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Archive for February, 2013

That Oh So Elusive Natural Rate of Interest

Last week, I did a short post linking to the new draft of my paper with Paul Zimmerman about the Sraffa-Hayek exchange on the natural rate of interest. In the paper, we attempt to assess Sraffa’s criticism in his 1932 review of Prices and Production of Hayek’s use of the idea of a natural rate of interest as well as Hayek’s response, or, perhaps, his lack of response, to Sraffa’s criticism. The issues raised by Sraffa are devilishly tricky, especially because he introduced the unfamiliar terminology of own-rates of interest, later adopted Keynes in chapter 17 of the General Theory in order to express his criticism. The consensus about this debate is that Sraffa got the best of Hayek in this exchange – the natural rate of interest was just one of the issues Sraffa raised, and, in the process, he took Hayek down a peg or two after the startling success that Hayek enjoyed upon his arrival in England, and publication of Prices and Production. In a comment to my post, Greg Ransom questions this conventional version of the exchange, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

What Paul and I do in the paper is to try to understand Sraffa’s criticism of Hayek. It seems to us that the stridency of Sraffa’s attack on Hayek suggests that Sraffa was arguing that Hayek’s conception of a natural rate of interest was somehow incoherent in a barter economy in which there is growth and investment and, thus, changes in relative prices over time, implying that commodity own rates of interest would have differ. If, in a barter economy with growth and savings and investment, there are many own-rates, Sraffa seemed to be saying, it is impossible to identify any one of them as the natural rate of interest. In a later account of the exchange between Sraffa and Hayek, Ludwig Lachmann, a pupil of Hayek, pointed out that, even if there are many own rates in a barter economy, the own rates must, in an intertemporal equilibrium, stand in a unique relationship to each other: the expected net return from holding any asset cannot differ from the expected net return on holding any other asset. That is a condition of equilibrium. If so, it is possible, at least conceptually, to infer a unique real interest rate. That unique real interest rate could be identified with Hayek’s natural rate of interest.

In fact, as we point out in our paper, Irving Fisher in his classic Appreciation and Interest (1896) had demonstrated precisely this point, theoretically extracting the real rate from the different nominal rates of interest corresponding to loans contracted in terms of different assets with different expected rates of price appreciation. Thus, Sraffa did not demonstrate that there was no natural rate of interest. There is a unique real rate of interest in intertemporal equilibrium which corresponds to the Hayekian natural rate. However, what Sraffa could have demonstrated — though had he done so, he would still have been 35 years behind Irving Fisher – is that the unique real rate is consistent with an infinite number of nominal rates provided that those nominal rates reflected corresponding anticipated rate of price appreciation. But, instead, Sraffa argued that there is no unique real rate in intertemporal equilibrium. That was a mistake.

Another interesting (at least to us) point in our paper is that Keynes who, as editor of the Economic Journal, asked Sraffa to review Prices and Production, borrowed Sraffa’s own-rate terminology in chapter 17 of the General Theory, but, instead of following Sraffa’s analysis and arguing that there is no natural rate of interest, Keynes proceeded to derive, using (without acknowledgment) a generalized version of Fisher’s argument of 1896, a unique relationship between commodity own rates, adjusted for expected price changes, and net service yields, such that the expected net returns on all assets would be equalized. From this, Keynes did not conclude, as had Sraffa, that there is no natural rate of interest. Rather, he made a very different argument: that the natural rate of interest is a useless concept, because there are many natural rates each corresponding to a different the level of income and employment, a consideration that Hayek, and presumably Fisher, had avoided by assuming full intertemporal equilibrium. But Keynes never disputed that for any given level of income and employment, there would be a unique real rate to which all commodity own rates had to correspond. Thus, Keynes turned Sraffa’s analysis on its head. And the final point of interest is that even though Keynes, in chapter 17, presented essentially the same analysis of own rates, though in more general terms, that Fisher had presented 40 years earlier, Keynes in chapter 13 explicitly rejected Fisher’s distinction between the real and nominal rates of interest. Go figure.

Bob Murphy wrote a nice paper on the Sraffa-Hayek debate, which I have referred to before on this blog. However, I disagree with him that Sraffa’s criticism of Hayek was correct. In a post earlier this week, he infers, from our statement that, as long as price expectations are correct, any nominal rate is consistent with the unique real natural rate, that we must agree with him that Sraffa was right and Hayek was wrong about the natural rate. I think that Bob is in error on the pure theory here. There is a unique real natural rate in intertemporal equilibrium, and, in principle, the monetary authority could set a money rate equal to that real rate, provided that that nominal rate was consistent with the price expectations held by the public. However, intertemporal equilibrium could be achieved by any nominal interest rate selected by the monetary authority, again provided that the nominal rate chosen was consistent with the price expectations held by the public. In practice, either formulation is very damaging to Hayek’s policy criterion of setting the nominal interest rate equal to the real natural rate. But contrary to Sraffa’s charge, the policy criterion is not incoherent. It is just unworkable, as Hayek formulated it, and, on Hayek’s own theory, the criterion is unnecessary to avoid distorting malinvestments.

Armen Alchian, The Economists’ Economist

The first time that I ever heard of Armen Alchian was when I took introductory economics at UCLA as a freshman, and his book (co-authored with his colleague William R. Allen who was probably responsible for the macro and international chapters) University Economics (the greatest economics textbook ever written) was the required text. I had only just started to get interested in economics, and was still more interested in political philosophy than in economics, but I found myself captivated by what I was reading in Alchian’s textbook, even though I didn’t find the professor teaching the course very exciting. And after 10 weeks (the University of California had switched to a quarter system) of introductory micro, I changed my major to economics. So there is no doubt that I became an economist because the textbook that I was taught from was written by Alchian.

In my four years as an undergraduate at UCLA, I took three classes from Axel Leijonhufvud, two from Ben Klein, two from Bill Allen, and one each from Robert Rooney, Nicos Devletoglou, James Buchanan, Jack Hirshleifer, George Murphy, and Jean Balbach. But Alchian, who in those days was not teaching undergrads, was a looming presence. It became obvious that Alchian was the central figure in the department, the leader and the role model that everyone else looked up to. I would see him occasionally on campus, but was too shy or too much in awe of him to introduce myself to him. One incident that I particularly recall is when, in my junior year, F. A. Hayek visited UCLA in the fall and winter quarters (in the department of philosophy!) teaching an undergraduate course in the philosophy of the social sciences and a graduate seminar on the first draft of Law, Legislation and Liberty. I took Hayek’s course on the philosophy of the social sciences, and audited his graduate seminar, and I occasionally used to visit his office to ask him some questions. I once asked his advice about which graduate programs he would suggest that I apply to. He mentioned two schools, Chicago, of course, and Princeton where his friends Fritz Machlup and Jacob Viner were still teaching, before asking, “but why would you think of going to graduate school anywhere else than UCLA? You will get the best training in economics in the world from Alchian, Hirshleifer and Leijonhufvud.” And so it was, I applied to, and was accepted at, Chicago, but stayed at UCLA.

As a first year graduate student, I took the (three-quarter) microeconomics sequence from Jack Hirshleifer (who in the scholarly hierarachy at UCLA ranked only slightly below Alchian) and the two-quarter macroeconomics sequence from Leijonhufvud. Hirshleifer taught a great course. He was totally prepared, very organized and his lectures were always clear and easy to follow. To do well, you had to sit back listen, review the lecture notes, read through the reading assignments, and do the homework problems. For me at least, with the benefit of four years of UCLA undergraduate training, it was a breeze.

Great as Hirshleifer was as a teacher, I still felt that I was missing out by not having been taught by Alchian. Perhaps Alchian felt that the students who took the microeconomics sequence from Hirshleifer should get some training from him as well, so the next year he taught a graduate seminar in topics in price theory, to give us an opportunity to learn from him how to do economics. You could also see how Alchian operated if you went to a workshop or lecture by a visiting scholar, when Alchian would start to ask questions. He would smile, put his head on his forehead, and say something like, “I just don’t understand that,” and force whoever it was to try to explain the logic by which he had arrived at some conclusion. And Alchian would just keep smiling, explain what the problem was with the answer he got, and ask more questions. Alchian didn’t shout or rant or rave, but if Alchian was questioning you, you were not in a very comfortable position.

So I was more than a bit apprehensive going into Alchian’s seminar. There were all kinds of stories told by graduate students about how tough Alchian could be on his students if they weren’t able to respond adequately when subjected to his questioning in the Socratic style. But the seminar could not have been more enjoyable. There was give and take, but I don’t remember seeing any blood spilled. Perhaps by the time I got to his seminar, Alchian, then about 57, had mellowed a bit, or, maybe, because we had all gone through the graduate microeconomics sequence, he felt that we didn’t require such an intense learning environment. At any rate, the seminar, which met twice a week for an hour and a quarter for 10 weeks, usually involved Alchian picking a story from the newspaper and asking us how to analyze the economics underlying the story. Armed with nothing but a chalkboard and piece of chalk, Alchian would lead us relatively painlessly from confusion to clarity, from obscurity to enlightenment. The key concepts with which to approach any problem were to understand the choices available to those involved, to define the relevant costs, and to understand the constraints under which choices are made, the constraints being determined largely by the delimitation of the property rights under which the resources can be used or exchanged, or, to be more precise, the property rights to use those resources can be exchanged.

Ultimately, the lesson that I learned from Alchian is that, at its best, economic theory is a tool for solving actual real problems, and the nature of the problem ought to dictate the way in which the theory (verbal, numerical, graphical, higher mathematical) is deployed, not the other way around. The goal is not to reach any particular conclusion, but to apply the tools in the best and most authentic way that they can be applied. Alchian did not wear his politics on his sleeve, though it wasn’t too hard to figure out that he was politically conservative with libertarian tendencies. But you never got the feeling that his politics dictated his economic analysis. In many respects, Alchian’s closest disciple was Earl Thompson, who studied under Alchian as an undergraduate, and then, after playing minor-league baseball for a couple of years, going to Harvard for graduate school, eventually coming back to UCLA as an assistant professor where he remained for his entire career. Earl, discarding his youthful libertarianism early on, developed many completely original, often eccentric, theories about the optimality of all kinds of government interventions – even protectionism – opposed by most economists, but Alchian took them all in stride. Mere policy disagreements never affected their close personal bond, and Alchian wrote the forward to Earl’s book with Charles Hickson, Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Economics Institutions. If Alchian was friendly with and an admirer of Milton Friedman, he just as friendly with, and just as admiring of, Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow, with whom he collaborated on several projects in the 1950s when they consulted for the Rand Corporation. Alchian cared less about the policy conclusion than he did about the quality of the underlying economic analysis.

As I have pointed out on several prior occasions, it is simply scandalous that Alchian was not awarded the Noble Prize. His published output was not as voluminous as that of some other luminaries, but there is a remarkably high proportion of classics among his publications. So many important ideas came from him, especially thinking about economic competition as an evolutionary process, the distinction between the functional relationship between cost and volume of output and cost and rate of output, the effect of incomplete information on economic action, the economics of property rights, the effects of inflation on economic activity. (Two volumes of his Collected Works, a must for anyone really serious about economics, contain a number of previously unpublished or hard to find papers, and are available here.) Perhaps in the future I will discuss some of my favorites among his articles.

Although Alchian did not win the Nobel Prize, in 1990 the Nobel Prize was awarded to Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, and William F. Sharpe for their work on financial economics. Sharp, went to UCLA, writing his Ph.D. dissertation on securities prices under Alchian, and worked at the Rand Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s with Markowitz.  Here’s what Sharpe wrote about Alchian:

Armen Alchian, a professor of economics, was my role model at UCLA. He taught his students to question everything; to always begin an analysis with first principles; to concentrate on essential elements and abstract from secondary ones; and to play devil’s advocate with one’s own ideas. In his classes we were able to watch a first-rate mind work on a host of fascinating problems. I have attempted to emulate his approach to research ever since.

And if you go to the Amazon page for University Economics and look at the comments you will see a comment from none other than Harry Markowitz:

I am about to order this book. I have just read its quite favorable reviews, and I am not a bit surprised at their being impressed by Armen Alchian’s writings. I was a colleague of Armen’s, at the Rand Corporation “think tank,” during the 1950s, and hold no economist in higher regard. When I sat down at my keyboard just now it was to find out what happened to Armen’s works. One Google response was someone saying that Armen should get a Nobel Prize. I concur. My own Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 1990 along with the prize for Wm. Sharpe. I see in Wikipedia that Armen “influenced” Bill, and that Armen is still alive and is 96 years old. I’ll see if I can contact him, but first I’ll buy this book.

I will always remember Alchian’s air of amused, philosophical detachment, occasionally bemused (though, perhaps only apparently so, as he tried to guide his students and colleagues with question to figure out a point that he already grasped), always curious, always eager for the intellectual challenge of discovery and problem solving. Has there ever been a greater teacher of economics than Alchian? Perhaps, but I don’t know who. I close with one more quotation, this one from Axel Leijonhufvud written about Alchian 25 years ago.  It still rings true.

[Alchian’s] unique brand of price theory is what gave UCLA Economics its own intellectual profile and achieved for us international recognition as an independent school of some importance—as a group of scholars who did not always take their leads from MIT, Chicago or wherever. When I came here (in 1964) the Department had Armen’s intellectual stamp on it (and he remained the obvious leader until just a couple of years ago ….). Even people outside Armen’s fields, like myself, learned to do Armen’s brand of economic analysis and a strong esprit de corps among both faculty and graduate students sprang from the consciousness that this ‘New Institutional Economics’ was one of the waves of the future and that we, at UCLA, were surfing it way ahead of the rest. But Armen’s true importance to the UCLA school did not stem just from the new ideas he taught or the outwardly recognized “brandname” that he created for us. For many of his young colleagues he embodied qualities of mind and character that seemed the more important to seek to emulate the more closely you got to know him.

My Paper (co-authored with Paul Zimmerman) on Hayek and Sraffa

I have just uploaded to the SSRN website a new draft of the paper (co-authored with Paul Zimmerman) on Hayek and Sraffa and the natural rate of interest, presented last June at the History of Economics Society conference at Brock University. The paper evolved from an early post on this blog in September 2011. I also wrote about the Hayek-Sraffa controversy in a post in June 2012 just after the HES conference.

One interesting wrinkle that occurred to me just as I was making revisions in the paper this week is that Keynes’s treatment of own rates in chapter 17 of the General Theory, which was in an important sense inspired by Sraffa, but, in my view, came to a very different conclusion from Sraffa’s, was actually nothing more than a generalization of Irving Fisher’s analysis of the real and nominal rates of interest, first presented in Fisher’s 1896 book Appreciation and Interest. In his Tract on Monetary Reform, Keynes extended Fisher’s analysis into his theory of covered interest rate arbitrage. What is really surprising is that, despite his reliance on Fisher’s analysis in the Tract and also in the Treatise on Money, Keynes sharply criticized Fisher’s analysis of the nominal and real rates of interest in chapter 13 of the General Theory. (I discussed that difficult passage in the General Theory in this post).  That is certainly surprising. But what is astonishing to me is that, after trashing Fisher in chapter 13 of the GT, Keynes goes back to Fisher in chapter 17, giving a generalized restatement of Fisher’s analysis in his discussion of own rates. Am I the first person to have noticed Keynes’s schizophrenic treatment of Fisher in the General Theory?

PS: My revered teacher, the great Armen Alchian passed away yesterday at the age of 98. There have been many tributes to him, such as this one by David Henderson, also a student of Alchian’s, in the Wall Street Journal. I have written about Alchian in the past (here, here, here, here, and here), and I hope to write about Alchian again in the near future. There was none like him; he will be missed terribly.

Robert Waldmann, WADR, Maybe You Really Should Calm Down

Responding to this recent post of mine, Robert Waldmann wrote a post of his own with a title alluding to an earlier post of mine responding to a previous post of his. Just to recapitulate briefly, the point of the post which seems to have provoked Professor Waldmann was to refute the allegation that the Fed and the Bank of Japan are starting a currency war by following a policy of monetary ease in which they are raising (at least temporarily) their inflation target. I focused my attention on a piece written by Irwin Stelzer for the Weekly Standard, entitled not so coincidentally, “Currency Wars.” I also went on to point out that Stelzer, in warning of the supposedly dire consequences of starting a currency war, very misleadingly suggested that Hitler’s rise to power was the result of an inflationary policy followed by Germany in the 1930s.

Here is how Waldmann responds:

I do not find any reference to the zero lower bound in this post.  Your analysis of monetary expansion does not distinguish between the cases when the ZLB holds and when it doesn’t.  You assume that the effect of an expansion of the money supply on domestic demand can be analyzed ignoring that detail. I think it is clear that the association between the money supply and domestic demand has been different in the USA since oh September 2008 than it was before.  This doesn’t seem to me to be a detail which can be entirely overlooked in any discussion of current policy.

Actually, I don’t think that, in principle, I disagree with any of this. I agree that the zero lower bound is relevant to the analysis of the current situation. I prefer to couch the analysis in terms of the Fisher equation making use of the equilibrium condition that the nominal rate of interest must equal the real rate plus expected inflation. If the expected rate of deflation is greater than the real rate, equilibrium is impossible and the result is a crash of asset prices, which is what happened in 2008. But as long as the real rate of interest is negative (presumably because of pessimistic entrepreneurial expectations), the rate of inflation has to be sufficiently above real rate of interest for nominal rates to be comfortably above zero. As long as nominal rates are close to zero and real rates are negative, the economy cannot be operating in the neighborhood of full-employment equilibrium. I developed the basic theory in my paper “The Fisher Effect Under Deflationary Expectations” available on SSRN, and provided some empirical evidence (which I am hoping to update soon) that asset prices (as reflected in the S&P 500) since 2008 have been strongly correlated with expected inflation (as approximated by the TIPS spread) even though there is no strong theoretical reason for asset prices to be correlated with expected inflation, and no evidence of correlation before 2008. Although I think that this is a better way than the Keynesian model to think about why the US economy has been underperforming so badly since 2008, I don’t think that the models are contradictory or inconsistent, so I don’t deny that fiscal policy could have some stimulative effect. But apparently that is not good enough for Professor Waldmann.

Also, I note that prior to his [Stelzer’s] “jejune dismissal of monetary policy,” Stelzer jenunely dismissed fiscal policy.  You don’t mention this at all.  Your omission is striking, since the evidence that Stelzer is wrong to dismiss fiscal policy is overwhelming (not overwhelming enough to overwhelm John Taylor but then mere evidence couldn’t do that).  In contrast, the dismissal of monetary policy when an economy is in a liquidity trap is consistent with the available evidence.

It seems to me that Waldmann is being a tad oversensitive. Stelzer’s line was “stimulus packages don’t work very well, and monetary policy produces lots of fiat money but not very many jobs.” What was jejune was not the conclusion that fiscal policy and monetary policy aren’t effective; it was his formulation that monetary expansion produces lots of fiat money but not many jobs, a formulation which, I believe, was intended to be clever, but struck me as being not clever, but, well, jejune. So I did not mean to deny that fiscal policy could be effective at the zero lower bound, but I disagree that the available evidence is consistent with the proposition that monetary policy is ineffective in a liquidity trap. In 1933, for example, monetary policy triggered the fastest economic expansion in US history, when FDR devalued the dollar shortly after taking office, an expansion unfortunately prematurely terminated by the enactment of FDR’s misguided National Industrial Recovery Act. The strong correlation between inflation expectations and stock prices since 2008, it seems to me, also qualifies as evidence that monetary policy is not ineffective at the zero lower bound. But if Professor Waldmann has a different interpretation of the significance of that correlation, I would be very interested in hearing about it.

Instead of looking at the relationship between inflation expectations and stock prices, Waldmann wants to look at the relationship between job growth and monetary policy:

I hereby challenge you to show data on US “growth”  meaning (I agree with your guess) mostly employment growth since 2007 to someone unfamiliar with the debate and ask that person to find the dates of shifts in monetary policy.  I am willing to bet actual money (not much I don’t have much) that the person will not pick out QEIII or operation twist.    I also guess that this person will not detect forward guidance looking at day to day changes in asset prices.

I claim that the null that nothing special happened the day QEIV was announced or any of the 4 plausible dates of announcement of QE2 (starting with a FOMC meeting, then Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech then 2 more) can’t be rejected by the data. This is based on analysis by two SF FED economists who look at the sum of changes over three of the days (not including the Jackson Hole day when the sign was wrong) and get a change (of the sign they want) whose square is less than 6 times the variance of daily changes (of the 10 year rate IIRC).  IIRC 4.5 times.  Cherry picking and not rejecting the null one wants to reject is a sign that one’s favored (alternative) hypothesis is not strongly supported by the data.

I think that the way to pick out changes in monetary policy is to look at changes in inflation expectations, and I think that you can find some correlation between changes in monetary policy, so identified, and employment, though it is probably not nearly as striking as the relationship between asset prices and inflation expectations. I also don’t think that operation twist had any positive effect, but QE3 does seem to have had some. I am not familiar with the study by the San Francisco Fed economists, but I will try to find it and see what I can make out of it. In the meantime, even if Waldmann is correct about the relationship between monetary policy and employment since 2008, there are all kinds of good reasons for not rushing to reject a null hypothesis on the basis of a handful of ambiguous observations. That wouldn’t necessarily be the calm and reasonable thing to do.

Ronald Dworkin, RIP

I never met Ronald Dworkin, and I have not studied his work on legal philosophy carefully, but one essay that he wrote many years ago made a deep impression on me when I read it over 40 years ago as an undergraduate, and I still consider it just about the most profound discussion of law that I ever read. The essay, “Is Law a System of Rules?” (reprinted in The Philosophy of Law)  is a refutation of the philosophy of legal positivism, which holds that law is simply the command of a duly authorized sovereign law giver, an idea that was powerfully articulated by Thomas Hobbes and later by Jeremy Bentham.

Legal positivism was developed largely in reaction to theories of natural law, reflected in the work of legal philosophers like Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, and in William Blackstone’s famous Commentaries on the Laws of England. The validity of law and the obligation to obey law were derived from the correspondence, even if only imperfect, of positive law to natural law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were largely a form of apologetics aimed at showing how well English law corresponded to the natural law. Jeremy Bentham would have none of this, calling “natural rights” (i.e., the rights derived from natural law) simple nonsense, and “natural and imprescriptible rights” nonsense on stilts.

Legal positivism was first given a systematic exposition by Bentham’s younger contemporary, John Austin, who described law as those commands of a sovereign for which one would be punished if one failed to obey them, the sovereign being he who is habitually obeyed. The twentieth century legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart further refined the doctrine in a definitive treatise, The Concept of Law, in which he argued that law must have a systematic and non-arbitrary structure. Laws are more than commands, but they remain disconnected from any moral principles. Law is not just a set of commands; it is a system of rules, but the rules have no necessary moral content.

As a Rhodes Scholar, Dworkin studied under Hart at Oxford, but he rejected Hart’s view of law. In his paper “Is Law a System of Rules?” Dworkin subjected legal positivism, in the sophisticated version (law as a system of rules) articulated by Hart, to a searching philosophical analysis. When I read Dworkin’s essay, I had already read Hayek’s great work, The Constitution of Liberty, and, while Hayek was visiting UCLA in the 1968-69 academic year, the first draft of his Law, Legislation and Liberty. In both of these works, Hayek had also criticized legal positivism, which he viewed as diametrically opposed to his cherished ideal of the rule of law as a necessary condition of liberty. But his criticism seemed to me not nearly as effective or as interesting as Dworkin’s. Despite disagreeing with Dworkin on a lot of issues, I have, ever since, admired Dworkin as a pre-eminent legal and political philosopher.

Dworkin’s main criticism of the theory that law is a system of rules was that the theory cannot account for the role played by legal principles in informing and guiding judges in deciding actual cases whose outcome is not obvious. Here is how Dworkin, in his essay, described the role of one such principle.

In 1889 a New York court, in the famous case of Riggs v. Palmer had to decide whether an heir named in the will of his grandfather could inherit under that will, even though he had murdered his grandfather to do so. The court began its reasoning with this admission: “It is quite true that statutes regulating the making, proof and effect of wills, and the devolution of property, if literally construed, and if their force and effect can in no way and under no circumstances be controlled or modified, give this property to the murderer.” But the court continued in to note that “all laws as well as all contracts may be controlled in their operation and effect by general, fundamental maxims of the common law. No one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or acquire property by his own crime.” The murder did not receive his inheritance.

From here Dworkin went on to conduct a rigorous philosophical analysis of the way in which the principle that no one may profit from his own wrong could be understood within the conceptual framework of legal positivism that law is nothing more than a system of rules. In fact, Dworkin argued, rules cannot be applied in a vacuum, there must be principles and standards that provide judges with the resources by which to arrive at judicial decisions in cases where there is not an exact match between the given facts and an applicable rule, cases in which, in the terminology of legal positivism, judges must exercise discretion, as if discretion meant no more than freedom to reach an arbitrary unprincipled decision. Principles govern judicial decisions, but not in the same way that rules do. Rules are binary, on or off; principles are flexible, they have weight, their application requires judgment.

If we take baseball rules as a model, we find that rules of law, like the rule that a will is invalid unless signed by three witnesses, fit the model well. If the requirement of three witnesses is a valid legal rule, then it cannot be that a will has signed by only two witnesses and is valid. . . .

But this is not the way the sample principles in the quotations operated. Even those which look most like rules do not set out legal consequences that follow automatically when the conditions provided are met. We say that our law respects the principle that no man may profit from his own wrong, but we do not mean that the law never permits a man to profit from wrongs he commits. In fact, people most often profit, perfectly legally, from their legal wrongs. . . .

We do not treat these . . . counter-instances . . . as showing that the principle about profiting from one’s own wrongs is not a principle of our legal system, or that it is incomplete and needs qualifying exceptions. We not treat counter-instances as exceptions (at least not exceptions in the way in which a catcher’s dropping the third strike is an exception) because we could not hope to capture these counter-instances simply by a more extended statement of the principle. . . . Listing some of these might sharpen our sense of the principle’s weight, but it would not make for a more accurate or complete statement of the principle. . . .

All that is meant, when we way that a particular principle is a principle of our law, is that the principle is one which officials must take into account, if it is relevant, as a consideration inclining in one direction or another.

Just as an aside, I will observe that this passage and others in Dworkin’s essay make it clear that when Chief Justice Roberts appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005 and stated that in his view the job of a judge is calling balls and strikes but not pitching or batting, he was using a distinctly inappropriate, and perhaps misleading, metaphor to describe what it is that a judge, especially an appellate judge, is called upon to do. See Dworkin’s essay on the Roberts hearing in the New York Review of Books.

Although I never met Dworkin, I did correspond with him on a few occasions, once many years ago and more recently exchanging emails with him about various issues — the last time when I sent him a link to this post commenting on the oral argument before the Supreme Court about the Affordable Health Care Act. His responses to me were always cordial and unfailingly polite; I now regret not having saved the letters and the emails. Here are links to obituaries in the New York Times, The Guardian and The Financial Times.

It Ain’t What People Don’t Know that Gets Them into Trouble; It’s What They Know That Ain’t So

I start with a short autobiographical introduction. In the interlude between my brief academic career and my 25 years at the FTC, one of my jobs was as an antitrust economist at a consulting firm called NERA (National Economic Research Associates). The President (and founder) of the firm was then Irwin Stelzer who, after selling the business for a tidy sum to Marsh & McLennan, eventually relinquished day-to-day management of the firm. When I was at NERA, it actually had a reputation of being a Democratic-leaning, pro-enforcement, non-Chicago-School, firm, but, at some point after Stelzer left NERA, I began seeing articles and op-eds by him promoting a pro-Republican, pro-deregulation, agenda. He became Director of Regulatory Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and subsequently Director of Economic Policy Studies at the Hudson Institute. Stelzer developed a relationship with Rupert Murdoch, writing regular columns on economic policy for a number of Murdoch publications, such as the Sunday Times and the Weekly Standard. The relationship with Murdoch has apparently made Stelzer a somewhat controversial figure in Britain, where he maintains a residence, but all details about that relationship are unknown to me. After not seeing Irwin for almost 30 years, I have recently chanced to meet him twice at concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, enjoying a very pleasant conversation with him, possibly even mentioning to him my new career as a blogger, and later exchanging a few emails.

I mention all this, because last night I happened to see Stelzer’s latest economic commentary in the Weekly Standard on the subject of currency wars. Given my past, and recently resumed, relationship with Stelzer, I do feel a little funny now that I am about to write somewhat critically about him, but, hey, a blogger’s gotta do what a blogger’s gotta do.

Stelzer’s first paragraph sets the tone:

Growth is the summum bonum of economic policy. Tough to arrange at home: stimulus packages don’t work very well, and monetary policy produces lots of fiat money but not very many jobs. The solution: export-led growth—the other guy will buy so much of your goods and services that your economy will grow. There are two ways to make this sort of growth happen. Lower the international value of your currency so that your output is cheaper overseas, or increase productivity at home by lowering labor and other costs and therefore the prices you need to charge foreigners. The first is painless, or so it seems initially. The second requires a politically difficult assault on benefits and union created labor market rigidities.

What we have here is a confusion of concepts and meanings. Starting with a facile identification of the highest good of economic policy with growth, where growth seems to denote growth in employment, Stelzer offers up a jejune dismissal of monetary policy, and concludes that exports are the answer. How are exports to be increased? The easy, but disreputable, way is to depreciate your currency, the hard, but virtuous, way is to cut your costs. The underlying confusion here is that between the nominal and the real exchange rate.  Let me try to sort things out.

A nominal exchange rate tells you how much of one currency can be exchanged for a unit of another currency. The exchange rate between the dollar and the euro is now about $1.33 per euro. If the euro depreciated against the dollar, the exchange rate might fall to something like, say, $1.25 per euro. For given euro prices of stuff made in Europe, a depreciated euro would mean that the prices, measured in dollars, of European stuff would fall, presumably causing European exports to the US to rise. The reduced exchange rate would work in favor of European exports. However, prices do change, and a falling euro would tend to raise the euro prices of the stuff made in Europe. If the US and European economies were in (foreign-trade) equilibrium before the euro depreciated against the dollar, prices of European stuff would keep going up until the European export advantage was eliminated. So even as the nominal euro exchange rate depreciated against the dollar, price adjustments would tend to restore the real euro exchange rate back to its original equilibrium level, thereby eliminating the temporary advantage enjoyed by European exports immediately after the fall in the nominal euro exchange rate.

That’s not to say that monetary policy cannot affect the real exchange rate, just that doing so requires more than reducing the nominal exchange rate. I discussed this a while back in a couple of posts (here and here) on currency manipulation and the Chinese central bank. The upshot of those posts was that to prevent domestic prices from rising in response to a depreciated nominal exchange rate, thereby offsetting the reduction in the nominal exchange rate and restoring the real exchange rate to its original level, a country (or its central bank) would have to follow a tight-money policy aimed at sterilizing the inflows of foreign cash corresponding to the increased outflow of exports.

Apparently Stelzer did not read my posts on the subject (tsk, tsk). Otherwise, he could not have written the following:

Until now, China has been the world’s devaluer par excellence, keeping the yuan low so that its export-led economy could continue to provide jobs for the millions of Chinese moving off the farms and into the cities.

Well, to begin with, China has not been keeping the nominal yuan low. For a long time, the yuan was pegged at a fixed exchange rate against the dollar. More recently, the yuan has been appreciating against the dollar. However, the Chinese central bank has been sterilizing inflows of foregin exchange and preventing domestic price increases that would have slowed the growth of Chinese exports and encouraged Chinese imports. In other words, the Chinese central bank has been printing too little money. Let’s follow Dr. Stelzer a bit further.

Now, Japan’s new prime minister Shinzo Abe has joined the war, pressuring his central bank to print money and drive down the value of the yen to rescue Japan from “the strengthening yen.” From Mr. Abe’s point of view, so far so good: the yen has fallen about 15 percent against other currencies, making Japanese cars and other products considerably cheaper overseas; the Nikkei share price index is up about 35 percent; and U.S. importers are again ordering Japanese products that they discontinued in the stronger-yen era.

Stelzer is also afraid that Brazil and Great Britain under the new Governor of the Bank of England are going to follow the bad example of China and Japan. This has him really worried.

It should be obvious that the currency war is a trade war by other means. The use of traditional weapons—tariffs to keep out imports and thereby increase demand for homemade products and create jobs—was outlawed by mutual consent of the warring parties when they agreed to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization. So a new weapon of trade destruction has been rolled out—the printing press. Run the presses, flood the markets with your currency, and later, if not sooner, your currency will depreciate, giving you an edge in world markets. Until trading partners respond.

I’m sorry, but this is all wrong. Trade war, Chinese style, involves reducing the nominal exchange rate to gain a competitive advantage and tightening monetary policy, i.e., not running the printing presses, repeat, not running the printing presses, to prevent the increase in the money stock that would normally follow from an export surplus. The depreciation of the nominal exchange rate in response to money printing makes everyone better off, because it raises the home demand for imports while increasing the foreign demand for exports.

Last February, I published a post about Ralph Hawtrey’s take on currency wars, aka competitive devaluation, quoting at length from Hawtrey’s excellent book, Trade Depression and the Way Out. I reproduce the last three paragraphs of the passage I quoted in my earlier post.

In consequence of the competitive advantage gained by a country’s manufacturers from a depreciation of its currency, any such depreciation is only too likely to meet with recriminations and even retaliation from its competitors. . . . Fears are even expressed that if one country starts depreciation, and others follow suit, there may result “a competitive depreciation” to which no end can be seen.

This competitive depreciation is an entirely imaginary danger. The benefit that a country derives from the depreciation of its currency is in the rise of its price level relative to its wage level, and does not depend on its competitive advantage. If other countries depreciate their currencies, its competitive advantage is destroyed, but the advantage of the price level remains both to it and to them. They in turn may carry the depreciation further, and gain a competitive advantage. But this race in depreciation reaches a natural limit when the fall in wages and in the prices of manufactured goods in terms of gold has gone so far in all the countries concerned as to regain the normal relation with the prices of primary products. When that occurs, the depression is over, and industry is everywhere remunerative and fully employed. Any countries that lag behind in the race will suffer from unemployment in their manufacturing industry. But the remedy lies in their own hands; all they have to do is to depreciate their currencies to the extent necessary to make the price level remunerative to their industry. Their tardiness does not benefit their competitors, once these latter are employed up to capacity. Indeed, if the countries that hang back are an important part of the world’s economic system, the result must be to leave the disparity of price levels partly uncorrected, with undesirable consequences to everybody. . . .

The picture of an endless competition in currency depreciation is completely misleading. The race of depreciation is towards a definite goal; it is a competitive return to equilibrium. The situation is like that of a fishing fleet threatened with a storm; no harm is done if their return to a harbor of refuge is “competitive.” Let them race; the sooner they get there the better.

I would have been happy to end the post here, having a) clarified an important, but often overlooked, distinction between the nominal and the real exchange rate, b) made the important analytical point that currency manipulation or trade war via monetary policy, requires tightening, not easing, monetary policy, and c) concluded the whole discussion with a wonderful quote from R. G. Hawtrey. Unfortunately, my work is not yet complete, because Stelzer writes the following in the penultimate paragraph of his piece.

The U.S. and the UK, among others, have already deployed that weapon, and the new head of Japan’s central bank is likely to be chosen by Abe from the warrior class. Germany, not overjoyed with Draghi’s hint that he might take up arms, continues to insist that the ECB remain a non-combatant. Angela Merkel has made it clear that the long unpleasantness that followed Germany’s decision to run the money presses overtime in the 1930s is still etched in Germans’ minds, and that she agrees with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin that “the surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency,” a view on which John Maynard Keynes put his stamp of approval: “Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.”

OMG! Something has gone very, very wrong here. I repeat the critical passage to make sure it sinks all the way in.

Angela Merkel has made it clear that the long unpleasantness that followed Germany’s decision to run the money presses overtime in the 1930s is still etched in Germans’ minds

I can’t tell if Stelzer’s memory has failed him, and he is misrepresenting what Mrs. Merkel believes, or if — and this is an even more frightening thought — Mrs. Merkel actually believes that Hitler came to power, because Germany ran the money presses overtime in the 1930s. But the plain facts are that the German hyperinflation occurred in 1923, and Hitler came to power in 1933 when Germany, after years of deflation, austerity and wage cuts imposed in a futile, and self-destructive, attempt to remain on the gold standard, was still wallowing in the depths of the Great Depression. If Chancellor Merkel’s policy is now premised on the presumed fact that Hitler came to power, not because of the misguided deflationary policies of 1929-33, but the hyperinflation of the previous decade, I tremble at the thought of what disasters may still be waiting to befall us.

Another Nail in the Money-Multiplier Coffin

It’s been awhile since my last rant about the money multiplier. I am not really feeling up to another whack at the piñata just yet, but via Not Trampis, I saw this post on the myth of the money multiplier by the estimable Barkley Rosser. Rosser discusses a recent unpublished paper by two Fed economists, Seth Carpenter and Selva Demiralp, entitled “Money, Reserves, and the Transmission of Monetary Policy: Does the Money Multiplier Exist?”

Rosser concludes his post as follows:

That Fed control over the money supply has become a phantom has been quite clear since the Minsky moment in 2008, with the Fed massively expanding its balance sheet without much resulting increase in measured money supply.  This of course has made a hash of all the people ranting about the Fed “printing money,” which presumably will lead to hyperinflation any minute (eeek!).  But the deeper story that some of us were unaware of is that apparently this disjuncture happened a long time ago.  Even so, one of our number pointed out that official Fed literature and even many Fed employees still sell the reserve base story tied to a money multiplier to the public, just as one continues to find it in the textbooks,  But apparently most of them know better, and the money multiplier became a myth a long time ago.

Here’s the abstract of the Carpenter and Demiralp paper.

With the use of nontraditional policy tools, the level of reserve balances has risen significantly in the United States since 2007. Before the financial crisis, reserve balances were roughly $20 billion whereas the level has risen well past $1 trillion. The effect of reserve balances in simple macroeconomic models often comes through the money multiplier, affecting the money supply and the amount of lending in the economy. Most models currently used for macroeconomic policy analysis, however, either exclude money or model money demand as entirely endogenous, thus precluding any causal role for money. Nevertheless, some academic research and many textbooks continue to use the money multiplier concept in discussions of money. We explore the institutional structure of the transmissions mechanism beginning with open market operations through to money and loans. We then undertake empirical analysis of the relationship among reserve balances, money, and bank lending. We use aggregate as well as bank-level data in a VAR framework and document that the mechanism does not work through the standard multiplier model or the bank lending channel. In particular, if the level of reserve balances is expected to have an impact on the economy, it seems unlikely that the standard multiplier analysis will explain the effect.

And here’s my take from 25 years ago in my book Free Banking and Monetary Reform (p. 173)

The conventional models break down the money supply into high-power money [the monetary base] and the money multiplier. The money multiplier summarizes the supposedly stable numerical relationship between high-powered money and the total stock of money. Thus an injection of reserves, by increasing high-powered money, is supposed to have a determinate multiplier effect on the stock of money. But in Tobin’s analysis, the implications of an injection of reserves were ambiguous. The result depended on how the added reserves affected interest rates and, in turn, the costs and revenues from creating deposits. It was only a legal prohibition of paying interest on deposits, which kept marginal revenue above marginal cost, that created an incentive for banks to expand whenever they acquired additional reserves.

When regulation Q was abolished, it meant lights out for the money-multiplier.

Two Reviews: One Old, One New

Recently I have been working on a review of a recently published (2011) volume, The Empire of Credit: The Financial Revolution in Britain, Ireland, and America, 1688-1815 for The Journal of the History of Economic Thought. I found the volume interesting in a number of ways, but especially because it seemed to lend support to some of my ideas on why the state has historically played such a large role in the supply of money. When I first started to study economics, I was taught that money is a natural monopoly, the value of money being inevitably forced down by free competition to the value of the paper on which it was written. I believe that Milton Friedman used to make this argument (though, if I am not mistaken, he eventually stopped), and I think the argument can be found in writing in his Program for Monetary Stability, but my memory may be playing a trick on me.

Eventually I learned, first from Ben Klein and later from Earl Thompson, that the naïve natural-monopoly argument is a fallacy, because it presumes that all moneys are indistinguishable. However, Earl Thompson had a very different argument, explaining that the government monopoly over money is an efficient form of emergency taxation when a country is under military threat, so that raising funds through taxation would be too cumbersome and time-consuming to rely on when that state is faced with an existential threat. Taking this idea, I wrote a paper “An Evolutionary Theory of the State Monopoly over Money,” eventually published (1998) in a volume Money and the Nation State. The second chapter of my book Free Banking and Monetary Reform was largely based on this paper. Earl Thompson worked out the analytics of the defense argument for a government monopoly over money in a number of places. (Here’s one.)

And here are the first two paragraphs from my review (which I have posted on SSRN):

The diverse studies collected in The Empire of Credit , ranging over both monetary and financial history and the history of monetary theory, share a common theme: the interaction between the fiscal requirements of national defense and the rapid evolution of monetary and financial institutions from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, the period in which Great Britain unexpectedly displaced France as the chief European military power, while gaining a far-flung intercontinental empire, only modestly diminished by the loss of thirteen American colonies in 1783. What enabled that interaction to produce such startling results were the economies achieved by substituting bank-supplied money (banknotes and increasingly bank deposits) for gold and silver. The world leader in the creation of these new instruments, Britain reaped the benefits of efficiencies in market transactions while simultaneously creating a revenue source (through the establishment of the Bank of England) that could be tapped by the Crown and Parliament to fund the British military, thereby enabling conquests against rivals (especially France) that lagged behind Britain in the development of flexible monetary institutions.

Though flexible, British monetary arrangements were based on a commitment to a fixed value of sterling in terms of gold, a commitment which avoided both the disastrous consequences of John Law’s brilliant, but ill-fated, monetary schemes in France, and the resulting reaction against banking that may account for the subsequent slow development of French banking and finance. However, at a crucial moment, the British were willing and able to cut the pound lose from its link to gold, providing themselves with the wherewithal to prevail in the struggle against Napoleon, thereby ensuring British supremacy for another century. (Read more.) [Update 2:37 PM EST: the paper is now available to be downloaded.]

In writing this review, I recalled a review that I wrote in 2000 for EH.net of a volume of essays (Essays in History: Financial, Economic, and Personal) by the eminent economic historian Charles Kindleberger, author of the classic Manias, Panics and Crashes. Although I greatly admired Kindleberger for his scholarship and wit, I disagreed with a lot of his specific arguments and policy recommendations, and I tried to give expression to both my admiration of Kindleberger and my disagreement with him in my review (also just posted on SSRN). Here are the first two paragraphs of that essay.

Charles P. Kindleberger, perhaps the leading financial historian of our time, has also been a prolific, entertaining, and insightful commentator and essayist on economics and economists. If one were to use Isaiah Berlin’s celebrated dichotomy between hedgehogs that know one big thing and foxes that know many little things, Kindleberger would certainly appear at or near the top of the list of economist foxes. Although Kindleberger himself never invokes Berlin’s distinction between hedgehogs and foxes, many of Kindleberger’s observations on the differences between economic theory and economic history, the difficulty of training good economic historians, and his critical assessment of grand theories of economic history such as Kondratieff long cycles, are in perfect harmony with Berlin.

So it is hard to imagine a collection of essays by Kindleberger that did not contain much that those interested in economics, finance, history, and policy — all considered from a humane and cosmopolitan perspective — would find worth reading. For those with a pronounced analytical bent (who are perhaps more inclined to prefer the output of a hedgehog than of a fox), this collection may seem a somewhat thin gruel. And some of the historical material in the first section will appear rather dry to all but the most dedicated numismatists. Nevertheless, there are enough flashes of insight, wit (my favorite is his aside that during talks on financial crises he elicits a nervous laugh by saying that nothing disturbs a person’s judgment so much as to see a friend get rich), and wisdom as well as personal reminiscences from a long and varied career (including an especially moving memoir of his relationship with his student and colleague Carlos F. Diaz-Alejandro) to repay readers of this volume. Unfortunately the volume is marred somewhat by an inordinate number of editorial lapses and mistaken attributions or misidentifications such as attributing a cutting remark about Paganini’s virtuosity to Samuel Johnson (who died when the maestro was all of two years old). (Read more) [Update 2:37 PM EST: the paper is now available to be downloaded.]

About Me

David Glasner
Washington, DC

I am an economist in the Washington DC area. My research and writing has been mostly on monetary economics and policy and the history of economics. In my book Free Banking and Monetary Reform, I argued for a non-Monetarist non-Keynesian approach to monetary policy, based on a theory of a competitive supply of money. Over the years, I have become increasingly impressed by the similarities between my approach and that of R. G. Hawtrey and hope to bring Hawtrey's unduly neglected contributions to the attention of a wider audience.

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Bangkok - 27 Nov 2020

News Number: G/51/2020

Photo credit: iStock/neenawat

Photo credit: iStock/neenawat

A new report released today by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat is urging Southeast Asian governments to amplify their COVID-19 stimulus packages with much-needed investments in climate action and adaptation, in order to support vulnerable populations exposed to both pandemics and slow-onset disasters.

The second edition of Ready for the Dry Years: Building Resilience to Drought in South-East Asia uncovers deep impacts across the region that have persisted after drought conditions have ceased and accumulated over time, including disruption to livelihoods and food security, as well as increased environmental hazards such as forest fires and haze. The report finds that economies are now facing an unprecedented threat to macroeconomic stability and new vulnerabilities are emerging, as the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 and the climate crisis converge.

Southeast Asia has long endured severe droughts; over the past five years, the region has experienced the strongest droughts recorded in decades with no ASEAN Member State spared. During the peak, over 70 per cent of the land area was affected and nearly 60 per cent of the region’s population were exposed.

“The ever-present threat of drought, with devastating impacts across the Southeast Asia region, is a hallmark of the climate crisis. Through our strengthened engagement and strategic partnership, both ESCAP and ASEAN can mobilize rapid and large-scale collaboration amongst Member States, development partners, stakeholders and relevant sectoral bodies to tackle a common and shared transboundary challenge,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.

“ASEAN must shift towards a more responsive and adaptive drought risk management,” said Secretary-General of ASEAN Dato Lim Jock Hoi. “The development of drought management policies and plans at the national level must focus on drought prevention, mitigation, vulnerability reduction, planning and preparedness, instead of dealing with or responding to aftermath losses and damages.”

About 15 to 25 per cent of the region’s population live in drought hotspots, where high drought exposure overlaps with socioeconomic vulnerability and land degradation. As the climate warms, drought severity is expected to increase. However, compared to other disasters, droughts are more predictable and tend to reoccur in the region once every five years.

Thus, the report calls for a more proactive approach and details policy actions along three tracks: reduce and prevent; prepare and respond; and restore and recover. The proposed actions cover a wide range of policy areas, from the management of food, water and energy systems, to the implementation of early warning systems and drought risk financing.

“As slow onset disasters are often overlooked, it is now time to put the spotlight to drought by policymakers, the media and stakeholders. As such, more attention in the form of sound mitigation and adaptation plans will be necessary,” said Administrator of the Office of Civil Defense of the Republic of the Philippines, Under-Secretary Ricardo Jalad, who also serves as the representative of the Chair of the 8th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management.

The report’s policy recommendations also provided the evidence base for the ASEAN Declaration on the Strengthening of Adaptation to Drought, which was adopted at the recently concluded 37th ASEAN Summit on 13 November. The Declaration represents a paradigm shift towards more long term and adaptive drought risk management and governance, and will be subsequently translated into a Regional Plan of Action.

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Tag Archives: Harry Potter

New York Philharmonic – A John Williams Celebration Recap

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. John Williams exploded into the film music world. He is the most famous living composer today and he is responsible for some of the most memorable themes and most successful movie franchises of all time. His work on Star Wars alone has made him a powerful figure in the film business and at 84 years of age, it doesn’t look like he’s planning on retiring anytime soon. The New York Philharmonic recently performed some of the Maestro’s works at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York and the results were simply out of this world.

Continue reading New York Philharmonic – A John Williams Celebration Recap

In 1958, English author Michael Bond introduced the world to Paddington Bear, a kind-hearted young bear who speaks, wears a slightly oversized hat, has a taste for marmalade as well as a penchant for adventure. Paddington has appeared in numerous books, animated programs, toys, and for purposes for this review, a feature-length film. Paddington is a charming movie that showcases the beloved bear and tells his story in an intelligent, fun, and visually-striking way. It is a film for the whole family and the perfect way to start off 2015.

Continue reading Paddington

Daniel Radcliffe is a man of many talents. He made a name for himself playing the child wizard Harry Potter and since then, he has picked a number of roles that showcase his impressive range as an actor. Films like The Woman in Black, Kill Your Darlings and this year’s What If are all excellent examples of this. But audiences will certainly shed the last bit of Hogwarts from their memory with Radcliffe’s latest acting challenge, the quirky horror comedy Horns. It is a strong departure for the young actor and has been released just in time for Halloween.

Continue reading Horns

What If

In the wake of his decade playing Harry Potter, young, talented actor Daniel Radcliffe has certainly blossomed and matured in his entertainment career. He has taken unconventional film roles and has earned much praise with his stints on Broadway. At the tender age of 24, Mr. Radcliffe continually brings joy to the world and manages to captivate his audiences. His latest film What If (aka The F Word) is a charming romantic dramedy in which he and fellow youngin Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks, Revolutionary Road) play an intriguing game of emotional ping pong. The film is quirky, raw, and downright fun.

Continue reading What If


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How remote learning needs to change

Adjusting from the hybrid model to full remote learning brought new problems with it.

Madison Seckman

Madison Seckman’s remote learning space – previously just a laptop to game on – is now a mess just like remote learning. Everything is pilling up, and it is hard to keep track of and make time for school assignments.

Madison Seckman, Feature and Managing Editor

We’ve officially made it two weeks into the new remote learning schedule. A lot needs to change.

Compared to the hybrid model that we had at Creek from August to mid-November, the remote learning schedule is the better of two evils. Since we cannot be in person five days a week, it’s important to make our learning as comfortable and manageable as we can from behind a computer or cell phone screen. There have been a few challenges.

I missed a biology test my first week of remote learning. I never miss tests.

This test was supposed to happen in that weird gray area from 2 pm to almost 4 pm after school: namely, academic support periods.

Academic support is very unclear. Whether or not one is mandatory to attend is completely up to the teachers. While it’s great to give them the option for more learning time, some of them overlap, and it’s too hard to remember when you have to go to a meeting versus when you don’t.

My AP Language and Composition teacher had to make her essay available earlier because a bunch of her students had a Chemistry Honors test to take during the same academic support period.

It would be far easier to make none of the support periods mandatory or all of them mandatory rather than a wishy-washy week-to-week basis that no one can keep track of.

Keeping track of academic support periods doesn’t even matter, however, if one cannot find the link or home page to get to it.

The links to class are all over the place right now. I can say with certainty that I cannot find more than one class’ link in the same place as another. And, some of them are not even on the same server as the others – some teachers are using Microsoft Teams while others are using Zoom.

My classes are split down the middle. I have three classes on Zoom and three classes on Teams. They should all be on one platform to make it less confusing.  Then students can be very comfortable with one platform instead of a little familiar with two.

Once I’ve determined which platform my class is on, I have to find the link to it. Teams is easy because you can go through My Cherry Creek and see all of the classes on the Teams’ homepage. But, Teams is really slow and laggy.

As far as Zoom goes, there is no guarantee on where you will find the link to class. Some teachers send it via email or put it on agendas or have it on their schoology pages.

Putting the link to every class at the top of their Schoology page is the best idea. Everyone needs to have Schoology open for their classes anyway, so teachers should just post their Teams or Zoom link at the top of the materials list for their classes.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed is waking up much later than I would on an in person school day. Unfortunately, the shortened and late-start remote days do not make for a sufficient lunch period – we only have 30 minutes.

A specific example is a time when my fourth period went over their time by five minutes, so I only had 25 left of my lunch – 20 if you take into account the five minutes my computer needs to boot up before seventh period. I ran into my kitchen to make myself a bowl of Ramen Noodle Soup, and I burned my mouth on it because I didn’t have time to let it cool down before my next period.

One could argue that I can eat during my classes, but I cannot have food in my bedroom – where I do my school work – and for many classes, I am required to turn on my camera, so my whole class would be watching me eat. Not the best option.

Starting school 15 minutes earlier would be a great way to extend our lunch period.

Everyone at Creek is struggling with adjusting to a school year unlike any other. We have to jump in head first to see what happens and decide on how to fix it. And, as we all keep adjusting, I believe all of our little pet peeves from remote learning will be fixed. Remember to fight through and keep heads held high.


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$135 usd per adult · $115 usd per child (0-12 years)

Join us to visit a unique paradise in Mexico. Holbox is a small and charming island, which still retains many of the aspects that characterize this heavenly place: sandy streets, palm trees, hammocks in the sea, the warmth of its people and the natural wealth that still preserves this lovely island.


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Inside: The key point is, Jesus gives us eternal life. We shouldn’t have anything really to be ungrateful for if we’re ungrateful do we take advantage of Christ?

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I haven’t had the most grateful heart in the past especially during the actual day of Thanksgiving.

The Holiday Season likes to capture me. My thoughts seem to bypass Thanksgiving and fly straight to Christmas.

 I miss the blessings of the present, when I’m unthankful and focused on the future.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m alone in this. Does it seem to you like our culture is moving more and more towards leaving thankfulness behind? Click To Tweet

Has gratefulness gone out the window?

I searched the internet to see what I could find about being ungrateful. A few articles suggested that it’s OK to be ungrateful.

When you’ve mastered the art of appreciating what you have for what it is, but you’re still deeply discontent with the situation… you have permission to be “ungrateful ~Stephenie Zamora (you can find the rest of the article here.)

What do you think about that quote?

The definition of ungrateful is: not feeling or showing gratitude or not pleasant or acceptable.

As Christians, can we be ungrateful?

I think it’s possible to have an ungrateful heart as a Christian.

The causes of ungrateful hearts

  1. Captivation of trying circumstances, we forget what God has done for our past.
  2. An intense focus on the circumstances, instead of the good gifts God is sending us (James 1:17).
  3. Dissatisfaction with our current state, and we look forward to the future by passing the present.

Being ungrateful can have a huge effect on our faith. It can cause us to question God’s goodness and His Protection and Provision in our lives.

Ungratefulness is a sign we aren’t in sync with our Savior. Click To Tweet

If we can’t find anything to be thankful for in our faith, we’ve missed the point about our faith.

The key point is, Jesus gives us eternal life. We shouldn’t have anything really to be ungrateful for.

Do we take advantage of Christ when we are ungrateful?

Faith and gratitude go hand in hand, don’t they? Our faith causes us to be grateful. If we start to feel ungrateful, it looks like we need God to do some heart-work in us. Here’s what God says about ungratefulness.

(2 Timothy 3:2-5, NLT).

For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly

When we feel our hearts twinging with the feelings of thanklessness, might we realign ourselves with what God says?

Therefore, with 10 eyes watching me (I have 5 kids) I don’t want them to grow up with my ungrateful heart or get caught up in the culture’s version of Thanksgiving.

I want them to see Thanksgiving Day through the lens of a Christian child looking at their Creator.

I’ve come up with a list of ways to cultivate a grateful heart.

8 Blessings I want my kids to know this Thanksgiving:

  1. The gift of salvation moves us to thanksgiving continually. Thanksgiving Day is a day set apart to be a little more thankful for this gift.
  2. The world might seem dark, but there is always something we can be thankful for. Focus on the blessings instead of the circumstances.
  3. A Christian heart is a thankful heart.
  4. Being thankful is not a feeling, it’s a choice.
  5. Everything is a gift from God, we need to view it as a blessing.
  6. Thankfulness rubs off on other people.
  7. God deserves to be thanked for who He is.
  8. Cultivating a thankful heart is important to health and wellbeing.

Here’s the thing, with so much dark in this world, don’t we want to raise children that can see the positives in whatever circumstance they are looking at?

We have a huge mission field out there in regards to showing people the good things God gives us each day. Our culture is so wrapped up in the negative and dark.

Let us show hearts of thanksgiving. I promise it will rub off on someone else.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8, NLT).

The Way of Gratitude: Readings for a Joyful LifeThe Way of Gratitude: Readings for a Joyful LifeChoosing Gratitude: Your Journey to JoyChoosing Gratitude: Your Journey to JoyGratitudeGratitudeGratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional ProsperityGratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional ProsperityGratitude: A Prayer and Praise Coloring JournalGratitude: A Prayer and Praise Coloring Journal21 Prayers of Gratitude: Overcoming Negativity Through the Power of Prayer and God's Word (A Life of Gratitude)21 Prayers of Gratitude: Overcoming Negativity Through the Power of Prayer and God’s Word (A Life of Gratitude)


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Gangster Hyder escapes from SCB in Cuttack

Cuttack: Notorious gangster Suleiman Hyder escaped from SCB Medical College and Hospital where he was undergoing treatment under police custody on Saturday.

Hyder is serving life imprisonment in connection with murder and other offences.

He was lodged in Sambalpur circle jail.

The gangster was admitted to the SCB hospital 12 days back after being referred by VIMSAR hospital in Burla. He was undergoing treatment at Cabin no-5 of the SCB hospital’s surgery department.


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Stardust Hardy Hibiscus

Stunning, large, lipstick pink blooms have a small red eye, exotic darker venation, and pale pink stamens with yellow anthers. An upright, rounded form with soft green, purple-tinted foliage that provides an attractive backdrop to the showy blooms. A perfect addition to sunny beds and borders. An herbaceous perennial.

USDA Zone: 4 – 10

Light Needs: Full sun

Water Needs: Water regularly to maintain evenly moist soil – weekly, or more often.

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Internet is Breaking News Before Traditional Sources

Internet is Breaking News Before Traditional SourcesThere was a time when the three major television news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) were the go-to places for millions of Americans wanting their news.

Flash-forward decades later, while those three networks still grab a sizable portion of the public viewing share, the trio are certainly not what they were even a decade or two ago.

While competitors such as CNN and FOX News have been quite relevant over the last few decades, it is in fact the Internet which has garnered much of the attention.

Whether it is Twitter, Facebook or countless other sites, millions of people are actually hearing about breaking events and even the rather mundane news on the web these days.

Now, whether that is a good thing or not, well that is for others to decide.

What is good is that more people are informed to one degree or another. By being informed, it allows for more discussion, something that typically is a good thing.

So, how are you learning about today’s events? If it is the Internet helping to inform and educate you, do you feel good about that? In the event you still rely on television and newspapers for your news, do you notice a major difference between those resources and what you see and hear online?

Some Major News Events in the Last Year

Unless you were under a rock of some sort, you likely heard about some of the biggest news events in the last 12 months.

Some of them proved to be rather shocking, while others were big, yet maybe would fall short of being tabbed Earth shattering.

Among them:

  • Trump winning the presidency – Even some leaders in faraway countries had to take a second look when they saw Donald Trump elected as the 45th President of the United States. With Hillary Clinton all but a given to win the White House, Trump’s victory was interesting nonetheless. For weeks leading up to the Nov 8 election, social media was abuzz with both pro and anti-Trump folks giving their thoughts on who would win. As Election Night progressed, numerous social media sites began to call the race for Trump. Although Clinton chose not to speak to her supporters that evening, she did have a short phone conversation with Trump, congratulating him on his victory. Needless to say, social media is still talking months later as Trump’s presidency is viewed in myriad of ways nearly one month into its course. Even the President himself is staying busy on Twitter these days;
  • Opening of Jesus’ tomb – While it may not have gotten all the hits on social media or sold as many newspaper copies as Trump taking over in Washington, D.C., quite the stir was made with the mystery revolving around the opening of Jesus’ tomb in the Old City of Jerusalem last fall. For centuries, there was debate as to just exactly where Jesus was laid to rest following his crucifixion. As such, religious scholars and scientists were more than a bit interested for several days last October as the marble tomb over top the tomb of Christ was removed. For anyone with a religious background and/or interest in such things, the opening of the tomb for the first time in centuries is unmatched in terms of anticipation and excitement.

Refugee Crisis in Europe Impacts Millions

  • Refugee crisis in Europe – If you’re a regular on Twitter or Facebook, you would be hard-pressed over the last 12 months to not see references to the huge refugee migration crisis in various European countries. Much of that crisis was precipitated by the war in Syria and some other conflicts around the globe. With the U.S. having taken in thousands of refugees from Syria and other countries over the last 12 months, there has been much debate on and off of the Internet about whether or not this is wise. Time will tell if things improve or not on this front, but it is safe to say that the story is not going away anytime soon.

While some people will continue to rely on television networks, newspapers, magazines etc. to receive the bulk of their news, many others have solidified the Internet as their go-to place.

No matter how you go about becoming informed, having a nice balance of online and offline means to discover world events is likely your best bet.

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Why The Time Is Right To Switch To Solar?

Solar power is a great alternative to traditional energy and sun-kissed locations like Tampa are in the perfect geographical position to take advantage of this. When it comes to renewable energy, Tampa residents have already demonstrated how keen they are to adopt new ideas, especially solar. Now, it looks like the rest of the U.S. is all set to follow their lead.

Why The Time Is Right To Switch To Solar

Why 2015 Was a Great Year for Solar Energy Industry?

The year 2015 has given the solar energy industry players a good cause for celebration. The year turned out to be the hottest one on record with NASA determining that temperatures were 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in 2014. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt believes that this is not a one- off occurrence. In fact, he explains that this is a ‘symptom’, an indicator of what we should be expecting in the coming years. In effect, temperatures are going to soar, and the sun is going to shine down hotter than ever before. This is perfect for U.S. citizens who have already made the move to solar power and those who intend to do so right away. After all, they are geared to make the best of the ‘extra’ sunshine that is expected to come our way.

The Solar Investment Tax Credit Gets a Three Year Extension

Another favorable development for the solar power industry and its consumers is the extension of the ITC or Investment Tax Credit.  The Solar Energy ITC was first launched in the year 2005. Thanks to this credit, homeowners and commercial property owners enjoyed a 30% tax credit on installation of solar panels on their premises.  This tax benefit was supposed to end in 2008, but the huge success it enjoyed prompted the government to extend it until 2016. In fact, the impending closure of this tax credit encouraged many homeowners to switch to solar early in 2015. Solar energy industry players, however, feared a drastic dip in demand, once the credit came to a close.

Thankfully, in December 2015, the government decided to continue the ITC at the current rate of 30% through 2019. The extension applies to both residential and commercial solar installations. Making the decision all the more welcoming is the announcement that the credit will be tapered off post 2018 and will not be fully discontinued. By 2022, the tax credit will come down to 10% and will probably remain stable at that level. While solar energy makes up only one percent of the total electricity produced in the US, with these new incentives it is expected to go up to five percent of the total electricity production.

As the demand for the solar energy accelerates, the other sectors would benefit too. Investments and innovations would be the natural byproducts of this booming industry. Energy storage and energy management are few of the other sectors that would naturally see increased knowledge and fund infusion. This would automatically open up new scope for employment.

The impact of the solar energy sector should be measured in gigawatts and good deeds. This is because, every time someone installs solar panels on the roof, he is contributing a bit towards the environment. Solar energy is green, nature friendly and a reliable source of renewable energy. Tampa enjoys bright sunshine for a good part of the year and this is a huge advantage for every solar power user residing here. The cost benefit is another motivator for people wanting to adopt the solar power. So what are you waiting for? Go green NOW!

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Sirdar Color Packs

Sirdar is continually releasing fresh shades for its loyal legion of fans – and we have bundled our favorites together in this fantastic range of great value branded color packs.

Buy Affordable Yarn Packs from Sirdar

Whether you prefer bright, contrasting colors or crave the calm, soothing tones of sea-inspired shades, you’re bound to find the perfect purchase amongst our gorgeous range of Sirdar yarn color packs.

The popular color packs from this enduring brand – which has been perfecting its range of wools for nearly a century and a half – offer shades that are both playful and sophisticated. These yarns can be used to create pieces that are interesting yet practical; head-turning yet timelessly stylish. Essentially, Sirdar color packs can help you develop pieces that are bursting with personality, yet still hard-wearing enough to last.

Begin exploring Sirdar’s incredible collection of shades with the lovely Cotton Fields Color Pack. The soft hues within this bundle evoke memories of fresh summer evenings, and, due to the versatile nature of the DK yarn within the pack, work best when knitted or crocheted into sweaters, jumpers and cardigans. Other Sirdar color packs of note within this range include the harmonious Peaceful Blues bundle and the interesting Coral Reef set, which produces a beautiful Fair Isle effect.


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Windows 10: Microsoft wants to know EVERYTHING you're doing, and this is the reason why

Microsoft wants its users to explain how they plan to use its hugely successful desktop operating system, Windows 10. The Redmond-based company is looking to introduce a new settings menu that will allow users to specify what they intend to do with their Windows 10 PC – enabling Microsoft to make some tweaks under the bonnet to improve performance. That’s according to new code unearthed by Windows 10 super-sleuth @thebookisclosed on Twitter, who published screenshots of the as-yet-unannounced feature.

While some will likely bristle at the idea of letting Microsoft know exactly what they plan to do with their new desktop, laptop or tablet two-in-one, there might be a good reason to keep Microsoft in the loop about what you’re up to. According to the leaked settings, Microsoft will push and pull a number of levers behind the scenes to tweak performance based on what you’re using your PC to do.

So, if you’re using Windows 10 to play some pretty graphics-intensive video games, Microsoft will ensure that you never lose a frame or have to crank down the graphics quality to keep playing. As well as performance tweaks, Microsoft is also expected to provide suggestions and tips based on your selection. So, if you tell Microsoft that you’re planning to use Windows 10 to track your expenses and run a small business, it might highlight new features in Office 365 that will be helpful. This will be handled through the preinstalled Microsoft Tips app.

Windows Insider Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc has confirmed that Tips will be used to provide suggestions of how to maximise Windows 10 based on what you’re trying to achieve with the software.

Freeview boost: BBC, ITV and Channel 4 pledge MILLIONS to service

While the categories aren’t live yet, tipsters suggest that we’ll see the ability to let Microsoft know what you’re doing on your PC soon. As it stands, there are six categories. Here are Microsoft’s different uses for its operating system and a brief description of what it thinks these categories mean you’ll be doing day-to-day ~

Play and discover games, keep up with new releases

Connect with the whole family, edit safety settings, and give everyone their own profile on this device

Bring ideas to life – from novels and presentations to photos and videos

Take notes, write essays, collaborate on projects

Watch videos, browse the web, connect on social media

Track expenses, manage customers, run your business

The feature is currently buried in a beta test of Windows 10, although hopefully it’ll be finished in the coming months. Microsoft has a blockbuster update for Windows 10 scheduled for later this year, codenamed Sun Valley. It will bring a complete visual redesign for the desktop operating system – its first major lick of paint since its launch back in 2015. With any luck, this optimisation feature will be finished in time to make the cut for that upgrade, which is expected to land on PCs around October 2021.

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Subaru XV
2.0i SE 5dr Lineartronic

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Mileage 11366 miles
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Engine Size 1995 cc
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Colour White
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Scientists doing research into the unravelling and treatment of Usher Syndrome are studying the underlying effect of the mutation and this is not dependent on the Usher Syndrome type. In this way, a strategy for a certain mutation can also be the solution for a similar mutation of another Usher gene type. In their studies the researchers and geneticists use the gene name, whereas physicians use the protein name in their clinical studies. In public databases the gene name is always used.

    At this moment, 10 different Usher Syndrome genes are known, all of which are involved in the production of an Usher protein. The various genes are divided into three clinical types, being USH 1, USH 2 and USH 3.  The specific genes are indicated by letters (A, B, C, etc.). Apart from the state of the art for each strategy and methodology, we also have an overview of the research statuses for each Usher gene.

    The detailed mapping out of the natural history of the functioning of eyesight and hearing in the different types of Usher Syndrome is essential in order to be able to determine the effectiveness of future therapy. Only after studies have demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of certain therapy types, these will be made available to patients on a large scale after a long process of market implementation.

    Gene therapy is a treatment method for hereditary disorders in which healthy copies of genes in which faults (= mutations) were found with patients are replaced or added to cells. The replacement genes produce again the proteins that as a result of the mutations were no longer produced. This is meant to stop the deterioration of the functioning of the retina or cochlea.

    In RNA therapy the fault as a result of mutations in the DNA at RNA level is repaired by placing a sort of ‘genetic patch’ of antisense oligonucleotides over the fault. As a result of this, the RNA string can be read and translated well, like a zipper that is no longer stuck, and a functional protein can eventually be produced.

    Various studies are being conducted into medicines for treating Usher Syndrome. Existing medicines that are already applied to other diseases may possibly also slow down the deterioration process of ears and eyes in connection with Usher Syndrome.

    Stem cells are unripe cells that can divide but also specialise into specific cells for other tissues. Stem cells can develop into virtually every cell type in the body, which makes them versatile.

    Rod-cone therapy is independent of the gene and focused on treating the rods in the eye while keeping the cones intact. The rods of the retina die first (see light and dark).

    Also investigations and studies are conducted in the world that do not specifically offer a solution for people suffering from Usher Syndrome, but that may be of significance for them in the future. Solutions, therapies and medical aids for other disorders can in a later stage be applied to people suffering from Usher Syndrome as well.

    Usher Syndrome has major psycho-social consequences. The progression of the deterioration of two senses forms an ultimate challenge for the adaptability of people. Professor Claes Möller from Sweden has done a lot of research into the life strategies of people suffering from Usher Syndrome, the psycho-social consequences and their well-being.

    Most scientific studies and trials are published on the following Internet sites:

    The proteins control all processes in our bodies. These proteins are built using codes that have been captured in the DNA. Due to a writing error in the DNA a protein can be produced incorrectly or not at all. Fixing this DNA error changes the production of the protein and so makes the disorder disappear or reduces the symptoms. This is the idea behind the genetic therapies that are now under development throughout the world.

    How are things going with the ‘minigenes USH2c’ study?

    By now, the USH2c minigenes study was started almost a year ago. A four-year study which was made possible by co-financing of the Stichting Ushersyndroom, CUREUsher and LSBS. Thanks to […]

    Positive results of QR-421a Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial for Usher Syndrome and non-syndromic Retinitis Pigmentosa

      ProQR has published positive results from its Phase 1/2 Stellar trial of QR-421a, an investigational RNA therapy for the treatment of Usher syndrome and retinitis pigmentosa (RP) due to […]

    Report CRUSH study

    CRUSH: The natural history study An interim report The CRUSH study is a study done at the Radboud UMC into the natural development of progression with Usher Syndrome type 2a […]