Books of Summer

The LMM and I are really, really boring. We go to the beach and....read.  Have been here at Wrightsville Dunes for 8 nights now, and have gone out to dinner exactly once (though it was fun, visiting with Aaron and Laurie King, and went to Bluewater)

That means I get some reading done.  With Kindle, you can read old stuff, new stuff, all sorts of things.

The good:

1.  The Code:  Baseball  Ross Bernstein.  Solid, interesting, but mostly stuff I knew.

2.  The Code:  Hockey  Ross Bernstein.  Fascinating, partly because I don't know much about hockey, but also because there is a lot going on behind the scenes.  Some of the chapters are good enough, in terms of institutions, to be used in the sort of class where you talk about Olson, Ostrom, Leeson, and Skarbek.  Really, really great.

3.  Three Nights in August  Buzz Bissinger.  The story of a series between the SL Cards and the Chi Cubs, in 2005.  Probably more, and deeper, stuff about how baseball works and how pitchers protect their teams than the Bernstein book.  But then maybe I just like it because it is a story of how the Cards beat the Cubs, back before the Cubs starting sucking so bad that this outcome is a near certainty.

4.  Havana Nocturne  TJ English.  How the Mob tried to run Cuba, and how Castro ran out the Mob.  As interesting and vivid a history as I have ever read, and gives one sympathy for poor Cuba.  Recommended by T. Pino; thanks!

5.  The Economics of Beer  Edited by Johan Swinnen.  A bit academicish, but some great stuff on beer's history and economics.  The chapters on beer in China, the largest beer consumer (total, not per capita) alone are worth the book.  And John Nye's chapter on beer and wine in England is a classic.

The Bad

1.  The Code:  Football  Ross Bernstein.  Can't blame Bernstein, and football is useful as the missing case in the instiutional story in his triloogy of "The Code" books.  Query:  What happens when there is no code, because players are allowed to cheat and take cheap shots, because they are wearing protective equipment that covers their entire bodies, especially their heads and faces?  Answer:  Football.  Hockey and baseball have codes to prevent violence.  Football just promotes violence, and that's all there is to it.  Boring, repetitive account of injuries and mayhem without form or control.

The Next

1.  Just got The Story of Spanish JB Nadeau and J Barlow.  Spanish is the second most frequently spoken language on earth, after Mandarin.  Why?

Monday's Child

1.  A Schumer in the White House?  A note:  I have myself never thought Chuckie Schumer is DUMB.  The problem is that he is evil incarnate  I'd like him MORE if he were dumb.

2.  Why does Prof. Angus get such excellent evaluations?  Now...we know.   Touchatouch-atouchaTOUCH me.  I want to be smarty.

3.  Why a lot of "educated" folks won't get hired.  Boiled down:  because expensive colleges offer a lot of fraudulent "Indignation Studies" majors that (1) serve faculty ideological hobbies, and (2) are essentially content-free, in terms of social value or analytical skills.

4. An interesting article.  This guy, publishing in DEMOCRACY, recognizes that Ayn Rand would hate a lot of the guys who claim that they love Ayn Rand, as a protection for their blatant rent-seeking.  He gets a LOT of things right.

5.  If it's true, it's pretty bad.  Not sure it's true, but....

6.  They hated it when GWB did it (and rightly so, let me add).  The difference is that the left trusts Obama when he abuses the power of the Presidency.  And apparently they assume (as every regime assumes) that they will be in power forever.  The Thousand Year Psych.

7.  Information Asymmetry problem solved!

8.  Tattoo-Gate ring available on Ebay!

9.  Happy "Father's" Day.  Gosh, that kid looks different. And this site...really?

10.  Affordable housing shortages are not solved by government action, they are for the most part caused by government action. You can see this documented on an almost daily basis by our friends at Market Urbanism.

SO much more after the jump...

Read more »

For Dads: Past, Present, and Future

Okie ego trippin'

1.  Can't resist the opportunity to brag that my JME article with Gordon Tullock has hit 1000 citations on Google Scholar.

2. On the either end of my citation list, one of the funnest and least cited papers I've ever written (and the best-titled paper I've ever written), "Arbitrage in a Basketball Economy", was featured in the WAPO Wonkblog this past week. Co-authored with the estimable Bob Tollison.

3. My paper with Aaron Smallwood on exchange rate volatility and trade was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of International Money and Finance.

4. Finally, my student and co-author, Norman Maynard, has accepted a tenure track job at the College of Charleston!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Social Pain

Can Marijuana Reduce Social Pain? 

Timothy Deckman et al. 
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming 

Abstract: Social and physical pain share common overlap at linguistic, behavioral, and neural levels. Prior research has shown that acetaminophen — an analgesic medication that acts indirectly through cannabinoid 1 receptors — reduces the social pain associated with exclusion. Yet, no work has examined if other drugs that act on similar receptors, such as marijuana, also reduce social pain. Across four methodologically diverse samples, marijuana use consistently buffered people from the negative consequences associated with loneliness and social exclusion. These effects were replicated using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental designs. These findings offer novel evidence supporting common overlap between social and physical pain processes.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

DWIM

You may know the piece of computer jargon, "DWIM."

It's an acronym for "Do What I Mean."  Of course, computers can only do what we SAY; they really can't tell what we mean.  The LMM DWIMs all the time (yes, DWIM can be a verb).

I had just asked her to remind me to Skype with the EYM (he's in Chile) on Sunday at 4 or 5.

She wanted to display her virtuosity with computers (We saw "The Internship" last night, so we're feeling pretty post-millenial).  So, she woke up SIRI, and said, "Remind me to tell Michael to SKYPE on Sunday at 4 or 5."

Of course, the computer "brain" has no way of understanding what "4 or 5" means.  SIRI could do it at 4, or at 5, or at any specific time.  But "remind me later" is a DWIM move; no way SIRI can do that.

I was staying very quiet so I could eavesdrop on the resulting hilarity.  But SIRI just punted, and said she would "Remind you to tell Michael to SKYPE at forty-five," which doesn't mean anything.  A missed opportunity.

How Can This Be Illegal?

So, a guy gets a speeding ticket.

He pays the ticket, on time, with a valid check.

But he adds a bunch of obscenities and editorializing on the ticket form.  Not threats, just pissed off.

So...he is arrested?  Really?  This is clearly political speech, in the sense of a petition for a redress of grievances.  No question it is political, so fails the Miller Test on what can be prosecuted.

And no one even saw it, until the state decided to make an issue of things that would have just remained private.

The Tip of the Data Spear

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Environmental Zeal, Icelandic Edition

An interesting fellow, Arnar Sigurdsson, writes from Iceland. And found my little piece on recycling.  He went from thinking that no one else KNOWS about recycling fraud, to realizing that everyone knows, but that they condone it because it's "moral" to do it, even if it wastes resources.

He published an op-ed in the newspaper there, and here is the link.  But unless you read Icelandic, you'll need the following (not very good, I admit) translation.  Here is the best I could do (blame me, not Arnar, for infelicities):


Recycling can be an example of Glori-free operation based on political orthodoxy, expert power and meinloku thought.
>

Recently article appeared with the title of "Half doubt about recycling dump." This is certainly a thought provoking fact the case for the fact that everyone should question the recycling of waste and the presence of recycling funds. (More after the jump)

Read more »

A Parable on Environmental Zeal

An email from BW in Logan Utah, reproduced in its entirety...


Issac Hammon’s restaurant wasn’t doing well. People in the community had many dining-out options and business volume at Issac’s restaurant was insufficient to break even, let alone earn a profit. 

But Issac had friends in local government, so approached them with a proposal. “Let’s mandate that every household in the community eat at my restaurant at least twice each month. With increased volume, I can cover my costs while keeping meal prices reasonable. This will benefit the community by creating more jobs and adding to tax revenues."  (More below the jump)

Read more »

El Candigato!

Hey, White House! Surveil THIS!

A nod to Angry Alex

Headlines That Tell the Story....

1.  TSA Agents Stop Chewbacca Actor Over Light Saber.  "Um, light sabers are not real weapons, they are special effects..."  "Hey, no way, fuzz boy.  I saw Luke's arm get cut off!  Get out of line."

2. Japanese teens are spreading pink eye by licking each other's eyeballs. 

3. FL deputy removes Doritos bag from deer's head

Angus and Mungowitz are the new Black

Wow!  Some respect, from the WP.  Sort of.  Libertarians are cool!

Of course, EJ Dionne is predictably idiotic.  I really think that there is no set of empirical facts that could make ol' EJD recant his fervent mancrush on Obama.  Yo, EJ:  Libertarianism is a DIRECTION.  You are trying to defend your guy by fabricating criticisms about what you imagine to be the DESTINATION.

The day the NSA sent Obama Mungo's internet profile

People, how did this internet spying thing stay secret for so long? It's not like Obama was hiding it even a little bit.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Free heroin in Vancouver.  Free.

2.  Bernanke's sense of humor...

3.  Don't drink and drive.  And don't eat and Tweet.

4.  Smartphones and Medical care...a video.

5.  Forbidden photos:  Secret shots of Hitler's bunker.

6.  I wonder if she actually believes this.  But then, I wonder if Sen. DF actually believes ANYTHING.

7.  Is it creepy that I want to go to see this, even though I have no children to take?  Maybe I can borrow Fundman's kid.

8.  Crony capitalism, thy name is "Republican."And again:  too close to the sun.

9.  It's gonna take a lot to take drones away from the state, There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do, Obama blesses the drones down in Africa, Gonna take some time to kill the  folks we neeeeeever have.

10.  Man.  Now the LMM wants to leave me for Rod Stewart.  And he's, like, 90.

11.  Why would a judge ignore the system of allocation, given how scarce transplants are?  Because he's a judge.  Not clear he can actually force his will, though.  Ugly little incident.

12.  The first rule of rent-seeking problems:  The more complex the rules, and the more powerful the rule enforcer, the more corruption you will get.  And Obamacare is going to be shockingly corrupt.

13.  Follow-up by my friend and colleague Bahar L., on her case in Turkey.

14.  Paper is a renewable resource.  Why the obsession with getting rid of it? 

15.  Okay, so the NYTimes may be a craven, cowardly, rag that is wholly owned by the Democratic Party as an outlet for propaganda.  But even the NYTimes can be honest, at some point.  This is going to leave a mark.


16. "Many development economists argue that poor countries can get richer if they improve their institutions, particularly the rule of law. The converse also applies: Rich countries can get poorer if their institutions deteriorate, particularly the rule of law. Today only lawyers think the United States has the world's best legal system...The chief business of the American people is no longer business. I fear it may be bureaucracy."

17.  The bikes of New York, and the rage of New York about the bikes.  Jon Stewart weighs in.

18.  Wind energy:  The Stupid Frontier.

19.  What could possibly go wrong with a program that makes it effectively impossible for U.S. companies to compete internationally? Some impressively paranoid speculation from Instapundit.




Headline Meme:

1.  NYC Mayoral Candidates Gets Rise Out of Wiener.

So much wrongness in one tiny tweet

Con 2 súper cracks antes de la gran final!! Qué grandes que son!! @RafaelNadal @DavidFerrer87 #RG13 pic.twitter.com/09SoZkCWBq

•  Reply 
•  Retweet 
•  Favorite 

Tell me your favorite parts in the comments!

Oh yeah, and go Rafa (or should I say Rafita)!

Is There ANYTHING That Could Persuade These People BHO is a Bad President?

This is funny enough, I suppose.  But I do wonder if all the people who said, "Obama has to wait until after the election.  Then....THEN he'll start doing the right thing!" still believe that.  At some point, you have to recognize that OBAMA is the zombie.


 
Thanks to Kevin Lewis

Financial Journalism 101

Financial journalists are like NFL cornerbacks. They have a very short memory.

No matter what happens, they always have a facile explanation, and little to no concern if the explanation is logically consistent with the explanation for yesterday's events.

I read that the stock market decline yesterday was due to "preliminary bad jobs news" and "bracing for Friday's jobs report".

If the market had surged, it would have no doubt been because the bad news meant the Fed would not be ending its various asset buying programs (the "bad news is actually good news" gambit).

And people, if the market hadn't budged........??

That's right, investors had already "priced in" the news.

Nice work if you can get it and don't mind the smell.

The manufacturing renaissance will not be televised

Ouch! This morning's ISM report on Manufacturing activity was bad. A reading of 49 (below 50 indicates contraction), the lowest since mid 2009.

Here's a chart from the maestro, Bill McBride (clic the pic for a more illuminating image):

Plus the recent ADP jobs report indicated that 6000 manufacturing jobs were "lost" in May.

Come on Service sector! Only you can save us.

Don't Try to "Fix" It, Okay? I just need you to LISTEN, sometimes.

It's Not About the Nail from Jason Headley on Vimeo.

"We theorize that..."

Apparently, "we theorize that...." means "I thought of this in the shower, and had the data, so I figured what the hell!"

Liberellas versus Konservatives: Social Status, Ideology, and Birth Names in the United States

Eric Oliver, Thomas Wood & Alexandra Bass 
University of Chicago Working Paper, April 2013 

Abstract: Despite much public speculation, there is little scholarly research on whether or how ideology shapes American consumer behavior. Borrowing from previous studies, we theorize that ideology is associated with different forms of taste and conspicuous consumption: liberals are more drawn to indicators of "cultural capital" and more feminine symbols while conservatives favor more explicit signs of "economic capital" and masculine cues. These ideas are tested using birth certificate, U.S. Census, and voting records from California in 2004. We find strong differences in birth naming practices related to race, economic status, and ideology. Although higher status mothers of all races favor more popular birth names, high status liberal mothers more often choose uncommon, culturally obscure birth names. Liberals also favor birth names with "softer, feminine" sounds while conservatives favor names with "harder, masculine" phonemes. These findings have significant implications for both studies of consumption and debates about ideology and political fragmentation in the United States.

The Night Watch, By Day, In a Mall

I liked this far more than I should have, I expect.




If you remember the piece, it was a famous study by Rembrandt, of light and shadow.  Called "The Night Watch," it was actually entitled "The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq," after the guy who commissioned it (Cocq?  One of the Koch Brothers, I bet!)   

With thanks to the LMM

It's Not Flipping Fair!

Not sure I actually believe this.  But, here you go.

"What he and his fellow researchers discovered (here’s a PDF of their paper) is that most games of chance involving coins aren’t as even as you’d think. For example, even the 50/50 coin toss really isn’t 50/50 — it’s closer to 51/49, biased toward whatever side was up when the coin was thrown into the air.

But more incredibly, as reported by Science News, spinning a penny, in this case one with the Lincoln Memorial on the back, gives even more pronounced odds — the [American] penny will land tails side up roughly 80 percent of the time."

With a nod to Jay Larson…

Nixbama?

Like causes produce like effects, in politics as in physics.

President Obama gives the same answers President Nixon gave, and for the same reasons.  Once the President decides that illegal acts, if done by the President, are legal, simply because the President is doing them, you have become Nixon.  Amazing that Bob Schiefer, poor old guy, is the one who points this out.  Wow.




Nod to Angry Alex

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1. Victory through commercial sponsorship?: "The United States might not be the most popular country in the Middle East these days, but in addition to Chevrolet, [Arab Idol's] sponsors include Pepsi, Twix and Kentucky Fried Chicken"

2. It's really BAD that a Chinese company is buying Smithfield Foods, because....well, because it's really BAD!

3.  France worried that it will be swamped by English-speakers, because it is losing out on English-speaking students because it is so aggressively obnoxious to English-speakers.  Just reading this makes you realize how justifiably worried the French are to be French.  They are headed to a hard-earned and well-deserved irrelevance.

4.  Capitalism:  Laugh track, or last laugh?

5.  Prof. Fisher of Yale replies to socialist Stokes, on disappearance of interest rates.

6.  The folks at SCOTUS show a "remarkable outbreak of harmony."

7.  A man who takes spelling VERY seriously.

8.  US Political Polarization, Duke study.

9.  Tinfoil Hat on grant system, and on how it wastes resources

10.  Come the revolution, we won't need no stinkin' religion!

11.  Ripped from the pages of Atlas Shrugged:  I would not have believed this, but it's true.

12.  Gun Free Zone App:  really?

13.  Could Anonyman's generation be any more self-absorbed and solipsistic?  Answer:  No.  Some evidence.

14.  Taylor Swift bought a giant beach house, and walked around downtown, in the LMM's hometown.  In Westerly, this is the biggest thing since Roughie threw that putter through a car windshield.  Heck, maybe bigger.

15.  NASA seems to be dealing with the sequester just fine!

16.  Scott Adams delightfully trivializes P-Kroog.

17.  Peak Oil is peak idiocy, more idiotic every day.

18.  The Tiger Stripes of Enceladus (sounds like a Heinlein novel title, says Angry Alex)

Headline Meme:

1. Beavers attack people in Belarus 

2. Worrying New Trend Sees Diet-Conscious Drinkers Inhale Alcohol to Avoid Calories 

3.  N.M. driver drove drunk while having sex .    (Although, this story is NOT all contained in the headline.  It gets much better, reading the whole thing)

Look Ma: I just fixed Social Security!

It was easy!


Here's what I chose to do:



 YOUR POLICY SELECTIONS                        % OF GAP CLOSED
Raise Age to 69 then index to Longevity                       39%
Index COLAs to "Chained CPI"                                   21%
Reduce Fraud and Overpayments                                   5%
Tighten DI Eligibility Requirements                               4%
Prohibit Applications above the Early Retirement Age   5%
Cover Newly-Hired State and Local Workers                9%
Apply the Payroll Tax to "Cafeteria Plans"                    9%
Diversify the Trust Fund to Increase Returns               20%

                                                                                   TOTAL 112%

Want to do it your way? You can use this cool app.

And, as always, you can tell me why I'm a dope in the comments.

Here's my heroic achievement in graphical form:

Trust Fund Projections 
Percent of Annual Benefits 

Baseline

After Policy Changes

Prices

House price dynamics with dispersed information 

Giovanni Favara & Zheng (Michael) Song
Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming

Abstract: We use a user-cost model to study how dispersed information affects the equilibrium house price. In the model, agents are disparately informed about local economic conditions, consume housing services, and speculate on price changes. Optimists, who expect high house price growth, buy in anticipation of capital gains; pessimists, who expect capital losses, prefer to rent. Because of short-selling constraints on housing, pessimistic expectations are not incorporated in the price of owned houses and the equilibrium price is higher and more volatile relative to the benchmark case of common information. We present evidence supporting the modelʼs predictions in a panel of US cities.

Fight the Power!

I have a great colleague (just got tenure), Dr. Bahar Leventoğlu.

 It turns out she has been fighting a landmark court case in Turkey, for the legal right to keep and use her own name (her "maiden" name in patriarchal language) after getting married.

And she won! GoodONya, ma'am!

 (Some background and other details on the case here)

Russ Roberts!

Tomorrow, at long last, Russ and I get to do that voodoo that we do, and record another EconTalk. The subject is a little different from what we have done in the past: Sports rules and equipment.

The claim is that there are three moving parts:  Equipment, formal rules, and informal rules.

If you try to change one thing, such as allowing an equipment change, you get a bunch of unintended and possibly bad consequences.

So, should fighting be allowed?  Well, in some sports ( chess, golf--unless you are Sergio Garcia--, tennis) fights are almost unknown.  In some sports (basketball, soccer, football), a fight means you are ejected.  But in some sports, particularly baseball and hockey, fighting is an important check on other kinds of violence.  In particular, I found this quote from Gordie Howe, one of the best hockey players ever: "If you get rid of fighting, you are going to get more of the dirty play. Let them fight, and get rid of all of the stickwork."   The point is, the threat of retaliation in the form of humiliation, rather than eye-for-an-eye physical damage, makes the game safer.

Of course, the "fighting" can be stylized.  Here is a baseball brawl from a game in South Korea.


This kind of fighting is of course well known in the animal world, in dominance displays:




On the other hand, it is possible for a baseball fight to be an actual fight.  Most famously, Ray Knight v. Eric Davis.  (Full disclosure:  I really, really hated Ray Knight, and thought Eric Davis was not treated fairly here.  The whole thing was that jerk Knight's fault.  Go Reds, Dutch Boy).

At the University of Chicago, it's no longer "sink or swim"

From 1954 til now, you had to be able to swim to graduate from the University of Chicago.

I am not making this up.

At Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, MIT and Notre Dame you still do.

Here's what UC alum Hassan Ali had to say about his experience:

"Entering college is intimidating enough, let alone getting half-naked in front of your peers and trying to prove your physical acumen,"

And here's what the great Christopher Zorn had to say about Mr. Ali's quote:

"For those of us who didn't attend U of C, that was known as the "good part" of college".

Proving that Public Choice is everywhere, the article did find someone in favor of this ridiculous policy:

Fred DeBruyn, aquatics director and assistant physical education director at Cornell, said the swim tests served a valuable purpose: preventing drowning.

Not to mention helping to fund Mr. DeBruyn!

Pow Wow Chow

They want the "Redskins" to lose their name, but Elizabeth Warren, who is not even Native American, can write (actually, plagiarize) a book called "Pow Wow Chow" and that's okay?

Some background, in an email from WH:

Elizabeth Warren, the queen of the notional proposition, wrote a book entitled Pow Wow Chow. 

It was much later pointed out that the book was plagiarized. Basically no one ever read the book and those that did read it at its face value [recipe book]. 

However, when Warren was running for the senate she made a big deal of being of native American ancestry. The claim of native American ancestry lead people to investigate the claim. The investigation spider webbed into all kinds of nooks and crannies once it was determined her claim was dubious and that she had parleyed her claim into obtaining crony type benefits over her career. 

The aggregate investigation by reporters and plain old regular folks lead to the uncovering of Pow Wow Chow as plagiarized. The plagiarizing is old news. But the Amazon book reviews are little known. Huh? Given the above, the book Pow Wow Chow is sold on Amazon. Over the years only a handful of reviews existed. Once the whole native American ancestry deal was exposed and the book having been plagiarized, people started visiting the book's site on Amazon and writing additional comments. Some of the "new" comments [note the proliferation in 2012] are absolutely hysterical! 

 I'm not so sure about the "plagiarism" thing.  After all, these are recipes.  Maybe she should have made a little more effort to change things up, but recipes are rarely original.

The title "Pow Wow Chow," on the other hand:  Wow! She can only get away with that because she's a real Native American.  Oh...wait.

New Codes....LOTS of New Codes

Instead of better policies, it is the nature of bureaucracies to seek ever more complex classification schemes and record-keeping protocols.

No surprise that that is where our medical "care" is going.

My question:  what if a turtle on buring water skis hits a lamppost?  Don't we need a way to distinguish those?

Third Party Scape-goating

Displacing Blame over the Ingroup's Harming of a Disadvantaged Group can Fuel Moral Outrage at a Third-Party Scapegoat 

 Zachary Rothschild et al. 
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming 

Abstract: Integrating research on intergroup emotions and scapegoating, we propose that moral outrage toward an outgroup perceived to be unjustly harming another outgroup can represent a motivated displacement of blame that reduces collective guilt over ingroup harm-doing. We tested this hypothesis by manipulating the purported cause of working-class Americans' suffering (ingroup cause vs. unknown cause vs. outgroup cause) and whether a potential scapegoat target (i.e., illegal immigrants) was portrayed as a viable or nonviable alternative source of this harm. Supporting hypotheses, participants primed with ingroup culpability for working-class harm (versus other sources) reported increased moral outrage and support for retributive action toward immigrants when immigrants were portrayed as a viable source of that harm, but reported increased collective guilt and support for reparative action when immigrants were portrayed as a nonviable source of that harm. Effects on retributive and reparative action were differentially mediated by moral outrage and collective guilt, respectively. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

What Happens when you try to give away money?

Prof. Newmark provides a nice set of examples and varieties of rent-seeking.  Well linked, sir.

The video version of my own effort:

Markets in ....ick.

Markets in everything, f'real.  Taken from a car window by an aware reader.

How do you...you know...collect it?

How to Close Gitmo

A solution:  How to close Gitmo


Nod to Angry Alex

Utterly Wrong-Headed

Morals and Markets  

Armin Falk & Nora Szech 
 Science, 10 May 2013, Pages 707-711

Abstract: The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either saving the life of a mouse or receiving money. We compare individual decisions to those made in a bilateral and a multilateral market. In both markets, the willingness to kill the mouse is substantially higher than in individual decisions. Furthermore, in the multilateral market, prices for life deteriorate tremendously. In contrast, for morally neutral consumption choices, differences between institutions are small.

Even by the low and folksy standards of "Science," this is pretty lame.  Calling it a "market" simply means that responsibility is more widely shared.  Surely any collective body with large numbers would see the same result.  It's just the banality of evil problem, rediscovered and given the ideological twist that "Science" loves to give.  

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  If you want your wallet / purse returned, stock it with sweet baby pix...

2.  The only way to win....is not to play.

3.  Carbon-free sugar?  That's nice.  Wait...what?

4.  "We were trying to give away huge suitcases of free money, but we ran out."  The Administration is trying to blame "cost overruns," when the problem is that Obamacare is incoherent and unsustainable.  The "risk pools" cannot possibly pay for all the people with pre-existing conditions, which is precisely why they didn't have insurance in the first place.  But when insurance companies couldn't insure them, the regime blamed greed.  Now that the government can't insure them either, the regime is trying to blame unexpected cost overruns.  Nice.

5.  Interesting.  Our leftist brethren are upset about the requirement that folks must have an ID to vote.  But they don't seem to have thought enough about the problem of ACA requiring that everyone has a bank account.  For the "unbankable," this is quite a hardship!

6.  Another reason to admire Elon Musk, of Tesla.

7.  We are captives of the federal prison-industrial complex. "A labor union representing 12,000 federal officers who issue immigration documents will join forces...with the union representing deportation agents to publicly oppose a bill overhauling the immigration system that is making its way through the Senate, arguing that the legislation would weaken public safety." 

8.  "An oversight by Congress two decades ago led to the inclusion of models in the H-1B class."  I don't see why this is a problem.  Women who are physically freakish enough to be models should ALL be given green cards, immediately.

9.  Four people (including the LMM) sent me this Dilbert cartoon about clueless PhDs.  I'm sure it's a good thing.

10.  The Whimsy-conomy in energy...

11.  The EXTRA-ordinary business of life...

12.  Interesting.  Even the French think that French movies suck.  Or so it seems.

13.  You won't find THIS on brendannyhan.com.  Hard to tell if it's simply satire, or satirically true.

14.  Earnest young man with guitar case far more likely to score the digits from young ladies.  Which may explain this, as a response from other men.

15.  Council members abstain from vote on abstention...

16.  Young Obamawalker...nevah underestimate the POWAH...of the demand side!



From my favorite "Headline Meme":

1.  "Pregnant woman dies, gives birth, comes back to life"

2.  "Lake seniors drew penises on cars, disciplined." (UPDATE:  this was the original headline.  Someone thought better of it...)

3.  Police:  "Thong Cape Scooter Man" Not Breaking Law

Movies of Summer

The LMM and I see a lot of movies.  Thought that we would make highly idiosyncratic judgments of eight movies we have seen that are still in theaters.

42:  M:  Very good.  Solid baseball movie, good acting, actually allows Branch Rickey to be greedy, the real reason he wanted to break the color line.  All that was necessary for desegregation was for people to be optimally self-interested, instead of bent on hurting others.  LMM:  Very good, story works on several levels, relationship between JR and wife was plausible and involving.

Great Gatsby:  M:  Appalling.  As bad a movie as I have ever seen.  LMM:  Bad, but how bad can it be with Leo de Cap?  Would leave M in a minute if LdC invited her to a party, or anything else.

Iron Man 3:  M:  Very good.  Very very good, in fact.  LMM:  Ditto, very good.

Life of PI:  M:  Very good.  Visually stunning.  Story is bizarre, of course, but you have to pay attention.  LMM:  Okay, but not great.  Hard to follow.

Mud:  M:  Very good.  Quirky unexpected violence in an almost "Sling Blade" vein.  LMM:  Ditto, very good.  UPDATE:  LMM gives it more of a "meh."

Oblivion:  M:  Very good.  The premise is complex, but the way it is filmed works.  LMM:  Appalling.  Very confusing, terrible.  Would leave M in a minute, however, if Tom Cruise called on the communicator.

Sapphires:  M:  Very good.  Not sure if the "great white man saves black folks" genre really needs another entry, but this one is well done.  And the connection with Viet Nam, and having the "black folks" be Australian was all very interesting.  The scene with black aboriginals sitting around a fire in the outback watching news of MLK's murder was arresting.  And the songs and the ladies are cute.  LMM:  Ditto, very good, good performances.

Star Trek:  Into Darkness.  M:  Very good .  Several parts are too long, and the implausibilities (Kirk needs to talk to Scotty, but he fired Scotty.  So Kirk calls Scotty on his cell phone device....from another star system....without any delays in communication.  And etc.)  LMM:  Would leave M in a minute if Chris Pine called her on HIS cell phone device.