Jim Manzi

Harris Collingwood has an article in the current edition of The Atlantic that raises the question "Do CEOs Matter?" His answer to this question, as far as I can tell, is some mix of "maybe", "not much" and "sometimes." I have a simpler answer to his question: "Yes." … More »

Ryan Avent believes my arguments about the moral obligations of the developed world are misguided - or to quote Ryan directly, "strange." Let me take his objections one at a time. Ryan begins with:… More »

I've generally kept my climate change monomania off this business blog, but Ryan Avent has brought the bacillus here. He starts his post with a very generous set of compliments about me that could be more accurately directed toward him. So I'll just say that if you have to disagree with somebody on this topic, Ryan's the guy.His points are, as usual, well-considered and well-intentioned. Let me try to take them one at a time.… More »

Megan McArdle makes the obviously correct point that CO2 offsets are basically nonsense because of measurement problems. I'm a lot more cynical about human nature. If I were a businessman in any developing country, I would simply start building low-cost CO2 generating devices, and then start selling the 'offset' of turning them off. … More »

Despite his riches, should we care what Warren Buffett thinks?… More »

GM and Chrysler tomorrow reach the March 31 deadline, presented to them last December when they received many billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, for having a plan for viability. As was entirely predictable on the day they got the money, they have failed to do so. Here's one cheer for the Obama administration (who inherited this deal from their predecessors): they have at least recognized reality and admitted that GM and Chrysler are, to use the technical…… More »

Just as the GM restructuring "plan" was a clarifying illustration of why industrial policy rarely works very well, the current outrage over the AIG $165 million bonus payout illustrates why having the federal government run companies usually doesn't work very well either.I've argued previously that the idea that people on the government payroll shouldn't be making $10 million per year seems pretty sound to me. But what we're seeing right now is superficial…… More »

There are a lot of headlines screaming about how the U.S. unemployment rate is exploding, and has now reached levels not seen since 1983. The February unemployment numbers for February really are quite bad; unemployment increased 0.5%, from 7.6% to 8.1%. May of last year was the only month in any of the recessions of the past 25 years that saw that big a jump in the rate.When we think about how bad unemployment gets in any given recession, however, we need to…… More »

Higher taxes will tend to depress entrepreneurship, as they reduce the payout from a successful company exit. One effect of huge deficits is the rational expectation of higher future taxes. So, one effect of stimulus is likely to be fewer start-ups. During the campaign, presumably thinking of his Silicon Valley support, Obama proposed the elimination of capital gains taxes on start-ups in order to partially offset some of the impact of his tax proposals on company…… More »

Conor Clarke points to Greg Mankiw's table of propositions to which most economists agree. This list is from Mankiw's economics textbook, so I assume that it was not casually constructed. Mankiw says of the list that: If we could get the American public to endorse all these propositions, I am sure their leaders would quickly follow, and public policy would be much improved. That is why economics education is so important. But there are several things that are…… More »

Here's a liberating statement: while I am skeptical of the proposed stimulus bill, I don't know what net impact it would have on the economy. Apparently a lot of other people are far more confident about their ability to predict this. Many are highly credentialed economists. Some believe stimulus will help a lot, others that it will cause more harm than good. So, while they are all talented at speaking in a grave and impressive tone, it is certain that at…… More »

Last week, Steven Landsburg pointed to a striking chart that shows remarkable stability in the growth rate of US GDP per capita over two centuries. I've pointed to a version of this chart myself as a source of rational confidence about our economic future, at least in the long-term. But I think that Landsburg was bit Panglossian when he explains the cause of this as:It's the way the modern world works. Things improve. Incomes rise, work hours fall, the quality of…… More »

Fortune has an article up saying that "economists and executives believe that this time tech won't lead the country out of its slump", the way Fortune says it did in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Why not? Because: ...they don't see a single big idea - no semiconductors or PCs - to prime the pump. Funding for even the most promising technologies has dried up. And the country's rate of spending on new gadgets is slowing. Well, let's put aside the point…… More »

Will Wilkinson has an amusing series of posts demonstrating increasing frustration with the macroeconomic arguments about the stimulus proposal. In one, he sums up the source of his frustration:When I see Delong more or less indiscriminately trashing everyone at Chicago, or Krugman trashing Barro, etc., what doesn't arise in my mind is a sense that some of these guys really know what they're talking about while some of them are idiots. What arises in my mind is the…… More »

I went to a local Best Buy to get a digital camcorder as a present last week, and saw something truly horrifying.Two camcorders were on display next to one another: one for about $1,100, and the other for $244. Directly under the price tag for the more expensive camcorder was a financing offer: $32 per month for 48 months. Who would take that deal?… More »

In December, GM approached the federal government and claimed that they were within 30 days of bankruptcy with ~$10 billion in the bank because this was minimum liquidity required to fund operations. As private investors were unwilling to provide them with any more debt or equity investment, they asked taxpayers for an $18 billion bridge loan, saying that if they got this, then they could restructure rapidly enough to become profitable without further assistance.GM…… More »