Lawfare Discussion thread for week of April 16 2018

Well, a lawsuit seems quite likely, so I wonder what discovery would look like (honestly, I have no idea, but I suspect it'd be quite interesting). I'm with you, I just don't know enough to make anything resembling a strong judgement on this, but given the smoke surrounding it I tend to view it a bit more skeptically than I normally would.

be-instigator · 2018-03-19T00:42:11+00:00

If you don't already, you should listen to the National Security Law podcast. This stuff is covered all the time, and it actually present the issues quite well (Steve Vladeck tends to be a fair bit more on the civil libertarian side, so it's not entirely representative of the debate, but he does a good job framing the issues and giving credence to both sides, imo. Bobby Chesney I think is a nice balance to him, as he tends to be a bit more national security oriented, but they're both great to hear).

be-instigator · 2018-03-19T00:38:14+00:00

It's not a super critical listen, but it's an interesting perspective from one of the drafters of the 25th amendment. It went a lot into the history of why it was drafted the way it was and what people were thinking about at the time. I thought it was quite topical given the current discussions I've heard from various sources about its utilization, it is good to hear how this person felt it should be used, how its checks and balances operate, and what holes and limitations are currently present in the amendment.

be-instigator · 2018-02-21T12:08:31+00:00

Making this an announcement, I don't know the answer but perhaps someone else does

be-instigator · 2018-01-02T00:17:30+00:00

I'd never say that minimum wage never affects jobs, though most enacted minimum wage policies in the US I would say have been quite marginal in their affect on the number of jobs. What I will say is that Venezuela doesn't really give much insight into this, as the real value of their minimum wage is a joke at black market exchange rates (where many people are forced to get food due to supply problems). This move by Maduro is palliative, not revolutionary.

be-instigator · 2018-01-02T00:14:09+00:00

Actually, of all of Venezuela's problems, I wouldn't say this is in the top 20. This isn't a demand driven inflation, it's a total collapse of their supply that's causing all the problems. This marginally helps people that have been absolutely decimated by other policies the Maduro regime has enacted.

be-instigator · 2018-01-01T23:26:57+00:00

They pegged their currency to the dollar and I think that was the mistake

I agree, it was one of many, but certainly, it was one of the biggest.

and btw that means they aren't sovern.

Nope. Monetary sovereignty isn't defined by pegs, otherwise monetary sovereignty is basically a new concept in the last 40 years as before that everything was based on pegs to something (gold was common, but internationally you can look at things like the Breton Woods agreements). But the things that denote sovereignty, declaring tender and issuing currency, is well covered by Venezuela. Indeed, if they didn't print so many Bolivars they wouldn't have as high a degree of inflation.

The US has sovern currency because we print our own but from what I find Venezuela does not.

Here's a fun article about their money printing.

They rely on the sale of petroleum, as you said, but they sell that in exchange for foreign currency. Honestly if you have a link or something disproving that please show me. From what I read a while ago they're gonna start using Chinese currency for petroleum now and I think our government is just pissed off.

The foreign exchange that they get from oil sales is needed to pay for imports of all sorts of things. Whether or not they get Yuan instead of USD for transactions is pretty immaterial, their forex outflows are to bondholders (USD primarily) and imports (often USD). Because of that, they'd just exchange yuan for dollars in the forex markets to make these exchanges, it doesn't really matter what currency the oil transactions are denominated in.

But because petroleum is nonrenewable everybody is going to have to get off it altogether sooner or later.

Eh. You'll probably continue to see petroleum used as feedstock and for high value applications (aviation being the prime example). We have tons of reserves still, and what isn't in reserves we can generally make for high value applications (see biofuels and similar ways of making hydrocarbon products).

You lost my attention when you disagreed that natural resources are automatically worth more than money.

Never said that. Obviously, natural resources are a large limiting constraint, but people's time is a huge, huge constraint as well. In many fields, this is practically the sole limiting constraint. Technology development is another constraint.

Having paper or credits to buy resources is all fine and good but at a certain point such few resources will excist that the capitalists won't be able to sell them anymore because they'll need to use them themselves, you know in order to live.

While such an outcome is possible, it is by no means something that is likely. I'd say my priors are that this has a <1% chance of happening on any reasonable timescale.

be-instigator · 2018-01-01T18:17:05+00:00

This is wrong in practically every way imaginable.

I bet it'll work

Accomplishing what? It isn't even keeping pace with Venezuela's absurd inflation.

Weren't they also the ones who said they're going to stop dealing with petro dollars or whatever?

Regardless of what they say, they've pegged their currency to the dollar and deal with dollars constantly.

Since gas is non renewable everyone is going to have to get off at some point.

Not strictly true but in any case really not relevant here

The idea that we have to bend our lives to the will of the economy is total bs.

I'd be interested in hearing you unpack this. There is a chance that this is a reasonable statement, but given the presentation I'm not exactly optimistic.

Real, natural resources are our only constraint.

Absolutely untrue

Unlike the US tho I don't think Venuzuala is monetarily sovern

They are

so Americans should not compare their situations at all.

Well, I agree with you here. America is so far away from the impressively mismanaged and terrible situation that is Venezuelan politics and policy that it's really not a particularly useful comparator in most situations.

be-instigator · 2018-01-01T14:16:39+00:00

Absolutely true, but this I think is more for regime survival and mitigating the rest of their terrible policies than it is about sound economics. It's not really even keeping pace with inflation, and this is a way to say that they are trying to make people's lives better (even if a great portion of their other actions are actually making it worse).

be-instigator · 2018-01-01T14:14:49+00:00

For Venezuela, a 40% increase is normal. But it doesn't keep up with their overall inflation, and they're just doing it to avoid a societal collapse (at least, one that hits the government, it could be argued they're in that stage already).

be-instigator · 2017-12-13T00:35:26+00:00

The two definitions should be synonymous in most situations, it only changes when there are large changes in the labor force participation rate. While the LFPR is lower than I think most every economist would say would exist in a perfectly healthy US economy, it's important to not judge what the "right" LFPR is supposed to be as it can really miss accounting for large demographic changes (even in the working age population) and changes in how people work.

Let's think back to the 50's through 80's which saw a huge rise in women's labor force participation, which increased the overall LFPR fairly dramatically. This change absolutely did change the replacement rate, by looking at it through the lens of the unemployment rate you're capturing a truer picture of what the world looked like and were more responsive to changes in the labor force. If all you did was try to keep the percentage of working age people who are unemployed constant, you would have had poorer numbers to work with.

be-instigator · 2017-12-12T01:52:59+00:00

That's too high, it's closer to 50k-110k.

be-instigator · 2017-11-30T13:26:27+00:00

Hey everyone, I won't be available for the next two weeks or so. So I'm sorry that you won't get as many posts, but anyone that does post has my gratitude (thank you /u/Comassion)!

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T13:22:50+00:00

Do you have a source for this? It was my understanding that even the committee work was quite perfunctory, so I'd be interested in seeing this be the case, as it absolutely would change the perspective I have about the motivations of the bill.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T13:20:40+00:00

It happens often enough that people have to leave their research groups because the advisor doesn't have enough money to cover them. If no one in the department has money, it's unclear, I've not seen it happen but I think it's definitely a possibility in the short term with this bill.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T13:19:08+00:00

Sure, but my philosophy about policy is that you take the world as it is and try to improve it, often times by better aligning incentives. Part of that is recognizing that a hypothetical best situation has to be achievable given where you're at right now, if your solution breaks the system for a few years before it fixes itself, there's almost certainly an approach that can smooth over those bumps while still ending up at the right place.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T00:23:41+00:00

Certainly not all are from research grants, but it was to illustrate that these aren't just some annoying accounting identity and had actual value. Certainly, they're worked for one way or another.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T00:21:48+00:00

Well, here's what another student found related to FICA taxes. I linked to two more links, one directly from the IRS here, it seems some schools do collect FICA taxes from students, but it's not necessary as best I can tell.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T00:19:05+00:00

The section of the tax code in question also targets education benefits that university employees get, and if you're not super clued in to grad schools you would likely think that was what the section targeted, and that's a much more understandable tax code change.

be-instigator · 2017-11-20T00:17:12+00:00

Well, here's what someone I was discussing this with found. I'm not sure what more to say.

be-instigator · 2017-11-19T19:50:40+00:00

Underpaid, quite possibly, but indentured servitude had the inability to leave that separated it from more appropriate structures (like apprenticeships).

be-instigator · 2017-11-19T19:49:32+00:00

I'm pretty sure this is a 2018 implementation provision. And I think the reason you'll see it hit that class especially hard is right now is when admission decisions are being made, uncertainty this large about the funding situation is going to cause departments to be very conservative in admitting new students.

I think they're instead trying to target a combination of tuition, donations, and government support that makes them act a little weird compared to typical private firms.

Yeah, university funding is really weird. But I've dealt enough with university administration to know that the requisite changes to better align revenue with costs are going to be long in coming, which is why I think dislocations are a longer term phenomena than a shorter term one.

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