I think it was probably the sheep on the cover of the book that caught Jim’s eye. When he saw my copy of Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter”, Jim picked it up and asked me what it was about.
I explained that Bryan Caplan considers that voters tend to have irrational views when it comes to issues like free trade. He argues that this irrationality is a predictable response to the incentives associated with voting. Since there is a miniscule probability that the vote of any individual will be decisive in changing the result of an election, people can vote according to their feelings about how the world works – however wrong those feelings might be – safe in the knowledge that their individual vote is not likely to determine the outcome. Caplan reckons that when people vote they don’t weigh up the options the way they do when they make decisions that they expect to affect outcomes. They talk about their voting options as if they were ordering dinner from a menu, but their actions suggest that they expect to be served the same meal no matter what they “order”.
Jim did not seem overly impressed with Caplan’s views. He said: “That is what I would expect from a typical economist. You blame voters for being irrational about issues like trade protectionism, but most of you do a lousy job of explaining the benefits of trade.'
So I asked Jim how he would explain the benefits of trade. Without even pausing to think, he said: “Well, I would tell them what my father told me. Dad was a successful wheat-sheep farmer, but he was also a really good mechanic and a great gardener as well. One day, when I was still a kid, I asked him why he paid the local garage to service the family car when he could do it himself and why he didn’t grow all the vegetables we needed at home. I mentioned that Jack Smith up the road serviced his car, grew his own vegetables, milked a cow and kept chooks. Dad asked me whether I thought the Smiths were prosperous and successful farmers. I had to admit that I thought they always seemed to be struggling to get by. Dad explained that when you try to be self-sufficient and spend a lot of your time doing things like servicing your car, gardening, milking cows and feeding chooks instead of focusing on your strengths, you inevitably end up just eking out a subsistence living.
The same is true for the whole country. We are better off if we specialize in producing the things we can produce at relatively low cost and trading with the rest of the world to get the things that are costly to produce domestically.”
I was quite impressed by Jim’s explanation. I suppose that is why I forgot that he wasn’t an economist. I said: “A lot of people seem to have a good intuitive grasp of opportunity cost and the benefits of specialization from their own personal experience. It shouldn’t be too hard to get them to understand the benefits of free trade.”
“What is opportunity cost?” Jim asked. But before I could explain, he said: “Don’t bother trying to explain. I’ve got better things to do with my time that to listen to you trying to explain esoteric economic concepts. You economists should learn to talk the same language as the rest of us.”
Postscript:
After I had written this I was wondering where Jim had picked up his views about the benefits of international trade. It is easy enough to grasp of the advantages of specialization in running a business, but it is not intuitively obvious that this reasoning is relevant at an economy-wide level. When I rang him to inquire, Jim told me that he had learnt all he knew about economics from Bert Kelly. He said: “Bert Kelly was a great economist because he knew how to explain things so that they made sense.”
I didn’t bother telling Jim that C. R. (Bert) Kelly did not have any formal economics training. Bert was a politician and newspaper columnist who made a huge contribution to economic reform in Australia by explaining economic issues in a way that could readily be understood by people without formal training in economics. Bert died in 1997 and is still sadly missed.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Is religion opposed to liberty?
I cannot remember exactly how Jim and I came to be talking about this question. I started to take notice when Jim said: “I’m just about fed up with religious leaders appealing for greater religious freedom. They argue that people should be allowed to follow their consciences when governments are impinging on the rights of their members to practice their religion, but they don’t really believe in allowing people to follow their consciences. When they get the opportunity to exert some political influence themselves, they use it to impose their moral views so that people are deprived of the option of acting in accordance with their consciences.”
My response was that some religious leaders who appeal for greater religious freedom do seem to have a consistent view about the importance of individual conscience. Jim looked interested, so I told him that I had recently read a book on ethics by the Dalai Lama. I was pleasantly surprised that the Dalai Lama seemed to be espousing the primacy of conscience, despite coming from a tradition in which there has been a very close relationship between church and state. He argues that ethical discipline is something that we adopt voluntarily on the basis of full recognition of its benefits, rather than something that can be imposed upon us. He says that the most important factor in determining the ethical character of our acts is our mental and emotional state at the moment of action. (The book’s title is “Ancient Wisdom, Modern World”, published in 1999. The relevant discussion is on pages 153 – 157.)
Jim said: “That’s all very well, but the leaders of major religions in this country don’t yet seem to have learned how to distinguish between personal morality and public policy. They seem to think that religious freedom entitles them to get governments to force people to comply with their religion’s view of what is good.”
I replied that it did not worry me too much these days what religious leaders might try to do in Australia because they have lost much of their moral authority, even with regard to members of their own religions. In any case, voters seem to have become wary of giving much power to politicians who are known to have close links with prominent religious leaders.
Jim responded: “Yeah, but don’t you think it is about time these religious leaders learned to ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s’?”
I said that I thought that Christian religious leaders knew a lot more about this than we did - and they would probably be aware that these ideas had been influential in leading to the separation of church and state and the evolution of religious freedom. I said that it might be nice to think that we could persuade religious leaders that they should refrain from creating dissention by trying to get governments to impose their moral views on others and that they should focus their political efforts on encouraging people with different beliefs to live in peace with each other. I suggested, however, that we just have to accept that these people have found some way that they think is respectable to defend religious freedom without acknowledging the inviolability of conscience.
“Bulls**t!”, Jim said. “The inviolability of the human conscience is at the heart of Christianity. Those who would never accept that the state has a right to over-ride their own consciences are acting contrary to the golden rule when they attempt to use the powers of the state to over-ride the consciences of others. Religious leaders should recognize the inviolability of conscience and help protect liberty rather than threaten it.”
When I asked Jim where these ideas came from he said that he had thought this way since childhood. He did suggest, however, that it probably wouldn’t do me any harm to read the views of Fr. Robert Sirico on the question of whether religion has to be a threat to liberty (here).
My response was that some religious leaders who appeal for greater religious freedom do seem to have a consistent view about the importance of individual conscience. Jim looked interested, so I told him that I had recently read a book on ethics by the Dalai Lama. I was pleasantly surprised that the Dalai Lama seemed to be espousing the primacy of conscience, despite coming from a tradition in which there has been a very close relationship between church and state. He argues that ethical discipline is something that we adopt voluntarily on the basis of full recognition of its benefits, rather than something that can be imposed upon us. He says that the most important factor in determining the ethical character of our acts is our mental and emotional state at the moment of action. (The book’s title is “Ancient Wisdom, Modern World”, published in 1999. The relevant discussion is on pages 153 – 157.)
Jim said: “That’s all very well, but the leaders of major religions in this country don’t yet seem to have learned how to distinguish between personal morality and public policy. They seem to think that religious freedom entitles them to get governments to force people to comply with their religion’s view of what is good.”
I replied that it did not worry me too much these days what religious leaders might try to do in Australia because they have lost much of their moral authority, even with regard to members of their own religions. In any case, voters seem to have become wary of giving much power to politicians who are known to have close links with prominent religious leaders.
Jim responded: “Yeah, but don’t you think it is about time these religious leaders learned to ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s’?”
I said that I thought that Christian religious leaders knew a lot more about this than we did - and they would probably be aware that these ideas had been influential in leading to the separation of church and state and the evolution of religious freedom. I said that it might be nice to think that we could persuade religious leaders that they should refrain from creating dissention by trying to get governments to impose their moral views on others and that they should focus their political efforts on encouraging people with different beliefs to live in peace with each other. I suggested, however, that we just have to accept that these people have found some way that they think is respectable to defend religious freedom without acknowledging the inviolability of conscience.
“Bulls**t!”, Jim said. “The inviolability of the human conscience is at the heart of Christianity. Those who would never accept that the state has a right to over-ride their own consciences are acting contrary to the golden rule when they attempt to use the powers of the state to over-ride the consciences of others. Religious leaders should recognize the inviolability of conscience and help protect liberty rather than threaten it.”
When I asked Jim where these ideas came from he said that he had thought this way since childhood. He did suggest, however, that it probably wouldn’t do me any harm to read the views of Fr. Robert Sirico on the question of whether religion has to be a threat to liberty (here).
Sunday, November 30, 2008
When will they stop banning things?
Jim rang me yesterday and said he had been reading my blog and wanted to talk to me about something. So we arranged to meet. After we bought our drinks and sat down, a young woman with green hair walked in and sat at a nearby table with a scruffy looking young man.
The young woman obviously made a big impression on Jim. “It’s just not natural”, he said. I asked him what he was talking about. “Green hair”, he said quite loudly. “Humans aren’t meant to have green hair”. I told him to keep his voice down to avoid causing offence. “What about the offence she is causing me?” he said. “It’s bad enough when young women make themselves look unattractive with rings in their noses and tattoos everywhere, but green hair is beyond the pale.” I suggested that it was just a matter of taste and offered to swap seats so that Jim would not have to look at the green hair.
After Jim had settled down he said: “You libertarians don’t like banning things do you.” As I agreed he added: “But I get the impression that you might not be too keen on legalization of drugs.” I responded that I didn’t really have much to say about drugs beyond making the general point that people should be allowed to live as they please as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others. I mentioned that I thought people should even be allowed to have green hair if that is what they want.
I thought that Jim might have been able to manage half a smile, but there was no sign. He said: “I thought that the reason that I can’t find much on your blog in favour of legalization of drugs might have something to do with concerns about the effects legalization might have on vulnerable people.” I acknowledged that I was concerned about children. I admitted that when my children were in their teen years I was in favour of prohibition because I thought this would make it more difficult for teenagers to obtain drugs.
Jim said: “So, now your own kids have grown up you have changed your mind? I explained that I now think that, like a lot of parents, I had been allowing my desire to protect my children from harm to get in the way of a rational assessment of how they could best be protected. I now think that the risk of drugs falling into the hands of children can be better managed if drugs are legalized because that will make it easier to identify suppliers.
Jim then asked: “Aren’t you also concerned about vulnerable adults who experiment with drugs and end up addicted?” I suggested that prohibition seems designed to make life hell for people who become addicted because it raises the price of drugs, which induces a lot of addicts to do desperate things to finance their habit. After a moment of thought, Jim said: “But if the price of drugs goes down more people will experiment because the costs associated with becoming addicted will be lower.”
I was surprised that Jim seemed to know about the rational addiction hypothesis. However, he was beginning to annoy me so I decided that the time had come to give him a blast about the disadvantages of making protection of vulnerable people the be all and end all of everything. I suggested that we should be encouraging vulnerable people to learn to be less vulnerable because if we keep going down the path of banning things to protect everyone who is vulnerable to anything, we are going to find that just about everyone is vulnerable to something. I told him that as a businessman he should be aware of the pressure for governments to ban and regulate a lot more things including mixed alcoholic drinks, tobacco, gambling, pornography, vitamin supplements, fatty food, and high calorie food and drinks. I said he should be particularly concerned about pressure for governments to do more to protect people who are vulnerable to advertising and the debtaholics who can’t resist spending up to their credit card limits.
I made the point that once vulnerable people have been protected from all these things we will probably discover more vulnerabilities and there will be pressure for more things to be banned. One day we will wake up and discover that we have lost a lot of our capacity to make decisions affecting our own well-being. I then started to talk about the blog post on whether push-pin is addictive, in which I discuss the importance our capacity to make strategic decisions affecting our own individual well-being.
At that point Jim interrupted: “Yeah, the way we are heading the whole society will end up being run like a nunnery." I nearly fell through my chair. Jim must have seen my surprise. He added: “I hope you didn’t think I would be the kind of person who would ban green hair and everything else I didn’t like!”
The young woman obviously made a big impression on Jim. “It’s just not natural”, he said. I asked him what he was talking about. “Green hair”, he said quite loudly. “Humans aren’t meant to have green hair”. I told him to keep his voice down to avoid causing offence. “What about the offence she is causing me?” he said. “It’s bad enough when young women make themselves look unattractive with rings in their noses and tattoos everywhere, but green hair is beyond the pale.” I suggested that it was just a matter of taste and offered to swap seats so that Jim would not have to look at the green hair.
After Jim had settled down he said: “You libertarians don’t like banning things do you.” As I agreed he added: “But I get the impression that you might not be too keen on legalization of drugs.” I responded that I didn’t really have much to say about drugs beyond making the general point that people should be allowed to live as they please as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others. I mentioned that I thought people should even be allowed to have green hair if that is what they want.
I thought that Jim might have been able to manage half a smile, but there was no sign. He said: “I thought that the reason that I can’t find much on your blog in favour of legalization of drugs might have something to do with concerns about the effects legalization might have on vulnerable people.” I acknowledged that I was concerned about children. I admitted that when my children were in their teen years I was in favour of prohibition because I thought this would make it more difficult for teenagers to obtain drugs.
Jim said: “So, now your own kids have grown up you have changed your mind? I explained that I now think that, like a lot of parents, I had been allowing my desire to protect my children from harm to get in the way of a rational assessment of how they could best be protected. I now think that the risk of drugs falling into the hands of children can be better managed if drugs are legalized because that will make it easier to identify suppliers.
Jim then asked: “Aren’t you also concerned about vulnerable adults who experiment with drugs and end up addicted?” I suggested that prohibition seems designed to make life hell for people who become addicted because it raises the price of drugs, which induces a lot of addicts to do desperate things to finance their habit. After a moment of thought, Jim said: “But if the price of drugs goes down more people will experiment because the costs associated with becoming addicted will be lower.”
I was surprised that Jim seemed to know about the rational addiction hypothesis. However, he was beginning to annoy me so I decided that the time had come to give him a blast about the disadvantages of making protection of vulnerable people the be all and end all of everything. I suggested that we should be encouraging vulnerable people to learn to be less vulnerable because if we keep going down the path of banning things to protect everyone who is vulnerable to anything, we are going to find that just about everyone is vulnerable to something. I told him that as a businessman he should be aware of the pressure for governments to ban and regulate a lot more things including mixed alcoholic drinks, tobacco, gambling, pornography, vitamin supplements, fatty food, and high calorie food and drinks. I said he should be particularly concerned about pressure for governments to do more to protect people who are vulnerable to advertising and the debtaholics who can’t resist spending up to their credit card limits.
I made the point that once vulnerable people have been protected from all these things we will probably discover more vulnerabilities and there will be pressure for more things to be banned. One day we will wake up and discover that we have lost a lot of our capacity to make decisions affecting our own well-being. I then started to talk about the blog post on whether push-pin is addictive, in which I discuss the importance our capacity to make strategic decisions affecting our own individual well-being.
At that point Jim interrupted: “Yeah, the way we are heading the whole society will end up being run like a nunnery." I nearly fell through my chair. Jim must have seen my surprise. He added: “I hope you didn’t think I would be the kind of person who would ban green hair and everything else I didn’t like!”
Friday, November 28, 2008
What do we mean by market efficiency?
I ran into Jim again yesterday. Actually it would be more true to say that he ambushed me. I turned a corner and there he was. After the way he treated me in our first discussion (reported here) I was not particularly looking forward to talking to him again.
Jim said: “I enjoyed our last discussion”. I nodded agreement as I wondered why I wasn’t shaking my head the other way. Meanwhile, Jim was saying: “I heard that you wrote up our last discussion on your blog”. I must have looked a bit concerned because Jim said: “That’s OK. I don’t mind helping you with your blog, as long as you are accurate in reporting what I say and don’t make me look stupid”. I told Jim that might not be easy, but I could tell from the way he was looking that he obviously didn’t think it would be a joking matter if I made him look stupid - even though I wasn’t using his correct name on my blog. So I added that I was not going to report his expletives. Jim said that was OK. He claimed that he didn’t swear in any case, but if I wanted to I could use some bleeps now and then just to add emphasis. He said: “I won’t mind if you use a bit of poetic licence now and then, as long as you don’t make me look stupid”.
After he had bought me a beer Jim said that wanted to ask me something else. He said: “You believe that free markets are perfect don’t you?” I responded that I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. I told him that in my view all markets are imperfect, but when governments try to regulate them they often make matters worse. Jim said: “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about capital markets – share prices and bond prices. Do you think those markets are close to perfect?”
At that point I explained to Jim that what he was talking about was the efficient markets hypothesis that prices always reflect all relevant information. I said it seemed to me that investors have the strongest possible incentive to make informed decisions because their personal wealth is at stake – and equity prices reflect the information on which investors base their decisions.
Jim said: “I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that individual investors all have the same expectations about future prospects of particular firms?” I acknowledged that individuals have a lot of different views about the future. I suggested that even though a lot of investors think they can beat the market, the market averages out these different expectations, so those who do better than the market tend to be balanced by those who do worse than the market.
Jim nodded for me to continue. I explained that people who invest in funds with low management fees, whose weightings of individual shares in their portfolio are similar to a share market index, often do better than those who pay high management fees to funds that undertake a lot of research.
Jim said: “I suppose if someone has just lost half their capital on the share market they will not feel so bad if the value of their portfolio has fallen in proportion to the index and they have been paying low management fees.” I agreed.
Then Jim asked: “What do you think of Warren Buffett’s view that it is possible to beat the market because people are often irrational – they let greed take over and then they panic when fear takes over”. I said that I like Buffett’s approach to investing, but I wasn’t too keen on his politics.
Jim ignored the latter remark and asked: “So what advice do you think the Oracle of Omaha would give to novice investors about where to put their money?” I said that I imagined that he would tell them to put their money into Berkshire Hathaway. Jim replied: “Well, you don’t know everything! Buffett says that novice investors should stick with low-cost index funds.”
Postscript:
I checked to see whether or not Jim had just made this up. Warren Buffett actually gave this advice in April this year (reported here).
Jim said: “I enjoyed our last discussion”. I nodded agreement as I wondered why I wasn’t shaking my head the other way. Meanwhile, Jim was saying: “I heard that you wrote up our last discussion on your blog”. I must have looked a bit concerned because Jim said: “That’s OK. I don’t mind helping you with your blog, as long as you are accurate in reporting what I say and don’t make me look stupid”. I told Jim that might not be easy, but I could tell from the way he was looking that he obviously didn’t think it would be a joking matter if I made him look stupid - even though I wasn’t using his correct name on my blog. So I added that I was not going to report his expletives. Jim said that was OK. He claimed that he didn’t swear in any case, but if I wanted to I could use some bleeps now and then just to add emphasis. He said: “I won’t mind if you use a bit of poetic licence now and then, as long as you don’t make me look stupid”.
After he had bought me a beer Jim said that wanted to ask me something else. He said: “You believe that free markets are perfect don’t you?” I responded that I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. I told him that in my view all markets are imperfect, but when governments try to regulate them they often make matters worse. Jim said: “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about capital markets – share prices and bond prices. Do you think those markets are close to perfect?”
At that point I explained to Jim that what he was talking about was the efficient markets hypothesis that prices always reflect all relevant information. I said it seemed to me that investors have the strongest possible incentive to make informed decisions because their personal wealth is at stake – and equity prices reflect the information on which investors base their decisions.
Jim said: “I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that individual investors all have the same expectations about future prospects of particular firms?” I acknowledged that individuals have a lot of different views about the future. I suggested that even though a lot of investors think they can beat the market, the market averages out these different expectations, so those who do better than the market tend to be balanced by those who do worse than the market.
Jim nodded for me to continue. I explained that people who invest in funds with low management fees, whose weightings of individual shares in their portfolio are similar to a share market index, often do better than those who pay high management fees to funds that undertake a lot of research.
Jim said: “I suppose if someone has just lost half their capital on the share market they will not feel so bad if the value of their portfolio has fallen in proportion to the index and they have been paying low management fees.” I agreed.
Then Jim asked: “What do you think of Warren Buffett’s view that it is possible to beat the market because people are often irrational – they let greed take over and then they panic when fear takes over”. I said that I like Buffett’s approach to investing, but I wasn’t too keen on his politics.
Jim ignored the latter remark and asked: “So what advice do you think the Oracle of Omaha would give to novice investors about where to put their money?” I said that I imagined that he would tell them to put their money into Berkshire Hathaway. Jim replied: “Well, you don’t know everything! Buffett says that novice investors should stick with low-cost index funds.”
Postscript:
I checked to see whether or not Jim had just made this up. Warren Buffett actually gave this advice in April this year (reported here).
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