NeoFisherism without rational expectations

Is the Fed's "zero-interest-rate policy" (ZIRP) inflationary or deflationary? You'd think that macroeconomists would have a straight answer for such a simple question. But we don't. As usual, the answer seems to depend on things.

Someone once joked that an economist is someone who sees something work in practice and then asks whether it might work in theory. Well, appealing to the evidence is not much help here either. We have examples like that of Volcker temporarily raising rates (by lowering the money supply growth rate) to lower inflation in the early 1980s. But then we have the present counterexample of ZIRP, which seems to be having little effect in raising inflation. Indeed, the Fed has consistently missed its 2% inflation target from below for years now (see Understanding Lowflation).

Some economists suggest that there are theoretical reasons to support the notion that ZIRP is deflationary. The proposition that targeting a nominal interest rate at a low (high) level results in low (high) inflation is known as "NeoFisherism." The idea goes back at least to Benhabib, Schmitt-Grohe and Uribe (2001) in their The Perils of Taylor Rules. The idea has been taken seriously in policy circles. My boss, St. Louis Fed president Jim Bullard wrote about it here in 2010. You can read all about the recent controversy here: Understanding the NeoFisherite Rebellion.

The basic idea behind NeoFisherism is the Fisher equation:

FE1: Nominal interest rate = real interest rate + expected inflation.

One interpretation of the Fisher equation is that it is a no-arbitrage-condition that equates the real rate of return on a nominal bond with the real rate of return on a real (e.g., TIPS) bond. FE1 implicitly assumes that the risk and liquidity characteristics of the nominal and real bond are identical. Steve Williamson and I consider a model where the nominal bond (potentially) carries a liquidity premium, in which case FE1 becomes:

FE2: Nominal interest rate + liquidity premium = real interest rate + expected inflation.

I'm not aware of any economist that disputes the logic underlying (some version of) the Fisher equation. The controversy lies elsewhere. But before going there, let me describe the way things are supposed to work in neoclassical theory.

Start in a steady-state equilibrium where FE1 holds. Now consider a surprise permanent increase in the nominal interest rate. What happens? Well, a higher nominal interest rate increases the opportunity cost of holding money, so people want to economize on their money balances. However, because someone must hold the outstanding stock of money, a "hot potato effect" implies that the equilibrium inflation rate must rise (the real rate of return on money must fall). In the new steady-state equilibrium, real money balances are lower (the price-level and the inflation rate are higher than they would have been prior to the policy shock). If people have rational expectations, then absent any friction, inflation expectations jump up along with actual inflation. If there are nominal rigidities, then inflation may (or may not) decline for a while following the shock, but in the long-run, higher interest rate policy leads to higher inflation. [Aside: my own view is that a supporting fiscal policy is needed for this result to transpire; see here: A Dirty Little Secret.]

The conventional wisdom, however, is that pegging the nominal interest rate is unstable. Suppose we begin, by some fluke, in a steady-state where FE1 holds. Now consider the same experiment but assume that people form their expectations of inflation through some adaptive process; see Howitt (1992). For example, suppose that today's inflation expectation is simply yesterday's inflation rate. Then an increase in the nominal rate must, by FE1, lead to an increase in the real interest rate. An increase in the real interest rate depresses aggregate demand today (consumer and investment goods). The surprise drop in demand leads to a surprise decline in the price-level--the inflation rate turns out to be lower than expected. Going forward, people adapt their inflation forecasts downward. But given FE1, this implies yet another increase in the real interest rate. And so on. A deflationary spiral ensues.

For those interested, refer to this more detailed discussion by John Cochrane: The Neo-Fisherian Question.

Now, the thought occurred to me: what if we replace the assumption of rational expectations in my model with Williamson (cited above) with a form of adaptive expectations? What would happen if we performed the same experiment but, beginning in a steady-state where there is an "asset shortage" so that the FE2 version of the Fisher equation holds. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the following.

First, because expected inflation is fixed in the period the nominal interest rate is raised, FE2 suggests that either the real interest rate rises, or the liquidity premium falls, or both. In our model, there is substitution out of the cash good into the credit good. But because there is a cash-in-advance constraint on the cash good, i.e., p(t)c(t) = M(t), it follows that a decline in the demand for c(t) corresponds to a decline in the demand for real money balances--that is, the price-level p(t) must jump up unexpectedly (for a given money supply M(t)).

Now, given the surprise jump in the price-level, an adaptive expectations rule will adjust the expected rate of inflation upward. What happens next depends critically on the properties of the assumed learning rule, the policy rule, etc. For my purpose here, I make the following assumptions. Suppose that the economy remains in the "asset shortage" scenario and assume that the government fixes the money growth rate at exactly the new, higher, adaptively-formed, inflation expectation. In this case, the economy reaches a new steady-state with a higher interest rate, an arbitrarily higher inflation rate, and an arbitrarily lower liquidity premium (conditional on the liquidity premium remaining strictly positive). [Note: by arbitrary what I mean is that the new inflation rate is determined, under my maintained assumptions, by the initial surprise increase in inflation, which may lie anywhere within a range such that the liquidity premium remains positive. In the absence of a liquidity premium, the inflation rate would rise one-for-one with the nominal interest rate.]

I hope I made my point clear enough. The claim that increasing the nominal interest rate leads to higher inflation does not depend on rational expectations as is commonly claimed. A simple adaptive rule could lead to higher inflation expectations. The key is whether the price-level impact of increasing the nominal interest rate is positive or negative. If it's positive, then people will revise their adaptive expectations upward and, depending on the learning rule and policy reaction, the ensuing inflation dynamic could play itself out in the form of permanently higher inflation. The NeoFisherite proposition is possible even if people do not have rational expectations.

Postscript Nov. 01, 2015
Tony Yates suggests the cost channel in Ravenna and Walsh (2006)  together with least-squares learning might deliver the same result. It's a good idea. Somebody should try to work it out! 

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Ignorerer risikoen

NBIM ved kommunikasjonssjef Thomas Sevang mener i DN 21.10 at Oljefondet har tjent på Blackrock. Beviset er at Blackrock har gitt 14,9 prosent avkastning, mot indeksens 13,3.

NBIM kan ikke ha lest kronikken min godt. Jeg skrev om risikojustert avkastning. Det har vært omtrent 35 prosent mer risiko i Blackrock-aksjen enn i markedet. Skal vi sammenligne likt med likt må vi multiplisere målmerket vårt, altså indeksen, med 1,35. Det gir et årlig tap på over 3 prosent tilsvarende omtrent like mange milliarder.

Jeg skal ikke legge skjul på at beregningene er heftet med usikkerhet. Kjøpsdatoen er avgjørende. Det er ikke informasjon vi får fra NBIM så 2. januar ble valgt. Med tallene NBIM nå presenterer blir tapet noe mindre. Tapet er uansett bagatellmessig i forhold til hele fondets portefølje, noe jeg også skrev klart og tydelig i kronikken.

Poenget er at med mindre vi ignorerer risikoen, så er avkastningen med godvilje omtrent som markedet. Det er et middelmådig resultat for et stort aksjeveddemål. Mye tyder på at NBIM ikke er særlig glad i risikojustering, men det er en grunn til at dette er standard prosedyre for alle andre fond i verden.

Med middelmådig resultater er det uforståelig at Oljefondet fortsetter å bruke felleskapets midler til å finansiere ekspansjonen til en allerede ubehagelig stor aktør på Wall Street.

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How to copy a folder from jboss deployment to your local machine

The code below will copy a folder from a deployed application in jboss to a local folder in your machine. This is useful if you want to deploy something, perhaps a set of configuration files on your local machine on deployment.

File destinationDir = new File(destinationFolder);
if (!destinationDir.exists()) {
 destinationDir.mkdirs();

 //get the folder path from resource
 String sourcePath = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("./jasper").getPath();
 File sourceFile = new File(sourcePath);
 if (!sourceFile.exists()) {
  //get the vfs path
  VirtualFile vfDir = VFS.getChild("/content/"
    + ParamBean.getInstance().getProperty("meveo.moduleName", "meveo")
    + ".war/WEB-INF/classes/jasper");
  URL vfPath = VFSUtils.getPhysicalURL(vfDir);
  sourceFile = new File(vfPath.getPath());
  if (!sourceFile.exists()) {
   throw new Exception("missing source");
  }
 }
 
 //copy the resource files to local machine
 FileUtils.copyDirectory(sourceFile, destinationDir);
}  

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How to download a file from the server using javaEE

The following snippet will accept a filename in the server's directory, set it as the content of the FacesContext for the user to download.

public String downloadXMLInvoice(String fileName) {
 File file = new File(getXmlInvoiceDir().getAbsolutePath() + File.separator + fileName);
 
 try {
  FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
  HttpServletResponse res = (HttpServletResponse) context.getExternalContext().getResponse();
  res.setContentType("application/force-download");
  res.setContentLength((int) file.length());
  res.addHeader("Content-disposition", "attachment;filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");

  OutputStream out = res.getOutputStream();
  InputStream fin = new FileInputStream(file);

  byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
  int sig = 0;
  while ((sig = fin.read(buf, 0, 1024)) != -1) {
   out.write(buf, 0, sig);
  }
  
  fin.close();
  out.flush();
  out.close();
  
  context.responseComplete();
 } catch (Exception e) {
  log.error(Epic failed :-) ", e.getMessage(), file.getAbsolutePath());
 }
 
 return null;
}

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How to use xpath to read nodes from xml file

XPath is a java library that let us read a complicated xml document with ease.

In our simple example below we have an xml that contains computers with some random tags like os.

<computers>
 <windows>
  <lenovo model="g50">
   <year>2015</year>
  </lenovo>
  <lenovo model="g5040">
   <year>2014</year>
  </lenovo>
  <asus>
   <year>2015</year>
  </asus>
  <dell>
   <year>2014</year>
  </dell>
 </windows>
 <osx>
  <macbookpro>
   <year>2014</year>
  </macbookpro>
 </osx>
</computers>

For example if we want to get the lenovo node with year 2014, we then need to use the xpath feature with a parameter=/computers/windows/lenovo[year/text()='2014'].

package com.broodcamp.xstream_demo;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringWriter;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPath;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPathConstants;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPathExpression;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPathExpressionException;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactory;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;

/**
 * @author Edward P. Legaspi
 **/
public class XPathDemo {

 public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
   new XPathDemo();
  } catch (XPathExpressionException | ParserConfigurationException | SAXException | IOException
    | TransformerException e) {
   // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
 }

 public XPathDemo() throws ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException, XPathExpressionException,
   TransformerException {
  ClassLoader classLoader = getClass().getClassLoader();
  File fXmlFile = new File(classLoader.getResource("xpath_demo.xml").getFile());

  DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
  DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
  Document doc = dBuilder.parse(fXmlFile);

  Transformer trans = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
  StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
  trans.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(writer));
  System.out.println(writer.getBuffer().toString().replaceAll("\n|\r", ""));

  XPath xPath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
  XPathExpression expr = xPath.compile("/computers/windows/lenovo[year/text()='2014']");
  Object result = expr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODE);

  NodeList nodes = (NodeList) result;

  for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {
   System.out.println("nodes: " + nodes.item(i).getTextContent());
  }
 }

}

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Oljefondets BlackRock-tap

Oljefondets største enkeltveddemål, aksjer i BlackRock, har et samlet risikojustert tap på tre milliarder kroner.*

Blackrock er verdens største forvalter. For en global investor som Oljefondet er det umulig å manøvrere i den internasjonale finansverdenen uten å støte på BlackRock ganske ofte.

BlackRock har en verdensledende handelsplattform som Oljefondet er helt avhengig av. Systemet holder styr på 7 % av verdens kapital. Oljefondet byttet bank fra JP Morgan til Citigroup i fjor. BlackRock er storeiere i begge bankene. Oljefondet kjøpte et bygg i Paris i fjor til 3,5 milliarder. Selger var BlackRock. Selskapet forvalter verdier tilsvarende 24 prosent av all finanskapital i USA.

De fleste vil kanskje tenke at det er dumt å gjøre seg mer avhengig av denne giganten enn strengt tatt nødvendig. Men slik tenker ikke Oljefondet. Tvert imot har fondet på eget initiativ flette seg selv stadig tettere inn i BlackRocks nettverk ved å investere for over 30 milliarder i selskapet. Oljefondet er nå største eier og BlackRock er fondets mest overvektede enkeltaksje.

Etter fem år er fasiten et samlet risikojustert tap på om lag syv milliarder kroner. Dette utgjør omtrent én promille av fondets verdier. Det er kanskje ikke mye, men det er vanskelig å forstå hensikten. Resultatene er i beste fall middelmådige, så hvorfor gjøre seg enda mer avhengig av en allerede ubehagelig stor aktør?

Siden Oljefondet kom inn i 2010 har ikke BlackRock opplevd uventede problemer av betydning. De middelmådige resultatene kan altså ikke forklares med uflaks.

Problemet er sannsynligvis at de ansatte stikker av med mesteparten av gevinsten hos kapitalforvaltere. Utgiftene til en forvalter er for det meste lønn. I 2014 utgjorde lønnskostnader nærmere seksti prosent av BlackRocks utgifter. Forvalteren betalte ut over 30 milliarder kroner i lønn og bonuser, eller om lag 2,6 millioner kroner per ansatt. Investorene fikk rundt 10 milliarder i utbytte.

Kanskje har Oljefondet tenkt at som storeier i BlackRock vil fondet få tilbake noe av milliardene de betaler inn for forvaltning, rådgiving og for handelsplattformen? Problemet er bare at veldig mye av dette forsvinner til de ansatte før overskuddet fordeles til aksjonærene.

I finansverdenen er det beinhard konkurranse om talent. Ingen jobber for BlackRock fordi de har et kall. For å holde på talent må lønningene til himmels. Derfor går uvanlig mye av overskuddet til avlønning.

Dette vet markedet. BlackRocks aksjer er derfor trolig priset slik at forventet avkastning justert for risiko er omtrent lik indeksen. Historien så langt bekrefter mistanken.

Den tette kontakten mellom BlackRock og Oljefondet gir grunn til å spørre om investeringsbeslutningen er tatt med den nødvendige kjølige distansen vi bør forvente. Det er ikke overraskende at glade amatører plasserer penger i egen forvalter, slik som det mye omtalte Lise og Arnfinn Hejes fond. Oljefondet burde imidlertid opptre mer profesjonelt.

Oljefondet bør gjøre seg mindre og ikke mer avhengig av BlackRock. Investeringen ser ikke ut til å gi superprofitt. Da er det ingen grunn til at Oljefondet skal tviholde på den.


*Jeg har endret noe på beregningen slik at tapet er redusert fra 7 til 3 millarder.


BlackRock-ansatte stakk av med gevinsten:

Kilder: BlackRock, NBIM, Yahoo Finance.

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Subjective explainer: gun debate in the US

In the wake of the tragic events in Roseburg, I decided to briefly return to the topic of looking at the US culture from the perspective of a person born in Europe. In particular, I wanted to circle back to the topic of firearms.

Contrary to popular beliefs, the United States has witnessed a dramatic decline in violence over the past 20 years. In fact, when it comes to most types of violent crime - say, robbery, assault, or rape - the country now compares favorably to the UK and many other OECD nations. But as I explored in my earlier posts, one particular statistic - homicide - is still registering about three times as high as in many other places within the EU.

The homicide epidemic in the United States has a complex nature and overwhelmingly affects ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged social groups; perhaps because of this, the phenomenon sees very little honest, public scrutiny. It is propelled into the limelight only in the wake of spree shootings and other sickening, seemingly random acts of terror; such incidents, although statistically insignificant, take a profound mental toll on the American society. At the same time, the effects of high-profile violence seem strangely short-lived: they trigger a series of impassioned political speeches, invariably focusing on the connection between violence and guns - but the nation soon goes back to business as usual, knowing full well that another massacre will happen soon, perhaps the very same year.

On the face of it, this pattern defies all reason - angering my friends in Europe and upsetting many brilliant and well-educated progressives in the US. They utter frustrated remarks about the all-powerful gun lobby and the spineless politicians, blaming the partisan gridlock for the failure to pass even the most reasonable and toothless gun control laws. I used to be in the same camp; today, I think the reality is more complex than that.

To get to the bottom of this mystery, it helps to look at the spirit of radical individualism and classical liberalism that remains the national ethos of the United States - and in fact, is enjoying a degree of resurgence unseen for many decades prior. In Europe, it has long been settled that many individual liberties - be it the freedom of speech or the natural right to self-defense - can be constrained to advance even some fairly far-fetched communal goals. On the old continent, such sacrifices sometimes paid off, and sometimes led to atrocities; but the basic premise of European collectivism is not up for serious debate. In America, the same notion certainly cannot be taken for granted today.

When it comes to firearm ownership in particular, the country is facing a fundamental choice between two possible realities:

• A largely disarmed society that depends on the state to protect it from almost all harm, and where citizens are generally not permitted to own guns without presenting a compelling cause. In this model, adopted by many European countries, firearms tend to be less available to common criminals - simply by the virtue of limited supply and comparatively high prices in black market trade. At the same time, it can be argued that any nation subscribing to this doctrine becomes more vulnerable to foreign invasion or domestic terror, should its government ever fail to provide adequate protection to all citizens. Disarmament can also limit civilian recourse against illegitimate, totalitarian governments - a seemingly outlandish concern, but also a very fresh memory for many European countries subjugated not long ago under the auspices of the Soviet Bloc.

  
  
  

• A well-armed society where firearms are available to almost all competent adults, and where the natural right to self-defense is subject to few constraints. This is the model currently employed in the United States, where it arises from the straightfoward, originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment - as recognized by roughly 75% of all Americans and affirmed by the Supreme Court. When following such a doctrine, a country will likely witness greater resiliency in the face of calamities or totalitarian regimes. At the same time, its citizens might have to accept some inherent, non-trivial increase in violent crime due to the prospect of firearms more easily falling into the wrong hands.

  
  
  

It seems doubtful that a viable middle-ground approach can exist in the United States. With more than 300 million civilian firearms in circulation, most of them in unknown hands, the premise of reducing crime through gun control would inevitably and critically depend on some form of confiscation; without such drastic steps, the supply of firearms to the criminal underground or to unfit individuals would not be disrupted in any meaningful way. Because of this, intellectual integrity requires us to look at many of the legislative proposals not only through the prism of their immediate utility, but also to give consideration to the societal model they are likely to advance.

And herein lies the problem: many of the current "common-sense" gun control proposals have very little merit when considered in isolation. There is scant evidence that reinstating the ban on military-looking semi-automatic rifles ("assault weapons"), or rolling out the prohibition on private sales at gun shows, would deliver measurable results. There is also no compelling reason to believe that ammo taxes, firearm owner liability insurance, mandatory gun store cameras, firearm-free school zones, bans on open carry, or federal gun registration can have any impact on violent crime. And so, the debate often plays out like this:

At the same time, by the virtue of making weapons more difficult, expensive, and burdensome to own, many of the legislative proposals floated by progressives would probably gradually erode the US gun culture; intentionally or not, their long-term outcome would be a society less passionate about firearms and more willing to follow in the footsteps of Australia or the UK. Only as we cross that line and confiscate hundreds of millions of guns, it's fathomable - yet still far from certain - that we would see a sharp drop in homicides.

This method of inquiry helps explain the visceral response from gun rights advocates: given the legislation's dubious benefits and its predicted long-term consequences, many pro-gun folks are genuinely worried that making concessions would eventually mean giving up one of their cherished civil liberties - and on some level, they are right.

Some feel that this argument is a fallacy, a tell tale invented by a sinister corporate "gun lobby" to derail the political debate for personal gain. But the evidence of such a conspiracy is hard to find; in fact, it seems that the progressives themselves often fan the flames. In the wake of Roseburg, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came out praising the confiscation-based gun control regimes employed in Australia and the UK - and said that they would like the US to follow suit. Depending on where you stand on the issue, it was either an accidental display of political naivete, or the final reveal of their sinister plan. For the latter camp, the ultimate proof of a progressive agenda came a bit later: in response to the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, several eminent Democratic-leaning newspapers published scathing editorials demanding civilian disarmament while downplaying the attackers' connection to Islamic State.

Another factor that poisons the debate is that despite being highly educated and eloquent, the progressive proponents of gun control measures are often hopelessly unfamiliar with the very devices they are trying to outlaw:

I'm reminded of the widespread contempt faced by Senator Ted Stevens following his attempt to compare the Internet to a "series of tubes" as he was arguing against net neutrality. His analogy wasn't very wrong - it just struck a nerve as simplistic and out-of-date. My progressive friends did not react the same way when Representative Carolyn McCarthy - one of the key proponents of the ban on assault weapons - showed no understanding of the supposedly lethal firearm features she was trying to eradicate. Such bloopers are not rare, too; not long ago, Mr. Bloomberg, one of the leading progressive voices on gun control in America, argued against semi-automatic rifles without understanding how they differ from the already-illegal machine guns:

Yet another example comes Representative Diana DeGette, the lead sponsor of a "common-sense" bill that sought to prohibit the manufacture of magazines with capacity over 15 rounds. She defended the merits of her legislation while clearly not understanding how a magazine differs from ammunition - or that the former can be reused:

"I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those know they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available."

Treating gun ownership with almost comical condescension has become vogue among a good number of progressive liberals. On a campaign stop in San Francisco, Mr. Obama sketched a caricature of bitter, rural voters who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them". Not much later, one Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post spoke of the Second Amendment as "the refuge of bumpkins and yeehaws who like to think they are protecting their homes against imagined swarthy marauders desperate to steal their flea-bitten sofas from their rotting front porches". Many of the newspaper's readers probably had a good laugh - and then wondered why it has gotten so difficult to seek sensible compromise.

There are countless dubious and polarizing claims made by the supporters of gun rights, too; examples include a recent NRA-backed tirade by Dana Loesch denouncing the "godless left", or the constant onslaught of conspiracy theories spewed by Alex Jones and Glenn Beck. But when introducing new legislation, the burden of making educated and thoughtful arguments should rest on its proponents, not other citizens. When folks such as Bloomberg prescribe sweeping changes to the American society while demonstrating striking ignorance about the topics they want to regulate, they come across as elitist and flippant - and deservedly so.

Given how controversial the topic is, I think it's wise to start an open, national conversation about the European model of gun control and the risks and benefits of living in an unarmed society. But it's also likely that such a debate wouldn't last very long. Progressive politicians like to say that the dialogue is impossible because of the undue influence of the National Rifle Association - but as I discussed in my earlier blog posts, the organization's financial resources and power are often overstated: it does not even make it onto the list of top 100 lobbyists in Washington, and its support comes mostly from member dues, not from shadowy business interests or wealthy oligarchs. In reality, disarmament just happens to be a very unpopular policy in America today: the support for gun ownership is very strong and has been growing over the past 20 years - even though hunting is on the decline.

Perhaps it would serve the progressive movement better to embrace the gun culture - and then think of ways to curb its unwanted costs. Addressing inner-city violence, especially among the disadvantaged youth, would quickly bring the US homicide rate much closer to the rest of the highly developed world. But admitting the staggering scale of this social problem can be an uncomfortable and politically charged position to hold. For Democrats, it would be tantamount to singling out minorities. For Republicans, it would be just another expansion of the nanny state.

PS. If you are interested in a more systematic evaluation of the scale, the impact, and the politics of gun ownership in the United States, you may enjoy an earlier entry on this blog. Or, if you prefer to read my entire series comparing the life in Europe and in the US, try this link.

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