Cafe Hayek

I Don't Want Those People to Have a Say in How I Live My Life

Here's a letter that I sent yesterday to the Detroit Free Press:

28 June 2009

Editor, Detroit Free Press

Dear Editor:

Mitch Albom is correct that "We're wacko in how we view Jacko" (June 28).  But not all of us are wacko.  I, for one, am no more touched by Mr. Jackson's death than I am by the death of any of the thousands of other Americans who died last week, all of whom - like Mr. Jackson - are strangers to me and to the vast majority of people now so self-indulgently and flamboyantly grieving for a man they never met.

Americans' proclivity to mass hysteria causes me to want government to have as little power as possible.  I neither can nor wish to stop other persons from doing with their lives as they wish.  But I also damn sure despise the fact that, through their votes, so many persons prone to such childish sentiments and displays have a say in how I lead my life.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Musical Chairs

Columbia Business School Dean, and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Glenn Hubbard has a great voice -- one that Stings!

The Perfect Political Speech

David Allan Coe's 1975 song "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" ends with Coe telling his live audience the following:

WELL, A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED STEVE GOODMAN WROTE THAT SONG

AND HE TOLD ME IT WAS THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG

I WROTE HIM BACK A LETTER AND I TOLD HIM IT WAS NOT THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG BECAUSE HE HADN’T SAID ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT MAMA,

OR TRAINS

OR TRUCKS,

OR PRISON,

OR GETTING’ DRUNK

WELL HE SAT DOWN AND WROTE ANOTHER VERSE TO THE SONG

AND HE SENT IT TO ME,  AND AFTER READING IT, I REALIZED THAT MY FRIEND HAD WRITTEN THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG

AND I FELT OBLIGED TO INCLUDE IT ON THIS ALBUM

THE LAST VERSE GOES LIKE THIS HERE:

WELL, I WAS DRUNK THE DAY MY MOM GOT OUT OF PRISON

AND I WENT TO PICK HER UP IN THE RAIN

BUT BEFORE I COULD GET TO THE STATION IN MY PICK-UP TRUCK

SHE GOT RUNNED OVER BY A DAMNED OLD TRAIN

It's a great song, with this incredibly clever, satirical ending.

Karol (who doesn't share my taste for much country'n'western music) has heard me sing these lyrics several times, just for fun.  So this morning when she read parts of Hillary Clinton's speech to the Democratic National Convention, she exclaimed "This reminds me of that David Allan Coe song you're always singing!"

And Karol's correct.  Sen. Clinton's speech is predictably full of typical political nonsense, posturing, and hubris pretending to be humility.  In this sense, it's a really good political speech.  But her inclusion of these lyrics are what make it the perfect political speech:

I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism. She didn't have any health insurance, and she discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head, painted with my name on it, and asked me to fight for health care for her and her children.

I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps T-shirt who waited months for medical care. And he said to me, "Take care of my buddies. A lot of them are still over there. And then will you please take care of me?"

And I will always remember the young boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage, that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do.

No tale, no matter how hackneyed, left untold -- no possible profiles of any 'victim' of the cruel forces of markets and inadequate regulation left unmentioned.

The perfect political speech.

Tyler for a Moment

The following is self-indulgent of me -- for this isn't my forte as it is Tyler's -- but Cafe patron Jeanne e-mailed me today to ask my "five favorite songs."   I take the request to refer to modern vocal recordings.  Five is too few, so I'll list my ten favorites -- and even ten is quite a small number.  But, what the heck, here goes (in no particular order, save the first three):

1. Frank Sinatra, "The Way You Look Tonight"

2. The Beatles, "Please, Please Me"

3. Ray Charles, "I Can't Stop Loving You"

4. Patsy Cline, "I Fall to Pieces"

5. Hank Williams, Sr. "Mind Your Own Business"

6. Van Morrison, "Brown Eyed Girl"

7. Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

8. Dire Straits, "Walk of Life"

9. Queen, "Fat Bottom Girls"

10. 10,000 Maniacs, "Gun Shy"

And I'll throw the following in gratis: the song that I'm most embarrassed to admit to liking is Sweet, "Little Willy" (but it's nowhere close to being in my top ten, or even top 100).

Pennies from Heaven

In this earlier post, I asked why live theater is so much more effective than filmed theater. Some people misinterpreted my remarks to mean that musical films don't have any kick. That's not what I meant. When you visit New York, there's a tourist channel on TV that talks about what's playing on Broadway. And it shows clips from current musicals--film clips of the staged live theater. They're horrible to watch, at least for me. They look silly.

But a film version of a musical can be wonderful--My Fair Lady is one example. Cabaret is another. Chicago was interesting to look at. Another visually stunning and interesting musical on film is Pennies from Heaven, the 1981 version directed by Herbert Ross. It's a creepy, haunting, surprising, weird but visually riveting film. Steve Martin is phenomenal as are Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken.

It is worth seeing just for the title song, Pennies from Heaven, which is one of the great economics songs of all time--a song about how the world is designed without free lunches. Here are the lyrics:

A long time ago
A million years BC

The best things in life
Were absolutely free.

But no one appreciated
A sky that was always blue.

And no one congratulated
A moon that was always new.

So it was planned that they
would vanish now and then

And you must pay before you
get them back again.

That's what storms were made for

And you shouldn't be afraid for

Every time it rains it rains
Pennies from heaven.

Don't you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven.

You'll find your fortune falling
All over town.

Be sure that your umbrella is upside down.

Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers.
If you want the things you love, you must have showers.

So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree.

There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me.

 

Musical Theater

I was in New York the other day and had the chance to see Curtains. It stars David Hyde Pierce with a score by Kander and Ebb.

It hasn't gotten a lot of attention. It's not a great musical. But it's a very good musical. And watching the cast put everything into it has a strange effect on me and I think on everyone who loves theater. You walk out of a good musical in a giddy mood of emotional catharsis. You've laughed and cried and been in awe of the creativity and talent that goes into the score and the choreography and the singing.

There are very few human experiences that leave you emotionally drained and joyous the way a musical does when it's done well. Why is that? What is there about a musical that has that effect? And a second puzzle--if you film a stage musical it's not just not as good as seeing a musical live, it's awful. Why is that? What is it about being there in person that has such an emotional kick?

Burgeoning Opera

Opera is somehow thriving in culturally backward America (HT: Maggie's Farm). Jonathan Leaf reports in The American:

The U.S. now has 125 professional opera companies, 60 percent of them launched since 1970, according to the trade group OPERA America. The U.S. has more opera companies than Germany and nearly twice as many as Italy. In the most comprehensive recent study, the National Endowment for the Arts found that between 1982 and 2002, total attendance at live opera performances grew 46 percent.

Annual admissions are now estimated at 20 million, roughly the same attendance as NFL football games (22 million, including playoffs, in 2006–07). In part, this reflects a shift toward seeing opera domestically. “Foreign opera destinations like Salzburg and Glyndebourne are more expensive, and more Americans are staying home—and probably feeling safer for it,” says Richard Gaddes, general director of the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico.

Consequently, opera travel within the U.S.—even by foreigners—is booming. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis drew attendees last year from 42 U.S. states, in addition to France, Germany, Britain, and Canada. Likewise, the Seattle Opera gets loads of Germans eager to see its highly regarded productions of Wagner’s operas. Gaddes says his company is “the major economic engine of tourism in Santa Fe.”

And the number of American opera productions continues to increase. As of 2005, OPERA America included companies under its aegis in 44 states. They put on 3,012 performances (up by one-third in just four years) of 420 different opera productions. Opera companies, moreover, are raising large amounts of money: $387 million in private contributions in 2005 alone.

I wonder how much of those companies' budgets come from the taxpayer vs. ticket sales and private contributions.

I also wonder if opera could outdraw the NFL if opera had playoffs.

One of America's Greatest Imports

Since as a five-year-old sitting on my grandmother's lap watching the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, I have been an unabashed Beatles fan.  I should be embarrassed (but I'm not) to admit that I never tire of listening to their music.  I listen to it daily.  (I have a slight preference for the early Beatles over the later Beatles, but only very slight: I love it all.  And now, too, so does my son, Thomas.)

This op-ed by Daniel Levitin in today's Washington Post commemorates the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper -- and it does a splendid job.  Reading this essay will raise your appreciation for the Beatles and teach you some neuroscience.

H.L. Mencken somewhere wrote that music was fundamentally changed forever when the opening two notes of Beethoven's third (Eroica) symphony were first played.  He had a point.  I would mark as another similar point the recording, in 1962, of the Beatles' song "Please Please Me."

Detecting quality

The other day in DC, a musician hung out at a Metro stop, playing the violin and entertaining the rush-hour commuters on the way to work.

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

What happened? Did a crowd gather? Was Joshua Bell ignored? How much money did he collect in the open violin case at his feet that usually housed the $3.5 million Stradivarius he was playing?  Find out here. (HT: Brandywine Books)

Hmmmm

What a world we live in. At Midomi, you can hum or sing a few bars of a song and it will find a recording of the song for you along with a bunch of amateur renditions. It's a great time waster and a way to amaze your kids. It actually works which is marvelous and beautiful, though it may not have your song in the database, yet. Why is it called Midomi? Check out the logo.

(HT: MyDigiMedia)

Impôt Sur le Revenu -- Absolument Pas!

France's top rock star, Johnny Hallyday, must have spent too much time in the U.K. and the U.S., for he seems to have absorbed the selfish Anglo-Saxon penchant for not wishing to be used and abused by government.  M. Hallyday is moving to Switzerland in order to escape France's high taxes.  Here's the full account from today's New York Times:

Johnny Hallyday Bids France Adieu

To imagine Elvis Presley moving to Monaco is to imagine what it was like in France when the veteran rocker Johnny Hallyday announced he was leaving the country for Switzerland. The decision, newly revealed by the news magazine L’Express, hit France like a bombshell, The Associated Press reported. What’s more, it was an act with political implications for the country’s presidential race. Mr. Hallyday, 63, said he was moving at the end of the month to Gstaad, the Alpine ski resort, to escape France’s high taxes. “Like many French, I’m sick of paying what is imposed on us in the way of taxes,” he said. Mr. Hallyday has made it clear that he supports the presidential ambitions of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, who promises lower levies if he wins election next spring. Mr. Hallyday was promptly taunted by the Socialist party leader, François Hollande, who said, “If he really thought Nicolas Sarkozy could win, and was so convinced by his policies, he only had to wait four months.”

(Hat tip to my better half.)

International Trade (in musical virtuosity)

Here's a fascinating New York Times story about how the web let's people around the world communicate musical ideas and share arrangements. It also illustrates how the power of the creative urge can overcome a lack of intellectual property rights.

The story is about a rock guitar version of Pachelbel's Canon and the mysterious virtuoso who played it and put it up on YouTube.

I don't know about you, but a rock guitar solo of Pachelbel's Canon sounds pretty horrifying. But  I got goose bumps anyway. The guy can play. The video is here.

It's pretty popular. It's been seen around 8 MILLION times. What an interesting world we live in.

Portrait of the artist as a young man

I am tired of music biopics. Walk the Line, Beyond the Sea (and I assume Ray as well though I haven't seen it) are too formulaic for my taste. Young man dreams of great career in music. Struggles. Makes it big. Women flock to him. Has trouble with drugs or alcohol. Marriage breaks up. Finds success is not the same as happiness. Career on the rocks. Comes back. Or doesn't.

It's not Hollywood's fault, merely the inevitable arc of what is described in the song High Flying Adored from Evita:

High flying adored
what happens now
where do you go from here

For someone
on top of the world
the views not exactly clear

A shame you did it all at twenty-six
There are no mysteries now
Nothing can thrill you
no one fulfill you

High flying adored
I hope you come
to terms with boredom

So famous so easily
so soon
it's not the wisest thing to be

You don't care if they love you
It's been done before
you despair if they hate you
you'll be drained of all energy

All the young who've made it
Would agree

I was thinking of all this after watching Martin Scorsese's riveting 2-disc (nearly four hours) documentary of the early Bob Dylan. It's the real thing and focuses on Dylan's transformation from pudgy midwestern kid to international icon in a very short period of time. The drugs and women stuff is relegated to a poignant set of recollections from Joan Baez that is all the more powerful for what is implied rather than what is said.

One of the fascinating aspects of the film is Dylan's disinterest as a young man in becoming a political figure or even much of an activist. At one point, interviewed in the present, he reminisces about how people expected the musical performers of the 1960's to come up with all the answers to the problems of the day or lead the nation. He says something like "I didn't know how to relate to that. I mean, it's absurd."

These people feel otherwise. They could use a few more economists and few less actors and musicians. But hey, you gotta have hype.

Another highly entertaining part of the Scorsese film is Dylan's electric (literally) performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. The reaction of  the old-guard folkies to the heresy of electricity is alone worth the price of admission.

Check out this site on Dylan's concert history. Worth visiting just for the elegance of the interface.

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (and Mr. Smith, and Ms. Jones, and Mr. Williams, and.....)

Lots of media are noting that today Paul McCartney turns 64 – notable chiefly because McCartney wrote and sang, as a Beatle, the song “When I’m 64.” Of course, many of these reports also mention Paul’s recent separation from his second wife, Heather Mills, and the fact that she’ll get a sizeable share of his fortune of $1.5 billion.

I don’t care about McCartney’s personal life, but I do love Beatles’ music. I’ve loved it since, as a five-year-old boy on February 9, 1964, I sat in my grandmother’s lap and watched the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

When I read of McCartney’s fortune, I’m struck by how puny it is compared to the amount of pleasure he’s contributed to humankind. Consider:

If each viewer of only the Beatles’ first two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show deposited $1 into an account in return for watching the Beatles on these telecasts, this account would have had in it, on February 16, 1964, $143.7 million. (The number of people who tuned in to the Beatles’ February 9, 1964, appearance was 73 million; the number who tuned in one week later for their second appearance was 70.7 million. These data are here.)

If this money were invested at the historical rate of return earned by U.S. stocks, it would have earned an annual return, on average, of eight percent. Today, this account would be worth about $3.5 billion.

Divided equally among John, Paul, George, and Ringo, Paul’s share today would be $875 million – more than half of his current net worth. And this from only a small payment made 42 years ago by each viewer of a mere two episodes of an American television show. Add the value of the pleasures McCartney helped to bring to us from the Beatles’ other appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show – the value of the Beatles’ many live performances around the globe – the value of their many albums that continue (now mostly in CD form) to be played – the value of the Beatles’ movies such as "A Hard Day’s Night" – the value that McCartney’s music post-Beatles brought to countless people.

And the man is worth only $1.5 billion!  Because no one forced him to write and perform and record music, I’ll certainly not argue that McCartney is undercompensated. But I do insist that his net worth of $1.5 billion is paltry, puny, insignificant compared to his contributions to humankind.

Quite a bargain.

Folks Songs for Classical Liberals

I was talking to my students last night about inspirational education—writing or music that not only informs but inspires.  And I wondered out loud with them about why there isn't an economics or free market folk song.

Wouldn't it be nice to have one?

I'd sing it all day.  I'd play it on the guitar.  I'd teach it to my children.

Consider the song about Joe Hill, that Joan Baez popularized:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,

Alive as you and me.

Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"

"I never died" said he,

"I never died" said he.

"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,

him standing by my bed,

"They framed you on a murder charge,"

Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"

Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,

they shot you Joe" says I.

"Takes more than guns to kill a man"

Says Joe "I didn't die"

Says Joe "I didn't die"

And standing there as big as life

and smiling with his eyes.

Says Joe "What they can never kill

went on to organize,

went on to organize"

From San Diego up to Maine,

in every mine and mill,

where working-men defend their rights,

it's there you find Joe Hill,

it's there you find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,

alive as you and me.

Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"

"I never died" said he,

"I never died" said he.

Now I'm not a big fan of labor unions.  I think they help some workers at the expense of others.  I think they can allow racism to flourish.  I think they make the workplace less flexible, less creative and more bureaucratic and rule-burdened.  But when I sing Joe Hill or hear it, I get goose bumps.

Where is the song that captures some inspiring aspect of economics from a Hayekian perspective? 

Why isn't there such a song?  (Or better yet, a musical.  I once heard a song from a proposed musical for Ayn Rand's Anthem.  It was a magnificent song from a student at the Eastman School of Music.  If anyone knows what happened to that student or that project, I'd sure like to know.)

One answer is that most economists are left-brained folk.  And there's some truth to that.  But I think it has more to do with the seen and the unseen.  It's easy to write a song about Aragon MIll closing down and the resulting hardship.  (Lyrics here, beautiful version by the Red Clay Ramblers here.) It's harder to write a song that shows what flourished because of creative destruction.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.

It Was Forty Years Ago Today...

... that the Beatles performed in Shea Statium.

My earliest distinct memory is of the assassination of JFK. I was five. My next clear memory is of an event that occurred three months later: the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

On that February evening, I was sitting on my grandmother’s ample lap watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo on a small black & white t.v. My grandmother and her sister shook their heads in disbelief at the loud, ridiculous music – and at the Beatles’ absurdly long hair.

From that day on I’ve loved Beatles’ music. Part of this affection, no doubt, is simple nostalgia. My childhood was happy, and the Beatles were quite the presence during that part of my childhood when my consciousness was firmly formed.

I’m no musical sophisticate (as, probably, my abiding affection for Beatles’ music attests). But I’ve long felt that two of the most revolutionary moments in western musical history are the first two notes of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and the Beatles’ two-minute song "Please Please Me." Both broke significantly from anything heard before.

No matter, though. I like Beatles’ music because it makes me happy. And the songs that make me happiest have no political message, no social ‘consciousness,’ no intent to educate. Instead, they’re about attraction and simple love.

I’m pleased to report that my son, Thomas, loves the Beatles. This fact does not impress his mother (who dislikes the Beatles). When Thomas and I are alone, "I Saw Her Standing There," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "I Feel Fine," "Octopus’s Garden," and other joyful songs fill the air. We sing along. Thomas smiles. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Only Economists Bleed

Here's rock-star Alice Cooper's case for his fellow entertainers to steer clear of politics -- or, more accurately, for the rest of us to discount what Pretty and Popular People say about political issues of the day. When asked about the political activism of the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow, Cooper opined:

To me, that's treason. I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics," says the 56-year-old Cooper, who begins a 15-city Canadian tour on Aug. 20 in Thunder Bay, Ont.

"When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick.

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.

I agree with Mr. Cooper. Not because I support Bush (I don't), but because I'm distressed by the all-too-frequent foolishness of the pronouncements about economics and political matters made by entertainers who venture into political commentary.

Rock on.

I think therefore iPod

My colleague Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution wonders whether iPod is going to make it. He wonders if Apple has much of a competitive advantage in the hardware suggesting that the songs are basically a loss leader to get people to buy the device. Then when competition in devices heats up, Apple will be cooked. Tyler asks:

Above and beyond the ephemeral value of superior style, what is the source of Apple's long-term competitive advantage?

I'm a little more optimistic. The iPod is more than just beautiful. It's ergonomically delightful and remains ahead of the competition while it continues to improve battery life, ease of use and soon, storage space. The Apple desktop interface, iTunes, also continues to improve. It's incredibly pleasant to use. My audiophile friends tell me that the Apple music compression system, AAC, is considered the best.

Right now I use my iPod in the car to listen to books through my car stereo I've purchased at audible.com. (I use the Monster iCarplay device that charges and acts as an FM transmitter at the same time. Works beautifully.) I'm sure it's possible to do that with other MP3 players but this sure is easy.

For me the real question is how Sony and the other studios will survive. What is their competitive advantage? Their distribution system and their taste. The former is very expensive with not that much return for the consumer. It's the reason Apple charges 99 cents rather than what, 49? Or 19? Or 9? Built into the costs of downloading are the old deals the labels have with their artists that were built to cover brick and mortar and human distribution chains. I'd much rather buy my music off the web. For me, a non-audiophile, the quality is fine. The distribution costs add nothing to my enjoyment but I'm paying for them anyway.

The real challenge with buying music on the web is filtering the quality. I don't want to wade through a zillion newcomers to find the gem. That's what I'm willing to pay a music studio for. The solution is for iTunes to become a music studio, highlighting new artists and sellling their music to me at low cost. That cuts out the middleman distribution costs and the savings will be shared by Apple, the artists and me, the listener.

So the real question of what the music business will look like in five years is a question of how hard it will be to be an "editor" or filter identifying new talent that people will enjoy. Sony is pretty good at that now. But it might be easier to copy that skill than it is to copy the hardware and the software as Apple continues to improve.

Aside to Tyler, based on this post by my colleague and Tyler's co-blogger, Alex Tabarrok: Stay away from the haggis. Stick to the single malts. I recommend Lagavulin.

Mind Your Own Business

While out for a drive this morning I scanned the FM radio spectrum and happened upon Hank Williams, Sr.'s recording of "Mind Your Own Business." (He also wrote the song.) Although as a rule I don't like country music, that of Hank Williams, Sr. is an exception to this rule -- and this song of his is probably my favorite. I especially appreciate the last two stanzas:

If I want to honky tonk around 'til two or three

Now, brother that's my headache, don't you worry 'bout me.

Just mind your own business

(Mind your own business)

If you mind your business, then you won't be mindin' mine.

Mindin' other people's business seems to be high-toned

I got all that I can do just to mind my own

Why don't you mind your own business

(Mind your own business)

If you mind your own business, you'll stay busy all the time.

Indeed. Mindin' other people's business is regarded as high-toned. It's the principal occupation of too many folks. How insightful of a twentysomething, poorly educated, guitar-strumming farm boy from Alabama to recognize an important truth overlooked by so many PhD-sporting intellectuals -- namely, for each of us, taking care of our own business is business enough. Minding the business of other people not only officiously and arrogantly interferes with other people's lives, it takes us away from the most important business that each of us should attend to: our own.