Why "September 1 No Gas Day" is idiotic. [see also]
"...Here is a (no doubt) partial list of totally idiotic mistakes in that e-mail: 1) If nobody buys gas today, but everybody drives the same amount, then it just means that we either had to buy more gas in anticipation of not buying any on September 1, or that we will buy more a few days later... 2) A one day total boycott of gas would not reduce oil company bottom lines by anything like $4.6 billion, even if it was accompanied by a one day moratorium on all gasoline use... 3) One day of no purchasing of gasoline would certainly not cause the oil industry to choke on their stockpiles... So everyone, please buy gas on September 1st. And if you ever have the bright idea to circulate an email like this, at least tell people not to use gas, rather than not to buy gas."
US Army auditor who attacked Halliburton deal is fired. [via]
"An American government whistleblower who denounced the decision to give billions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction contracts to a subsidiary of Vice-President Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton has been fired from her job, ostensibly because of poor performance..."
Why do Americans work so much more than West Europeans?
"...Whence the new-found European taste for leisure? Macroeconomist Prescott concluded that high marginal tax rates could explain the whole thing. But then marginal tax rates are to some economists what gold prices were to gold-bugs: the explanation of basically everything that moves..."
Oil prices could yet go higher—unless the world's biggest gas guzzlers curb their thirst [via, via]
"...The best long-term solution—for America as well as the world economy—would be higher petrol taxes in the United States. Alas, there is little prospect of that happening. America, unlike Europe, has preferred fuel-economy regulations to petrol taxes. But even with those it has failed abysmally..."
James Hamilton takes a look at one of the key studies on Vioxx and heart attacks. He is not greatly impressed. [see also]
"...[E]ven if there actually is an elevated risk of the magnitude the studies suggest but can't prove, the question is whether I might want to accept a 1 in 4,000 risk of dying from a heart attack in order to get the only medication timt makes my pain bearable and a mobile life livable. And if I say no to the Vioxx, I may end up taking something that is less effective for my pain but has risks of its own."
Iraq's infuriatingly vague constitution.
By Fred Kaplan.
"Judging from the two translations of the text released so far, it's hard to see how Iraq's constitution could serve either as a document that unifies the new Iraqi nation or as a clear guide to governance..."
"...[most] of the blog entries posted...require no graduate training in economics to produce. Is this surprising? Is this bad?" [via]
"...Many blog entries seek to help readers save time by pointing them to interesting articles out there on the web. These bloggers are economizing on transaction costs for time poor readers. The bloggers have paid the search costs of finding interesting stuff for like minded readers and are kind enough to lead the readers to these posts."
[via Environmental Economics]
"...My take: Bryan Caplan and I have an ongoing debate. He holds the traditional economist's view that people are usually more rational with more important or more decisive choices. I see important exceptions to this principle. Many critical choices cause people to freeze up, become more dogmatic, distract their attention, or engage in greater self-deception. But I am not as skeptical as Robin is about the benefits of health care expenditures."
[via Marginal Revolution]
Since Fox News wrongly identified a La Habra home as that of a terrorist, its five-member family has faced an angry backlash. [via]
"The Vorick family lives in fear after the fixer-upper they bought three years ago was wrongly identified in a Fox News broadcast as the home of a terrorist. "I'm scared to go to work and leave my kids home. I call them every 30 minutes to make sure they're OK," says Randy Vorick. Drivers shout profanities, stop to photograph their house and -- most recently — spray-painted their property."
[via Romanesko]
Recess-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton is doing exactly what his critics expected of him. He is sticking it to the world...hard and nasty. [see also; see also]
"I received this morning a leaked copy of U.S. comments on the draft document for the Millennium Summit in September. I have been informed that these are John Bolton's personal draft modification suggestions that appear on the document... These suggested revisions are leaps and bounds more offensive, regressive, short-sighted, and dismissive of others than America's 'bad guy' role in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. In short, the document does the following:
The John Bolton we came to know (and not love) is back. Condi -- When does the 'supervision' promised to Senators Voinovich, Hagel, and Chafee begin?"
[via Talking Points Memo]
The arxiv pre-print series has started to integrate itself into the blogosphere. [via; see also]
"Journal publication is still important – but as an imprimatur, a proof of quality, rather than a way to disseminate findings to a wider audience. arxiv has now introduced trackbacks – people visiting the abstract of a paper on arxiv can see what blogs have commented on the paper, and read what they have had to say. Furthermore, arxiv has rss feeds of recent papers, classified by subject matter, making it much easier to keep up with new publications in a subfield."
As gas pump prices continue to set record highs, the state today issued its first listing of maximum prices at which wholesale gasoline can be sold... [via]
Says Division of Labour: "The retail price is not capped, so there will not be any long lines at the pump. If the cap is effective, it should reduce the quantity of gas supplied while also increasing price at the retail level. The spread between the wholesale price and the retail price should increase. What happens to profits at the retail level will depend on the price elasticity of demand. Assuming it is inelastic, profits should increase for retailers."
Say that you normally tip 15% for normal good service in a full-service restaurant. How much should you tip in a restaurant where pretty much everyone eats from a buffet?
"...The waiter takes your drink order, gets you the drink, and gets you the check; the waiter or the busboys clean up after you; the waiter or a busboy takes care of small condiments requests (e.g., to get a bottle of low-sodium soy sauce or stuff like that). Should it still be 15%? 10%, because the waiters do much less than full-service waiters do, and end up serving many more tables? 5%? ... If you're concerned about the waiter's income, keep in mind that because the waiter has to spend less time per table, he will probably be serving more tables..." [via The Volokh Conspiracy]
The real reason American high-schoolers have such dismal test scores. [via]
By Alexandra Starr
"...Put yourself in the shoes of these teenagers: After more than a decade of filling out multiple-choice bubbles where a lot is at stake, it is not surprising that some of them don't apply themselves on an exam that generally comes in the second half of their senior year—a test that has no bearing on which college will accept them, what kind of job they can land, or if they'll earn a high-school diploma..."
[via Division of Labour]
"...If the WSJ's reporting is to be believed, the jurors basically didn't understand [or] try to understand the science." [see also]
From ProfessorBainbridge: "...At the outset, I am prepared to admit that the evidence of cover-ups and so on at Merck is non-trivial. But that wasn't the gravamen of this suit. The question here was whether Vioxx caused Robert Ernst 's death. This is, obviously, a question of medical science. What killed Ernst and could Vioxx have caused it? ... At the very least, this incident thus raises serious questions as to the competence of lay jurors to resolve technical issues... If it turns out that they cannot do so, perhaps it is time to take these sorts of issues out of their hands..."
From Asymmetrical Information: "The jury system was designed in an era of generalists, before even the invention of forensic evidence. Juries were generally being asked to rule on things they understood well--theft, infidelity, property rights, murder. Now they're being asked to rule on things far outside of their experience (and in some cases, outside of their cognitive ability). Base motives are nothing new to the jury system; it was Samuel Johnson, I believe, who noted that 'Wretches have hanged that jurors might dine'. But the harder it is for jurors to comprehend the evidence before them, the more likely they are to fall back on unsalutary urges in rendering their verdict."
"...It is also believed the drug may help prevent or restore memory loss in Alzheimer's patients." [via]
From Reuters: "A drug dubbed CX717, made by Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Irvine, California, reverses the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation, according to results of animal studies... In an article in the research journal PLoS Biology, Dr. Sam A. Deadwyler and his associates propose that CX717 would particularly benefit individuals affected by extended work hours or night shifts."
Also: Alzheimer’s Memory Loss Possibly Restored by Ampakine CX717
Does anyone believe in a "living Constitution" anymore?
By Dahlia Lithwick
"All this talk of the Iraqi Constitution—or lack thereof—serves as a useful reminder that a country's constitution is only as useful as the tools that will be used to interpret it later. As the most recent "Justice Sunday" extravaganza illustrates, the majority of the nation seems now to be of the firm belief that there is only one way to view the U.S. Constitution: in the way the framers first intended. Maybe that's because they are hearing so few principled arguments making any other case..."
Giving equal weight to a fringe idea just lends unwarranted legitimacy to that fringe idea. [via]
by Jon Carroll
"One of the standard rules of traditional journalism is that it is good and virtuous to present 'both sides' of a given issue. Most issues worth their salt have a lot more than two sides, but the idea is a good one nevertheless. The media can never be unbiased, because they are human institutions, but they can strive to be fair. Alas, the best benchmark of success in fairness is being attacked from both ends of the political spectrum... The thing is, people savvy in manipulating the media have figured out the 'both sides' rule, and sometimes they create another 'side' where one barely existed, so the two sides can be seen to be in conflict. Obviously, giving equal weight to a fringe idea just lends unwarranted legitimacy to that fringe idea -- a fringe idea like 'intelligent design.'"
[via Romenesko]
By Thomas Goetz
"Wake up, television executives of America: Jon Stewart - the wiseacre host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show - knows more about your business than you do... Stewart likes to protest that he doesn't pay any mind to this. All he and his crew do, he says, 'is try and put out a funny, well-written show about current events.' But push a bit and he shows himself to be a savvy observer and critic of his industry."
[via MetaFilter]
Rising concern in the US over the Bush administration's hostility to science.
From BBC News: A POINT OF VIEW, By Harold Evans
In his weekly opinion column, Harold Evans considers rising concern in the US over the Bush administration's hostility to science.
Any protection that is difficult to crack is too cumbersome to be accepted. "Zero-percent piracy is not only unattainable, it's economically suboptimal."
"... If your content is uncrackable, it means you've probably locked the market down so tight that even honest consumers are being inconvenienced.
"Instead, efficient software and entertainment markets should exhibit just enough piracy to suggest that the industry has got the balance of control about right: not too loose and not too tight. That number is not zero percent (which requires protection methods so invasive they kill demand), and it's not 100% (which kills the business). It's somewhere in-between.
"The second reason the quest for zero-piracy is a mistake is an economic one: piracy can actually let you raise your prices..."
This tiny (4g) RC airplane, called the Butterfly, looks like a lot of fun... [via]
"...Watch the video of an almost inordinately jolly fellow demonstrating it. Gee, I want one, especially if it will make me as happy as the guy. $240."
Pat Robertson: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.
"...Increased openness by Big Pharma is a step towards more responsible marketing. If more juries follow up the decision in Texas with big awards, drug companies are likely to reassess their aggressive marketing of new drugs as soon as they come to market. They may also want to rethink their heavy reliance on a small, and in some cases dwindling, supply of blockbusters."
Shiller compiled the first true index of home prices that shows they have been stable over the past century... The exception is the last 6 or 7 years when prices have skyrocketed. [see also]
"...'This is the biggest boom we've ever had,' said Mr. Shiller, who bought into the boom himself in 2002, with a vacation home near one of Connecticut's Thimble Islands. 'So a very plausible scenario is that home-price increases continue for a couple more years, and then we might have a recession and they continue down into negative territory and languish for a decade...'"
Welcome to the media's new version of shark attacks.
"...What most of these doomsday scenarios have gotten wrong is the fundamental idea of economics: people respond to incentives. If the price of a good goes up, people demand less of it, the companies that make it figure out how to make more of it, and everyone tries to figure out how to produce substitutes for it. Add to that the march of technological innovation (like the green revolution, birth control, etc.). The end result: markets figure out how to deal with problems of supply and demand...."
I know the entries are short, but they're just links, right? I mean, that's the point.