Rational Action

When my sleeping patterns are irregular, I experience sleep paralysis. When people ask me what that is, I explain that it’s basically when you wake up before your body does. You’re conscious, but your body is stuck in the dream state. The body does a nifty thing during dream sleep: it disables voluntary control of your muscles, making you paralyzed. Hence sleep paralysis. As long as you know what’s happening, it’s actually not scary.

As time has gone on, I have begun to experience sleep paralysis in a more advanced way. Sometimes, the feeling of being conscious occurs before my dream even ends. I think this is called lucid dreaming, but I don’t think what I experience quite fits the definition. Instead, I dream about falling asleep and waking up. I wake up within the dream, and I am often paralyzed in the dream. And so, last night:

I had gone to sleep fantastically early… 11:30 maybe? 12? I must have dropped quickly into the dream phase. In my dream I was basically lying on my back, but in class. I was fighting to stay awake, but I kept on losing… my eyes would shut and I would drift off into sleep. Then I would become somewhat awake again, and I would try valiantly to open up my eyes. But they were practically welded shut, and only with great effort could I open them.

My body of course was in an even worse state. My motion was limited. I recall finally getting up after so much effort, only to lose the ability to move once again. My standing body frozen, I expected to tip over and fall to the ground. But the rules of gravity were suspended and instead I floated to the floor, returning more or less to my old position, my head resting against the frame of a bed.

The whole dream I had a great sense of guilt, since I was in class but could not stay awake. I have this guilty feeling whenever I am sleepy in small classes, so this dream was really an interesting intersection between real life memories and sleep paralysis.

At some point I woke up; I believe that it came as I successfully forced open my eyes. I did not feel like I had been asleep… instead, what I had been dreaming felt more like an unpleasant experience from moments ago. And indeed it had been unpleasant. I remember feeling uncomfortable during the dream, and when I finally escaped from it, I continued to feel physically uncomfortable. This is a feeling I often have after experiencing sleep paralysis.

It is interesting how in the dream I was trying to open my eyes to keep awake in class. Often in sleep paralysis I am trying to open my eyes to wake up. Finally I succeed and wake up… in the dream I succeeded several times in opening my eyes, but the dream also ended with my eyes opening, I think.

I’ve been thinking a lot about transportation lately. After a conversation about Robert Moses and his plans to carve up NYC into a bunch of highways with a few buildings in between, I got to thinking about the merits of a strong public transportation system.

Today I finally put those thoughts into action. I needed to get back to Columbia, but I didn’t have anyone to give me a ride. I could have parked my car at the train station, but the family didn’t really want to go and pick it up later. Then there was the problem of keys — where were the extra ones? So wherever I left my car, I’d have to leave my set of keys with it. I contemplated dropping it off in Armonk and then taking a bus from there, but why not simplify the whole trip and keep the car out of it?

Thus was born…

A Voyage to New York City without Personal Automobile!

I set off on foot, with a water bottle in one hand, and a backpack (with trusty laptop) on my back. It was 3:25pm. The temperature was 95 degrees. I only had to walk 2.2 miles to get into town, but the trip took about 50 minutes. Oh, and it was really hot. And really difficult trying to conceal my panting from my mother as I talked to her on my cell phone — something told me she wouldn’t approve of this plan.

I arrived at the barbershop around 4:10. Yes, I scheduled in a haircut. I tipped the barber extra because she didn’t complain about my sweaty hair and neck.

Then I found the Bee-Line Bus Stop in Armonk. The Armonk bus is something we kind of all joke about here. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of my friends suggest it as a legitimate option for getting from point A to point B. Unfortunately, this #12 bus was the only way I could cheaply get from Armonk to the White Plains train station.

I hopped on the 4:45 bus. This bus, I figured out, was a special one. Instead of sticking to main roads, it would pull into the various business parks of Purchase, NY, picking up the various businessmen who wanted to use Westchester’s government infrastructure to get home. Unfortunately none of these businessmen seemed to exist on this trip, making the various detours we took from the already circuitous route all the more obnoxious.

We finally pulled into the “TransCenter” at 6:10. Yes, it took 85 minutes to get from Armonk to White Plains. The drive takes 20 minutes most.

I walked over to the White Plains train station and hopped on a local. I got to use my 10 trip webticket for the first time, which is a big deal for me cause I saved some money. Fifty minutes later I was smack in the middle of Harlem. I hopped on the M60 and got off around 106th. Picked up some Japanese food and walked back to my nice dorm here. End time: 8pm.

I didn’t make it through the whole book, but here is my review of Jagdish Bhagwati’s In Defense of Globalization. (Yes. I wrote it for class. Did you honestly think I’d pick up a book, read it, and then review it all out of the goodness of my heart?) It lacks of bit of nuance, and I did have some problems with a few of Bhagwati’s arguments. He sure doesn’t write as well as PK does, but I’ll excuse him on that, because PK originally studied under him…

So here is the review:

In an online article written nearly ten years ago, Paul Krugman explains elegantly the problem faced by those economists who seek to defend globalization: while prominent policymakers appeal to the public by openly disdaining arcane mathematical theory, the “important ideas [of economics] are crystal clear if you can stand algebra, and very difficult to grasp if you can’t. International trade…happens to be a subject in which a page or two of algebra and diagrams is worth 10 volumes of mere words.â€? In Defense of Globalization, the latest book by Columbia economist Jagdish Bhagwati, seeks to provide a contemporary literary translation of globalization’s two pages of algebra. While his desire to appeal to the MTV generation is at times far too apparent, Bhagwati generally succeeds in utilizing a format dominated by globalization opponents to defend his position.

Bhagwati is at his most successful when taking on the anti-globalization response to welfare and social issues. He convinces because he makes clear at every juncture that those whom he criticizes share with him similar noble goals; along with the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), Bhagwati would like to end child labor, and just as the NGO Women’s Choice wants to see women empowered, so too does Bhagwati. Since these organizations prescribe the antithesis of Bhagwati’s policies, the conversation becomes one not of ends but of means – In Defense of Globalization presents a vastly different procedure for achieving the same result sought by these NGO’s. Bhagwati’s arguments, founded on compelling uses of statistics and observations, stick because they show how often many anti-globalization groups impede the achievement of their own objectives.

While the posturing of anti-globalization groups has created a powerful image of the globalizer-as-neocolonist, Bhagwati’s Indian heritage and academic career present stubborn challenges to this stereotype. Rather than seeking to control underdeveloped nations from afar, one senses that Bhagwati would like nothing more than to see realized the betterment of the living standards of the world’s poor. As In Defense of Globalization shows, often the most ardent supporters of protectionism are CEO’s and well-connected businessmen; these powerful members of the anti-globalization movement have little interest in the poor but every desire to help themselves.

Bhagwati also scores points by showing how even supposedly disinterested anti-globalization groups may end up ignoring the unique cultures and societies of the people whom they intend to help. He shows, for example, how a sociologist concerned with the growing number of female migrant workers who must leave the care of their children to extended family members “seems to transfer to the migrant workers the values of her own culture� (77): used to the nuclear-family-centric West, she is unaware that families in underdeveloped nations tend to rely on aunts, uncles, and grandparents for child-rearing. Bhagwati’s experience allows him to reveal that the most imperialistic groups are often the greatest supporters of the anti-globalization movement.

If Defense of Globalization has any major failings, they come from its style, not its arguments or evidence. Often Bhagwati keeps the text engaging by making sure he uses contemporary examples, but at times these examples seem gratuitous, even cringeworthy. His odd observation about oral sex in the O.J. Simpson trial only makes the reader uncomfortable, and his endless recounting of supposedly well known jokes and sayings rarely conjures a chuckle. These side notes serve only to get in the way of Bhagwati’s excellent critiques.

Thankfully, with each page Bhagwati’s argument becomes more focused; as he moves from pop culture, surely only a pastime, to economics, his area of expertise, In Defense of Globalization becomes infinitely more enjoyable to read. In the end, the book’s failings are minor and its successes are substantial. For those who would like to convince a friend that globalization is a worthy cause, Bhagwati’s book just might do the trick – just make sure he makes it to capital markets and doesn’t get stuck on O.J.

In a largely anticipated move, Eidelblog responds to my response to his response to my response to his response. I’m not sure how much longer to bother with this argument; I have a few points of his I’ll respond to, then I’m going to give you all a special surprise paragraph. I’m also going to make a non-binding declaration to stop furthering this argument. The binding declaration will occur when or if either of us invokes Godwin’s Law.

So the first question, now that Mr. Eidelbus has provided me with a transcript of the debate, is over PK’s “rambling.” I’ve now looked at the comments in question. The first paragraph of Krugman’s answer has little to do with the point he ends up making — it is a response to Tanner’s point, and Krugman is only saying that redeeming Trust Fund bonds will necessitate tax increases if the rest of government runs a deficit financed by those bonds.

If, when Eidelbus says that “Krugman’s reply was as meandering as a sine curve along the x-axis, until he finally got to the crux of his argument,” he is only referring to this paragraph, then I apologize for my claims that he wasn’t paying attention. However, I suspect he is referring to more than just that short paragraph, in which case the “rambling” was actually part of Krugman’s larger point. Anyway, read Krugman’s response for yourself. While you’re reading, think about whether Krugman actually “wants Social Security to be thrown in with the rest of the federal budget”:

PAUL KRUGMAN: Okay. I actually have to have that Clinton quote. The crucial words were “by itself.� If you’ve got a system which is taxing workers to pay for retirement, and it’s supposed to be a self-contained system, and if the rest of the Federal government is run irresponsibly, then it’s going to have a problem redeeming those bonds. But it’s going to have a problem in a lot of other ways as well.

Again, let’s just come back to this. If you want to talk about Social Security having a surplus or a deficit or anything like that, then we’re talking about Social Security’s budget. Social Security is a program financed by a dedicated tax. And if it’s a program financed by a dedicated tax, then the trust fund is part of that because we’re giving the program credit for the years in which it’s running surpluses. Otherwise, it raises the real question, what are we paying for with this regressive tax?

If you want to say that doesn’t matter, because Social Security is just part of the Federal government, well, that’s another point of view, but in that case it’s just part of the Federal government. The year 2018 doesn’t mean anything, because if it’s just part of the Federal government then it’s just a payroll tax which is one of many taxes, and there’s just Social Security benefits which are just one of many government expenses, and there is no relationship between the two of them. (Page 18, bolding mine)

So does Krugman actually want to throw the Payroll Tax in with the rest of government? Or is he just making a point about the two differing ways of conceptualizing government, without pledging allegiance to either? With that in mind, read this excerpt of Krugman, speaking earlier in the debate:

There are a certain number of government programs—the Highway Trust Fund, the highways are paid for by specific, dedicated revenues. There are always two ways to think about that. One is you can think about it as a stand-alone project, in which case there is a problem or crisis, whatever you want to call it, if the dedicated tax is not bringing in enough to pay for the program. The other way to think of it is you can just think of it as part of the Federal budget as a whole, and say, look, it’s all part of the same thing. Both views have some meaning. (Page 3 of the transcript)

Krugman then goes on to discuss the intricacies of each approach. I hope this issue is settled, now: he did not make this point in order to say that the Payroll Tax should be mixed in with general revenue in a normative sense. Period.

Eidelbus dedicates most of the remainder of his post to a response to my arguments about the solvency of the Trust Fund. He continues with the line that any time the Social Security system requires an inflow of revenue in the future, it is insolvent, regardless of whether that inflow matches Social Security revenue transferred out of the system in the past. I thought this point would speak for itself. At the risk of repeating myself, though, I will repeat myself:

Eidelbus says that claiming Social Security is solvent in this case is “like saying my maxed-out Visa is no problem, because I’ll meet the payments with cash advances from my Discover.” This comparison is painfully inadequate. The Social Security system is not a maxed-out Visa — it took in real money from real people which was then invested in the rest of the government. The rest of the government then ran deficits, spending this saved Social Security income. It is now the duty of the rest of government to pay back these deficits, not the duty of Social Security. Since the General Fund lacks any plan for making these payments, we could say that government as a whole is insolvent (and not Social Security specifically.) Or we could say that Social Security is solvent until 2041, and the General Fund is not solvent now. Simple enough.

If you can sense my frustration with the Economics end of this argument, good for you. I don’t think I’ve said much new in this round. So hopefully I’m finished with the Economics now, because I really want to talk an even more exciting topic — myself!

After all, I’m apparently something of a mystery. Eidelbus tells me, “You’ve constantly misrepresented my arguments under the comfort of anonymity.” Maybe now it’s finally time to reveal my secret identity.

We’ll start with the domain name, “sacarny.com”. Surely this is part of my anonymous sheath! Unfortunately it’s not. My name is Adam Sacarny, and as one of nine living Sacarnies on the Earth, I felt it necessary to pick up my eponymous domain before one of my eight relatives took it for him or herself. My blog used to link to a personal info page, but when I installed a new Wordpress theme, that link went away (it was outdated anyway.) That said, I’m an Undergraduate sophomore at Columbia University. I have a sort of passion for Economics and a dislike for misrepresentation of good logic. The former reason explains why I attended the Social Security debate, and the latter why I’ve participated in this whole post-debate debate.

With that in mind, it’s been fun. I take a little too much enjoyment from competitive logic. In the future, I hope to spend less time responding, and more time coming up with something original to say. In the shorter term, e.g. right now, I also plan on doing some studying, although I am less excited about that…

I didn’t intend to become another member of PK’s legion of defenders. But alas, Eidelblog leaves me no choice! He comes out first with this zinger:

…this fellow misrepresents what I said. I didn’t say Krugman “rambled incoherently” when he said this about the payroll tax. I said he “rambled incoherently” and then started talking about the payroll tax as “just another tax.” Come on, RA, are you writing for the Times or CBS that you must put words into my mouth?

The problem is that Krugman’s point didn’t begin with his assertion that “the payroll tax is just another tax”. In the section I cited, Eidelbus says…

Krugman rambled incoherently for a minute, and I really didn’t understand what his point was. Then he said the payroll tax is “just another tax.�

During this “incoherent” ramble, Krugman was laying the groundwork for his construct that we could view government as one giant cauldron or as a bunch of separate pots. When Krugman then said that the Payroll Tax was “just another tax,” he was explaining how it would work in the former view. Now, if you weren’t paying attention while Krugman laid the groundwork, then yes, it would sure sound like he wanted the Payroll Tax to be “just another tax.” Fortunately, I was listening.

Eidelbus continues, conflating my supposed views with those he projects upon PK:

It’s also fraud to claim that the system is solvent though the federal government has to use other sources of tax revenue to shore it up. Once again, if we’re going to raise other taxes to compensate for insufficient payroll taxes, can Krugman and others at least be honest about it? Can they at least admit that we have to raise taxes (or, I suppose, borrow money) if we’re not going to cut benefits?

Let’s be clear on this one. Once Social Security starts running yearly deficits, it will begin redeeming its treasury bills. As this happens, it will worsen the government’s fiscal position. Is there a soul who wouldn’t agree with that statement — Krugman’s soul included?

That said, the whole point of the Payroll tax hike of the early 1980’s was so that at some point in the future Social Security would be able to draw on its trust fund. If the rest of government ran any deficit at all during this saving period, then when it came time for Social Security to draw from the Trust Fund, other taxes would have to go up (or the Federal Government would have to issue public debt.)

Eidelbus wants to say that as long as paying out Social Security requires some kind of transfer into the system via any tax increase — even if money was transferred out of the program in the past — then the Social Security system is not solvent. I disagree. I say that Social Security is solvent until roughly 2041, because its deficits until that point equal its [I assume totally] transferred-away surpluses between roughly 1983 and 2017. I make this claim at the expense of the General Fund, which is currently a fiscal trainwreck in great need of repair. If we were to put the General Fund into balance until 2041, then Social Security would have no trouble paying its benefits.

The General Fund has been running especially large deficits because it could count on a portion of its budget to be financed by Social Security’s automatic investment in tresuries. General Fund taxes have been artificially low, as Payroll Tax income helped make the deficits smaller. To repair the General Fund, the taxes which pay into it must go up. As the General Fund pays down its debt, some of its income will be transferred into the Social Security program.

Eidelbus says: This is evidence that Social Security is not solvent, because taxes will have to go up! I say, this is evidence that Congress managed the money poorly and made the General Fund insolvent, using Social Security’s solvency as a mask.

P.S. No explicit personal insults! Perry Eidelbus, I see your “twerp” and I… fold!

I’ve been analyzing the WBAR server logs, trying to find out how popular we are and which browsers people use to access the site. Looking through the Browser report, I found something interesting…

Listing the top 20 browsers by the number of requests for pages, sorted by the number of requests for pages.

no.:    reqs:  pages: browser
---: -------: ------: -------
  1: 1682570: 249863: MSIE
  2:  568298: 152831: Mozilla
  3:  102801: 100051: msnbot
  4:   80980:  80920: Googlebot
  5:   70576:  65242: Netscape (compatible)
  6:  163830:  40430: Safari
...
 20:     246:    246: Jesus is the only way to God.

I’m not sure what to make of this, but it seems that a bunch of people have set their web browser’s referrer to “Jesus is the only way to God.” Thoughts?

The following is a short and unexpected rant about copyrights. Enjoy.

During a work’s copyright term, the author may control the publishing of his work. Once the term expires, the work falls into the public domain, and the author loses the right to control distribution. Copyright gives the author a monopoly on the production of the work, which allows him to earn rents on it.

If there were no copyright, others would simply copy the work and distribute it at a much lower cost, eliminating the author’s profits and thus making it impossible for him to earn a living by writing/composing/etc. During the copyright term, society pays a higher price for the work, so distribution of it is limited. But if there were no copyright, the work would never have come into existence, because the author wouldn’t have had the financial incentive to make it in the first place.

At some point the copyright term ends. Multiple publishers may now produce the work, and they compete for the market by lowering prices. Society now wins by being able to obtain the work at a lower price (average cost, even). But we’ve got a dilemma — on the one hand, a longer copyright term will create more rents for authors, and induce them to create more works. On the other hand, a shorter copyright term will put a greater share of recent works into the public domain, giving more people access to them. The tradeoff is between amount of works and the availability of them.

A caveat with this simple tradeoff: works of art tend to inspire other works of art. Having an overly long copyright term won’t necessarily cause authors to make more works — by limiting the availability of art, it could stifle creativity and result in fewer works being created.

As a society, then, where do we draw the line? What kind of copyright term length is just right? We want to maximize the amount of art created while ensuring that eventually this art gets widely distributed. Would the right term length be 20 years after the work is created? 40 years? The life of the author?

Surely it wouldn’t be longer than the life of the author. After all, would you really be a more prolific writer if I told you that you could earn profits from your works in the years beyond your death? Yes, these profits would go to whomever you assigned them — probably your family. But would that really alter your artistic calculus?

No, I say, it wouldn’t. If we extended the copyright term beyond your death, you would create the same amount of art, and yes, your family might end up richer. However, during these additional years of copyright protection, society would lose out. Fewer people would have access to your work, which would make society poorer in and of itself. Furthermore, fewer people would be inspired by your work to create new pieces of art. Society would be made poorer again.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the current copyright term in the United States is the life of the author, plus 70 years. This situation is absurd. Copyright term lengths which extend beyond the lifespan of the author provide society with few benefits (by not increasing the amount of art) and heavy costs (stifled availability of art, fewer new works.)

The creation of the Internet makes these costs even more acute. Copying works of the public domain costs almost nil when it is done electronically, making distribution incredibly easy. Public domain works are for more available than ever before.

Yet the copyright term in the United States keeps getting longer. For decades now, Congress has voted to ensure that no new copywritten works fall into the public domain. In 1976, they voted to make copyright last the life of the author plus 50 years, and in 1998 they extended it to the life of the author plus 70 years.

I could accept that we might feel bad for the spouse of a deceased artist, and say that we will extend copyright for a short period beyond death. Life plus 50 years seems a bit much for me, but in order to comply with the Berne Convention, we must make it that long (although we did not sign the Berne Convention for more than a decade after the 1976 extension.) However, there is absolutely no reason to make it life plus 70. No reason, except that media companies contribute heavily to our Congressmen and Congresswomen, and it is media companies which earn profits from ancient creative works.

Blame Mickey Mouse, copyright 1928.

I had the pleasure of reading Donald Luskin today, and followed his link to a “remarkable” account of last week’s social security debate over at Perry Eidelbus’ Eidelblog. Then I came across this passage, and I got mad. Why? Read it first.

Krugman rambled incoherently for a minute, and I really didn’t understand what his point was. Then he said the payroll tax is “just another tax.” Aha! That brings us back to Krugman’s fallacial claim that there will be no Social Security “deficit.” There won’t be one, not once Krugman & Co. change the nature of the financing and lump Social Security in with general spending. It’s like saying 2 plus 2 equal five, once you’ve changed the rules of math. As I already said, isn’t Social Security supposed to be financed by a dedicated payroll tax? So if payroll taxes can’t pay all Social Security benefits, and we have to increase other taxes to make up the difference, what’s the difference, other than the economic incidence, between raising those taxes and raising the payroll tax? (Bolding mine)

I’m no blind follower of PK (Although I haven’t had the audacity to contradict him in this blog), but Mr. Eidelbus’ response completely misses Krugman’s point. That’s because Krugman wasn’t rambling incoherently: he was actually revealing a major problem in the way Michael Tanner had been discussing Social Security. Tanner wanted to say that there was no trust fund, but that there was still a looming Social Security crisis, and Krugman eloquently called him on it.

What Krugman actually said was that you could think of the government in two ways. In the first way, we have a set of taxes (payroll, income, capital gains, etc.). The money which these taxes reap from the citizenry flows into a giant pot, in which it gets mixed around until, as we peer into the pot, we can’t tell a payroll tax dollar from an income tax dollar from a capital gains tax dollar. When the government wants to fund a program, it scoops money out of the pot and plops it down on the program.

On the other hand, we could say that different taxes serve different purposes. The Income Tax could be linked to one part of government, and the Payroll Tax could be linked to another. This gives us a few separate pots, and while the government might be able to borrow between the pots, since each one has its own dedicated tasks, this borrowing is actually borrowing. It has to get paid back, or the pots aren’t really separate, and thus the taxes aren’t really dedicated.

Krugman wasn’t advocating that we should take one particular view or another. In fact, I think Eidelbus must have zoned out, because when Krugman said that the payroll tax was “just another tax,” he was simply describing the mindset one would need in order to believe in the first viewpoint. The problem was that Tanner wanted to take both viewpoints at once.

Say that the Payroll Tax is just another tax, undifferentiated in the end from the Income Tax; okay, we’ve just eliminated the Trust Fund. But then we’ve also eliminated the Social Security crisis! After all, what do we hear about the crisis? “Starting in the year 2018, Social Security outgo will exceed income…” What income? Payroll Tax income!

But what if the Payroll Tax is just another way to raise money, and Social Security is just another way to spend it? Then we don’t have a Social Security crisis at all. In fact, we’ve got something must worse: a Federal Government crisis. Put simply, the government pulls in far less money than it spends, regardless of whether Social Security and the Payroll Tax balance out. “Fixing the Social Security shortfall” is about as significant here as “fixing the Defense shortfall,” since these programs are both part of the same behemoth.

You could take the second viewpoint and say that we need to keep Social Security and the Payroll Tax balanced. Then the Payroll Tax is no longer “just another tax” — it’s a dedicated one, specifically for Social Security. Since this dedicated tax has pulled in more money than Social Security could spend over the past two decades, the tax has created substantial reserves. Now we have a trust fund — it begins to diminish in 2018, and it’s exhuasted between 2042 and 2052. We’ve also got a Social Security problem, but it doesn’t strike for around four decades — hardly a crisis.

(Yes, thinking about the government this way makes Social Security seem more solvent at the expense of the General Fund [the rest of government.] I’m okay with that, because the payroll tax’s regressivity makes using it to finance the General Fund very problematic. I wrote about this problem)

You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say that we have specifically a Social Security crisis, but also say that there is no Trust Fund. Tanner claimed that there was no trust fund because Social Security’s income had been taken by the rest of the government. He also said that Social Security’s income exceeded its outgo beginning in the year 2018, and that thus we desperately needed reform. Krugman called him on this inconsistency. Meanwhile, Eidelbus woke up in the middle of one of Krugman’s sentences and completely missed the point.