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November 30, 2006
What do economists agree on?
* 87.5 percent agree that "the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade."
* 85.2 percent agree that "the U.S. should eliminate agricultural subsidies."
* 85.3 percent agree that "the gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged."
* 77.2 percent agree that "the best way to deal with Social Security's long-term funding gap is to increase the normal retirement age."
* 67.1 percent agree that "parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools."
* 65.0 percent agree that "the U.S. should increase energy taxes."
* 90.1 percent disagree with the position that "the U.S. should restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries."
While notably economists disagree about the minimum wage, "37.7 percent want it increased, while 46.8 percent want it eliminated." That said, from "the Winter 2005 Journal of Economic Perspectives, an academic publication, reports that 71 percent of economists at America’s top universities agree with the statement "a minimum wage increases unemployment among the young and unskilled.""
From Robert Whaples
Hat tip to: Mankiw
Posted by OneEyedMan at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2006
Modeling human affairs
Another great theory of everything:
Fiske labels these communal sharing, equality matching, authority ranking and market pricing. Here's what he means:
Communal sharing is how you treat your immediate family: All for one and one for all. Or as Marx put it: From each according to ability, to each according to need.
Equality matching, by contrast, means we all take turns. From kindergarten to the town meeting, it's all about fair shares, reciprocity, doing your part.
Authority ranking is how tribes function, not to mention armies, corporations and governments. Know your place, obey orders, and hail to the chief.
Market pricing, of course, is the basis of economics. It's what we do whenever we weigh costs and benefits, trade up (or down), save or invest."
Posted by OneEyedMan at 8:24 PM | Comments (0)
Scaring off any interest you may have in trying it
In case you had any interest in trying cocaine, here is a bizarre and scary video on the manufacturing of cocaine from coca leaves.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 6:19 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2006
Haven't lived near there since I was three but it still seems to have stuck...
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard. | |
| The Midland | |
| The Northeast | |
| Boston | |
| The South | |
| The Inland North | |
| The West | |
| North Central | |
| What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes | |
Posted by OneEyedMan at 10:02 PM | Comments (2)
She really does talk more than you do.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)
The US military is unrivaled....
...but is it enough?
From an amazing article about US military might:
"The U.S. Air Force hasn’t produced an ace—an airman with at least five aerial kills—since 1972." It seems our biggest advantages are in Air and Water power, and that's why our enemies are confining themselves to unconventional land attacks.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2006
Three Things You Don't Know About Aids In Africa
The economics graduate student Emily Oster writes in Esquire:
1. It's the wrong disease to attack. (Try Herpes)
2. It won't disappear until poverty does. (Rich Africans already behave like westerners in their sexual habits)
3. There is less of it than we thought, but it's spreading as fast as ever. (Estimates come from non-representative samples)
Posted by OneEyedMan at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2006
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman has died at the age of 94. His book, Capitalism and Freedom is one of my favorites. I'm a big fan, and the world is less without him. He is quoted as saying that "the abolition of the draft was the only issue on which he had personally lobbied Congress"
Posted by OneEyedMan at 6:29 PM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2006
How did fiat money start?
Money is an amazing thought. You trade for things you don't need (money, metals, gems, salt etc) to be able to buy the things you want later. Fiat money, that is money with no value at all, just the stamp of the state to authenticate it, is more amazing still. Once you know that other people will value it, it seems easier to understand why would desire it. But how does one get the ball rolling? How can you start getting people to accept fiat money? A leading theory is simply to allow citizens to pay their taxes with it (P.15 / 470). The government buys goods with their fiat currency, but let's it be known that they can pay their taxes with that same money. If that makes up a sizable portion of the economy. perhaps because it is introduced in a war, then it rapidly becomes a highly liquid, low-spread asset with low storage costs, making it ideal for use in non-government transactions as well.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2006
So that's how that happened.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2006
Stopping medical mistakes
One of my favorite books on good design is
The Design of Everyday Things. I thought of it today when I read "A cure for medication mistakes". The article is a fascinating look at how improved packaging, standardized dosages, and medical machines that ask for conformation on odd requests can save lives by embedding the information required to use them safely in their design.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 6:19 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2006
Spontaneous order in driving
A little tidbit for you closeted Austrian economists, residents of the northern Dutch town of Drachten are attempting to do without traffic lights. Twelve of the town's 15 sets of lights have been removed and the rest are slated for removal within a few of years. I'd expect this would slow down traffic, but the article claims it has not done so. Doesn't that mean that the spontaneous order is better than the formal order created by driving laws? Would the sucess persist under larger scale and in more heterogenous situations?
It reminds me about the conversations from my undergraduate economics classes about moral hazard. Would we be better off if we mounted a large sharp spike right in the middle of the steering wheel pointing at the driver's stomach?
A great quote, "We want small accidents, in order to prevent serious ones in which people get hurt," he said yesterday."
Posted by OneEyedMan at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
November 8, 2006
Is the reward big enough?
James S. Robbins says of the hunt for Bin Laden, "Increase the reward. We spend $10 million an hour in Iraq. Even an Iraq-war supporter of my solid credentials can see trading a day of that effort for a quarter-billion dollar reward for Osama, a level that might get the attention of the warlords giving him safe haven."
Posted by OneEyedMan at 12:14 PM | Comments (1)
So the Democracts got the house...
...and maybe the Senate too (although I doubt it, the trade markets say yes). What happens next?
Bruce Bartlett says that this isn't a big enough win for the Democrats.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 7, 2006
Election Day
I voted this morning and this was my first time using a Diebold electronic voting machine. The calibration was a bit off so that I had to aim a bit below each button, but the machine did present me with an opportunity to physically inspect a printed backup ballot. All in all I would discribe it as neat, even efficient and practical, not withstanding very real problems with the security and accuracy of these machines.
NYC, the last place that I voted, uses a Shoup 3.2 lever machines, which have been in use in NYC since 1962! Word on the street though is that those machines have been replaced for this election season. Can any NYC readers confirm? I'll miss those old machines. That satisfying clatter of a real mechanical casting of a vote feels more rewarding than the beep and whirr of the Diebolds.
If you bothered to learn about the politicians and issues, please vote!
Posted by OneEyedMan at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
November 5, 2006
What is water boarding?
Water boarding has been in the news a lot lately as an interrogation tool of the US government. But what is it? FOX news had one of their reporters submit to water boarding and the footage is online. Very interesting.
Posted by OneEyedMan at 7:26 PM | Comments (0)