Free Trade

There are 2 main arguments against free trade.

CRITICISMS

I. The Infant Industry Argument
Trade may force a country to specialize in "bad" and non-technological industries. Then, since long run growth rate is tech-dependent, trade may lower long run growth. Note, this also assumes that technology is industry specific. So knowledge does not cross sectors.

Moreover, there is value in a nation learning to operate its own industries of choice. They gain more experience, become more efficient, and in the long run could become very good at the industry.

A common example: under free trade, perhaps Mexico would not be a large automobile manufacturer. But if Mexico adopted a variety of protectionist policies, then the industry could blossom. Then, this once sheltered industry would be able to withstand the rugged storm of the free market and compete in free trade.


II. Overspecialization Leads to Dependency and Bad Things
Basically, if a country specializes on a single natural resource good, then however world demand shifts affects greatly how the country does.



RESPONSES

I. Against the Infant Industry Argument
First, we assume that the government will be picking the "right" industry which will be sustainable in the future. Empirically this seems not to be the case. So at best, this is a questionable course of action - a gamble on governmental competence. Especially when governments make decisions through voting processes and series of negotiations, I doubt that they will necessarily select the right industry.

Second, import substitution serves to prevent competition. The impact is that prices rise a great deal, which is especially bad considering we are talking about developing countries that are already loaded with poor people. Empirically, these high costs tend to make the rest of the economy sluggish.


II. Against the Overspecialization Argument
Well, this is actually a solid argument. The response is essentially - don't be an idiot. Don't specialize essentially in only 1 natural resource. That is asking for it.

Thoughts on Vince Carter

This is from Chris Broussard's blog.

posted: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 | Feedback
filed under: New Jersey Nets, Vince Carter

This is what Nets fans have been dreading since the team traded for the league's most exciting player nearly a year ago. Monday night, in a 100-97 loss at Golden State, Vince Carter left with a strained back muscle late in the third quarter. In his brief time with the Nets, Vince had killed his reputation as a soft, injury-prone player. Now that he's once again facing adversity, it'll be interesting to see what the future has in store for him. Will he shake this off quickly and get back on the court? Will this hamper him for the better part of the first half of the season? Or, with the Nets off to a disappointing 5-5 start, will he be traded? I was down on Half-Man/Half-Amazing at this time last season, when he seemed to be tanking it in Toronto. But when he got to New Jersey, I got to see him play on a regular basis for the first time ever. I was amazed. He was flat-out tremendous. I knew he was a great slasher and a good shooter, but his passing ability stunned me. I began thinking Vince's name should be mentioned alongside Kobe's, LeBron's, D-Wade's and T-Mac's as the top swingmen in the league. Here's why it's not: In my opinion, Vince Carter is about 70 percent of the player he should be. From what I see, Vince plays almost completely off of natural ability. Has he added anything since he took the league by storm as a rookie? I look at Vince's body and I see no additional muscle development. That tells me he's not getting after it in the weight room. Look at Kobe -- you can see he pumps the iron. Think of how MJ's body changed over the course of his career. That weight work is almost certainly one reason why Kobe's career isn't hampered by strains, sprains and pulls (and why MJ's wasn't). This is purely speculation, because only Vince truly knows the answer to this, but I see him as a guy who likes the game but doesn't love the game. There are two types of players in the NBA: those who love ball and those who like it. Those who merely like it break down into two categories: those who like hoop, but love the NBA lifestyle -- the fame, the fortune, the females; and those who like hoop and see this more as their job than their passion.

I see Vince as the latter. That is not necessarily meant to be a knock. There are people like that in all walks of life.

In journalism, for instance, there are folks who live and breathe their job, who are legitimately passionate about it and who are constantly looking to be the absolute best. Then there are those who are good, even great, at what they do, even as they see it simply as a way to feed their family and have a nice lifestyle. To me, that's Vince. This is incredible considering he's such a great player. If he had the determination and drive of Kobe, Vince would be off the charts. He'd probably be the best player in the league. And he probably wouldn't be on the sidelines in street clothes so much.

This was exactly what I was talking about with Kevin and Calvin last weekend. The guy is ridiculous, talent wise. Like I said last week, Carter is probably the most talented of the bunch of swingmen we have in the NBA today.

He hits the 3 at nearly 40% clip. That is over 5% better than McGrady, and well over 7% better than Kobe. In fact, taking into account all that he has done behind the 3-pt line, it puts him along side Kenny "the Jet" Smith, Larry Bird, Jon Barry, Donyell Marshall, Dirk Nowitzk. And if we don't even look at it holistically - say we just look at % - he matches up well with that list, and now you can toss in names like Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Eddie Jones and Glenn Rice. How is that for reasonable company?

His defensive PER is among the league's best at his position. In fact, both Carter and Pierce crack the top 10. Kobe and McGrady don't really make the top-anything-significant.

And you would think that he could board at a higher rate for a guy who can dunk over 7 foot men.

But Carter will be Carter and you do see him take plays off. My subjective lens probably is as cloudy as anyones - but here is what I see. I see a guy who definitely says "oh shit, we are up by a lot ... hmm ... I can shoot .. ok let's settle for this 3". And later on the other side of the court, "shit, I just ran into a pick - oh well - switch! ... I doubt this guy will roll, so I will just kind of hang out back here". Now he obviously doesn't do shit like this most of the time - or else our tools wouldn't give him such high marks for efficiency and defense. But just qualitatively, I think, there is an argument to be made that he just takes off plays here and there. I don't know why. I guess it is just his character. I know I come down pretty hard on Bryant, and I do think he is a rather selfish player. But though I may question his decision making on the court (and his ability to remember that this is a team game and the best player in the league is Tim Duncan and not him), I rarely will question his drive and effort on the court.

It's too bad that Carter doesn't have Kobe's or AI's drive. Imagine how ridiculous that would be.

All-Rookie Team

We are about 1/8 through the season. So here is my totally unnecessary predictions for the All-Rookie team:

Chris Paul
Wow. I severely misjudged him. What can I say - I thought there was a little too much hype before the draft. But ... this kid is incredible. He may end up going about 18/6/6 on the season. And he can read lanes in a poor-man's-Iverson sort of way. Now if only he learned to shoot. And if he only learned to defend. But this kid seems to be a lock for Rookie of the Year unless one of the others does something incredible.

Deron Williams
I was super-high on D. Williams before the draft. Maybe I got sucked into the hype. I was a little scared about that - but now my confidence is up on him again. And besides, the summer time with John Stockton seems to have paid off. Even before moving into the starting lineup, he was the Jazz's leading assist-man. He is a little bit streaky when it comes to shooting, but his outside (3pt) shots fall at around 40%, which is nothing to sneeze at. While he isn't as fast as Paul and can't read lanes as well, he seems to be a better on the ball defender - a capable one at that.

Channing Frye
Like Paul, Frye is someone I underrated. (Good call, Danh!) I thought he was a top handful, but I was a little concerned about his strength and rebounding capacity. Turns out, he plays this strange 3-4-5 hybrid that actually works pretty nicely - especially into Coach Brown's system. He is remarkably efficient. I don't just mean that in terms of putting up numbers. I mean that he does little things that normally aren't tracked in boxscores - things that set Duncan apart from other 20/10 types. Though, even if we talk modeling, note that he does lead rookies in PER with 23.2. More importantly makes his opponent remarkably inefficient with a PER of 9.9. Oh, and let's not forget that the Knicks still aren't really a great defensive team or anything. But Frye knows his shit cold. And it shows.

Charlie Villanueva - Well. Yah. Ok, so he was reputed to have attitude problems, etc. And he got hammered in the press when he was drafted at 7. Recall that a few years back when he was in high school, they thought that he should go in the draft after his freshman year in college, but he was somewhat disappointing. Anyway, turns out his potential is still there. And he seems to be playing with a chip on his shoulder. At the 4 he is able to step out and hit the 3 at 38%, he has a helluva lotta 18+ pt games, with an average of like 14 to go along with about 7 boards. His PER is reasonably high (around say 17) but his defense is a little questionable.

Ike Diogu - Yes, he has only played one game to date. Yes, this might look hasty. But he seemed super-solid in that game. As expected he shot rather well, and he was fairly strong all around. He seemed confident enough to play his package in limited time. He interrupted lanes, took medium (~14 ft) jumpers, hit his free throws, tried out post-up moves, made a few pretty cuts, etc. And he basically did all of this in 11 minutes, racking up 11 pts, 3 boards, 1 stl, getting to the line some 3 times, shooting 57%. Now we obviously don't expand that to 40 minutes and estimate that the kid is a 44 pt, 12 board, 5 steal type kid... but we do recognize that he had a great summer league, and he did pretty well in minutes matched up against Tim, Rasho, and Nazr. Of course, the bulk of his minutes came against the latter two, and this is a horribly small sample size - but I think that Montgomery is going to work him into about 25 minutes per game at least. I suspect Foyle's minutes get cut with Murphy sliding to the 5. (Not starting, but effective playing time.)


Close considerations:
Andrew Bogut
Sarunas Jasikevicius
Ray Felton
Luther Head
Salim Stoudemire

The Rise of Mamba

Two unrelated thoughts.

Kobe Bryant Amuses Me
Here is a bit from Ric Bucher's ESPN The Mag cover story about Kobe Bryant that I think is pretty funny. Apparently Kobe has a new nickname.

"Granted, there's still a dark side that Bryant embraces. He's known in his inner circle as Mamba, which, he is happy to explain, is a kind of snake that can grow to 13 feet and is one of the world's quickest, and one of the most venomous, serpents. He referred to this summer as the 'blackout,' in which the snake grew a new skin through a seven-days-a-week conditioning program."

Then Kobe explains the meaning of his nickname. "The mamba can strike with 99 percent accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession. That's the kind of basketball precision I want to have. Not being able to train the last two summers, I was in a gunfight with a rusty butter knife. I did my share of killing, but I was just fighting to survive."

To paraphrase Bill Simmons on this: Ok, as cool as it is that celebrities feel it necessary to give themselves a new nickname to change their identity, it's a little weird when an NBA star prosecuted for sexual assault finds it necessary to embrace the identity of a 13 foot venemous serpent. Seriously, Mike Tyson couldn't come up with a better one.

And, um, Kobe - I don't think the nickname is really catching on.


But Mamba Has Skills
Look at this shit:

1. On a per-game relations: 25 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, 1 block.

2. Minimum number of assists in any game - 6. No games without steals. Only one game without a block.

3. Rankings amongst guards: Scoring (5), Rebounds (2), Assists (7), Steals (6), Blocks (2), Double-Doubles (5)

4. Rankings amongst all players: Scoring (8), Rebounds (37), Assists (7), Steals (10), Blocks (39), Double-Doubles (8)

5. Plus, he has taken over 5 games in the final minutes which has amounted to 4 wins.

6. Finally, he has a PER of 29.5. And his defensive PER (the efficiency of the guy he guards) is on average an 11.7. Taking into account what that means from my previous posts, that is pretty damn impressive, right?

Wait wait. I lied. This isn't Kobe. We aren't talking about the same Mamba - though the name might fit this kid better. This killer is Dwyane Wade.

Admittedly, the Heat are underachieving (though this is not surprising the way Riley reconstructed the team). But is this the kid's fault? I doubt that. He has been rather stellar and clutch thus far.

Shooting Guards are Overrated

I will try to keep this free of too much statistical modeling crap. But keep in mind that models are where a lot of my notions come from.

Shooting Guards:
Shooting guards are prima donnas in a league in which only bigs matter. Paul Pierce? Kobe Bryant? Vince Carter? Tracy McGrady? Effectively interchangable. Or at least the last 3.

Case in point. Of the last 35 years, over 72% of the finals MVPs have been bigs. Of the guards winning MVPs, 60% have been Michael Jordan. Adjusting for him, over 83% of finals MVPs have been bigs. Adjusting for PGs, we get over 90% of the Finals MVPs being bigs.

Related question: How many SG's have ever won the league MVP?
See, the question becomes - do A.I, Dr. J, a count as a SGs? And if so, Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, and Julius Erving is the answer. But I argue that A.I. historically compares better to a PG than a SG. So I say 2. (For the same reasons why I contend that despite that McGrady sometimes is listed as a 3, he is a SG effectively.)

Michael is Damn Good:
What of Michael Jordan? There are two types of people - those that understand how good Jordan was, and those who have no idea. In a nutshell, the latter seem to pine for the "next" great one. But there really wasn't a small player considered better than Wilt or Karee, for ages. In fact, the first one was Jordan - many decades after Wilt played. Still, instead of understanding the phenom as an anomoly, we began looking for the next Jordan almost immediately upon realizing that MJ would have to retire soon.

Version 1: Grant Hill. Wrong comparison. He was more akin to Scottie Pippen, Magic, or Oscar Robertson.
Version 2: Vince Carter. Probably the most talented of the bunch who have similar games to Jordan. But things never panned out. Carter never hit his potential.
Version 3: Kobe Bryant. The physical similarities - the position in the triangle - the media hype. All of this made him an appealing candidate. But even without going on the fact that MJ was just flat out better and even without going into any modeling theory - I can identify 3 fundamental differences. First, shot selection. While KB is a more talented raw shooter, he settles on outside shots a lot more than necessary. That's fine if it dropped as much as it would have closer to the rim. But it doesn't. So the problem is he goes for those 18 footers and doesn't get compensated by hitting 3's to getting a return on the lower percentage attempt. MJ had the capacity to break down any defense in the manner that Kobe hasn't shown. Even if Kobe has it, he certainly doesn't use it at the rate that MJ did. Perhaps this is just a muscular advantage that MJ had. D Wade seems to share it. Moreover, Kobe forces a lot of shots - MJ would elevate and dish quite frequently. Second, MJ could play fantastic defense. Contrary to whatever the general media has you convinced of - Kobe Bryant isn't a remarkable defender. Lane anticipation is decent. Help defense sucks. On the ball defense is decent. Isn't great with shot anticipation. He has the talent, sure. But he definitely takes plays off. MJ? MJ definitely was a damn good defender. Defensive player of the year, two 100 blocks/100 steals, kept his opponents horribly inefficient, etc. Third, intelligent ball management. Jordan rebounded like a small forward, rotated the ball like a point guard, and had a phenomenally low turnover rate. To put it into perspective, Tracy McGrady has led the league for several years in this for SGs/SFs, and yet Jordan's is some 15% less than T-Mac's. Kobe comes nowhere close to the top 20.
Version 4: Tracy McGrady. Statistically about as similar to MJ as Kobe. McGrady has more range on his shot and is a better defender, but still, for pretty much similar reasons as Kobe, no dice.
Version 5: LeBron James. King James is more like Larry Bird or Oscar Robertson than Jordan. He might have a similar potential. But let us wait and see on this. I don't know if James will dominate the league as did Jordan. It may be reasonable that the Spurs/Pistons dominate for a few more years. After that, perhaps another talented big enters the league or Amare becomes a crazy beast. And I am unconvinced that LeBron can own a godly big as did Jordan.
Version 6: Dwyane Wade. This might initially seem like a great comparison. Neither were great shooters entering the league. Both relied on athleticism and get to the rim. Both hit beautiful fades. Both were phenomenal defenders and could average over a block per game for a whole season. And the 25/6/7 style season seems very Jordan-esque. As much as I would like to say Wade is the next Jordan, I like Wade because he is Wade, not because he is MJ. For one thing, his management of the ball is quite different and he models a lot more closely to being a scoring 1 than a passing 2. Wade also doesn't seem to be that sort of a scoring machine. Perhaps he may develop into one, one day. But he certainly isn't now. He seems to be more of a Duncan (for his position) than a Shaq (implying that Jordan was the Shaq of his position). Get what I'm failing?

In sum, in little over a 6 year span since Jordan's retirement, there have been at least 6 versions of the "next Jordan". But not one even comes close to having the complete game that Jordan had. And we haven't even entered the issue of being able to consistently dominate with efficiency. Now I am not a PER-whore, but at least it is some indicator of how things stand. Shaq is #1 ranking all time with 28.01. Jordan is #2 all time with 27.91. (Without his years with the Wiz, he would have been #1.) Next guy? T-Mac. He ranks #10 all time with a PER of 24+. Kobe comes in at #21 and VC at #22, each with a PER of about 22. Grant Hill follows at #26 with 21.9. LeBron? Wade? They don't have enough games to qualify for rankings yet, but as an indicator - they had PERs of 25, 23 respectively last year.

More perspective? Kobe's highest PER ever has been 26. T-Mac? 30. He only crossed it once. MJ? 30~ 6 times, over 31 4 times. At the age of 39, 40 he had a PER of 21 and 20. His rookie season was PER 26, and every year after was over 26 until the age of 24 where it fell to 25. Yah, that is what I thought.

Bigs:
Since Jordan has departed, the best player in the league has unquestionably been Tim Duncan. If there is an argument for anyone else, it obviously is Shaq. I note this because people may mistakenly make the argument that the NBA has changed structurally - and that now, for some reason, SG play is more important. But I want to make it clear, without depending on models, that that is a stupid notion. See, before Jordan, winning teams won with bigs. After Jordan, winning teams win with bigs. And before Jordan, winning teams won with bigs. Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, Big Ben and Rasheed, Parish & Bird & McHale, Kareem & Magic, Russell, Wilt, etc. You get the picture.

In fact, generally models seem to tell us that it is essential to have a very good big and a solid ball handler. Most models also tell you that the SG is the least important position for winning teams, generally. So here is a contemporary example. The Wallaces seem to complement each other enough to make 1.5 fantastic bigs. And Chauncey is Chauncey. And Tayshaun seems to be the requisite Kirilenko/Pippen-esque versatile long-man. The weakest link? Rip Hamilton. Yes he can run curls and shoot really well. But shooters are also the most replacable.

Intuition:
Lastly, pretend you were to go up to a person who knew nothing about basketball. Once you explained the rules of the game, say you asked them for a strategy. If this person was reasonably intelligent, what would they suggest? Obviously, they would suggest just finding a very tall, strong person because then presumably it would become quite easy to win. I'm sure when you first learned about basketball - that is what you thought. Why not just hire a giant? Shouldn't you win everything then? And you know what - in general, the answer seems to be yes.

Thoughts?

Posner's Response to Comments on Campaign Finance Reform

As advertised. From the Becker-Posner-blog.

A rich set of comments. Several suggest that the solution to the "soft bribery" problem is to require that all campaign contributions be anonymous; then no one could prove that he had contributed to a particular candidate. The problem is that, since "soft bribery" is an important motive for contributions, the total amount of contributions, and hence of political advertising, will fall, and so there will be reduced dissemination of political information. That is a loss. I do not know whether it would exceed the gain from reducing the amount of soft bribery, but it might well. The brunt would be borne by new entrants, who need to advertise more in order to make a dent in the "brand recognition" of incumbents. In addition, the wealthy, who are the big donors, are not a monolith; they have competing interests and therefore provide virtual representation for many ordinary people, such as the employees of the big corporations. Also the wealthy do not have the votes; their political advertisements are aimed at average people. Furthermore, if some candidates court the wealthy, this will drive others to raise money from the nonwealthy, something that the Internet has made easier to do, as we learned in the 2004 presidential election. The nonwealthy give less per capita, of course, but there are vastly more of them.

Still another point is that even the wealthy do not care solely about policies likely to benefit them. They also care about leadership, always a major focus in a presidential election.

I agree with the comment which suggests that increased political advertising could reduce turnout. The politicians are not interested in maximizing turnout, but in winning, and a winning strategy may be to depress turnout if higher turnout would produce more votes for your opponent. Negative advertising might provoke counter advertising also negative, the net effect of which was to reduce turnout but to the advantage of the candidate who had initiated the negative campaign.

I do not agree, however, that advertising in commercial markets is likely to depress output (the analog of turnout in the electoral market). The comment that argues this points out that in a cartelized market, that is, in a market in which the sellers have agreed not to compete in price, there is a tendency for nonprice competition, including advertising, to increase, as sellers vie to engross the largest possible share of the profits generated by the cartel price. I don't see how forbidding advertising in such a setting would result in higher output; it would simply increase the sellers' profits at the cartel price. On the contrary, by reducing the erosion of cartel profits through nonprice competition, the advertising ban would tend to make the cartel last longer. But in any event there is no price competition in the political market because politicians can't buy votes directly. Advertising (broadly defined) is the only permitted method of competition.

Finally, I disagree with the suggestion, common though it is, that unlimited campaign spending impairs democracy by giving political power to the wealthy, or more precisely to any individuals or groups able and willing to spend disproportionately to support particular candidates or policies. The suggestion confuses democracy with equality. Democracy is the political system in which the principal officials are forced to stand for election at short intervals. The identity and policies of the officials may well be influenced by the underlying distribution of income and wealth in society, but that does not make the society less democratic.

Thoughts?

Scoop Jackson is the Worst Sports Writer on ESPN

Enough said.

Bush's Approval in a Historical Context

Worst…support…ever

Posted 9:13 am | Printer Friendly

Every time a new poll comes out showing Bush's faltering support nationwide, I think, "OK, now he's reached the floor of his support." And yet, the floor manages to fall a little further all the time.

A new CBS News poll suggests the bottom has completely fallen out for the president, thanks in large part to the public's reaction to the Plame scandal. If Bush's support drops much further, it's not ridiculous to wonder if his presidency will ever be able to recover.

* Approval rating — Bush is down to just 35% support. His favorability rating, usually high despite low job approval ratings, is down to just 33%.

* On the issues — 47% support Bush's handling of the war on terror, 34% support his handling of the economy, and 32% support his handling of the war in Iraq.

* Cheney — Though the poll doesn't gauge Cheney's approval rating, his favorability rating is down to a stunning 19%.

* The war in Iraq — A combined 64% of poll respondents believe the Bush administration either intentionally hid key information or was mostly lying about WMD before the war began.

* Plame Game — Asked about the scandal's significance, 51% said the Plame matter is of "great importance," while an additional 35% said it's of "some importance." Those are the highest scores for a president scandal since — you guessed it — Watergate.

It's tempting to think Bush has no where to go but up, but then again, we've thought that before.

Just for fun, it's also interesting to consider Bush's plummeting support in a historical context. This graph ran in the Wall Street Journal the other day. Pay particular attention to the Bush/Nixon comparison.