"Reporters tend to treat public policy issues with all the depth of, well, movie directors: See problem. Talk about problem. WHY ISN'T PROBLEM BEING FIXED!" -----Matt Welch, "Ink-Stained Retch"

Never Again

"The fact that the Holocaust Museum
needs armed guards
is why we need a Holocaust Museum." -----James Lileks

R.I.P., E.G.G.

Andrew Rilstone puts it better than I ever could. One life, furnished in early Gygax.

Prescriptions for Disaster

"I think getting doctors on a salary is the very first solution..."

The original rationale for HMOs was that the insurance company would be paid a fixed amount per patient per month (although this might be modified by the patient's pre-existing medical conditions) and would be required to provide whatever medical care was necessary; therefore, they would have an incentive to do things the most economical way, i.e. through preventive medicine whenever possible.

That sounded great to me, and it still sounds like a good goal.

Unfortunately, as Adam Smith predicted (when talking about education), instead this gave an incentive for insurers to provide as little care as possible, by making the quality as low as possible, and making it as difficult as possible to obtain it.

In Bryan Caplan's class on microeconomics, he explained the concept of "moral hazard" to us, with plenty of amusing examples. I suggest this as another one.

So, how do we actually accomplish the original goal?

Second-Best News All Day

My friend and mentor Bryan Caplan -- the guy responsible for my switching from political theory and English literature to economics, and for going to George Mason University -- thus forcing me into courses in which I actually have to learn something during the semester! -- has asked to blog one of my answers to one of his exams.

I'm pretty thrilled. It kind of makes up for the crapsack April I had (with severe downward trends in school, finances, health, and a friendship).

Placeholder Post

David Friedman (and others) talk about the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.

I believe it was H. L. Mencken who said "Each party claims the other is unfit to rule, and they're both right."

Here's a YouTube video from one party about the other.

"How I Became A Libertarian" by Michael Shermer

I'm a big fan of skepticism and skeptics, and my heart breaks and bleeds when I see how many of them are gullible followers of left-wing pseudoeconomics. One of the brightest lights of skepticism is Michael Shermer, who has written a blog post called "How I Became a Libertarian."

PCer Than Thou

I just posted this on Ezra Levant's blog:

Rebekah wrote: "I am in a debate with someone at the moment who says that freedom of speech is a civil right, and as such we have no right to judge other cultures or regimes that deny freedom of speech. Could I ask, how would you answer this?"

Oh, I love debating against leftists. It's so much fun to see their eyes pop out when their own Politically Correct slogans are used against them!

I would use two arguments. The first is: "I believe in freedom of speech because I believe in equality. If there is no freedom of speech, that means that some people can say what they want, and some views get expressed, but other people -- minorities and the oppressed -- and other views get suppressed. Don't you believe in equal rights for everyone in society?"

If the PC leftist actually admits that he thinks "respecting other cultures" is more important than equal rights, my other argument would be: "Okay, I won't argue against that position. Instead, I'll just say that according to your own statment it's fine for Americans or Canadians or other Europeans to suppress arguments for pacifism, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, or anything else because those are against the values of Eurocentric culture."

Of course if you happen to know the particular Politically Correct causes that he supports, you should use them as examples.

As far as I can see, the only argument against that would be for the leftist to claim that Islamofascist values are actually *better* than our cultural values. If he does, you can attack him for being "judgemental" and "inegalitarian" and also debate him on the merits of our values versus his.

Old Skool Gamin'

I'm getting back to my roots, to my ancestral culture, to my people's ancient heritage.

Bitter Sweet

I'm impressed, and not in a good way, with the new "game" from Twix (the candy bar). They actually managed to get me to agree with the Politically Correct femocrats at safercampus.org.

I don't know if you're aware that this ad campaign has provoked a very negative reaction among people; one website described it as an "interactive date-rape tutorial."

I'm a man, and I'm not Politically Correct, and even I dislike the fact that your company apparently thinks the best alternative to choose, at the end of the game, is to lie to the woman.

A relationship based upon a Big Lie is going to fail, and at least one person will be unhappy with it. Or, if you're saying that's okay because it's just a one-night stand and the guy will have sex, then I'm offended as a Christian -- someone who believes that sex outside of marriage is a bad idea...like eating too much candy.

Congratulations, though, on an ad campaign that actually makes me agree with Poltiically Correct femocrats about something! I'm putting this on my blog! (Oh, yeah, obviously your ad wizards don't know much about blogging, either.)

Burn Notice

I just posted this conundrum at www.safercampus.org in response to a post entitled "Stealth Conservatives At It Again":

Ashley:
I'm very curious what would persuade you that FIRE is not "a far right organization." I see they have defended (among others) Ward Churchill, as well as a professor who posted an anti-religious cartoon on his office door, and a student who was expelled from school for his environmental activism.

Alternatively, maybe you consider defending free speech for all to be a "far right" viewpoint. Does that mean you think that the "left-wing" viewpoint should be in favor of censorship or political inequality?

Or, you might say something like "Yes, they defend free speech for everyone equally, which is a Good Thing, but they are still mostly right-wing in the rest of their lives." In that case, I would suggest that you should be glad that you and they agree on at least some things, such as freedom of speech and equal legal rights. (I also suggest the same things to my right-wing friends when we discuss the ACLU!)

[Oh, when I say I posted it, I mean I tried to post it, but apparently they didn't accept it. Apparently they are biased against logic and the truth.]

Macro Zombie Virus

The midterm for ECON 715 (Macroeconomics) is coming up next week, and so is the second midterm for ECON 630 (Mathematical Economics). Last week was the midterm for ECON 811 (Microeconomics) which I would have aced except that I completely forgot how to do a Lagrange substitution. So for next time I'm having the equations for the Lagrangian auxiliary function tattooed on my arm.

Hey, Obama-For-President Campaign, Sue Me For This!

I haven't been a McCain supporter for over a year, but here's one reason I'm not for Obama either: the Obama campaign has threatened to sue television stations which air the following anti-Obama ad which gives accurate information about his anti-gun political positions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm0mo3bgvw0

As one member of The Volokh Conspiracy said,

The proper response to such attempts to infringe on the First Amendment is to make sure that the video in question receives the widest circulation possible, to deter the Obama campaign, and other campaigns for that matter, from engaging in such tactics in the future. So here it is. Share it with a friend, with a note that Obama is in violation of the First Amendment, threatening legal action against stations that run it.

Ending the Embargo on France

I'm still recovering from Thanxgiving -- and still in a period of heavy seminar-paper overload -- but I'm glad that Sarkozy is President of France. Since Eurasia /i/s/ /n/o/w/ has always been allied with Oceania, I can enjoy Beaujolais Nouveau again with a clear conscience. I got into the habit almost twenty years ago of drinking Beaujolais Nouveau with Thanxgiving turkey and I don't care what Mike Steinberger says.

Burning Man

Shouldn't this be prosecuted as a hate crime??

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man accused of prematurely torching the Burning Man festival's namesake effigy in August has been arrested on suspicion of trying to set fire to a mosque, police said.

San Francisco performance artist Paul Addis, out on bail in the Burning Man charges, was taken into custody on the top steps of the Mosque of the Light of Allah around 11:40 p.m. Sunday, a police spokesperson said . . .

Addis had an ammunition belt of small explosives strapped around his waist, he said.

Police were tipped by a caller who said they overheard Addis talking about a plan to set fire to the local landmark. No fire was set and there was no damage to the mosque.

(Whoops, my typo, it wasn't a mosque.)

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I just submitted a couple of comments on Liz Seymour's blog which are awaiting moderation. Here they are:

1. I am shocked and appalled by the comments of the woman who said the law is more important than feeding the hungry. I think it should be perfectly legal to salvage food (or anything else) from the trash. (In fact, it's a low-tech and immediate form of recycling!)

2. I think the almost everyone who disapproves of dumpster diving believe that food from dumpsters is probably either spoiled ("Why else would anybody throw it out? And if it wasn't spoiled before, it's been sitting there for days, just rotting.") or else contaminated -- almost as if it had been retrieved from a portable toilet. These facts may be wrong but given their (presumably mistaken) beliefs, their visceral reactions are perfectly appropriate. Have you tried explaining how/why the food is still fresh and sanitary? I think that will help eliminate, or at least reduce, people's reactions.

3. "Surely it’s not as parasitic as making a profit off of minimum wage workers, using up the world’s resources and leaving it to our children to pick up the tab..." I don't want to justify any of the other actions you mention, but I believe that employing and paying workers -- even at minimum wage -- is clearly productive, which is exactly the opposite of parasitic! After all, the alternative to employing them is leaving them unemployed, which means they would be getting *nothing* rather than something. Salvaging food doesn't harm those workers but it doesn't help them either. If you meant that employing people is good and you think it would be even better if they were paid more, that's not what you said or how it came across.

Hat Tip to Stephen "Freakonomics" Dubner's post "Anarchist Mom" by way of another post at City Comforts, whom I hope to convert to libertarianism /R/e/a/l/ /S/o/o/n/ /N/o/w/ Sooner Or Later.

Update: My comments have been posted!

I Oughta Be In Pictures

Daniel Drezner explains, using small words, why films about Iraq don't do well at the box office

There's not a whole lot of escapism in films about Iraq. Anyone who sees a well-crafted movie on Iraq will feel angry. Why would anyone who supports the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumptions challenged? Why would anyone who opposes the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumption -- that the war is a mess -- confirmed?

and concludes that "The only way I could see an Iraq war movie doing well would be if it was, like M*A*S*H, a very black comedy."

Ironically, I'm writing such a film right now, inspired by the New Republic articles of Scott Thomas Beauchamp; its working title is Shock and Awe.

Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?

I see that Dan Rather is suing CBS News for $70 million ("one million dollars for every year of his life after age five") while Brendan Sullivan and Barry Scheck are suing the city of Durham (North Carolina), former DA Mike Nifong, several police officers, and other individual defendants for $30 million, plus a wide array of procedural reforms, on behalf of the three Duke University lacrosse team members who were, quite bluntly, framed for rape.

Best of all, it looks like the other 44 members of the Duke University lacrosse team are contemplating suing the members of the "Group of 88" (Duke faculty) who libeled them in print, slandered them in class lectures and at rallies, and deliberately gave them unfairly-low grades in classes after the incident.

Thanx to Instapundit and The Volokh Conspiracy respectively for mentioning those two stories.

Update: There are some nice videos on about the Duke lacrosse rape frame-up on YouTube, here and here and here. The first of those calls it a "hoax" but I prefer the term "frame" in the popular meaning of "hide the real evidence and make up fake evidence."

Also, the witty Roger L. Simon has an excellent post mocking poor Dan Rather at Pajamas Media (and only partly reprinted on his own site).

Why Conservatives Are So Cruel, Mean, And Heartless

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an example of a law which was advocated mostly by left-wingers as a way to help those who were disadvantaged through no fault of their own, and was opposed mostly by right-wingers. The left-wingers *claimed* this was because right-wingers were selfish and/or cruel, i.e. they didn't want to help poor (unfortunate, not necessarily in poverty) people. The right wingers *claimed* that wasn't true, it was because the ADA was going to be an "undue burden" on businesses which were going to be forced to wait hand and foot -- perhaps literally -- on people with imaginary disabilities. The left-wingers *claimed* that wasn't true, it was only going to help people who really needed and deserved help.

Here's a quote from Hacklawyer's blog:

complaints by the traditionally disabled - the deaf, the blind, the paraplegic - have accounted for only a tiny share of these kind of ”accomodation requests.” The overwhelming majority of them comprise those who claim such dubious disabilities as ADD, visual and oral processing diabilities, dysgraphia (really bad handwriting), ”phonological processing,” dyscalculia (math disability).

Personally, if I had been hired by either side, I would have advised them to MAKE LOUD ANNOUNCEMENTS AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES IN ALL THE NEWS MEDIA THEY COULD REACH that *they* were willing to compromise and it was all the other side's fault for being stubborn, fanatic extremists who were demanding something really unreasonable. And to actually make an offer that looks reasonable to the general public, with something in it that's toxic to the other side.

Of course, I usually advocate that tactic on *any* issue. For example, Matt Miller suggests that advocates of school vouchers offer huge increases in school funding, and huge increases in teacher salaries, in return for the "minor concession" of vouchers; the educationalist lobby (such as the National Education Association) has promised to oppose *any* legislation which includes vouchers, so this makes *them* look like the Bad Guys (which they are) because it puts *them* in the position of opposing school funding and raises for those poor, poor teachers.

Engage *This*

"Men journey together with view to particular advantage, and by way of providing some particular thing needed for the purposes of life, and similarly the political association seems to have come together originally, and to continue in existence, for sake of the general advantages it brings" Aristotle, Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 9

"Organizations can therefore perform a function when there are common or group interestsm and their primary function is to advance the common interest of groups of individuals." Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community...As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed...The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." James Madison, The Federalist No. 10

"Special interest politics is a simple game. A hundred people sit in a circle, each with his pocket full of pennies. A politician walks around the circle taking a penny from each person. No one minds; who cares about a penny? When he has gone all the way around the circle, he throws fifty cents down in front of one person who is overjoyed at the unexpected windfall. The process is repeated...After a hundred rounds everyone is a hundred cents poorer, fifty cents richer, and happy." David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom, Chapter 27.

Before Mancur Olson published "The Logic of Collective Action" it was generally taken for granted that it was relatively easy to form groups (the "factions" mentioned in The Federalist) based on common interests, and to take collective action to further those interests; and also that the biggest (internal) problem facing a democracy was how to prevent the tyranny of the majority. In particular, the Federalist Papers assume that minority interests will be unable to control the legislature because "If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote." On the other hand, "When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." Hence the reason the Founders wanted a republic with checks and balances rather than a democracy, and a Bill of Rights, to reduce the possibility of tyranny by the majority.
As far as I can see -- and I'm certainly open to the possibility that I'm misinterpreting or simply overlooking something -- Olson's point in "The Logic of Collective Action" was that all collective action is subject to the free-rider problem and therefore subject to the Prisoner's Dilemma. This is true virtually by definition; if "collective action" means "action taken for collective benefit" then by definition it's a public good (at least for some particular group), i.e. it's non-exclusionary; and if it's non-exclusionary, then it's subject to the Prisoner's Dilemma because it will benefit someone to "defect" (i.e. refuse to contribute/cooperate) if he can get away with it (i.e. still receive the benefits). This all makes perfect sense to me! And as he points out, "the concept of public goods is one of the oldest and most important ideas in the study of public finance." (And to quote The Federalist again, "To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of...faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.")
Olson then suggests that one characteristic of states or governments is that they deal with public goods by means of coercion; that is, they force people to pay taxes and follow the law -- supposedly for the benefit of all -- by using force to compel obedience and/or punish dissent. He also discusses the possibility that other groups can use forms of coercion against members who "defect" and refuse to contribute to efforts made for a common goal.
This leads, of course, to the civics-textbook claim governments exist (at least partly) in order to provide public goods and that coercion is necessary in order to remedy the "market failure" that would exist due to the free-rider problem, e.g. people refusing to pay their share of the costs for things which benefit everyone in the public -- things like highways, schools, health insurance (in Canada), television and radio stations (in Britain) nuclear weapons, prisons for nonviolent drug addicts, customs agents whoo confiscate lesbian-rights literature (in Canada), police officers assigned to hang around public restrooms and arrest homosexuals, and all sorts of other wonderful things we could never pay for privately and just could never live without. (I also find it ironic that Olson uses corporate lobbying as an example of a "public good" that is underproduced -- in economic terms -- due to the free-rider problem.)
Many economists have pointed out the practical disadvantages to providing public goods through coercive means. Such goods might be produced even when the benefits to the public are not worthwhile, if they benefit the politically powerful. Later in his book -- although not in the article we're assigned -- Olson talks about how the free-rider problem allows concentrated interests to overcome diffuse interests, i.e. tyranny of a politically-powerful (because well-organized) minority over the unorganized majority.
Garrett Hardin's point in his classic essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is that any commons suffers from the free-rider problem and Prisoner's Dilemma, because everyone has an incentive to grab as much as possible -- which is more than their fair share -- because if they don't grab it, somebody else will. John Locke recognized this over three centuries ago and came up with the "Lockean Proviso" in the Second Treatise of Government. Hardin explains how the commons' lack of ownership means a lack of enforcement of the Lockean Proviso to everyone's detriment, with specific examples.
Hardin recommends several alternatives to an unregulated commons. He advocates individual ownership when possible, otherwise (in cases such as air, flowing water, and public parks) government ownership with impartial regulations. He recognizes the state awards benefits to the politically powerful ("Bureau administrators...are singularly liable to corruption") which was Olson's point, so he recommends impartial regulations ("a government of laws and not men") based on price, merit, or equal shares for all rather than administrative fiats, and of course I agree! Bruce Ackerman's Social Justice in the Liberal State discusses how to determine whether private or communal ownership is the most economically efficient way to control a resource, and how to allocate it justly, including compensating those who are disadvantaged by whatever method is chosen; and William Blinder's Hard Heads and Soft Hearts discusses specific proposals for market-based environmental protection including emissions fees/taxes versus "cap-and-trade" permits. Currently there are many such proposals and even the Kyoto Protocol is somewhat market-based because it allows emissions trading. The biggest problem with such proposals is how to allocate allowed emissions for each nation.
Hardin also suggests that overpopulation is an example of the tragedy of the commons, because couples who have children are free riders, and therefore childbearing needs to be regulated. This argument is reasonable but mistaken, as David Friedman demonstrates in his article "Laissez-Faire in Population: The Least-Bad Solution," at least to the extent that there are no subsidies or externalities involved in raising children.
Finally, Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone, which inspired Meetup.com, and Better Together) has an article that talks about ways to overcome the Prisoner's Dilemma, and thereby overcome the Free Rider Problem. He analyzes evidence from local governments within Italy and finds that private "civic ties" provide a sense of community and trust (what Tom Wolfe calls a "favor bank" and Stephen Covey calls an "emotional bank account") so that people are willing to cooperate. Participants with civic ties believe it's worth the risk to trust someone else; they think the likelihood of cooperation is great enough to cooperate themselves. Putnam also found a breakdown of civic ties due to distrust in communities that are more diverse, which causes such problems as ethnic strife in the United States and, in extremis, in places such as Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and of course Iraq. Another reason for lack of trust is official corruption and "kleptocracy": insecure property rights and government intervention in favor of the politically favored, which in endemic in both the developing world and former communist countries -- and, to a lesser extent, in the United States as well.
In another article, "Reviving Community: What Policy-Makers Can Do to Build Social Capital in Britain and America," he suggests that governments can "rebuild social capital by subsidizing community organizations, through civics education, by instituting a scheme of voluntary national service, and through structural reforms." These may be useful, but I believe he is overlooking the vital information provided by Robert Axelrod's work on "the evolution of cooperation" which provides an experimental proof that the Prisoner's Dilemma is solvable if it's iterated. By breaking down social interactions into a series of smaller interactions, the risk is lower and non-cooperation or "defection" can be punished. Therefore people are more willing to risk trust others more than they would in an all-or-nothing gamble, and are also better able to build up trust.
In Starship Troopers Robert Heinlein asserted that a government (or other system) works as long as authority and responsibility are linked. There are several American political institutions which serve to break down this linkage via "rational ignorance." One of them is our weak party system which prevents voters from easily knowing the exact positions taken by their representatives on each issue. Another is the Presidential system rather than a parliamentary system, which prevents parties from being held accountable for the results of their platforms. A third is the "first past the post" or "winner take all" electoral system which emasculates minor parties. Finally, the ability of the state to enact programs which provide benefits to a single class or group, such as subsidies to farmers, is perhaps the single worst flaw in our system.
I believe the single greatest problem facing liberal constitutional democracies is the ability of concentrated minority interests to enact legislation against the common good. Strong parties, a parliamentary system, and proportional representation would go a long way to overcoming the causes of "rational ignorance" while a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the state from transfers or other programs unless they are universal (possibly with a means test) -- suggested by Charles Murray in In Our Hands -- would eliminate its effects.