The Unbroken Window

“Even supposing for a moment, that a solitary act of disobedience may pass without evil results—nay, may bring beneficial ones: even supposing this, the wisdom of the act is not thereby proved. For consider the probable effects of a wrong precedent. As Paley truly says, “the bad consequences of actions are twofold, particular and general.“ And admitting [...]

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One could write a 10,000 page encyclopedia illustrating the unintended consequences of seemingly thoughtful actions on the part of individuals and governments. This one stands out in particular for me. It is from Herbert Spencer’s classic work, Social Statics: Those too were admirable motives, and very cogent reasons, which led our government to establish an [...]

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Radio ads here in Rochester have been touting the “new” employment tax credits that have come from Washington, DC. The idea is that for firms that hire currently unemployed workers and keep them employed for a long-enough time period, they will receive a credit on their tax liabilities. Let’s not think of the labor economics [...]

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Fatherhood.gov. It’s a effort of NRFC, which is a division of ACF which is an office of OFA which is a branch of HHS, which of course is a department of the Executive branch of the USA. Phew. Now that we have that out of the way. Here is what it does: NRFC Activities The [...]

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The “common-good” is commonly invoked as a justification for all kinds of confiscatory taxation and subsequent government programs. But in what sense is any program actually working for the “common good?” Wouldn’t making such a claim as a defense of a program require at least two things to be defined? First is, what the heck [...]

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From the AP: Some major health insurance companies will no longer issue certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said several big insurers in his state will stop issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma [...]

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The Galen Institute’s Grace-Marie Turner reports that Obamacare will require employers to evaluate their health plans’ affordability by calculating each employee’s household income, not just that worker’s individual wages. This likely will involve, at a minimum, collecting income declarations from every staff member. Remember what happened to out-of-wedlock births when welfare programs were rolled out [...]

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There are NO recorded Asian undergraduates disabled by ADD, and only 0.7 percent of Asian students have a learning disability, according to government data. Read the excellent Pope Center study on student disabilities here. I’ve been teaching since 2002 (with a two year hiatus). I have taught in aggregate probably around 2,500 students. I’ve probably [...]

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… is that they sometimes kill their prey. Gov. David Paterson warned Thursday that New York could lose $1 billion under the Obama administration’s decision to cut executive pay at seven companies that received federal bailout money. “I’m not going to defend the people who run these companies,” Paterson said. “They frittered a lot of [...]

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There might be some empirical gymastics here (I did not read the paper), but this kind of study is one reason I find economics fun. We find that reductions in traffic congestion generated by E-ZPass reduced the incidence of prematurity and low birth weight among mothers within 2km of a toll plaza by 10.8% and [...]

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