Category: war

The Water That Connects Us

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August 28, 2022

by Stephen Stofka

Several events this week share a common theme. President Biden announced a partial student loan forgiveness program.  Fed chair Jerome Powell announced the central bank’s firm commitment to tame inflation. The justice department is pursuing tens of thousands of fraudulent claims related to the pandemic federal relief programs. California Governor Gavin Newsome announced that the state will completely phase out gas fueled cars by 2035. What do these four events have in common? Government officials taking action to shield or relieve individuals from some oppressive force – a debt burden, rising prices, a pandemic, and a contributing cause to climate change. Government is a raft, an anchor of safety that we must share if we are to keep our heads above the water that connects us.

The physical world does not care whether human beings acknowledge or deny climate change. In 2013 the IPCC released their fifth assessment of the global climate. They were careful to note that they could not project individual small weather events like thunderstorms but that there would be more extreme weather events. Tree ring data indicates that this two decade drought in the west last occurred 1200 years ago. Agriculture uses 80% of the total amount of water humans use and have been severely impacted by water rationing. The federal government and states have spent billions fighting fires throughout the west. In recent days several southern states have experienced “1000 year” floods. They have declared emergencies to trigger federal assistance for cleanup and rebuilding.

The sun pours a flow of energy on the earth. Greenhouse gases like carbon dixoide retard the escape of the heat from that energy. California’s initiative is a key declaration of an aspirational agenda to lessen the release of greenhouse gases.  Building an infrastructure for thousands of electric vehicles is a Herculean task. So was the journey from Independence Missouri on the Oregon Trail in the 19th century. More of us are realizing that things have gotten to a point that we have to make some changes whether we like it or not. California has declared its intention to start the journey. Let’s hope more states will follow.

Inflation is oppressive. In a Jackson Hole summit speech this Friday Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stressed the Fed’s  commitment to taming inflation. “Inflation feeds on itself,” he said. As people come to expect higher inflation they may buy more now, making choices that actually accelerate inflation. When inflation is low, businesses and people no longer need to factor in rising prices as they make future plans. Former Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan called it “rational inattention.” The Fed has a twin policy mandate from Congress – full employment and stable prices. Because unemployment is so low the Fed feels that they can focus their policy tools on curbing inflation. Powell warned that rising interest rates would have a negative impact on both economic growth and employment. The stock market fell more than 3% in response to the Fed’s determination to keep raising rates until inflation has returned closer to their target.

David Farenthold (2022) reports that the Justice Department is pursuing tens of thousands of fraudulent claims under the CARES act. Three relief programs totaled $5 trillion, $3.1 trillion in the spring of 2020 and $1.9 trillion under the new Biden administration in the spring of 2021. Because there are so many cases, those who stole $10,000 will probably escape prosecution as investigators tackle claims with larger amounts. The Labor Department has 39,000 cases of fraudulent unemployment claims pending. The Small Business Administration has over two million fraudulent claims to investigate and verify. So far, the Justice Department has charged 1500 and secured 500 convictions. During the pandemic, Congress reached out. Many took advantage.

President Biden announced a student loan forgiveness program of $10,000 for each student with outstanding student debt and an income below $125K. The debt relief does not apply to those pursuing advanced medical and law degrees. A surge of college enrollment before and after the Great Recession drove student loan debt much higher. For-profit colleges overpromised well-paying careers to attract lower income students who qualified for federal grants and loans. Those low-income students who qualified for Pell grants will be eligible for up to $20,000 of student loan forgiveness. This will help minority students and women who typically earn less even after earning a BA degree. Most of those who graduate from 4-year schools come from the top 50% of incomes, and are endowed with more financial and educational resources prior to entering college. Whether a president has the power to forgive student loan debt is a matter for the courts. Mr. Biden’s executive action will surely be challenged.

Former President Ronald Reagan once quipped “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Despite his rhetoric, Reagan headed a big spending government that helped certain groups of people. Communities near military bases appreciated his military buildup in the fight against the Soviet Union. Investment and savings banks appreciated the 1984 and 1986 bailouts from his administration. High interest rates during the early 1980s drove the economy into a deep recession and curbed inflation but crippled debt-burdened farmers. Many family farms were sold to large agricultural holding companies. Military contractors and finance companies got relief. Farmers did not.

The founders of our country thought that the business of government was to protect people from oppressive burdens. Then as now we argue about whose burdens, who pays and how they should be relieved. We are all interconnected, swimming in the same pool. Government is a big raft, a temporary rest from a lifetime of staying afloat. At times we appreciate the hand up when someone says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

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Photo by Jong Marshes on Unsplash

Fahrenthold, D. A. (2022, August 16). Prosecutors struggle to catch up to a tidal wave of pandemic fraud. The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/business/economy/covid-pandemic-fraud.html

United Nations. (n.d.). United Nations Charter. United Nations. Retrieved August 26, 2022, from https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

A Real Test

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February 27, 2022

by Stephen Stofka

A central archetype of the American character is an individual who stands up to a large institution. America declared independence in defiance of the British Empire. The text and spirit of the Constitution shows a healthy distrust of institutional power. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart played an idealistic young man who wrestled with the power politics of the Washington elite. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg challenged the White House and Defense Dept when he released the details of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. In his 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump played the newcomer, ready to challenge the institutional power of Washington. This week thousands of Ukrainian civilians volunteered to take up arms against the Russian Army’s assault on their capital, Kyiv. This was a defiant defense of democracy that most Americans could champion.

Americans have long been conflicted in their attitudes to the institutions that form the web of civic life. Our faith in government has been sorely tested in the past two decades. The pretext for the war in Iraq was founded on faulty intelligence and political passion. The fall of Enron and the discrediting of a large accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, led many to question what the attention and motives of the many agencies that took up office space in Washington. The financial crisis confirmed our worst fears. Corruption, incompetence and political impotence had helped bring the global financial system to its knees. When the pandemic touched the shores of America in early 2020, there was not much belief left in the reservoir of American trust.  

In late 2018, the Pew Research Center interviewed 10,000 Americans about their trust in government (Rainie et al., 2021). Trust in government was at historic lows and ¾ of respondents thought it had become much worse in the past twenty years. A supermajority of Americans can’t distinguish truth from lies when politicians speak. At that time, only 42% of those interviewed thought that a lack of trust was a big problem. The pandemic has revealed just how big a problem it is. Parents have threatened school board officials. Thousands of airline passengers have threatened fellow passengers and airline employees. Americans have reacted violently not to an invading army but to mask mandates. Is this what we fight for?

A lack of trust in government may be very low but it is not new. More troubling is the growing lack of trust we have in other Americans, an unraveling of social cohesion that takes years to develop and decades to repair. Under the pretense of fostering connection with others, social media helps drive us apart with carefully written algorithms that promote conflict as a form of social engagement. We need an enemy other than our neighbors. As Ukrainians escape with their children to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova – as they sleep in subway tunnels to escape bombardment by Russian troops – as they take up arms to protect their capital – let’s remember that the real test of freedom is not whether we have to wear a mask in a grocery store or on a plane.

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Rainie, L., Keeter, S., & Perrin, A. (2021, July 27). Trust and Distrust in America. Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/trust-and-distrust-in-america/

The Tools of Peace and Power

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September 12, 2021

by Steve Stofka

The recent exit from Afghanistan after a twenty year war (2001-2021) reminds me of the twenty year war we fought in Vietnam (1955-1975). Neither war achieved our ends, demonstrating again that war is a series of miscalculations of the gains and costs. Our overwhelming fighting force can dominate short-term conflict like the Gulf War but it is not a winning strategy against poorly funded insurgent groups.  To those who study the practice of war, this dichotomy prompts many pages of speculation as to the causes.

An answer that fits the facts is that a dominant force like the U.S. does not go to war to win, so it achieves its goal by not winning. The traditional end of war – a win – is to capture territory or access to resources within a region. In Vietnam and in Afghanistan, the U.S. had no such designs. Its goal was remove an existing regime and to prevent its return to power. The first is a military goal. The second is a political end. In both countries, we achieved the military goal of removal. In both countries, we learned that armed troops cannot achieve a long term political goal. Why didn’t we learn our lesson after Vietnam?

An answer that fits the facts is that our goal is to demonstrate our military power, not to learn lessons. In 1795, shortly after the final ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote Perpetual Peace, an essay arguing that a republican government, one with a separation of legislative and executive powers like the U.S., was the only hope of perpetual peace. Without a central authority over all the nations, the only constraint on leaders must come from within each nation.

Only those under a republican form of government understood the true costs of war. The citizens had to fight it, fund it and repair the country after the war was over. 200 years later, the development of technology has allowed most Americans to vote for war without fighting it. The U.S. spends over $536,000 per person in the armed forces, more than five times what China spends per active duty person (GFP, 2021). Because we are able to borrow from the rest of the world, we don’t have to fund our wars with our own taxes. Lastly, the wars are fought in another country so that we don’t have to repair the damages of war. The horrific attack on the World Trade Center twenty years ago was a visceral, deeply wounding reminder of the cost of war fought on the homeland.

Kant wrote that a treaty of peace could not solve the tendency of nations to find a justification for war because a treaty ended only one war. Since peace was not a natural feature of human societies, countries should try to construct a peace that ended all wars. He suggested a League of Peace and stressed that it be a federation of nations, not a nation of nations. The League of Nations formed after WW1 constructed only a treaty, not a peace. Intent on punishing Germany for the war, the Treaty of Versailles ensured the next war twenty years later. The United Nations and NATO were two attempts to form international organizations aimed at resolving issues without war. We have not had another world war since the mid-20th century but we have not constructed a durable peace either.

America has overcome Kant’s three safeguards against perpetual war. Writing at the end of the 18th century when nations fought to take something from someone else, Kant could not imagine our present circumstances. We fight wars to give something to other peoples, a chance for freedom and hope. That is our justification for the damage we do. But the end of war is to take what we want, not to give. We have built the most formidable fighting machine that has ever existed, but it is a tool of power, not peace. In memory of those who died that day 20 years ago, let’s invest in the tools of peace.

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Notes:

Photo by Stephen Johnson on Unsplash

GFP. 2021. “2021 Military Strength Ranking.” Global Firepower – World Military Strength. https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php (September 11, 2021). Note: dividing total military cost by active personnel: US $536K per person, Russia – $48K, China – $108K, India – $44K, Japan – $198K, S. Korea – $76K.

Kant, Immanuel. 1983. Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays: On Politics, History, and Morals. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

National Constitution Center (NCC). 2021. “On This Day: Congress Officially Creates the U.S. Army.” National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-congress-officially-creates-the-u-s-army (September 11, 2021).

Finger Pointing

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April 18, 2021

by Steve Stofka

Some restaurant employers complain that they can’t find workers and blame the stimulus payment and the extension of unemployment benefits. Workers complain that businesses are not willing to pay for the additional health risk of close contact with the public. Child-care remains an ongoing obstacle for many. Pick your target – the bums in Washington and their relief programs, cheap business owners, belligerent customers, or unmotivated employees. Oops, almost forgot one other culprit – the Covid virus. Finger pointing does not build solutions. Finger touching does.

In its March survey, the National Federation of Independent Business reported (2021) that 42% of owners reported that they could not fill a job opening, yet only 28% reported offering higher wages. Some expressed their concern that unemployment benefits were too generous, reducing the demand for jobs.

In a recent study, Gabriel Chodorow-Reich and his colleagues at Harvard (2018) found that an extension of unemployment benefits had only a small macroeconomic effect on unemployment, employment, job vacancies, and wages. However, they noted that some studies focusing on particular industries and workers have found greater effects from more generous unemployment benefits.

In macroeconomic models benefits for employed or unemployed workers does affect the unemployment rate. Benefits for the employed raise the input cost of labor and causes an increase in the price of a product. An increase in price leads to a reduction in demand. Employers respond to that demand reduction by laying off employees or not adding to their workforce. Unemployment benefits reduce incentives for workers to find work. States charge employers a fee for additional benefits, further driving up labor costs. However, in the aggregate, a change in benefits has only a small effect on wages and unemployment.

In a crisis, providing relief to specific populations and business sectors is difficult. When the CARES act was passed at the start of the pandemic, the paycheck protection aspect was designed to help small businesses. Big corporations took advantage of loopholes in the law’s language and exhausted that targeted relief for small businesses. Big business got big by being voracious, leaving little for the competition. A government that enacts broad relief measures are criticized for giving relief to those who don’t need it. We would rather blame each other than blame a virus.

Inflation

Inflation expectations have an effect on wages. If workers expect higher prices in the near future, we want higher wages to cover our living costs. We see the price of gas go up from $2 per gallon to $2.80 per gallon in the past six months and reason that a lot of prices will be going up. We listen to the news in our car and hear inflation is up such and such a percent. We check the price of hamburger or some other grocery item. For the sake of simplicity, some economic models assume that consumers are knowledgeable about setting inflation expectations. We don’t have the time to be experts, so we guess at it and correct our expectations as we get new information.

In a recent paper, Ehsan Ebrahimy (2020) and fellow economists at the International Monetary Fund studied the effects that pandemics and wars had on inflation. Pandemics generated uneven swings in prices during the pandemic, but the recovery period brought an offsetting of those price swings. They found no net inflation effects from pandemics like the Spanish flu.

Expectations contribute to inflation. The price of residential toilet paper during the Covid crisis is a small example of this phenomenon. Different production plants make commercial and residential toilet paper because consumers are willing to pay more for a softer product. In the first months of the pandemic, panic buying and hoarding caused a shortage of toilet paper and a rise in price. Manufacturers like Kimberly-Clark built more production of residential toilet paper and store shelves were restocked in recent months. Responding to the increased inventory, people started using the toilet paper they hoarded. Now there is a surplus of toilet paper and prices have dropped below pre-pandemic levels.

Unlike pandemics, war involves the destruction of  physical capital, factories and offices. In the recovery periods following war, the IMF researchers found a persistent inflation in developed economies because some of the productive capacity had been destroyed. When there was less supply to meet demand, prices went up. Even a country not directly damaged in a war, like the U.S. in the past two world wars, suffered lasting inflationary effects in the post-war recovery periods. During WW2, the U.S. used up a lot of raw materials and production to make weapons. Following the war, inflation shot up over 10% in the U.S., five times the current rate. Following that inflation spike, the economy fell into recession, which caused a price plunge, followed by another spike in inflation to over 7%. The inflationary shock waves following the war took seven years to dissipate.

The researchers concluded that there was little evidence to support a belief in a sustained inflationary trend during the recovery from this pandemic. That does not rule out the possibility of uneven short-lived price rises. As shown above, expectations have an effect on prices.

We are more comfortable when we humanize the causes of inflation, pointing the finger at “those people.” We prefer to live in a world of intent, not random chance. Attacks on Asian-Americans have increased as if someone born and raised in America had something to do with the Covid virus. Employers blame Congress or unmotivated job applicants, who blame heartless employers. As Rodney King said, “Can’t we all just get along?” (Sastry & Bates, 2017). We can use our fingers to connect, not blame.

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Photo by Humberto Arellano on Unsplash

Chodorow-Reich, G., Coglianese, J., & Karabarbounis, L. (2018). The macro effects of unemployment benefit extensions: A measurement error approach*. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(1), 227-279. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy018. Retrieved from https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/chodorow-reich/files/ui_macro.pdf

Ebrahimy, E., Igan, D., & Peria1, S. M. (September 10, 2020). The Impact of COVID-19 on Inflation: Potential Drivers and Dynamics. International Monetary Fund Research. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/covid19-special-notes/en-special-series-on-covid-19-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-inflation-potential-drivers-and-dynamics.ashx

NFIB. (2021, April 13). Small business owners struggle to find qualified workers. Retrieved April 17, 2021, from https://www.nfib.com/content/press-release/economy/small-business-owners-struggle-to-find-qualified-workers/

Sastry, A., & Bates, K. (2017, April 26). When L.A. erupted in anger: A look back at the Rodney King riots. Retrieved April 17, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/when-la-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riots