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1. One reason oil and coal appear to be cheaper is that the costs of CO2 emissions are completely externalized. Introduce a cap-and-trade system or a CO2 tax and suddenly those won't look quite as economically attractive. (Obviously, you'll have to ignore this point if you think that there are no costs of CO2 emissions, as some do.)

I looked online for estimates of the CO2 externality cost per gallon of gas. Estimates I found ranged from 6 to 29 cents per gallon - quite insignificant.

The total externality per gallon came out to about $1.50 per gallon. (Most of that is due to congestion, traffic accidents, and local pollution.) Raising the gas price by that amount would have a quite noticeable, but not revolutionary, economic impact.

http://www.becker-posner-blog....
http://www.economics.neu.edu/e...

Most patents are incremental improvements to existing inventions[1][2][3]. But the patent-holder has to license the original patent for you to build your idea on top of it. [1] http://inventors.about.com/od/inventing101patents/f/can_be_patented.htm [2] http://www.fr.com/Patent-Math--Making-Sure-Your-Strategies-Add-Up-05-31-2010/ [3] http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copyright-law-restrict-competition-and-creativity-excessively-posner.html

Apparently it isn't just computer nerds. Appeals court judges and Economics professors also believe our industry is "special" and patents are failing the industry.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copyright-law-restrict-competition-and-creativity-excessively-posner.html

Posner is one of the people who has gotten us into this situation. He wrote the opinion In re Aimster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Aimster_Copyright_Litigation which provided a precedent for a fair bit of modern copyright issues on the internet. He's also advocated in the past that linking to copyright violating material should be considered a violation http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2009/06/the-future-of-newspapers--posner.html. Yes, he's right that the problems he identifies in TFA are there, but this is someone who has contributed to associated problems. It almost seems like Posner isn't quite able to say "I was wrong" but I guess we should take what we can get.

So are you going to work towards ending the approximately $5 billion in subsidies the USA oil industry receives each year?

If you want some arguments for growth, Becker and Posner discussed this a while ago. Becker came out more strongly for population growth.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/does-the-earth-have-room-for-10-billion-people-posner.html
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/yes-the-earth-will-have-ample-resources-for-10-billion-people-becker.html

If you want some arguments for growth, Becker and Posner discussed this a while ago. Becker came out more strongly for population growth.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/does-the-earth-have-room-for-10-billion-people-posner.html
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/yes-the-earth-will-have-ample-resources-for-10-billion-people-becker.html

Not like they're buying out Morgan Stanley...

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/06/03/CIC-to-buy-447M-shares-of-Morgan-Stanley/UPI-45271244026009/

Or NBA teams...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=CavsChina-090601

Or Automobile companies like Hummer...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/business/03auto.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1256911465-MYcwhz7EQCEgv2gHJoLH7Q

Or tried to buy out our oil/energy corporations in the past...

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/08/chinese_ownersh_2.html

Yes, Chinese needs a 'backdoor' entry. This would be similiar to having a co-owner of a house putting in a back door to the house.

Kinda hard to get a backdoor entry when they're already sitting in your living room.

While this seems like an opinion that runs counter to many tenants slashdotters hold dear, I think we should at least consider it. By any measure, Posner is one of the most impressive judges on the bench today-- and in my opinion, one of the only judges that really 'get' all the issues surrounding copyright and digital things in general.

I'm hardly alone-- Lessig has noted that there isn't a federal judge I respect more, both as a judge and person, and Posner was Obama's first choice when asked which sitting judge he would most like to argue before.

So you may disagree with this opinion-- I'm leaning that way too-- but it's worth fair consideration. Go and actually read his post before passing judgment. When he was guest blogging about copyright law at Lessig.org back in 2004, he noted, "I am distrustful of people who think they have confident answers to such questions." That goes for both sides in this debate.

Sort of a hack job by techcrunch actually.

Great comments - note that the blog in question is written by Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics (also at Chicago) as well as Judge Posner.

While people have focused on a single comment in the blog; they miss the overall argument - how do you make it economically attractive for people to create independent news gathering organizations, so that only a few large corporations have control over what is presented as news. The comment in questions poses - is there a way to ensure they are actually compensated for their work; and suggested a change in copyright law as away to do that. While many may not agree with such a change; the bloggers are simply illustrating one way to make running a news organization financially viable, not saying that is the only, best or preferred solution.

While this seems like an opinion that runs counter to many tenants slashdotters hold dear, I think we should at least consider it. By any measure, Posner is one of the most impressive judges on the bench today-- and in my opinion, one of the only judges that really 'get' all the issues surrounding copyright and digital things in general.

I'm hardly alone-- Lessig has noted that there isn't a federal judge I respect more, both as a judge and person, and Posner was Obama's first choice when asked which sitting judge he would most like to argue before.

So you may disagree with this opinion-- I'm leaning that way too-- but it's worth fair consideration. Go and actually read his post before passing judgment. When he was guest blogging about copyright law at Lessig.org back in 2004, he noted, "I am distrustful of people who think they have confident answers to such questions." That goes for both sides in this debate.

Sort of a hack job by techcrunch actually.

healthcare/insurance corps have produced a "libertarian" hoax that is precisely wrong.

Neither healthcare nor health insurance were created by Libertarians in the US. The current health insurance industry was created by a Democrat, FDR. During WWII, because of wage and price control laws, employers couldn't pay employees more so to entice people to work in factories and other establishments the government allowed employers to pay for health insurance for the employees. And still today employer have an incentive to offer insurance instead of just paying employees more. If the laws favoring employer provided health insurance, they pay no tax on it, were gotten rid of and employers were able to pay employees more so they could buy health insurance on their own healthcare would be cheaper and more people would be more keen to hold costs down. And by allowing people to buy and pay for their own healthcare they will be able to decide what sort of coverage they want, if they only want catastrophic coverage they can pay less for it versus another person who wants everything covered. Then with more people paying more out of pocket they will be more willing to shop for lower prices. That's called competition, you know, what many blame on driving workers pay down? Let competition drive cost down.

I'd also recommend an obvious e-mail link on your site.

The world's not going to end, but it will be bad for the economy. Most of the states that raised minimum wages that saw unemployment drop saw it drop for other reasons. They were mostly all service/tourist based economies with wages already well above the minimum wage, therefore it didn't affect many people. Which is why the current minimum wage is alright now, it hardly affects anyone. Very few people make minimum wage, even fewer actually support themselves and/or family on it, and even fewer still spend any lengthy amount of time earning it before moving up in the wage scale. If you want to see the affects, look at the teenage unemployment rate. It jumped up starkly in the 1950s when minimum wage was introduced.

I would encourage you to read up on some of the economics behind the issue.

Kind of off topic, but: we should never have taxed estates, we should tax inheritance (that us, tax at the receiver, not the sender). Many societies over many centuries have realized the danger of allowing wealth to continue to accumlate in a single individual over generations (traditionally, the eldest son). If a 5 million dollar estate is split amoung 20 grandkids or charities or whatever, that shouldn't be a concern, but if it's all left to a single heir, taxes are more appropriate, as that creates a larger inequlity in society.

Here's an extremely insightful analysis of the issue by Gary Becker (who has a Nobel Prize for economics).

Slashdot has never been a haven of economically-literate people. People here are computer geeks; they have little, if any interest in business, finance, or economics, and indeed, many are openly-hostile to the very *idea* that such systems work as described.

Nevermind that well over 90% of all economists, both in academia and in the business world, agree that free trade is good for trading nations and that price controls (already enjoying support in a post to this very topic) are a proven failure. Slashdotters, like most economically-left-leaning people, make-believe that the entire study of economics is one giant conspiracy against mankind (because much economics study disproves their ideology they want to make-believe actually works when in practice it does not); that *somehow*, there is no scarcity of goods in the world. Nevermind the Law of Conservation found in physics says the same thing -- this is Slashdot, and on Slashdot, we don't like facts!

Most Slashdotters, being high school or college students, I would hazard a guess have never taken an economics course in their lives. Slashdotters, categorically-speaking, are economically-illiterate, and no matter how many times you beat them with the cluesticks of Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, or Arnold Kling, you find that the generally-socialist population of Slashdot refuses to learn, because they are blinded by their dreams and ideals that can never be and which ultimately failed in practice 15 years ago. There is no reputable economist in the western world at this point that promotes socialism and communism to the extent that most Slashdotters do; even the "old guard" of socialist economics (John Kenneth Galbraith, George Stigler, and to a lesser-extent (though from which the former two derive their work), J.M. Keynes) have started fading-away in light of economic reality.

In terms of overall economic design, pure socialism failed, true communism was never actually achieved by the Soviets or anybody else (though Chairman Mao came close), and free market capitalism emerged victorious. That is the political-economic conclusion of the 20th century.

Yet, Slashdotters remain clueless to economic history, theory, econometrics, etc.. For such "intelligent" people, they sure like to remain ignorant!

Me, I'm one of those rare people who actively seeks out intersections between the computing and economics worlds. But you will find very few people (perhaps a dozen or so) like me here unfortunately...

... can be found at the Becker-Posner blog here. Gary Becker is a Nobel prize winner economist and Richard Posner is, I presume, an equally important lawyer.

It would be nice if we could get hold of the existing arguments and proposed solutions before jumping into naïve comments, fuck-the-corporations shouting and suchlike.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/10 /many_more_skill.html (Gary Becker, 1992 Nobel laureate)

You can't seem to accept that reasoning like this exits.

Obviously people make such arguments. That doesn't change their fallacious nature. Marriage is not bound by child-rearing; the idea that gay couples don't have stable relations therefore shouldn't be able to marry is a self-fulfulling prophecy in addition to being prejudice of the worst sort; and saying "You two people can get married while you two have to draw up a bunch of contracts" is bogus "seperate-but-equal" reasoning.

Plenty of good, caring, smart people oppose homosexual marraige - shocking, isn't it?

Sorry, no. If someone is not willing to grant equal legal and ethical protection to all citizens, there are lacking in one or more of the qualities of knowledge, compassion, or reason. There is simply no legitimate excuse for it.

A century and a half ago, plenty of people who were regarded by their contemporaries as good honest citizens defended and participated in slavery. From today's more informed perspective we understand them to be at best naive and at worst evil. A century and a half from now, I am hopeful we will understand todays homophobes the same way.

You are fine with people who are factually mistaken, or show fallacies in reasoning, but when someone is from a different culture, for example one that accepts as an axiom that homosexuality is "just wrong", there is no tolerance to be found - straight to "evil".

Looking back over this thread, I do not seem to have used the word "evil", until just now in describing slavery. I do hope you'll agree with me on that one? (Untill you want to take this discussion into the realm of Zen, where the difference between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind...I can be down with that.)

Seriously, though, being from another culture is not some "get out of criticism free card". What about an axiom that interracial dating is "just wrong"? Am I supposed to not speak out against racism simply because some people were raised with it? If I see someone from a nation where "female circumcision" is a normal practice trying to force it on his daughter, am I supposed to shut up and let her be mutilated? If I meet a slave trader from Sudan, should I just say, "well, that's just his culture" and let it go?

Can you even claim that "some of my best friends are Bush supporters"? Would you let your daughter marry an SUV-driving evangelical Christian?

I live in a pretty blue state, and most Bush supporters around here have repented by now. :-)

My brother voted for W. My grandfather was a racist. I love 'em both; but I still told my grandfather off when he made racist statements, and I told my brother I was disappointed that he was enough of a sucker to fall for Bush's line of bullshit about security.

If I had a daughter, I'd have no power to "let" or "not let" her choose, she'd be free to marry whoever she wanted. If I thought her boyfriend was a jerk, I'd tell her; if he was a jerk in my presence, I'd tell him.

Do people have the right to drive whatever car they choose...

Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose; your right to make chunks of metal move around swiftly ends at my safety; and your right to put smoke in the air, including automobile exhaust, ends at my lungs.

The exact parameters of regulation are something that honest men of goodwill can disagree about. I'd say the best way to cure SUV drivers might be to price gasoline at its true price, include external costs, of about $5 a gallon, and end the tax breaks for SUV owners, instead increasing their taxes for the extra road wear. (Oh, and close the federal emissions loophole, and enforce existing laws about

Not to belabour the point but ...

Your accusations remain vague. Please provide an example of something I've said that makes me a "freedom hater", or withdrawl the accusation.

Let's start with.

>> If you ever accept the fact that someone who opposes homosexual marraige ...

People who oppose equal protection under the law for homosexuals, or for any minority group, are bigots, suffering from either fundamental flaws in ethical values or in reasoning, and I'll make absolutely no apology for saying so.

See, this is precisely what I'm on about. Opposing marraige becomes opposing equal protection under the law becomes evil or stupid. You can't seem to accept that reasoning like this exits. Gary Becker is no idiot (at least, the Nobel Committee didn't think so), and his very well reasoned argument simply proceeds from basic assumptions and values that I doubt you share (I find them a bit of a reach, myself). Note that his first point is that many conservatives oppose the word "marriage" while supporting equal protection under the law. (You might find Posner's comments surprising as well, for a conservative take from a federal circuit court judge, who is also neither stupid nor evil). Plenty of good, caring, smart people oppose homosexual marraige - shocking, isn't it?

You are fine with people who are factually mistaken, or show fallacies in reasoning, but when someone is from a different culture, for example one that accepts as an axiom that homosexuality is "just wrong", there is no tolerance to be found - straight to "evil". This is exactly how a bigot thinks. Can you even claim that "some of my best friends are Bush supporters"? Would you let your daughter marry an SUV-driving evangelical Christian?

Yes, that means I'm saying that a depressingly large percentage of Americans are suffering from irrational beliefs or flawed ethics.

OK, from an intolerant paleo-conservative point of veiw, dividing the world into "right-thinking people" and "heathens and godless communists" is at least consistant. But how do you do this while embracing diversity? You seem to be an ardent supporter of the freedom to hold beliefs that you agree with.

Driving an SUV as a commuter vechicle or voting for Bush are more issues of mere ignorance - dangerous and deadly ignorance, in the later case

Because a different cultural perspective must be incorrect? Do people have the right to drive whatever car they choose, or to decide that the private sector can better manage most things, or to decide that economics aren't a zero sum game and impose a system where growth is more important than fairness, or to decide that foriegn policy decisions like invading Iraq are great? Or does that freedom end where a democracy would choose laws you find ignorant? You certainly give the impression of supporting the latter. I don't see you admitting that good, caring, smart, well-informed people disagree with you on these issues, but Hell, you might surprise me.

Not to belabour the point but ...

Your accusations remain vague. Please provide an example of something I've said that makes me a "freedom hater", or withdrawl the accusation.

Let's start with.

>> If you ever accept the fact that someone who opposes homosexual marraige ...

People who oppose equal protection under the law for homosexuals, or for any minority group, are bigots, suffering from either fundamental flaws in ethical values or in reasoning, and I'll make absolutely no apology for saying so.

See, this is precisely what I'm on about. Opposing marraige becomes opposing equal protection under the law becomes evil or stupid. You can't seem to accept that reasoning like this exits. Gary Becker is no idiot (at least, the Nobel Committee didn't think so), and his very well reasoned argument simply proceeds from basic assumptions and values that I doubt you share (I find them a bit of a reach, myself). Note that his first point is that many conservatives oppose the word "marriage" while supporting equal protection under the law. (You might find Posner's comments surprising as well, for a conservative take from a federal circuit court judge, who is also neither stupid nor evil). Plenty of good, caring, smart people oppose homosexual marraige - shocking, isn't it?

You are fine with people who are factually mistaken, or show fallacies in reasoning, but when someone is from a different culture, for example one that accepts as an axiom that homosexuality is "just wrong", there is no tolerance to be found - straight to "evil". This is exactly how a bigot thinks. Can you even claim that "some of my best friends are Bush supporters"? Would you let your daughter marry an SUV-driving evangelical Christian?

Yes, that means I'm saying that a depressingly large percentage of Americans are suffering from irrational beliefs or flawed ethics.

OK, from an intolerant paleo-conservative point of veiw, dividing the world into "right-thinking people" and "heathens and godless communists" is at least consistant. But how do you do this while embracing diversity? You seem to be an ardent supporter of the freedom to hold beliefs that you agree with.

Driving an SUV as a commuter vechicle or voting for Bush are more issues of mere ignorance - dangerous and deadly ignorance, in the later case

Because a different cultural perspective must be incorrect? Do people have the right to drive whatever car they choose, or to decide that the private sector can better manage most things, or to decide that economics aren't a zero sum game and impose a system where growth is more important than fairness, or to decide that foriegn policy decisions like invading Iraq are great? Or does that freedom end where a democracy would choose laws you find ignorant? You certainly give the impression of supporting the latter. I don't see you admitting that good, caring, smart, well-informed people disagree with you on these issues, but Hell, you might surprise me.

* Milton Friedman, PhD Nobel Laureate economist: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.f riedman.html

* Gary Becker, PhD Nobel laureate U. of Chicago economist (still teaching!): http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07 /do_corporations.html

* Judge Richard Posner, economist and U.S. Federal judge: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07 /the_social_resp.html

* The Economist magazine: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =3555212

* Milton Friedman, PhD Nobel Laureate economist: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.f riedman.html

* Gary Becker, PhD Nobel laureate U. of Chicago economist (still teaching!): http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07 /do_corporations.html

* Judge Richard Posner, economist and U.S. Federal judge: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07 /the_social_resp.html

* The Economist magazine: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =3555212

Don't fret, $CITIZEN, with their plan you'll get the best of both worlds... Freedom++ as well as rampant terrorism. Have you noticed that the ever since the War on Terrorism (tm), that world terrorism has been on the rise? Sounds just like the catastrophic success of the War on (some) Drugs (tm) and crime levels.

In fact, one might say that the WoSD was just a precursor for the WoT... I wonder what version 3.0 is going to be like.. War on Anger (tm)? War on Sex (tm)?

I can't wait to find out!!!

Economists still tend to be, ahh, skeptical of his "gold bug" tendencies. In fact, we'd call anyone else who said the same things a crackpot.

Are you sure he's much of a "gold bug" though? Unabashed gold bugs (like Austrian economist Mark Skousen) would suggest just the opposite. (which is just as well, IMO, as I'm no gold bug either... but then, WTF do I know, I'm just an Econ. minor, heh (though I often wonder if I should've made it my major when I started university, rather than CS)...)

IMO, Friedman really has 2 personalities when it comes to political economy (i.e., his normative economics) - his idealist side, and his practical side.

His ideals are pretty clearly more libertarian than classical liberal; he once said in an interview in Reason magazine that he'd "like to be a zero-government libertarian" (like his son, David), but when asked why he wasn't one, he noted that it's not feasible.

But in practice -- when he's suggested alternate ways to fund public education (via a public/private choice using vouchers, even though his ideal is to completely privatize education), when he's suggested that the Fed be run a particular way (even though his ideal is to dismantle it), when he's suggested (as in (IIRC) chapter 9 of Capitalism and Freedom) that we do actually need some sort of social safety net (for which he proposed his negative income tax) -- some of the less-sane, more-extreme libertarians, e.g. Rothbard, criticized him as being a "statist". But really, his practical suggestions (which he sees as leading in the direction of his ideals) are more classical liberal than libertarian in nature. Hence the sometimes-confusing dichotomy...

Unlike in Friedman's ideal, I don't see the Fed as a terrible institution, despite some of its mistakes, such as their failure to elect a replacement chairman in the late 1920s after Benjamin Strong died (as my Monetary Policy prof. once described to us and to which Friedman partly attributes the exacerbation of the Depression). The ability to control inflation by controlling the money supply is awfully valuable, when it works (though given housing prices lately, I wonder what the *actual* total inflation rate is, rather than the more-often reported CPI of (currently) about 3%).

But then, given that I've lived only a few years longer than through the Greenspan era and given that he seems to be described variously as either "lucky" or "skilled" (skill which doesn't necessarily follow in other Fed chairmen), my view is probably colored by their relatively very good performance of the last 20 years. I didn't live through the Fed's failure before and during the Great Depression, nor did I even live through the stagflation of the 70's...

I could really use some seed comments at the website :)

I'll see what I can do, when I get the chance... :)

Given my fairly-limited sphere of influence though (of all my friends I talk to regularly, only 3 are politically and economically-interested: 2 are libertarians and 1 is a borderline socialist (nevermind the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc.)), might I also suggest making your blog's presence known on a few other econ. and/or law-related blogs:

* EconLog -- Arnold Kling (MIT PhD) writes there and regularly gets a fair number of comments

* The Becker-Posner blog -- the Gary Becker and judge Posner blog...

* Bradford DeLong's blog -- not a classical liberal or libertarian. But a lot of people seem to read his so-called "reality-based" blog, so in the name of garnering traffic to yours, it might be

Obviously, they are not neurologists, but each has an interesting take.

Obviously, they are not neurologists, but each has an interesting take.