Redskins Won

Beat the Iggles. 14 to more to go.

DayJet and Air Taxi

James Fallows has an excellent post on Air Taxi service. The development and affordability of VLJs (Very Light Jets) has made the air taxi business model possible.

No Bail..

Equals no White Ford Bronco chase. BOOOOO!

Bad Idea Finds Its Way To The Grave

TimesSelect is dead.

Off to the Wilderness We Go

Here is Jim Geraghty of the Campaign Spot:

"Hillary offers her health care plan, and Giuliani criticizes it, Romney criticizes it... I'd be surprised if we didn't have reaction quotes from McCain and Thompson shortly. This is a bit like last week with the MoveOn.org ad. The GOP candidates' comments are all fine, but notice that the forces on the left create the issue, and the Republican candidates respond. One is left wondering what it would take for a Republican candidate to throw down a gauntlet or put out an argument or idea that everyone else would have to respond to..."

Thus far, on the issues that matter (Mainly, Iraq and Health Care) the republican candidates have opted for truly banal statements as opposed to anything substantive. I don't really anticipate Thompson or McCain to come up with a health care proposal that goes beyond "let's extend the tax exemption to small businesses". This is small beer, indeed. And I don't really think that the candidates will be able to break out of this box as long as they confine themselves on some of the republican tax dogma. For instance, let's say Giuliani were to propose a revenue neutral carbon tax, well, Grover Norquist and company would jump down his throat for proposing a new tax. Never mind that such a proposal would be revenue neutral with an offset in either income or payroll taxes. The Anti-tax pledge that I believe all of the major candidates have signed onto is not even limited to tax rates but extends to deductions and credits. I doubt this will change until Republicans get whupped in '08 and possibly in '10.

OJ's Bond Hearing

OJ's bond hearing will be today to determine if he is a flight risk and whether or not he should be released on bail. I hope desperately that the court errs in judgment and will allow him to post bail for his release. I just love White Bronco chases scenes.

Clinton Proposes Limiting Healthcare Deduction

"Making the Employer Tax Exclusion for Healthcare Fairer: The plan protects the current exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health premiums, but limits the exclusion for the high-end portion of very generous plans for those making over $250,000."
-courtesy of Ezra Klein.

This is a good first step but it is all too modest. There is little sense in the health care exemption. By having one it simply necessitates higher marginal rates for the same people that are most likely to benefit from exempting health care from income taxes. How about we just get rid of the exemption and reduce marginal rates by the amount of revenue gained by getting rid of the exemption?

Greenspan Review

Brad DeLong reviews Alan Greenspan's new book in the LA Times.

Sprint Does Something Good, Sorta

Sprint is piloting a product, AirRave, in Denver and Indianapolis. This will be like the T-Mobile VOIP bit I blogged about awhile back. Older folks, but probably some young people too, are reticent to completely get rid of their land lines because of the sometimes shaky quality of cell-phone calls. The other reason being intentional redundancy (for instance, 9/11 knocked out cell phones in the d.c. area not landlines, a couple of years later we had a hurricane and the opposite happened). The AirRave, from what I can tell, is essentially a router that will boost your signal at home. I am sort of surprised that they are offering this service as Sprint is primed to roll out a National WiMax service and I don't know how this would fit in.

A First for IronChef

Rap Star (used in its most elastic sense) is on Iron Chef as a judge. Cat Cora is committing one of my biggest pet peeves, she has presented a dish with both a gelee and a foam. Nasty!

New VW Possibly Coming Stateside

This concept car is called the VW Up and it will be a rear engine car. I guess the design is a little bizarre but I like it. It looks like with gas prices staying high the trend of manufacturers developing subcompacts for sale stateside is here to stay.

More on Carbon Tax

Greg Mankiw has an Op-ed in the NY Times in favor of a carbon tax. He is currently serving as Mitt Romney's economics advisor, though, I don't think the Mittster has said boo about the carbon tax.

It's Official

OJ arrested for Armed Robbery. That's my boy!

Interesting if Contrarian Article

This over at Washington Monthly by Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation. He is arguing sort of in favor of our current system for caring for the uninsured, namely charity hospitals, but integrating these hospitals on a national level and providing them with more technical and financial support. Sort of a VA for the poor. I don't know what to make of it but interesting nonetheless.

OJ In The News

OJ is a suspect in a Casino break-in. My hunch is that he was looking for Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson's killer.

Geeks Save the World

Clive Thompson has a fun post on Geeks and their potential contribution to world problems (he cites Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation as an example). I too believe that geeks and nerds are essential to our survival and prosperity. This is disheartening as I am merely a dork, which I define as being interested in geeky and nerdy things yet lacking adequate intelligence to be proficient in them.

Hacks in Buckley's House

"Incidentally, I subscribed to The National Review a few weeks ago under the rationale that I need to follow conservative commentary, rather than just liberal commentary about conservative commentary. I haven't regretted it." -Ezra Klein.

Ezra Klein, for those of you who don't know, is a super smart liberal blogger and also writes for the American Prospect. While I applaud Ezra for engaging the other side, I don't think there is much worthy of engaging with at the National Review. The state of conservative commentary is much like the movement in general these days, piss poor. If you look at the National Review, and I say this in utter dissapointment as a conservative, the state of the magazine with few exceptions is hackish, reactionary, and dull. It is the former as opposed to the latter two that principally concern me. Conservativism is inherently reactionary. A central tenet of conservatism is the preference for existing institutions over new ones as they have demonstrated a degree of fitness that is evident in their mere existence. But there has been too much capitulation and cheerleading within the conservative movement, and this is especially so in the movement's flagship publication: the National Review. There are some good writers, Ramesh Ponurru springs to mind, but for the most part it is an uninspired and increasingly hackish lot. Larry Kudlow is a sycophant. Reading one of his columns will simply make you dumb. And the business of foreign policy, the notion of extending liberty is consonant to conservatism but the promotion of democracy where underlying institutions do not exist is a project that conservatives typically have not countenanced. The National Review boasts no shortage of boosters for these types of efforts whether it be the Michael Ledeen who I think is a bonafide loon or Cliff May. I don't even want to touch on the Weekly Standard which is expensive toilet paper that is running out of countries to propose invading. In the competition of ideas, the major conservative publications are no longer relevant.

Zingeriffic Quote

On one of Washington's power couples (Mary Matilin and James Carville):

"She's famous because she's the woman who ran the worst campaign in presidential history,** and he's famous because he's the guy who beat the worst campaign in presidential history." ... **--Bush, 1992.

From Kausfiles

More on Social Security

I was heartened the other day when Joe Biden (D-De) actually recognized the primary issue with Social Security: the trust fund is not a trust. The basic problem with social security is typical of any defined benefit pension.

First, let me go into some terms. When we think of pensions there are two types: defined benefit and defined contribution. Really the word pension conjures up the former to a much greater extent than the latter. A defined benefit pension is something that is decreasingly available but once was the norm. A defined benefit pension is at its name would imply: the benefits are defined. Say I worked for General Motors for 30 years as an arc welder and my final salary was $100,000. GM's defined pension plan as bargained for entitles me to say 65% of my salary from the date of my retirement to death. I would expect that there is some inflation adjustment. Now, General Motors doesn't do this out of the goodness of their heart but rather this is a supplementary form of compensation that comes at the expense of your wages. They are in essence saving and investing on your behalf. Now it sounds like a great deal, and it is for the worker, but it has some overwhelming downsides which is why the defined benefit is today largely extinct. The first basic problem is that a defined benefit pension is not portable, it was intended for an era when workers worked for the same company for their career. The other problem is that you are essentially up a river if your employer has failed to fund the pension fund adequately, this has been a problem for all defined benefit pensions whether they be offered by a private company, Social Security, or your local government (especially local governments).

A defined contribution pension is as its name would indicate: the contributions are defined, not the benefits. The 401(k), 403(b), Traditional IRA, Thrift Savings Plans are all forms of defined contribution pensions. You are able to set aside up to 15% of your pretax income in a tax deferred account and your employer can match up to 6% of your salary in the form of a tax deferred contribution. The virtue of a defined contribution pension is that you can take it with you, at a minimum what you have set aside (typically there is a schedule for the vesting of your employer contribution). The other virtue is that you don't have to worry about your employer inadequately funding it. Its core problem lies in the fact that employee is assuming some of the risk (that said, you don't have to worry about your employer shafting you, so risk is really in the eye of the beholder). How should you invest it? What happens when you retire, do you annuitize or simply draw down periodically?

How does this relate to Social Security? Well, Social Security is a defined benefit pension plan and it suffers the same problem that most defined benefit plans have: it's underfunded. Now, some will contest that the problem does not begin until 2040 when the trust fund is depleted. After all it says so according to the Social Security's Actuarial report. Well yes, and no. The actuarial projections are based on social security claims as payable under law. Right now, payroll tax revenues (the dedicated revenue source for social security) coming in are greater than social security benefits going out. If you account on a cash basis you would then show a surplus. But the problem is with pensions you account on an accrual basis. And there is a compelling logic to this. The revenues that are coming in are not only to cover present liabilities (i.e. Social Security checks being cut today) but also to cover future liabilities incurred today (i.e. to be able to cut Social Security checks to those who are paying payroll taxes now), thus when you prepare a financial statement you are to book the revenues in excess of your present outgoing benefits as a liability. The government doesn't do this. Every year for the past several decades, the congress has taken the surplus revenues from Social Security and uses it to plug in gaps in the General Budget. In return for pilfering the Social Security trust fund the Department of Treasury issues a special bond to the Social Security Administration and these bonds accrue interest. This has the effect of understating the true nature of the Government deficit. The unified deficit (=General Fund deficit + the social security surplus) is a good deal higher than the number the press touts whenever it reports the deficit numbers.

So how does this relate to Joe Biden and Social Security, well Sen. Biden was complaining that every year we raid the trust fund and spend all types of random crap and our day will come a lot sooner than people talk about. Sen. Biden's solution was to "stop raiding the trust fund". Well, congress has had the opportunity to show their restraint and has never been able to do so. Sen. Biden gets two points for honesty if not for the substance of his proposal. The principle virtue of Personal Retirement Accounts, or privatizing a part of Social Security was that while we are still collecting more than we pay out there would have been a mechanism to prevent the Social Security surplus from being frittered away.

Social Security Talk

Andrew Samwick, Dartmouth Economist and blogger, relays information over at his blog Voxbaby that Hank Paulson, Treasuary Secretary, is quietly mounting a campaign to make minor changes to Social Security. I don't really think there is much overlap in either party as to what changes would be acceptable. The obvious solution to deal with the explicit debt of Social Security is to raise the age eligibility or raise the cap on payroll taxes. To actually tackle the implicit debt that the Social Security Trust Fund represents would require much more drastic action. I thought the President's proposal was eminently sensible but I am obviously in the minority.

Mark Warner Running For Senate

This was inevitable. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think Warner has to be considered the odds-on favorite to win the Senate seat. He is still very well regarded in Virginia for his tenure as Governor (VA term limits Governors to one term). Demographically, Virginia is turning bluer as Northern Virginia has grown. Warner's likely opponents are Tom Davis, Eric Cantor, and Tom Gilmore. The former two could present a stiff challenge, Gilmore would get his clock cleaned.

Belated Sad Moment

I don't know how this slipped my attention but alas it did. Luciano Pavarotti has passed.

John Edwards Promises a Universal Entitlement

Edwards in an interview with Charlie Rose:

" Yes, I believe we do. I think that we tend to think of education as K through 12, maybe college and in some rare cases, graduate school. We should think of education as a birth-to-death experience in America. That means we get the kids as early as we possibly can, we head start basically 3- to 4-year-olds. That's not young enough. We can start much earlier, much more intensely but particularly focus on at-risk kids. Better training for those who teach in early childhood, better health care and nutrition, support for those kids. I think that there's some very specific things we should do in K through 12 such as provide bonus pay—raise teacher pay, generally. Provide bonus pay to teachers that will go to the most difficult places. And we've got to I think dramatically change No Child Left Behind. I just talked about college. Let me go to the last element which is the one that I haven't heard of, there's talk about. We know if you graduate from college this year that the information you learned, a huge amount will be outdated in five or 10 years, we have to be the most creative, innovative, best educated work force on the planet, so we need an infrastructure for continuing education after high school, college, or graduate school, whichever is the last part of your formal education. So we continue to learn. Now, I wish I could tell you I have a specific proposal on this. I don't, not yet. But I do believe that because—basically it's ad hoc now. We leave it to individuals or their employers the enormous responsibility of ensuring that 45-year-old workers or 50-year-old workers in America are up-to-date and best trained, best educated they can possibly be and I think we have to develop a national infrastructure for making sure people continue to learn as they age."

The man positively scares me. Now, part of this is simply paranoia as Edwards does not come out and say he believes there needs to be a "birth-to-death" entitlement to education but he sure seems to be gesturing in that general direction. I do think there is a very compelling logic to expanding access to preschool as the earlier the intervention the more effective it is (sadly the converse is true as well and later interventions are largely worthless). But this notion that there needs to be some "national infrastructure for making sure people continue to learn as they age" is frightening to me. There are oodles of vocational and technological education providers, not to mention for-profit and online providers (think of University of Phoenix) and one of the vastly underrappreciated resources, your local community college, which often excels at providing courses in marketable skills. Having taken courses from pretty much every type of educational provider (both for-profit and non-profit) the quality of instruction can be quite high and it is certainly widely available thanks to these "internets". Some people refuse to undergo continuing education simply because they don't like learning. That's unfortunate but I don't understand how you can actually do anything to change their minds (apparently promotions, greater pay, better job security and that it is often that you don't actually have to go to work while training [read: boondoggle potential] are inadequate incentives). And to me it does seem appropriate that the onus for continuing education is placed on employers and the employees themselves, namely, the parties who derive an immediate benefit from their continued educational efforts.

Tax Policy Cage Match of Midgets

Grover Norquist (aka Dr. Evil) and Jon Chait (if you don't agree with me you are not fit for polite circles) are having it out over tax policy.

Travis Henry

has nine illegitamate children by nine different women. He makes Shawn Kemp look like an amateur.

Pimp My JumboJet, part two

Apparently pimping your A380 costs $500 million.

Pie-Eyed Picayune Moving Up

According to the TruthLaidBear, PeP is the 42,259th ranked blog by traffic. In terms of relevance, easily somewhere between DailyKos and Powerline.

Bill Belichick is Fallible

Why are the Patriots trying to steal signals? Totally blows my mind. Is it not enough that they have Tom Brady AND Randy Moss? Very puzzling.

The Virtue of Single Payer, sorta

This from Matthew Yglesias:

"Be that as it may, I think Hanson's observation that "humans long ago evolved a tendency to use medicine to 'show that we care,' rather than just to get healthy" partially explains why things like the UK's National Health Service generate so much bang for the buck. In effect, a highly centralized state run health care system is able to put a cap on how much demonstrative caring can be done through the health care system. Nobody's going to say to his or her spouse, "well, sure we could afford the procedure, but it doesn't really stand up to cost-benefit analysis compared to spending the money on organic produce for the kids" but if bureaucrats stand in your way well, then, that's hardly your fault."

This is I think the chief virtue of a single payer plan which is it provides a clean and simple manner (if designed properly) to contain costs. I don't think such a plan is likely in our political systesm, especially when you look to Obama or Edwards' plans and is likely to simply replicate the deficiencies of our present system while sacrificing the benefits (namely innovation).

More On Health Care

Check out this piece over at Slate by Ray Fisman. He delves into the original sin of the American health care system-Employer Provided Health Care-and some of the inefficiencies these cause. He emphasizes the problem of preventative care as it regards to chronic diseases suffering due to employers constantly changing their health plans.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback

Now that the football season is underway, do go over to ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback by Gregg Easterbrook. Easterbrook is a scholar over at the superlative Brookings Institute but his weekly NFL column easily trumps his more scholarly contributions. I am serious, it is that good. The only other sports column that comes close is Bill Simmons "The Sports Guy".

John Robb on Iraq

Robb has a good blog post on why we will, not should, but will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan for some time to come.

He lists three core reasons, the last of which intrigues me especially:

1. Superior Marketing
2. The elasticity of the conflict (i.e. the notion of a war on terror)
3. privatization of the conflict.

I don't know to what extent the last one actually explains the current acceptance or reluctance to alter the status quo. Clearly the lives lost have been far too many (one being too many). That said, in terms of historical norms of armed combat, Iraq casualties are strikingly few. That said Blackwater and security firms of the like do lose men in combat (under contract) and this does not figure into public calculus.


hat tip: Ross Douthat

Best Movie Ever Made...

Is being remade! Yes, I am speaking of Tron. You ask what is Tron? Well as Ricky Bobby would say "It won the Academy Award for Best Movie Ever!"

Pimp My JumboJet

I'm a bit late to the party on this one but this struck me as both incredibly cool and grotesque. Apparently, Lufthansa Technik is going to be doing a little side business of pimping out A380s (Airbuses JumboFlop) for CEOs and other assorted plutocrats. No word on whether Xzibit will be hosting a Pimp My Ride (JumboJets) episode.

I think I can hear Green Cowboy projectile vomiting.

We Come Provacotive

In a delightfully derivative fashion that only the blogosphere can muster, here is the economist blogging on Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development reviewing the Paul Collier's influential development tract "The Bottom Billion" in Foreign Affairs:

"Here Mr Clemens seems to gesture toward perhaps the biggest and most controversial idea in development circles. Why would anyone with a robust sense of reality simply assume that each national jurisdiction contains the seeds of a viable economy? If we insist on thinking of development as a matter of national growth, we may well consign most of the bottom billion, and their children and their grandchildren, to unrelenting poverty trapped within their UN-recognised national prisons. Our real moral concern should not be the Central African Republic, but its unfortunate denizens. The best thing for their prospects may simply be to get out--to leave for a place where growth has already commenced. The West's many attempts to jumpstart growth where the world's poorest already reside has yet to work. So why does the international community insist on betting the poor's lives on the gamble that it will, finally, some day?"

Robin Hanson over at Cato Unbound

Robin Hanson, GMU Economist and prediction markets advocate, is blogging health care over at Cato Unbound (which is similar in format to TPM Cafe). I haven't read Hanson's lead essay, yet, but will be blogging it later. You could essentially sum up his views on health care accordingly: A lot of our health care expenditures (in his view half) do not result in a greater health outcome, thus, we should pursue policies that reduce our expenditures by the amount expended on wasteful procedures in order to free up resources for other health or utility gains.

Discussing Jon Chait's "The Big Con"

Over at TPM Cafe a bunch of super duper smart people (Will Wilkinson, Stephen Moore, Megan McArdle, Ross Douthat, Ezra Klein, and Paul Krugman) will be discussing Jonathan Chait's new book "The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by CrackpotEconomics". Chait mainly emphasizes the idiocy of the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves, which is definitely a feature of Republican rhetoric for tax cuts and clearly false. That said, he seems to assert that this is the only conceivable claim that could be made in favor of tax cuts, that in essence they are a free lunch. There are other claims to be made on behalf of tax cuts, efficiency, fairness (obviously this claim being hotly debated by both sides), reducing deadweight loss, and spurring economic growth. Anyhow, check it out as I am sure this "cyber panel" will have many interesting things to say.

More Articles on Subprime Mess

Tyler Cowen has a good article in the NY times on some of the difficulties in formulating a policy to address the subprime mess.

Ed Glaeser writes about possible solutions as well. He seems to be advocating something along the lines of the "Kling Debt-Equity Swap". He dismisses Dean Baker's "Own-to-Rent" policy which would prevent lenders from foreclosing on borrowers but borrowers would lose their equity interest while being allowed to remain in "their" home as a renter.

More Wise Words on the Suprime Mess

Here's Megan McArdle on pitfalls to avoid (ideally) in addressing the subprime mortgage mess:

• "Creating moral hazard
  
• Costing the government a scary enormous amount of money
  
• Outraging voters as the government taxes people in modest homes in order to allow people who bought more home than they can afford in those houses. Whether or not you think that this is common among those who have gotten themselves into subprime trouble, or even admire the redistributive justice of it all, this is a real sentiment out there, and politicians have to deal with it."

"These are reasonable goals. Against this, one has to weigh the fact that major crises are better averted earlier than later. But I am not yet clear on whether the mortgage market requires massive intervention, or just continual finesse."

More Subprime

This from Tim Lee over at the American Scene:

"I think that the fundamental problem in this case—one I haven’t seen discussed very much—is that people bought more house than they could afford. No amount of financial wizardry is going to change that fundamental point."

I think the reason that it isn't discussed more is that a "solution" to the subprime mess is a phenomenal way to pander/buy votes.

VW coming to D.C.

Booyah. Take that Michigan.

SmartCar Coming to the States...

starting January 08. Base pricing will be 12k. I don't think the SmartCar will retail that widely. I think its primary markets will be super eco-friendly environs where it functions as environmentally friendly consumption one-upsmanship over a Prius. Think Portland not Manhattan.

Google Phone

Here's Businessweek speculating on the future of the Google Phone or the gPhone. I think it should be called the G-Unit. They could do a whole cross-branding thing with 50 cent. You hear that Sergei; racked up another PHAT finders fee!

More Good Government

Awhile back Barack Obama had a minor ethics flare up concerning some of his investments. Many have questioned how blind Mitt Romney's blind trust will be. We all recall Bill Frists blind trust selling off shares of a health company (which if memory serves me correctly he had founded or his family had) just before the share value took a nosedive. We also recall Hillary Clinton's returns from commodities investments that would make the best hedge fund manager embarassed. And maybe we should also consider the bizarre ability of congressional members in the aggregate to vastly outperform the market in their personal investments. Maybe that's because Congress can legally conduct insider trading (hmmm).

When we talk about ethics reform and conflicts of interest the ability to trade on insider information (mind you, insider information that congress is in fact creating; members are actually allowed to review legislation before it becomes public and consider its commercial ramifications and trade accordingly) seems to stink phenomenally. One way to mitigate this would be mandate that congress members and Senate confirmed nominees put all of their financial holdings into index funds. This is what Judges do to make sure they do not have a significant material interest in company that tries a case before the court over which the judge presides. I think the same standard should apply to congress members as they consider legislation.

Gerrymandering Reform

It looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to get his gerrymandering reform passed after all. Proponents often oversell the reform but I do think it is eminently worthwhile. Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral districts for electoral advantage. This is what the big brouhaha down in Texas with Tom DeLay was about. It is one of many tools in the incumbents arsenal that makes them damn near invincible. This reform would have electoral districts drawn on a non-partisan basis. I think Iowa is the only state that has it already in place. Hopefully other states will follow California's lead. Kudos to the Governator.

More Apple Products

Here's the rundown courtesy of Engadget. Apple is rolling out a new iPod: the "fatty". It's basically like the nano but more squat and symetrical. They are marketing it as a cheaper more practical iPod video. They are also rolling out the iPod Touch, which is basically a phoneless iPhone. I don't really get the appeal because I don't like touchscreens but whatever.

Gibbs Racing Switches to Toyota

For those of you who don't know who Joe Gibbs is (shame on you, you are a miserable person), he is the best football coach to ever walk the face of the earth (It's not his fault that Dan Snyder owns the Redskins)? Now some might say that is a preposterous statement as surely Vince Lombardi or Belichick or Tom Landry deserve some props as well here. Well, that is wrong. Not only has Joe Gibbs led the most important Sports Franchise in the history of mankind to three Super Bowl victories (with three different QBs mind you) he is also a Nascar heavyweight. I don't recall Vince Lombardi having a winning team anywhere outside of the Football (not to mention that he stunk it up during his stint with the Skins). Anyhow, Gibbs in all of his Nascar genius is switching from Chevrolet to Toyota. I have no idea if this a sound decision because I don't follow Nascar or care for it but I will blindly champion anything Gibbs does.

Chairman Yi..

is on board. Yi Jianlian has officially signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. Crisis averted. No word on Laverne and Shirley Miller commercials (I expect a finders fee at least).

Sub-prime Remedies

Arnold Kling has an idea on how to "fix" the subprime mess. He calls it the "debt-equity swap". Essentially, for those that are unable to make payments now, he proposes having banks assume more of the mortgage debt themselves at the expense of the owners equity. This would essentially be as if the bank had put down the 20% down payment themselves. It's an interesting proposal. This seems to be the best proposal I have seen in terms of avoiding moral hazard.

More on Carbon Tax

Here is David Leonhardt on John Dingell's (D-MI) strained history with the environmental movement and newfound support for a carbon tax.

Here is Larry Summers in the Financial Times on climate change and the possible remedies. Here is a bit from the Summers article:

"Second, carbon markets are invitations to engage in pork-barrel corporate subsidy politics on a massive scale. If greenhouse gas emissions are to be substantially reduced, the value of the associated emissions rights will be in the tens of billions of dollars. While in principle emission permits could be auctioned, in practice they are always allocated administratively. "

Where have you heard that before?

Best Defense of Social Democracy and Interventionist Economics

The shortcomings of social-democracy are held to be revealed by unfavorable comparisons of Gross Domestic Product per capita. At the most basic level, this is tantamount to criticizing the Boston Philharmonic because it can't make foul shots. We suggest the object of economic activity is not the maximization of GDP, but of well-being or happiness. What's the difference?

If my preference is to work 30 hours a week for $45,000, rather than 40 hours for $60,000, and I am compelled to work the longer week, GDP is higher and I am worse off.

If I get worse health care paying $5,000 a year for a private sector health insurance policy than the same amount in taxes for a public system, GDP is the same but I am worse off.

If Consolidated Crappola, Inc. dumps toxic material into the air that worsens my emphysema, in contrast to a regulatory regime that reduced emissions and my adverse symptoms, GDP might be lower while I am better off.

So short of a treatise, GDP glosses over differences in the value of public and private consumption, discounts the value of public amenities, and implicitly assigns a negative value to leisure time.
- Max Sawicky

I ultimately disagree but this is the argument put as best I've seen.

Naked, Bold, Shameless Pandering

"Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary," Richardson, New Mexico's governor, said at the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic. "And I want you to know who was the first candidate to sign a pledge not to campaign anywhere if they got ahead of Iowa. It was Bill Richardson."

Jockeying for the First Primary

Traditionally Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are the first primaries (or caucus for Iowa). The DNC added Nevada to the mix. A number of states, notably Florida and Michigan, are attempting to move up their primaries ahead of the four aforementioned states' primaries. Howard Dean and the DNC have threatened to exclude Florida and Michigan's state delegates from the nominating convention if they do so. My question is whether this actually represents much of a threat? The party conventions no longer nominate candidates. I think the last convention where a candidate was nominated was when Hubert Humphrey won the 1968 nomination in Chicago. Nowadays the nomination is wrapped up well in advance of the convention and the convention is essentially a fundraising/ad orgy. Whereas the primaries, especially the early primaries, have incredible influence over who will be the eventual nominee. I would think that Michigan and Florida would wield far greater influence over the course of the Democratic nomination if they pushed their primaries ahead of the others and lost out on being able to attend the convention than the other way around. Am I wrong?

The Greatness of Mugabe

Izzy Mutanhaurwa breaks down the disaster that Mugabe's rule of Zimbabwe has been:

"3. In 1997 the economy peaked at US$8.5 billion, exports at US$3.4 billion and employment at 1.4 million. At that stage we were: -

a. The largest exporter of tobacco in the world after the USA.

b. The sixth largest producer of gold.

c. The biggest market for South Africa in Africa.

d. The second largest economy in the region and with the third highest GDP per capita.

e. Life expectancy was about 60 years and we had a literacy rate of 85 per cent with 95 per cent of all children of school going age in school.

f. Inflation was 12 per cent.

g. The exchange rate was 12 to 1 against the US dollar.

Zimbabwe today has an economy that has shrunk by half to just over US$4 billion, exports by two thirds to US$1.4 billion. Employment has declined by 45 per cent and industry by 60 per cent. Agricultural output this year will be 70 per cent down on the level achieved in 1997. Mining output is down and falling rapidly. Tourist arrivals have fallen from over 1.2 million in 1997 to less than 300,000 this year.

Life expectancy has halved, income per capita has also declined substantially. National population has fallen from an anticipated 16 or 17 million to just over 10 million today with 4 million Zimbabweans outside the country and some 2 to 3 million incremental deaths over and above normal mortality. 60 per cent of all children are not in school and all State controlled institutions are in dire straights.

For a country not at war or under sanctions, these are the most precipitous declines in economic and social welfare ever witnessed. They represent a calamitous state of affairs with no sign of any resumption of either stability or recovery. In fact the decline has accelerated in recent months very dramatically.

The US dollar is now trading at 20 million old Zimbabwe dollars to one in the open market compared to 1 to 2 in 1980 and 12 to 1 in 1997. Nothing tells you more about the collapse in the economy than that single statistic."

Let's see if Chavez can do the same for Venezuela.

hat tip: Megan McArdle

Mike Nifong Goes To Jail

Only for a day but at least it's something.

The Truest Thing I Have Heard In A Long Time

"Four: if you want to get out of a test, don’t say you have a family emergency. Everyone says they have a family emergency in college and it never works. Say you have diarrhea. No one ever says they have diarrhea unless they do."

-Conan O'Brian addressing Stuyvesant High School's graduating class. Read the whole thing, it's hilarious.

Ezra on Romney's Health Plan

Here is Ezra Klein bashing Romney and the notion of advancing health care reform at the state level:

‘This federalism stuff isn't just a Romney idea, though. The late, great, Paul Wellstone championed this strategy from the minority, and Russ Feingold has carried it through the recent Democratic resurgence, attracting Republican co-sponsors like Lindsey Graham along the way. Liberal organizations like the Progressive States Network back this approach, and they've attracted some strange bedfellows, including Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation. "Let's just try many different approaches in many different states and see what happens," he tells me. "The more complex an issue is, the less possible it is to actually know the best system in advance -- therefore a system of trial and error in which all these pieces work together is the best way to push forward."

Under this vision and its many variants, the federal government would set certain minimum coverage and insurance standards that each state would have to meet, guarantee set levels of financing, and allow 50 beautiful flowers to bloom. In liberal versions, the standards would be stringent, forcing comprehensive care and universal coverage. In conservative visions, like Romney's, the states have considerably more autonomy to do nothing.”’

I think to some extent Ezra is missing the point behind a state based approach which is trial and error. This is how we arrived at Welfare reform which was modeled after the Wisconsin Works program and has been hugely successful. But the presumption is not that “50 flowers will bloom”, rather that some will and some will not giving us an idea of how to best pursue action at the federal level.

Do read it as he has some great points.

Men in Bulging Tights

10 WWE wrestlers were suspended for using steroids. This is not real wrestling but rather the type with men in tights and capes. Should we care that these men use steroids? Or put in other words, should there be federal involvement in Wrestling as there was in baseball? Presumably these “wrestlers” have not used steroids under duress. They are not engaged in a sport so there are no concerns regarding the purity or fairness of competition. The only reason I can imagine that we would care that the wrestlers took steroids is that they might be role models.

Random Note

Paternity suits used to be called bastardy suits. This reminds of a story (it actually is the reason I don't use the word bastard anymore). A friend of mine was impregnated by her boyfriend the spring of her freshman year and then bore the child the following winter. The boyfriend as is often the case disappeared from the scene and ran from his responsibilities. Anyhow, my friend continued with her studies and from time to time would bring the child to campus. Anyhow, one day around the campus p.o. boxes I encountered her with her child. As she was boasting about what a good and handsome and healthy baby he was (which all appeared to be true), I remarked what a "cute little bastard he was." Fortunately she was a great deal more couth than me and charitable enough to overlook my poor choice of words and took the my remark as a compliment as I had intended.

PeP Update

I have incorporated a comments section in the sidebar menu so now you can disregard the posts and jump right into the riveting debates we have here.

More Endorsements

Chris Dodd has finally gotten a little pub (maybe not it was reported in the hill). He has snagged the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) union. Not bad. Though, I wonder if this a delaying tactic for the union so that they don't have to decide on one of the big three till later.

Hillary also nabbed an endorsement (not another pornstar) from a railroad workers union- The United Transportation Union.

Survival Guide

Popular Mechanics has a survivor guide for all you survivalists bracing for peak oil or a nuclear fall out. Check it out.

Picking a Bone

Michelle Cottle over at TNR's the plank alludes to the hypocrisy line often fashionable amongst liberals in dismissing family values:

"It's not so much that Craig has been championing traditional piety for others while wallowing in his own vice--the kind of tiresome hypocrisy so often practiced by Republican congressmen who fan the family values flames even as they cheat on their wives with hottie Hill staffers. (Yes, Newt, that includes you.) Rather, Craig has been championing traditional piety for others as part of a desperate attempt to cover up a dirty little secret that he so clearly hates himself for. "

In this instance she is fisking Larry Craig for being a closet homosexual and at the same time taking a hard-line stance against homosexuals. Fine with me, I agree. Where we part though is in her broader hypocrisy charge. I agree that Newt and so many conservatives that espouse family values or the virtues of the traditional nuclear family make for awful messengers. I disagree that this nullifies the validity of their message, namely that the nuclear family or family values writ large is a good thing or represents the optimal social institution. Newt Gingrich can afford his abysmal personal character. Most Americans, however, cannot. A divorce for folks of modest income can represent substantial hardship, financial and otherwise, whose effects are usually borne by their offspring. Being born out of wedlock correlates highly with anti-social pathologies. It is in the interest of society to have healthy families. It baffles me that people find such a statement objectionable.

Blogger...

Seems to be crapping out on me. I have tried to post on Ron Paul twice and it hasn't shown up on the blog. Is this a vast anti-libertarian conspiracy?

Update: All is well, disregard post.

Ron Paul Nabs Important Endorsement

Strippers are throwing their stilettos and thongs behind Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul.

Larry Craig Gets His Freaky Freak On

Apparently Sen. Craig (R-ID, as in "IDAHO, no You Da Ho!") was engaging in lewd and disorderly conduct in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. As far as I can tell he was masturbating loudly when an undercover cop attempted to play footsie with him under the stall? I am not quite sure. Anyhow, this is a great story. My hat is off to you Sen. Craig.

Dennis Kucinich's Wife Has A MySpace Page

Check it out as she is a Stone Cold Fox!

Update: hyperlink inserted.

Republicans and Health Care

The republican candidates seem to all believe that extending the health care tax deduction to all citizens will solve all Health Care woes. Currently, if you work for a firm covered by ERISA or the government your health care is exempt from taxes thus allowing you to consume health care with pre-tax dollars rather than after-tax dollars. Now this is a great deal for upper income folks as they save $.35 for every $1 they spend on their health care premiums (the top marginal tax rate is 35%). The only people that will really benefit from the extension of the health care tax deduction are upper middle income folks who are self employed or that work for small businesses. Now it doesn't seem fair that you should get a tax deduction if you work for IBM but not if you work for yourself. So needless to say there are some unnecessary distortions. That said, though, it does nothing to address those on the lower end of the income scale. Arguably it is destructive to them as it encourages higher income folks to spend more of their money on health care than they would if they were doing so with after-tax dollars thus driving up the price for health care. The cost of this deduction to the federal government runs $200 billion a year. In order to make up this lost revenue marginal tax rates need to be higher. Instead of expanding the tax deduction how about we scrap it. You could use half of the increased revenue from scrapping the deduction to create a catastrophic reinsurance program so that the chronically ill don't get dumped from their insurance plans and give the other half back to the tax payer by reducing marginal rates.

Another One Bites the Dust

Gonzales resigns. Chertoff appears to be in line to replace him. This surprises me and strikes me as politically tone deaf. Chertoff has not exactly set world on fire as Homeland Security chief so I would not think he would be a sure thing to be confirmed as Attorney General (even though given his background he is vastly more qualified for that position than his current post). But that means that Bush will have to expend twice as many of his non-existent political chits as he will have to get two people through the senate confirmation process.

Bush UN Ambassador Rips Bush a New One

Check out this link from the NY Times. Zalmay Khalizad, basically one of the few people in this administration who has acquitted himself in the foreign policy arena rips Bush a new one. The irony here is that he is Bush's current UN ambassador. He may as well have just taken out an ad and said my boss sucks a fat one.

Preventative Care as a Free Lunch?

Here is on David Leonhardt in the Economic Scene over at the NY Times on the folly of those that argue increasing preventative care (though surely a worthy objective) is a free lunch.

Romney's Health Care Plan

The New York Times has a good write up of Romney's health care plan.

Nose Candy Submarine

A submarine full of coke was intercepted off the coast of Mexico/Guatemala (I a m aware that these are distinct countries). I just think it's cool that people are doing this (not touching on the whole illegality/foolhardiness and destructiveness of the War on Drugs).

Lindsey Gets Off

In other news, Lindsey Lohan has escaped felony charges stemming from her DUI incident where she was found with a bag of nose candy.

Obama Girl and Jenna Jameson

The Obama Girl is about to do a playboy spread and appears set to endorse Hillary. One for two ain't bad. Apparently Porn Star Jenna Jameson has endorsed Hillary as well.

hat tip: Jim Geraghty of the Campaign Spot.

Sliding Towards Hanoi

Bush gave a speech yesterday at a VFW in St. Louis. In the speech he spoke of the withdrawal from Vietnam and the devastation that ensued to the Vietnamese and Cambodians and to America's image (both moral and its ability to project power). I think one can draw this Analogy between Vietnam and Iraq, but it is ironic that the President would do so because the reason that this aspect of the analogy is apt is that all other aspects of the analogy are apt as well.

Debate Format(Sort of)

Alex Tabarrok has an interesting proposal to shake up the presidential debates, or really to replace the debates: he wants the candidates to submit to a format along the lines of one of the reality tv talent shows where instead of singing and dancing skills the candidates demonstrate things like mediation and negotiation skills.

I don't know about such a proposal, aside from the fact that it would never happen, but I do think the debates suck and need to be changed. I think it would be cool if they got rid of the moderators and time limits and held a quaker meeting style debate. Totally free form, Biden would hang himself in the first two minutes.

Chairman Yi

Sportsguy Bill Simmons has a great nickname for Milwaukee Bucks(?) rookie Yi Jianlian: The Chairman. Though, I think Chairman Yi would be better. His signature move could be called the Great Leap Forward.

In other news, Yi still to this day refuses to sign with the Bucks, thumbing his nose at Milwaukee and all of Wisconsin. As I have stated previously, I think this is stupid for a number of reasons but I will focus on the marketing of Yi which his agents have offered as a primary objection to playing in Milwaukee.

I don't think that he will be disadvantaged from a marketing perspective because the fish out of water narrative will be so compelling that he will reach a broader audience. Picture if you will Yi and Penny Marshall taping a commercial a la Laverne and Shirley for Miller Lite. It would be an instant classic. Anyhow, I do think congress should address this ASAP.

Michael Vick and Race

Michael Vick is about to plead guilty to dogfighting charges and will actually do time, somewhere between 12 months to 18 months. I think that's only appropriate. One of the things that has been interesting to observe is the media's coverage of the Vick controversy.

The media has covered this story extensively and all of the gruesome details (the electrocutions, rape stands, etc.), however, there is one element that it has sorely missed- race. And I don't think that reporters are necessarily brushing this under the carpet but are simply unaware of this dynamic.

The Michael Vick dogfighting case is quite similar to the OJ Simpson trial in that how it is perceived divides significantly on race. Admittedly, I am drawing this conclusion from a small sample: colleagues' reactions at work, a couple of radio channels, statements from other players. But I do think there is a substantial difference in the White and African-American communities in terms of their perception of dogfighting in general and the Michael Vick case in particular. I didn't anticipate this. With the OJ Simpson case, even though there was a complete irrationality in the perception of OJ's innocence or some grand conspiracy, at the root of this irrationality as it applied to OJ was a deepseated mistrust in the law enforcement community and the justice system that was well founded. I am sure to some extent this is a contributing factor in the Vick case but not one that fully explains this phenomenon. I would speculate that the difference probably comes from differing norms on pet ownership more than anything but I don't really have a clue.

Megan McArdle AKA Jane Galt On The Move

Megan McArdle is one of my favorite bloggers and her blog is now going to be hosted over at the The Atlantic along with Ross Douthat, James Fallows, Matthew Yglesias, Marc Ambinder, and Andrew Sullivan. I would hyperlink it but I just bought a Mac and haven't gotten that far.

Office Happy Hour Rules

It's midnight and I am thinking about booze. Anyhow, a couple weeks ago your loyal correspondent attended an office happy hour that ended in disaster. This experience inspired me to come up with some basic guidelines on how to avoid being stuck with an absurdly high check (I wasn't, I ran).

1. If there are more than five people ask the waiter to provide separate checks.
2. Buy your drinks from the bar. This way, at the end of the night when thirty people are converging on the bill to try to sort out who owes what you can casually walk away.
3. Bring cash. When you have failed to follow rules #1 and #2 this rule is a vital safety valve. Here is what you do, when the waiter brings the bill to your table do not, I repeat, DO NOT take the bill into your posession. Gently guide the bill to your neighbor and look over their shoulder and calculate the amount you consumed plus tax and tip, round it up and throw the wad of cash at your neighbor and run.
4. In the event that your neighbor is faster on the draw then you are and guides the check over to you: Pick up the check, calculate your amount, put your cash on the tray or folder the waiter has provided and shove it into the hands of the first person that runs towards you to satisfy guideline #3. This is called hot potato. Chuck the check and then RUN!
5. If you have not adhered to rules #1-#4 then you will be stuck with the bill and will be amazed at how many people forgot to add a drink here or tip there or are too stupid to figure tax.

The West: "extreme-sport natives"

At lunch today (in a small Wyoming town) I read the Mountain Gazette. Several articles weighed in on moral dilemmas of mixing backcountry extreme sports such as whitewater kayaking, rock-climbing, skiing, etc with conservation and impending development.

While some of the articles made provocative, useful points, some instead held a "native" (native to the West, as opposed to somebody from San Diego or Boston) viewpoint I found frustrating, something I have encountered before in the West.

Take, for example, lamentations over latte-drinking yuppies on vacation, buying second homes and ruining mountain towns that are little slices of progressive, open-minded, green, sports-loving heaven.

First, it is not just your town to lament over. The fact that you or your parents moved there fifteen years before the tide of disposable income rose does not give you exclusive rights to living there. Think about how that town was likely founded in the first place - by miners who illegally prospected on Native American lands, found a valuable mineral, then petitioned the US Army to come kill off the indigenous population.

Second, as the cost of living goes up due to the influx of new money, yes, rent will go up and that will suck. However, if you are living a ski bum or climbing bum lifestyle that relies on part-time low-wage jobs so you have more free time to pursue your sports, my sympathy is limited. Choosing the asceticism of cheap apartments and unsteady work in Jackson Hole has its obvious risks and does not yield the same rarefied viewpoint as choosing asceticism for social benefit (volunteering for humanitarian work in a poverty-stricken area, for example).

Third, extreme sports does not a conservationist make. If you want to get up in arms over new condos being built on your favorite backcountry slope, go for it - but that doesn't make you a crusader for all that is natural and good in the world. Conservation is a complicated, sprawling issue that concerns the whole landscape, and it is not centered on your favorite gnarly lines and wicked chutes.

Upset extreme sport natives, those who live in mountain towns in the west mainly for the benefits of excellent skiing, climbing, and kayaking, make some damn good points: our growing and redistributing population needs some thought and recreation can be an excellent impetus for conservation. But in some aspects, the viewpoints just seem unrealistic.

The divided, turmoiled West

In my limited international travel experience, I’ve often found that people outside the US visualize our country as two coasts, with the West between. Think cowboys and Indians, snow-capped mountains, sagebrush, ski resorts, and Denver.

I do love the Midwest, but for four years I have lived out West. My life has been in an unstable zone somewhere between “tourist” and “local.” I live in a place long enough to know the back roads, to see the bars and the shops on a slow Tuesday afternoon, to absorb the landscape. But then I move. I do not stay not long enough to become part of the true social circles, to see how a town changes over time, or get anything more than a very in-depth portrait.

Tom Robbins wrote something like “geography determines climate, climate determines culture, culture determines morals.” Bernard DeVoto wrote of the West, “Its landscape is dramatic, its climate violent. Its history is dramatic and paradoxical…its inhabitants…are a volatile, expansive people, energetic extroverts at the base of whose conciousness are tensions and conflicts.”

Do we have any readers in the West? I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about this place, and I plan to post on it. I will tag “environment” and “culture,” because perhaps more so than anyplace else in the US, those two concepts intertwine out here.

Mulally on Carbon Tax

Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, has some smart words on the carbon tax and CAFE:

"Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally called the federal government's mandatory fuel economy requirements a failed program and suggested a tax on gasoline might do more to achieve energy independence and help the environment....
"I have never seen a market-distorting policy like CAFE," Mulally said. "It's a policy that forces you to put out more small cars than there is consumer demand for to make the bigger cars that people really do want. "You're trying to force the market instead of being market-driven."

hat tip: Greg Mankiw

Obama Says Something Sensible

Here is a snippet from an Interview over at Grist (go over and read the whole thing, he acquits himself quite well):


"Q: Do you believe that we need a carbon tax in addition to a cap-and-trade program?"

"Obama: I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a cap-and-trade program accomplishes. The danger in a cap-and-trade system is that the permits to emit greenhouse gases are given away for free as opposed to priced at auction. One of the mistakes the Europeans made in setting up a cap-and-trade system was to give too many of those permits away. So as I roll out my proposals for a cap-and-trade system, I will price permits so that it has much of the same effect as a carbon tax."

He makes an important point that I have been repeating ad nauseaum, you don't really have a cap in a cap and trade unless you auction permits. A good follow-up question would have been what Obama would intend to do with the resulting windfall.

Freakonomics Moves to the NY Times

The Freakonomics blog is now being hosted by the New York Times. It was inevitable.

Anyhow Stephen Dubner has presented a question to this group of notables (for lack of a better word)-Arthur Brooks, Tyler Cowen, Mark Cuban, Barbara Ehrenreich, Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

"You are walking down the street in New York City with $10 of disposable income in your pocket. You come to a corner with a hot dog vendor on one side and a beggar on the other. The beggar looks like he’s been drinking; the hot dog vendor looks like an upstanding citizen. How, if at all, do you distribute the $10 in your pocket, and why?"

I actually give money to panhandlers only if they advertise that they are going to use it for booze. I appreciate their candor.

More Stupidity From Romney

"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."
He added: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

I recognize the "why aren't you/your family in Iraq" is hard question for politicians that support the war, but this is a truly pisspoor answer.

hat tip: Professor Bainbridge

Glaeser on Brooks on Obama and Edwards

Ed Glaeser has a good op-ed over at the NY Sun. In the Op-Ed he discusses Obama and Edwards' respective approaches on anti-poverty measures and argues in favor of Edwards' approach as it is person based as opposed to place-based. Edwards has been advocating housing vouchers whereas Obama seems to be hitching his wagon to a new generation of urban renewal. I am not knowledgeable in these areas but that doesn't ever stop me so here goes:

Depending on the income restrictions (i.e. assuming Edwards' proposed housing vouchers are not a middle class subsidy) they would be eminently preferable to current affordable housing solutions for lower income folks. For awhile now our solution to the housing needs of the poor is to create public housing. The problem with public housing is a little concept called peer effects. You might remember as a child how there was always one friend who your mother cautioned you against associating with. She didn't want you to become a young hoodlum and one way to guard against that was to prevent you from hanging out with other hoodlums so that their ill considered ways never rubbed off on you. That in a nutshell is peer effects, our parents have always intuitively understood it even when our politicians don't. Bundling the indigent and throwing them in a building will provide adequate shelter, but it will also foster intergenerational poverty, children being born out of wedlock, and criminality. Poor people typically lack social capital and public housing perpetuates this state of affairs.

The Truth is Frightening

Here is a quote from Jonathan Gruber of MIT on the problem of controlling costs in Health Care:

“Fundamentally, if you’re going to control health care costs, it involves denying people care they want — or things they’ve been trained to think they want,” Mr. Gruber says. “There is no easy answer.”

WSJ on the Credit Crunch

WSJ has a really good article by Greg Ip on how the recent credit crunch has come about.

Me Blogging Borjas Blogging Bloggers (Sounds Like the Lyrics of a Neil Diamond Song)

Bloggers are contemplating the possibility of forming a union. Harvard Economist George Borjas has zinger:

"I hate to burst the happy ideological bubble these bloggers are living in, but: who exactly is the employer that you are going to be negotiating with? And who exactly is going to pay your higher salary and health benefits?"

Betting Markets

Slate has a feature covering political betting markets.

Google Phone?

According to the folks over at Engadget Google is seriously considering coming out with a cell phone: the G-Phone. Sounds great. One of the reported features is that Google will actually upload all of your phone calls to a database at the National Security Agency to save them the trouble of wirelessly tapping your phone.

NYC: Nanny State Edition

The New York City Council is contemplating banning the words bitch and ho.

LA Times on Google Maps

The LA Times has an interesting article on some of the privacy concerns stemming from Google Maps. That said, they are a little late to the party, see here and here.

Interesting HealthCare Proposal

This is from Brad DeLong, UC-Berkeley Economist and former Clinton Treasury Official:

"20% Deductible/Out of Pocket Cap: The IRS snarfs 20% of your family economic income. 5% of it is an increase in taxes (but that replaces your and your employer's current health insurance premiums). 15% of it goes straight into your Health Savings Account. That HSA is then used to pay all your family health bills. If your expenses in a year are less than what's in your HSA, the balance is rolled into your IRA (or, if you prefer, returned to you with your tax refund check).
Single-Payer for the Rest: If your HSA is emptied and you still have more health bills that year, the federal government pays them. The main point, after all, is insurance: if you fall seriously sick, you want right then and there to be treated whether or not your wallet biopsy is positive.

Sin Taxes: on Tobacco, Gorgonzola, Three-Liter Bottles of Liquid High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Tanning Clinics (Melanoma), et cetera: Sin taxes (and, perhaps, someday general revenues) pay for an army of barefoot doctors and nurses and mobile treatment vans roaming the country, knocking on doors, and providing preventive and other long-run lifestyle services for free: Let me examine your prostate. Mind if I check your refrigerator and tell you how to eat healthier? Have you exercised today? I'm a Pilates instructor, and we could do a session now? Are you up on your immunizations? Anybody here have a fever and need antibiotics? Come on out to the van and I'll clean your teeth." The idea is to make the preventive care cheaper-than-free, to insure that nothing with a high long-run benefit/cost ratio gets left undone because people would rather get a bigger check the next April to use to buy an HDTV.

A Lot of Serious Research on Best Public-Health, Chronic-Disease, and Hospital Practices: Made easier, of course, by linking the payment records from the health branch of the IRS to hospital records to the wirelessly-transfered logs from the barefoot doctor vans.
That's it. No deduction for employer-paid health expenses. No insurance companies.
The key is that we face not a health-care financing crisis but a health-care treatment opportunity. Technologies are going to do marvelous things: we are going to have livers grown from our own tissue on reserve in hospital basements in case we go picnicking and eat the wrong mushrooms. We need to figure out (1) how to spread the benefits of current and future medical treatment options as widely as possible while (2) also making sure that a lot of thought and energy goes into figuring out what effective treatments have the highest benefit/cost ratios--i.e., cost least--because those are the ones we can collectively afford to do the most of, and while (3) making sure that we collectively earmark as much of our total resources to health as we really want. Government programs are good at (1). Markets are good at (2). And insurance is good at (3) if we can deliver the right incentives to insurers. These three goals are in considerable tension. The package above strikes this relatively ignorant economist as likely to give us the best chance of getting as close as possible to utopia.

Why the 20%? Because I am very impressed by the use of technology to drive the cost reductions--which means the reductions in doctor and nurse time: the increases in the number of procedures that a given treatment unit can perform, and thus in the number of people whom we can, collectively, treat--in beneficial-but-optional areas like eye surgery and lenses. It does seem to matter that consumers are cost conscious and economize when they have financial skin in the game. This is the mother of all Health Savings Account proposals.

Why the barefoot nurses? Because there are an awful lot of games where we don't want economization. This is the mother of all public-health and subsidize-preventive-medicine proposals.

Why single-payer above 20%? Because I think there's no space left for insurance companies. Insurance executives' and actuaries' incentives are horribly wrong--they are either to figure out how to exclude the sick from their coverage or to skimp on preventive stuff because twenty years hence the patient will be covered by some other company. You want doctors to have incentives to deliver necessary and appropriate care better. You don't want insurers to have incentives to deliver shoddier and cheaper care in hard-to-monitor ways."

And Yes..

I put the words Hillary and Cleavage up there because traffic is starting to flag. Guilty as charged.

Puff Piece over at the NY Times

Here is a piece over in the Politics section at the NY Times concerning the growing tension between Obama and Clinton. This is slightly more substantive than the WaPo story on Hillary's drooping neckline and flash of cleavage but still, this seems to be a bit worthless. At no point does the article highlight any policy differences or anything remotely policy related that pertains to their newly frosty relationship.

More on Consumption Taxes

Here is a little policy brief on replacing the payroll tax (as opposed to the income tax) with the consumption tax from Maya McGuineas of the New America Foundation. Anyhow, she presents some interesting ideas as to how one can embed progressivity in such a tax through progressive rates and exemptions. That said, I still owe Archduke F.F. a better crafted response to his charges against the consumption tax than my glib exemption response.

Romney Said Something Worthwhile

Here is Romney in the debate on providing health care access through the tax code:

"ROMNEY: We have to have our citizens insured, and we’re not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don’t have insurance aren’t paying taxes."

This isn't entirely true because a great deal of the uninsured are people in their 20s that would rather spend the $100 a month it takes to get catastrophic coverage on going out but for the near poor who aren't covered by medicaid this certainly rings true. In terms of extending coverage to the poor this is something that can't be done by manipulating the tax code but rather will have to be on the spending side.