Look, I, like you, heard about how terrible the aftermath of WWI was, and how broke people were right after, and how they were moving to cities and living in tenements. It wasn’t until I was reading a book about the between the war period in England that I realized they were telling me TWO stories which couldn’t both have happened. In the part about the common folk, they were telling me how much poorer they were than before the war. In the part about the great families, they were telling me how the huge rise of the middle class and the building of suburbs had hurt them, and how the newly rich common folk no longer wanted to be servants.
That was one of those “wait a minute.” Sure I was taught both things in school, but you know you write down the bullet point for the test, and that’s it. Now I was going “Who the heck wrote these narratives and why doesn’t anyone question them?”
The truth, btw, from going to primary sources is closer to the second. And the people who wrote the narrative were the unseated noblemen, who did not like all these nouveau riche but who wanted to justify their disgust by showing how it hurt the poor. (It did increase the underclass somewhat, not because of economic conditions, but because a lot of men don’t integrate well after war, and well, WWI was something special by way of trauma.)
There are tons of these when you start poking. For instance the idea that the industrial revolution was unremittingly bad for the poor/people. Looking at China and India and such places right now, all I can do is roll my eyes.
Yeah, sure, the conditions of the early industrial revolution were appalling. And yet people crowded to the cities to take these jobs. What the historians never ask themselves is “How much worse was what they were escaping from?” We know that in India and China and other recently industrialized countries.
Sure the countryside has relatively clean air and more open space, but there are still real famines, and the work was unremitting and brutal and yes, little children worked too (says the daughter of middle class in a rural community whose first “job” was weeding the onion patch at five. And I was a pampered moppet. Kids my age from farming families had what we’d call full time jobs. Factory jobs at least had a stopping time.)
The idea that the industrial revolution was awful comes from upper class historians who could see the little kids twisted by working in the mills but who never consorted closely enough with the rural poor to see the misery behind raising baah lambs and the pretty pretty flowers.
Yeah. So the past isn’t written in stone. And it’s not a conspiracy. Not precisely a conspiracy. Yeah, sure, the Marxists influenced a lot of modern history with their ideas, but that is not necessarily conspiring. They view the world a certain way and it influences how they view the past too.
Sarah Hoyt, “How Do You Know?”, According to Hoyt, 2016-08-24.
May 9, 2018
QotD: The “you can’t get good help” period after WW1
May 8, 2018
QotD: Pay inequality
It probably doesn’t come as news that airline companies pay pilots more than cabin crew — but according to the dogma of the gender wage gap, we’re supposed to find this fact troubling. The British government now requires companies to report their raw gender gap — that is, the difference in the median hourly wages earned by their male and female employees. Ignoring occupational differences, seniority, employment history, hours worked, or any of the countless other factors affecting salaries, these data are misleading at best. Nevertheless, when budget airline EasyJet reported a 51 percent pay gap between its male and female employees, the company knew that its reputation perched on the edge of a PR abyss.
And that’s the whole point of the exercise: simplify statistics to shock people at the seeming injustice done to women and shame companies into action; refuse to compare similar job functions; ignore the fact that, like every other airline, EasyJet’s pilots are disproportionately male, while their cabin crews skew female; forget that almost all carriers compete for the same 4 percent of the world’s female pilots; and whatever you do, don’t mention that the EasyJet CEO, who was in charge of this bigoted organization and also its highest-paid employee until retiring earlier this year, was a woman. The company should be branded with a scarlet “51 percent” until it … does what? Cuts pilots’ pay? Hikes the salaries of female cabin crew? Hires male attendants instead of female? Goes bankrupt?
Kay S. Hymowitz, “Equal Pay Myths: Activists for wage parity ignore stubborn truths”, City Journal, 2018-04-09.
May 5, 2018
QotD: Making decisions for other people’s “best interests”
Confession: ever since I began to study economics as an 18-year old, I’ve always had difficulty understanding the thought processes of people who fancy themselves fit to intervene into the affairs of other adults in ways that will improve the lives of other adults as judged by these other adults. I understand the desire to help others, and I also understand that individuals often err in the pursuit of their own best interests. What I don’t understand is Jones’s presumption that he, who is a stranger to Smith, can know enough to force Smith to modify his behavior in ways that will improve Smith’s long-term well-being. Honestly, such a presumption has struck me for all of my adult life as being so preposterous as to be inexplicable. I cannot begin to get my head around it.
I cannot get my head around Jones’s presumption that he knows enough to forcibly prohibit Smith from working for an hourly wage lower than one that Jones divines is best for Smith. I cannot understand Jones’s presumption that he ‘knows’ that Smith meant, but somehow failed, to bargain for family leave in her employment contract. I am utterly befuddled by Jones’s presumption to know that the pleasure that Smith gets from smoking cigarettes is worth less to Smith than is the cost that Smith pays to smoke cigarettes. I cannot fathom why Jones presumes that he knows better than does Smith how Smith should educate her children.
Yet this presumption is possessed by many, perhaps even most, people. Why?
Don Boudreaux, “A Pitch for Humility”, Café Hayek, 2016-08-05.
April 29, 2018
QotD: Impostor Syndrome
… the list of people who sometimes worry about being uncovered as an impostor is as impressive as it is long. Having to live with a nagging fear of being “found out” as not being as smart or talented or deserving or experienced or (fill-in-the-blank) as people think is a common phenomenon. So common, in fact, that the term “Impostor Syndrome” was coined to describe it back in the 1980’s. Indeed, researchers believe that up to 70% of people have suffered from it at some point. Myself included.
Apart from serial narcissists, super low achievers and outright crazies, no one is immune to the self-doubt that feeds Impostor Syndrome. But what matters most is not whether we occasionally (or regularly) fear failing, looking foolish or not being ‘whatever enough’; it’s whether we give those fears the power to keep us from taking the actions needed to achieve our goals and highest aspirations. Unfortunately, too often people do just that.
Impostor Syndrome is the domain of the high achiever. Those who set the bar low are rarely its victim. So if you are relating to what I’m sharing, then pat yourself on the back because it’s a sure sign that you aren’t ready to settled into the ranks of mediocrity. Rather, you’re likely to be a person who aims high and is committed to giving your very best to whatever endeavour you set your sights upon. A noble aim to be sure.
But giving your best is not the same as being the best. Likewise, there’s a distinct difference between trying to better yourself and being better than every one else. Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome requires self-acceptance: you don’t have to attain perfection or mastery to be worthy of the success you’ve achieved and any accolades you earn along the way. It’s not about lowering the bar, it’s about resetting it to a realistic level that doesn’t leave you forever striving and feeling inadequate. You don’t have to be Einstein to be a valuable asset to your organization and to those around you. Nor do you have to attain perfection to share something with the world that enriches people’s lives in some way.
Margie Warrell, “Afraid Of Being ‘Found Out?’ How To Overcome Impostor Syndrome”, Forbes, 2014-04-03.
April 23, 2018
April 10, 2018
Structural Unemployment
Marginal Revolution University
Published on 8 Nov 2016Unemployment comes in many forms. Sometimes, like we saw with short-term, frictional unemployment, it can actually indicate a healthy, growing economy. But what about persistent, long-term unemployment? That’s not so good.
When a large percentage of those who are considered unemployed have been without a job for a long period of time and this has been true for many years, it’s considered structural unemployment.
Structural unemployment can result from shocks to an economy that drastically alter the labor market. These shocks are not all bad – the rise of the Internet is one such example. Regardless, it can take a while for an economy to adjust to big changes.
These adjustments tend to happen faster in the United States than in Europe. This is most likely due to differences in labor regulations, and how those regulations affect a country’s ability to respond to shocks.
The United States’ employment law known as the “at-will doctrine” makes it so that an employee can quit, or an employer can fire, at any time for any reason. It’s legally much harder to terminate an employee in many European countries. This makes hiring riskier in Europe, resulting in a less dynamic labor market that isn’t able to quickly respond to shocks.
As you might guess, structural unemployment tends to count for a higher percentage of total unemployment in Europe than in the United States. This remains one of the most serious issues facing many European economies today.
March 31, 2018
QotD: Workshops and how to avoid them
Kingsley Amis, a man whom, for reasons neither interesting nor publishable, I did not much admire, once said that the word “workshop” summed up all that was wrong with the modern world. He was right, and his comment was both shrewd and prescient. Courses, conferences, away-days, workshops, team-building weekends – they’re all part of the same pathology, and they’ve spread like bacteria on agar gel.
With a regularity bordering on the boring, from many sources, I receive flyers offering me courses to improve myself. I am far from supposing that I cannot improve or be improved, but most of these courses seem more designed to relieve me of money than anything else. They come with pictures of the course leaders (or trainers), happy and smiling and, to my eyes at least, deeply crooked.
A learned journal to which I subscribe always arrives with invitations to courses and conferences. Some, naturally, are of interest: those given by people who are acknowledged experts in their field, and who will provide a convenient digest of the latest research in it. But a high proportion of them are about what one might call para-work: activity that has nothing, or something only very tangential, to do with the ostensible aims of one’s profession.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Workshops and why you must avoid them”, The Social Affairs Unit, 2009-11-18.
March 20, 2018
March 16, 2018
Mostly Weekly Series Finale: Creative Destruction
ReasonTV
Published on 14 Mar 2018In the final episode of the webseries, we tackle how markets make and break stuff.
—–
In free and open markets people are able to make new technologies and business models, which displace older, established ones. That process of starting new companies and jobs destroys some professions while creating others.
It’s entirely understandable that people who lose their jobs want to keep them. But industries like manufacturing, coal mining, and mall retailers aren’t dying out because of competition from China, they’re being outmoded by automation, cheaper fuel sources, and online sales.
Despite the uncertainty that markets bring, they also create new jobs and entirely new professions. There aren’t gangs of unemployed lamplighters roaming the land; their descendants became Uber drivers, social media coordinators, and webseries producers.
In the end, it’s better for everyone to look at the world as it is and to move forward than to try and halt progress through the force of law.
Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind.
Script by Andrew Heaton and Sarah Rose Siskind with writing assistance from Brian Sack.
Edited by Austin Bragg and Sarah Rose Siskind.
Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.
March 14, 2018
Ontario’s tax dollars at work
At Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Frances Woolley shows the picture that will define Ontario politics for years to come:
In Ontario, public sector employees earn more than private sector employees. Many workers in the private sector earn the minimum wage, or only slightly above minimum wage. The peak of the public sector earnings distribution is much higher, at twenty-something dollars per hour, and there are a good number of public sector workers earning $40 or $50 an hour.
There are many things missing from this picture. Most importantly, it excludes highly-paid self-employed professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants, as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. It also excludes self-employed people in the trades, such as plumbers, electricians and contractors. The numbers are non-trivial: 13 percent of Ontario workers are self-employed. A good chunk of the upper part of the private sector earnings distribution is missing from the picture. On the other hand, the hourly wage distribution above excludes non-wage benefits that are more common in the public than the private sector, such as employer contributions to health insurance and pension plans.
Furthermore, the picture does not take into account the differences in the nature of work in the public and private sector. Many public sector jobs, such as nursing, social work, and teaching, require relatively high levels of skill and education. There are private sector jobs that require skill and education as well – but, as noted earlier, many of those jobs are carried out by self-employed professionals, so are not in the graph.
Even noting the exclusions, it’s striking that the old trade-off between public and private sector jobs — that civil servants got lower pay but better benefits and job security — has long since ceased to function. Civil servants, on the whole, now get higher pay than private sector workers, but have retained or even improved the benefits advantage over their private counterparts … and also still retain the job security that private workers can only dream of.
March 12, 2018
The pesky and persistent gap between what men earn and what women earn
Tim Worstall responds to yet another Guardian article decrying the difference in earnings for men and women:
There is a gender earnings gap in British – as with all others – society. The interesting question is what is causing it, the important one what we do about it. The answers being, in turn, children and nothing.
This is not, you will note, the general direction of the political conversation. It does have the merit of being true on both counts.
Take this finding that there are lots more highly paid men out there:
There are almost four times more men than women in Britain’s highest-paid posts, according to “scandalous” figures that show the extent of the glass ceiling blocking women from top jobs.
Government data reveals the huge disparity in the number of men and women with a six-figure income, fuelling concerns over the gender pay gap in the City and other professions.
There were 681,000 men earning £100,000 or more in 2015-16, according to new HMRC data. It compares with only 179,000 women. The latest figures show that 17,000 men earned £1m in 2015-16, while only 2,000 women did so.
Those numbers are true. There are more men earning higher incomes than there are women. This is the entire and whole driver of that gender pay gap – or what it actually is, a gender earnings gap. And what is the cause of this? As the TUC has pointed out [PDF]:
There is an overall gender pay gap of 34 per cent for this cohort of full-time workers who were born in 1970. This gap is largely due to the impact of parenthood on earnings – the women earning less and the men earning more after having children.
That really is just about all there is to it. It’s illegal, and has been for decades, to pay people differently based solely upon their gender. People doing the same job get the same pay by gender – there’re fortunes to be made dobbing in employers where this isn’t the case and we don’t see such dobbing in happening.
[…]
We can also point out that the true answer here is entirely in womens’ hands. Granny knew how to manage G-Pops, Lysistrata shows the Ancient Greeks got the point. If the only way men got nookie and or children was by being house husbands then there wouldn’t be a gender earnings gap, or it would run the other way. That women don’t strike for this – perhaps that not enough do – shows that this might well not be what women actually want.
OK, maybe not in womens’ hands but certainly in their control….
March 8, 2018
Frictional Unemployment
Marginal Revolution University
Published on 1 Nov 2016Finding a job can be kind of like dating. When a new graduate enters the labor market, she may have the opportunity to enter into a long-term relationship with several companies that aren’t really a good fit. Maybe the pay is too low or the future opportunities aren’t great. Before settling down with the right job, this person is still considered unemployed. Specifically, she’s experiencing frictional unemployment.
In the United States’ dynamic economy, this is a common state of short-term unemployment. Companies are often under high levels of competition and frequently evolve. They go out of business or have to lay off workers. Or maybe the worker quits to find a better position. In fact, millions of separations and new hires occur every month accompanied by short periods of unemployment.
Frictional unemployment helps allocate human capital (i.e. workers) to its highest valued use. Hopefully, workers are similarly finding themselves with more fulfilling jobs. Even when it’s caused by an event such as a firm going out of business, frictional unemployment is a normal part of a healthy, growing economy.
March 6, 2018
Real estate reality may finally be changing minds in Silicon Valley
I’ve never lived in Silicon Valley, and my one vist there was over 25 years ago — but even then, I thought the real estate market was far higher than it should have been. The sale of a tiny house in Sunnyvale (for $2 million or $2,358 per square foot) is symbolic of real estate values all around the area, as the stories get told of new employees living in their cars because even on six-figure salaries, they can’t afford to buy or even rent near where they work. Iowahawk linked to a New York Times article which shows that some movers and shakers acknowledge that Silicon Valley has a serious problem:
Silicon Valley execs devise strategy to solve Silicon Valley affordable housing crisis: GTFO of Silicon Valleyhttps://t.co/MlRDfqJWbD
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
If there was ever an industry that had no reason to be concentrated in one geographic location, it's software tech.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
In 95% of the American landmass, this is a $75,000 house. (ht @rdmcghee)https://t.co/sv8pwNS0g1
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
I mean, I can kind of understand expensive housing in NY or SF, but Silicon Valley? It has all the excitement of Dubuque, at Monaco prices
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
"I'm only 1 hour from the mountains and beaches!" – Silicon Valley drone coding at 2 AM to pay his $2 million house trailer mortgage
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
March 2, 2018
Defining the Unemployment Rate
Marginal Revolution University
Published on 18 Oct 2016How is unemployment defined in the United States?
If someone has a job, they’re defined as “employed.” But does that mean that everyone without a job is unemployed? Not exactly.
A minor without a job isn’t unemployed. Someone who has been incarcerated also isn’t counted. A retiree, too, does not count toward the unemployment rate.
For the official statistics, you have to meet quite a few criteria to be considered unemployed in the U.S. For instance, if you’re without a job, but have actively looked for work in the past four weeks, you are considered unemployed.
In times of recession, when people are faced with long-term unemployment and lots of discouragement, the official rate might not count some of the people that you would otherwise consider unemployed.
This video will give you a clear picture of how the unemployment rate is defined and build a foundation for further understanding this important facet of labor markets.
February 27, 2018
Many Americans feel that the elites have “betrayed and abandoned them for a mess of virtue signaling and glib ideologizing”
ESR on the fraught subject of US immigration policy:
Crime is a real issue. Legal immigrants have a slightly higher criminal propensity than the native born (the difference is small enough that its significance is disputed) but illegals’ propensity is much higher, to the point that 22% of all incarcerees are illegals (that’s 92% of all jailed immigrants).
But the elephant in the room is the impact of illegal immigration on social trust.
Diversity erodes social trust, trust being that extremely valuable form of social capital that enables people to make handshake deals, leave their doors unlocked, and trust institutions to treat them fairly. Sociologist Robert Putnam was so shocked to discover this that he sat on his results for seven years before publishing. In diverse communities trust drops not only between ethnolinguistic groups but within them. It’s insidious and very harmful – low-trust societies are bad, bad places to live.
The U.S. has a proud tradition of assimilating legal immigrants into a high-trust society, but it succeeds in this by making them non-diverse – teaching them to assimilate folk values and blend in. Putnam’s work suggests strongly that without the ability to rate-limit immigration to be within some as yet undetermined maximum, the harm from erosion of trust would exceed the benefits of immigration.
We are probably above the optimal legal immigration rate – the highest compatible with avoiding net decrease in social trust over time – already (later in this post it will become obvious why I believe this). There is little doubt that we would greatly exceed it without immigration controls.
Anyway, even if ending border enforcement were a good idea (and I conclude that it is not, despite my libertarian reflexes) it’s a political nonstarter in the U.S. Trump got elected by appealing to sentiment against illegals, and beneath that is a phenomenon one might call Putnam backlash; everywhere outside a few blue-state enclaves, Americans sense the erosion of social trust and have connected it to illegal immigration.
And on the very strong divergence of opinion between the elite (very pro-immigration) and non-elite (becoming much more anti-immigration over time):
One of the major forces currently poisoning our politics is a breakdown in trust between people like you and me – the cognitive elites – and the rest of America. Deplorables. Flyover country. Brexit, and Trump’s election, slapped me upside the head. I’ve been forced to confront some uncomfortable truths.
They think we’ve betrayed and abandoned them for a mess of virtue signaling and glib ideologizing. On the left: identity politics, PC, and open borders justified on multiculturalist grounds. On the right: free trade and open borders justified on laissez-faire principle.
They have a point. I’m seeing that now.
I mean, I might still think free trade is a good idea and have lots of arguments for it. But my arguments don’t mean fuck-all to a Rust-Belt steelworker who’s watched his livelihood get exported and the community around him wither and has nothing left but a cheap high on opioids. Nor to an unskilled black or legal-immigrant urbanite who can’t get a job because the restaurants can hire illegals for cheaper.
We owe these people more than we have given them. What we owe can’t mainly be paid in money. It’s compassion; a fair hearing. Respect. Not dismissing them as trash or troglodytes because they don’t love the brave new globalized world that gives us options but – too often – closes off theirs.
I don’t have easy solutions to these problems. But is it too much to ask that people like you and me should stop being arrogant assholes about them?
