Saturday, June 26, 2004
Talk Radio
Writing in the current The Public Interest, William G. Mayer discusses "Why Talk Radio is Conservative" (not available at the link).He surveys and rejects the standard explanations (the Rush Limbaughs are better show people than their liberal counterparts, there are fewer radio-sized liberal sound-bites, corporate owners block liberal talk shows, etc.). Mayer suggests, instead, that the easy answer has to do with the fact that there are simply more conservatives in America than liberals. He cites poll data on ideological self-identification that has conservatives dominate 1.8 to 1. He adds that this does not necessarily translate into electoral strength because most Americans' lack of a well developed ideology means that they can be all over the place on specific issues.
If true, it also suggests that national elections are conservatives' to loose.
He also mentions that other media are widely seen as liberal-biased, creating a demand that talk radio addresses. Also, the liberal side is more beset with fragmentation and identity politics; their minority constituencies are more likely to tune into Black or Hispanic radio than Air America -- which the WSJ reported last week has money problems.
One part of the puzzle that Mayer does not address is the following: in his of heart of hearts, I expect that Bill O' Reilly knows he is on the right ("fair and balanced" notwithstanding); most of his colleagues trumpet the fact that they are -- while I expect that most of the TV network news and national newspaper types actually see themselves as "fair and balanced" rather than the liberals that they are. The oldies come from the era of the FCC's "fairness clause" when open political bent was taboo. They may have come to believe their own posturing
The historical explanation helps to explain how the news media terrain has come to be settled the way it is. Much like the fact that the Northeastern U.S. remains heavily settled -- and the population center of gravity is only slowly moving towards the southwest -- because in 1620 the Pilgrims bumped into Plymouth Rock instead of Long Beach, California.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Wealth
How rich are we? The BEA's "Net Stock of Fixed Reproducible Tangible Wealth" series has recently been updated to 2000 and can be found at Table 679 at www.bea.gov/bea/an/wlth2594/maintext.htm.Looking at 1980-2000 growth (in chained 1996 dollars), net U.S. wealth had grown from $14.269 trillion to $26.680 trillion, up 87%.
The breakdown for 2000 was:
Private 70%
Nonresidential equipment and software 16%
Nonresidential structures 21%
Residential structures 33%
Government 18%
Federal 5%
State and Local 14%
Consumer Durable Goods 11%
Not clear why the last entry is separate from private.
The fastest growing of these over the last twenty years was consumer durables, just beating out nonresidential equipment and software.
Milton Friedman has written, that all things considered, about half of U.S. GDP is directly or indirectly controlled by governments. That's depressing but there may be a better story when we focus on wealth.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Wal-Mart
In the minds of the zero-sum set, if I am rich, it is because you are poor, or vice-versa. So a successful Wal-Mart must be getting away with murder. Whether it is their labor practices or their land use ("big-box") practices, or whatever, something must be amiss. Never mind that they are among retailing's most auspicious innovators.
One of the world's most successful enterprises chooses to discriminate against half of the planet's talent pool. In a better world, the assertion would be seen as laughable.
Yet, labor markets are now politicized. Bi-variate associations that show males and females of similar classification averaging different compensation packages are taken seriously. Lawyers, consultants, politicians, media representatives and the like pile on.
Add the normal control variables and the gender wage gap inevitably shrinks. Does it go to zero? Or, who to listen to? Those who specify the models or competing owners and managers who are daily judged by bottom-line performance?
Americans' material wealth is, in great part, due to the state of our economic freedoms. The ease with which markets are politicized these days and the fact that economic growth persists, nevertheless, attest to the amazing power of free enterprise.
Monday, June 21, 2004
Voting With Feet
International cross-sectional data are a headache, as are data about comparative migration. Stalker's Guide to International Migration is, nevertheless, appealing.The Guide cites the UN as the source for the fact that 175 million people now live in a country not of their birth. For the US, it is 11.1% of the population (2001) which is 32 million which is 18% of all the world's foreign born.
People can be expected to migrate to the richer places. In the years 1998-2001, the G-7 nations took in 10.6 million immigrants. Most (30%) went to the US. Germany with its relatively open borders took in 25%. As a proportion of its native population, Germany took in more. In fact, as a proportion of native-born population, the US was fifth of seven -- just ahead of Japan and France.
While the picture is complicated by policy differences and geography, looking at how people vote with their feet is always instructive. Open borders are interesting but so are open cultures and open markets.
