other transgressions against good economics. Most notably, she is a major advocate of comprehensive price controls as a means of controlling inflation.

One would not be wrong to call her Gosplan Girl.*

But of course this is why she is a rock star in Brussels. EU bureaucrats run the gamut from dirigistes to full on commies, and gobble up her garbage like it is going out of style.

Which, unfortunately, it is not. Which is why the EU is a stagnant economic wreck which will only get worse if it embraces the deep thoughts of Isabella Weber.

*Izabella Kaminska at The Blind Spot pointed out the Gosplan analogy to me.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Hosea, 8:7

Those words came to mind in the immediate aftermath of the Trump verdict in New York. For it is clear that baleful and long-lived consequences will flow from a trial and conviction that transgressed legal boundaries and common decency: while following it, I was wondering if Judge Merchan was striving to set the record for reversible errors and violations of a defendant’s rights.

Yes, an ill wind has been sown. Who shall reap the whirlwind?

The Biblical quotation suggests that the sowers are the reapers. It is indeed possible that the Democrats generally and the Biden administration specifically will reap in November what they sowed in May (and in fact for many, months before that, and it many places beyond New York): the decision has sparked outrage, and not just among Trump’s existing supporters, or Republicans. But it remains to be seen whether this outrage will outweigh the burden of running for president as a “convicted felon.”

Alas, I believe the entire country will reap what the regime and its apparatchiks have sown, and for many years to come. The by-any-means-necessary use of lawfare has violated all pre-existing norms, and has set a precedent that will cast a shadow over American politics forevermore. There is no going back.

America is now channeling Peruvian dictator R. Benavides: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law!” 

I was always astonished that during the Trump impeachment circuses that the Democrats smugly believed that this could not be used against them. They are similarly smug in their belief that they are immune from the type of lawfare they have waged since Trump left office.

Yes, their entrenchment in the deep, middle, and shallow states (to use the insightful desription of Jeffrey Tucker) does provide some immunity. But once a weapon has been unsheathed by one side, it is inevitable that the other will take it up as well.

2020s Lawfare will be to American politics what poison gas was to combat in WWI.

Lawfare–and especially the weaponization of criminal law–makes politics existential. All restraints are lifted in existential conflicts. We can only go downhill from here.

One of the things that really irked me about the Caesar bio show that I wrote about last week was the lionization of Cato. In fact, Cato was as responsible, and indeed arguably chiefly responsible, for the fall of the Republic which he claimed he was defending against tyranny precisely because he and his faction waged lawfare against their political enemy Caesar, and thereby made politics existential.

Caesar crossed the Rubicon with an army because Cato had ensured that his freedom and perhaps his life were in grave legal jeopardy if he crossed without one. Cato made politics existential for Caesar: Caesar understood that he could continue to exist only by waging civil war. Cato sowed the wind. He, but more importantly all of Rome, reaped the whirlwind.

And that’s where we are now.

The bitter irony is that a common criticism of Trump is that he transgresses American democratic norms. Most of this is in the fevered imagination of his enemies: most of his norm violations have come merely from running his big mouth. That pales in comparisons to the violations of political and legal norms that have become commonplace in the lawfare waged not just against him, but against many in his orbit, and many outside it who have had the temerity to challenge the regime.

Words can’t hurt you: legal sticks and stones certainly can. And if one side picks them up, the other side will inevitably do so.

It is also sickly ironic that a bogus charge of “election interference” (bogus because no actual legal violation of Federal election law was properly charged, and New York has no jurisdiction over this law regardless) is being used to engage in the most flagrant attempt in American history to manipulate a national election.

This betrays a deep insecurity among Biden and the Democrats. A confident president and party would not feel it necessary to stoop to such devices.

Exactly where we go from here is unknown. But it is clear that we are entering an era of existential politics. Such a politics inevitably descends into conflict, chaos, and violence. And frequently to civil war. And when future generations look back, they will know exactly who to blame, and to when the Time of Troubles began.

I watched a three part BBC show about Julius Caesar with low expectations. Give credit to the BBC–they not only met but exceeded them!

I figured that it would use Caesar’s story to give Big Lessons about the dangers of populism in the West, and in particular about the mortal threat to “democracy” posed by Trump. Call me Carnac the Magnificent.

Most of the talking heads (not all) repeatedly intoned that Caesar demonstrates the dangers populism poses to democracy. The irony about all this pontificating and chin pulling in the telling of a historical story was its utterly ahistorical content.

Yes, of course Caesar applied a death blow to the Roman Republic. But to take up the story in the 50s-40s BC and insinuate that Caesar was a sui generis destroyer is a complete distortion of history. Caesar just delivered the coup de grâce to a dying republic. He was far more of a symptom of its terminal decay than its cause.

The Republic had been disintegrating for at least 100 years. The Gracchi brothers–the proto-populists in Roman history–were completely unmentioned in the BBC program, as was their fate. The supposedly virtuous Senate was so threatened by Tiberius Grachhus’ attempts to empower the great unwashed populace that they beat him to death with chair legs and stones. His brother was also assassinated by the Senatorial elite some years later when he attempted the same.

And even if you say, well, Tiberius flouted Roman political norms (e.g., by attempting to stand for re-election as a Tribune in order to circumvent Senatorial attempts to stymie his legislation), that only shows that these norms were cracking long before Caesar arrived on the scene.

Also completely missing from the narrative was Sulla. Sulla who had become dictator decades before Caesar. Sulla who had marched on Rome, not just once, but twice. Sulla who had killed thousands of political enemies in his Proscriptions. (Caesar’s main criticism of Sulla is that he gave up the dictatorship. Notably Caesar did not engage in such bloodletting when he became dictator, though after his assassination Marc Antony and Octavian did).

Particularly ironic is that Sulla engaged in these autocratic acts to empower the Optimates faction that the BBC talking heads adore, and to crush the Populares that Caesar represented and the talking heads deplore. (Caesar had been on Sulla’s proscription list, but was spared after appeals by family and friends).

The omission of the Gracchi and Sulla is particularly stunning given the talking heads’ frequent paeans to “democracy.” Uhm, Republican Rome was hardly democratic. Indeed, the Senatorial elite was extremely hostile–literally murderously hostile, as the Gracchi would tell you–to democracy, and to giving greater political power to the non-elite. The whole idea of an Optimates party was that the better thans should rule (hence the name), and that the people were a mob who needed to shut up and be ruled by their betters. The Gracchi attempted to give more power to the people, and were killed. The whole thrust of Sulla’s “reforms” were to reduce the political influence of the people, e.g., by sharply reducing the power of the Tribunate (which was intended to be the representative of the people). Meaning that if you favor the Republic of the Optimates, you are necessarily anti-democratic.

This entire context that is vital to understanding Caesar, populism in Rome in the mid-first century BC, and the civil war in which Caesar eventually prevailed. Caesar was popular among the masses precisely because Rome was profoundly undemocratic, ruled by an oligarchic elite that was hell-bent on maintaining its power (in large part due to its belief in its own superior virtue and intellect) and depriving the people of power. And the people resented this.

So you can make arguments for and against Caesar, but one thing one cannot do and retain a shred of intellectual credibility is to assert that Caesar’s enemies–Cato and the Optimates–were the defenders of democracy, and that Caesar was the enemy thereof. Caesar was a threat to a self-styled republic that limited power to a highly narrow oligarchic elite convinced of its own superiority, and which disdained the hoi polloi. Yes, Caesar was probably cynical in his appeal to the masses, but in doing so he was not destroying democracy. He was destroying an oligarchy.

And that’s no doubt why the talking heads and those who take them seriously are so threatened by Trump and other “populists.” For the talking heads and their confreres are part of an oligarchic elite convinced of its own superiority, and which disdains the hoi polloi. And which is tremendously insecure in the face of broad popular discontent–which is itself the product of the manifest failures of an “elite.”

Once one understands this, one can also understand the what has to be the deliberately de-contextualized, ahistorical telling of the Caesar story. Because a full and honest telling would hit far too close to home.

So what is instructive for modern politics in this program is not the lesson the talking heads attempt to impart; it is that they are so keen to try to impart it. The late Republic rhymes with current western politics (far more than the late Empire does), but not for the reason that the BBC et al express, namely that Caesar is an avatar for Trump, but because the first century BC Optimates are avatars for a failed and flailing 21st century elite.

It’s hard to say which of the talking heads is most annoying, but my choice would be British politician Rory Stewart. If he had a time machine, he’d use it to go back to 50 BC so he could get a room with Cato. (I made that as clean as I could!) But he is merely the most condescendingly clueless of a group so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realize that a more accurate telling of the history that they presume to relate would condemn them as much or more than they condemn their bêtes noires Julius Caesar and Donald Trump.

A weird and disturbing story out of Carthage, North Carolina. A Chechen, living in Chicago (but an illegal immigrant–go figure!) was shot dead by a Delta Force colonel on the colonel’s property. (NB: there are very few colonels in Delta Force. In fact, there may only be one: 1st SFOD-D (D for Delta) commander is a colonel’s billet. So this may have been the commander of Delta Force).

The narrative–pushed by the dead guy’s family and various anti-American sources–is that the deceased Mr. Daraev was but a Dreamer, trying to start a new life in America, innocently and diligently doing his work, gunned down by a trigger happy American special operator.

To start with, yes, if a Delta Force guy pulls the trigger on you, you will almost certainly be dead. But they aren’t trigger happy. In fact, they are the most disciplined soldiers on the planet. If they pull the trigger on you it is because you need to be dead. Stat. Fuck around with them and find out. In the worst way possible.

There are so many absurdities in Dreamer Daraev’s cover story. He supposedly worked for a contractor for a utility company, and was photographing to document work he had completed on a power line adjacent to the DF guy’s property.

But:

Daraev did not have any utility equipment, utility clothing or identification during the time of the shooting. 

Moreover, the company he allegedly worked for was formed only in December, 2023. It is foreign-owned, but operates out of New Jersey. What North Carolina utility would hire a new company from out of state to bring down an illegal immigrant all the way from Chicago to work on its lines? Is this just another job Americans won’t do?  

But it gets better! The company is owned by a Moldovan (!) whose previous occupations include dishwasher, and a business that sold ice. In Alaska. (Whether to Eskimos the news reports don’t say).

Yeah. That’s who I’d turn to to work on my power lines in the southern pines.

Chechnya. Moldova. Is your Spider Sense tingling?

Journalists (including Jen Griffin at Fox) have contacted the company repeatedly, and I’m sure you’ll be shocked–shocked!–to learn that it didn’t answer the phone or respond to email.  Probably because Mr. Moldova ain’t around to answer it anymore. 

Uhm, has anybody contacted the utility to see whether it actually hired an out-of-state fly by night company to work for it?  With all the concerns about infrastructure security–including from Russian threats–it would be gob smacking if it did. Hell, it takes more than five months for companies to approve new contractors at all.  

Have no fear though! The government is on it:

The incident has been reported to the U.S. Department of Labor as well as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

This follows other incidents, including an attempt by two Jordanian illegal immigrants to access the Marine base at Quantico–something that the military tried to cover up–as well as numerous other attempted incursions on CONUS bases by Chinese nationals.

Chechens working for an almost certain Russian cutout stalking American special operators on American soil is extremely disturbing. Even more disturbing is the cone of silence over this event. It almost seems like the administration doesn’t want you to notice!

And you know it doesn’t because it signals a complete breakdown in security facilitated by a complete collapse of the national borders.

At least this story has a happy ending. The next one may not.

The estimable Francis Menton has noted repeatedly that the “energy transition” has set loose upon the world a host of innumerates who assure us that they know best when in fact they know less than nothing. And perhaps to coin a phrase, I would add that they are ineconimate, i.e., know nothing about economics. Arrogance and ignorance is a lethal combination. Such people will make us poor, and likely shivering in the dark.

Alas, the mind eating virus has even infected many who were once sensible, or at least periodically sensate or sentient. Such as the FT’s Tim Harford. (I am guessing that the brain eating ameobae at the FT have finally gotten to him.)

Harford wrote that instead of saying “I could’ve had a V8” 40 years ago, we should have said “I could’ve subsidized solar and then all our energy and climate problems would have been already solved.”

In a nutshell, Harford invokes learning by doing, which he refers to as Wright’s Law in honor of an aeronautical engineer in the 1930s who first identified this phenomenon. It has since been documented in numerous other areas, starting probably with Liberty Ships in WWII.

Yes, LBD is a thing. It has been part of the theory of economic growth since at least the 1970s, starting most notably with Paul David’s work on the antebellum cotton spinning industry in the US, and earlier than that even with work by Kenneth Arrow. Robert Lucas taught about it in the economic growth undergraduate (!) course I took as a small child at Chicago in 1981, FFS. (What a privilege and experience it was to be in that course.) I was so taken by the subject that my paper for George Stigler’s economic policy course in 1982 (when he won the Nobel Prize) examined empirically learning by doing at the Springfield and Harpers Ferry Arsenals prior to 1860. It’s hardly a new idea, or an unexplored one.

Alas, there are numerous problems with Harford’s application of LBD/Wright’s Law to solar.

One issue is: who is to say that the highly touted reductions in the cost of solar aren’t due to LBD?

That is, since cumulative output in solar panels has indeed increased dramatically over the years, learning would presumably have taken place and that plausibly accounts for some of the cost reductions. Harford himself says “PV is now so cheap that the question is moot.” So, perhaps LBD did its work.

Empirical evidence would be nice. And at most what Harford is saying is that we could have learned earlier. But if the learning has taken place (as evidenced by it being “so cheap”), albeit belatedly, solar should be taking over the world now, without subsidies, right?

Further, if Harford really means that too little learning has taken place, or it has occurred too late, then that would require (a) externalities/spillovers in learning, (b) the large subsidies to solar (which Harford pooh-poohs) were in fact too small and/or too late to generate the right amount of learning at the right time, and (c) market participants were unaware of the spillovers and did not take obvious steps to internalize them. He provides support for none of these.

With respect to externalities, it is not obvious that LBD effects are largely external to firms. Firms may be able to keep the benefits of their experience largely to themselves. To the extent they are internalized, there is no rationale for subsidies, and competitive firms will treat current production in part as an investment in future lower costs and expand output accordingly without need for government support or protection.

(NB. Non-compete agreements may be one way firms attempt to keep the benefits of experience internalized. I will soon write a post on the idiocy of the FTC’s ban of such agreements.)

I have analyzed LBD in the US shale sector in detail. I have found extensive learning effects, but the evidence for learning spillovers is weak. A firm’s own experience contributes more to its productivity than collective industry experience. This is evidence that learning is internalized.

Further, firms respond rationally to spillovers–by trying to internalize them. Mergers, consolidation, and concentration are means of internalizing learning. I note that consolidation is coming to shale only after more than a decade after the industry dramatically increased output and drilling experience.

In shale, it is plausible that much of the learning is done by service firms who internalize the benefits. Thus, even to the extent that industry experience explains productivity improvement, to the extent that service firms who, well, service the industry are the ones who generate this learning, these industry experience effects may be internalized as well.

That is, just because there is learning by doing, doesn’t necessarily mean that there are learning spillovers of the type that justify subsidies (or tariffs) to increase output (and hence learning). And if there are, there are strong economic incentives to internalize them. And if there aren’t, there’s no justification for subsidization. (David’s work on the cotton industry addressed the question of whether tariffs to stimulate domestic cotton cloth output were justified because of learning spillovers.)

All of these factors undercut the argument that the PV industry learned too little, too late. Where is the evidence that PV is unlike shale, and characterized by large learning spillovers which industry participants did not attempt to internalize through merger or other means? (I would also like to highlight the irony that Harford’s argument would imply that shale, for which there is actual evidence of LBD, should have been subsidized decades ago.)

Harford also has a myopic focus on PV cost, and fails to consider the total cost of renewables, including solar. Like other renewables, solar has intermittency and diffusiveness problems. Moreover, it has large and predictable output fluctuations (e.g., the “duck curve” problem in which solar output plunges when the sun starts to set). Due to these inherent features, useful solar will require beyond revolutionary innovations in battery technology (something Menton has analyzed in detail) that are not anywhere on the horizon.

(I note that battery technology has been the subject of massive research. It has also experienced tremendous growth in cumulative output, which has presumably contributed to learning. Yet it is nowhere even close to being an economical way to address output variability for renewables.)

Word to the wise: we are not going to be able to learn our way out of the sun rising, and more importantly setting. Or out of rain, clouds, and hailstorms. Or out of voracious needs for land to site renewables. Or out of the difficulties of disposing defunct panels.

Solar is part of a complex energy system. The cost of solar panels is actually among the least important aspects of the cost of relying on solar as a source of energy.

And talk about hindsight. Harford laments our failure to gaze into the distant future and foresee with precision the obsession with CO2 and climate change, and supersize solar panel output in time to provide cheap solar power when those obsessions became manifest. Yeah, and I should have invested in Apple when Harford says we should have subsidized solar. Or Bitcoin in 2013.

In sum, Harford’s woulda, coulda, shoulda lament in the FT is yet another example–as if more were needed–of the intellectual vacuity of those hyping the “energy transition.” Harford invokes a respectable economic concept–learning by doing–but does so in a superficial way that betrays a complete lack of understanding of it. And in a way that also betrays a lack of understanding of the real challenges of transforming an extremely complex energy system. Cheap solar panels may be a necessary condition for a cheap transition, but it’s hardly a sufficient one, or indeed, even likely an important one.

Alas, learning by doing doesn’t appear to apply in the writing of newspaper columns.