John Cochrane on Economic Growth and Changing the Policy Debate
Sep 26 2016

argue.jpg How are those in favor of bigger government and those who want smaller government like a couple stuck in a bad marriage? Economist John Cochrane of Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how to take a different approach to the standard policy arguments. Cochrane wants to get away from the stale big government/small government arguments which he likens to a couple who have gotten stuck in a rut making the same ineffective arguments over and over. Cochrane argues for a fresh approach to economic policy including applications to growth, taxes and financial regulation.

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Explore audio transcript, further reading that will help you delve deeper into this week’s episode, and vigorous conversations in the form of our comments section below.

READER COMMENTS

Scott Campbell
Sep 27 2016 at 12:05pm

John Cochrane for president. If I thought having a president was a good thing. I wish I could be optimistic. We are going to become Europe because there’s no America to escape to. There are no leaders that are not politicians. Too few citizens who are not selfish.

This has to be the best podcast of the year. Please consider more.

Nonlin_org
Sep 27 2016 at 12:47pm

Good discussion and a fresh perspective, which for some reason doesn’t penetrate the media wall.

Russ, on Tesla you forgot the manufacturing energy required to make that degraded product (limited range and charge time). It’s all factored into the retail price which is high not because of dis-economies of scale or IP, but because of the high energy content to make those batteries that will probably also need to be replaced before the car’s end of life.

John, good points on the regulatory nightmare, but could the stagnation be due to multiple interdependent factors? Here’s a few: demographics, regulations, war against the economic cycle, running out of ideas, long interwar period (war promotes growth, remember?). And what do we need anyway? Perhaps economic growth is obsolete as the ultimate goal.

Daniel Simmons
Sep 27 2016 at 1:11pm

Mr. Cochrane mentioned that he had heard of a possible bargain between libertarians and environmentalist for a carbon tax in exchange for a reduction of regulation. The problem here is that there are no environmentalist who are on board with the proposal. The environmentalists want a carbon tax AND the regulations. People promoting this idea can’t get he environmentalists on board.

Mark Crankshaw
Sep 27 2016 at 2:25pm

How are those in favor of bigger government and those who want smaller government like a couple stuck in a bad marriage?

I really don’t agree with this metaphor at all. The better metaphor that describes my “relationship” with partisans on the Left is brutalizing prison rape. A typical marriage involves a choice of partners, a voluntary commitment to a relationship that one wants. This in no way describes the nature of my relationship with the millions of politicians and voters on the Left. I have never wanted a political “relationship” with these people and I never will. If “we” can not come up with a democratic way to mediate this troubled and unwanted political “relationship” (and it is quite apparent that “we” cannot) then let’s just end the relationship.

Even using the marriage metaphor, the obvious solution is not “marriage counseling”, but divorce. As with a divorce that terminates a marriage, the “better” solution would be to separate our political lives as much as humanly possible. Let’s remove most aspects of our lives from the political decision making, and let’s stop making major financial decisions together. Implementing this metaphor would naturally lead to vastly smaller government and libertarian-ism. Which, not surprisingly, the Left responds to exactly like the sociopath prison rapist holding the metaphorical political shank to the throat of his unwilling cellmate.

I view the Left as far, far worse than the “spouse from hell”. Even the “spouse from hell” must have appealed to one as a spouse at some time. A psycho prison cell-mate never has to…

I don’t want a political marriage counselor with the Left, I want a political restraining order…

FredC
Sep 27 2016 at 8:57pm

I’m soory the discussion didn’t reach immigration. I suspect it would have gone in the direction of open borders on balance is a good thing.

But I wonder if the resulting flood of humanity would lean libertarian in their voting patterns and tune into econtalk? Hmmm.

Casey
Sep 28 2016 at 12:08am

I was following along this latest episode, thinking “This is great!” And then came this sentence: “Long run, growth comes from one thing and one thing only: productivity.” Wait, what?

Say an island had 200 people living on it in a subsistence economy. And say they worked, on average, 50 hours to produce 100 coconuts (or coconut equivalent units (CEUs)). Then their productivity would be 2 CEUs per hour. (Productivity = output / hours of work).

Now jump forward several generations. Same island, same coconuts. Only now, the islanders have managed to put more coconut palms into production. And their population has doubled to 400. They still use basically the same methods, though, so their productivity remains 2 CEUs per hour. Standards of living remain the same. It’s just that twice as many of them are engaged in their production. So despite zero increase in productivity, their economy has doubled.

Now let’s approach the question from the opposite direction: from the vantage point of an invention that we know altered things in a fundamental way: the smartphone.

Obviously, smartphones are way better than the “dumb” phones that preceded them. Not only have they replaced our phones, they replaced our cameras, our video cameras, our GPSs (themselves a relatively new invention)…they even replaced our flashlights. Not to mention our encyclopedias, our address books, and our album collections. Nor was ithe disruption confined to replacing old devices. Our lives today are filled with things we never even used to think about: “Friend” as a verb. Customers rating restaurants. Comparison shopping for mortgages. Sifting through potential dates. Paying for lunch without anyone touching a wallet. The slow-motion demise of the taxi industry.

The radical transformation that’s stemmed from the advent of the smartphone is, I think, widely recognized. So too, probably, are the incremental increases in value which have stemmed from incremental improvements In each successive generation of smartphone. No question, an iPhone 7 is way more capable than that original iPhone. Yet the original was revolutionary. Itmarked a difference in kind. Subsequent generations are evolutionary, marking only a difference in degree.

So there’s really no question that the invention of the smartphone – together with its associated inventions, of course, which all need to be bundled together in order for the system to work (4G cellular networks, virtual servers, etc.) – have transformed our lives. And yet a simple measure of productivity (output divided by hours worked) doesn’t show that. In the numbers, this whole revolution remains, Up to now at least, essentially invisible. Look at the numbers, and smartphones (which unfortunately coincided with the onset of the financial crisis) are hard to spot. The main effect That’s visible is the vaulting of Apple into the world’s number one most valuable company. Looking only at the numbers, it’s hard to make the case that the original iPhone was a bigger deal than the switch from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5. Yet it most certainly was.

It just doesn’t show up in the productivity numbers.

So my question is, if you can grow an economy without changing productivity, and if major leaps forward don’t necessarily show up in the productivity statistics, then what exactly does it mean to say that growth comes only from productivity?

SaveyourSelf
Sep 28 2016 at 8:53am

At the end of this fast and far reaching conversation, John Cochraine said, “I think that there is plenty of good things that government should do and we should accept that fact.”

I suspect Mr. Cochraine would have made more sense if he’d had more time to clarify his meaning but, as it stands, I think this concluding statement is mistaken.

If there is any position we “should accept” about government, it is instead that the number of “good things” government can–and therefore should–do are very few and very specific. To say otherwise would require adopting an optimism wholly at odds with historical precedent and a level of risk tolerance out of proportion to both the actual level of risk and the consequences of losing that bet—to wit the steady march, in degrees, towards totalitarianism. “We have already seen that the close interdependence of all economic phenomena makes it difficult to stop planning just where we wish and that once the free working of the market is impeded beyond a certain degree, the planner will be forced to extend his controls until they become all comprehensive.” (Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Ch 8)

John Cochrane
Sep 28 2016 at 11:29am

SaveYourSelf: Yes, this is a good point. I mistakenly thought we were running short on time and didn’t take up Russs’ offer of a good direction for the discussion. I took up the issue of “good” spending a bit in a blog post discussing this podcast.

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2016/09/econtalk.html

Interviews are fast and fresh, but occasionally don’t come out as perfectly as one would hope. Thanks for the comment,

John Cochrane

FredC
Sep 28 2016 at 11:41am

Casey (above) makes an interesting point. But I think the response would be that the tribe is the tribe (regardless of its size) and hey, look, production doubled.

Hence, open borders are an important part of the libertarian formula for productivity and “growth.”

On the other hand, libertarians love private property and the rule of law protecting it. I’m waiting for the explanation of how the conflicts created by open border levels of immigration from the third world, into a country of expansive private property, is dealt with at the street level. Investment opportunities in private security firms and neighborhood wall building contractors could be ripe.

Kevin
Sep 28 2016 at 1:27pm

Thanks for a very interesting and wide ranging podcast.

I have been surprised lately on all the attacks on the mortgage interest deduction (Cato podcasts have lately been going on about this). More surprising is the phrasing about it which talk about all the money the government is losing to this deduction – the assumption here and among economists is that the money is the governments and the mortgage tax deduction is depriving them of that money. The money belongs to the citizen who earned it and the government has no right to it. This is not money lost to the treasury – its money saved by a citizen. The complexity of the tax code is abhorrent, but we should celebrate every deduction as saving some citizen more of their own money. The mortgage tax deduction is the logical extension of allowing business to discount the interest on depreciating assets, a house is simply the largest asset most people have and completely logically consistent with the tax code.

If we want to move to a consumption based tax and get rid of the income tax, all deductions, and the corporate taxes I would be a big supporter but as long as we have the tax code deductions on the mortgage interest are a perfectly reasonable deduction. Almost any deduction is a good one if it saves citizens taxes. But getting rid of all these distortions with a flat tax or consumption tax would be ideal.

If we move to a consumption tax I think I could only support it by amendment. Or else we just end up with a new form of taxation and we get our incomes taxed, our consumption taxed, our carbon taxed. Its too much.

I continue to be surprised by the interest in immigration. I think its great to welcome highly educated productive people to our country, but the idea that welcoming many people who favor policies that would make us less free continues to seem counterproductive. We cannot even persuade other Americans that economic freedom is a good idea, but we expect that immigrants from cultures which are much more economically repressive will arrive and be won over? As a nation we can close all our borders and we will be fine, and we can open our borders when we want. Legal immigration of highly educated econ professors sounds like a great idea, illegal immigration continues to be a net loss on American society. When libertarians like Richard Epstein declare unrestricted immigration is crazy, I wonder if economists are missing the bigger picture.

john penfold
Sep 28 2016 at 5:32pm

ve often said we should lock THE candidate in a room with Russ Roberts until the candidate can prove he’s understood what he’s heard. I’ve changed my mind. Make it a tag team with Roberts and Cochrane. One comment however. We can’t make radically simplifying changes beginning with a grand bargain or coalition. The tax change must begin with an idea that is so simple it can’t be changed. Toss the old stuff. Then a leader must sell the idea directly. Lobbyists are professionals, they compete with other professional lobbyists. They cannot lose to their competitors, nor is flash log rolling possible, it’s all too complex, too many interests aren’t even understood, they are emergent barnacles. They (whoever they are) can agree with an idea, an approach that gores all oxen because they do not lose. The companies behind them can usually agree more easily than the professional lobbyists. It can be done with leadership. So back to locking folks in a room with you two.

Emerich
Sep 28 2016 at 10:59pm

Agree that this was a great podcast and Cochrane’s points need much wider airing. It’s shocking that so little attention gets paid to the microeconomics of our economic malaise. Discussion is about macro this and that, interest rates (positive and negative), QE1, 2, and 3, fiscal policy, infrastructure, and on and on. None of those things are responsible for our economic sclerosis. It should be obvious. It needs constant repeating. Sadly, the incentives don’t favor it. If you’re ambitious and want media attention, or a position in a Presidential administration, talk about how your solution is a simple matter of raising (or lowering) interest rates and/or blowout infrastructure spending. Those are solutions the political class likes to hear. Thanks Prof. Cochrane and Russ.

Niccolo Machiavelli
Sep 29 2016 at 12:01am

Very interesting topic and even though I don’t agree with everything it allowed me to consider the arguments.

@Mark, I do agree with you that the analogy does not work and that your one regarding the prison is much more accurate, at least in my experience.

Greg G
Sep 29 2016 at 7:59am

John Cochrane asks: “What banker dares speak out against the Dodd-Frank Act?”

The answer: All of them.

I have been an outside director at a Federally chartered community bank for the last 16 years. I have been to 7 or 8 national bank conventions. I have not yet met or heard of the first banker who is afraid to criticize bank regulation in general or Dodd-Frank in particular.

Bankers are constantly complaining about and lobbying against regulation. Some of these complaints are justified but when do failed bankers ever blame their own mismanagement? They always blame government.

Good bank regulation is hard to get right and there are many ways it could be improved. But the idea that the rule of law is so devastated that bankers are afraid to criticize bank regulation is preposterous.

Trent
Sep 29 2016 at 9:46am

What a powerful EconTalk episode that is also at the level where I can recommend it to family and friends who have never taken an economics class. Enjoyed the discussion immensely.

Now let me don my pessimist’s cap with regard to the issue of tax reform. While I like Prof. Cochrane’s ideas, I don’t think it’ll ever happen because of all the money/power involved in the status quo:

* Politicians like it because it’s a great source of fundraising – from those who want to keep their perks, who want new perks, and who want somebody else’s perks taken away.

* PACs/lobbyists have emerged to lobby for/against all these perks – would they even exist if the status quo were done away with?

* Big business no doubt likes it because with a “pay to play” system, they can construct barriers to entry that restricts their competition/protects their own power.

* Accountants/CPAs and all the firms like H&R Block like it because deciphering the tax code pays their bills.

* A significant number of Economists – the last statistic I read was that over 50% of Econ PhDs work for government in some capacity. Whatever the size of this group, they certainly earn money from analyzing the incremental policy effects of every change/perk/tinker to the tax code.

In short, the status quo provides too many people with too much power/money for any significant changes to be made…..at least for now. I really don’t think we’ll see significant changes until our economy falls off the proverbial cliff – the powers that be won’t do anything until they have to/we’re in the midst of a real crisis.

Kevin Ryan
Sep 29 2016 at 11:14am

Thanks for a very interesting and not too technical podcast.

If I could make a small number of points:-

1. Isn’t the productivity objective better reflected in a per capita measure of output, rather than a total output measure? Refers in particular to Casey’s example where production growth has come from population growth but productivity has not changed.

2. Is part of the problem with productivity flattening out, the difficulty in achieving (or even measuring) productivity gains in the service sector, which becomes more critical as the manufacturing sector becomes smaller. As a simple example, I remember an article from Richard Layard some years ago pointing out that barbers never really achieved increases in their own productivity, measured by the number of haircuts per hour, but nevertheless managed to share in benefits of increase in productivity from elsewhere, as people needed to be incentivised to become barbers.

3. Replacement with corporation tax by consumption tax. Irrespective of its merits, I would suggest that globalisation has reduced the ability of the US, or any other country, to make such a move unilaterally; i.e. International concern about low level of taxes paid by some multinationals is resulting in an agenda based on avoiding low corporate taxes, as opposed to a radical rethink of the wisdom of corporate taxation.

JK
Sep 29 2016 at 2:19pm

Regulations are the big, immediate problem, but we shouldn’t ignore the negative impact of the recent innovation of popular lawmaking which is at the root of the problem.

Popular Law-making: A Study of the Origin, History, and Present Tendencies of Law-making by Statute
by Frederic Jesup Stimson (1910)

Thus at first the American people got the notion of law-making; of the making of new law, by legislatures, frequently elected; and in that most radical period of all, from about 1830 to 1860, the time of “isms” and reforms — full of people who wanted to legislate and make the world good by law, with a chance to work in thirty different States — the result has been that the bulk of legislation in this country, in the first half of the last century, is probably one thousandfold the entire law-making of England for the five centuries preceding. And we have by no means got over it yet; probably the output of legislation in this country to-day is as great as it ever was. If any citizen thinks that anything is wrong, he, or she (as it is almost more likely to be), rushes to some legislature to get a new law passed. Absolutely different is this idea from the old English notion of law as something already existing. They have forgotten that completely, and have the modern American notion of law, as a ready-made thing, a thing made to-day to meet the emergency of to-morrow.

My favorite complex sentence sums up the problem, which is much worse after a century of unfettered growth

But no one, I think, has ever called attention to the enormous differences in living, in business, in political temper between the days (which practically lasted until the last century) when a citizen, a merchant, an employer of labor, or a laboring man, still more a corporation or association and lastly, a man even in his most intimate relations, the husband and the father, well knew the law as familiar law, a law with which he had grown up, and to which he had adapted his life, his marriage, the education of his children, his business career and his entrance into public life — and these days of to-day, when all those doing business under a corporate firm primarily, but also those doing business at all; all owners of property, all employers of labor, all bankers or manufacturers or consumers; all citizens, in their gravest and their least actions, also must look into their newspapers every morning to make sure that the whole law of life has not been changed for them by a statute passed overnight; when not only no lawyer may maintain an office without the most recent day-by-day bulletins on legislation, but may not advise on the simplest proposition of marriage or divorce, of a wife’s share in a husband’s property, of her freedom of contract, without sending not only to his own State legislature, but for the most recent statute of any other State which may have a bearing on the situati

on.

Emerich
Sep 29 2016 at 6:33pm

Greg G, I was in the industry as well. Who’s the biggest fish in the pond? Jamie Dimon, presumably, CEO of JP Morgan Chase. He was once willing to speak out. Then he got squashed by the authorities for the “London whale”, a clumsy hedge that lost money for… JP Morgan. That was made out to be a major scandal by regulators. Dimon has been the soul of discretion ever since. He learned that it doesn’t pay to rile your bosses. Sorry, regulators.

Greg G
Sep 29 2016 at 10:02pm

Emerich,

Jamie has since recovered his ability to criticize the regulators. This is from a 1/14/15 Bloomberg article:

>—“Jamie Dimon, grappling with multibillion-dollar legal costs and rising capital requirements at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said overlapping efforts by U.S. regulators place banks “under assault.”
“We have five or six regulators or people coming after us on every different issue,” Dimon, 58, said today on a call with reporters after New York-based JPMorgan reported fourth-quarter results. “It’s a hard thing to deal with…

Dimon, who previously blamed regulators for stifling economic growth, struck a more conciliatory tone last year. The bank had a “tin ear” when dealing with overseers before settling probes into mortgage lapses and trading losses, he said in an April letter to shareholders.
“Our response generally was, ‘We know what we’re doing,’” Dimon wrote. “Well, we should have done more self-examination. We need to be better listeners.”
New Federal Reserve rules that exceed the global standard also could mean JPMorgan needs more than $20 billion in additional capital by 2019.
“The regulators clearly want even more capital,” Dimon said today. “We’ll meet those requirements. But those measures aren’t a measure of risk at all. It is simply a measure of size. This company is as sound as it gets…

“In the old days, you dealt with one regulator when you had an issue, maybe two,” said Dimon, 58. “Now it’s five or six. It makes it very difficult and very complicated. You all should ask the question about how American that is. And how fair that is. And how complex that is for companies.”

Richard Boltuck
Sep 30 2016 at 10:15am

Prof. Cochrane identifies three competing explanations for slowing economic growth: supply-side secular stagnation (out of new ideas); demand-side secular stagnation; and accumulating regulatory and tax “sand” in the gears. He rejects the first two, and argues compellingly in favor of the third.

A few thoughts:

First, the supply-side sec-stag story has elements in it in addition to a slow-down in the contribution of technological progress to productivity increases. It is also based on a demographic-composition story, flaws in acquiring human capital, and so on — which, interestingly, Cochrane nicely discusses, but separately and earlier from his discussion of taxes and regulation. Admittedly, regulation and the breakdown in education and physical mobility greatly overlap.

Second, there is another “macro” conjecture, which I would call an Austrian-style explanation, summarized recently by Hans-Werner Sinn, here: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/creative-destruction-saves-advanced-economies-by-hans-werner-sinn-2016-09 .

Sinn’s conjecture, in essence, is that central bank policy (especially acquisition of private debt) has slowed-down the necessary process of creative destruction by funding an increasing stock of zombie companies, especially in Europe and Japan. These companies need to fail and free up resources, rather than continue to exist without growth potential. I don’t know whether this idea has great empirical support, but it sounds plausible, and if so, then it might be added to Cochrane’s list.

Emerich
Sep 30 2016 at 10:19am

Greg, fair point, he did revert to his natural form in your examples, though he mixed in self-criticism too. His candor is refreshing and rare. Perhaps risky too? He puts well the fix banks find themselves in. Is it any wonder their P/Es are crushed, when half a dozen regulators are crawling over them at once, each looking to extract a few tens of billions here or there?

Greg G
Sep 30 2016 at 10:38am

Emerich,

First of all, thanks for acknowledging that. That kind of courtesy is rare in internet debates. In my opinion Jamie Dimon is one of the most competent bank CEO’s and there are indeed many problems with bank regulation that do weigh on bank profits.

That said, I do not think regulation is even close to being the main thing suppressing bank profits. The main problem is simply that there has never in history been more investment capital competing to find fewer safe and profitable investment opportunities. It’s supply and demand. There is a glut of money seeking safe places to lend and a relative shortage of borrowers you should be willing to lend to. How could that not suppress profit from lending in a big way?

Gandydancer
Sep 30 2016 at 12:49pm

“John Cochrane: On people paying back their mortgages. Which in a big pool of mortgages is very safe.

Russ Roberts: Most of the time.

John Cochrane: No, no, no, no. The subprime stuff paid off. A long, lonely pool of mortgages is a really safe asset.”

So, liar loans weren’t a real problem?

John
Oct 1 2016 at 5:02pm

What is the state of empirical research on regulation and productivity? Besides the papers using the volume of regulation text as the proxy for regulation, what else is being done? What are the other approaches to credibly identify the impact of regulations, and any trends over time?

Libertarian Heretic
Oct 2 2016 at 2:08am

This was one of the most stimulating and interesting Econtalks in a long time. Thanks so much. And Russ I wanted to say thanks. As a deeply religous person and as someone doubting my convictions during the financial crisis you offered a vision of libertarianism that brought me solidly back into the fold. So thank you.
One of the sacrosanct elements of libertarianism is free banking and a gold standard. I have no sympathy or passion for either. Paul Einzig’s book ‘Primitive Money’ and Barry Eichengreen’s ‘Golden Fetters’ are partially responsible. But there are just untracable things in my ideological formation that make me deeply suspicious. I guess I’m the rare Libertarian who looks at bitcoin askance.
However this was the first pitch of free banking like system I have heard that I like. Treating banks like money market funds is brilliant but with one caveat.
The fluctuating value of deposits would be great if it had a floor in the same way the FDIC functions. My major concern with free banking is information asymemmtry. The average Joe clocking in 9-5 just getting by has no time to investigate the underlying health of his financial institition. It is simply a transaction cost he cant afford to comparison shop on 5 times a day. It’s true modern computing power makes settling exchanges on so many dimensions like that possible nowadays. But for Joe the Plumber it’s unworkable and I just think it gums up the works. The opportunity cost of raw free banking far exceeds the benefits in a high velocity globalized world. Make automatic share selling the norm for people who hold over some debatable number say $100,000 in deposits the norm and I’m on board 100%.
On a side note since immigration is a popular topic at hand in this thread I just wanted to say something. Free migration doesn’t entail automatic citizens. People who come don’t need the vote and all benefits on day one. A gigantic welfate state might be possible in that situation. But don’t underestimate the ability of people who may be illiterate in English to be numerate. Hard working immigrants will ask questions about where their taxes go and why a person that wants to duck responsibility deserves the same pay out. It is again the bigotry of low expectations to assume people from other cultures and races lack reason and autonomy and are permanent victims of conditioning.

David Zetland
Oct 2 2016 at 8:24am

Enjoyed this podcast, but I wonder why you guys did not discuss taxes on wealth rather than income (rather spending)

A property tax would be easy to assess, hard to dodge (ownership not important), and progressive. It would rise with land values, giving governments an incentive to protect property rights AND provide common pooled goods (e.g., clean environment, safety) that affect property values.

Taxes on expenses are FAR harder to assess (working VAT system) and regressive if considering % share of expenses/income.

I’ve written more up here: http://www.aguanomics.com/2016/07/the-political-economy-of-property-taxes.html

John Cochrane
Oct 2 2016 at 11:17am

Thanks all for many comments, which are quite useful and thought provoking.

David: In my own thinking I have been moving away from property tax towards a progressive consumption tax only.

The classical “land tax” was a tax on the pure value of land only — not a tax on “improvements.” The idea was that land is a fixed factor, so taxing land can’t have any distortions.

The problem is, the value of land is entirely the value of its improvements. Land in central manhattan is valuable only because people have built things next to it.

Most value of land now is the value of artificially-created scarcity of rights to build near other activities. Zoning laws create land values. We’re coming to the realization that this is not such a great thing. Adding large taxes only drives up the artificially created value of land.

Property values for taxation are also harder and hence more negotiable than values received in a transaction. Imagine the arguments with an assessor if the property tax rate is 20%! (I presume nobody wants to adopt Milton Friedman’s beautiful system: you declare the value of your house, and anyone can buy it at that price.)

Property taxes then become easy game for a political system. California passed Prop 13, in which existing owners can never have their taxes raised, causing all sorts of distortions.

And finally… Donald Trump. Today’s revelations about depreciations turned in to net operating loss carry forwards, explaining why dynastic wealthy families tend to invest in real estate, ought to cool enthusiasm for more of this!

Yes, one can argue for purer taxes. But it’s worth considering why property taxes have turned in to an even worse morass than the others.

John Cochrane

Robert Swan
Oct 2 2016 at 6:49pm

Interesting discussion as expected.

Dr Cochrane can surely not be serious when he asserts:

“… our economy, our society is a cause-and-effect machine with very delicate relationship between where you push the lever and what actually happens. That’s what’s beautiful, that’s what’s fun about understanding economics.”

as if the economy/society were like a finely crafted timepiece. A closer mechanical analogy might be Maxwell Smart’s car where the control you hope is going to help you light a cigarette actually fires the ejector seat.

Less flippantly, I would draw an analogy with the atmosphere. Clouds form and reform. You see a cumulus cloud. You “know” it’s cumulus because of its intrinsic patterns and, with this information, you can make various predictions about wind and rain. But you’ll never see that exact cumulus cloud again — even as you look at it, it changes — and the predictions aren’t all that good.

Mark Crankshaw: your prison cell analogy isn’t much of an improvement and I think the bad marriage analogy can be redeemed with a tweak. I have said before (I think in discussions with you) how a coercive authority is an inevitable consequence of private property rights. Getting rid of government really isn’t an option; the debate is over what shape it should take. Look at us as the children of the bad marriage, with Ma and Pa bickering over everything — including whether to mollycoddle us or to toughen us up. Life would be better if they debated civilly; if nothing else, there’d be less broken crockery around.

I don’t believe in an optimal government structure. On any given day it’s “obvious” that things would be better if government did this or butted out of that, but even if every improvement were adopted, stepping up at every opportunity, I’m afraid it would only be ascending Escher’s staircase. I suppose this ties in with the scissors, paper, rock game on a recent podcast.

I loved the reference the old woman who swallowed a fly. It would be better yet if, rather than swallowing the horse and dying, she worked her way up to swallowing another fly — for a logical reason.

Finally, sad that Russ let us down on the Danny Kaye video.

Humberto Barreto
Oct 5 2016 at 10:11am

Russ, of course it takes resources to make the electricity for an electric car and, yes, it is complicated to figure out exactly how much an electric car actually emits (and, btw, battery disposal is also a huge issue), but “resources used to make electricity for cars” is an actual number and there are strong reasons to believe it’s much lower than conventional power trains. Check this out from MIT Trancik Lab:

http://carboncounter.com/

I really enjoy listening to your interviews.

B

Bogwood
Oct 19 2016 at 7:53am

In the ecological sense, North America was “full” in 1491. The major large mammals were already driven to extinction. More immigrants moving from consuming at 2000 watts (world average) to 200,000 watts(USA average) is a disaster.

There should be some thought given to where the population in the southwest United States will go should the present drought become longer or more severe. Perhaps not to the crowded east. But Stanford has ecologists, take a weekend and let the economics department fight it out rather than staying in your silos. Then there is the problem of continuous exponential growth on a finite planet, a topic for another weekend between the two departments. There are nuances but get them out in the open.

Comments are closed.


DELVE DEEPER

This week's guest:

This week's focus:

  • "Economic Growth," by John Cochrane. Working paper prepared for the Focusing the Presidential Debates Initiative. March 2016.

Additional ideas and people mentioned in this podcast episode:

A few more readings and background resources:

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

 

Time
Podcast Episode Highlights
0:33

Intro. [Recording date: July 28, 2016.]

Russ Roberts: Before joining Hoover, John was Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business of the U. of Chicago for decades, and along with his extensive scholarly output, he blogs eloquently at The Grumpy Economist. He's also a competition sailplane pilot, which means he races gliders. I have to confess that being 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth without an engine scares the heck out of me. So, John is both wise and brave. We are recording this episode in front of a live audience in a special event for Bay area alumns of the Booth School of Business of the U. of Chicago, many of whom have come out to see their former professor. Which is lovely. John, welcome back to EconTalk.

John Cochrane: Pleasure to be here.

Russ Roberts: Now, our topic for today is how you, in looking at a wide array of policy issues, would like to reset the debate. Or reframe the conversation in public policy related to economic areas. And in particular one of the things you emphasize is that we have under-emphasized and really forgotten about economic growth. It's not really getting any attention in this election cycle. No one's really talking about it. And in fact it's gotten to be a little bit, I think, even disparaged as a serious topic. And others would say, 'Well, it doesn't matter. We can't do anything about it.' So, let's start off with the question: Why is it important?

John Cochrane: Yeah. Let me just back up to our two framing issues: economic growth and how do we step out of this kind of frozen discussion we're having that isn't going anywhere and reframe the issues in a way that makes some actual progress along a wide swath--swath of issues here. So, economic growth--if you think about the important issues of economic policy, economic growth is it. It just begins and ends at economic growth. Over the long run, 10, 20 years--we call that the long run but 10, 20 years goes by pretty quickly--

Russ Roberts: Yes, it does--

John Cochrane: just nothing matters as much as reestablishing or improving on the traditional growth rates. The United States used to grow about 3.5% a year; now we're down to 1.5%--2% if we're lucky. And the little percentages don't sound like much, but they add up; and it means just over the 20-30 year horizon whether we double everyone's standard of living, or we don't. And whether we get the wonderful things--it's not just more stuff: it's better stuff--better health, better environment, ability to pay off the government's debts, ability to pay for our social programs--really just everything hinges on economic growth. And especially compared to the other things that are being talked about, just more growth solves all of those problems. And it's just a much bigger issue than all of those problems.

Russ Roberts: But of course a lot of people would argue that, 'Well, growth is just an abstract statement about the macroeconomy. It doesn't really affect everybody's daily life; in fact, most people don't get to participate in it. It only goes to the rich.' And that encourages people to start thinking equality is more important. And that of course has been much more of a focus in the political debate, the policy debate, over the last 5-10 years.

John Cochrane: There is an interesting issue of problems of government statistics rather than problems of daily life. But I think in fact the slowdown of growth is the problem of daily life. We're really perceiving--people talk about--I don't like to use the word 'middle class' because we're not a class society, but people talk about the stagnation in middle class incomes and so forth. That's a phenomenon of the slowdown of growth. And I think--we don't really, fundamentally when people say, 'I'm worried about inequality,' what they mean is, 'I'm worried that people aren't getting ahead.' And if someone else is getting ahead more or less doesn't really matter. What really matters is, are the bulk of people getting ahead or not? And if they were, we would be a lot--the worry about inequality is I think a symptom, not a cause of problems.

Russ Roberts: I happen to agree with you, of course, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people would say that's not what it's about; it's really about, say, the ratio of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) salaries to, say, the average worker as a measure of that; they worry about even just employment and the possibility of the future being much less glowing for the so-called average worker. Are you worried about that?

John Cochrane: Yeah. And I think we should worry about that. I think the think-out-of-the-box aspect of our grand[?] policy is just to listen hard to those problems but not jump to obvious and counterproductive "solutions." The emergence of inequality: so, where does it come from as an economic phenomenon? You read through what most of economics has to say about it, and you used the common words 'income went to.' The problem is: Income is earned by.

Russ Roberts: Well said.

John Cochrane: There is no grand somebody distributing income. The rich people like to; the other people like to. The rich didn't get richer: new people came in and made a lot of money. What happened? The returns to skill went up, so that people living where we are and who know how to program computers and live where we are in Silicon Valley are making a lot of money. And these are new and different people. And they start new companies, and companies have a global reach; they can make a lot of money. So, that means there's a way that a group of people is now making a lot of money. The economy as a whole isn't doing that well, but let's think about supply and demand. When cars came in, and horses were out of fashion, people who knew how to shoe horses weren't doing that well; and people who knew how to repair cars were making big salaries. Why wasn't there big inequality? Well, because people who were shoeing horses learned how to fix cars. So, there's supposed to be--when there's a big increase in the return to some skill, people should be getting the skill. So, why isn't that happened? Well, America's education system is quite broken and not letting a lot of people move into a lot of those places. America's zoning system makes it very hard to move to the Silicon Valley. And take America's immigration system--makes it very hard to hire foreigners who know how to do stuff and come in. That would drive down--so, the inequality that you see is a symptom of a lot of other economic policies. And let's not be market about it: we have a more regulated, more cronyist--I want to channel Bernie Sanders a little, here. Elizabeth Warren. They have a point.

Russ Roberts: Hoover Institution meets University of Chicago: if they got married, you'd get the offspring of Bernie Sanders. A bit of a stretch. I couldn't resist.

John Cochrane: Even an economy where the rewards are more and more toward 'You need to get the government regulated; there's a monopoly; you need to get in,' people are going to be making money out of those protected businesses. So that's where a lot of inequality comes from. These are all symptoms of a problem. Leaving things screwed up and then just taking your money and giving it to someone else just [?] makes matters worse. Let's get back to the growth.

8:04

Russ Roberts: I want to talk for a minute--this is a digression but it's just important, and it's interesting. I want to talk a little bit about the education system. Because I say that often, myself. I say, 'The biggest thing we need to fix is the education system, give people a chance to join this economy.' There's always the possibility--and I'm agnostic on this because I don't think we really know--it's possible that there's a limit to the number of people who can do the jobs that are now more in demand--the so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. They are not the only things that are in demand; they are not the only things that pay well. But STEM fields do pay well. And it's also pretty clear to me that not everyone can do STEM stuff. So, what do you think the bulk of American young people are going to be trained for in a future world that's plausible that our current education system is failing them now? And that's a trick question; but it's really a rhetorical question. I'm not expecting you to say, 'Well, hydraulic engineer.' But the question is: It's not obvious that our standard answer is right, that it's an educational problem. It may be something more structural that's going on.

John Cochrane: Well, there are great barriers to moving out, especially moving out of poor communities, parts of very poor America. Education is a big problem. Let's be economists. Everybody doesn't have to move into STEM. If the 10% who have the talent can move into STEM fields, that drives out the returns to STEM and drives up the returns to--

Russ Roberts: to whatever else--

John Cochrane: the other things. If you let in some more immigrants who will start a business, they will hire more of those low-skilled workers. I mean, even low-skilled Americans know how to speak English. That's a valuable--

Russ Roberts: That's a big, valuable skill--

John Cochrane: talent. So, becoming a society where people can move around and use all sorts of different skills, then things equalize on their own. And, as good economists, we should know: it's not up to us or some Federal bureaucracy to decide, 'Aha, the future--'

Russ Roberts: Hydraulic engineers--

John Cochrane: '--is in hydraulic engineering.' Every time they do that they get it wrong.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. Correct.

John Cochrane: So, let's get rid of the barriers and let people figure it out.

10:09

Russ Roberts: So, before we move on to some specific areas, I just want to ask one last question about growth. A lot of people, a lot of economists, have argued recently that our problems with growth, the overall stagnation or slowdown at least and possibly stagnation of the economy is a big structural problem. It's not a policy problem; it's just a reality. It's the new normal. It's certainly the new normal in the data. But do you think it's the new normal in the fact that something has changed fundamentally in the productivity of the U.S. economy?

John Cochrane: So, let's just back up a little bit to clarify the [?]. So, long run growth comes from one thing, and one thing only: Productivity. New and better ways of doing things. New and better products, new and better companies. It doesn't come from 90% of the things that we talk about. So, the Federal Reserve, stimulus programs, even anti-inequality programs--over 10-20 years, it's about productivity. Our ancestors may have, you know, you might have had a grandparent who dug coal with a pickaxe; and how did you get so much richer? Not by your union getting him higher wages and he still digs coal with a pickaxe at 20 cents an hour, not 10 cents. It's because one guy left and he uses a bulldozer. Right? Growth comes from productivity. And productivity--everybody likes growth in someone else's backyard. Productivity comes from new companies, doing things new ways, and making life very uncomfortable for everybody else. Uber is the great example. Uber is--that's a great productivity enhancement. It's putting a lot of people to work who otherwise couldn't go to work. And the taxi companies hate it. And most of economic regulation is designed to stop growth. It's designed to protect the old ways of doing things. So, what we need for growth-oriented policies is exactly that kind of innovation, that kind of new companies coming in an upending the status quo, that make everybody uncomfortable and run to their politician to say, 'You've got to stop this.'

Russ Roberts: Yeah; I don't always think about that. I have a tendency, I think, to look at what we would call in economics, rent-seeking: the attempts to preserve what you already have through regulation rather than excellence. That just sort of--not sort of--it offends me morally. And so some of my antagonism to the barriers to entry that Uber and AirBnb face, and others, I find it--it's frustrating to me. I find it offensive intellectually, morally. And I love the idea that I can get a ride any time I need one and know that it's coming in 3 minutes or 4 minutes or whatever it is; and not have to take the money out of my pocket; etc., etc., etc. But it's also a productivity thing: it's also having a much wider range of impacts beyond that one market than is obvious at first glance. And it's good to remember that. It's kind of important.

John Cochrane: Yeah. I think that the best argument for it is not the moral one. It's the practical one. This is what made us so much richer than our grandparents, and so much healthier, and what brought us all these great products.

Russ Roberts: And our grandparents would be thrilled to see how well off we are, even though their lives may have been challenged by the competitive process and creative destruction. I always emphasize that because I think that's just so important: that, when you say, 'Well, this is hard for me,' I understand if you are a cab driver, it's hard for you. But, you want to live in a country where your children or grandchildren are going to live the same life that you did or maybe a little bit worse? Or do you want to give them a chance to evolve and change and grow and have a new set of opportunities? And I think most people are happy to have some economic difficulty even though at the time they are not so well off.

John Cochrane: Now, you asked a question of: Why are we slowing down? And there is an economic discussion about this right now. And I'd say there's three views of the world. One, the economy is functioning as well as it can. We just ran out of new ideas.

Russ Roberts: Yep.

John Cochrane: Productivity comes from new ideas; ways of, new ways of doing things, as much as new iPhones, as much as Southwest Airlines figures out how to turn a plane around in 20 minutes and it still takes United an hour and a half.

Russ Roberts: Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

John Cochrane: Just new ways--it's not just new products: it's new ways of doing things, usually embodied in new companies. 'We just ran out of ideas.' Bob Gordon has written a very influential book basically on that. We're in the Valley here, so when people stuff like that they say, 'You've got to be kidding, because we've got all this great stuff here; if we could only get the regulators to let us do it.' The second view is that we have perpetual lack of demand. We have secular stagnation, and what we need is for the government to borrow a ton of money and build--well, the advocates of this want us to build like a high-speed train from [?] to Winnemucca. Actually, you know, the ice wall of [?] along the southern border is infrastructure and would have stimulus, but you don't hear them--I don't want it either.

Russ Roberts: No comment.

John Cochrane: But, you know, what we need is just big public works programs, 'Blow a lot of money because there's lack of demand. Otherwise the economy is fine.' I don't go with that one, either. My view is that we have creeping regulation sanding the gears. What's hard about this is every little market is screwed up. There isn't one big 'Aha,' we just need a stimulus program and we're all done. But if every little market is screwed up then the economy as a whole slows down.

15:55

Russ Roberts: And it's--each little market is screwed up in its own way. If it was just wage and price controls throughout the economy, you'd say get rid of that and things might look at lot rosier. But you argue, and I want you to expand on this: You argue that we face really a lack of respect for the rule of law. And, tell me what that means to you--what rule of law means to you and why it's so important.

John Cochrane: Yeah. And here's a good place to start trying to break out of the standard right/left partisan--it's like a very old marriage where they are yelling at each other, 'You're a terrible cook.' 'Well, you don't pick up your socks.' They're just getting no where.

Russ Roberts: I'll kind of leave that lying there. That's awesome. I'm going to refrain from adding anything to it.

John Cochrane: That's the level of our economic discussion. So, our job is to help our betters as sort of marriage counselors to sort of break away from this discussion and get somewhere. So, in the context of regulation, I think we're seeing regulation is really hurting American business; it's hurting innovation. But then the argument says, 'He says we need more regulation; she says we need less regulation,' and we're kind of getting nowhere with that. So, what I'm seeing when I'm out there is not so much the quantity of regulation but the nature of it. In most stuff that's out there--you think of health care, you think of banking, you think of any actual business--it's not like there's a set of rules, and you just read the rules and you're done. And they might be onerous but you know what they are.

John Cochrane: So, I'll say a good thing about a government agency: I'm a pilot, as you mentioned. The FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) has a long rule book, and most of it's really silly. But if you read the rule and obey the rule, you are done. You don't have to ask for permission for something: you obey this silly rule, and that's the end of that.

Russ Roberts: So, I know from talking to you that one of the rules, which I mentioned a bit earlier, is you can't go above 18,000 feet. Is that correct?

John Cochrane: Yeah. At 17,999 you are fine; 18,001, the FAA is going to see that on your transponder and you are in trouble. Now, most regulation that we have now, part of it's complex; part of it's the vagueness; but it is the--the nature of it is, there's not just some rule, you know the rule, you obey the rule. I come to you and say, 'Would you approve my plan?' The Fed's stress test is an example. They just come in and they kind of make them up: you pass, you fail. There's no way really to know it. So the issues with regulation are: Are the things we got used to on rule of law--if you were charged with a crime, you have the ability to see the evidence, and challenge the evidence. If the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) says, 'No, we've determined you're no good,' you don't have that right. You have the right to appeal. Well, where's your right to appeal? Most of the regulator agencies are prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. And this kind of power, now it's very attractive. And the danger I see, like the rule of law itself is fundamentally there to protect your political freedom. What banker dares speak out against the Dodd-Frank Act? What health insurer dares speak out against the ACA (Affordable Care Act) itself or the administration that uses it? When the regulator has the power to just shut down your business, people learn to shut up very quickly. That's why this sort of thing keeps going. The issue on regulation is: Let's bring back the rule of law. I think this is a way to get out of the more versus less: Is it simple and precise or vague and complex? Are the rules knowable or do they come after you ex post: 'Oh, you were 10 feet away from an endangered seal. We're going to throw you in jail for a while.' They actually do stuff like that. Can you read the plain text of the rule or do you need to get some fixer with connections in the agency to get you through? Do you have the right of appeal? Is it isolated from the political process? Can they just delay endlessly, or is there a right to some answer? These are the rule-of-law protections. And I think the answer to a regulatory problem isn't just the stale 'more or less.' It's to bring back that kind of process.

20:18

Russ Roberts: So, I think that's a great insight. The challenge of this to make it a compelling argument for people to get behind is to convince them that something has changed, that there's something new here. If I go back--many people collect measures of regulation. They look at, say, compliance cost; they look at the pages in the Federal Register. But those are blunt, blunt, blunt. That's not a good measure. You are talking about something very nuanced and subtle. And one response to it would be, 'Well, it's always been that way. It's always been a lousy, vague, opaque, non-rule-of-law system if you want to run a business. To convince me you're going to have to show me it's gotten worse.' Can you do that? I'll give you three minutes.

John Cochrane: We often--we live too much in economics--we're sort of like the drunk looking for his car keys where the light is, even though we know the problem: the keys got left over there in the dark. We go after things we can measure. And the difficulty a company has in getting approval for its regulations--there isn't a government statistic on that like there is for the unemployment rate or the CPI (Consumer Price Index). There's a lot of anecdote, but anecdote doesn't add to data. I think that's a challenge for researchers: can we measure that sort of thing? But if you talk to--not just--so, a prominent left wing economist said to me, 'Eh, John, you're [?] out to lunch. I'm out here in the Valley; I'm talking to all the executives. They're not having any problems.' The answer to which is, 'Wait a minute. You're talking to people who still are in business.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. A little selection problem there.

John Cochrane: [?] The one who couldn't get their approval. It's the ones who languished in front of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for 8 years and finally they ran out of money. Those are the guys who [?]

Russ Roberts: And of course the other fact is, industries here--I don't think it's a coincidence; I think it's actually a fact of life of political economy--the industries here are relatively left alone. Whereas, if you are in banking, if you are in health, if you are in certain sectors, it's a very different environment. I think that where I'll concede your point most dramatically--and you'll tell me if I'm right or wrong, here--is Dodd-Frank finished?

John Cochrane: No.

Russ Roberts: Is the Affordable Care Act actually written--it's been the law of the land, both of those have been the law for a while now. Usually you'd think you would literally at least know what's in it even if you can't understand it. The joke was, 'We'll pass it now and then we'll later find out what's in it.' You can't even do that yet.

John Cochrane: One of the difficulties of our regulatory scheme is that Congress passes 2000-page bills that then tell the agencies to write 20,000 pages of rules. And they aren't even done making the rules. And then the rules are things like, you know, 'You shall not have an abusive or manipulative sales plans for your waters[?]'. And then who knows what that means. So, these things are still growing. But actually--you know, Congress is waking up, and they've figured out that they've made a mistake in writing these loose laws; and they are starting now to walk back. So there are these--I think the return of rule of law in regulation is something that we may see. I'm not the first one to notice that this is a problem.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. I always like to hope, I think naively and probably foolishly, that somehow people will be shamed into thinking it would be inappropriate to write these rules. I have to concede that that's probably--

John Cochrane: As economists we're probably stepping outside what we know. But as a legal matter, we've moved in a very different way. We used to have laws that were made by Congresses and enforced by judges. And most of what counts as law now is made by regulatory agencies and enforced by them, quite outside the legal system.

Russ Roberts: Yeah, the so-called 'Administrative State'. Which I think is--one of the things that fascinates me about it is how little the aver person knows about it. I know almost nothing about it, and I'm a professional economist. In theory I should know about it. I know virtually nothing about it. We sort of assume that when a bill is passed that it's implemented. But of course, as you point out, dozens, hundreds, thousands of rules get put into place--that whole process is a black box. To us. Not to the people, I suspect, who are being affected by it. I suspect they are working away.

John Cochrane: To your question, there are plenty of measures that say the American economy is losing its dynamism. I think one new bank has been chartered since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, and that was designed to help Amish people. No new health insurers; in fact, lots of health insurers are disappearing. We are heading towards industries--banking and health insurance are heading toward a very European model: 3 or 4 very regulated--but back and forth. They are not going to go bankrupt. The regulators can say, 'We're going to be mean,' but there's 3 or 4; nobody enters, nobody leaves; and you are going to have the same 3 or 4 businesses there 20 years from now than you do now. The regulators, when they quit, they go to make a nice salary, back in the companies. The companies, they take their turn with the regulators; and, no innovation, nothing. So, you can measure things like what's happening to the number of businesses, what's happening to--new business formation is way down. People don't move much in the United States any more. So there are measures of that sort of thing.

Russ Roberts: Agreed.

26:01

Russ Roberts: Well, let's look at some specifics. Let's start with--again, a hugely important area that doesn't get a lot of attention these days, which is taxes. We have an incredibly complicated tax system which benefits mainly people who help people with their taxes.

John Cochrane: And help people who pass laws that give them special loopholes, yes.

Russ Roberts: And the people who qualify for the special loopholes. But, you know, in a way it's funny. We say those things and they sound like clichés: 'Oh, yeah, special loopholes.' But there really are special loopholes, aren't there? So, talk about what we might do differently in the area of taxes.

John Cochrane: In taxes, as in regulation, I think another theme that we should be screaming from the mountaintops is: Bring a reasonable simplicity to our public life. You know, it's just ridiculous that we have 50,000 pages of regulations that nobody knows what they are. Simple, robust systems are going to work a lot better.

Russ Roberts: It's rather extraordinary that you can give somebody's life to 6 different tax preparers and they can't agree on what the tax bill is. And that is really--we again, it's a joke, 'Oh, yeah, it's really funny.' That's stunningly bad for democracy, isn't it? I mean, it's horrifying.

John Cochrane: Well, what the peasants with the pitchforks are telling us is they've gotten wind of the incredible unfairness. When a system is this complicated, you know the guys with the connections are getting ahead. And for a long time we've put up with it; and now that economic growth I think you are seeing people not putting up with it. And there's this pretense that the tax code or the regulatory code is a fine instrument that can manage exactly what materials should a watch be made out of, as opposed to--okay, so I made my case for simplicity and clarity. Let's talk about taxes. Because I think that it's a great place to discuss, not just the economic question, which is actually quite easy, but the question: How do we get out of the tired discussion? So, you have to ask an economist who isn't in public trying to get a job with a politician. But, ask him in private, give him a beer: 'What should the tax system look like?' Pretty much any economist will say, 'We should have a tax on consumption--on people, on consumption--at a relatively, with low marginal rates and a very wide base.' Pretty much every bipartisan commission takes you in that direction. And yet we can't get there. Now, why not? Because the discussion is in this very tired--so the discussion is about higher taxes versus lower taxes. And it's instantly about who pays the [?]: Put on a tax plan and what happens? 'Oh, well, a family of four with two dogs and a cat and lives in Fresno is going to be paying $256.20 more.' It's all about who pays more or less. But you took your economics class. The Number One thing that matters is: What are the incentives? How does this distort economic activity? So, how do we get toward something like a consumption tax on people? So, we should. I want[?] to eliminate the corporate tax. Completely. Why? Not because corporations shouldn't pay. Corporations never pay. Corporations, every cent that they pay comes from higher prices, lower wages, comes out of your pockets. And, if there's a corporate tax then there's an immense incentive to go to Washington and get deductions and loopholes and tax extenders and all the other crazy stuff that they do. The cronyism that infects our political system--the only way to get rid of the cronyism is: Get rid of the tax. But we're trying to do too many things. The problem with our tax code is: We're trying to raise revenue for the government; we are trying to subsidize different activities; we argue about the level of government spending implicitly in the level of taxes; and we are trying to subsidize a subset[?]. So: raise revenue, subsidize activities, transfer income, and decide the total size of the government--all four. And the key to marriage counseling is, when you are talking about 4 things at a time, you are never getting anywhere. So, I think the key is to break these apart. We should discuss the structure of the tax code. Now, every time they discuss the structure of the tax code, they talk about the rates: 'We'll have one rate at 16.2%, another rate at 22.5%'--and then the arguments start. How about we discuss the structure of the tax code with the rates blank? Let Russ and me do the structure of the tax code; and we'll let Bernie Sanders fill in the rates.

Russ Roberts: Good deal.

John Cochrane: Or we'll discuss the rates separately.

Russ Roberts: We're going to have so many friends, John. It's going to be great.

John Cochrane: I meant that as a joke.

Russ Roberts: I know you did.

John Cochrane: But I think you need to discuss the--I think you can come to agreement, Left and Right, on the structure of the tax code, if you are not simultaneously arguing about the progressivity of the tax code. And, the subsidy code. So, for example, we should get rid of the--and let me take a sacred cow, the mortgage interest deduction. The mortgage interest deduction is equivalent to taxing middle class, hard-working people and sending checks to people in Palo Alto who just refinanced million dollar homes. It subsidizes high-income people who pay high tax rates, and therefore can take a big deduction. It subsidizes people who have big houses. And people borrow money for big houses. If you said, 'We're going to do this on budget as a subsidy,' the peasants with pitchforks would be out in the streets. And properly so. So--but how do you get rid of this? Well, let's change the discussion. We'll have the tax code and raise revenue; and we'll have the subsidy code. Sure. As we'll sit down with Bernie and fill in the rates later? We'll sit down with all the interests and say, 'Fine. We're not going to rule out the mortgage interest deduction. We're just going to do it as a subsidy. On budget.' You want to propose that we send checks to people who want to borrow a lot of money for their house? Fine. We'll talk about that. It's just, it's going to be on budget; and it's going to be a check. Non-profits--we should get rid of that--I hate to say this, in this Institution. I might get fired. The charitable interest, the charitable deduction is a similar--we should get rid of that. And of course if we get rid of the corporate tax there would be no such thing as non-profit versus profit, so this whole business would go away.

32:36

Russ Roberts: You made an interesting point in a paper you wrote about how many athletes have foundations. Which seems like it's a great PR (Public Relations) thing for them. You think they are doing all this good work. But there is this nepotistic part of it, which is--

John Cochrane: Yeah. Charitable foundations. So, if you get a lot of money, set up a charitable foundation--because that's how you, then you can use the charitable foundation to fly all your relatives in and out of town on private jets that come for the Board Meetings. And that's how you can avoid the estate tax, because the Foundation lives on but all your kids can keep working for it at high salaries.

Russ Roberts: I didn't think about that. It's such a disturbing incentive [?] John. But I think you are on to something there. Carry on.

John Cochrane: [?] the corporate tax, we don't have it. But, if you--let's not--we don't have to decide this when we're fixing the tax code. Yes, we're going to have that as part of the subsidy. If you could [?] have one as past propose a bill where every American gets to say, 'I want to give money to Russ Roberts, and I want the Federal government to match my contribution,' and if I'm a rich person, they are going to give a higher match than a poor person, that's fine. That's exactly what the charitable deduction does. Fine.

Russ Roberts: It's bizarre.

John Cochrane: Suggest that bill; and actually I think--matching is a good idea; it might not go exactly that way. And, you know, the tax deduction kind of bugs me around the belt. Everyone has got these Tesla cars. All the middle-aged men in Palo Alto drive around Teslas. They are really cool cars. Okay? The only thing that bugs me is I look at everyone go by and I know that I spend $7500 on that car. But that's a tax deduction. That's fine. We don't have to argue about that when we're fixing the tax code. Put that on your green roofs and your solar cells and your electric cars and all that--fine. Just propose it, put it on budget, as a separate matter. The way to clean up tax code--the tax code rate is money for the government. Separately we will redistribute income, largely by sending people checks. And that will be on budget; and we'll talk about how much we send people checks. And the subsidy code--the United States tries to pretend that we spend a lot less money than we do. The way we do it is we have mandates. We say, 'You shall provide x, y, and z for your workers.' That makes it looks like we are not taxing, and subsidize. 'You, you get a tax credit for x, y, and z.' That makes it look like we are not taxing and subsidizing. But we actually are. So, we are going to tax more and we are going to spend more. It's going to look like it. We are going to recognize what we are doing. But if we can separate that out then we can fix the tax code to raise revenue at minimum economic distortion. I think--I believe enough in democracy that we can do a far better job of income distribution and of subsidizing activities if those things are teared, torn out of the tax code and on budget, in the open.

Russ Roberts: So, I have to say, I'm learning a lot more than I'd like about the differences between you and me. When I see--and about myself--

John Cochrane: I've got to interrupt you. I'm not proposing--what I'm trying to do is start a conversation. I have my answers on how much we should be subsidizing--

Russ Roberts: I understand--

John Cochrane: things. But I want to get somewhere. We're stuck in a bad marriage. We have different answers to these things. How could we separately discuss them so we make progress in a democracy on these tough issues? And, how could we get to a compromise that we're going to be unhappy with that is the much less destructive for economic growth and fundamentally for that democracy?

Russ Roberts: My observation though is about our sociological differences. So, when you see a Tesla go by, you see $7500 coming out of our pockets. When I see it go by, in the license plate spot, before they get their license plate, it says 'Zero Emissions'. And that offends me, because it takes a lot of carbon-based stuff to create the electricity to push that car around. And if everybody had a Tesla, it would be an enormously polluting car through its energy source. So, it's the offensiveness, the morality again. The injustice of that 'Zero Emissions' is what drives me crazy. And $7500 out of my own pocket--okay, I'm resentful of that, too.

John Cochrane: Around here, they do like to put 'Zero Emissions' on their license plates. And were I younger and a little braver, I would put a sign saying 'Powered by Coal.'

Russ Roberts: Exactly. Exactly. Semantic flaw. It's a device without an engine, at 18,000 feet but it's not brave enough to--anyway.

37:06

Russ Roberts: I'm sympathetic, of course, as you probably know and realize, to your argument about taxes. And again, what irks us about these things may be different. You may be bothered by the incentives. What bothers me, among other things, is the thousands of hours that really smart people spend trying to evade and manipulate that code who could be doing something to make the world a better place rather than making sure that people's money isn't taken away by the government.

John Cochrane: And especially corporate taxes. Because they have the time and manpower to spend all their effort--all these inversions we're hearing about, all the best minds are sitting about thinking about 'How do I move my money around the world to lower taxes?' As opposed to making better products for you and me.

Russ Roberts: So that really bugs me. But--

John Cochrane: Back to energy for just a second.

Russ Roberts: Yeah.

John Cochrane: There's another case where I think there's one of these grand bargains--we need to work to these grand bargains where we listen and find a way to achieve what both want. And so, there's a proposal that I'm actually hearing, coming from real environmentalists and real libertarians, which is: 'Look, let's trade. You guys can have a carbon tax, in return for we get rid of all the crony subsidies, all this business gets a Federal contract, all of the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, special tax deductions, and so on and so forth.' The environmentalists are going that way because they realize that all the little stuff isn't doing any good to reduce carbon. And the libertarians like it because, yeah, they might not want the carbon tax in the first place but at least there's a way to solve this problem in a way that's much more economically efficient, much more efficient with people's time and effort, much less distorting of which technology actually gets used and much less distorting of our political system.

Russ Roberts: So, listeners know that I'm skeptical about the ability of econometricians to measure things with any precision and to separate out complicated household problems. But most economists could come to some measure of the total gains that would come from the kind of reforms that you are talking about; and they'd be very large. There wouldn't be a precise estimate, but when you add up the costs and time, the incentive effects, the wasted effort, the lost productivity because things aren't being done that could be productive, it's a big number. And that raises the question of: 'If you're so smart, why don't we have better policy?' Right? Why is reforming this system so difficult? So, one way to phrase it is: Is a grand bargain ever possible in our current political environment, on any of these issues? And, are we just wasting our time here? Not that it isn't fun. I'm having a good time, myself.

John Cochrane: Well, I think we need to be optimistic. Because the choice is grand bargain or the end of Western civilization--take your pick.

Russ Roberts: So it's not the road to serfdom--it's even worse? What do you mean, 'the end of civilization?'

John Cochrane: We have had grand bargains before. The 1986 tax cuts, the Carter era deregulations. It's not--the art of the politician is putting together--I was going to say putting together a deal but that is now a word I can't say: co-opted for something else. On taxes, the current problem is when you say, 'Let's have a tax reform' and 'We're going to do stuff like get rid of the health care deduction, the mortgage interest deduction, the energy tax credit, and so forth,' well, the energy people, the housing builders, they are all in your office saying, 'Oh, no, that's the end of the world if we get rid of my thing.' The problem is, each one says, 'Well, they've all got their thing, so I'm going to make darn sure I've got mine.' And the job of a great politician or a great party or those who form the coalitions is to get us all to, 'Okay. I'm giving up mine, so I'm going to make damn sure you give up yours, too.'

Russ Roberts: Yeah, that's the way it goes.

John Cochrane: Not just, 'I give up mine; I understand we're all giving up, so I'll suffer.' You need to form a coalition where everyone is part of the coalition saying, 'Okay, if I'm giving up the mortgage interest deduction, you're giving up the health care tax deduction; you're giving up the energy deductions; you're getting rid of [?] all the other stuff that's going on.' So, I'm an economist, not a politician. That's their job; that's what we should be voting them in for. And good ones, that's what they do.

Russ Roberts: But, one of our jobs is to point out that the challenge of creating those coalitions comes from the fact that if I propose a policy where there are a lot of losers or there's a small number of really big losers, it's going to be much harder. And I guess one way to think about it, in a time of crisis, you might, maybe be able to mobilize people--because it's the end of Western civilization hanging over them, that they might make a sacrifice for the good of the country. Otherwise, it's, 'What's the incentive for me?' And 'what's in it for me' is really, I think, the biggest barrier to these kinds of changes.

John Cochrane: Well, I think we should stop playing amateur politician, or political scientist. I think where you and I as economists can help is to outline all the areas where our political friends are stuck in a stale argument. Because in many cases they are stuck--a politician has to spend 16 hours a day raising money. So, if they're not that great on the second order derivatives or on, you know, supply effects, or, you know. Or on just the basics--that you don't transfer income by distorting prices: that's one of the most basic things in economics, that there's always a supply response. So, our job is to help--we're marriage counselors. Let's find those out-of-the-box ways of addressing each of these problems--we've talked about some--that will help them to listen to each other and form those grand bargains.

43:00

Russ Roberts: So, just to add another pessimistic note--sorry. I love the phrase 'peasants with the pitchforks.' And it reminds me of one of my favorite movies, The Court Jester, which, I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, with Danny Kaye. It's a neglected classic. And for those of you listening at home who have seen it will appreciate--I'm just going to say, 'the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.' But the peasants with the pitchforks have the poison-- and you won't get it if you haven't seen it, but check it out; you'll find it. It's one of the greatest moments in cinema. You can probably get it on YouTube. If I can find it, I'll put a link up to it. But I have to note that the peasants with the pitchforks right now advocate for things that move us away from the directions mainly that you and I would like. On one side of that divide we have the peasants with the pitchforks who want to tear down Wall Street, and who are supporting Bernie Sanders. On the other side of the divide we have the peasants with the pitchforks who want to put up a wall between the United States and Mexico. And I know you are not happy about that; I'm going to ask you in a minute if we get to it about immigration. That is a big challenge, that the taste in the general public for the kind of reforms that you and I want to see doesn't seem to be there.

John Cochrane: But I--so, when I use the word 'peasants with pitchforks,' that's actually a dangerous word because it sounds--what I'm echoing is how much disdain our elites have for the democracy that [?]--

Russ Roberts: So it's not your disdain? Okay, sorry.

John Cochrane: Not mine at all. I think that people have a lot of wisdom. But the average person is busy; and it's not the average person's job to--our economy, our society is a cause-and-effect machine with very delicate relationship between where you push the lever and what actually happens. That's what's beautiful, that's what's fun about understanding economics. You know, that we've subsidized x doesn't mean that we all get richer because it costs y, and you'll all get poorer. And seeing those things is hard. The average person senses that the system is rigged; that growth is too slow; that there's sand in the gears. But it's the job of a leader to unite those feelings and to give them expression. And I don't blame the peasants with pitchforks at the moment. I blame very much the themes that leaders have chosen in order to exploit their geniune feelings--

Russ Roberts: [?] very wrong--

John Cochrane: that something is very wrong.

Russ Roberts: Totally agree.

John Cochrane: So, the Wall did not come up from the bottom. That was Mr. Trump's idea, all by himself.

Russ Roberts: It's true.

John Cochrane: It wasn't--we'll say [?] one thing for him--it didn't come out of some focus group: 'What's the idea that most of you like?' 'Oh, build a wall against Mexico?'

Russ Roberts: At least 50 feet, too; really high.

John Cochrane: You've seen Game of Thrones: that ain't all it's going to look like.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be huge, big.

46:00

Russ Roberts: Let's move on to an area you've written a lot about that I think is a huge challenge. It is part of this, I think, populist concern, which is the financial system and the way the government treats it. You've mentioned Dodd-Frank: "landmark legislation," probably the second after the Affordable Care Act. I can't decide which is worse, Obamacare, which is not the name of it--that shouldn't be the name of it--or the Affordable Care Act, which is just sort of an Orwellian phrase to make it sound great. It could end up being true; I don't know; I'm not an expert on it. But I guess that's the official name. Dodd-Frank is the second-most important legislation of the last 8 years. It purported to solve many of the problems that caused the financial crisis. You don't agree. What's wrong with it, and what should replace it?

John Cochrane: So, both the ACA--the proper name for [?]--and Dodd-Frank--you have to understand what people are thinking. They are not dumb people. They are trying to do their best. And both of them are classic cases of the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. And I don't know if you know the children's--she swallows a fly, and then she swallows a spider to catch the fly, and then she swallows a cat--

Russ Roberts: There was a cow, eventually, I think.

John Cochrane: [Spoiler Alert!] It ends with a horse--she died, of course. But each step makes sense. And that's exactly what happened here. So, the Dodd-Frank Act was nothing new. I forget what the horse was supposed to swallow, so, but the cow--in the 1930s we had a financial crisis and the government went to this idea okay, what we're going to do is we're going to stop the financial crisis by guaranteeing debts so that people don't run to get their money out. Oh, but then there's a problem: if you guarantee the bank's debts, that's like saying, 'Hey, I'm going to guarantee your debts; go to Las Vegas and whatever you ring up'--so there's a problem there. So now we have to have regulations. 'No, you can only go to the craps table and--'

Russ Roberts: can't spend more than [?] on a bet--

John Cochrane: and then of course if we do that, then you're going to find some way around, and then you're going to lose money again; and I'm going to have to guarantee bigger debts, and more regulation. And you can see the spiral. Every time something blow apart, what do you do? We have to guarantee the debts, to bail out to stop the crisis. And then, oh, gosh, now we have another layer of incentives for you to behave badly, so we add another level of regulation. It gets bigger. And that's just what Dodd-Frank did. The ACA was the same thing: we had the same spiral of problems with health insurance, which we'll probably treat later, given the time. So that's what went wrong; and now you have this monstrous thing that, it is 'swallowed a horse'. And it's not going to die. It's just going to turn into, like, the French phone company in 1965--just this sclerotic thing. Until, FinnTech may come up around it, we hope.

Russ Roberts: FinnTech being?

John Cochrane: Being--ways out--the unregulated system comes. And, although, you're saying how wonderful Silicon Valley is: you know, Google has a lot of contacts with Washington (Washington, D.C.) now; and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) just regulated the Internet like a utility. So, we'll so how long this stays that way--

Russ Roberts: Yeah, it's true--

John Cochrane: unregulated--

Russ Roberts: It's true.

John Cochrane: So, the answer is, you've got to go back to the beginning. Let's find simplicity in our public life. The system of: You get to borrow a lot of money and we'll bail things out when you go wrong is--we can't do that any more. And fortunately technology means that we can go back and re-examine that basic premise, that banks have to--banks can get your money by always letting you come and take it out any time you want. That's the basic problem. Because that causes the run. So, if we set up a banking system where, you go to the bank and it looks like it does now except it's like a money market fund; and the price might go down. If you own stocks, you can't go get your money out of the stock market any time you want. You can't force a company to go bankrupt. So, banks were set up like that, where they issued something that looked like stock. Rather than issuing something where you can come get your stuff any time you want. Then there would be no financial crises: we wouldn't need any regulation. It would be, the whole system would be much simpler. And that was a decision we decided not to do in the 1930s, because they don't think it would have worked in the 1930s. Now it can work beautifully. You can just swipe a card, sell some bank stock; have cash in 20 milliseconds.

Russ Roberts: Yeah, so you are saying, 'I will be able to get my money whenever I want.' Because I do want that. Right? You are just saying the way that, what will underlie that, will be different. You will--what is no longer necessary, for you to have instant liquidity, you don't need a promise that the value of your claim is always the same. So, if you have a stock, the stock can go up and down. Now, you can sell the stock instantly. But you can't go to the company and say, 'I gave you $100; the stock price is $90; I want my $100 back; and if you don't give me that $100 back you are bankrupt.' You go to a bank, and you can do that. That's why banks fail. But companies that issue a lot of equity simply cannot go bankrupt. There can't be runs. There can't be financial crises; and so we don't need the whole array of regulators telling them what to do. Let me just add: It's really hilarious how much effort we spend on regulating bank risks? Right? We have to, because bank is a risky weight[?] What are banks' assets? Banks' assets are loans. Banks assets are bonds. They are fixed income. They are about the safest thing around. The cash flow of any venture capital startup, the cash flow of Google, the cash flow of Facebook is much, much riskier than any of the assets of a bank. Why are we spending all of this effort regulating the assets of the safest companies in the world? 'Oh, because they are leveraged like 90-to-1.'

Russ Roberts: Meaning, they are using borrowed money rather than equity.

John Cochrane: They are using borrowed money. And the taxpayer is standing behind the borrowed money. If they issued equity, these would be just safe, boring companies needing practically no regulation.

52:02

Russ Roberts: Which, of course, is one of the political problems: If you are not doing anything for somebody you can't sell them anything. So, politicians aren't going to be able to extract any resources from them. But let's put, again, that political economy to the side. I just want to understand the idea--I accept the point, which--

John Cochrane: I want to push back on your premise.

Russ Roberts: Which one?

John Cochrane: The premise that democracy is doomed because it will always serve interests.

Russ Roberts: I did not quite say that. You slightly exaggerated your version of what I said[?]--

John Cochrane: You always have to make some claim about how this is in the public good. There is a media. The mechanisms of democracy--us having opinions about stuff--that is our one hope of constraining the function of government in just appearing to regulate in order to transfer resources.

Russ Roberts: Yeah, but I would say that the growing size of the financial sector makes it hard to be optimistic about the way that that's working right now, at least.

John Cochrane: Lots of sectors are big without hugely regulated. It's the growing regulation of the financial sector; and it's getting more and more entwined. People I know at the Fed are saying, 'Hey, John, it's good to see you. By the way, do you know that I just got this call from Goldman and they want to give me, you know, x million dollars to come help them on the things that I was regulating them on last week.' Gee. That could get worse and worse if it doesn't get better.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. So, I'm a little bit worried about that. But I want to ask you about this particular proposal, which is: I understand and agree that debt leverage is the reason that there are bank runs. But financial institutions in general are intermediaries between people who want to borrow money and people who want to lend money. Not people who want to play the stock market, etc. So, how are you going to square that, get that square peg into a round hole? I'm confused.

John Cochrane: So, there's a great Chicago, Booth, theorem, the Modigliani-Miller Theorem. Which [?] goes back to Casey Stengel, I think it was, who said, 'Cut the pizza, cut in 12 slices. I'm not that hungry tonight.' Bank assets turn into bank liabilities. And the total amount of risk that is held by the private sector is the same no matter how much you slice up that risk between debt and equity. So, if you slice the risk up into lots more equity and lots less debt, that equity becomes much safer than current bank equity. And the debt--now, let me make this. I was citing the theorem. Let me make this real. What happens? If you want something really safe, it's going to look exactly like it looks today: You put your money in the bank and just what's happening? The banks are holding a lot of Treasury Bills and reserves at the Fed. Your deposits are going to go into Treasuries and reserves at the Fed, which back them 100%--

Russ Roberts: And I'm going to get a very low return on my money for doing that.

John Cochrane: You're going to get a very low return. You want a little more return, you're going to have to put a little more, you're going to have to bear a little more risk. But the total amount of risk held by the private sector is exactly the same if you just slice it up a little bit differently. In fact, one way to do it is, suppose the banks are 100% equity financed. That equity is very low volatility. It's very safe equity. It's an equity claim on bonds.

Russ Roberts: On people paying back their mortgages, say.

John Cochrane: On people paying back their mortgages. Which in a big pool of mortgages is very safe.

Russ Roberts: Most of the time.

John Cochrane: No, no, no, no. The subprime stuff paid off. A long, lonely pool of mortgages is a really safe asset. That equity could be held downstream in a mutual fund that parcels it up into equity and debt. And that holding company, you could resolve in a morning, because its assets are publicly traded equity; its liabilities [?] debt. Even if that's highly leveraged, we don't have to have the leverage in the bank. The leverage can be out of the bank. And you can blow that up in an afternoon. The problem when you blow up banks--and Ben Bernanke wrote the classic paper on this--the problem is when you blow up a bank, you blow up all that knowledge of how to make loans. That is what you don't want to do.

56:19

Russ Roberts: So, what you just described is very clever and very complex, to the average person. Right? What kind of steps could we take in actual policy to reduce the amount of debt that banks use and get us closer to that world in a way that might be feasible.

John Cochrane: So, I'm an optimist. That's actually what's happening. Early on after the financial crisis all the regulators were saying, 'Oh, the banks, for them to have, you know, instead of 31-to [?] leverage, 29-to-1 would be a disaster.' And now they are going to capital ratios 2, 5, 10; now they are talking about 20 is fine. So we are moving to higher and higher levels of capital. People are understanding the Modigliani-Miller Theorem: that higher levels of capital are not a drag at all on the bank, and that they can operate--historically the operated with 40% levels of capital. So we're just moving slowly to more and more capital....

Russ Roberts: That's simple. That you can explain. That's a winner.

John Cochrane: Banks right now say, 'Oh, no. If we have to hold capital'--'hold,' I should never have used that word--'if we have to issue a lot of capital, it's going to be a disaster.' If you offer the banks, 'Oh, by the way, if you do this you are exempt from blah, blah, blah of the Dodd-Frank Act', suddenly, 'Oh, I think we can find a way to issue all that capital. We'll just retain earnings for a little while longer.' So, higher capital with a regulatory safe harbor; let's stop subsidizing debt: you can deduct debt from your taxes. If we got rid of the corporate tax that would all be gone, by the way. You can deduct debt from your taxes. You can't deduct equity. Let's shift that around, subsidize equity, not debt. At least get out of the way--our banking regulation is a lot like our energy regulation: we say, 'Oh no, we don't want you borrowing a lot of money. By the way, we're going to subsidize you for borrowing money.' It's the same thing we do with energy: we subsidize gas prices and then we want to regulate you against using a lot of gas. So, at least, you know, there's simple steps. And then I think that Dodd-Frank--we don't have to repeal it. It can just quietly float away.

Russ Roberts: Well, you are suggesting a really cheerful way to deal with these kinds of problems is to pass a really hideous law, and then reward people who do something and they won't have to be subject to it. So, that sounds like a plan. We're almost out of time. I wanted to give you a chance to talk about what you think government should spend more money on, or do more of, rather than less of. It's a long silence. It's not cricket, I know you are thinking. And I know there's an answer to this.

John Cochrane: There are lots of things. So, I think that government should recognize what it is actually spending rather than saying, 'I'm going to force you to provide health insurance for your workers,' I think it would be far better to recognize that as a taxing and spending. Social programs, we didn't talk about how do we get out of the 'Oh, we're going to spend more', 'You don't care'; 'Oh, we're going to less', 'You are blowing up the future of your grandchildren.' We've got to get out of that. I think the problem with the social programs are their disincentives more than the amount of money we are spending on them. So, right now the highest-taxed Americans are poor people. And the reason they are the highest-taxed is because if they earn $1.00 of income, they lost $1.10 of their benefits. They are facing horrendous effective marginal tax rates. Now, the only way to get around that problem is to be willing to spend more money to remove those marginal disincentives. But that helps people get out of the traps of social programs. And--there's schizophrenics on the streets in Palo Alto. We should be spending money to help them. I think one of the answers for the social programs is more generosity but limited time, rather than limited money. I'm very unhappy with the way that America is turning into a class society, and your class is defined by your income. Your current income. We have low-income people, middle-income people, and high-income people. Well, you talk about this as if it's forever rather than the transitory state where you are now. In Palo Alto you can get a big reduction on your parking sticker if you are a low-income person. What are we doing here?

Russ Roberts: What's wrong with that?

John Cochrane: What's wrong with it is it increases classes of the [?]--it's one more disincentive to not stop being low income. And it creates people who are in classes, like we are an old, aristocratic society.

Russ Roberts: I thought you were going to say that someone who has a bad year gets cheap parking. And then the next year, they are going to make a lot more money. They are a student this year, or something like that. Isn't that a part of the problem if you are judging people by their current income?

John Cochrane: Yeah, that's also part of it. It's part of the insane complexity of the American system. If we really want to help poor people out, is signing up for a cheap parking pass in your city and then 10,000 [?] things that--that's silly. No; I think there's plenty of good things that the government should do. And we should accept that fact.