In 1841, Alexandre Dumas famously described the changing attitude of the Paris newspapers as Napoleon marched toward their city after his escape from Elba:

The cannibal has come out of its lair.

The ogre of Corsica has just landed at the Gulf of Juan.

The tiger has arrived in Gap. The monster slept in Grenoble.

The tyrant crossed Lyon.

The usurper was seen sixty leagues from the capital.

Bonaparte advances with great strides, but he will never enter Paris.

Napoleon will be under our ramparts tomorrow.

The emperor arrived at Fontainebleau.

Yesterday, His Imperial and Royal Majesty entered his Tuileries castle in the midst of his loyal subjects.

(Frank Jacobs and Carrie Osgood produced a delightful map illustrating Dumas’s description.)

Alas, it appears these news headlines are apocryphal. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that Dumas story would not have resonated with so many people if there were not a grain of truth.

I just finished volume 2 of Chateaubriand’s excellent memoir. This caught my eye:

Bonaparte solemnly says he is giving up the crown, leaves, and returns nine months later. Benjamin Constant publishes his vigorous protest against the tyrant and changes his mind within twenty-four hours [ . . . ] Marshal Soult rouses the troops against their former leader; a few days later, he laughs aloud at his proclamation in Napoleon’s office at the Tuileries and becomes major general of the army at Waterloo. Marshal Ney kisses the king’s hands, swears to bring him Bonaparte locked in an iron cage, then delivers every soldier he commands to the latter. And the King of France? He says that at sixty he cannot imagine a better end to his career than dying in defense of his people . . . and he flees to Ghent. Faced with such an absolute absence of truth in human sentiments, such discrepancy between words and deeds, one feels overcome with disgust for mankind.

It doesn’t take much insight to see the same sad spectacle playing out in the conservative movement, where politicians and pundits that stomped on Trump’s political grave after January 6, have returned to licking his boots as he rose inexorably in the polls.

But should this cause us to have disgust with all of mankind? Surely the problem is just a few bad apples—people like Kevin McCarthy, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance. And yet, according to The Atlantic, almost the entire GOP apple is rotten:

Perhaps Romney’s most surprising discovery upon entering the Senate was that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues. “Almost without exception,” he told me, “they shared my view of the president.” In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddler­like psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”

OK, the GOP is totally corrupt. Perhaps the Democrats are ethical. The Atlantic suggests that all politicians are the same:

[Romney] joked to friends that the Senate was best understood as a “club for old men.” There were free meals, on-site barbers, and doctors within a hundred feet at all times. But there was an edge to the observation: The average age in the Senate was 63 years old. Several members, Romney included, were in their 70s or even 80s. And he sensed that many of his colleagues attached an enormous psychic currency to their position—that they would do almost anything to keep it. “Most of us have gone out and tried playing golf for a week, and it was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna kill myself,’ ” he told me. Job preservation, in this context, became almost existential. Retirement was death. The men and women of the Senate might not need their government salary to survive, but they needed the stimulation, the sense of relevance, the power. One of his new colleagues told him that the first consideration when voting on any bill should be “Will this help me win reelection?” 

OK, but politicians are merely a small slice of humanity. And can you blame them for not wanting to lose their jobs? If only they had lifetime job tenure they would boldly stand up for what is good and true. According to Ross Douthat, even that’s not enough:

Tenure, in theory, should provide a counterbalance, enabling academics who survive the initial gauntlet to enjoy more freedom than the more precariously employed journalist. And there are certainly academics who use this freedom to the fullest. . . .

As Sarah Haider writes in a thoughtful post on the limits of tenure as a guarantor of diversity and debate, in many cases “tenure might simply make more room for social pressures to pull with fewer impediments.” Because “if keeping your job is no longer a concern, you will not be ‘concern-free.’ Your mind will be more occupied instead by luxury concerns, like winning and maintaining the esteem of your peers.”

Even tenured professors with job security are terrified of speaking out against unjust cancellations by the woke, and indeed often applaud these acts just as Soviet commissars vigorously clapped their hands during speeches by Joseph Stalin.

In polite society, it’s almost obligatory to say, “Most people are basically good”. Maybe, but what is the evidence for that claim? Are human beings qualified to offer an objective appraisal of the ethical value of humanity? I cannot dispassionately judge myself, how could I possibly judge all 8 billion people?

Sorry, but I’d like a second opinion, preferably from an alien life form. Someone unbiased. When we get GPT-6 or GPT-7, we can ask it to evaluate just how good the human race actual is. I suspect we are not going to like the answer.

PS. Have you ever hesitated before mocking the idiots who invaded the Capitol on January 6, not knowing if the listener is a Trump supporter? Here’s Chateaubriand:

It is hard to be born in times of improbity, in days when two men chatting together must be on guard against using certain words for fear of causing offense or making the other man blush.

PPS. Here’s another gem:

One of the things that most contributed to rendering Napoleon so repellent in his lifetime was his penchant for debasing everything. . . . While empires collapsed, he hurled insults at women. He enjoyed humiliating those he had brought low; he especially slandered and affronted anyone bold enough to resist him. His arrogance was indistinguishable from his happiness; he thought he grew in stature by diminishing others. Jealous of his generals, he blamed them for his own failings, because, as far as he was concerned, he could never have failed.

PPPS. And this:

Bonaparte, like the race of princes, wanted nothing and sought nothing but power, which he attained through liberty merely because he stepped onto the world’s stage in 1793. . . . The sophism put forward regarding Bonaparte’s “love of liberty” proves only one thing: how easily reason can be abused.

To be sure, Napoleon was a great man, with significant achievements. Indeed in some respects he was a genius. That other guy . . . er . . . not so much.

Read the whole thing (all 1300 pages.)

1. Josh Hendrickson reported some interesting findings on deterrence and crime:

For a given level of crime, an increase in the number of policeman is likely to lead to more arrests. However, more arrests for a given amount of crime implies a greater probability that a criminal is caught. All else equal, a higher probability of being caught increases the expected cost of criminal activity and therefore decreases criminal activity. This means there are fewer potential crimes for which people could be arrested. Whether more police leads to more arrests depends on how the change in the supply of police affects detection and deterrence. It is possible that arrests go up. It is possible arrests go down. . . .

In an attempt to disentangle these effects, McCormick and Tollison turned to college basketball. In 1978, the ACC basketball tournament added a third referee to the court. Prior to that, there were only two referees on the court at one time. The arrest rate can be measured as fouls per game. What they found is that this 50 percent increase in the number of referees (police) reduced the arrest rate (fouls per game) by 34 percent. More importantly, they also provided evidence for why this reduction in the arrest rate occurred. They found that having more referees increased the competency of the team of referees (fewer false arrests) and that it led to cleaner play (fewer incidents of crime).

This relates to a recent post where I argued that a tough on crime approach would actually lead to fewer people in prison.

2. There’s only one verified case of a person living to be 120. Jeanne Calment lived to be 122.45. Now it seems she assumed her mother’s name, and lived to to be just 99.

Abstract: Madame Calment’s extraordinary longevity claim has significantly influenced current estimates of human lifespan. However, recent evidence raises doubts about the authenticity of her record. We compare two competing hypotheses: the base scenario, which assumes that Jeanne’s daughter Yvonne died in 1934, and the switch scenario, which proposes that Yvonne assumed her mother’s identity in 1933. Our analysis suggests that the available evidence supports the switch scenario and contradicts the previously accepted base scenario. This study emphasizes the need to re-evaluate the evidence and highlights the importance of DNA testing (subject to approval by the French authorities). The case of Jeanne Calment was considered the gold standard for age validation. Our research shows that documentation is not always sufficient to verify cases of exceptional longevity. This has important implications for our understanding of the upper limits of human lifespan and demographic patterns in extreme ages.

3. Peter Hessler might be the West’s most astute observer of China. He was recently interviewed, and had this to say:

Sixth Tone: In previous decades, China seemed to outsiders a strange, mysterious land filled with opportunities. Now China’s relationship with the world has changed. It is deeply integrated with the global economy even as opportunities for cooperation have given way to the rhetoric of competition. Does that change how we should write about China for a global audience?

Peter Hessler: A writer has to be more aware of the risks of getting used for something negative. I feel badly that young journalists have to deal with this kind of politically charged situation. When I started writing, there were problems between the U.S. and China, but it wasn’t anything like it is now. Today, if you write something reasonable about China, you will be attacked by extremists on both sides.

4. Louis CK does a great job of explaining why Kubrick is in a class by himself. (16 minutes) Also check out Tarantino on DePalma.

5. The Economist has a long piece explaining how the US has come to dominate the global economy. They end with a warning:

The government has started to throw billions of dollars at bringing chipmakers to America—in effect trying to hoover up lower-value parts of the industry in the name of supply-chain security. And it is trying to do much the same for electric vehicles, wind turbines, hydrogen production and more, potentially spending $2trn, or nearly 10% of gdp, to reshape the economy. These are aggressive interventions that run counter to America’s post-1980s stance; they may end up costing it productivity as well as money.

The overarching irony is that most of these potentially self-harming policies have their roots in a declinist view that, economically at least, simply does not reflect the facts. The diagnoses are that China is getting ahead, or that immigrants are a menace, that large corporations are bastions of woke power and free trade a form of treachery. Their folly is all the more striking because it betrays a lack of appreciation for the bigger economic picture, and just how good America has it.

6. And now it’s the conservative school boards that are banning Dr. Suess. The extreme left and the extreme right have one thing in common—they both hate freedom.

7. Bloomberg provides further evidence that the world is determined to repeat the mistakes of the first half of the 20th century:

The warning from the World Trade Organization in Geneva early this week was unambiguous: A global economy split into rival trading factions would reduce real incomes 5% — maybe double that amount in poor countries.

The next day, the European Union launched what some of the 27-nation bloc’s most well-known industries — ranging from Airbus SE to cosmetic producers and wine makers — worry could land them on the punishing end of a trade war with China.

8. The wisdom of Janan Ganesh:

Last year, Joe Biden framed the modern world as a “battle between democracies and autocracies”. It is a good thing that he has desisted. First, lots of countries are hard to place on the axis. (Where is Thailand at any given time?) Second, the west hasn’t the clout to confront all autocracies. What it can do is counter aggressors, such as Russia. In other words, what a state does, not what it is, must be the test.

Still, this is an odd point to make in a column that sort of defends Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the world’s greatest aggressors.

9. On a lighter note, Trump says that Biden is “cognitively impaired” and will lead us into WWII.

10. These Ben Southwood tweets caught my eye:

At (nearly) age 68, here’s my best guess:

1. Age 0 to 40: About 90% of subjective experience.

2. Age 40 to 65: About 8% of subjective experience.

3. Age 65 to 90: About 2% of subjective experience.

“I can’t wait until I retire so that I can finally . . . “

Nah. It’s too late.

The assassination of JFK was a terrible tragedy. But not for Kennedy, for America. His 90% >>>>>>> my 100%.

In my book entitled The Money Illusion, I argued that the housing bubble of 2003-06 was not the cause of the Great Recession, partly because there was no housing bubble. Instead, the real problem was nominal—a tight money policy drove NGDP growth from 5% to negative 3%.

In a recent podcast with Pradumnya Prasad, Tyler suggests (around the 55 minute mark) that he’s changed his mind on the events leading up to the Great Recession, and no longer believes there was a nationwide housing bubble.

Tyler instead points to problems in the shadow banking system, which in my view were mostly (not entirely) a symptom of the recession, not a cause. Prasad then discusses the view that Fed policy caused the Great Recession (a view held only by me and a tiny number of other market monetarists.) If one insists on talking about interest rates, then one might say that the Fed held rates above equilibrium during 2008, as the housing slump sharply reduced the equilibrium interest rate. Banking problems post-Lehman were mostly an effect of that tight money policy, which sharply reduce asset values.

Tyler suggests that he supports NGDP targeting, but doesn’t think it fits all situations. I don’t find his reasoning to be persuasive, but of course it’s hard to make subtle points in an interview format. If I had to defend his general view, I’d make the following sort of argument:

It’s useful to differentiate between a NGDP targeting regime, and NGDP as a short-term guidepost when the central bank is trying to achieve some other objective. Thus while a regime of 4% NGDP growth may be optimal, if the previous year has seen 0% or 8% NGDP growth, and the central bank doesn’t have a 4% NGDP target, then it may or may not not be optimal to suddenly shift to 4% NGDP growth.

Overall, I was pleased to see Prasad mention the hypothesis that the Fed caused the 2008-09 recession. It makes me feel that we might be making a bit of headway in getting our ideas out into the broader community.

Back around 1989, I drew my father’s attention to a $40,000 Infiniti automobile, which passed us on the highway. My dad (a WWII vet) couldn’t even comprehend how the Japanese could sell a car at that price point. He associated Japan with cheap stuff. (He died a year later.)

I had a similar feeling when I saw this FT headline:

Vietnamese electric-car maker worth more than Ford or GM after US listing

Lossmaking VinFast’s market capitalisation tops $85bn following New York debut

When I was first old enough to notice cars, GM was a colossus, controlling roughly 50% of the US car market. It was our most dominant company—our Apple. Vietnam was regarded (wrongly) as a tiny country full of primitive people who lived in the jungle. If in 1965 you’d showed the average American this headline from 2023 their jaw would have dropped.

[They would also have assumed the communists lost the war. And they’d wonder what an “electric-car” was. Perhaps in a sense the communists did lose the war, after winning the battle.]

As I get older, I’m increasing aware that every generation lives in a different world. This tweet caught my eye:

I presume that Yglesias is more in tune with what’s currently “creepy and weird”, but I actually liked this film. It does have some uncomfortable moments (a 12-year old girl exposed to some pretty intense violence), but I’ve seen enough similar examples that it no longer fazes me. Remember Taxi Driver? Why not make this sort of film today?

On these sorts of subjective questions, I try to maintain both an inside view and an outside view. Each generation will have standards that seem appalling to the subsequent generation. In many cases, such as slavery, the views of the newer generation tend to prevail in the long run. In other cases, the reforms are later reversed. Thus the Victorians probably saw themselves as progressives, who rose above the more lascivious culture of Georgian-period England. Later generations saw the Victorians as foolish prudes—sexual reactionaries.

As I came of age, young people were increasingly mocking the censorship of the 1950s, a time when Hollywood showed married couples sleeping in separate twin beds. By the 1970s, “anything goes” was viewed as the hip position. Now younger people often decry a lack of censorship in the old. Where will things be in 50 years? I have no idea.

So my inside view is that Yglesias is wrong—Léon is a perfectly respectable film. (If I were Trump, I’d say the film is “perfect”.) My outside view is that Yglesias is probably correct and I’m probably wrong. That’s based on two factors:

1. No one can evaluate their own values in an objective fashion.

2. “The arc of history is long and it bends toward justice.” In other words, the Whig view of history is correct. The younger generation generally has superior views of what is right.

The inside/outside dichotomy relates the the efficient markets hypothesis. Each person should form a view as to the value of a given asset, say Bitcoin. Each person should also recognize that the market view is probably superior to their (inside) view. But that knowledge should not cause individuals to abandon their inside view. If the public blindly accepted the market view, then people would no longer contribute the local views required to form an efficient market in the first place. Thus, in a well functioning system people should hold both views—their own view based on their personal information set and a dispassionate understanding that the consensus view is usually superior.

I disagree with Yglesias about Léon, but I also believe that he’s probably correct. I’m probably just a creepy and weird old boomer.

PS. It’s rated at 74% by critics at Rotten Tomatoes. The general audience is especially creepy and weird, coming in at 95%. I suppose only a boomer would be unhip enough to frequent Rotten Tomatoes.

PPS. I wrote this post a couple week ago. Yesterday I was reading Chateaubriand’s Memoirs, and came across this (from Google):

Paul Auster called this memoir “The best autobiography ever written.”

A few years back, I finally ascended to a stage of enlightenment that Mencken reached at a much younger age. Politics is such a grotesque combination of stupidity and malice that the only way to stay sane is to treat it as a carnival of fools.

The recent competition between the GOP and Dems as to which party can more effectively commit suicide provides a rich source of amusement for those of us who find laughter the only appropriate response to American politics.

This NYT headline provides a nice example:

Why Republicans Could Impeach a Liberal Judge Before She’s Heard a Case

A few observations:

1. Wisconsin is the most purple state in the union, indeed it was the deciding state in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Statewide races for governor and senator are razor close. And yet the GOP managed to recently lose a Supreme Court race by no less than 11 points, through a misguided attempt to ban abortion. Instead of accepting their defeat, they have channeled Bertolt Brecht and decided to impeach the voters.

2. The “excuse” is that the new justice should recuse herself, as she had previously expressed an opinion on the abortion issue. Of course no one believes that; the GOP isn’t trying to impeach GOP justices that ruled on issues for which they had previously expressed an opinion:

As at the U.S. Supreme Court, recusal decisions are left to the Wisconsin justices themselves. In years past, conservative justices have argued that personal views they had previously stated did not mean they were required to recuse themselves from relevant cases.

For example, Justice Brian Hagedorn once compared homosexuality to bestiality, called Planned Parenthood “a wicked organization” and wrote that “Christianity is the correct religion, and that insofar as others contradict it, they are wrong.” He has said those statements would not warrant his recusal on cases about abortion, gay rights or religion.

3. President Biden must be praying each night before he goes to bed that the GOP will succeed. It’s not that Trump cannot win without Wisconsin, but the margin of error becomes much smaller.

4. In the end, I have to assume that at least one GOP senator will break ranks, and vote against impeachment. But the Wisconsin GOP is facing another problem. The new justice threatens not just to overturn the abortion law (a law that GOP politicians don’t really care about, and just pretend to support to attract religious voters), she is also likely to overturn the gerrymandered map that gives the GOP a 2/3 senate majority, in a state where voters are split 50-50.

Either way, the Wisconsin GOP loses. Of course, we all know what Trump wants to happen. Will he come to the defense of that radical left-wing Wisconsin justice?

PS. And don’t think the Dems won’t respond in kind. Look for them to promote the extremely unpopular woke agenda during 2024. Each side is trying its best to commit suicide. Which one is better at self destruction? I don’t have an answer, but the spectacle will be great fun to watch.