From Megan McArdle, on the new Arizona Immigration Law:
My hand is down, by the way.I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this law, in fact, if it required the police to check the immigration status of every single person they pulled over, without any gauzy "reason to believe" fig leaf to cover up what's really going on.
Raise your hand if you think that law could have passed in Arizona.
So, one way to sum this up is to say that, in theory, there is no difference between monetary theory and practice. But in practice, there is. I guess that is true of most theories.
Has anyone EVER seen a cat skeleton in a tree?The post is good too.
Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty.This one demonstrates the power of pulling quotes out of context. Answer in the comments.
It is not sufficient to contrast the imperfect adjustments of unfettered private enterprise with the best adjustments that economists in their studies can imagine. For we cannot expect that any State authority will attain, or even whole-heartedly seek, that ideal.The answer is below the fold.+/-
Four U.S. senators want Facebook to make it easier for its more than 400 million users to protect their privacy as the website develops new outlets to share personal information.Hat Tip: Todd Nesbit
[...]
Schumer sent a letter Sunday to the Federal Trade Commission calling for regulators to draw up clearer privacy guidelines for Facebook and other Internet social networks to follow.
Fiddling with your iPhone behind the wheel can get you fined across much of the nation. But many states are more than happy to tweet you with up-to-the-minute directions on how to steer clear of a traffic jam.[...]
At least 22 states that ban texting while driving offer some type of service that allows motorists to get information about traffic tie-ups, road conditions or emergencies via Twitter.
But, even when faced with laws we think are counter-productive, we must first comply. Only then, from a credible position, can we enter into a dialogue with regulatory agencies to demonstrate alternatives that are more beneficial.
If Patrick Henry thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation.
Family planning authorities in Puning, a city in the southern province of Guangdong, have detained more than 1,300 people in the drive, the Nanfang Countryside Daily said in an investigative report.
Those detained included parents who refused to undergo the surgical procedure and their "relatives", the report said.
[...]
Huang Ruifeng, a 64-year-old father of three, said he was contacted by a local official ordering him or his wife to have the surgical procedure, the Nanfang newspaper said.
Mr Huang refused, claiming he was too busy. Later his father was taken away.
Authorities said they were using "extraordinary measures" to encourage couples to undergo sterilisation, such as refusing to provide the children proper registration documents.
The move effectively denies the children access to public services such as health insurance and free schooling.
At various roadside junctions in central Hargeisa currency vendors sit at battered metal containers piled high with brick-size wedges of Somaliland shillings, US dollars and Euros. Wedged into these stacks of cash are Somali passports.Anyone interested in traveling to the horn of Africa?
“We sell these passports because our government is not recognised, so if we want to do business outside Somaliland we have to use this document”, 26 year old Hussein told me flicking through the front pages of a pristine Somali passport. Adding ones details is no sweat – simply glue a photo over the box that says ‘picture’ and fill in your details by hand. A minister’s signature is required from Mogadishu – if indeed there is a Minister of Immigration -but that is easily circumvented.
“We just forge the signature”, Hussein said nonchalantly.
“And the Somaliland officials turn a blind eye?” I asked. “Of course they do”, smiled Hussein, “They have to travel on these passports too”.
The fundamental reason why central banks, which are essentially mercantilist institutions, survive today is because they have managed to secure economists' blessing. This blessing in turn reflects economists' tendency to treat monetary instability as a problem inherent to free markets, which only central banking can address, instead of seeing central banks themselves as a principle source of monetary instability, as they might were they to study monetary history more carefully than most do. Consequently economists have come to apologize for government currency monopolies, despite having long condemned such monopolies in other realms, and for good reasons.
White House aides are scoffing at a move in the Arizona legislature to force President Obama to show his birth certificate to get on the state's ballot in 2012 for his likely re-election battle.Actually, I do believe I will be better served by a legislature that is less focused on my life. If that means focusing on any number of trivial pursuits, then so be it.
"This is a question that has been answered exhaustively," White House spokesman Bill Burton told CNN. "I can't imagine Arizona voters think their tax dollars are well served by a legislature that is less focused on their lives than in fringe right-wing radio conspiracy theories."
The latest country to fall to hyperinflation was Zimbabwe, where inflation rate reported to be at 89.7 sextillion (10^21) percent in 2008, about 14% increase in prices daily.Ouch. I didn't even know 'sextillion' was a unit.
What is interesting is just how simple it all is. Expenditures are primarily devoted towards expenditures on military/national defense, as well as interest on debt. There are 3 categories for revenue (customs, excise, and direct). Now, looking at 1866-1879 expenditures:
The expenditure categories are still very basic and focus on military and interest on debt. The category "Indians" now appears, and my guess is that this is basically a military expense as well. The "Miscellaneous" category is further broken down, and it appears to mostly consist of administrative expenses in taxation, "postal deficiency" (?? Too good to be true, there must be a different meaning here), the provision of lighthouses, printing money, and public buildings (to some extent, another administrative expense).
So, revenue sources appear to have grown in categories, but my guess is that this reflects changes in the economy over the ensuing century and improved administrative infrastructure more than anything else. It does appear, however, that revenue collection became more complex at a faster rate than expenditure patterns over the inaugural century. Is there a reason we should expect this? My guess is that this reversed after the Great Depression, but I wonder what it would have looked like in the 1920's.The jury, as an institution, is an instrument designed to fascilitate the discovery process. If it is efficient, as an institution, it may be the best available means of ascertaining judgements of guilt or innocence in situations in which one or the other of these verdicts is socially required.
Given the central role of private individuals and firms in determining the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, and the quality and availability of criminal opportunities, private actions arguably deserve a central role in the analysis of crime and crime prevention policy. But the leading scholarly commentaries on the crime drop during the 1990s have largely ignored the role of the private sector, as have policymakers. Among the potentially relevant trends: growing reporting rates (documented in this paper); the growing sophistication and use of alarms, monitoring equipment and locks; the considerable increase in the employment of private security guards; and the decline in the use of cash. Private actions of this sort have the potential to both reduce crime rates and reduce arrests and imprisonment. Well-designed regulations and programs can encourage effective private action.
One creative method to harness private action to cost-effective crime control is the creation of business improvement districts (BIDs). Our quasi-experimental analysis of Los Angeles BIDs demonstrates that the social benefits of BID expenditures on security are a large multiple (about 20) of the private expenditures. Creation and operation of effective BIDs requires a legal infrastructure that helps neighborhoods solve the collective action problem.
And it is fortunate for men to be in a situation in which, though their passions may prompt them to be wicked, they have nevertheless an interest in not being so.
On Saturday, Leung and dozens of his friends stood in line at Apple stores around the San Francisco area. "We were limited to buy only two apiece," he said on Wednesday, toting a suitcase filled with iPads fresh off a plane from San Francisco and ready for resale on the streets of Hong Kong.
All told, he and his friends brought back about 200 iPads for sale in Hong Kong, where stores were selling them for as much as 60 percent higher than their $499 retail price.
Consider the following common problem. Most firms have an open enrollment period in November when employees can elect their benefit package for the following year. At my employer, the University of Chicago, you have a few weeks to log on to the appropriate web site and make your selections. The question is, what should the employer do for those employees who forget to log on? (Professors’ reputations for absent-mindedness are well deserved.) For each of the choices the employee has, the employer needs to select a default option for those who do not log on, and normally the default is either “same choice as last year” or “back to zero” (meaning, decline this option). At Chicago the default option for the health insurance plan is the same as last year.It's hard NOT to support this version of Libertarian Paternalism (of course, I'd prefer the choice architect be a private entity). If a default must be set, one should (in my normative opinion--and apparently Thaler's and others') set the default to what would most likely make the participant best off.
Of course it is possible to criticize this choice of the default option, but it is essential to understand that the employer must choose something. Some employers use “back to zero,” which minimizes the costs to the employer; somewhat less drastic would be to default employees into the plan that is cheapest for the employer; one could even choose a default plan at random (don’t laugh — this is the strategy used for some participants in the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage implemented by the Bush administration); or the employer could somehow force employees to make a choice. The Nudge philosophy here is that the person who designs the plan, whom we call the choice architect, should choose the default that she thinks, all things considered, will make the participants best off. Does Professor Whitman have a better suggestion?
Previous research has shown that Tiebout-style fiscal competition among local governments reduces the likelihood of adopting income taxes. This literature has not yet considered the impact of yardstick competition on tax instrument choice. This paper employs spatial econometrics to test for yardstick competition in the decision to adopt an income tax. The results, based on Ohio school district data, indicate that school districts are more likely to adopt an income tax if their neighbors have already done so. While a negative correlation of Tiebout competition on district income tax adoption persists, controlling for spatial dependence reduces the statistical significance of the effect.
A University of Chicago freakonomics professor told General Electric investors Monday to keep a close eye on recent fluctuations in the heights of competitive powerlifters from Mexico. "Usually we can count on a stable average of 5 feet 8 inches, but last month's quarter-inch drop in height among Mexican dead-lift competitors in the middle-heavyweight division could spell disaster for GE's aviation and software subsidiaries," freakonomist James Duncan said. "But, like anything else, a shrewd investor must always ask himself one thing: How many hot dogs did I eat last year?" Duncan previously gained recognition for tracking first-time home ownership and teenage mothers' gum purchases against the Times Tom Jones Is Played Per Day Index.[HT: Omar]
Instead, they suggest, it's a natural consequence of "dramatic socio-historic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food" over the millennium that started in the year 1000 A.D.
The Lithonia Democrat's already-thin frame has shed 30 pounds in the past year. His speech is slower than ever, and he regularly gets lost in thought in the middle of a discussion. He is easily fatigued and often impatient and irritable.It seems to me that Johnson is unfit to serve as Congressman. Rather than ousting him, though, I suggest a full scale investigation. What bills has he authored, supported, and voted for? How is his illness affecting other congressmen? What are his children doing these days? Let's get to the bottom of this!
[...]
He was officially declared free of the virus in January, but it has ravaged his liver, resulted in thyroid problems and other health issues, including depression, for which he's also being treated. To keep the disease in remission, Johnson is going through an experimental treatment that he said has been the worst part so far.
