Hot Okie Links

1. Tyler blogs Robin's book. Awesome


2. I blog my latest paper: Where is the Chinese Xzibit?


3. The Angii survived Tigernado!!


4. Sam Wilson clues you in on why this is the most glorious of all days

Indiana

Here is a quote from the New York Times:

"It seemed like routine business for the student council at the University of California, Los Angeles: confirming the nomination of Rachel Beyda, a second-year economics major who wants to be a lawyer someday, to the council’s Judicial Board. Until it came time for questions. 'Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,' Fabienne Roth, a member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, began, looking at Ms. Beyda at the other end of the room, 'how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?'

...The council, in a meeting that took place on Feb. 10, voted first to reject Ms. Beyda’s nomination, with four members against her. Then, at the prodding of a faculty adviser there who pointed out that belonging to Jewish organizations was not a conflict of interest, the students revisited the question and unanimously put her on the board...Reports of anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish sentiment have been on the rise across the country in recent years, especially directed at younger Jews, researchers said." [NYT] 

Yikes! For some reason, many people have come to believe that disagreement is cause for shunning and economic boycott. If A dislikes the policies of country or state I, then A is justified in punishing people who sympathize with I. (Note that "I" could be Israel or Indiana).

Suppose some guy comes into your store wearing a "I heart Indiana" hoodie.  You are gay, or have gay friends.  Do you have to serve him?  After all, you don't like what he stands for.  And...and...well, it's YOUR STORE.  Do you really have to validate this person?  Kick 'em out; he's intolerant.

But the meaning of "tolerance" is respectful treatment of people you disagree with, or hate. And tolerance is required of citizens in a democracy.

The hard problem: How tolerant should we be of other people we perceive (and that we have good reason to perceive, at least in our perception) as intolerant? (Referring now to the Indiana law, of course). Is it legitimate for a corporation to refuse to sell to people from Indiana, given that Indiana is intolerant of same sex couples?

Here is an article from three years ago from Wake Forest Law Review. It gives quite a bit of detail, but comes out against the constitutionality of laws such as those in Indiana.

And here is an even better (IMHO) law review article (from almost 50 years ago, when we were having an analogous argument about black folks) about common carriers and public accomodations. It is quite detailed, and historically useful.

Excerpt from the latter:

Under English common law, it was the duty of common carriers to serve all persons without imposing unreasonable conditions. 

The English courts considered that "a person [who] holds himself out to carry goods for everyone as a business . .. is a common carrier," ' and that any member of the public may create a contract with the carrier by accepting its general offer.  

(Garton v.  Bristol & Exeter Ry.  Co., 1 B.  & S.  112, 121 Eng.  Rep.  656 (1861). See generally, Kline, Origin of the Rule Against.  Unjust Discrimination, 66 U.  PA.  L.  Revd.  123  (1918)  ;  Kline,  Scope  of  the  Rule  Against  Unjust  Dis- crimination  by  Public  Servants,  67  U.  PA.  L.  Ray.  109 (1919). 7 Ingate v.  Christie, 3 Car.  & K.  61, 175 Eng.  Rep.  463, 464 (1850). S Denton v.  Great Northern Ry.  Co., 5 El.  & Bl.  860, 119 Eng.  Rep.  701 (1856))

Odysseus.com?

People try to bind themelves to the mast, as Russ and I discussed recently.

There are people who try to "sell" will power, or at least a contracting arrangement that helps people commit. A pitch:

We all have goals... Yet, most of us struggle to achieve our goals. 
That’s because there’s a big difference between having a goal and achieving a goal—stickK works by helping people eliminate this gap by using, what we call, a Commitment Contract. A Commitment Contract is a binding agreement you sign with yourself to ensure that you follow through with your intentions—and it does this by utilizing the psychological power of loss aversion and accountability to drive behavior change. 
By asking our users to sign Commitment Contracts, stickK helps users define their goal (whatever it may be), acknowledge what it’ll take to accomplish it, and leverage the power of putting money on the line to turn that goal into a reality.

Aherk calls itself a "self-blackmailing service."  Interesting.

(Nod to Mark S for the find)

ET, phone home

From Twitter trolling to dueling blog posts in the Economist, it's been a short, strange trip for the mythical, mystical, "trillion dollar platinum coin".

The young digital progressives are in lockstep on the issue. It's legal, what the Republicans are doing with the debt ceiling is much worse than the coin shenanigans, it will cause less problems than a default.

 Josh Barro, one of the coins most persistent and seemingly serious defenders, has a piece where he attempts a debunking of the concerns of the anti-coin crowd. I am most interested in one particular slice of his piece:

 "But that will be inflationary!" This is a more serious objection, and it gets at what the platinum coin strategy really is -- financing the federal government's operations by printing money instead of borrowing it. The trillion- dollar coin will never circulate, but it will be used to back cash payments coming from the Treasury that would have otherwise been financed by bond purchases. If the government financed itself this way in general, that would absolutely be inflationary. But the president can hold inflation expectations steady by making absolutely clear that the policy will not lead to a net change in the money supply over the long term. Obama should pledge that once Congress authorizes additional borrowing, he will direct the Treasury to issue bonds to cover the government's coin-backed spending and then to melt the coin.... If the president is clear about his lack of any long-term intention to interfere with the money supply, I don't expect the platinum coin to cause a spike in prices."

I think the coin is excellent political theatre. It's got the right up in arms, positively sputtering with indignation, which can only be a good thing.

However, I think the expectations issue is quite a bit more problematic than what Josh outlines. In economics modeling, expectations aren't anchored by jawboning or empty promises. Without a specific commitment mechanism, mere promises will be non-credible (this of course is the time-consistency issue made famous by another Barro).

Specifically, I worry that when a US president takes up the power to directly print money in a political dispute, his assurances that it's only temporary, will be reversed as soon as his opponents capitulate, and will never happen again, might not be extremely credible. One could make a case that this action would indeed increase expectations of inflation down the road and increase the volatility of inflation as well.

And beyond inflation concerns, it is worth considering what the coin would to do the expectations of future government behavior held by investors, credit raters, trading partners and other relevant actors.

So while I absolutely love the trolling value of the coin, and kind of love the overall idea of the coin, I think is is a much more risky economic proposition than its proponents will recognize.