In most cases people recognize that increasing productivity is a good thing. If we develop new technologies or make organizational changes that allow us to produce more output with the same inputs, we celebrate. If people acquire education or experience that allows them to produce more with their human capital, we regard this payoff as wholly beneficial. And so forth.

Yet in regard to one extremely important means of increasing our productivity, many people actually object strenuously. This bizarre case pertains to open international trade. Such trade is the simple and obvious means by which, for thousands of years, people have produced A, B, and C and exported it to buyers in other lands, using the proceeds to purchase X, Y, and Z from foreigners. Producing A, B, and C and exporting them is an indirect way of acquiring what we value more, namely, X, Y, and Z. For example, Americans produce software and soy beans and use them to acquire computers and automobiles from the Japanese and South Koreans. The process of exchange need not be bilateral, of course. Americans export a great variety of goods and services to many foreign nations and, in exchange, import a great variety of goods and services from many foreign nations. Yet producing and exporting goods is clearly always a means whereby the goods produced abroad and imported into the USA are acquired at lesser total resource cost than would be the case if those goods were produced domestically.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is helping to bankroll a television-commercial campaign in favor of proposed soda taxes in Oakland and San Francisco, known as Measure HH and Proposition V, respectively, which will appear on each city’s November ballot. You can’t miss the commercial if you live in the Bay Area, as it seems to air a thousand times a day on local TV stations. Unfortunately, from an economist’s perspective, the pro-tax commercial is misleading.

The Oakland and San Francisco soda taxes would charge soda distributors an additional one cent per ounce of soda they sell in each city (or $2.88 per case). The tax would also apply to the distribution of other sugar-sweetened drinks. The Bloomberg ad, which can be viewed below, says “it’s not a grocery tax, it’s a soda tax.” But this is not entirely true from an economics perspective.

There’s an important difference between the “imposition of a tax,” on the one hand, and the “incidence of a tax,” on the other hand. Imposition is where the tax is technically levied. Incidence refers to who really pays the tax (the tax burden), which is one of the most important questions regarding any tax. Every microeconomics principles textbook covers this topic.

It’s true that the soda tax is levied technically on distributors of sodas, but this is merely the imposition of the tax. Any cost increase to distributors because of the tax can be passed on by them to grocers who, in turn, can pass it on to their retail customers by increasing the retail price of any product or products they choose in their store. So the incidence of the tax—who really pays the tax—falls on grocery buyers, whether they drink sodas or not. The tax is also a regressive tax, meaning it would harm lower-income families disproportionately more than higher-income families. Bloomberg and the pro-tax crowd are misleading the public with the ad.

The ad ends with: “Didn’t anyone tell big soda it’s not nice to lie?” But it’s Michael Bloomberg and soda-tax advocates that are not telling the whole truth: grocery customers will face higher grocery bills as a result of the soda tax.

The soda tax is also akin to telling your child this: “Your classmate Lawrence is not drinking what we think he should. So it’s ok to steal money from Lawrence and all his classmates until Lawrence stops drinking bad things.” Hopefully no parent would tell their child this. Neither should this immoral and flawed logic be the basis of public policy. But it’s the logic behind Measure HH and Prop V. The lesson being taught by the pro-tax side is “It’s ok to steal, as long as you think you’re doing right by it.” Taxation is always theft; “legal” theft, but theft nevertheless. It’s taking money by force from others.

Didn’t anyone tell soda-tax advocates it’s not nice to steal and lie?

Few figures have been as polarizing as Edward Snowden, the intelligence-agency computer contractor turned whistleblower who leaked national security files to the press and raised global awareness about the breadth of U.S. government spying. Snowden has been in effective exile since 2013, when the government revoked his passport and started pressuring Russia to extradite him to the United States to stand trial for treason and other crimes. He is hailed as a hero in libertarian circles—see this clip from Reason TV on the efforts to promote a pardon—and by others favoring strong protections for civil liberties and privacy.

Given Snowden’s impact, a film about him and his actions was inevitable. The real questions were: who would be responsible for making it, and what story would it tell? We now have the answer in the biopic Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone and based on two books, one by a journalist and the other by a Russian attorney who represented the whistleblower. The story unfolds in flashback as Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is interviewed by award-winning documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) in Hong Kong in 2013.

What unfolds is a somewhat plodding film that is underwhelming as a “political thriller,” its advertised genre.  The pace never really builds, and the artistic commitment to faithfully tell the story of Snowden’s ideological drift, from conservative patriot to hardened government skeptic, creates a straight-line narrative that lacks dramatic conflict and tension. The primary suspense involves Snowden’s unsteady relationship with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley), not his personal journey toward surveillance skepticism and his decision to go public with classified information that ultimately upends global relationships. As a biopic, however, Stone’s film crafts an effective chronicle of Snowden’s transformation from a naive army Special Forces recruit to a values-driven surveillance skeptic.

Oliver Stone, of course, is known for making historical narrative films that blur lines between fact and fiction, such as JFK (1991), The Doors (1991), and Nixon (1995). He is also an accomplished documentarian of films that spotlight leftist and progressive political figures such as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales (Bolivia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and others, many of whom he praises. Many of his other narrative films carry strong anti-war themes, including Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of the July (1989), both of which won him an Oscar for Best Director. Unfortunately, Stone’s skepticism of government appears directed primarily at capitalist democracies, not left-wing or progressive governments with dismal records on civil liberties and personal freedom.

In the Cold War era, Eastern bloc countries prevented their citizens from leaving.  The Berlin Wall was the most iconic symbol of the Eastern bloc’s no exit policy.  Hillary Clinton’s proposed exit tax “on the untaxed overseas earnings of multinational companies that leave the U.S.” falls short of being a Berlin Wall for U.S. corporations only because it is not as extreme.  Its philosophical foundation is the same: prevent those who want to leave the country for better conditions elsewhere from doing so.

Clinton’s economic plan goes further than that.  Some U.S. corporations have merged with overseas corporations and moved their headquarters overseas to avoid higher U.S. tax rates, a move known as corporate inversion.  Clinton’s website says, “Clinton will prevent inversions and related transactions driven by tax planning to lower corporate tax bills.”  She adds that she will “Entirely block inversions that are likely to be the most abusive through a 50% merger threshold.”  That’s sounding more like a Berlin Wall.

The United States has always allowed its citizens to leave if they choose to live elsewhere, and has remained desirable enough that more people want to move in than move out.  For corporations, that’s not so much the case.

Rather than follow a Berlin Wall policy of trying to prevent corporations that would rather locate elsewhere from leaving, we should be designing policies that make the U.S. a desirable location for corporations.  Design policies that make foreign corporations want to locate here rather than retaining policies that make U.S. corporations want to locate elsewhere.

The policies that make some corporations want to leave also place burdens on those corporations that stay.  Those policies slow economic growth and produce a lower standard of living for everyone.  It is troubling that Clinton thinks we need a Berlin Wall-style policy to keep corporations from leaving, rather than thinking about how to make the U.S. more attractive for corporations, so they want to stay.

As the saying goes, “life imitates art.” Sometimes my research interests pop up in places I don’t expect. Recently it happened close to home.

Really, really close to home.

I’ve written extensively on the use of drones as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. I’ve explored whether or not drones are more cost effective than their manned counterparts, looked at the casualty rates associated with drone strikes, and argued that drones not only fail to eliminate terror targets, but instead serve as a recruiting tool for terror groups.

One area I have yet to study in great detail, however, is the domestic use of drones by private individuals. While I have noted and continue to explore the expanded use of drones domestically by U.S. immigration authorities and state and local police departments, I’ve generally stayed away from looking at private users. To be honest, I just find these questions a lot less interesting.

Well, that may have to change after this past week.

Election campaigns

Painful but worse is to come

Someone’s gonna win

—

Winner won’t be us

Political class will win

Rest of us, tough luck

—

Whole thing is great farce

Diverts and entertains us

Thieves make off with loot

Hell or High Water, one of the most talked about films of 2016, is billed as a modern-day western, “heist crime,” or Bonnie and Clyde. A contemporary western is more apt, and its excellent acting, steady pace, tight story and screenplay will likely make it an Oscar contender. The film also makes me yearn for a day when filmmakers learn economics, because they could use that knowledge to take stories to new levels. What is now a well-crafted genre Western could have become a much better film if the screenwriters had eschewed the self-righteousness of the Occupy Wall Street crowd and given everyone humanity and dimension, not just the thieves and police.

Hell or High Water is low-budget film ($12 million production budget) with high production values, enlisting the acting chops of veteran actors Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, and Gil Billingham among others in only a slightly updated cops-and-robbers buddy film. Pine and Foster play brothers—Toby and Tanner—who set off to rob banks to save the family farm from imminent foreclosure by the local bank. Tanner, the rebellious older brother, has just been released from prison for killing their abusive father, and he provides a fitting contrast to the more cerebral and pacifist Toby, who plays the role of the dutiful son.

The two brothers execute a well-planned series of robberies focused on a regional bank’s small town branches, taking the cash from the drawers to avoid larger bills that could be traced. Crusty Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Bridges) is put on the case with his mixed race (Comanche and Mexican) partner, Alberto Parker (Billingham). Hamilton is intentionally offensive, tossing off-color jokes to goad Parker, creating a tension that offsets the brotherly commitment that bonds Toby and Tanner. But it works as the partners come to accept each other’s foibles in their relentless pursuit of the brothers through West Texas.

Tanner, however, is near psychopathic, riding the rush of the heists, his familial loyalty barely keeping him in check. Only Toby’s genuine compassion bridles his older brother, who appears to be a hair’s breadth away from becoming a modern-day version of the murderous Depression Era outlaw Clyde Barrow. This delicate balance between violence and deference to his younger brother’s vision for the robberies—steal just enough to pay off the debt and back child support for his ex-wife and sons—keeps the brothers’ relationship on edge as each robbery ratchets up the stakes with higher levels of violence. In the end, as the Texas Rangers and local law enforcement close in, Tanner and Toby are forced to make choices that can potentially save one brother but not both.

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released the Current Population Report’s Health Insurance Coverage in The United States, 2015. This report sits alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health interview Survey as a critical source of understanding changes in health insurance in recent years.

The report discusses coverage during the three years from 2013 through 2015, so it does not reveal the large increase in employer-based coverage since the Great Recession. During this shorter period, there was an insignificant gain in employer-based coverage, and a large increase in persons dependent on Medicaid, the joint state-federal welfare program that provides health benefits to low-income residents. The number of people dependent on Medicaid for at least part of the year increased from 55 million in 2013 to 62 million in 2015. (Almost the entire increase took place in 2014, Obamacare’s first year of implementation.)

(As I have noted many times, it is incorrect to categorize Medicaid dependents as “insured” alongside those with private benefits, because the latter are earned. It is like categorizing those receiving cash welfare payments alongside wage-earners as people with “incomes.” Nevertheless, every official source makes this error.)

A couple weeks ago, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick came under intense scrutiny for refusing to stand up during the national anthem. As he plans to continue this behavior during the regular season, it’s unlikely the firestorm will subside anytime soon.

To say the responses to Kaepernick’s actions (or lack thereof) are mixed would be an understatement. To some, his actions are admirable. Others are so offended by his actions they are burning his jersey in protest.

When questioned as to why he chose to remain seated during the anthem, Kaepernick stated that it was his form of protesting what he perceives to be the mistreatment of blacks in the United States. In particular, Kaepernick pointed to the treatment of minorities by U.S. law enforcement.

Upon first hearing about this story I did two things.

From this morning’s Irish Times:

Teachers Defy Union Ban on Assessing Their Students