The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Fun Facts on Jan 28th, 2012
I was perusing my National Parks magazine and they made reference to the fact that policemen used to monitor the height of women’s bathing suits at the DC Tidal Basin Beach. It turns out to be true. Here is a photo from 1922 showing a man enforce the government’s rule that bathing suits could be [...]
Posted in Fun Facts on Jan 22nd, 2012
In 2010 the sporting event(s) that had the most regular attendees at them? Surprisingly not Major League Baseball Surprisingly not College Football Not NASCAR Not golf Not Professional football Answer: high school sporting events. The sport with the most occasional fans? College football. Also: More people regularly attend equestrian events than professional soccer events. Can’t [...]
Posted in Fun Facts on Jan 7th, 2012
Aggregate doctor pay in the US costs about the same as the total costs of environmental regulation ~ each about 3% of GDP. (Note, my doctor pay data is from an old source)
Posted in Fun Facts on Dec 31st, 2011
Nearly 60% of the residents of Bloomington, Indiana are single – making it (by this admittedly misleading measure) the loneliest place to be on New Year’s Eve.
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Fun Facts, Health Care on Dec 15th, 2011
In today’s news we learn that American doctors deliver a 24-week old baby that is the size of a soda can. Look up the data on what other countries do at this level. Second, once you adjust for the things that doctors have no control over (the risky behavior and accidents Americans endure), the US [...]
Posted in Fun Facts on Nov 4th, 2011
Professor Wintercow is a lackey of the Iranian government edition:
Posted in Fun Facts, Methodology, You Can't Have it Both Ways, labor markets on Oct 23rd, 2011
Steve Malanga reports: Steve Malanga at the Manhattan Institute’s PublicSectorInc.org, Oct. 21: [T]he Bureau of Labor Statistics released 2010 rates of injury and illness in the American work force, and once again state and local government workers on average missed far more days from illness and injury per worker than workers in the private sector. [...]
Posted in Fun Facts, Standards of Living on Oct 22nd, 2011
This website tells us that the average American watches 4 hours of TV per day. That sounds high to me, so let’s cut that in half, to two hours per day. A few posts ago I mentioned how great the iPod economy was. Here is what I forgot to mention or try to quantify. My [...]
Posted in Central Planning, Fun Facts on Oct 19th, 2011
The Venture Capitalists in DC are predicting 500,000 Volts sold by the year 2015 (out of a total of 1 million). The WSJ reported that in July, a grand total of … 125 Volts were sold. Even then, GM only hoped to produce 10,000 last year and 60,000 this year, so we are told that [...]
Posted in Fun Facts on Oct 16th, 2011
Only 18% of the land in the US is considered arable. India: almost 49%.
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