Can't Someone Arrange a Meeting...

...between Bono and Hernando de Soto?

I attended the U2 concert at MSG on Monday night and Bono was, as he is admirably known to do, pushing anti-poverty efforts hard. I had pretty cheap seats (metaphorically speaking, more accurately they were far-removed seats and not at all cheap) so I wasn't close enough to pelt him in the melon with this book (and I don't normally make a habit of bringing great works in the field of economics to rock concerts).

I believe that de Soto's book will one day prove as important and be as revered as Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. Hayek got little in the way of recognition throughout his career, but decades later we can say, as Thomas Sowell put it, "the world was wrong and Hayek was right." Sooner rather than later, I hope we can say "while the world mounted countless ineffectual campaigns to eradicate poverty over the years, de Soto had the answer the whole bloody time."

Donny Baseball's Freshman Economic Seminar Reading List

Greg Mankiw has posted the reading list for his freshman economics seminar. It's a good list, but, naturally, a highly calibrated list befitting an unstintingly collegial academic like Mankiw. Such an occasion gives me the opportunity to highlight what I believe are two of the most underappreciated books in economics. I wish their authors would be more widely known and studied. Students wishing to prepare for actual real life and responsible, informed citizenship would do well to read these two books.

The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon

World's Poor Need Hernando De Soto

Pejman Yousefzadeh is saying something very close to what I've been saying. Here, here and here for instance.

FT Dons the Euro Blinders for the World Bank

The chaps and chapettes over at a popular pink foreign newspaper have taken grave offense at the sullying of the World Bank's stature and lament that its mission is in peril of permanent impairment. In a classic exposition of the European mindset that values intentions versus the American mindset that values results, the editorialists at said pink newspaper make the courageous claim that Europeans don't like corruption either.

"Some of the Americans who want such a showdown see what is happening as a malevolent European plot to bring down their courageous warrior against corruption. But the notion that the US alone cares about corruption in development assistance is outrageous..."

As we know on this side of the pond, for them that suffices. For us, an historical track record of not doing anything about it cuts the claim to shreads. If you care, you demand results, intentions are not enough. Of course, we see this almost everywhere we turn from the stunning wimpishness with which the Euro-3 confronted Iran over its violations in seeking nuclear capability to the incessant lecturing we get from Europeans over global warming while they violate their Kyoto requirements. As usual Europeans care in the cocktail party sense, but have no desire to get their hands dirty. If they truly think Wolfowitz is such an execrable character based on his actions at the World Bank (and not actions in previous capacities) and they were as committed to anti-corruption as they say, they would put forward a replacement candidate that is committed to the Wolfowitz agenda but was free of whatever ethical taint they claim. Instead, as the WSJ pointed out the other day, a leading candidate appears to be Mark Malloch Brown, for whom there is a good case is either oblivious or indifferent to corruption. That's on a good day.

The thorny problem here for the Bush administration is a question of ends versus means. The World Bank is a failure and ought to be reformed or euthanized, but reform looks increasing impossible. However, the proper way to sunset the Bank is not to debilitate it through a crisis of confidence, but rather on the basis of the evidence of its failure and the affirmative merits of an alternative approach, perhaps on the model of Hernando de Soto's Institute for Liberty and Democracy. This is the way I would like to see the end of the World Bank, but the world doesn't always work that way; sometimes the right ends come about by the wrong means. I think here of that British civil servant who abdicated professional responsibility because he wanted John Kerry to be President of some other people's country.

UPDATE: George Will, as well, says pull the plug. On the Bank that is, not Wolfowitz.

Plethora at WSJ Today

Lots of juicy stuff on the WSJ's Op-Ed page today.  First, Rich Kaalgaard pens a great piece about Wal-Mart's problems, and America's.  Wal-Mart is suffering because low-income America is suffering, after four years of Obama.  Funny that.  Incidentally Kaalgaard references gas prices as an anti-stimulant to the economy.  I covered gas prices as a stimulant way back in 2008 .  The process works in reverse too, as it is doing now.

Next up is the WSJ is an Op-Ed from the best/most important economist you've never heard of, Hernando de Soto.  I've referenced him here on this blog a couple of times.

Finally we get a boring subject made interesting by the offbeat perspective and brilliant word-smithing of Holman Jenkins.  Check out this sentence.

Though racing has grown in popularity around the world and sponsor dollars seem to be available in profusion, nobody anywhere has yet revealed an urge to replicate Nascar's serendipitous, crowd-pleasing and Faustian invention of aerodynamic pack racing.

Who today in a large circulation paper is treating their readers to writing like that?  Nobody I can think of.

As a bonus, in the news pages we are treated to the revelation that California is bracing for an energy crisis because...wait for it...they've come to rely too much on wind and solar for their electricity supply.  Delicious stuff.

However, the surplus generating capacity doesn't guarantee steady power flow. Even though California has a lot of plants, it doesn't have the right mix: Many of the solar and wind sources added in recent years have actually made the system more fragile, because they provide power intermittently.

Laugh or cry, your choice.