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Monday Miscellany, 9/30/24

Monday Miscellany, 9/30/24

Last updated on: September 30, 2024 at 8:39 am by Gene Veith

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Monday Miscellany, 9/30/24 2024-09-30T08:39:01-04:00 Gene Veith

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Politicians (and voters) vs. economists; communal kitchens; and how about augmented reality?

Politicians (and Voters) vs. Economists

In the current presidential campaign, the Democrats and the Republicans are proposing very different economic policies. The public, no matter their political party, favor virtually all of them. But economists, no matter their political party, are alarmed at virtually all of them.

That was the finding of a poll sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, reported on by Paul Kiernan in an article (behind a paywall) entitled Voters Love the Policies That Economists Love to Hate: Many Harris and Trump proposals loved by voters are hated by economists—and it isn’t partisan.

Donald Trump proposed not taxing tips, an idea that Kamala Harris quickly adopted. Among ordinary Americans, 79% think that would be a great policy. But 87% of professional economists think that would be a terrible policy, “saying it would arbitrarily benefit a small subset of lower-wage workers, distort the labor market, widen the budget deficit and create incentives to game the system.”

Trump wants to eliminate taxes on social security payments. Following my enlightened self-interest, I agree, along with 68% of my fellow Americans. But 92% of economists oppose that!

As we blogged about, Trump wants to impose tariffs of up to 20% on all imported goods. Nearly half of Americans, 47%, disagree. But all economists polled, 100%, disagree.

As we blogged about, Harris wants to penalize companies that raise prices for engaging in “price gouging.” Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 72%, would like to see that happen. Among economists, 68% think that would be a bad idea.

Trump’s tax cuts expire in 2025, but he wants to make them permanent. Half of Americans, 50%, want that too. But 85% of economists oppose that, probably worrying about the massive deficits that our government is running.

There are, however, areas of agreement.

Harris’s proposal to give first-time homebuyers $25,000 towards their downpayment? Opposing that are 69% of regular Americans and 87% of economists.

Harris’s proposal to cap prescription drug spending at $2,000 per year? Liking that idea are 77% of Americans, with 46% of economists OK with it.

Capping insulin prices at $35? Liking that idea are 84% of Americans and 64% of economists.

Harris’s idea of increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%? This one is close. Favoring it are 48% of Americans and 59% of economists.

Harris’s idea of providing a $6,000 tax credit to parents of newborns? This one shows a strong consensus. Favoring it are 67% of Americans and even more economists, 74%.

This shows, of course, a major issue with democracies. The people, naturally, will want what benefits them. And politicians, to gain power, will pander to their desires. This works much of the time. But sometimes, what people want and what politicians promise to give them is not actually feasible in real life and may have disastrous consequences. This is why political self-government requires moral self-government–that is, citizens governing themselves by controlling their passions and their desires.

Interestingly, both Trump and Harris were economics majors in college.

Communal Kitchens

Environmental activist Aashis Joshi, a Ph.D. student in “climate adaptation,” has a bright idea for being more ecologically responsible. He tweeted this:

When it comes to preparing & consuming food, communal kitchens would eliminate the need to have refrigerators, stoves, ovens, & other kitchen appliances in each home. They would reduce the consumption of materials & energy, & also food waste, by a lot.

He follows this up with a later tweet:

There are so many simple ideas we could implement before giving in to extractivist, colonialist & ecocidal techno-modern approaches. Of course they require a radical reorganization of our societies & a shift of values, especially from individualism to collectivism.

Yes, a radical reorganization of our societies that would include shifting our values away from the family unit.

Andrew Stuttaford notes that communal kitchens were imposed by the early Bolsheviks in Russia and by the Communist party in the 1950s in rural China as a means of social control. And he sees other possibilities of this kind of social arrangement, which environmentalists would likely appreciate but most Americans probably would not.

In his post Degrowth: The War against Kitchens, he treats this suggestion as an example of the larger position of many environmentalists known as “degrowth.” We should stop trying to grow the economy and instead contract it for the sake of the environment. He writes,

Depending on how mandatory they became (and degrowth is all about compulsion), communal kitchens could be used to ration or eliminate the “wrong” sorts of food — meat, for example. They could also be used to limit food supplies to the politically disfavored. They would also disrupt the family, typically regarded as a potentially subversive element by totalitarian regimes (one reason the Bolsheviks favored communal kitchens, too) and, by removing a space where friends could be invited round, they reduce the possibility that people might get together and say frowned-upon things.

How About Augmented Reality?

Virtual reality–as in the metaverse, an immersive computer-generated reality that we can inhabit by putting on a helmet–has not caught on as much as developers had hoped. But what about augmented reality, which we can access by putting on glasses that will superimpose computer-generated images onto the the real world?

Mark Zuckerberg, who changed the name of his company Facebook to Meta, has unveiled a new product he hopes to put on the market in a few years, a set of glasses with heavy, black, nerdy looking frames called Orion glasses.

Not only will they answer questions about what you are looking at and give you guidance using Artificial Intelligence, they can project a holographic 3-D image in your field of vision. Instead of calling someone on your cell-phone, a three-dimensional image of that person will appear to you and you can have a conversation as if you were in each other’s presence.

An article in Space Daily entitled Meta unveils ‘Orion’ glasses to one day rival smartphone quotes Zuckerberg:

“With Orion, we are getting closer to achieving the dream… to create the next major computing platform that delivers a deep sense of presence, like you were right there with another person,” Zuckerberg said.

“This is the physical world with holograms overlaid on it,” he said. . . .

Orion users, close together physically or not, can interact with one another by chatting or playing virtual games.

Wristbands connected wirelessly to Orion sense slight gestures like finger-tapping to trigger tasks such as calling up and responding to messages.

“You’re going to be able to tap your fingers and bring up a game of cards or chess or holographic ping pong or whatever it is that you want to do together,” Zuckerberg said.

But a big draw of our new technology is its anonymity. Who wants to be seen online? I suspect what would happen with the Orion glasses is what happened with Zuckerberg’s metaverse, the use of avatars, which can be designed or bought and sold to represent how you want others to perceive you.

But if this takes off, the Orion glasses with their Buddy Holly frames would be another example of how our technology is turning us all into nerds. Speaking as one myself, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m just saying that it would be a sign of our victory if everybody started wearing those things.

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