Religion: Opiate of the Masses or Root of All Evil?

Christopher Hitchens has a new book, God Is Not Great, in which he argues that all three of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have been and are responsible for tonnes of evil. In many respects, I fear, he is correct. Here are some quotes from a recent item in The National Post [sorry, no link]:

In the Harry Potteresque Great Hall at the University of Toronto this week, two security men were poised for a confrontation, and with good reason.



Christopher Hitchens was explaining why he hates religion: Islam, because it exhibits a “horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity” while making a “cult of death, suicide and murder,” and Judaism, because it leads to Christianity. “I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion,” the famously contrarian journalist and author told an appreciative crowd of undergraduates gathered to hear him explain why freedom of speech should include the freedom to hate.



“Look anywhere you like, to slavery, to the subjugation of women as chattel, to the burning and flogging of homosexuals, to ethnic cleansing, to anti-Semitism, for all of this look no further than a famous book that is on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and every mosque. And then you’ll see whether you can square this circle: that the force that is the main source of hatred is also the main caller for censorship,” he said.

These views seem to be a logical of extension of Hitchens’ criticism of Mother Teresa for being ineffective in reducing poverty, The Missionary Position.



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[h/t to Jack and to Dave Friedman]

This Is a Good Sign

More from The Emirates Economist. This is about censorship of internet access in Iran and other Arab countries. That the gubmnts there feel the need to limit internet access is a good indication that many residents want more freedom than the gubmnts want them to have. I trust the desire for freedom to have a strong effect.

The Economics of Congestion

The Emirates Economist has one of the more thorough roundups of traffic congestion treatment plans, most involving taxes and/or user fees. Included are summaries dealing with Manhattan, Seattle, Houston, Birmingham, and Taipei. He sagely concludes,

If you want more roads without being charged for their use, then you’ll get more traffic creating the “need” for more roads.

For more on London’s congestion charge, see this, which I wrote earlier.

A Great Musical Intro to an NFL Telecast

Why does it always have to be country music?



Why not some Beethoven or Vivaldi or Bach?

Why not some Shostakovitch or Bartok?



I confess that when I did radio play-by-play for the London Werewolves baseball games, we used Chicago’s great song 25-or-6-to-4 as the intro — it had great drive and energy.



But if you want great energy, why not use, just as an example, the second movement of Shostakovitch’s 10th Symphony? Click here to hear a snippet. Sounds like NFL music to me.

John Lott to Visit The University of Western Ontario

On Monday, December 4th, and Tuesday, December 5th, John Lott will be visiting the Economics Department at UWO.



John Lott has been one of the most productive and most controversial economists of our era. His publications have, in the past, focused mainly on industrial organization, public choice, and economics of law types of questions.



About a decade ago, Lott began researching whether the right to carry concealed weapons caused enough probabilistic deterrence to potential criminals that crime rates would actually go down. This work led to his famous book, “More Guns, Less Crime” and to one of his controversies with Steve Levitt of “Freakonomics” fame. It also led to Lott’s examination of biases in the media.



While he is here, Lott will present two papers. The first is a faculty seminar on media bias, at 2:30pm on Monday, December 4th, “Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?: Reagan to Bush II”.



The second paper Lott will present is directed to graduate students, but others are more than welcome to attend. He will focus on his forthcoming work that takes issue with the argument (presented by Levitt!) that abortion reduces crime rates. It will be held at 3:30pm on Tuesday, December 5th, “Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-Of-Wedlock Births” .

The Major Source of Inequality

The other day I was rummaging through some links I had saved, and came across this interview with James Heckman, who said,

We have found that for severely disadvantaged children, there are no levels of later childhood skill investments that can bring the children to a level of social and economic performance attainable from well-targeted early investments. We find that both social and emotional skills are essential in producing successful people. These findings change the way economists think about the human capital formation process.



If we don’t provide disadvantaged young children with the proper environments to foster cognitive and noncognitive skills, we’ll create a class of people without such skills, without motivation, without the ability to contribute to the larger society nearly as much as they could if they’d been properly nurtured from an early age. Neglecting the early years creates an underclass that is arguably growing in the United States. The family is the major source of human inequality in American society. [emphasis added]

[h/t to Craig Newmark, who originally sent me the link]

John Edwards vs. Wal-Mart

From the Union Leader:

In Manchester, the local Wal-Mart store sits right behind the Barnes & Noble. It has more floor space, a parking lot several times the size of Barnes & Noble’s, and is easier to access by car or public transportation.



But Edwards would not be caught dead inside a Wal-Mart. Saying that the company pays its employees too little, Edwards has embarked on an anti-Wal-Mart crusade. He instructs his staff members and all Americans not to shop at Wal-Mart.



“Wal-Mart makes plenty of money. They need to pay their people well,” Edwards said at a Pittsburgh anti-Wal-Mart rally in August.



So naturally Edwards is holding his book signing at Barnes & Noble instead of Wal-Mart. Which is too bad for his anti-low-wages campaign, because in Manchester Wal-Mart pays hourly employees more than Barnes & Noble does.



The Barnes & Noble where Edwards will hawk his book pays $7 an hour to start. The Wal-Mart that sits just yards away pays $7.50 an hour.



… Unfortunately, people who want to support a company that pays at least $7.50 an hour cannot go to Wal-Mart to buy Edwards’ book and then take it over to Barnes & Noble for him to sign it. Wal-Mart doesn’t carry it.

What a doink. Isn’t that his third strike?

[h/t to Marshall]

BBC = CTV = CNN

This past summer, I spoke with a student (not in economics) who thought the European Union should start its own broadcasting network, “so they can have an unbiased network like the BBC or CBC.” I nearly choked.



From Melanie Phillips,

Yesterday, I drew attention in this Diary to the fact that BBC News Online managed to report a vicious anti-black and antisemitic attack in Paris after a France/Israel football match without making any reference whatever to the racist and antisemitic nature of the attack, despite many such details having been reported by various news agencies. Subsequently, the BBC has updated its report with a new version, which contains the racist and antisemitic details it previously omitted. Whether it was shamed into doing so by my post is not known; it may simply have been forced to respond to President Chirac’s comments. However, a reader tells me that both CNN in the US and CTV in Canada also reported the ‘incident’ as merely a football scuffle, with no mention whatsoever of the racist nature of the attack. Did they both draw upon the BBC for their own reports? Or are they simply staffed by journalists with the same morally bankrupt world-view?

My answer: Yes, and the CBC belongs in that group, too.



[with some minor exceptions, like this]

Reason to Worry about a US Slump

Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser seems pessimistic about the outlook for the US economy:

Yesterday’s dollar plunge unnerved markets. What’s the likelihood of a sustained, drastic decline?

… The presumption that there is investor myopia means that median measures of exchange rate expectations might provide very inaccurate indicators of what will happen in the future. Right now, typical forecasts are for gradual dollar depreciation — 8 percent over the next twelve months (in log terms) from November 17th, according to DeutscheBank. The USD/EUR rate is forecasted to depreciate by 5.3 percent. In contrast, the Economist reports JP Morgan forecast of zero USD/EUR depreciation over the next year from November 23rd.

… [T]he extent to which the rate of return on USD denominated assets is less than those on other assets is too large to be rationalized by standard portfolio balance models.

… a little less optimistic about avoiding a slump if the current strength of the dollar is due to investor myopia, and housing prices exceed those consistent with rationality and the transversality condition (for instance, if there is a bubble). A downward revision in both the relative market-to-book price (i.e., “q”) of housing as well as the value of the dollar might induce a slump if the lags in adjustment to the exchange rate are longer than those to housing prices. My own view is that is likely to be the case.

Indeed, the lags to exchange rate changes are more likely to be longer, the harder it is to move capital and labor to the export sector. After the battering taken by the tradable sector over the past decade, I worry. [emphasis added]

I have a strong suspicion that Ed Lazear would have agreed had he not adopted a political stance as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

Addendum: Also see this from Greg Mankiw who presents additional evidence that the probability of a downturn next year is rising.

Hearts on Fire

To see an amusing rock video about curling, featuring the Swedish Women’s Curling Team, check this out [warning: huge file]

(h/t to Dan York, who provided the link in a comment at Curling)