Why I'll Probably Never Vote for a Democrat

One of the main differences between liberals and conservatives (by the American definition of those words) is who they fear. Liberals fear unchecked businesses, whereas conservatives tend to fear unchecked government (or at least based on their rhetoric). Here is a video from Zimbabwe, that helps show why I usually side with the conservatives. I challenge you to find an example of a bad business that has done anything remotely as destructive as bad governments (think Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, and Castro).

Economics of Child Safety

Child safety laws in cars are so extreme that most parents don't even follow them. For example, in my state of North Carolina, a child must be in a restraint device until they are older than 8 years old and over 80 lbs. And yet, parents are allowed to fly in planes while holding their children. In response to this very question, the FAA stated that:

the cost of an extra ticket could force parents to travel by car instead. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children. On the other hand, the problem of child safety in air travel, the F.A.A. said, 'barely exists.'

This is a good example of how hard it is for people to assess risk. As this graphic explains (thanks Justin) you actually have a better chance of dying on a bicycle than in a plane.

Worthwhile Sentences on People

From Alex Tabarrok Jacqueline Novogratz: "Philanthropy can appeal to people who want to be loved more than they want to make a difference."

From Arnold Kling summarizing Thomas Sowell: "the [political] right thinks that social problems primarily reflect basic constraints, while the left thinks that they reflect the failure of good to triumph over evil."

From Walter Williams: "Having been around for 73 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the polite ones are: colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent."

From Allison Schrager: "Like most people, I am far too self-involved to make it as a cheat."

From Tyler Cowen: "take the smartest person you know and put him or her on TV for hours a week, for years, and see what happens."

*Past worthwhile sentences.

Economics of "Hello"

If you've ever lived in a small town or, in my case, went to college in a small town, you may have noticed strangers like to say "hello" to each other. But go to any big city and you'll notice no one says hello on the street. Here are some possible reasons why:

1) In big cities the opportunity cost of saying hello is high because there many other things to do. People vacation in big cities because there is always something fun going on. Time spent talking to strangers is more expensive to busy city dwellers.

2) In America making eye contact with someone usually results in a polite hello. So the less eye contact there is, the less hellos there will be. In big cities there is a large number of commuters, vacationers and just plain people. Your likelihood of seeing someone you know on the street is pretty low. So you look at peoples faces less, make eye contact less, and say hello less.

3) If you say hello to one person, you usually say hello to all people. In a small town you may pass a few people every so often. In a big city you are constantly walking pass strangers and can't be expected to say hello to all of them. This may be why people on boats wave to each other, but people in cars do not.

4) Most big cities are in the North where the weather is colder. When people dress warmly you see less of their face. Less face to face contact will result in less hellos. This could be another explanation of why people on boats (or motorcycles or convertibles) wave to each other.

5) Because of reasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 most big cities have created a culture of people that don't say hello. It's like the final episode of Seinfeld when Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine are weired out that people in the small town keep saying hello to them. A lasting cultural norm may increase the cost of saying hello and ensure that New Yorkers are always rude.

More Celebrities, More Celebrity Deaths

In the last week or so, Steve McNair, Karl Malden, Billy Mays, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Michael Jackson have all died. Is this a series of freak occurances or a signal of an increasing trend? After the coverage of the death of Billy Mays, it occured to me that this increase in celebrity deaths is due to an increase in celebrities. We live in a time where information is so free flowing that a man known only for selling cleaning products becomes the top searched item on Google. There are even websites dedicated to keeping you up to date on famous deaths (www.celebritydeaths.net and www.hollywoodmemoir.com). With movies, music, TV (reality TV), YouTube, blogs, etc, there are so many ways to have your name known. I imagine the list of "famous people" was much smaller even just a generation ago.

Baptists, Bootleggers, and Wal-Mart

In case you haven't heard, Wal-Mart has come out in support of Obama's plan to force employers to provide health insurance to workers. What you haven't heard, is why:

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Here is another example from Clemson University economics professor (and all around nice guy) Bruce Yandle's famous paper: Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist.

Economics of Capture

From TechCrunch (thanks to Justin):

In November 2008, Rohde was captured and held hostage by the Taliban, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal. But until he managed to escape, most of the general public had absolutely no clue. To prevent Rohde’s value in the eyes of his captors from rising, the New York Times kept more than 35 major news organizations from reporting on the story. They believed that the publicity from reporting his capture would inflate the value of Rohde’s life, increasing the difficulty of negotiating for Rohde’s release. Keeping 35 news organizations quiet was actually not the hard part - but staving off Wikipedia users from publishing the news? That was a bit trickier.

This story is interesting to me for a couple reasons. One, that the price of a prisoner is derived from the public. The more we want people free, the more the government will pay/do to free them. If people don't know, the hostages are worthless. Compare this to President Carter's headache, the Iran hostage crisis. There were repeated rescue attempts that all that failed (because they were valuable to the captors). Where as these hostages were able to climb over a wall and run away.

The other interesting part is how this story almost broke in the New York Times (the largest metropolitan newspaper in the US) and Wikipedia. I've posted before on how accurate Wikipedia is, but this is proof that they are also where news comes first. Although I'm happy they were able to keep the story suppressed for a while, I'm comforted that it was so difficult to keep such an important story quiet.

Happy Independence Day from OverThinking It

That's from Overthinking It, a blog dedicated to explaining "popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn’t deserve." Other highlights from the site include: how the movement of the earth wasn't calculated in Back to the Future, how to survive the music video Thriller, and the philosophy of that last two Batman movies.

Religion Is Not About You

After my last post, you may have gotten the impression that religion is about people and their choices. Let me clarify, it's not about me, it's about God. Organized religion is a structure for giving attention to a higher being. Not because he is a needy child, but because he deserves it (he is God after all). So when I talk about going to church to indoctrinate myself, it's not primarily for self improvement (Christian term: sanctification). It's so I can be reminded of what God has already done (Christian term: justification). The Bible is full of stories about the terrible mistakes humans made: Adam ate the apple, Noah couldn't convince one person to repent and join him, Moses regular doubted God and wasn't even allowed into the promised land, Jonah refused to obey and was upset when God saved the repentant people of Nineveh, and even David killed a man to cover up his adultery. It's not what men are doing that makes me show up church, it's what God has done for that long list of broken men (and those like them).

Good Indoctrination is Good

Every so often my wife and I will sleep in an miss church on Sundays. Recently on one such Sunday I asked myself why I go to church in the first place (hoping that if I better understood the motivation for going, I might go more). Reasonable answers I've heard before were "to hear the gospel" or "fellowship with other believers". But then it hit me, I go to the church to be indoctrinated. In many ways being a Christian is like being schizophrenic. You desire to be certain kind of person, yet you are never able to attain it. That is of course why Jesus' atonement is so important. However, there are many times when I doubt my faith based my own failings. That is why I am involved with my local church; so that I can be reminded of what I believe. After this realization I was a little disturbed. If I am honestly seeking truth, isn't indoctrination just tricking myself? I don't think so. I am being indoctrinated all the time (by friends, family, TV, and yes even economics blogs). So like everyone, I pick and choose what influences me and to what degree. And from what I have witnessed in my own life, the local Christian church is a powerful force for good indoctrination.