BEWARE: MONK FRUIT NONSUGAR SWEETENER RAISES INSULIN It is easy to find boosterish articles about monk fruit sweetener online like the article shown at the bottom of this post. By I worry that anything that raises insulin levels too much could lower blood sugar enough to induce hunger. That is the view I take in “ Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #14: A REPUBLIC CAN BE James Madison is incisive in his arguments in his numbers of the Federalist Papers. In the Federalist Papers #14, he argues that the United States would not be to large to be governed to a Congress of representatives meeting in one place. To show how he INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL AND UPLOADED HUMANS Interstellar Travel and Uploaded Humans. Many difficulties of space travel go away when human consciousnesses have already been translated into software. For example, “Suspended animation” is a simple matter of not running the software program and sticking with a copy. Even if the stored human consciousnesses are physically traveling on a FORGET CALORIE COUNTING; IT'S THE INSULIN INDEX, STUPID In my post "Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon" I explain why insulin is so central to obesity.In brief, among its many other effects insulin is an instruction to fat cells to take in blood sugar and turn it into stored fat. As a result, knowing the details of what ramps up your body's insulin production is much more helpful for weight loss than counting calories. REEXAMINING STEVE GUNDRY'S `THE PLANT PARADOX According to a study conducted by scientists at the University of Sao Paulo, boiling beans and other lectin-containing foods for 15 minutes is enough to eliminate almost all of the lectin content. If you use a pressure cooker you can achieve the same effect in WHICH NONSUGAR SWEETENERS ARE OK? AN INSULIN-INDEX In my view, one of the greatest steps forward for public health would be for people to get the message that sugar is very bad—worse than many other foods that people worry about. HOW FASTING CAN STARVE CANCER CELLS, WHILE LEAVING NORMAL Dr. Seyfried is a professor of biology at Boston College, who’s pretty well published.He’s also working in a field that has gained new respectability over the last five to ten years, namely cancer metabolism, mainly thanks to a rediscovery of what Otto Warburg discovered over 80 years ago. THE MEDIUM-RUN NATURAL INTEREST RATE AND THE SHORT-RUN Note: This post was the lead-up to my post “On the Great Recession.” After reading this one, I strongly recommend you take a look at that post. Online, both in the blogs and on Twitter, I see a lot of confusion about the natural interest rate. I think the main source of confusion is that there i ON JOHN LOCKE'S LABOR THEORY OF PROPERTY John Locke enunciates an intriguing principle to govern property rights in section 27 of his 2d Treatise on Government: “Of Civil Government” (Chapter V "Of Property"):. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say JOHN LOCKE ON WHY THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWER Schoolchildren in the US are taught about the division of the US government into three branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. BEWARE: MONK FRUIT NONSUGAR SWEETENER RAISES INSULIN It is easy to find boosterish articles about monk fruit sweetener online like the article shown at the bottom of this post. By I worry that anything that raises insulin levels too much could lower blood sugar enough to induce hunger. That is the view I take in “ Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #14: A REPUBLIC CAN BE James Madison is incisive in his arguments in his numbers of the Federalist Papers. In the Federalist Papers #14, he argues that the United States would not be to large to be governed to a Congress of representatives meeting in one place. To show how he INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL AND UPLOADED HUMANS Interstellar Travel and Uploaded Humans. Many difficulties of space travel go away when human consciousnesses have already been translated into software. For example, “Suspended animation” is a simple matter of not running the software program and sticking with a copy. Even if the stored human consciousnesses are physically traveling on a FORGET CALORIE COUNTING; IT'S THE INSULIN INDEX, STUPID In my post "Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon" I explain why insulin is so central to obesity.In brief, among its many other effects insulin is an instruction to fat cells to take in blood sugar and turn it into stored fat. As a result, knowing the details of what ramps up your body's insulin production is much more helpful for weight loss than counting calories. REEXAMINING STEVE GUNDRY'S `THE PLANT PARADOX According to a study conducted by scientists at the University of Sao Paulo, boiling beans and other lectin-containing foods for 15 minutes is enough to eliminate almost all of the lectin content. If you use a pressure cooker you can achieve the same effect in WHICH NONSUGAR SWEETENERS ARE OK? AN INSULIN-INDEX In my view, one of the greatest steps forward for public health would be for people to get the message that sugar is very bad—worse than many other foods that people worry about. HOW FASTING CAN STARVE CANCER CELLS, WHILE LEAVING NORMAL Dr. Seyfried is a professor of biology at Boston College, who’s pretty well published.He’s also working in a field that has gained new respectability over the last five to ten years, namely cancer metabolism, mainly thanks to a rediscovery of what Otto Warburg discovered over 80 years ago. THE MEDIUM-RUN NATURAL INTEREST RATE AND THE SHORT-RUN Note: This post was the lead-up to my post “On the Great Recession.” After reading this one, I strongly recommend you take a look at that post. Online, both in the blogs and on Twitter, I see a lot of confusion about the natural interest rate. I think the main source of confusion is that there i ON JOHN LOCKE'S LABOR THEORY OF PROPERTY John Locke enunciates an intriguing principle to govern property rights in section 27 of his 2d Treatise on Government: “Of Civil Government” (Chapter V "Of Property"):. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say JOHN LOCKE ON WHY THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWER Schoolchildren in the US are taught about the division of the US government into three branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. HANDLING IMMIGRATION IN A WAY THAT ADDRESSES LEGITIMATE Many people oppose immigration for either racist reasons or looking down on non-citizens in a way that is just as bad as racism. One way to suss out whether this is true in a given case is to call their bluff when they say (as they often do) that they are opposed to illegal immigration. OK, fine. CONFESSIONS OF A SUPPLY-SIDE LIBERAL When a high fraction of an agricultural product depends on one variety of plant or animal, that product is in danger from diseases that affect that variety. And there is also the danger that the one variety is unhealthy in some way. Jo Craven McGinty, in her May 28, 2021 Wall Street Journal article “ Most Dairy Cows Are Kissing Cousins, and THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #32: THE STATES RETAIN ALL POWERS The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The Wikipedia article on the 10th Amendment points out how similar this is to a provisio THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #14: A REPUBLIC CAN BE James Madison is incisive in his arguments in his numbers of the Federalist Papers. In the Federalist Papers #14, he argues that the United States would not be to large to be governed to a Congress of representatives meeting in one place. To show how he A MODERN WORLD OF ENDEMIC JAW DYSFUNCTION A Modern World of Endemic Jaw Dysfunction. The book Breath by James Nestor is a revelation. It is well worth this third blog post on the book. (The other two are flagged at the bottom of this post.) A fact James Nestor points to is the dramatic change in human skulls—and particularly upper and lower jaws—over the course of the last few THE MORMON CHURCH'S COUNTERPART TO A SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND The State of Missouri declared war against the Mormon Church in 1838. The US Federal Government declared war against the Mormon Church in 1857. The US Federal Government legally disincorporated the Mormon Church in 1890, and began confiscating Mormon Church assets. Many top

Mormon leaders toda

FORGET CALORIE COUNTING; IT'S THE INSULIN INDEX, STUPID In my post "Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon" I explain why insulin is so central to obesity.In brief, among its many other effects insulin is an instruction to fat cells to take in blood sugar and turn it into stored fat. As a result, knowing the details of what ramps up your body's insulin production is much more helpful for weight loss than counting calories. ON JOHN LOCKE'S LABOR THEORY OF PROPERTY John Locke enunciates an intriguing principle to govern property rights in section 27 of his 2d Treatise on Government: “Of Civil Government” (Chapter V "Of Property"):. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say THE DESCENT—AND THE DIVINE CALLING—OF THE MODERNISTS ‘The Descent of the Modernists’, cartoon by E. J. Pace, first published in Seven Questions in Dispute by William Jennings Bryan (1924). (cmnotes gives some nice autobiographical details.)The 1924 cartoon above is reblogged from isomorphismes.By this standard I am a descended Modernist. What I find intriguing about the cartoon is the contrast between how each of these beliefs sounded to me

WHY TAXES ARE BAD

Why Taxes are Bad. In “Miles Kimball, the Supply-Side Liberal,” Noah Smith summarizes my post “Can Taxes Raise GDP?” with this passage: Many people are familiar with the fact that people work about the same amount whether taxes are low (as in the 2000s) or high (as in the 1960s). Miles agrees with this, but points out that high taxes CONFESSIONS OF A SUPPLY-SIDE LIBERAL A Partisan Nonpartisan Blog: Cutting Through Confusion Since 2012

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Navigation Key Posts Neg.Rates Resources Bio Blog Archive Search THE MORAL DUTY OF UPLIFT (IN DAVID BRIN'S SENSE)

November 22, 2020

by

Miles Kimball

_Link to the Amazon page for the Uplift trilogy_ In David Brin’s Uplift trilogy, “uplift” is the ancient galactic tradition of identifying species that have the potential to be transformed into intelligent species (that is, technologically sophisticated species that can, say, build spaceships), and bringing about the genetic modifications through genetic engineering and breeding needed to enable that transformation. The Great Filter (see 1, 2) may have made us the only intelligent species in the visible universe—though if the universe is as big as standard cosmological theories suggest, the part of the universe too far away to be visible is so vast that it almost surely contains other intelligent species. But there are many species on our Earth that have the potential to be uplifted. Here are some

obvious candidates:

*

Bonobos

*

Chimpanzees

*

Gorillas

*

Dolphins

*

Octopuses

On the relatively high intelligence of octopuses already, see Peter Godfrey-Smith’s book, _Other Minds_: _Link to the Amazon page for _Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness You also might be interested in his more recent book _Metazoa_. Here is a link to the Wall Street Journal review of that book. I realize that it might offend some people’s moral sense to “play God” by tinkering with other species enough to make them as intelligent or almost as intelligent as humans are. And some may argue it is too dangerous to uplift other species, lest at some point we wind up at war with them. (The “Planet of the Apes” scenario.) Let me address these concerns. I would frame the goal of uplift as modifying a species as little as possible subject to safety concerns and subject to getting them to a point where they can write novels and other works of art. These novels and other works of art would help us understand other beings quite different from us. To me, being able to love those who are different, as well as those who are similar to you, is the highest form of love. It is also a strength: those who can love others who are different can form broad coalitions to defend themselves against those who can only love those who are similar to themselves. Indeed, we are doing just that now in fighting the coronavirus. The coronavirus reproduces by cloning (sometimes imperfect cloning). We reproduce by mating with another, quite different human being. And we cooperate with many other human beings. Even within our bodies, there are many cells that, though genetically alike, are epigenetically different. There is a decent argument to be made that we are not yet ready for uplift: we are still struggling to love other human beings who are different. (See, for example, my post “It Isn't OK to Be

Anti-Immigrant

.”)

But as an optimist (see Steven Pinker’s _The Better Angels of Our

Nature_

),

I have hope that at some point we will be pretty good (though never perfect) at loving all other human beings. (Here is my effort toward making economists more loving.

)

Allowing for the lead times needed for the science and technology of uplift, it would be great if, by the time we get pretty good at loving all other human beings, we could stretch ourselves by having other fully intelligent species to learn to love, such as uplifted bonobos, uplifted chimpanzees, uplifted gorillas, uplifted dolphins and

uplifted octopuses.

I, too, am genuinely worried about conflict between humans and species we uplift. Therefore, I suggest that in addition to genetic engineering and breeding to make these other species more intelligent that we also “domesticate” them to make them nonviolent, at least toward humans. This is analogous to what humans did to transform wolves into dogs. It is also analogous to installing in robots Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics

: “A robot may

not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to

come to harm.”

The Wikipedia article “Three Laws of Robotics” says “This cover of I, Robot illustrates the story "Runaround", the first to list all Three Laws of Robotics” As far as “playing God” goes. In my view, there is no one else available to play god but us. I believe in gods, but I am a nonsupernaturalist. Evolution of genes and memes created us. At this point in our history, within each of us is a Sage that is a _god within_. When we interact with one another Sage to Sage, that is a _god between_. Those are the most godlike things I know of. But there are also the _god ahead _or _gods ahead _that we are building, or could be building. I talk about the _gods ahead _in my sermon “Teleotheism and the Purpose of Life

.”

As a believer in gods, I think there should be more gods in the world. Uplift is a way to foster more gods within, more gods between (including from the interactions between species) and, in all probability, more possibilities for gods ahead. (As far as gods ahead are concerned, we “see through a glass darkly.”) I’ll discuss the technology of uplift in another post at some point. Let me say only that with the brisk rate of improvement in biotechnology, I predict that uplift will be within our capabilities with technologies we’ll have within 100 years. (Notice that, since humans are already intelligent at the level we are talking about, this is more analogous to copying something already in existence than it is to creating something wholly new.) So it is worth having the ethical debate now. I am pro-uplift. I hope you are too.

__November 22, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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LISA MARSHALL: FREQUENT, RAPID TESTING COULD TURN NATIONAL COVID-19 TIDE WITHIN WEEKS →

November 21, 2020

by Miles Kimball

Here are some passages as teasers. I added bullets to separate

passages.

*

Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid-turnaround COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks—even if those tests are significantly less sensitive than gold-standard clinical tests, according to a new study published today by CU Boulder and Harvard University researchers.

*

When it came to curbing spread … frequency and turnaround time are much more important than test sensitivity.

*

In the past, federal regulators and the public have been reluctant to embrace rapid tests out of concern that they may miss cases early in infection. But, in reality, an infected person can go from 5,000 particles to 1 million viral RNA copies in 18 to 24 hours … “There is a very short window, early in infection, in which the PCR will detect the virus but something like an antigen or LAMP test

won’t” …

And during that time, the person often isn’t contagious … “These rapid tests are contagiousness tests” …

*

“Less than .1% of the current cost of this virus would enable frequent testing for the whole of the U.S. population for a year,” said Mina, referencing a recent economic analysis published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

*

“It’s time to shift the mentality around testing from thinking of a COVID test as something you get when you think you are sick to thinking of it as a vital tool to break transmission chains and keep the economy open” …

__November 21, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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NICHOLAS GRUEN ON VIRTUE, THE TRUTH, AND PROBLEM-SOLVING CITIZEN

JURIES →

November 20, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__November 20, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

__Comment

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HOW THE NATURE OF THE TRANSMISSION MECHANISM FROM RATE CUTS GUARANTEES THAT NEGATIVE RATES HAVE UNLIMITED FIREPOWER

November 19, 2020

by Miles Kimball

Copyright Miles Kimball, 2020. You may freely use this diagram for any purpose as long as you include a reference and link to this blog post. Negative rates make all the old issues in monetary policy new. Monetary economists didn’t have a consensus on the transmission mechanism for interest rate cuts when rates were in the positive region, but almost no one doubted that rate cuts were, indeed, stimulative in the positive region because there was so much experience showing that they are. Predicting what will happen in the negative region makes monetary theory important. This post lays out the relevant theory. If you disagree, please identify the particular part of the logic of the theory below that you disagree with; I’d love to have you put your critique in a comment. The first thing to say theoretically is that the effects of interest rate cuts are likely to be continuous. Hence, a very small interest rate cut, such as the 10 basis points that the Bank of Japan went negative, would be unlikely to have a big effect. Beyond that point, I need to set the stage. I am interested in the effects of rate cuts that are combined with other policies so that they (A) don’t hurt bank balance sheets and (B) don’t cause any massive increase in paper currency storage. On (A), in the real world, most central banks that use negative rates use tiering of the interest-on-reserves formula or below-market-rate lending to private banks to protect the balance sheets of private banks from negative effects from negative rates. This is certainly what I recommend. (See “Responding to Negative Coverage of Negative Rates in the Financial Times

”

and Ruchir Agarwal’s and my paper: “Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions: A Guide

.”)

As they acknowledge, Markus Brunnermeier and Yann Koby's "Reversal

Interest Rate"

comes from a model that assumes, contrary to what happens in the real world, that the central bank will do nothing to bolster bank balance sheets when rates are cut in the negative region. Central banks are

smarter than that.

On (B), a large share of what I have written or coauthored about negative rate policy has been about modifying paper currency policy in a way that avoids massive paper currency storage. On that, let me refer you to my bibliographic post “How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide ,” and especially the papers I highlight at the top there. To put a point on things, I totally concede that the monetary transmission mechanism might be different in the negative region if a central bank _does not _protect bank balance sheets or _does not _modify paper currency policy. This is not relevant to my proposals the more detailed proposals that Ruchir Agarwal and I have made in our papers on negative interest rate policy. But I know that what might happen if a central bank _does not _protect bank balance sheets or _does not _modify paper currency policy affects many people’s intuitions about negative interest rate policy, even where those situations are not relevant. Please try to take seriously the assumption that the bank profits problem and the paper currency problem have been neutralized as I go on to discuss the transmission mechanism for rate cuts when those issues have been taken care of. The diagram at the top of this post gives my perspective on the transmission mechanism for rate cuts. All of the logic in that diagram holds up 100% even when rates are negative. Like many monetary economists, I think that the transmission mechanism for monetary policy works almost entirely through the interest rate movements it engenders. There are two subtleties:

*

There are many interest rates, and which assets a central banks buys (say in QE) can affect different parts of the risk- and term-structure of interest rates differently.

*

Expectations about the entire future path of interest rates matters. This is the lever through which forward guidance can work. I won’t deal with these two complications in this post. But in the diagram at the top of the post, I do indicate the perspective I teach my students about how most central banks move: short-term risk-free interest rates: Supply and Demand for the Monetary Base

.

Once interest rates go down, there are three categories of effects: open-economy effects, wealth effects that would happen even in a closed economy, and the direct substitution effect from the interest-rate cut. Most economists will find what the diagram says about open-economy effects and the direct substitution effect routine, though it takes some care to work through all of the open-economy

effects.

I only learned what is in the diagram about the direct wealth effects from rate cuts from thinking about negative rate policy. I named the key insight _The Principle of Countervailing Wealth Effects_. I wrote about this principle first in my rejoinder to Mark Carney, “Even Central Bankers Need Lessons on the Transmission Mechanism for Negative Interest Rates

.”

Two other posts followed that up: “Responding to Joseph Stiglitz on Negative Interest Rates

”

and “Negative Rates and the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level

.”

Importantly, _The Principle of Countervailing Wealth Effects—_PARTICULARLY THE PRINCIPLE THAT THE CHANGE IN THE PRESENT VALUE OF WHAT THE DEBTOR OWES IS EQUAL AND OPPOSITE TO THE CHANGE IN THE PRESENT VALUE OF WHAT THE LENDER IS OWED—operates just as well in a fully dynamic model as in a simplified model. If there is no borrowing and lending in the initial situation, there will be no wealth effects from a small interest rate change. Note that in a dynamic model, one is in danger of misanalyzing the effects of interest rate changes if one does not recognize the change in the present value of the consumption path planned in the initial situation as well as the change in the present value of the income stream. In a dynamic model, no borrowing and lending doesn’t have to come from everyone being identical: those of one type could be very impatient (high utility discount rate), but have income front-loaded enough that they don’t need to borrow, while those of the other type is very patient (low utility discount rate), but have income back-loaded enough that they don’t need to lend. And if the two types have different elasticities of intertemporal substitution, borrowing and lending will arise as rate changes move things away from the initial situation. (In a simple model, the rate changes might need to come from a change in a storage technology; in more complex models the rate changes can come from central bank actions.) The key question is unaffected by how dynamic and how complex the model of borrowing and lending is: Which is bigger, the marginal propensity to spend (domestically on C, I and G) of the borrower compared to the marginal propensity to spend

of the lender?

If the marginal propensity to spend of the borrower is greater, than the _net _wealth effect of a rate cut _when aggregating over the borrower and lender in any borrower-lender relationship_ is stimulative. If the marginal propensity to spend of the lender is greater, then the net wealth effect of a rate cut on the combined spending of that particular borrower-lender pair is contractionary, but other borrower-lender pairs, the substitution effect and open-economy effects could still make the rate cut stimulative

overall. Thus:

*

It is a good exercise to try to identify borrower-lender pairs for whom the marginal propensity to spend is higher for the lender than for the borrower. This will be hard. If you think you have succeeded, definitely tell me what you found in a comment!

*

However, a particular type of borrower-lender pair that does have the lender’s marginal propensity to spend higher has to be numerous enough and important enough to outweigh the net wealth effects from all the other types of borrower-lender pairs, as well as the substitution effect and open-economy effects if they are on net stimulative (as they will be if the straightforward exchange-rate effect on net exports dominates). It is a tall order to meet this standard for rate cuts to be contractionary. The most likely case for rate cuts to be contractionary is if a nation has a massive amount of foreign-currency-denominated debt. That is, I think the open-economy effects having to do with foreign debt are the one plausible reason for interest-rate cuts to be contractionary. (Of course, if interest rate cuts are contractionary locally, then interest-rate increases will be stimulative locally, so monetary policy can still stimulate.) Except in one situation, I think it is very, very hard to maintain that in the real world borrowers overall have lower marginal marginal propensities to spend than lenders, weighting by magnitude of borrowing. As long as borrowers have a higher marginal propensity to spend than lenders, the bottom line is this: _the direct wealth and substitution effects of interest rate cuts are unambiguously stimulative, so rate cuts will be unambiguosly stimulative overall if net open-economy effects from rate cuts are stimulative. _ What is the one exception I can see? It is actually about rate increases being stimulative, not directly about rate cuts being contractionary. In many hyperinflationary situations, the government feels unable to cut back spending any more, so that its marginal propensity to spend less when its interest rate expenses increase is close to zero—less than the marginal propensity to spend of the bondholders out of their extra interest-rate income. Other than that, it is hard to think of a weighty exception to the the norm that borrowers have a higher marginal propensity to spend than lenders. This bottom line based on the forces we have analyzed so far leaves

two questions:

Q: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE MAGNITUDE OF THE EFFECTS IN THE DIAGRAM WHEN RATES START DEEP IN NEGATIVE TERRITORY? A: It is hard to see why the gap between marginal propensities to spend of borrowers and lenders should narrow dramatically as interest rates go lower. And notice that there is no serious problem for monetary policy firepower if the gap narrows somewhat. As long as the sign of the gap continues to make the marginal propensity to spend higher for borrowers than lenders, there is still the direct substitution effect and the open-economy effects. And their is no plausible real-world reason for the substitution effect to become dramatically smaller as rates go lower. Indeed, negative rates are especially salient, and deep negative rates even more salient, so if one adds in some behavioral-economics effects, one would expect the substitution effect to get somewhat bigger as rates go lower. (Why would deep negative rates be even more salient than shallow negative rates? At some point, rates are negative enough that even after a risk premium is added on top of the risk-free rate, more and more borrowers can borrow at a negative rate at least for short maturities. That is

salient!)

Q: WHAT IMPORTANT EFFECTS ARE OMITTED THAT NEED DISCUSSION? The main additional effects I can think of are nominal-illusion effects. The key thing here is that nominal-illusion effects will affect borrowers or lenders. So it is important to think about the _net _effect aggregated over borrowers and lenders of nominal illusions interacting with rate cuts. To me, it seems most plausible that nominal-illusion effects are like the salience effects I discussed above: juicing up the effects of interest-rate cuts on both borrowers and lenders. And borrowers tend to be either equally or less sophisticated than lenders. So the effects of interest rate cuts should be juiced up by nominal illusions more for borrowers overall than for lenders. CONCLUSION: Let me conclude by pointing out that it is very easy to make theoretical models in which the marginal propensity to spend is higher for lenders than for borrowers. It is just that those parameter values aren’t very plausible in the real world. A simple example is that in a two-period model one could have for lenders highly curved period-utility in the second period but very slightly curved period-utility in the first period (more or less a “target retirement consumption” utility function) and do the opposite for borrowers: highly curved period-utility in the first period but very slightly curved period-utility in the second period. But why assume such different functional forms for borrowers and lenders? Isn’t it more likely that they have similar functional forms but different utility discount rates (levels of impatience)? When it comes down to it, do we really believe _empirically, in the real world, _that there are weighty parts of the economy where lenders have a higher marginal propensity to spend than borrowers? I think not. And if I am right about the rarity of marginal propensities to spend that are higher for lenders in a borrower-lender pair, then only open-economy effects can overturn the idea that rate cuts remain substantially stimulative however low rates go. (“Substantially stimulative” means that there is a strictly positive lower bound on how stimulative a 100-basis-point cut will be, no matter how low rates have gone already.) That yields unlimited monetary-policy firepower if one has addressed the bank profits problem and the paper currency problem so that rates can go as low as necessary.

__November 19, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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PAUL GRAHAM ON KEEPING THE AGGRESSIVELY CONVENTIONAL-MINDED AT BAY →

November 18, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__November 18, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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INDUCING AUTOPHAGY

November 17, 2020 by Miles

Kimball

_image source_

_link to the Wikipedia article “Autophagy”_ Roughly speaking, autophagy is the cannibalization by a cell of defective or questionable molecules to make new, higher-quality molecules. Autophagy is now thought to be quite powerful in reducing disease risk, because it provides quality-control for key types of molecules in the body. This is like saying that your car is likely to break down less if it gets regular servicing—including, crucially, the replacement of parts that are wearing out with new parts. Low nutrient levels encourage autophagy. One way to induce autophagy is to do a total fast from food for an extended time, only consuming water and plain tea or coffee. But suppose you have trouble doing a total fast from food—what then is likely to be the most powerful way to induce autophagy? I think there is a plausible answer. If you fast totally, your body will be breaking down body fat, and there will therefore still be fat in the bloodstream. So I suspect that eating, as nearly as possible, only fat is likely to keep the signals for autophagy most powerful. And of course, eating as little of that as you can be OK with helps close whatever gap their is between the body’s signals when consuming only one’s own body fat and the body’s signals when consuming some amount of fat from outside. lmportantly, this is not describing a typical “ketogenic” diet because ketogenic diets often include a lot of meat, which has a lot of protein. I suspect that consuming protein has a substantial effect on signals for the cannibalization of low-quality or possibly low-quality proteins that were already in the body. Among common dairy products, butter has the least protein (and clarified butter the least of all). So some amount of butter is probably OK when you are trying to induce autophagy. Macadamia nuts are also probably OK. All of this needs additional research. Such research matters because not everyone can tolerate an extended total fast from food. I’d be happy to be corrected on my conjecture above if there is evidence against. More generally, I am very interested in learning more about autophagy and related subjects and would welcome links to articles you think I should see on this. ------------------------- _FOR ANNOTATED LINKS TO OTHER POSTS ON DIET AND HEALTH, SEE: _

*

Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide __November 17, 2020 /__Miles

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THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #21 A: CONSTITUTIONS NEED TO BE ENFORCED—ALEXANDER HAMILTON

November 15, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Link to the Wikipedia article “Articles of Confederation”_

_ (image

source)_

_Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #21_ Enforcing constitutions is quite a tricky business. Some sort of judicial apparatus is usually required, combined with judicial independence and respect for the courts. The difficulty of enforcing a constitution is illustrated by the fact that many countries that have copied the US Constitution in large measure have at one point or another ended up with dictatorships. In the US, the reason I don’t worry much about our lapsing into dictatorship is because, as I understand it, our soldiers are taught that their primary duty is to uphold the constitution and only at a lower level than that to obey an particular commander in chief. To put a point to it, in the US, in a very thorny disputed election, I think that whoever is declared by the Supreme Court to be the President of the United States, would be followed by US soldiers. And unlike some, I believe that the members of the US Supreme Court do have a loyalty to the law, where the law is reasonably clear. The ability of a judicial branch to enforce a constitution depends heavily on individual citizens and companies being subject to the laws of the nation. If only the subordinate governments (in the US, preeminently the States) were subject _de jure _to the constitution, it is hard to see how the judicial branch could enforce that. It has no army! Much better if a large share of constitutional issues can be handled by court actions vis a vis individual citizens and companies. Of course, some constitutional violations are so large that an army or the equivalent of an army _is _necessary to enforce them. In the the first half of the Federalist Papers #21, Alexander Hamilton argues that the federal government should, in particular, be the guarantor of state constitutions. But it had no such authority under the Articles of Confederation. Alexander Hamilton argues also that _some _realistic enforcement provisions are needed to ensure performance of the duties states have officially taken on in relation to the federal government. Below is the text for the first half of the Federalist Papers #21. -------------------------

FEDERALIST NO. 21

OTHER DEFECTS OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION For the _Independent Journal_. Author: ALEXANDER HAMILTON To the People of the State of New York: HAVING in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate governments, I shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most important of those defects which have hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted with the extent and malignity of the disease. The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation, is the total want of a SANCTION to its laws. The United States, as now composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional mode. There is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against delinquent members; and if such a right should be ascribed to the federal head, as resulting from the nature of the social compact between the States, it must be by inference and construction, in the face of that part of the second article, by which it is declared, "that each State shall retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, not EXPRESSLY delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." There is, doubtless, a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair the force of this applauded provision, we shall be obliged to conclude, that the United States afford the extraordinary spectacle of a government destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws. It will appear, from the specimens which have been cited, that the American Confederacy, in this particular, stands discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind, and exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world. The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments is another capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is nothing of this kind declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant departure from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a tacit power of coercion from the like considerations. The want of a guaranty, though it might in its consequences endanger the Union, does not so immediately attack its existence as the want of a constitutional sanction to its laws. Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from the Union in repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes threaten the existence of the State constitutions, must be renounced. Usurpation may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of the people, while the national government could legally do nothing more than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret. A successful faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, while no succor could constitutionally be afforded by the Union to the friends and supporters of the government. The tempestuous situation from which Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces that dangers of this kind are not merely speculative. Who can determine what might have been the issue of her late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a Caesar or by a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despotism, established in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New Hampshire or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New

York?

The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested to some minds an objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal government, as involving an officious interference in the domestic concerns of the members. A scruple of this kind would deprive us of one of the principal advantages to be expected from union, and can only flow from a misapprehension of the nature of the provision itself. It could be no impediment to reforms of the State constitution by a majority of the people in a legal and peaceable mode. This right would remain undiminished. The guaranty could only operate against changes to be effected by violence. Towards the preventions of calamities of this kind, too many checks cannot be provided. The peace of society and the stability of government depend absolutely on the efficacy of the precautions adopted on this head. Where the whole power of the government is in the hands of the people, there is the less pretense for the use of violent remedies in partial or occasional distempers of the State. The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition

in the community.

------------------------- _HERE ARE LINKS TO MY OTHER POSTS ON THE FEDERALIST PAPERS SO FAR:_

*

The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned

Debate

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The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America

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The Federalist Papers #2 B: You Trusted the Continental Congress; Trust the Constitutional Convention

*

The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to

Stumble into War

*

The Federalist Papers #4 A: The States Must Be Prepared to Defend against Aggression by Other Nations

*

The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the

States are United

*

The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each

Others' Throats

*

The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human

Motives for War

*

The Federalist Papers #6 B: Commercial Republics Also Start Wars with Their Neighbors—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #7 A: Divided, the States Would Fall into Territorial Disputes Likely to Lead to War Between the States—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #7 B: Without Union, Economic Disagreements Would Drive the States to Conflict with One Another—Alexander

Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #8: Without Union, the States Would Either Be Subject to Devastating Wars with Each Other or Would Have Liberty Endangered by their Own Standing Armies—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #9 A: There Has Been Technological Progress in Practical Principles of Republican Government—Alexander Hamilton



*

The Federalist Papers #9 B: A Large Confederation May Be More Politically Stable Than a Small Nation—Alexander Hamilton Cites

Montesquieu

*

The Federalist Papers #10 A: Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #10 B: The Larger the Republic, the Easier It is to Find Thoughtful Legislators and the Harder It is to Put Together a Majority to do Unjust Things—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton

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The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #13: Alexander Hamilton on Increasing Returns to Scale in National Government

*

The Federalist Papers #14: A Republic Can Be Geographically Large—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #15: A Government, to be Worthy of the Name, Must Govern Its Citizens, Not Just Its Subordinate Jurisdictions—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #16: Authority of the Federal Government Directly over Individuals Means States Can Only Thwart the Federal Government by Active and Obvious Resistance—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #17: Three Levels of Federal Power

*

The Federalist Papers #18: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison Point to the Weakness of Confederations of Cities in Ancient Greece to Argue for a Strong Federal Government

*

The Federalist Papers #19: The Weakness of the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

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The Federalist Papers #20: The Weakness of the United Netherlands up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

__November 15, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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BRIAN FLAXMAN: CAMPFIRE TALES OF COURAGEOUS HEROES SETTING MILLIONS OF CAMPAIGN FUNDS ABLAZE; CHAPTER THE FIRST

November 12, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_image source_

I am pleased to have another guest post by Brian Flaxman. Although on other occasions he has expressed his concern with the effects on money on politics, today’s post is about times when large amounts of money _didn’t _have much effect on politics. (His two views can be reconciled: because of the effect of money on name recognition, money could make a big difference in obscure races one never reads about in the national press, but have little effect on marquee races.) In addition to his post below, don’t miss these earlier guest posts of

Brian’s:

*

Brian Flaxman: Yes! Economics Did Sway Obama Voters to Trump

*

Brian Flaxman—A Tale of Bipartisanship and Financial Interests: The Taxpayer First Act of 2019 ------------------------- Hear ye hear ye. Grab some mead and gather ‘round for our celebration of the conclusion of another Presidential Campaign cycle. Since the tavern is unfortunately closed due to Covid concerns, we shall sit around the campfire instead, socially distanced of course, for epic tales of courageous heroes. Our tales take place in the faraway land known as the Establishment Campaign Economy. The first things to know about this faraway land are their strong held rules, rituals, and customs. Cornerstones if you will. I shall list them here, as it is hard to become engrossed in such fanciful tales without being familiar with the vibrant world such tales take place in. The Three Cornerstones of the Establishment Campaign Economy: 1)     The Cornerstone of the Establishment Median voter: In the parlance of political science and political economy, the concept of the median voter is that of the person with the most moderate position of any voter in the district. The idea being that if you win this voter, and everyone to either the left or right of him, you win an election by having the majority of votes. But in the Establishment Campaign Economy, this conceptualized median voter is one that is thought of by people who have far more money than you ever will have. This hypothetical median voter gets really jazzed when you fight for policies like financial deregulation, increasing federal funds for the military industrial complex, and lowering the capital gains tax. Things that working-class voters of all ethnicities and backgrounds constantly yearn for. 2)     The Cornerstone of the Establishment Principle-Agent: The Establishment’s median voter is represented by a candidate, or as is known in economic terms, the principle being represented by an agent. And of course, this candidate is financially supported by people who have far more money than you ever will have. This support is extended not only in the general election, but in the primary contests as well. They ignore all other candidates completely, especially those in primary contests, by not giving them any cash or exposure that might help them gain traction. That is, of course, unless a primary challenger starts to somehow catch up to our esteemed agent in the primary. This will lead to a valiant and noble effort to quickly and completely snuff that challenger out, regardless of the financial cost

to do so.

3)     The Cornerstone of the Establishment’s Information Updating (or lack thereof): Failure to win elections need not be evidence of a need to change tactics, especially if your strategy involves not rocking the boat. And previously held beliefs on effective campaigning need not ever undergo updating with new information. Like the fact that in 2020, EVERY SINGLE SWING DISTRICT HOUSE DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT who signed on to the far-left leaning Medicare-for-All bill actually WON their re-elections. And information like EVERY SINGLE Democratic loss in the House this cycle came from individuals in swing districts who ran as far-right as they could with their tails between their legs. Furthermore, candidates, consultants, and anybody involved in the political process who demonstrates abject failure are those most likely to be given future opportunities to demonstrate that abject failure. And these opportunities come about by being paid by individuals that, as you have probably guessed, have far more money than you ever will have. These cornerstones will be reoccurring themes in our tales today. Stories of people with obscenely large amounts of money, lighting them on fire like the kindling in the campfire we sit around. Without further ado, I shall now begin tonight’s epic tales. We begin first with the tale of Michael Bloomberg as a Democratic Party primary candidate, who so valiantly made the sacrifice of setting millions of his own money on fire. His tale actually has two parts and begins with his quest to vanquish the social-democratic platforms of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. As you see, these two individuals had the gall of proposing measures that people want. Things like government run healthcare, taking quick action to protect us from an impending climate crisis, and relieving many college graduates across the country of crippling student loan debt. These are two individuals who actually looked at polling trends, and saw that REGARDLESS OF HOW THE MEASURES ARE FRAMED FOR RESPONDENTS, are UNIVERSALLY POPULAR, and saw a way to both help Americans and to help Democratic candidates win elections. But because they do not hold true to the sacred cornerstone of learning absolutely nothing from new information, Michael Bloomberg recognized he had to vanquish these dastardly foes and take matters into his own hands. In his first heroic quest, Michael Bloomberg lit $570 million of his own money ablaze, an amount that exceeds the GDPs of some small island nations. He spent this money on effortless ventures such as gratuitous TV ad buys, digital marketing, and paying others to do the legwork for him. He did this all without doing any public events, campaign activities, or other things that we did pre-Covid that require actual elbow grease. But Mr. Bloomberg’s fatal flaw came when he failed to hire a debate coach or any type of assistance for his public speaking abilities. This was an oversight that immediately caused his candidacy to plummet to the ground like a lead balloon soon after making the devastating mistake of actually showing up for a debate. He did, however, valiantly claim 31 of the 4,051 possible pledged delegates in the Democratic Primary, which amounts to $18.4 million being set on fire for each pledged delegate he was able to amass. That said, the money he spent to run interference on the Sanders and Warren campaigns was probably a drop in the bucket compared to the tax increases he would have had to pay if their policies were ever enacted. And I’m sure this was not at all the point of his entering the Democratic

Primary

In addition to the massive amounts of money he sent ablaze during the Democratic Primary, as a donor in the general election, Mr. Bloomberg ignited an additional $100 million into the ether. And as we know, at a time when many people are struggling because of Covid to remain employed or find new employment, pay for their rent and mortgages, and to put food on the table, there is absolutely nothing better that this money could have gone towards. This money was spent on helping Joe Biden win Texas, Ohio, and Florida, which in the end, helped garner Joe Biden a grand total of ZERO additional electoral votes. One can only hope that some of his ads running in north Florida might have accidently run on stations on the southern border of Georgia, so that his efforts would not have been entirely in vain. Our second tale for tonight involves the valiant efforts of the Lincoln Project. The brave heroes behind the Project of Lincoln were noble men of the Republican Party who had the bravery and honor to stand up to Donald Trump, and knew it was time to take swift action. Not based on policy grounds mind you, but after seeing the vile scourges of fake economic populism, lack of decorum, and—most galling of all—mean tweets. These are warriors who are familiar with cornerstone of never updating information. As you see, one of brave knights seated at this round table is a man by the name of Steve Schmidt. If you haven’t heard of him, I don’t blame you. However, you have probably heard of John McCain. Steve Schmidt was John McCain’s campaign manager in the 2008 Presidential Election. And you have probably heard of Sarah Palin, the Vice-Presidential candidate that he pushed a reluctant John McCain to select, the Vice-Presidential candidate who some people believe cost McCain the

2008 election.

But remember, in the faraway land of the Establishment Campaign Economy, undeniable evidence of pure, industrial-strength incompetence is never internalized. And thus, Schmidt was later given plenty of opportunities in cable news punditry and campaign consulting. He has been a contributor on MSNBC for several years since 2008 for his political insight (without any instruction to viewers to reverse the direction and do the exact opposite of what he says), where he railed on Donald Trump as the worst president ever. Schmidt also worked on Howard Schultz’s brief foray into presidential politics when he considered running as an independent in the general election—a venture that had some chance of helping Donald Trump win a second term by syphoning off votes from the eventual Democratic nominee. Because after all, the reward of fat stacks of cash to help a President that you vehemently despise win his reelection easily overrides the distain you have for said President. But back to the fine folks at the Lincoln Project. You see, their goal was to convince likeminded Republicans to vote for Joe Biden instead and against several GOP Senate candidates by running TV and digital marketing, creating ads bashing Trump and GOP Senate Candidates. Granted, some of the ads were actually quite good. Probably not $67 million good, as that is the estimated amount that they raised to perform this venture. A venture that any group of qualified individuals could have done, and likely done even better at just the fraction of the cost. It is also unfortunate that Donald Trump’s support amongst Republicans INCREASED from 90% in 2016 to 94% in 2020. Also, in an election where Democrats were expected to overtake the Senate, they thus far have come up two seats short, and Democrats only chance of regaining control of the Senate prior to 2022 involves winning both Georgia senate runoff elections that take place at the beginning of January. A superb undertaking by the Lincoln Project

indeed.

And alas, much of these $67 million dollars was thus set on fire. And the remaining money will almost surely be sent ablaze in the future. Because you see, the Lincoln Project is now reportedly starting a new media organization whose sole purpose is likely to pull Joe Biden and the rest of our Establishment Democratic heroes to enact the same conservative policies that the Lincoln Project’s founding members have always favored. I am almost certain that this is something that many well-meaning liberals who donated to the Lincoln Project are gleefully celebrating. Some might be tempted to call the people behind Lincoln Project absolute grifters who actively fleeced people in plain sight. But in our Establishment Campaign Economy, they are considered true shining knights of the highest order. Our final tale for today of money being thrown into flames involves a well-known villain of the establishment of both parties, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The villainous Ocasio-Cortez had the gall in 2018 to throw all three cornerstones of the esteemed Establishment Campaign Economy out the window by ousting the number 4 ranked Democrat Joe Crowley while spending one-tenth of what he did. And she did so by running on things that an ACTUAL median Democratic voter in her district would want. For her misgivings two years prior, she was given a primary challenger: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. While also being a Hispanic woman with a hyphenated last name, she also was a former CNBC anchor who was a registered Republican until a couple of years ago. The exact type of person I’m sure that her district was absolutely clamoring for. Well not really, as AOC triumphed against MCC by a margin of 74.4%-18.1%. But not before Caruso-Cabrera was able to raise $2.8 million dollars, much of which came from people, who, as you probably guessed, have far more money than you will ever have. But this was not Ocasio-Cortez’s only foe in this election cycle. For you see, she then had to run against a Republican in the general election. Granted, AOC’s district is bluer than the hottest of flames of our cash-burning inferno. But that did not stop her Republican challenger from raising around $10 million in a 68.7% to 30.3% losing effort. Now, some of this money did come from Republicans who have normal incomes. However, this likely had less to do with support for the Republican challenger himself and more to do with Ocasio-Cortez being the new boogey-woman of the left, as portrayed by right wing media. In fact, the challenger’s name was probably as irrelevant to them as it is to you. You probably didn’t even realize that I haven’t even mentioned his name yet until now: Jon Cummings. If you found these tales riveting, I hope you will in future join me again around the campfire for future epic tales. For as you see, tales from this faraway land are in anything but short supply. Many of the fanciful tales from this election cycle are still being written as we speak. This is in part due to the scribes of the Federal Election Commission having yet to publish and collect final campaign finance data. It is also due to the results of the election coming in slower than a morphine drip, one that many of us are likely begging for ourselves as we contemplate the next few months of American politics.

_Brian Flaxman_

__November 12, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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THERESE RAPHAEL: LIVERPOOL’S MASS COVID TESTING COULD BE A GAME

CHANGER →

November 11, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__November 11, 2020

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JANE BRODY ON INTERMITTENT FASTING

November 10, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Link to the article shown above_ “Intermittent fasting” is a bit of a redundant phrase. Logically, non-intermittent fasting would mean constant fasting, which is something likely to lead to death after many months of it have burned through all of your fat reserves. Because almost any reasonable use of fasting is therefore “intermittent fasting,” it is not, in practice, anything more than a synonym for “fasting.” Jane Brody, in “The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

,”

uses “intermittent fasting” to refer to limiting one’s daily eating window to no more than 8 hours (say eating only between 11 AM and 7 PM or only between noon and 8 PM) so that one has on average a 16-hour stretch of fasting each day. Evidence suggests that this, like many other uses of fasting, has important health benefits. (All of the quotations below come from Jane Brody’s article “The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

.”

A lot of the evidence about fasting is animal evidence. For example: … in an animal model of stroke, those fed only intermittently suffered less brain damage because they were better able to resist the stress of oxygen and energy deprivation. Other animal studies have shown a “robust disease-modifying” benefit of intermittent fasting on “a wide range of chronic disorders, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and neurodegenerative brain diseases,” the researchers reported. Their review of both animal and human studies found improvements in a variety of health indicators and a slowing or reversing of aging and disease processes. As for human evidence: … human studies of intermittent fasting found that it improved such disease indicators as insulin resistance, blood fat abnormalities, high blood pressure and inflammation, even independently of weight loss. In patients with multiple sclerosis, intermittent fasting reduced symptoms in just two months, a research team in Baltimore reported in 2018. Why would fasting be helpful? Jane Brody’s article “The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

”

points to a number of different theoretical reasons (bullets added to

separate passages):

*

Mark P. Mattson, neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explained that the liver stores glucose, which the body uses preferentially for energy before it turns to burning body fat. “It takes 10 to 12 hours to use up the calories in the liver before a metabolic shift occurs to using stored fat,” Dr. Mattson told me. After meals, glucose is used for energy and fat is stored in fat tissue, but during fasts, once glucose is depleted, fat is broken down and used for energy.

*

If you think evolutionarily, Dr. Mattson said, predators in the wild fight for prey in the fasting state and are better at recovering from inevitable injuries. The human counterpart — people who evolved in feast-or-famine environments — would not have survived unless somehow protected by fasting. “Our human ancestors did not consume three regularly spaced large meals, plus snacks, every day, nor did they live a sedentary life,” the researchers wrote. The studies they analyzed showed that “most if not all organ systems respond to intermittent fasting in ways that enable the organism to tolerate or overcome the challenge” and then

return to normal.

*

Dr. Mattson explained that during a fast, the body produces few new proteins, prompting cells to take protein from nonessential sources, break them down and use the amino acids to make new proteins that are essential for survival. Then, after eating, a lot of new proteins are produced in the brain and elsewhere. That last passage about protein production is somewhat opaque. It points to a bigger benefit of fasting than it sounds. After a high enough dose of fasting—with what is a “high enough dose of fasting” an area of debate—the body begins seriou: cannibalizing substandard cells for spare parts. Autophagy is an important part of the body’s quality control. This crucial type of cellular quality control takes place mainly during fasting. Cellular quality control should be especially helpful toward preventing cancer. (At lower doses of fasting—too low to engender much autophagy proper—cells increase the cannibalization for spare parts of molecules already within them. This is likely to yield at least some fraction of the benefits of autophagy proper.) The most important place Jane Brody goes off track in her article is in talking about the difficulty of fasting without pointing out that those on a lowcarb, high fat diet find fasting a lot easier and more pleasant. If the body is already in a fat-burning mode burning fat from food, it is easier for it to make the transition to burning body fat if one begins fasting. To be specific about my point, I’ll bet the “hunger, irritability and a reduced ability to concentrate” from fasting that researchers talk about is highly concentrated in those who eat high-carb diets. The second most important place Jane Brody goes off track is talking about difficulties of social coordination from a limited eating window. She is assuming you need to have an eating window at the same time each day. _Au contraire_. Evolutionarily, our ancestors faced an environment in which the timing of fasting was random, due to not finding food right away. We are adapted to that. So there is reason to think having one’s eating window move around in its position within the day is a good thing, not a bad thing. And that makes it easy to plan one’s mobile eating window to coincide with social engagements that involve eating. (The big problems will be from the expectations of those in your own household that you will be eating all day long, or whenever they are eating.) I’m glad to see fasting getting good press. I hope more people take up fasting as a way to improve their health. _FOR ANNOTATED LINKS TO OTHER POSTS ON DIET AND HEALTH, SEE: _

*

Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide

__November 10, 2020

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ADAM GURRI ON ALTERNATIVES TO OUR CURRENT ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM →

November 09, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__November 09, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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IT ISN'T OK TO BE ANTI-IMMIGRANT

November 08, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_image source_

Short of murder, rape, torture, slavery or unjustified imprisonment, one of the worst things a government can perpetrate or condone is confining people to desperately poor parts of the world where they are doomed to poverty, when being allowed into rich parts of the world—even if totally denied any safety-net aid—they would be lifted to a dramatically better standard of living. Treating people as malefactors because they desperately want to come to a reasonably-well-run country such as ours is cruel. There may be morally adequate policy reasons to limit the number of people who can come to our nation at any one time, but if so, we should feel quite apologetic about having to do that. The easiest way to reduce illegal immigration is to dramatically increase the amount of legal immigration that we allow. It is important enough to do so, that almost any political concession that makes it possible to pass legislation to dramatically increase the amount of legal immigration is worth making. There is a moral illusion highly relevant to many debates about how we treat desperately poor people in other countries. That illusion is that having nothing to do with a poor person, or effectively deterring them from showing up on our doorstep absolves us of moral responsibility, while we bear a large share of the responsibility of all the suffering in their lives as soon as we have dealings with them. As, at least in principle, a Utilitarian, this makes no sense to me. Within the scope of actions available to us, we bear moral responsibility for the consequences of the choices we make compared to the consequences of the choices we could have made. If someone is worse off because of our actions (such as not allowing more legal immigration), we bear moral responsibility for that, even if we never have and never will meet them. There are many morally charged issues of public policy. To my mind, the moral weight of immigration policy exceeds the moral weight of all other issues that have been seriously debated in the United States in the last four years. Middle-aged, non-college-educated white folks have been dying more deaths of despair, in Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s phrase

.

These folks should not be looked down on. They need to be helped. But keeping legal immigration low is not the way to help them. Even if it really did help them (which it doesn’t, other than reducing cultural discomfort and perhaps helping out job prospects for high-school dropouts), helping one human being a little bit by hurting other human beings a lot is not OK. Just as we look back aghast at those a couple of centuries ago who spoke of liberty but owned slaves, those in future generations will look back aghast at those who spoke of compassion and human flourishing but shut their hearts to the plight of those exiled by the accident of their birth from the land of the free and the home of the

brave.

__November 08, 2020

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GARY CORNELL: WE ARE UNLIKELY TO HAVE A VACCINE THAT IS PROVEN EFFECTIVE FOR SENIORS FOR A LONG TIME UNLESS DRAMATIC ACTION IS TAKEN

NOW!

November 05, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Gary Cornell (__image source_

_)_

_Link to this post on Gary Cornell’s blog_ I’m glad to be able to feature Gary Cornell again here. Some of the earliest blog posts on supplysideliberal.com were guest posts by Gary Cornell. Here he is again with a post about how the work being done to develop vaccines for Covid-19 is not targeted at the subset of the population that most needs vaccines: older folks. Here is Gary: ------------------------- The risk of both hospitalization and death from Covid 19 increase greatly with age. Approximately 80% of the deaths from Covid 19 are

people over 65

(https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html). The unfortunate truth is that a _vaccine that is __PROVEN__ highly effective for seniors is not likely for a very long time, __UNLESS__ we dramatically increase the number of seniors in current trials __NOW_. Why? The gold standard to determine efficacy is a large, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial. There are currently eight vaccines in large Phase 3 trials. But it is very unlikely, maybe even impossible, that any of these vaccine trials will give us definitive information about how effective these vaccines are for people over age 55 — well, unless they change how they are currently

setup.

Why? To begin with, none of the four trials that have released their protocols are properly stratified. While they aren’t lumping seniors into the same group as the 18 to 55-year-olds, they should be using three groups i.e. one for each age decile: 55 to 64, 65 to 74, and 75 and older. To be sure, it’s possible to tease out information about how different strata of seniors react to the vaccine even if they are lumped together in one group. However, it likely would take more data because you have to tease out the information for each age decile from

a larger group.

But the bigger problem is that even if these trials give us some information about efficacy for seniors, they are unlikely to tell us everything we need to know _quickly enough unless we have a far larger number of participants over 55 than the current trials are enrolling_. Why? Since Covid-19 can be so deadly in older people, they and the communities they live in have generally been taking better precautions than the general public against becoming infected with the virus SARS-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19. For example, the CDC reports (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6939e1.htm#T1_down) that, as of August, roughly speaking, the prevalence among people >75 years old is 1/15 that of people 18–55 years old. And, even if you lump all people over 55 into one group, it is roughly 1/3. And, of course, we are all hoping that prevalence among seniors has gone down significantly since August. But prevalence _is_ what determines the time needed to have a statistically significant efficacy signal from a

vaccine trial.

Here’s what information I have gotten from their published protocols for the percentages of seniors enrolled: AstraZenica: “Randomization will be stratified by age (≥ 18 and < 65 years, and ≥ 65 years), with at least 25% of participants to be enrolled in the older age stratum.” They are also using a 2 to 1 active to placebo division Johnson & Johnson: “The aim of having a minimum of approximately 25% of recruited participants ≥60 years of age has been adjusted to

30%”

Moderna: “At least 25% of enrolled participants, but not more than 40%, will be either ≥ 65 years of age or < 65 years of age and “at risk” at Screening” Pfizer: “It is intended that a minimum of 40% of participants will be in the >55-year stratum” I suppose we seniors should be thankful, originally it was much worse (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/health/vaccine-trials-elderly.html), and in at least one case, the published protocols made this clear, as people over 55 years old were only added via a late amendment. Anyway, regardless of what they were planning on doing originally, none of these four trials are enrolling a far larger percentage of people over 55 than they are enrolling under 55. This means the time needed for getting enough cases for people over 55, and especially among people over 75, will be longer than the time needed to get an efficacy signal from 18- to 55-year-olds. _And you need to get that signal for seniors as quickly as you get a safety and efficacy signal for younger people_. Why? _Because once we have a vaccine that has been shown to be safe and effective for people under 55, I believe it is __UNETHICAL__ to continue any placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial in the elderly for a disease so deadly to them_ — all elderly participants would have to be offered the vaccine that worked among younger people. Since designers of these trials are hardly stupid, it seems to me that they are either betting that they will have enough cases in seniors to have an efficacy signal quickly or that enough seniors will agree to stay enrolled in the placebo arm. A better solution is obvious, don’t bet: _dramatically increase the number of participants over 55 in the current trials quickly, no matter what the expense and difficulty is in doing so. _The more people we have over 55 in a trial, the more likely it is we will have an efficacy signal before ethical considerations force us to stop the arm of the trial being done on seniors. What happens if we don’t do this? Then the only thing we will know quickly is what the vaccine candidate does to immune system _markers _on seniors,such as the antibody levels they induce. And, since the immune system of someone who is 75 tends to work differently than someone who is 55, let alone 25, even having immune system markers in seniors that match those of a 25 year old won’t mean enough to know anything definitive. But I want to make clear that of course_, seniors can and should take an approved vaccine based on the results in 18–55 year olds even without their being an efficacy

signal for them_.

Then, interestingly enough, I expect the same things to happen whether or not we had an efficacy signal for seniors: it’s just that the consequences and information we gain from them is different. What I expect is that correctly stratified trials for people over 55 will quickly begin that compare the approved vaccine(s) to various tweaked formulations or dosing regimens. We did this in order to get a better flu vaccine for seniors for example. But not only will these trials take time, unless we have that efficacy signal for seniors from the original trials, these trials can give us only _relative_ information, not _absolute_ information. For example, a trial might show that half the dose doesn’t work very well while four times the dose is not only safe but it works twice as well. That sounds great, but we aren’t home free _if_ we don’t know how well the original vaccine actually works on seniors of varying ages. Knowing that you have a vaccine tweak that works twice as well as the original vaccine actually doesn’t tell you _anything _about how well the improved vaccine will work without a baseline! For example, suppose the original vaccine was just 15% effective among people age 75 and older. Doubling the effectiveness with a tweaked formulation puts it at only 30%. Knowing that something is 2X, doesn’t tell you anything without information about X. And information on X is what we won’t have unless we spent the money and effort needed to get it from greatly enlarged trials of the original vaccine in seniors _now_. This puts us in a completely different position than the flu vaccine where we knew quite well how the original flu vaccine worked in seniors, so the “tweaked” VERSION’S efficacy was easy to compute. To summarize: given what I feel are the _inescapable_ ethical issues in completing any placebo controlled study on seniors once you have a safe and effective vaccine based on trials in healthy 18–55 olds, we must enlarge the number of seniors in the trials quickly. Failing to do so means that we likely won’t _know_ _enough_ about how well the original vaccine worked in one or more age decile group of seniors. Your castle will be built on little if any foundation. So, considering how deadly Covid 19 is among seniors, absent great therapeutics, would you, if you were over 55, really change the precautions you are taking such as not getting on a plane because you took a vaccine you have little absolute information about for your age group? I am and I wouldn’t! So, again, I am hoping (perhaps without hope) that we spend the money and take the effort to quickly expand the number of seniors in the current trials. I want to end by explaining what will likely happen if we don’t change the current trials to include far more seniors. First off, you need to always keep in mind that absent that, we will likely be stuck in the twilight zone of having relative information but needing absolute information! Can biostatisticians do anything down the road to break the barrier between relative information and absolute information if we didn’t enroll enough seniors in the current trials? Of course. What they will do is what is called a _paired_ _retrospective_ _study_. This means they will look at seniors who chose to get the vaccine and compare them with a matched group of seniors that didn’t get the vaccine. Then, given enough cases and a good enough match between members of the two groups, we will finally have a way to get the absolute information we need. Only after that retrospective study is complete, would seniors know (roughly) how well the best of the vaccine tweaks works for them. Still, a paired retrospective study would be both difficult and time consuming to perform. Why? The key to doing a paired retrospective study is to pair up the people so that there are no differences between them that can influence the incidence of the disease. And you need to know if seniors who declined to get an approved vaccine, or who didn’t have access to it, are different in some fundamental ways from those who did get the vaccine. I don’t know how to answer that, but I do know that the biostatisticians are going to have a difficult job designing a paired retrospective study. So I personally would be shocked if we have any absolute information about the efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine for seniors for a very long time to come _unless we spend the money and effort to dramatically increase the number of seniors enrolled in the current trials __NOW_.

__November 05, 2020

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HUMAN SKULLS, ANCIENT AND MODERN

November 03, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Link to the Amazon page for “Breath”_ In last Thursday’s post, “A Modern World of Endemic Jaw

Dysfunction

”

I claimed that human jaws (especially the upper jaw) are typically now malformed because of the softness of our modern diets. Today, let me back that up by what James Nestor says about this in his book _Breath_. (Every quotation below is from that book, with different passages separate by several blank lines.) Key points: FIRST, THE SKULLS OF THOSE WHO ATE TRADITIONAL DIETS ARE WELL-FORMED A few months before the Stanford experiment, I flew to Philadelphia to visit Dr. Marianna Evans, an orthodontist and dental researcher who’d spent the last several years looking into the mouths of human skulls, both ancient and modern. We were standing in the basement of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, surrounded by several hundred specimens. … The skulls ranged from 200 to thousands of years old. They were part of the Morton Collection, named after a racist scientist named Samuel Morton, who, starting in the 1830s, collected skeletons in a failed attempt to prove the superiority of the Caucasian race. The only positive outcome of Morton’s work is the skulls he spent two decades gathering, which now provide a snapshot of how people used to look and

breathe.

Where Morton claimed to see inferior races and genetic “degradation,” Evans discovered something close to perfection. To demonstrate what she meant, she walked over to a cabinet and retrieved a skull marked Parsee, for Persian, from behind the protective glass. She wiped bone dust on the sleeve of her cashmere sweater and ran a neatly trimmed fingernail along its jaw and face. “These are twice as large as they are today,” she said in a staccato Ukrainian accent. She was pointing at the nasal apertures, the two holes in the back of the throat that connect to the nasal passages. She turned the skull around so it was staring at us. “So wide and pronounced,” she said approvingly. SECOND, THE AIRWAYS ARE BETTER AND THE TEETH ARE STRAIGHTER IN ANCIENT THAN IN MODERN SKULLS: Every one of the ancient skulls was identical to the Parsee sample. They all had enormous forward-facing jaws. They had expansive sinus cavities and broad mouths. And, bizarrely, even though none of the ancient people ever flossed, or brushed, or saw a dentist, they all

had straight teeth.

The forward facial growth and large mouths also created wider airways. These people very likely never snored or had sleep apnea or sinusitis or many other chronic respiratory problems that affect modern populations. They did not because they could not. Their skulls were far too large, and their airways too wide for anything to block them. They breathed easy. Nearly all ancient humans shared this forward structure—not just in the Morton Collection, but everywhere around the world. This remained true from the time when Homo sapiens first appeared, some 300,000 years ago, to just a few hundred years ago. Evans and Boyd then compared the ancient skulls to the modern skulls of their own patients and others. Every modern skull had the opposite growth pattern, meaning the angles of the Frankfort plane and N-perpendicular were reversed: chins had recessed behind foreheads, jaws were slumped back, sinuses shrunken. All the modern skulls showed some degree of crooked teeth. Of the 5,400 different species of mammals on the planet, humans are now the only ones to routinely have misaligned jaws, overbites, underbites, and snaggled teeth, a condition formally called

malocclusion.

THIRD, THESE CHANGES CAN PLAUSIBLY BE ATTRIBUTED TO CHANGES IN WHAT

PEOPLE EAT:

Twelve thousand years ago, humans in Southwest Asia and the Fertile Crescent in the Eastern Mediterranean stopped gathering wild roots and vegetables and hunting game, as they had for hundreds of thousands of years. They started growing their food. These were the first farming cultures, and in these primitive communities, humans suffered from the first widespread instances of crooked teeth and deformed mouths. It wasn’t terrible at first. While one farming culture was plagued by facial and mouth deformities, another hundreds of miles away seemed not to suffer at all. Crooked teeth and all the breathing problems that come with them seemed totally random. Then, about 300 years ago, these maladies went viral. Suddenly, all at once, much of the world’s population began to suffer. Their mouths shrank, faces grew flatter, and sinuses plugged.

…

… the changes triggered by the rapid industrialization of farmed foods were severely damaging. Within just a few generations of eating this stuff, modern humans became the worst breathers in Homo history, the worst breathers in the animal kingdom. … for the first time in history, humans could spend their entire lives eating nothing but processed food—nothing fresh, nothing raw, nothing natural. Millions did. Over the next few centuries, food would become more and more refined. Advances in milling removed the germ and bran from rice, leaving only the starchy white seed. Roller mills (and, later, steam mills) ripped the germ and bran from wheat, leaving only a soft, white flour. Meats, fruits, and vegetables were canned and bottled. All these methods extended the shelf life of foods and made them more accessible to the public. But they also made foods mushy and soft. Sugar, which was once a prized commodity of the wealthy, became increasingly common and cheap.

…

The human face began rapidly deteriorating, too. Mouths shrank and facial bones grew stunted. Dental disease became rampant, and the incidence of crooked teeth and jaws increased tenfold in the Industrial Age. Our mouths got so bad, so overcrowded, that it became common to have teeth removed altogether. FOURTH, MANY ASPECTS OF PEOPLE’S DIETS CHANGED, BUT DON’T NEGLECT THE SIMPLE CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF CHEWING: Our ancient ancestors chewed for hours a day, every day. And because they chewed so much, their mouths, teeth, throats, and faces grew to be wide and strong and pronounced. Food in industrialized societies was so processed that it hardly required any chewing at all. This is why so many of those skulls I’d examined in the Paris ossuary had narrow faces and crooked teeth. It’s one of the reasons so many of us snore today, why our noses are stuffed, our airways clogged. Why we need sprays, pills, or surgical drilling just to get a breath of fresh air. CONCLUSION: Orthodontists who aren’t aware of this change in the development of the human jaw (especially upper jaw) compared to a few hundred years ago are badly trained. It seems more likely than not that any explanation of this change in the development of the human jaw over the last few hundred years would have important implications for how orthodontics should be done; if jaws can become malformed compared to before, there ought to be some clue in that for how we can insure that our children’s jaws are formed better. For more on possible implications for what we do now, see “A Modern World of Endemic Jaw Dysfunction

.”

__November 03, 2020

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ELIANA DOCKTERMAN: WOMEN ARE DECIDING NOT TO HAVE BABIES BECAUSE OF

THE PANDEMIC →

November 02, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__November 02, 2020

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THE FEDERALIST PAPERS #20: THE WEAKNESS OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS UP TO THE 18TH CENTURY IS EVIDENCE FOR THE WEAKNESS OF CONFEDERATIONS—ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND JAMES MADISON

November 01, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Link to the Wikipedia article “Dutch Republic”_

_ (image source)_

_Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11-#20_ In the Federalist Papers #19, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison point to the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland as examples of the weakness of confederations. (SeeThe Federalist Papers #19: The Weakness of the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

.)

In the Federalist Papers #20, they turn to the United Netherlands

. The

United Netherlands had at least two features that put it in a more favorable situation for cohesion than many confederations. First, it had a hereditary ruler who had a standing army and navy as head of the confederation and many resources and powers to draw on that were not dependent on confederation itself. Second, it had a dominant member, Holland. Despite this, it faced a great deal of disunion and foreign interference, as well as difficulties in collecting the revenue due to

the confederation.

The final words of the Federalist Papers #20 give an excellent _precis_ of a key point—the difference between being a government over governments as opposed to a government that has direct authority

over citizens:

… a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY. Subordinate governments are simply in too strong a position to resist the directives of a government over governments. And, too often, when their resistance is overcome, it is through military action against the subordinate government. Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #20: -------------------------

FEDERALIST NO. 20

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED: THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THE UNION From the New York Packet Tuesday, December 11, 1787. Author: ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND JAMES MADISON To the People of the State of New York: THE United Netherlands are a confederacy of republics, or rather of aristocracies of a very remarkable texture, yet confirming all the lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed. The union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states, and each state or province is a composition of equal and independent cities. In all important cases, not only the provinces but the cities must be

unanimous.

The sovereignty of the Union is represented by the States-General, consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed by the provinces. They hold their seats, some for life, some for six, three, and one years; from two provinces they continue in appointment during

pleasure.

The States-General have authority to enter into treaties and alliances; to make war and peace; to raise armies and equip fleets; to ascertain quotas and demand contributions. In all these cases, however, unanimity and the sanction of their constituents are requisite. They have authority to appoint and receive ambassadors; to execute treaties and alliances already formed; to provide for the collection of duties on imports and exports; to regulate the mint, with a saving to the provincial rights; to govern as sovereigns the dependent territories. The provinces are restrained, unless with the general consent, from entering into foreign treaties; from establishing imposts injurious to others, or charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own subjects. A council of state, a chamber of accounts, with five colleges of admiralty, aid and fortify the federal administration. The executive magistrate of the union is the stadtholder, who is now an hereditary prince. His principal weight and influence in the republic are derived from this independent title; from his great patrimonial estates; from his family connections with some of the chief potentates of Europe; and, more than all, perhaps, from his being stadtholder in the several provinces, as well as for the union; in which provincial quality he has the appointment of town magistrates under certain regulations, executes provincial decrees, presides when he pleases in the provincial tribunals, and has throughout the power

of pardon.

As stadtholder of the union, he has, however, considerable

prerogatives.

In his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes between the provinces, when other methods fail; to assist at the deliberations of the States-General, and at their particular conferences; to give audiences to foreign ambassadors, and to keep agents for his particular affairs at foreign courts. In his military capacity he commands the federal troops, provides for garrisons, and in general regulates military affairs; disposes of all appointments, from colonels to ensigns, and of the governments and posts of fortified towns. In his marine capacity he is admiral-general, and superintends and directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval affairs; presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy; appoints lieutenant-admirals and other officers; and establishes councils of war, whose sentences are not executed till he approves them. His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three hundred thousand florins. The standing army which he commands consists of about forty thousand men. Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as delineated on parchment. What are the characters which practice has stamped upon it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war. It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred of his countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being ruined by the vices of their constitution. The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes an authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure harmony, but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very different from the theory. The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy certain contributions; but this article never could, and probably never will, be executed; because the inland provinces, who have little commerce, cannot pay an equal quota. In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the articles of the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the consenting provinces to furnish their quotas, without waiting for the others; and then to obtain reimbursement from the others, by deputations, which are frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The great wealth and influence of the province of Holland enable her to effect both these

purposes.

It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing practicable, though dreadful, in a confedracy where one of the members exceeds in force all the rest, and where several of them are too small to meditate resistance; but utterly impracticable in one composed of members, several of which are equal to each other in strength and resources, and equal singly to a vigorous and persevering defense. Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a foreign minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by tampering with the provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of Hanover was delayed by these means a whole year. Instances of a like nature are numerous and

notorious.

In critical emergencies, the States-General are often compelled to overleap their constitutional bounds. In 1688, they concluded a treaty of themselves at the risk of their heads. The treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, by which their independence was formerly and finally recognized, was concluded without the consent of Zealand. Even as recently as the last treaty of peace with Great Britain, the constitutional principle of unanimity was departed from. A weak constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution, for want of proper powers, or the usurpation of powers requisite for the public safety. Whether the usurpation, when once begun, will stop at the salutary point, or go forward to the dangerous extreme, must depend on the contingencies of the moment. Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities. Notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership, it has been supposed that without his influence in the individual provinces, the causes of anarchy manifest in the confederacy would long ago have dissolved it. "Under such a government," says the Abbe Mably, "the Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces had not a spring within themselves, capable of quickening their tardiness, and compelling them to the same way of thinking. This spring is the stadtholder." It is remarked by Sir William Temple, "that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her riches and her authority, which drew the others into a sort of dependence, supplied

the place."

These are not the only circumstances which have controlled the tendency to anarchy and dissolution. The surrounding powers impose an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree, at the same time that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which keep the republic in some degree always at their mercy. The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these vices, and have made no less than four regular experiments by EXTRAORDINARY ASSEMBLIES, convened for the special purpose, to apply a remedy. As many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible to UNITE THE PUBLIC COUNCILS in reforming the known, the acknowledged, the fatal evils of the existing constitution. Let us pause, my fellow-citizens, for one moment, over this melancholy and monitory lesson of history; and with the tear that drops for the calamities brought on mankind by their adverse opinions and selfish passions, let our gratitude mingle an ejaculation to Heaven, for the propitious concord which has distinguished the consultations for our political

happiness.

A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be administered by the federal authority. This also had its adversaries

and failed.

This unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular convulsions, from dissensions among the states, and from the actual invasion of foreign arms, the crisis of their distiny. All nations have their eyes fixed on the awful spectacle. The first wish prompted by humanity is, that this severe trial may issue in such a revolution of their government as will establish their union, and render it the parent of tranquillity, freedom and happiness: The next, that the asylum under which, we trust, the enjoyment of these blessings will speedily be secured in this country, may receive and console them for the catastrophe of their own. I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation of these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.

_PUBLIUS._

------------------------- _HERE ARE LINKS TO MY OTHER POSTS ON THE FEDERALIST PAPERS SO FAR:_

*

The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned

Debate

*

The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America

*

The Federalist Papers #2 B: You Trusted the Continental Congress; Trust the Constitutional Convention

*

The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to

Stumble into War

*

The Federalist Papers #4 A: The States Must Be Prepared to Defend against Aggression by Other Nations

*

The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the

States are United

*

The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each

Others' Throats

*

The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human

Motives for War

*

The Federalist Papers #6 B: Commercial Republics Also Start Wars with Their Neighbors—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #7 A: Divided, the States Would Fall into Territorial Disputes Likely to Lead to War Between the States—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #7 B: Without Union, Economic Disagreements Would Drive the States to Conflict with One Another—Alexander

Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #8: Without Union, the States Would Either Be Subject to Devastating Wars with Each Other or Would Have Liberty Endangered by their Own Standing Armies—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #9 A: There Has Been Technological Progress in Practical Principles of Republican Government—Alexander Hamilton



*

The Federalist Papers #9 B: A Large Confederation May Be More Politically Stable Than a Small Nation—Alexander Hamilton Cites

Montesquieu

*

The Federalist Papers #10 A: Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #10 B: The Larger the Republic, the Easier It is to Find Thoughtful Legislators and the Harder It is to Put Together a Majority to do Unjust Things—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #13: Alexander Hamilton on Increasing Returns to Scale in National Government

*

The Federalist Papers #14: A Republic Can Be Geographically Large—James Madison

*

The Federalist Papers #15: A Government, to be Worthy of the Name, Must Govern Its Citizens, Not Just Its Subordinate Jurisdictions—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #16: Authority of the Federal Government Directly over Individuals Means States Can Only Thwart the Federal Government by Active and Obvious Resistance—Alexander Hamilton

*

The Federalist Papers #17: Three Levels of Federal Power

*

The Federalist Papers #18: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison Point to the Weakness of Confederations of Cities in Ancient Greece to Argue for a Strong Federal Government

*

The Federalist Papers #19: The Weakness of the German Empire, Poland and Switzerland up to the 18th Century is Evidence for the Weakness of Confederations—Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

__November 01, 2020

/__Miles Kimball

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HALLOWEEN AROUND THE WORLD → October 31, 2020 by

Miles Kimball

__October 31, 2020

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KEVIN BRYAN: OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE RISE OF APPLIED GAME THEORY—A NOBEL FOR MILGROM AND WILSON →

October 30, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__October 30, 2020

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DAN BENJAMIN, MARK FONTANA AND MILES KIMBALL: RECONSIDERING RISK

AVERSION

October 29, 2020

by Miles Kimball

_Link to my National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper “Reconsidering Risk Aversion,” coauthored with Dan Benjamin and

Mark Fontana_

Some of my most important work has been directed toward measuring risk aversion. This is important for many reasons; giving good advice or setting good defaults for long-term asset allocation decisions is one of them. Dan Benjamin, Mark Fontana and I explain that in the first footnote in our new NBER Working Paper “Reconsidering Risk Aversion

”:

When financial advisors make their portfolio-allocation advice contingent on an individual’s risk attitudes, they typically measure the individual’s relative ranking in the population, e.g., using a qualitative scale. According to economic theory, however, what is needed is the numerical value of the individual’s risk-preference parameters (or at least the distribution of these numerical values in the population, so that an individual’s relative ranking can be interpreted numerically). These numerical values would need to be elicited using real or hypothetical choices over risky lotteries, as

discussed here.

One difficulty with measuring risk aversion is that the answers people give could depend on the particular framing of a question. In “Reconsidering Risk Aversion,” we looked at whether grouping two risks together would lead to a different estimate of risk aversion than if the two risks were represented as separate risks. The surprising answer was that, while grouping or separating the risks made an idiosyncratic difference to people’s choices, it made little systematic difference in risk aversion that we could detect (in a statistical model that assumed constant relative risk aversion, expected utility maximization, and response error driven by a random risk aversion parameter). And differences in people’s choices because of framing were reduced when we gave people a chance to reconsider their choices. By contrast, when people had made corresponding choices under different framings and were given a chance to reconsider, they very seldom changed their choices. Giving people a chance to reconsider their choices had two particularly strong effects:

*

People became much more transitive in their choices

*

People adjusted their choices to treat compound lotteries in a way much more similar to how they treated the corresponding simple lotteries. That is, they came much closer in accord with the “Reduction of Compound Lotteries” Axiom. (Initially, they were quite far away from being in accord with this axiom.) There is a lot more I want to do to better understand risk aversion and its implications for life-cycle saving and asset allocation. I don’t feel done with this research agenda.

__October 29, 2020

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JAMES SUROWIECKI: FORGET SHUTDOWNS. IT’S ‘DEMAND SHOCK’ THAT’S KILLING OUR ECONOMY →

October 28, 2020

by Miles Kimball

__October 28, 2020

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