The Liberal Order

Bill Clinton Is Following Eight On Twitter . . .

. . . and Stephen Colbert is the only one of the eight that is neither a foundation or the former president's daughter Chelsea. 

That's definitely going to get to his head.

The Perverse Effects of Federal Reserve Policy

It is amazing how cheaply Apple is able to borrow money. Its 10-year bonds issued this week yielded 2.415 percent at a time 10-year U.S. Treasury yielded 1.61 percent. Apple 30-year bonds yielded 3.883 percent, while 30-year Treasuries were at 2.811 percent.

Investors are willing to lend Apple money for three decades for only about a percentage point more in interest than if they lent the same money to the U.S. government.

Story here.

So despite sitting on tens of billions of dollars, Apple is issuing bonds — you know, borrowing money, to the tune of $170 billions of it. 

Well, because the Fed is so busy buying up U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities, investors are being squeezed out of these markets and are willing to invest in corporate bonds. That sounds great in that this should spur increased investment, therefore creating jobs and improving economic growth. Or so the story goes.

But for the economy to take off, businesses need to take advantage of those low rates to invest—to invent new products, build new factories, hire new workers. Instead, what Apple is doing is all too typical. It is taking advantage of low rates to funnel money to shareholders in a bit of financial engineering, rather than triggering new investment. And as such, it is a powerful reminder of the limited ability of the Fed’s bond buying to create rip-roaring growth.

Ben Bernanke will turn out to be the greatest genius ever to run the Fed, or its biggest putz. Time will tell. 

Comparing Technology from 1993 to 2013

A very clever comparison of the technology available in 1993 to the technology available today, though I don't think I'd include the laptop as a direct comparision. But everything else surely fits, if only the cost comparisons were included.

HT: Newmark's Door

Wal-Mart looking at an interesting way to deliver packages.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT) is considering a radical plan to have store customers deliver packages to online buyers, a new twist on speedier delivery services that the company hopes will enable it to better compete with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN).

Tapping customers to deliver goods would put the world's largest retailer squarely in middle of a new phenomenon sometimes known as "crowd-sourcing," or the "sharing economy."

Story here.

The Ten Most Hated Companies In America

I don't know if I agree with all of them, but I certainly agree that Dish Network, T-Mobile and HP (only because Compaq was acquired by HP) belong on the list of the ten most hated companies on America.

All three offer great lessons of why being dishonest with your customers (Dish Network is the worst of the three) and gouging them is not good business practice. The beauty of market capitalism is that if I feel someone else will better serve my interests, I'll exit my current relationship with an offending company. The Internet now allows for people to inform others of their dissatisfaction with a business. 

As Gordon Tullock once noted:

Where the market is broad and there are many alternatives, you had better cooperate. If you choose the noncooperative solution, you may find you have no one to noncooperate with.

Tullock, Gordon. "Adam Smith and the Prisoners' Dilemma."  Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1985, page 1081.

"House of Cards": A Tribute to James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock?

I have heard how good is Netflix's "House of Cards," and I plan on watching it this weekend. But if this article explaining the beauty of this show is even remotely accurate, it seems like this show pays respect to James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock.

In discussing the typical story of politics in Washington as told by Hollywood, Ari Melber refers to them as "anti-politics" since they purport to show the political process as corrupted by a few, which thwarts the good intentions of the noble who go to Washington to serve the public interest, much like Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." 

This anti-politics matches a delusion that many political novices share with entitled elites—the indulgent notion that one's personal values transcend "ideology," and instead, reflect a universal "common sense."

So "House of Cards" "takes the romance out of politics." 

And it also reveals what Hayek argued in "Why the Worst Get On Top."

David Fincher's new political thriller, released in 13 episodes on Netflix, takes a different and much darker path. His tale begins with a clear take on Washington: It is the source of evil. Not a place reduced to evil, because of political infighting or external financial pressure.

No, this is a story about the Beltway as a magnet for bad actors.

This show goes after the false belief in democracy as somehow above the greed and selfish interests of human nature that Hollywood typcially reserves for corrupt and evil businessmen.

Washington is deeply frustrating because so many of the positions that politicians hold are a product of ephemeral self-interest. They reverse themselves, for themselves, all the time.

Let's hope this message is spread wide and far.

For manufacturing employment, the future is now.

As former Washington Redskins coach George Allen used to say, "The future is now." For employment in manufacturing, the days of pushing a button and watching a machine process or snapping two things together are largely over. Today's workers require a different skill set.

They are also pushing hard to redefine manufacturing as a thinking-person’s career. State officials have given up on saving the traditional blue-collar jobs that had sustained local communities in earlier generations.

“The reality is North Carolina and the United States will never be able to compete for these jobs,” said Lew Ebert, CEO of the N.C. Chamber, the state’s business lobby. “What you want is an economy of knowledge workers.”

Much of the menial work has gone overseas to be performed by low-wage floor crews. Other types of manufacturing jobs have been wiped out by automation, robotics and technological efficiencies.

The jobs North Carolina economic planners want to keep are computerized and sophisticated, in such areas as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, components and a plethora of specialty products. There is no giant manufacturing industry to dominate the field as textiles, furniture and tobacco once did in their golden age.

Sadly, though, is this.

Siemens employs 1,550 at its turbine and generator factory in Charlotte, nearly half of them blue-collar manufacturing jobs, often straight out of high school. They operate lathes, boring mills and other complex equipment and are paid between $10-an-hour and $25-an-hour.

These employees are put through a battery of training courses that Siemens calls “mechatronics,” a program leading to a 2-year associate’s degree.

Getting one of these jobs requires passing a screening exam in literacy, math, mechanical aptitude and other basic skills. Only 10 percent of applicants have an adequate high school preparation to pass the Siemens exam, said Mark Pringle, director of operations for Siemens Energy in Charlotte.

“They’re just not training these skills in high school,” Pringle said.

A fine explanation of price discrimination.

Here is a good primer on price discrimination through online retailers. Unfortunately, it doesn't do enough to explain the benefits to consumers of price discrimination.

And this is something I wasn't aware of.

Some sites, for example, gave discounts based on whether or not a person was using a mobile device. A person searching for hotels from the Web browser of an iPhone or Android phone on travel sites Orbitz and CheapTickets would see discounts of as much as 50% off the list price, Orbitz said.

Both sites are run by Orbitz Worldwide Inc., which in fact markets the differences as "mobile steals." Orbitz says the deals are also available on the iPad if a person installs the Orbitz app.

"Many hotels have proven willing to provide discounts for mobile sites," said Chris Chiames, Orbitz's vice president of corporate affairs. Hotels on Orbitz mobile sites also offer discounts "that might target shoppers in a specific geographic region," as determined by the physical location of the user, as well as "other factors."

Note to self: Use an iPhone for making reservations.

A basic rule of thumb for pricing is that P = [MC/{1-(1/e)}], which says that price your good or service equal to the marginal cost of producing that good or service, divided by one minus 1 over elasticity of demand. As the elasticity of demand for some good or service increases, the price of that good or service tends toward the marginal cost of producing it. Airlines charge vacation travelers less than they charge business travelers because the elasticity of demand for the former (i.e., e) is greater than it is for the latter. People going on vacation have many alternatives—including doing without—relative to business travelers.

Here is how Staples utilizes this practice.

Staples.com showed higher prices most often—86% of the time—when the ZIP Code actually had a brick-and-mortar Staples store in it, but was also far from a competitor's store. In calculating these percentages, the Journal excluded New York City and used the more than 29,000 "standard" ZIP Codes in the 50 states and District of Columbia. This meant things like ZIP Codes with only post-office boxes weren't counted.

Prices varied for about a third of the more than 1,000 randomly selected Staples.com products tested. The discounted and higher prices differed by about 8% on average.

Lacking competitors in a given area means consumers in those areas have a less elastic demand curve for office supplies, enabling Staples to charges customers in those areas higher prices. 

And the poor tend to have more inelastic demand curves, mostly due to fewer alternative brick-and-mortar stores in their areas, as well as limited online options.

In what appears to be an unintended side effect of Staples' pricing methods—likely a function of retail competition with its rivals—the Journal's testing also showed that areas that tended to see the discounted prices had a higher average income than areas that tended to see higher prices.

SAT Question of the Day Answer - Not!

The College Board offers via email an SAT Question of the Day. This is to help prepare high school students for the test that will, in part, determine where they go to college.

Now this is nitpicking because in all honesty it's the only error I've come across since I began following these questions about six months ago, but here is the question and my response selected (obviously wrong as indicated by the red circle and white X) for yesterday, November 23, 2012.

And here is the correct (actually, incorrect) response selected. 

What a confusing method for answering the question. How about cross multiplying to get 24n = 60 and then solve for n. 

I've actually been very impressed with the questions they put online every day. This one, including the answer, was an anomaly. 

Who are the big winners from this recent election?

In addition to politicians and special interests, there is another group that benefits handsomely from big (and getting bigger) government.

Some of the biggest winners in the most expensive election in U.S. history weren’t the politicians, but the private consultants who brought in tens of millions of dollars in fees for advertising, fundraising and other campaign activities.