Re: Katrina and the Evacuation: Market Failure?
(I tried to send this on September 7 from my other account; didn't notice until now that it was rejected for that reason.) Michael Giesbrecht wrote: . . . I am engaged in arguments with people who are claiming that after the regional government threw in the towel and told everyone to fend for themselves, that what then transpired was a good indication of how markets respond in general. . . . They said similar things about the Rodney King Riots of 1992: when the police fled, the resulting violence was what we can expect in anarchy. Never mind that the police actively suppress any private institution that could take their place. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots ) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve
Speaking of Communism, is The Black Book worth having? I saw several copies yesterday at a secondhand store in San Leandro, marked about $8 if memory serves. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: GMU debate re socialist economics vs fascist economics
Jeffrey Rous wrote: While I can appreciate a good rant, this self-promotion smells a lot like spam. Am I missing something? It's not indiscriminate enough to be called spam: I've seen Rex Curry on several libertarian lists, and never seen him post the same item to two lists (unless widely separated in time); nor does he post often. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ obsolete since 21 December 2001
Re: senior discounts
Robert A. Book wrote: First, for off-peak movies and the like, the idea is to fill the seats that would otherwise go empty; in other words, convince the seniors to see movies int he afternoon, so seats are available for full-price customers at night. . . . So why do movie theaters have *both* an off-peak discount, available to all comers, and a senior discount at all times? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ obsolete since 21 December 2001
Re: senior discounts
obsolete since 21 December 2001 Robert A. Book wrote: Huh? Work has been embarrassingly sporadic since that date, though Necessity has not yet bitten me hard enough to inspire me to think of a skill I have that might still be marketable. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ obsolete since 21 December 2001
Re: Regulating Positional Goods
Ron Baty wrote (Dec.02): Given that there is little intrinsic value to being tall, but rather it is to being taller than others, would not the wide spread use of genetics to enhance height decrease the value of being tall. It reduces the positional value of a given height, obviously, but the social value of an extra inch should not change. I'm guessing you mean that the costs increase (I imagine that bigger people have more knee injuries, for example) so that the net benefit is smaller (and ultimately negative). Or did I miss something? Perhaps we should encourage, through subsidization, a certain percentage of the population to remain short. Of course, if genetics lives up to its promise we will also have to subsidize people not to look like Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman. Are you proposing this as a public policy, or as a private alternative to spending the same resources on height for oneself (or children)? If public, why?? ... At the beginning of _Fire on the Border_ by Kevin O'Donnell Jr, or possibly some other novel entirely, the protagonist has cancer(s) as a side effect of the treatments that made him eight feet tall. He's about to be cloned and his mind copied over, and insists that the copy be exactly as tall. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Economic Nationalism
Aschwin de Wolf wrote: Interesting. Instead of speaking of protectionists free traders should call (Democratic) opponents of free trade economic nationalists. So, it's back? I first heard that phrase from the Tsongas campaign, '92. (My then employer - a friend of Nancy Pelosi - was a fan.) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: spamonomics
Christopher Auld wrote: . . . Merchants who think I might be keen to see Paris Hilton perform intimate acts are third on the list. Followed closely by offers from extremely respectable officials in Nigeria . . . . For me these days, smut comes after services for insurance brokers. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: HEAVEN'S DOOR AFTER A YEAR - George J. Borjas
Why is it better for U.S. citizens to benefit than for an immigrant to benefit? Are U.S. citizens somehow more deserving? Does their increased wealth count more? alypius skinner wrote (9/05): Because *we,* the citizens of America, are hiring and paying the US government to act in *our* best interest, not in the best interest of foreigners. They are supposed to work for *us,* not for the citizens of other countries. So? Immigration does not require an act of government. Citizens of foreign states have their own governements, who, I assure you, are not laboring for us. . . . I don't think the people who fought the Redcoats and wrote/ratified the Constitution had in mind that the new government should, when in doubt, behave like all the others. ...Sorry if I'm swatting a dead horse. My own computer was out of action for a couple of weeks and I'm still sorting out September's mail. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Horses and Subsistence Agriculture
Right now, I'm putting up about 75 tons of timothy straw How big a pile does that make? alypius skinner wrote: [answer] Why do you ask? Curiosity. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Economics and E.T.s (fwd)
Robert A. Book wrote: Everyone seems to assume that if there is life elsewhere, it must be so much more advanced and more perfect than we are -- but there is absolutely no evidence to support that belief. I think it's just romantic wishful thinking . . . . If life is *common* Elsewhere, it's likely that *some* of it is more advanced (in some sense or other!) than we are. Also: we currently lack the ability to make contact with a civilization of our stage or lower, other than passively intercepting stray broadcasts; therefore if stronger contact is made soon it's most likely to be with a more advanced entity. If those mighty heavy `ifs' are acknowledged, I don't think the notion - romantic as it is - can be dismissed as wishful thinking. Nor do I see much value in it (Yeah, so what?). -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Horses and Subsistence Farming
Robin Hanson wrote: . . . it has come to my attention that a horse weighs about ten times as much as a human. It would seem that horses would eat about ten times as much as a human, . . . Quibble: appetite does not scale linearly with mass; some very small animals eat their own weight daily, but no big animal does. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Kolko 40 Years Later
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The main good it provides is a negative one, that of keeping homelessness and starvation to a low enough level to prevent political instability. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This of course presumes that the welfare state reduces homelessness and starvation rather than encouraging it. In politics the appearance is usually more important than the reality. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
OT: a blow on the head
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch Here, I found the script: [...] Well your first question for the blow on the head this evening is: what great opponent of Cartesian dualism resists the reduction of psychological phenomena to physical states? I don't know that! Well, have a guess. Henri Bergson. Is the correct answer! Ooh, that was lucky. I never even heard of him. [...] Right, now, Mrs Scum, you have won your prize, do you still want the blow on the head? Yes, yes. I'll offer you a poke in the eye. No! I want a blow on the head. A punch in the throat. No. All right then, a kick in the kneecap. No. Mrs Scum, I'm offering you a boot in the teeth and a dagger up the strap. Er... -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Rational Paranoia? A strange idea...
Fabio: What is paranoia? The typical example is the leftist who believes that the FBI is out to get them, or is behind every wrong in the world. Fred Foldvary wrote: The former is paranoia; the latter is not. Because it's true? The latter is a conspiracy proposition. Oops. ;P Paranoia, it seems to me, is (at least in part) a hypersensitivity to patterns. We are pattern-finding machines; surely we've all had the experience of seeing a random arrangement of leaves as a face. Now imagine cranking up the sensitivity, or equivalently weakening the filters. Everything that happens around you seems to be related, but nobody will admit to seeing the obvious. This idea came to me in ~1993 when I used to get phone calls from a libertarian in England who wanted to apply for US asylum because people were trying to get him to take his pills again. He would pour a flood of curious details about the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and ghod knows what else, and expected me to understand what it all meant. (I saw Dianne Feinstein's face in the WTC smoke, but never mind that.) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Advise to Journalists
john hull wrote: BTW, the person who called De Soto's book an intellectual swindle gave it three stars. Joe Bob Briggs seems to give every movie three stars. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Advise to Journalists
Alex Tabarrok wrote: I am interested in the suggestions of list members as to what the most important lessons economics has to teach. This essay might be useful http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250CID=1051-013003A -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Economic anamolies and Kuhn
I've also heard that the New Keynesians accept a good deal of what the old Keyneisans and neo-Keynesians rejected, Alypius Skinner wrote: What's the difference between a new Keynesian and a neo-Keynesian? Perhaps a school goes from new to neo- when it becomes `Established'? Is economics suffering from a modifier shortage? After neo- I suggest ter-. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Fw: Heritage of humanity
The saga of the human genome project proves that publicly financed science is extremely effective because it is so intensely competitive. The project's success also refutes the widespread notion that only private industry is capable of carrying out large-scale research. http://mondediplo.com/2002/12/15genome That's funny. I thought there was a widespread notion that the private sector cannot do significant basic research. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Bubblemania
Alypius Skinner wrote: . . . . It became obvious to me fairly early in the '90's that resentment against US foreign policy had made Americans overseas the preferred target of terrorists. Not in the Seventies? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Worm Klez.E immunity
We developed this free immunity tool to defeat the malicious virus. You only need to run this tool once,and then Klez will never come into your PC. NOTE: Because this tool acts as a fake Klez to fool the real worm,some AV monitor maybe cry when you run it. If so,Ignore the warning,and select 'continue'. Call me paranoid but I don't actually believe that Bryan wrote this. I hope I needn't warn any of you to treat it with extreme caution. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Neutral taxation? with respect to what?
Tom Grey wrote: Thus, increasing a land tax and decreasing other local taxes can be revenue neutral, (and I would support such a change) but insofar as it will encourage some behavior and discourage other (eg idle land will cost more), it is NOT incentive neutral. Reducing dividend taxation will encourage more companies to pay out dividends, and more capital investment (stock price increases) in those companies that do pay more out (often not tech companies). I think Fred is concerned with incentive-neutrality as compared with no tax at all, rather than with an existing tax regime. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Tax cuts and US citizen responses
Koushik Sekhar wrote: Can anyone explain why ordinary Americans are not objecting to tax cuts (such as dividend tax cuts) that will only favour the top percentiles of the wealthy ? Perhaps because they recognize that to be cut the tax had to have been imposed in the first place, and they don't think it vital to lay special taxes on the wealthy. Or perhaps they've bought into the Republican line that tax cuts for the rich (let's face it, the left will paint *any* change in tax policy that doesn't make it more punitive^W progressive as a handout to the rich) make us all richer in the long run. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: limited liability
Fred Foldvary wrote: The argument for [limited liability] is that investors are more willing to put up funds if they will not be personally liable. Nor should they be liable, since lenders are also not, and one could map limited partners into lenders who get a return based on profit. But the borrower would still be personally liable. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Bottle Deposits
john hull wrote: I'm in Michigan. I could have sworn that there was a one cent deposit in California. Maybe I'm mistaken. I think it's a nickel - but either way, there's no obvious way to recover it. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Bottle Deposits
john hull wrote: I have nothing economic to offer, but only the observation that the effects of having bottle deposits have been striking. I recall as a kid that litter in the form of bottles and cans was ubiquitous, now returnable are rarely seen as litter. Bottles that don't have deposits associated with them, such as bottled water, I see not infrequently on the ground. In California, I have no idea where to turn my bottles in. (Haven't noticed whether the distribution of litter has changed; the deposit law came in two or three years after I moved here.) Where are you? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Antibiotic Resistent Bacteria
Alypius Skinner wrote: PS--When I started to open Gil Guillory's post on this thread, I got a message saying it had been tampered with in transit. Is it still safe to open? It has a crypto-signature that does not match the content; no other suspicious attachments. It is presumably as safe as any unsigned mail. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Feral Children
Bill Dickens wrote: I suppose cowboy extraordinaire Pecos Bill who was raised by coyotes, tamed a tornado and rescued the drought-stricken agricultural economy of Texas is more urban legend than fact. (LOL) Rural, surely. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: shameless self-promotion
Bryan Caplan wrote: . . . they get my name wrong (George Caplan?!) . . . Wasn't that the name of the phantom agent in `North by Northwest'? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Feral Children
john hull wrote: Also, language acquisition is hardwired, sort of like the way chicks imprint their mothers. If you miss that window then you're going to have real trouble. That's why kids learn new languages so easily. This window closes around puberty, if I recall correctly. Yes and no. Second languages appear to be easier before puberty (tell me about it!), but the window for first language acquisition closes much earlier. Quoth the Straight Dope, as cited by Fabio: ...Kamala, who was about 8, survived [9 more years]. It was years before she learned to walk or speak and her vocabulary never exceeded some 50 words. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: how to eliminate unemployement
Kevin Carson wrote: Like speculations on seizing land left fallow or whose owner goes away on a 2-week vacation, this requires putting the most inconvenient spin possible on mutualist rules. I have encountered people who claimed to believe that your hammer ceases to be your property from the moment when you put it down, so such speculations are not necessarily in bad faith. Well, suggest another spin. What's a dividing line between good hotel operators and evil absentee landlords? see also http://samizdata.blogspot.com/2002_02_10_samizdata_archive.html#9753522 (``In praise of renting and to hell with owning'') -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: cultural cues and queues
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As a libertarian purist, with a particular bug in my ear about immigration, . . . [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is that a pro-immigration bug (libertarian supporting open borders?) Er, yes. I have heard some libertarian arguments for influx control but found them strained at best. The `particular bug' is there partly because I was born overseas (to American parents), never lived four years in one place before age 12, and so do not consider myself from any specific place. (The Fourteenth Amendment citizenship clause does not apply to me, and I've never been able to determine whether I am a citizen of any State!) Also I worked for an immigration lawyer, and saw how arbitrary the rules can be - so I'm not moved by the common line We welcome immigrants who demonstrate willingness to jump through silly hoops, but not those who defy The Law out of a selfish desire to escape oppression, get a better job, or raise their children in a safer environment. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: charlatanism
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real charlatans in academia are the many frauds who build their whole careers by getting their names put on coauthored papers to which they have not legitimately contributed. That's a sort of embezzlement; but `charlatan' implies that the *content* of the papers is fraudulent. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Public Opinion On Spending
Bryan Caplan wrote: Support for spending cuts is largely predicated on delusional views of what the budget looks like to begin with - such as the popular views that foreign aid and welfare are the two biggest categories. Not too far off, given that most US military effort in the past century has been for the benefit of foreigners. As for health/pensions/welfare, when is a transfer entitlement not a transfer entitlement? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Silent Takeover
. . . suggests you mean eminent (rather than imminent) domain . . . What he wrote first was immanent, which makes more obvious sense than either of the above. ;) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: taxi transitional gains trap
Alex Tabarrok wrote: . . . In addition, there are serious constitutional issues involved in opening the market to free-entry because this would probably constitute a taking. . . . How about this? Every day from now on, the city must auction off one new taxi medallion, no minimum price. Does the announcement of such a plan constitute a taking? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Interview with Gary Becker
Carl Close wrote: Here's an interesting interview that may prompt some discussion Next time could you put it in plain text so that the mail client treats it as a link? Or, if you must send HTML mail, make it a proper link yourself? Or refrain from putting the meat in size -3? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Republican Reversal
fabio guillermo rojas wrote: . . . lobbiests (sp?) . . . Since you ask: lobbyists. `y' changes to `i' before `-est' (superlative) and `-(e)th' (ordinal) but not before `-ist' (agent). -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ athier than thou
Re: Republican Reversal
Gray, Lynn wrote: By saying it was inappropriate I meant it was rude. I am aware of the weight of the evidence in regard to human evolution. However, to say that those who believe in Biblical creation are dumb/ignorant is at the very least less than good manners. Worse than saying the same of people with wrong ideas about economics? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Why do people pick stocks?
Fred Foldvary wrote: Even indexes replace firms from time to time. The SP 500 has just been purged of foreign firms, which apparently means that scads of index funds will now follow suit - which strikes me as a bit silly. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: if coins were rare
Fred Foldvary wrote: . . . During the US Civil War, there was a shortage of coins, and postage stamps served as currency, and they could easily do so again. How big is the stamp supply, by the way? How much `float' does the USPS have? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Silent Takeover
Bryan Caplan wrote: A lot of regulations only kick in if you have more than 50 or 100 employees. Some explicitly kick out, though. I dimly remember one concerning visas, that said roughly If the HR department says the firm needs this alien employee, and the firm has N employees, we (the INS) will believe it, but a smaller firm must back it up. Designed presumably to discourage phony enterprises whose principal purpose is to get a visa for the owner's brother-in-law. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Autism, brain damage and cooperation
fabio guillermo rojas wrote: It's well documented that long term memory is nil for children less than five years of age (doctors call it pediatric amnesia) and is very spotty until about 12. Maybe children can remember strings of numbers well in labs, but they can't remember things from a year or two ago terribly well. Bryan D Caplan wrote: Actually, I was thinking about kids' amazing ability to learn languages, which involves massive memorization. I'm told there are three kinds of long-term memory -- semantic (`the capital of France is Paris'), episodic (events personally experienced) and procedural (how to do stuff) -- and strength in one does not imply strength in another. Social cooperation depends on episodic memory, language on the other two. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: double vs. single entry
Fred Foldvary wrote: Accountants are now using imaginary numbers, Good heavens. How? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: high school economics
markjohn wrote: . . . A year's course in economics can give you the basics but it not transform them to homo economicus-es. Homines economici, in case anyone wanted to know. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Consumer Reports on Deregulation
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: . . . I've heard that during the days of regulated air travel, airlines apparently competed on the beauty of the stewardesses. . . . If you favor hiring people based on their ability to serve coffee and tea instead of their looks, you might favor deregulation. Why should the opening of competition in pricing c cause a shift from one nonessential (eye candy) to another (coffee service)? Because more families started flying? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: In Praise of Pay Toilets
fabio guillermo rojas wrote: 3. They aren't as profitable as you think because people can frequently use quasi-public restrooms such as fast food places, hotels, gas stations, etc. Ie, there are real competitors. But in the old days those also often had coin-locks. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: In Praise of Pay Toilets
In the Seventies I remember reading of something called the Committee to Eliminate Pay Toilets In America. It announced its disbandment when one state enacted a ban. Perhaps people found that pay toilets were not in fact cleaner as a rule than freebies. There was not much competition in the market. San Francisco has a few public loos, on the street in tourist zones. Before they were installed, there was bitter controversy over their design: it would be unthinkable not to accommodate wheelchairs, but that would make them big enough for drunks and junkies to sleep in. If memory serves (it's often faulty) this was resolved by giving them a price and a time-limit; as first conceived, they were to be supported entirely by advertising. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: entropy and sustainability
Fred Foldvary wrote There are ultimate physical limits on the speed of data processing, Jon Cast wrote: Are there? I mean, there are limits on how fast silicon can go, but are there real limits on how fast /any/ material can go? Divide the diameter of a neutron by the speed of light: you probably can't make a gate flip in less time than that. but I don't see why there are any limits on computer programs, and thus no limit to software technology, even given hardware constraints. Actually, there are hard limits on certain software technologies, same as for hardware. Comparison-based sorting can't use less than O(n log(n)) comparisons, for example. [...] Quantum computing will break some of the rules, but it won't remove all limits. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: entropy and sustainability
--- Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Economic activity can't increase indefinitely, because eventually we'll have improved our technologies to the limits imposed by physics Fred Foldvary wrote: I don't see why physics limits all technological progress. For example, someone could write improved software, and that would have nothing to do with physical limitations. Engineering improvements can also be made within current knowledge of physics. ... There are physical limits on the speed and energy-efficiency of processors and on the capacity of data storage, and thus on the complexity and efficiency of software. Such limits have not yet been approached, of course, but they're not infinitely far away. The Tipler time-machine, if memory serves, is an example of a device that ought to work if it could be built, but cannot be built because the forces involved are (necessarily) great enough to break any possible material. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: entropy and sustainability
John Perich wrote: . . . here's a thought: in six billion years, the sun will burn out, making all research into sustainability and environmental / resource economics a waste of time. . . . Not a complete waste; the study will be useful toward setting up ecosystems elsewhere. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: long-lasting cars
Pinczewski-Lee, Joe (LRC) wrote: . . . look at the car styles of the 1980's, do you want to be driving a Yugo or a Cabriolet now? Think of the styles of the 1950's would you have wanted to drive one in the 1970's? . . . That strikes me as a bit circular. The more ephemeral a product is, the more it will be designed for novelty; a car designed to last twenty years will, I imagine, be styled more conservatively than one designed to last four years. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: median voter theorem and polarization
Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: . . . what explains the polarization that this article is talking about: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060047? I found the 2D model of the house and senate especially interesting and was very surprised at the white space in between the two parties. Note that the axes do not have the same meaning from one frame (http://voteview.uh.edu/c46105.htm) to the next; their signs are determined by the continuity of incumbents. I suppose that members of each party tend to shade marginal votes toward the average of their party; that would account for the gap. -- Anton Sherwood -- http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: books
david friedman wrote: Going a good deal further afield, _Plunkett of Tamany Hall_ is a fascinating inside look at how big city political machines worked. Mencken is a lot of fun. Indeed, but i think you'll find that Plunkett of Tammany Hall is by William Riordan. -- Anton Sherwood -- http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Local news
fabio guillermo rojas wrote: Why is local news done by television stations when most other local programming (soap operas, game shows, talk shows) is contracted out? . . . Local talk shows are also done by stations, no? What's an example of a local soap opera or game show? -- Anton Sherwood -- http://www.ogre.nu/
