The Unbroken Window

1. What every office and worker needs - motivation.
2. Is your college degree worth anything?
   
3. You think your job stinks? Think again.
4. Impress your friends.

Tags: websites

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I’d be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I’ve got three kids and three dogs in my family. We’d be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation’s problems will be solved.

But the problem isn’t politicians — it’s politics. Politics won’t allow for the truth. And we can’t blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today’s campaign trail:

“No, I can’t fix public education. The problem isn’t the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!”

That’s from PJ O’Rourke. And he’s right. I have no fondness for politicians; readers know that I have little faith in having “the right guy/gal” getting elected and making things right. Readers also know that “big-plans” just don’t do it either. I dare utter the words individual responsibility, culture, education, discipline, morality!!! But those things don’t fit nicely into a model, nor do they “rally the base” and pick up votes. The thing to do, if I were to be asked, is to place less energy and faith in political institutions and more energy and faith in private organizations of all sorts. They can be simple: t-ball leagues, religion, soup-kitchens, book-clubs, trail-maintainence, etc.

Tags: Politics

That was my answer to what Americans can do about rising food prices. Hear more on these radio shows:

1. Wednesday, April 23 appearance on Mark Reardon Show on KMOX in St. Louis.
2. Thursday, April 24 appearance with former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock Show, KOGO in San Diego.
3. Friday, April 25 appearance on WRVA AM Richmond Morning News w/Jimmy Barrett
4. Friday, April 25 appearance on Nationally Syndicated (by Westwood One and XM Radio) Jim Bohannon Show
5. Tuesday, April 29 appearance on the Armstrong Williams Radio Show

Yep, this is shameless self-promotion. But lots of interesting questions came up, including:

• Has the relative price of eating out fallen now that food prices have risen so sharply?
• Is there anything consumers can do to protect themselves from these price increases?
• Is the experience in the U.S. being replicated elsewhere?
• How does this food and energy price run-up compare to expected costs of doing something about global warming?

And much much more. Sorry not all of the interviews were podcasted.

Tags: food prices, radio

Wal-Mart is making yet another aggressive move to fatten its profits.

Tags: medicine, profits, walmart

Tags: decline of the academy

1. It is clear that on average, you cannot outperform the market - whatever market you are in. Why? Well, “everyone” IS the market.
2. If you beat the market one time, you got lucky.
3. If you beat the market a second time, you got lucky.
4. If you beat the market a third time, you understand government. 

Tags: investing

We would add that FedEx and UPS use handheld computers to track more than 22 million packages, all over the world, each and every day. Their computers work because their business depends on it. So you can know, up to the minute, when your Amazon shipment left Memphis, when it touched down in Parsippany and when it got loaded on the truck for delivery to your house. And yet the Census Bureau, with a decade to plan for it and hundreds of millions of dollars to spend, could not come up with a handheld computer to record the ages, races and addresses of those who don’t respond to the mailed census survey.

And yet we want this institution to have more responsibility for our health care system? For our retirement “security”? For our defense?

Tags: census, incompetence

A self-professed ”classically liberal” friend of mine continues to make the claim that. ”It is difficult to deny the relief to the mortgage borrowers once the pirates have helped themselves to the Treasury.” In other words, since the Fed and Treasury are taking actions to bail-out the major financial institutions (a terrible idea, I agree), then it is only right that the government bail out individuals and families that are in danger of losing their homes. One way to bail out homeowners is to rewrite mortgage contracts (reducing interest rates, or writing off some of the loans as losses)

To that I say hogwash.

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Tags: foreclosure, subprime

This paper examines why developed countries are monogamous while rich men throughout history have tended to practice polygyny (multiple wives). Wealth inequality naturally produces multiple wives for rich men in a standard model of the marriage market. This paper argues that the sources of inequality, not just the level of inequality, determine the equilibrium degree of monogamy or polygyny. In particular, when inequality is determined more by disparities in human capital versus non-labor income (such as land, capital, corruption), the outcome is more monogamous. This explains why developed countries, where human capital is the main source of income and inequality, are monogamous while less-developed economies tend to be polygynous. The results are driven by the larger inequality in the value of women in the marriage market in modern economies. When the value of human capital increases, rich men increasingly value quality women who can help them raise quality children more efficiently. As a result, high quality women are valued much more than low quality women, which makes polygyny less affordable for rich men. In this manner, we show that male inequality generates polygyny, but female inequality reduces it. Using data from Cote d’Ivoire, we provide evidence for all the main implications of the model. In particular, we control for a man’s total income and show that polygyny increases with non-labor income but decreases with labor income and education. These patterns are strong even within social groups where norms regarding polygyny are likely to be constant.  

The paper is here. The Texas story is here.

Tags: human capital, polygyny, sorting

It is criminal and immoral to celebrate, on this day, the social and economic achievements of the Labor Movement. How can one be proud of the fact that those societies that pursued equality were forced to create a new class of individuals to “enforce it” leading to mass murder on a scale that has never been replicated in human history? In honor of the hundreds of millions who suffered under the crippling, despotic, oppressive regimes known as Communism, National Socialism, or Fascism, and to protect the liberties of all people who walk the earth today, the horror of the socialist regimes must not be forgotten.

Over 169 million human beings were killed at the hands of repressive governments in the 20th century.

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Tags: communism, death, equality, workers