In other news I just wanted to come clean to all of my readers. Not only do I get funded by the Koch brothers to do some of what I do, but I get paid extremely handsomely, and that they communicate with me regularly in order to help me figure out how best to influence young impressionable men and women to come around to their views. For what it’s worth, about 1/3 of our programming budget comes from Koch related charities, the rest from other sources. If anyone is interested in learning how all of this works, by all means please shoot me an e-mail and I would be happy to let you know.

In other news, I want to ask my readers for a favor as I embark upon book #4 of my odyssey to read “other” stuff. Please talk to your progressive minded friends (mine have all abandoned me) or friends that would consider themselves enlightened leftists. And please do me a favor. Ask them this: if you had one chance to ask someone to read a book that is deep, nuanced, carefully written, honest and does not do injustice to ideas you disagree with but that best makes the case for your own world view (the progressive one), what book would it be? I cannot tell you how difficult it has been to come up with a “20 greatest hits” of progressive/leftism to make my way through. Tell them that they have a chance to get someone’s attention, who is trying hard to more deeply respect their positions (at least some of them) and attack his own. I am brutally tired of uninformed attacks on the freedom philosophy and have decided that I want to attack it myself and in ways that do not seem to be jumping off the OpEd page of Mother Jones. Your submissions will be kindly appreciated.

At this point in the preface, it is customary to have thank those who helped in the preparation of the book. Here I must make an exception. One organization to which I can offer no thanks is the Institut des Actuaires in Paris. It is one of the very few places where the early volumes of the Journal des Actuares Francais are stored, which contain some articles pertinent to this book. Unfortunately, after I had been given the runaround for approximately half-a-year by an extraordinarily unhelpful secretary, it was only when my wife visited Paris that the articles could be copied. It took her all of fifteen minutes … apparently too much for an unwilling secretary.

Maybe Jimmy Fallon read that quote before his late night show last week. Here is one of his jokes, “France apparently passed a new law that makes it harder to become a French citizen. Most people just get lazy and give up. At which point they’re named a French citizen.”

Would the world be better if more of this happened? I don’t know, but I sure would prefer it. Oh, I should mention the book is pretty cool too. Did you know that the term salary originates from the term salarium, which described the pay of early Roman soliders: salt? I did not know that. I did know that salt bars were popularly used as money until the beginning of the 20th century in East Africa. My bet is that if you traveled there you might still see some in use. Better than the Euro?

Back to the point, should I offer up an observation like that? I think that would get you removed from polite company faster than typical. Stay tuned however, I will offer up a handful of observations in the coming months, it’s not like I have any friends to lose by doing it.

1. Government mergers of hospitals in England do not produce better outcomes. (Same is true for privates, we knew this and the government went ahead anyway).
2. High quality grammar school teachers have an impact that lasts a lifetime.  A huge study of over 2 million students with different quality grade 3 through 8 teachers finds that students assigned to better teachers are more likely to go to college (I don’t find this a benefit, but if it does correlate with other good things than great), more likely to go to better colleges, earn higher salaries, live in nicer neighborhoods, and save more for retirement. And confirming the work of Hanushek, they find that if you replace a terrible teacher (lowest 5% of teacher quality distribution per the way they measure it) with an average teacher increases lifetime income by $250,000 for an average classroom. My three points:
   1. These gains are enormous. These are per classroom for each year for having a better teacher. So if we have a classroom get better teachers from 3rd through 8th grade, we’re talking $1.5 million of benefits per cohort of 25 or so students. Multiply that by the number of classrooms with bad teachers and we may have a startlingly large number on our hands.
   2. We’re not talking about putting the greatest teachers in every classroom, just an average one. Considering that the state education and federal education departments are wholly owned subsidiaries of the teachers unions it is hard to imagine we’ll ever see reform this way, it should be extremely maddening that we are being told that “any good policy is on the table” yet these now increasingly important results continue to be fought. By the way, increasing teacher quality may simply be as easy as eliminating state teacher licensing requirements. Remember the average quality of students enrolling in ED schools is at the bottom of the academic quality distribution.
   3. Jonah Rockoff was a classmate of mine at Amherst (and a very good soccer player).
3. Increasing politicians’ salaries in Europe increases their willingness to run for reelection and does not stop shirking and lowers the quality of elected officials viz education levels. By the way, I am increasingly in favor of having a lottery to determine who our elected officials will be. I will post more on this shortly.
4. Shocking! Local governments use zoning to keep “undesirables” out of local public school districts.
5. Lower crop yields encourage people to move. This paper screams for a general equilibrium treatment. It also reminds us that should climate change produce bad outcomes, we don’t just sit there and take ‘em.

… and all through the land

consumption is slowing,

and investors are scared.

The stockings were hung

by the chimney with care.

In hopes that St. Government

soon would be there.

The unions were nestled

all snug in their beds,

Knowing that Congress

was firm in their stead.

And governors in their pockets,

and school districts too,

secure in the knowledge,

that they’ll stick it to you.

When out in the statehouse

there arose such a clatter,

citizens sprang to their laptops

to see what was the matter.

Away to their blogs

they flew like a flash,

tore open their e-mails

and kept open their cache.

The moon on the breast

of the new fallen snow,

but we’ve spent so much,

that we can’t even plow.

When, what to our wondering

eyes should appear,

a corrupt IL governor,

more taxes and fear.

With a wonky Fed chairman,

who knew not what to do,

we knew in a moment,

that he’d screw us too.

More rapid than eagles,

the new programs came,

And Bush whistled and shouted,

and called them by name.

Now TARP, now bailout,

Now stimulus checks,

Down funds rate, more taxes

who knows what is next?

To the top of the Hill

To the top of the Wall

Now bail away, flail away,

spend away all.

As I drew in my head,

and was turning around,

the lobbyists on K street

stormed with a bound.

They spoke like fine preachers,

on the radio and news,

with a message so tarnished,

most Americans refused,

their scare tactic stories,

broken windows gallore,

but our governments relented

and broke even more.

Justifications abounded

New Ponzi’s in jail,

Heck even my belly

is too big to fail.

Home prices still falling

our belts are pulled tight,

well except for the folks,

who live for election night.

They’ll raise taxes on soda,

on beer and on cigs,

as their budgets expand

like a holiday pig.

A wink of their eyes

and a twist of their heads

Soon gave me to know

There’s even more to dread.

They spoke not one truth

but went straight to their work

Of filling their coffers

off of all our hard work,

Expanding school budgets

and public works too.

which would really be nice

if it was truly new.

But our schools and our roads

will continue to crumble

’cause funding’s not the problem,

it’s government bumble.

So Obama will come

and he’ll spend even more

while folks will be duped

that this is not like before.

The crisis will deepen

but someday will end,

and government will continue

to be viewed as godsend.

The Feds own the banks,

Fan, Fred and AIG,

and regulations extending

well into the seas.

And so long as we think,

wealth comes from Santa’s flights

or enlightened politicians

we’ll kiss freedom good-night.

UPDATE: Lynn Kiesling over at KP points us to this gem: (the Gulch part is a bit too much for me …)

How the Grinch Stole the Free Market

All the folks
Down in Galt’s Gulch
Liked Markets a lot…

But the Grinch,
Who lived just North of Galt’s Gulch,
Did NOT!

The Grinch hated Markets! Especially free ones!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reasons.
It could be that his head wasn’t screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his rings were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his brain was two sizes too small.

If you’re looking for an unconventional gift to give to someone this year or to treat yourself, I highly recommend supporting PERC, it is one of the environmental organizations that “get it.” I would also have you consider the Nature Conservancy, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or your local hiking/trails association. You might wish to pause for a moment to ask what distinguishes those places from the likes of the Sierra Club and similar “E”nvironmental organizations. What follows is an excerpt of an e-mail I just got from PERC.

When PERC opened its doors in 1980, free market environmentalism (FME) was considered an oxymoron; environmentalists saw markets as an enemy, not an ally. Now, thanks to PERC, the largest and oldest think-tank focusing on market solutions to environmental problems, FME is being tried and tested around the world. In Africa, private owners are protecting rhinos from poaching; in the Caribbean, an alumnus of PERC’s  Enviropreneur Institute (PEI) is working with divers to help replant coral and regenerate dying reefs; and in the Gulf of Mexico, the Environmental Defense Fund has joined PERC in campaigning for property rights solutions to overfishing.

To build on these successes, PERC needs your help. Your tax-deductible gift will help fund innovative research, convene conferences, publish the results in PERC Reports and other venues, and add to the growing number of environmentalists implementing PERC’s ideas. Here are some specific things that your donation to PERC can accomplish:

• $25 will cover the cost of producing and distributing PERC Reports to one reader for one year;
• $100 will pay for printing and distributing a PERC Case Study to 100 people;
• $2,000 will provide a scholarship for a student to participate in PERC’s summer programs;
• $5,000 will pay for a Lone Mountain Fellowship, which brings a professor to visit PERC;
• $15,000 will give an environmental entrepreneur an opportunity to attend PEI and learn to apply FME to their work.

You can also help by spreading the word and telling your family, friends, and co-workers about PERC and encouraging them to donate along with you this season. Click here to forward this message! If you have already donated, thank you for your support!

I assure you that your tax-deductible contribution will promote environmental quality with less government and more individual freedom. Now is the moment when improving the environment utilizing property rights and markets rather than big government can truly benefit America as the country works to deal with its fiscal excesses.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Anderson

Executive Director