Hello, Flocke!

Free Trade and Rust Belt

Free trade only hastens the process - what drives out jobs is costs (union/taxes) and policies. Article.

Ouch!

Prof Jeff Miron's Rational Perspective on the Effects and Policy Implications of Drug Prohibition

Now if we can find a politician who can explain this to the broader population. Not happening in my lifetime for sure. And now studies show that more than 1% of the US population is in prison. Awesome. On the bright side California is one of the few states that has seen a decline in the number of prisoners since 1987.

Americans Switching Religions - And Becoming Unaffiliated As Well.

NYTimes reports on a new Pew Study - the number of unaffiliated/agnostic individuals is rising. You wouldnt know it from the media coverage. (Click the image to expand it)

Lessig for Congress (or President)

Is there anyone better with powerpoint than Prof Lessig? Good material if you are trying to decide between Barack and Hillary. Also, he may be running for congress - encourage him by joining this group . He will bring some sanity and rationality into the political discourse.

Japanese/Koreans - Whats the Relationship?

Jared Diamond argues that the Koreans had a much more active role in shaping Japanese society than they like to admit ...

Infographic: Suicides at Golden Gate

Another well done graphic of suicides at each pole of the golden gate bridge - Edward Tufte would approve.

A Graphic worth a Thousand Words

NYTimes has a fascinating graphic that tells the story of Superbowl XLII concisely and with brilliance. There is no substitute for watching the game, but this serves as handy a summary as a multi-thousand word tome. The only improvement I can suggest is adding two markers for the game changing plays

1) The long 3rd down reception by tight end Boss, and
2) The fabulous catch by Tyree where he caught the ball with a hand and his helmet while Rodney Harrison wrestled him in the air

(Click through to view the full image)

Bernanke's Mountain

Timely article from NYTMag about how fed chairman Ben Bernanke's handling the incoming (or underway) recession.

Be Not Afraid

Here is one campaign I can get behind - stop being afraid on my behalf. The fear of terrorism is way overblown and is making the economy inefficient (just take a look at our airports). Lets stop focusing on the very unlikely attack scenarios and instead work on making local government and security better. And lets support politicians who espouse non-interventionist foreign policies.

Traffic Simulation

I always wanted to do a project like this - would be hours of fun while driving to Tahoe.

US Today Compared to the Ottoman Empire

Niall Ferguson makes the case that the current US indebtedness is moving cash flows to Asia, and is an indicator of decline of the empire.

Apple, Beneath All That Fuzzy Marketing ...

... is a soulless corporation just like any other. After paying money for shutting down ThinkSecret, they are after the FakeSteveJobs blog - all very sinister (if its true). Dont buy a Mac, dude. My next machine for sure will run some variant of Linux.

Update: Yep, it was made up as I expected.

Krugman on the Current Financial Mess

Paul is one of my favorite authors, and this is his first lectures I've been able to watch (I actually listened to most of this while driving to work). Thanks, YouTube!

Free the Markets!

Some monopolies are natural, ie the underlying market dynamics are such that it makes sense for a single company to be the sole provider of a particular good or service (utilities with a high fixed cost of distribution are typical examples). Other monopolies (or oligopolies), are legislated - ie the government decrees that a particular company (or set of companies) will provide a good or service. Examples in this category includes the TSA (airport security) and gambling. Online gambling is a particularly egregious example where local oligopolies are forced, so that a minority segment of the population can profit off of gaming. The segments that gain off this scheme are casino owners of Vegas, a number of indian tribes and their financiers, and politicians who receive contributions. The cost is to the society as a whole in terms of deadweight loss (high prices and unnatural profits). The internet has a tendency to eliminate boundaries and make the entire globe a single market. In the case of gambling, anyone with a gaming site can serve citizens of any country. Now there is an added cost to the US economy in terms of settlements with other WTO member countries which are suing as these laws go against the competitive requirements of the WTO. The US is taking a "rules dont apply to us" approach and paying off the EU, Japan and several other countries so that the complaint from Antigua does not get the required support. Tsk tsk - all this in a country that prides itself on free markets and every single student who takes an introductory economics class is taught that monopolies are wasteful to the economy.

The morality of gambling, whether we should allow people to gamble or not is a completely separate question. The issue is that if gambling is legal, should participating in that industry be limited to a few individuals or companies with ties to the government?

Your Suspicions Are True

Those annoying searches at the airport only slow you down and dont do much to secure the flights ... now confirmed by research.

And You May Ask Yourself ...

David Byrne of Talking Heads has a great article in Wired about (at least) six models for producing music today. Among other things, what jumped out at me was the metric that about $7 of each CD goes towards Label Overhead and Retail Overhead. If online distribution can eliminate that, then a whole new market segment opens up. iTunes gets us partially there, but currently they take a 30% cut - that should rapidly drop to zero if another company could break the monopoly. Hello, Amazon?

Housing Futures Point to Trouble

The futures market says that SF housing is expected to be down 6% in 2008 - great information for bargaining house prices. As Greg Mankiw is fond of saying - arent markets great?

Why is copyright expanding like a pufferfish?

Prof Netanel has written a paper on it.