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Oh, sure, there are probably PhDs out there blogging. Okay, okay, I'm kidding - I sincerely doubt it - unless they were useless in their fields to begin with.

Submitter here. Right after hitting submit, I realized I'd forgotten to link to marginal revolutions, an economics blog that pointed me to the story.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/03/assorted-link-4.html
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/

Submitter here. Right after hitting submit, I realized I'd forgotten to link to marginal revolutions, an economics blog that pointed me to the story.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/03/assorted-link-4.html
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/

This has already been posted on a blog about economics specifically (aside from the freakonomics blog. Here is the link.

I know I would have invested in a non-DRM'd version of BioShock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contracts
http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/PrivateProvision.pd f
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevoluti on/2005/05/assurance_contr.html

Many public goods and club goods exhibit increasing returns. A lighthouse, for example, is useless unless complete. It's difficult to get voluntary contributions to these types of good not only because of the free rider problem but also because contributors fear that their contribution will be wasted if others do not also contribute. An assurance contract makes contributions contingent on some level of total contribution being reached.

Assurance contracts can help to solve coordination problems. I agree to contribute to build the lighthouse if and only if enough others also agree so that production is guaranteed.

Fundable.org is making assurance contracts easier to implement. If you want to raise money for a cause you can set up a Fundable group. Contributions to the group goal are held by Fundable in escrow. All money is returned unless the group goal is met. If the group goal is met the funds are paid to the group leader.

The errors described in the review are so numerous it is hard to know where to begin. Here are a few:

From the review: However, that leisure time never materializes.

Not so! Leisure time has increased! By 6-8 hours per week for men and 4-8 hours for women!

Hell, I am old-duffer compare to most here. Remember what bill paying was like 10 years ago? Having to write checks, fill out addresses on envelopes and stamp them, make sure they get mailed on time, etc. etc. It could take hours, and I hated it. Now, I do everything on line in much less time.

Or, how about writing papers in school in the old days using a type writer! Aagh! Don't get me started on that one -- which brings us to more bullsh*t...

From the review: . . .he is confronted with mind-numbing statistics, numbers, and facts via the computer -- which he must accept. Perhaps even more important, he must master its "techniques" as the sine qua non tool to be successful in life.

What a load of crap! The internet has everything! False statistics and incorrect facts from every possible point of view. "He" does not have to accept everything, and will in fact learn much better discernment tools much earlier in life. And as for "techniques"! Gosh, maybe we should go back to the days before we could read and write so we would not have to be bothered with using pens and the alphabet and other such bother some techniques. Or perhaps we can jettison our computers for the good old days of slide rules and typewriters and mimeograph machines and telegraphs. Its not like there were techniques in the old days now were there? I am reminded of this: Monk's help desk.

I have no time to continue, but this man is a Luddite. History? Here, I am a blast from the past for a lot of you youngin's (whipper snappers the lot of you!) and here I get to speak to you. I couldn't do that in the past. I find nothing credible from the book in this review. I thank the reviewer, but I also think he is too charitable.

...general counsel Rick Cotton...

Ah, no wonder: a lawyer said it.

It's time for tort reform in this country; too many money-grubbing pigs are using a broken system to do things like channeling for the unborn to make cases in front of apparently easily manipulated people. All to the end of fattening their bank accounts.

1. Allow all candidates to watch a short debate of experts -- with a fraud or two thrown in -- and ask them to evaluate what they just heard and why they reached the conclusion they did.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevoluti on/2007/05/how_to_improve_.html

I personally like this.

>In fact, Africa has probably received more charity than China or India and is doing much worse than those countries.

Exactly my point. If the third world countries knew what had to be done, they wouldn't be third world countries anymore. Africa is a perfect example- they get millions, even billions in "aid" and the government officials just end up buying nice cars and planes with the money. Africa doesn't need money or food, it needs serious investment in its infrastructure and education system. It needs economic development, and that is something the Africans can't provide. In South Africa, the unemployment rate is hovering around 40%. During the Great Depression, an American unemployment rate of 25% - almost half of South Africa - was a global crisis.

Lookie here

"In other developing countries, legions of unskilled workers have kept down labor costs. But South Africa's leaders, vowing not to let their nation become the West's sweatshop, heeded the demands of politically powerful labor unions for new protections and benefits. According to a study conducted in 2000 for the government's finance department, South Africa's wages are five times higher than Indonesia's, even though its workers are only twice as productive.

To the great detriment of its people, South Africa's leaders have been successful. South Africa is not the West's sweatshop."

Third world leaders do not know what needs to be done. The knowledge, the 2 centuries of economics research, exists in the west. A country that has never before had a thriving economy can't be expected to suddenly spawn one.

Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the "illusion of group of productivity". But why does this illusion persist?

ehhh, macroeconomics is pretty complex, i think theres a lot of factors to blame, which is not to say that the fed doesnt have some blame in that... as far as being a debt consumer nation being soley the fault of the fed? ehh, i think the fed had to make changes Because of the nations actions...I honestly feel most of its so complex theres really no metric to show right or wrong, which is half the fun of debating economics !

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevoluti on/2005/10/ben_bernanke_ec.html

this is a link to some of bernankes economic thoughts and research, just thought id pass it on, as you do seem to have an opinion on the fed, and i feel some of this would be of interest to you....

Yes, but the Tax Code provides the wherewithall for thousands of social programs...

Uh, no. The complexity of the tax code (i.e., the number of loopholes for the well-off and for corporations) generally works against tax renvenues, as well as shifting the tax burden more onto the middle class and working poor.

And a small percentage of federal spending goes to social programs other than Social Security pensions - only about 16% of federal spending is on assistance to the poor. And half of that's on Medicaid; there's an argument to be make that keeping our lower-income people healthy so that they won't be a reservoir of communicable disease is more of the nature of national defense that a social program. (Especially in an age of bioterrrorism threats.)

The complexity of the tax code has nothing to do with social spending.

...following the spring shift to Daylight Savings Time (when one hour of sleep is lost) there is a measurable increase in the number of traffic accidents that result in fatalities.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevoluti on/2005/07/does_dalight_sa.html

daylight saving is dumb anyway.

1. men who get excited by/about women
2. men who get excited by/about men
3. women who get excited by/about men
4. women who get excited by/about women

What I really like are blogs that give real information - not the kind of populist watered-down news you get on TV or the newspaper.

For example, check out these blogs by actual economists...

Marginal Revolution

Cafe Hayek

EconLog

Ben Muse

Wal-Mart's unique position makes them a monopsony rather than a monopoly. Basically, a monopsony exists when there is one buyer in the market. Since Wal-Mart is so colossaly huge, they can effectively set the price points for their suppliers. This is good for the consumers, but bad for the suppliers and their employees.

Anti-trust legislation won't work in this case because they're not harming consumers (at least, not directly).

Some good statistics and links can be found here.

My favorite blog list has been expanding, lately. I regularly read InstaPundit and The Right Coast, among others. I've recently begun reading Powerline and Michelle Malkin. My favorite "political" blogs, though, are actually economics blogs. I can't let a day go by without checking Marginal Revolution and The Volokh Conspiracy, which are two of the most interesting blogs I've read since I started reading Slashdot.

In addition to all of that, I read a wide variety of news sites every day, listen to news radio and watch news in the morning. That's all so I can do a better job in the writing on my own blog, where I cover politics, amateur radio, life, and anything I think is cool. Check out Lockjaw's Lair and don't forget to buy the T-Shirt.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php

http://realclearpolitics.com/

http://althouse.blogspot.com/

http://www.powerlineblog.com/

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/

http://www.intel-dump.com/

http://denbeste.nu/indexlofi.shtml

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevoluti on/

http://www.parapundit.com/

http://www.allahpundit.com/

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

http://www.radicalmiddle.com/

Altercation (what liberal media?)

Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:

• The Volokh Conspiracy -- mostly libertarian law professors
• Marginal Revolution -- a couple of economists, one of whom also posts at The Volokh Conspiracy
• Daniel Drezner-- a political scientist
• Foreign Dispatches--a Nigerian-American programmer with many interesting perspectives.
• ParaPundit--some random bloke named Randall Parker, a computer programmer, I think.

In case you haven't heard, BlogLines is a great way to read blogs online.

There are blogs I read regularly, and they are in some ways similar to slashdot. The blog points out things of interest, and sometimes allow comments.

Some interetsting Blogs: Seth Godin's Blog

Poor and Stupid

Marginal Revolution

EconLog

Why are consumers forced to buy a bundle? Cable companies claim that choice would require expensive boxes, but few observers believe this claim.

More plausibly, price discrimination is at work. Consider a simple example with two individuals. John values Disney at $100 a year and FoxNews at $10 a year; Sally has the reverse valuations. Without bundling, the cable company will offer each channel for about $99, and sell a channel to each consumer, reaping $198 in revenue (N.B.: I am assuming that the cable company has a good idea of demand in general, although it cannot identify which consumer is willing to pay how much for what.)

In lieu of this set up, sell the bundle for $109 to each consumer, reaping a greater revenue of $218. The company makes greater profit.

More importantly, aggregate welfare is higher. In this case each consumer receives two channels instead of one.

Monopolies, regulated or otherwise, tend to bundle commodities when demands are scattered and the marginal cost of additional service is low. In this context, once the program is made, you can sell it cheaply to additional customers. So why not try to get the entire package into everyone's hands?

You can spin your own numbers, with varying results, but the overall lesson is clear. While there is a general problem with monopoly in the cable market, bundling can make that problem better rather than worse. So don't complain next time you have to "click-remote" through those Farsi and exercise channels.

Foo: What about security? ... And this doesn't even begin to cover eavesdropping.
Bar: From the description, this thing works just like Esso Speedpass dongles, in that, the thing needs to be within around 2 cm ( 1 inch ) for it to trigger and transmit the needed data/

However, when Mobil first introduced the Speedpass, they also had a "Car Tag" version (still mentioned in the FAQ). It was larger, and mounted on the back window near the fuel cap. All you had to do was pull up to the pump, and an antenna above the pump would do the work. That implies an active distance of 6-10 feet, with a greatly increased vulnerability to eavesdropping.

I haven't seen the antennas lately, and this page implies that they stopped deploying the car tag after the Mobil/Exxon merger -- except in New Jersey, where mandatory full service would reduce the problem of tag spoofing.

The only way anyone could eavesdrop on or steal your CC number using this system is if he has his hands in your pants.

True with the keychain dongle, not true with the Car Tag version. And even if I were willing to use a Speedpass, I'd steer clear of the new Speedpass-enabled Timex Watch! Like the song says:
Beware, beware of the handshake / That hides the snake...

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