HN Books @HNBooksMonth

There's an interesting book on how learning these tools changes one's political philosophy.

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Polic...

Why doesn't the fed just use higher taxes on gas to disincentivize gas guzzlers, and let the market take care of the rest?

Pigouvian taxes on high-carbon fuels are ridiculously unpopular. The median voter (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Polici...) does not perceive the TCO of cars, the fuel supply chain, and parking spaces (http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/1932...). So CAFE standards and other kinda crappy, second- and third-best workarounds get used instead.

(b) figure out a way to lower rent (and in turn tax revenue).

This isn't mysterious or hard, and I've written comments about it before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073079). There are two ways to lower the cost of something: increase the supply or decrease demand. It's quite easy to build more units on a given parcel of land but SF has mostly chosen not to do so (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...).

The real problem starts with voters, since they're the ones electing the mayor, city council, and other officials, who respond to voter preferences against building stuff but who also deal with voters complaining about high rents. They're in a situation similar to the ones Bryan Caplan describes in The Myth of the Rational Voter, which is a fascinating book that deserves not just to be read but reread (http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp...).

⬐ wwweston

Can you point to an example of a place/time where a housing supply increase alone (no economic weakness or other drop in demand) has led to decreased prices?

⬐ jseliger

Yeah—Houston and Dallas, today. See also Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High.

More generally, if you get more supply in the face of increasing demand, but not enough to lead to actual decreases, you still get smaller increases, per basic micro econ.

⬐ stcredzero

My girlfriend's experience is that rental prices have been rising sharply in Houston for Montrose and the Heights. There are bargains to be had in East End district, but that's too edgy for her. There are cheaper places to live, but you end up driving everywhere.

⬐ wwweston

Smaller increases I might believe, but after watching buildouts rent above market (sometimes much more so) in around a dozen areas (and average prices continue to rise), I strongly suspect the simple micro econ story is wrong.

About Houston: is Iglesias the source for that? If not, where would I read more? and is the buildout preceeding reduced prices post 2008?

"you have liberal and conservative economic theories"

We have politicians who have misunderstand and politicise economics. Similar to how evolution is somehow now a liberal theory.

New Keynesian economics is not liberal or conservative. It says, in hyper-simplified form, save (conservative) in good times, and spend (liberal) in bad. Right-wing Central Europe is one of the few in recent memory to have implemented both legs. Politically conservative trade theory, about which there is consensus amongst economists, earned left-wing Paul Krugman his Nobel Prize.

Myth of the Rational Voter [1] explores issues economists have put to rest but the public refuses to accept there is consensus on. Similar to how the masses insist on perceiving "hackers".

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Polici...

⬐ temphn

That's great about what Keynesian economics says to do. But there haven't been controlled experiments in which thousands of different countries ran economies with different characteristics and parameters. With virtual economies and digital currencies, followed by seasteading, we can finally get that. And something tells me "Keynesianism" (which primarily serves as a bastardized justification for slow wealth seizures via inflation and fast wealth seizures like Cyprus) won't be doing so well when the numbers are toted up.

⬐ Locke1689

This will never happen. The combinatorics blow up exponentially.

Besides, your comment basically says that you don't have data to support your position, but you have a hunch, so we should just trust you on this.

⬐ temphn

I do have data to support my position. North Korea vs. South Korea, East Germany vs. West Germany, Maoist China vs. Taiwan/HK/Singapore. Leftism produces poverty, capitalism produces wealth. Communism doesn't work. That's a macro result you can hang your hat on. Millions died, one would hope the point is proved.

Now today the question is whether the "mixed economy" which allows unlimited state intervention (which does indeed lead to Cyprus) is better than fettered government and unfettered capitalism. We're going to find out.

⬐ jbooth

You're being ridiculous. Keynes was not advocating for the modern North Korean State, or any form of communism for that matter.

Please don't destroy discussions.

⬐ notahacker

The Cypriot wealth seizure (attempting to cut a budget deficit in recession with a very destructive tax because they'd already ceded control over monetary expansion to an entity that isn't interested in doing it) is just about the polar opposite of Keynesianism ...

As for seasteading, there have been plenty of experiments testing the theory that a tiny nation can become very rich from being a laxly-regulated, tax-free place for rich foreigners to park money. It works very well until you try to generalise the results to larger economies and end up like a certain Mediterranean tax haven with a non-state currency...

The trouble with dismissing the knowledge accumulated by those whose experiments failed is the risk of being condemned to repeat them...

I'm not quite sure i agree with it, but it's worth at least thinking about the converse of this argument:

Perhaps we let too many people vote already? The average American isn't just a little uninformed, but is provably wrong about a number of issues, like what the government spends its money on, who holds the power to do various things, and the resources and governments of our neighbors. Heck, I'd bet that a non-zero percentage of voters don't even understand how the marginal tax rate works.

We don't let unqualified people fix our cars, work in our hospitals, or teach our kids, so why should they have the ability to make our political decisions?

Society has plenty of ways to accredit people to be 'knowledgeable' about these subjects (Basic civics test -> high school diploma -> college degree -> Degree in econ/poli sci -> masters -> phd, or perhaps business owners, workers in gov't service, etc).

We already treat voting as a privilege, not a right, (It can be taken away, as with felons) why not weight votes based on your investment in learning??

Obviously this plan is harebrained in that it would massively disadvantage everyone other than upper class white people, and probably lead to a civil war, but it's interesting to think that voting is probably the one place in society where are an objectively recognized expert in the field (I'm thinking more on the Econ side than the Poli Sci side) has exactly the same say as someone who just picks one at random.

The whole idea that some privileged group has the ability to say whether I can vote makes me a little uneasy, so personally I think I'd give a firm no to the idea.

If you're interested in the idea, the economist Bryan Caplan wrote a book called 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' that discusses the common fallacies and provides hard evidence. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691138737?tag=bryacaplwebp-20&...;

He also has the single ugliest web page that i've ever seen for an academic (a high bar indeed): http://www.bcaplan.com/

⬐ zacharypinter

I like the idea of there being some sort of investment required for voting. Everybody interested in voting can, but there's a barrier to entry that helps people be informed voters or at least passionate about voting.

However, like you, I find it difficult to think of a non-corrupt test. You certainly don't want SAT scores to be a precondition for voting.

Perhaps in order to vote you have to get x (say 100) people to sign a petition for you? Of course, community leaders would quickly get a pool of 100 people to sign for whoever they wanted. You might be able to prevent that by limiting the number of petitions signed by a person in a given time span.

⬐ showerst

I'd think that you'd just be empowering big organizations (churches, unions, etc) that can just 'pass the sheet around' at a weekly meeting.

One way that I can think of to do it would be like so: Start a person at, say, 0.6 votes at 16. Voting in a state or national election = +.1/year, up to two times. Graduation High School or getting a GED = +.1.

So a motivated 18 year old has 1 vote, just like now, slackers are a little behind but not much.

Graduating College, OR 3 Years of Military Service, OR Passing a (Somewhat tough) Written Test of Govt/Econ/International Studies = +0.2

Graduate Degree OR 8 (total) Years of Military Service OR Passing a (LSAT Difficulty) Written Test = +0.2

Graduate Degree in Econ/<Whatever Gov't Applicable Majors> OR 2 Years Gov't Service = +0.1

So a college grad is worth +20% of a 'normal' adult, but twice a high-school dropout nonvoter who's put no effort into it. And someone with a PhD in Economics is only a third of a vote ahead of a college grad, but worth 1.5 18- year-olds, and 2.5 people who've never voted.

Hopefully by keeping the military/service side roughly equal, we could keep the ideological balance about the same.

Intelligent, Motivated non-traditional people, especially those too poor or busy for college could still get to the highest ranks without any cost other than proving that they understand the basics at rough parity.

You're going to get crackpots with degrees/credentials just like you do now, but I'd argue that as a whole, educated people make better decisions with respect to politics (even, I would go so far as to say, in a party agnostic way), so the bad eggs will cancel out.

I'm a voting, high-school educated college dropout myself, but I'd definitely go and learn whatever I would need for the highest level, even if it took a few hours a week for months/years, but I'm also unusually interested in the subject(s).

Once again, the idea is nuts and would never work in the current system, but there's nothing wrong with a little thought experiment =).

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Polici... One of my favorite books. Helps to know a bit of public choice theory.