Excuse Me Dr. Barro, Your Ideology Is Showing

Economist Robert Barro has published this anti-union Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal today. Pretty predictably, he wants to blame the fiscal crisis in the states on unions. Is there actual empirical evidence that, as Barro puts it, " the structure of strong public-employee unions . . . helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation."* It would be nice to see it. The reason why Barro presents none is that, as far as I know, there is none to present. Even an economist should be able to do better than that.

Barro does present some evidence that right-to-work laws promote economic development. There is no real surprise that right to work states attract more robust corporate activity than more union friendly states. Of course they do. Corporate investment go where they don't face any countervailing power. And what about relative wages and benefits in those states? I don't know the empirics in any detail, but I am wagering that there are pretty impressive distributive consequences of disallowing unions. (Have a look at this report from CNN for some initial warrant on that score.) Surely Dr. Barro wouldn't want to discount the massive inequalities that untrammeled corporate power (and markets are meant to be power free zones, no?) generate!

As a theoretical matter Barro presses the claim that "collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty." Of course that requires that we ignore the power asymmetries that exist in virtually any labor negotiation between an employer and individual employees. The historical corollary of this theoretical complaint is that Barro seems to want us to head directly back to the late 19th Century, to a time when the state imposed atomization on the labor market and thereby enhanced the power of employers. In other words, Barro doesn't like the way democratic politics has reshaped labor markets by sanctioning collective bargaining. After all, the Wagner Act (1935) cleared Congress and was signed by Roosevelt.

In this essay Barro displays a problem to which economists are quite susceptible: they too readily allow their ideology - usually some facile version of libertarianism - to impede their analysis. We know in general terms what markets (there is no such thing as "the market" except in the world of right leaning ideology) require to work effectively. We know too that allowing collective action can offset biases that prevent effective functioning of markets in atomized settings. There are lots and lots of efficient market outcomes. There is no reason why we ought to opt for the most asymmetrical and unequal of those on offer. At least nothing Barro says here suggests that we should.
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* Since he is preoccupied with Wisconsin, is there any evidence that the public employee pension system is in trouble there? Barro implies that it is, but offers not a shred of evidence.

Photographer Documents Marcellus Shale's Impact on Farmscapes

Natural gas drilling site on mountainside, Tioga County.
Photograph © Jack Preston/Terry Wild Stock.

My google alerts turned up this brief interesting notice from Lancaster Farming which I assume is a local publication in rural Pennsylvania. It is a review of sorts of a little photography exhibit "at Julie’s Coffee, a shop in downtown Williamsport, Pa"; the work being exhibited is by Terry Wild who, in his spare time, has been documenting the impact of gas drilling industry on the local landscape. You can find this "sideline" work here.

The changes ot the landscape may seem innocuous, but they are, as Wild establishes, pretty pervasive. And the drilling process, as I've noted here before, threatens the water supply in frightening ways. New York State currently has a moratorium on the drilling process (through July 1st) and I hope the legislature will make it permanent. Virtually everything we know about fossil fules and how they are extracted (or nuclear energy and how the fuel is extracted and the waste stored) makes supporting wind and solar energy it seem like a no-brainer.

Maybe Chuck Schumer Should Read the Israeli Press?

"The Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution. More do than before, but a majority still do not. Their fundamental view is, the Europeans treated the Jews badly and gave them our land — this is Palestinian thinking [...] They don’t believe in the Torah, in David [...] You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay. The boycott of Gaza to me has another purpose — obviously the first purpose is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons by which they will use to hurt Israel — but the second is actually to show the Palestinians that when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement. When there’s total war against Israel, which Hamas wages, they’re going to get nowhere. And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense." ~ New York Senator Charles Schumer (June 2010).

"The vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians are willing to live alongside each other peacefully in separate states, according to an independent poll released on Wednesday. Results of the poll, commissioned by the grass-roots OneVoice Movement, indicate that 74 percent of Palestinians and 78 percent of Israelis are willing to accept a two-state solution." ~ Ha'artez (19 May 2010).

Let Me Count the Ways ...

. . . that Liz Cheney is out to lunch on the alleged "scandal" surrounding the Obama administration attempt to dissuade Congressman Sestak from running against Arlen Spector in the recent Pennsylvania Democratic primary. (Story here.)

First, Liz got her job in BushCo how? Was it because she is highly qualified and really smart? No. It was because Daddy was V.P.; can you smell the nepotism? Second, she is now a talking head on various Sunday opinion shows why? Because Daddy got her a job in BushCo and now she is cashing in on the right-wing connections to promote her career. Nepotism anyone?

Third, Liz is adamantly against any sort of inquiry into the various brands of seriously bad behavior that pervaded virtually the entire Bush administration. But an inquiry into this mess? Hypocrisy is seeping from her pores. The make-up crew at Fox News needs a commercial break to get her powdered up.

Let's not forget that Obama has finally achieved bi-partisanship on a policy initiative - lawyers of all stripes think that the attempt to buy Sestak is not illegal. It may have been stupid. But why would that surprise anyone? I guess the question I'd pose is whether this episode should be classified under "hope" or "change"? So, getting back to Liz, to a couple of doses of nepotism and a shot of hypocrisy, lets add just flat out wrong. That, of course, has never posed an obstacle to her thought process.

Finally, there is the fact that the economy is still a mess, we have an egregiously ill-handled environmental disaster in progress and still are fighting two inherited wars. Liz and the right don't want to talk about any of that because, . . . well, because most of those problems started under BushCo. Granted, Obama and his buddies have done precious little to get a handle on any of those problems. But the Republicans were in charge when the seeds of mishap and mayhem were sown. So, on top of everything else there is the sheer disingenuousness of her tirades about Sestak.

By my count that makes five. And I'm not even good at math.