The Unbroken Window

But don’t be fooled by randomness. Click down to the two short (25 second) audio clips.

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Light rail is the darling of the environmental community. So are buses and other forms of public/mass transit. Let us accept for now that these things make both economic and environmental sense. One reason these are popular is that even if the total amount of person-miles traveled does not change as we move away from [...]

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The thugs with the guns of course. That is what you are if you support the government and its continued confiscation of the productive efforts of individuals. Chairman Max Baucus’s bill includes the so-called individual mandate, along with what he calls a $1,900 “excise tax” if you don’t buy health insurance. (It had been as [...]

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I’d be willing to wager that a majority of the people who hold the view that, “money doesn’t make you happier, you certainly cannot eat it,” also support a variety of protectionist measures. You know, putting heavy taxes on Chinese tires to make sure American workers keep their higher incomes, or putting heavy taxes on [...]

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Rep. Kennedy is getting himself into a nice twisty pretzel too: “So, obviously, for the full effectiveness of the person, it’s to their benefit to have everything on a record, but it’s going to be totally up to the individual,” said Kennedy. “We’re not going to get people to fully buy into this if they [...]

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Tort and medical malpractice issues amount to small potatoes in the US Health care “system.” In other words, there are bigger fish to fry if you are a policy-wonk. In my world, of course, no fish need frying – but that makes me an astro-turfing radical.

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We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) in US cities.  We find that VKT increases proportionately to highways and identify three important sources for this extra VKT:  an increase in driving by current residents; an increase in transportation intensive production activity; and an inflow of new residents.  The provision [...]

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When I first saw this headline, I thought that the EU government was trying to do something about externalities. It turns out I was dead wrong. The EU hopes to set limits on the volume of MP3 players not because the loud volume played by some is a distraction (pollution in fact) to innocent bystanders. [...]

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That’s a bumper sticker we saw at the Naples Grape festival this weekend. Nothing objectionable about wanting reform – but I suspect the person driving that car would not like the bumper sticker a friend of mine plans on printing up: Single Payer Health Care Now! …You pay for yours, I’ll pay for mine…” HT [...]

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I enjoy discovering the many contradictory positions of folks that hold particular views, and that are not willing to follow the logical consistency of such views. Today’s edition comes from me thinking about the “Buy Local” movement and then thinking about the current fad in promoting “Green Jobs.” The buy local crowd is quick to [...]

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