The thing about the market economy is that it doesn't need "studies." Everything bows to the reality of the market and its prices.
Of course the market is not perfect; it has what we call "externalities," meaning that some market participants can unjustly allocate costs from themselves onto others. As in pollution, or when the neighbor erects a horse-barn that inflicts horse flies and the smell of horse manure on the neighbors.
Strictly speaking, of course, the common law system can take care of externalities, because a neighbor damaged by externalities from next door can sue for relief, and an accumulation of cases can build into a series of legal precedents that can routinely provide relief for people on the receiving end of externalities.
But this incremental approach to life is not much fun for people that want to cut a dash in the world. Thus "studies" have become the favorite way for people with a political agenda to illuminate some kind of crisis that needs heroic intervention by government. The "study" is the stock-in-trade of the activist of whom we have heard tell.
Troublemaker Steve Sailer has a number of posts today illustrating this problem. First there is the "redlining" issue, in which lenders, starting the 1930s, would outline urban areas not suitable for home mortgages. These areas were often black residential areas. Activist have made a big deal out of redlining, and the whole 2008 mortgage meltdown was an "unanticipated consequence," an externality of the war on redlining, because it became federal policy to lend to sub-prime borrowers with low down-payment loans in order to fight against redlining.
Only it wasn't the greedy bankers. The redlining started with a study by the feds, for
Sailer notes a study that says that redlining probably didn't amount to more than 15 percent of the difference in home prices between neighborhoods. So the whole flap about redlining may have been a storm in a teacup.
But redlining then and now has been a huge deal, because racism, and the eternal need for any up-and-coming activist to find an issue on which to found his political career. And the political response to redlining ended up with the federal mortgage giants doing the opposite of what the Federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation did in the 1930s, which was to curb the enthusiasm of fly-by-night lenders and brokers to make unsound loans which might lead to a credit meltdown.
I remember my own experience: listening to radio ads in the early 2000s where the voiceover had the style and accent of your stereotypical used-car salesman, and thinking: Hmm.
The thing is, of course, that racial discrimination by market participants creates a market opportunity. If your average corporate employer discriminates against a certain class of employee then there is an opportunity for a rascally entrepreneur to hire those people at under-market rates and make a killing. Same with the wage gap of which we've heard tell. If women are really making less than men, then there is a market opportunity out there.
Or, if the market discriminates against Italian home borrowers in, say, early 20th century San Francisco, that creates an opportunity for a self-styled Bank of Italy to specialize in lending to Italian immigrants and knowing the lay of the land and dividing the good borrowers from the bad ones. Eventually your Bank of Italy restyles itself as Bank of America. "The Bank of Italy was founded in San Francisco, California, United States, on October 17, 1904 by Amadeo P. Giannini", says La Wik.
But obviously, the doings of a Bank of Italy, or today a Bank of Mexico or a Bank of Wakanda, does not provide an opportunity for political activism, for outrage, for peaceful protests, and beneficial legislation and reams of regulations, and incandescent political careers.
Sailer is not finished yet. What with a ton of South Asians piling into the US, what about caste and untouchables? There's a new survey out, "Caste in the United States" that is very worried about South Asians bringing their caste culture to the United States and discriminating against Dalits. Well, it could happen, but my feeling is that most of the South Asian immigration is Brahmins getting away from India so they can Brahminize in the US without all the politics that in India is starting to make life a bit difficult for the higher castes.
It could be a problem, but not a very big problem so long as government does not mandate discrimination the way it does by mandating diversity. For one thing, if you are a Dalit in the US and you keep away from other South Asians my guess is that the average employer would not be able to detect the caste markers that as well-tuned South Asian could. And here is something to think about. I once worked for a tech firm owned by a mid-caste South Asian. But his company was overflowing with gorgeous highly-cultured Brahmin girls. I wonder why.
Or this. Sailer IDs an NPR piece on a study about "test-optional" universities that might help increase diversity. Their poster boy is a student from Nicaragua at the most expensive university in America, George Washington University. Ian Haimowitz:
Anyway, as a classic racist sexist homophobe, I just don't believe any of this "studies" stuff, especially now that there have been studies showing that 50 percent of studies can't be replicated.
Back in the day politics was all about the valiant ruling class fighting back the Huns and the Mongols, and also nobly exercising its heaven-granted droit de seigneur as a rich reward for their courage. Today it seems we have the educated class valiantly fighting against the racists and the sexists, and nobly exercising its studies-granted droit-de-seigneur to order around the peasants and the deplorables.
So nothing has changed.
Of course the market is not perfect; it has what we call "externalities," meaning that some market participants can unjustly allocate costs from themselves onto others. As in pollution, or when the neighbor erects a horse-barn that inflicts horse flies and the smell of horse manure on the neighbors.
Strictly speaking, of course, the common law system can take care of externalities, because a neighbor damaged by externalities from next door can sue for relief, and an accumulation of cases can build into a series of legal precedents that can routinely provide relief for people on the receiving end of externalities.
But this incremental approach to life is not much fun for people that want to cut a dash in the world. Thus "studies" have become the favorite way for people with a political agenda to illuminate some kind of crisis that needs heroic intervention by government. The "study" is the stock-in-trade of the activist of whom we have heard tell.
Troublemaker Steve Sailer has a number of posts today illustrating this problem. First there is the "redlining" issue, in which lenders, starting the 1930s, would outline urban areas not suitable for home mortgages. These areas were often black residential areas. Activist have made a big deal out of redlining, and the whole 2008 mortgage meltdown was an "unanticipated consequence," an externality of the war on redlining, because it became federal policy to lend to sub-prime borrowers with low down-payment loans in order to fight against redlining.
Only it wasn't the greedy bankers. The redlining started with a study by the feds, for
More than 80 years ago, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation released its “Residential Security” maps, guides of American cities for lenders and brokers infamous for the color they used to condemn black neighborhoods to decades of disinvestment: red.You can see the point of the original study. If the feds are going to be spreading free money around to stimulate home-ownership in the aftermath of the Great Depression then they have to regulate the brokers and lenders with administrative guidelines to prevent them from doing what the feds mandated that the brokers and bankers should do in the 2000s. Your faithful regulators want to limit the damage that unsound lending practices by shysters could do to the credit system.
Sailer notes a study that says that redlining probably didn't amount to more than 15 percent of the difference in home prices between neighborhoods. So the whole flap about redlining may have been a storm in a teacup.
But redlining then and now has been a huge deal, because racism, and the eternal need for any up-and-coming activist to find an issue on which to found his political career. And the political response to redlining ended up with the federal mortgage giants doing the opposite of what the Federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation did in the 1930s, which was to curb the enthusiasm of fly-by-night lenders and brokers to make unsound loans which might lead to a credit meltdown.
I remember my own experience: listening to radio ads in the early 2000s where the voiceover had the style and accent of your stereotypical used-car salesman, and thinking: Hmm.
The thing is, of course, that racial discrimination by market participants creates a market opportunity. If your average corporate employer discriminates against a certain class of employee then there is an opportunity for a rascally entrepreneur to hire those people at under-market rates and make a killing. Same with the wage gap of which we've heard tell. If women are really making less than men, then there is a market opportunity out there.
Or, if the market discriminates against Italian home borrowers in, say, early 20th century San Francisco, that creates an opportunity for a self-styled Bank of Italy to specialize in lending to Italian immigrants and knowing the lay of the land and dividing the good borrowers from the bad ones. Eventually your Bank of Italy restyles itself as Bank of America. "The Bank of Italy was founded in San Francisco, California, United States, on October 17, 1904 by Amadeo P. Giannini", says La Wik.
But obviously, the doings of a Bank of Italy, or today a Bank of Mexico or a Bank of Wakanda, does not provide an opportunity for political activism, for outrage, for peaceful protests, and beneficial legislation and reams of regulations, and incandescent political careers.
Sailer is not finished yet. What with a ton of South Asians piling into the US, what about caste and untouchables? There's a new survey out, "Caste in the United States" that is very worried about South Asians bringing their caste culture to the United States and discriminating against Dalits. Well, it could happen, but my feeling is that most of the South Asian immigration is Brahmins getting away from India so they can Brahminize in the US without all the politics that in India is starting to make life a bit difficult for the higher castes.
It could be a problem, but not a very big problem so long as government does not mandate discrimination the way it does by mandating diversity. For one thing, if you are a Dalit in the US and you keep away from other South Asians my guess is that the average employer would not be able to detect the caste markers that as well-tuned South Asian could. And here is something to think about. I once worked for a tech firm owned by a mid-caste South Asian. But his company was overflowing with gorgeous highly-cultured Brahmin girls. I wonder why.
Or this. Sailer IDs an NPR piece on a study about "test-optional" universities that might help increase diversity. Their poster boy is a student from Nicaragua at the most expensive university in America, George Washington University. Ian Haimowitz:
“I know for a fact I’m the first Nicaraguan-American, the first Latino, the first Jewish Latino that a lot of kids meet,” he says.Somehow, looking at his photo, I don't think the kid grew up in a Nicaraguan barrio.
Anyway, as a classic racist sexist homophobe, I just don't believe any of this "studies" stuff, especially now that there have been studies showing that 50 percent of studies can't be replicated.
Back in the day politics was all about the valiant ruling class fighting back the Huns and the Mongols, and also nobly exercising its heaven-granted droit de seigneur as a rich reward for their courage. Today it seems we have the educated class valiantly fighting against the racists and the sexists, and nobly exercising its studies-granted droit-de-seigneur to order around the peasants and the deplorables.
So nothing has changed.
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