In the News

I leave for Costa Rica Wednesday, out of Orlando ($285 vs. flying out of Jax for $600+!!). I'm going alone, and I've only barely been out of the southeastern region of the U.S. in my entire life. I'm really looking forward to this, as I believe it will be a significant chapter in my long journey of personal development. I paid a very large, non-monetary price for this trip, and the closer I get to it, the more all signs say GO. I'll surf while I'm there, and I'm planning to do some yoga classes, too. I'm hoping I can find a cheap golf range to play at, and hopefully I'll find a job. I don't plan to sleep much at all, and I will probably drink a lot less coffee and beer and eat a lot more fruit and protein bars.

When I get back, I'll waste no time in heading to Tallahassee for FSU's Applied Master's program in Economics. I don't plan on working the entire year, for I wish to dedicate it wholly to the program and, probably more importantly, to learning another language and furthering my knowledge of economics. Towards the end of my senior year, I was starting to pull everything together that used to confound me before. Economics is itself like a language, and I feel I'm really starting to not only learn it for myself but also to develop my own dialect. Call it arrogant, but I believe I can put a new emphasis on it all, that is, make it accessible to new and otherwise indifferent crowds of people. I know exponentially more now than I did a year ago, and that's with working 25+ hours a week and taking nonsense classes at the same time. Anyway, I'm almost more excited to go to Tallahassee than I am Tamarindo. Who would've thought?

I'll probably rename the blog when I get back. I think I'm going to make a blog about my adventures in Costa Rica, but I don't want to commit to anything because I'm not sure what computer access will be like while I'm there. I won't have a phone or my own lap top, either (or even a camera!).

It's funny, I was so ready to get out of school. Now I just want back in. Well, not exactly. But these in-between times are so boring that I don't know what to do with myself. This will all be different in less than a week!

I come back July 28th. See ya then.

The Market Test

Last night I was at a bar at the beach that featured "Mensday Wednesday," a night where men drink free from 10-12. I'm always very wary about "free stuff," because there is always a catch. Last night was no different, and I'll list what these draw backs were:

1) Men did drink free, but not just any beverage. In fact, only one drink was "free," the house "lager," which I'm pretty sure was poured from a keg of Milwaukee's Best. It was disgusting.

2) Guys were given ~5 oz. dixie cups with which to drink from. Now, this wouldn't be too much of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that the keg was behind the bar, and you had to wait for the bartender to get you a refill. And since most guys had the "free" mentality, tips were not forthcoming, thus the bartender had very little incentive to give you snappy service. The lines were notorious.

3) The keg ran out at 11:19 PM and was not refilled. So, really, it was "Mensday Wednesday" for 1 hour and 19 minutes.

Needless to say, I refused to stand in a ridiculous line for a 5 oz. portion of horse spit beer. Pabst Blue Ribbons were $2, and I was happy. I will not go back to this bar on a Wednesday, and I think many other people feel the same. The market has spoken.

So, I argue that "free stuff" actually has costs, though not monetary, that are much greater than a dollar price. Last night there was little drinking taking place, and neither the bar tenders nor the customers were very happy (which was the total opposite of what everybody wanted before they went out). Sure, some people saved a few dollars, but I'd be willing to bet that on net, most everybody suffered psychic losses.

Reminds me of "free admission" at Chuck E. Cheese. Sure, it's free, and even the games are cheap, but the quality of service is poor, games are poorly kept, and there's a gang member at every quarter slot. I'd go there if the price were higher.

Graduation

So, I graduate from college in a little over a week with my B.A. in Economics and minor in math. Alas, I must rename my blog, lest I mislead serious readers into thinking I'm a know-nothing college kid (because now I'm a know-nothing graduate). What should I rename the 'ol blog?

I'm remembering a South Park episode, where Eric Cartman describes his experiences at theme parks... and amongst his recollection he says something about, "cantankerous kinks" or something to that effect.

Hmmm. This blog is about cantankerous kinks, isn't it?

The search continues.

Update: Cartman doesn't talk about cantankerous kinks but instead "rare Kartankulas plinks!" I found the transcript on the net (not the video because my computer is far too slow to watch it). I thought the part where Cartman talks about lines was so great that I'm uploading the transcript of that part here, as follows:

Cartman: Oh, but I'm not buying the park to get people to come.

Mr Foon: You... you're not?

Cartman: No no no! I'm buying it to keep people out! [Chris and Frank look at each other] Don't you see? Forever it has been my dream to have my very own theme park, so that I could be alone in it, all day, every day. I love theme parks. [zoom in] But the lines! Everywhere you go, people, crowds, [shot of people waiting to enter "The Mine Shaft"] The rides are great, but... [a shot of crowds on Main Street] All the lines, lines, LINES! [shot of people waiting to enter a ghost ride, another shot of a kids' mine shaft ride; another of Cartman pissed off, eyes squeezed shut, with waiting times floating past him] If there's one thing I hate, [a shot of two lines of people entering his head] all the lines, lines, lines, LINES!! [opens his eyes, and a moment later...] And then there get to be so many people [his eyes roll around independently of each other] that they make FastPass. [a shot of people in a FastPass line] So then there's lines for FastPass. [zoom out to show Cartman in line for a FastPass] You stand in line to get a ticket to stand in line later. Then there's lines for the bathrooms [two lines for the Waterworks Restrooms], lines for the drinks [Astro Food line], lines for cantakuras [Seussian characters play strange instruments for the people in line] and rare Kartankulas Plinks! [a vendor sells them - they are a fruit treat shaped like strawberries] ...And, so you see, this park is for me. Nobody else will be allowed in it. [Emphasis added]

Teacher's Unions and Unemployment

I read a very profound statement in Man, Economy, and State today that, although known to any worthwhile economist, is almost vaguely or not even treated at all in high school and college econ principles texts. I'm on Rothbard's chapter on monopoly. The passage (pp.707-708) is as follows:

"[When] [t]he union has thus achieved a restrictionist wage rate... a sacrifice has been made... there are now fewer workers hired... What happens to them? These discharged workers are the main losers in this procedure. Since the union represents the remaining workers, it does not have to concern itself, as the monopolist would, with the fate of these workers. At best, [the unemployed workers] must shift... to some other-nonunionized- industry. The trouble is, however, that the workers are less suited to the new industry. Their having been in the now unionized industry implies that their DMVP in that industry was higher than in the industry to which they must shift; consequently, their wage rate is now lower."

But this next part is what I find amazing, that I've never read in any formal textbook (but is so elementary). Rothbard continues:

"Moreover, their entry into the other industry depresses the wage rates of the workers already there. Consequently, at best, a union can achieve a higher, restrictionist wage rate for its members only at the expense of lowering the wage rates of all other workers in the economy." [Emphasis added]

I do believe there exists economic laws irrespective of time and place. In this case, an increase in supply will decrease the equilibrium price- in this case, the price of labor, or the wage rate. So not only do labor unions use the heavy hand of the government to force employers into negotiations (and more importantly, settlements), but also these entities decrease everybody else's standard of living in the form of decreased wages by the reallocation of previously employed workers.

Let us not think that unionization in this and other countries is such a small proportion of the labor force, either; this analysis applies in full to occupations and industries that require intense licensing (e.g., medical services) and that outright prohibit competition (e.g., public utilities, public schooling).

Some people might object that public schooling is subject to the constraints of competition via private schools. This is untrue for many reasons, but principally, two: 1) Private schools are subject to many, if not all, of the same requirements concerning curriculum and facilities; they can scarcely operate outside of the realm of what the state legislature will let them. 2) Education is compulsory; kids can't choose whether to go or not. Consumer choice is the backbone of competition: By eliminating a vast array of choices available to children and young adults, be it the workforce or some other way to spend their initial 18 years of life, compulsory education has eliminated a large part of what constitutes competition. Thus, even if argument (1) is granted, the fact that kids have to attend school means that both public and private schools don't have to try nearly as hard to maintain a level of quality and price that would impel ordinarily free children to attend.

It's as if all adults were forced to buy magazines of a certain type. Before such a mandate was enforced, magazines had to compete amongst the thousands of other products that you would have ordinarily bought with your money (not just other magazines). But it's worse than this where schooling is concerned, because on top of eliminating substitute products to spend your tuition money on, the educational establishment is cartelized and monopolized to hell and back. You have the worst of both worlds in the case of schooling, because at least in the magazine example wider profit margins would encourage entrepreneurs to enter the forced magazine industry. Where schooling is concerned, that's not a viable option. To modify our magazine example, adults are forced to buy the kind of magazines that are cartelized and will blow any of its competitors to smithereens with brute force. Now imagine the kind of quality of magazines you'd expect to read.

Back to my original point, this monopolization of sorts not only dis-employs the workers in the original industry but also decreases the wages of everybody else as those workers find work elsewhere. Multiply that by the amount of licensing and paperwork it takes to work in any given occupation, and it's no wonder why U6 unemployment is at 16.9 % (and why we have to use 6 different measures in the first place ;) )

Accounting Tricks

Would somebody mind explaining to me how people who live off taxes pay taxes? The two concepts are mutually exclusive: you're either a net tax consumer or a net tax payer.

I know, he has book sales, blaze blaze, but I'm speaking of a larger "phenomenon" where we think in terms of every laborer/property owner/etc. paying taxes. This is simply false, as one must fall into the category of net consumer or net payer of taxes relative to all the 'benefits' received from the guvamint.

Saying that public officials, like the vice president or the mayor, or college professors or the city garbage guy all pay taxes is ridiculous, because they all derive their incomes from taxation. The "paying out of taxes" at the end of the day is an accounting maneuver, nothing more.

Think of it like this: A man sticks you up in a dark alley for whatever is in your pockets. You scream and plead with him that you need that money for rent and dinner, but he doesn't listen, and insists that you throw your wallet into his bag. He assures you, "Hey, now, I'm in this just as much as you are," as he throws his own wallet into his bag. He then walks off with the bag.

I feel better, don't you?

The Economics of Credit Reports

I stumbled upon a Mises.org video originally aired on CNN that pits J.H. Hubert against some "consumer advocate." Hubert argues that credit checks for potential employees are, by common sense, indicative of a given employee's work reliability, that is, a lower score should be positively correlated with more work absences, tardies, etc. as compared to a person with a higher credit score. I like the argument because it is intuitively appealing. The "consumer advocate," however, maintains that there are no statistical studies proving that this correlation necessarily holds, and so employers shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on the basis of a FICO score.

Riiight. Empiricists sound really dumb sometimes.

But, I went through 3/4 of the video and didn't hear the most basic argument from an economics standpoint come up, that is, that if the demand for laborers with lower credit scores fall, then the demand for laborers with higher credit scores must by de facto increase, establishing a wage differential between the two classes. If, as our "consumer advocate" maintains, there really is no difference between work reliability and overall performance between the two classes, then there are profits to be made by "daring" entrepreneurs willing to hire from the lower-scoring group. These profits would be noticed by other entrepreneurs, and over time, the demand for lower-scoring laborers would increase which will, by default, decrease the demand for higher-scoring laborers, eliminating any wage differential between the two groups.

Thus, our "consumer advocate's" argument is shown to be a paper tiger, because there's really nothing to worry about.

Unless we assume that employers are stupid and can't recognize profit opportunities. But if this is true, why doesn't our "consumer advocate" become a hiring manager somewhere, making the big bucks by hiring people with poor credit?

Frankly, I like the argument that, "It's my business, my job that I'm looking to give to somebody else, and it's nobody else's damn business who I hire for it."

Sin Escolaridad Más

I went to the library today and checked out two books in spanish, those being La Casa en Mango Street and Che Guevara Habla a la Juventud. Ever since late August of '09, I've been learning the spanish language. I used Rosetta Stone for 5 months, and since January I've been reading spanish books with a spanish dictionary nearby. I can read most simple things and understand it spoken to me, but speaking it is another story. Hence why I'm going to Costa Rica for 3 months on May 19th, and the rest is history.

Anyway, La Casa en Mango Street is a book that I was assigned when I was in Spanish III in high school. I remember the very day I was assigned the book, and how I stared blankly at its pages with not an ounce of hope in my soul that I'd get through it. I defeated myself, in a way, for I didn't read the book (nor pass the class). I didn't give a damn, frankly.

But now, in a span of 8 months, I can read this book! I flip through the pages with almost ease, sounding out the beautiful letters aloud as if I were painting a Rembrandt. I'm absolutely amazed at the results that I (or anybody) can achieve when I actually want to do something. Foreign tongues used to scare the bajezzas out of me, but I'm very much looking forward to learning both french and german come next August. It has little to do with IQ and everything to do with the will to learn.

What does this have to do with political economy or economics?

Compulsory schooling is a sham. I graduated believing that the professors were supposed to teach me something, that more schooling and more training and more formal education were my vectors to success. This is so incredibly and emphatically untrue that I pity all those graduating seniors going on to Harvard and Yale and the like. You know, the kind of people that look at a recession and say, "Hope I'm not out of the job..." Because now, I can look at a recession and say, "I don't feel like participating in this. I can always create my own job, anyway." Compulsory schooling, by its very definition, cannot teach you this skill because you aren't allowed to choose among the skills and talents you're best at and further develop.

From my 18+ year experience in school, and my substitute teaching experience, and my sister's experiences, and all the tutoring I've done during college, I've realized that compulsory schooling sucks the drive and the need to learn, to better oneself, out of most people. These students are so damn reliant on the professor to hand them knowledge that they don't even realize they were born with their own faculties. Compulsory schooling is worse than inefficient and futile;

it's immoral.

Entrepreneurial Idea?

I was thinking tonight about items that have big prices but can be shared among consumers. For example, computer programs such as Microsoft Office or the language learning program Rosetta Stone, are both on the expensive side as far as single consumers go, especially if neither products will bring with them monetary remuneration.

But, perhaps, a Craig's List of sorts could be set up for isolated consumers wanting to go in with other consumers on such products? For instance, I want Rosetta Stone French and RS German, and I'm sure another consumer SOMEWHERE in the world wants to do the same, and the RS software can be used twice. Not only would this 'sharing' cut the $600 price in half, but also both me and the other customer would be less willing to rip an illegal copy off the internet. Thus, both consumers and producers are made better off.

Of course, how many consumable goods can be duplicated in such a way as computer programs? I can only think of things like Photoshop, Office, and Rosetta Stone. The products have to be duplicable. I think.

Either way, this idea does set up an information exchange, which is essential to markets. I think it would work, though it would not necessarily bring in big profit margins to the host of the exchange. Would some products be made so incredibly accessible to previously isolated consumers that product prices would rise substantially? No telling, but I like the idea.

Hmmmm.

More on Strawberries and Such

Back to our Strawberry producers here, it's obvious that because the strawberry farmers were destroying their crops, they made entrepreneurial errors. That is, the decision to continue producing strawberries that was made before the growing season was wrong. Obviously, these producers should have invested less time/labor/capital/other resources in the production of strawberries than otherwise. If the strawberry farmers could go back in time, they would correct for this error, and reduce the amount of factors that went into the production of their crops.

But they can't go back in time. They look to the future with their presently owned resources and products, and make decisions based upon future prospects. Destroying some of their surplus crop raises the per unit price of strawberries, enabling them to produce more than otherwise in the future.

I think that's what our strawberry critics forget: production is future oriented. Producers can't look at the past and base their production decisions off of this alone. What the critics are asking strawberry farmers to do is to compound the errors already made in production. Assuming that strawberry farmers could go back in time, it's as if the critics are asking them not to, to instead produce so many strawberries as to reduce their profit margins and hence their incentives and abilities to continue with production in the future, and ultimately to serve the demand of consumers in the market.

In other news, William Easterly's The White Man's Burden was a fantastic read about the follies of foreign aid, about how local, on-the-ground strategies that attack small problems related to poverty and squalor are often much more effective than grand utopian schemes of eliminating an entire feature of poverty (say, hunger or AIDS) in one fell swoop. I feel as though I understand the IMF, World Bank, etc. much better than I did a month ago. Without giving them much justice, I would have to say they're mostly 'bureaucratic clap-traps:' Big talk without the strategies to make for effective walk.

But, I've been told that I have a bad case of confirmation bias.

Bad Argument

I've read and talked to a lot of people whom are opposed to the recently passed healthcare legislation. Often, they have really good points as to why it's no good and won't achieve its ends. However, there's a defense that even many respectable economists use that I believe is lame. That is, that

"a clear majority of Americans oppose this healthcare bill."

Brushing aside the fact that we have no idea if a "clear majority" opposes this or not because most people haven't ever talked to a pollster in their lives, this argument is fundamentally flawed. It rests on the premise that majorities mean something, that if a majority of Americans wanted this bill, then it'd be OK.

It means that the mass genocide of Jews in the late '30s and early '40s was OK only if a majority of Germans gave the thumbs up; that bombing the WTC was only OK if a majority of extremists agreed; and that Chinese communism is justified only if most of its citizens don't mind.

This is clearly ridiculous.

Majority opinion confers absolutely no legitimacy upon any argument whatsoever. Even if 100% of all people believed that healthcare legislation was right (and thus could lower costs), or that protectionism was good for them, or that 2 x 1 = 89, they are still in every case wrong. It doesn't matter how many idiots they have on their side.

Strawberry Fields Forever

TBO: "Wholesale prices that were $17 to $19 for a flat of eight containers have now fallen to $5 to $6 a flat, Grooms and Parke said. Parke said some farmers have tried shipping berries to stands to sell on consignment, but if they only return $3 a flat on each shipment, they lose money on each deal."

No, it's greed, according to Yahoo!. Apparently, the right thing for everybody to do is run at losses; let's just produce things that nobody wants to pay for. Or at least that's what the homeless shelter folks would have us do. In a way, though, they are a loss that society is running itself. They know no better.

In other news, I spoke to a German family at work today. I overheard them speaking their native tongue, and not knowing what it was at first, I inquired about their nationality, and followed up with a terrific joke. The conversation went like this:

Me: "What nationality are y'all?

German Father: Jocularly, "We're German. Is that OK with you?"

Me: "Well, sure, I guess we can all forgive and forget, right?"

German Family: Silence.

The parents looked stunned and confused. The children just looked confused. Did he really say that?

Yes, yes I did.

In Other News...

In the neon circle: What's in the bill is irrelevant now. Not like anybody besides the privileged political class and wealth looters need to know the 'benefits,' anyway.

In the red: Notice that there has never been a "Pepsi shortage" or a "sock shortage?" Yet when an entire populace of a state is made to fund public utilities, we face blackouts, shortages, congestion, and overall piss-poor quality relative to most other goods consumed freely. Even in the light of this, they still got 216.

What a joke.

Deflation vs. Malinvestment

Reading through an investor's newsletter this morning, I came across snippets that almost contradict each other. I'll explain that. But it's as though some (most) mainstream investors and academicians want to have the cake and eat it too. It's like me going to work, hoping it's not busy, and still making bank; it ain't happening.

This guy says: "Now, there is no exact way to determine the right size of the money supply. It definitely needs to grow each year by at least the growth in the size of the economy, the population, and productivity, or deflation will appear. But if money supply grows too much then you have inflation." [Emphasis mine]

He clearly injects the deflationary bogey, and of course doesn't explain the implications of it, but instead implies that it is clearly and at all times bad and catastrophic, which is emphatically untrue. We'll see why here:

"More than five million homeowners are behind on their mortgages; There are over six million Americans who have been unemployed for at least six months, a record 40% of the ranks of the jobless; The private capital stock is growing at its slowest rate in nearly two decades; Roughly 30% of manufacturing capacity is sitting idle; Nearly 19 million residential housing units, or about 15% of the stock, is vacant; Commercial real estate values are down 30% over the past year; The average American worker has seen his/her level of wealth plunge $100,000 over the last two years, even with the recovery in equity markets this past year; Bank credit is contracting at an unprecedented 15% annual rate so far this year as lenders sit on a record $1.3 trillion of cash" [Emphasis mine]

I've highlighted the words and phrases that are ubiquitous in any recession that the Fed (or any central bank) has presided over, those being 'unemployed, low stock growth rate, idle capacity, vacancies, decreased values, decreased wealth, decreased credit.'

I have studied under the school which says that if you fear deflation, and combat it with low interest rates and artificial injections of liquidity in the market, you're going to get all of the bad things associated with bad investments, namely, idle stock, underemployment, and lower asset values. You cannot avoid the former without encountering the latter.

Deflation is not bad per se (Ask the 1880s). There is no reason to believe that long-term deflation is anymore pernicious than long-term inflation. I've simplified it, but succinctly put, expectations matter. More on that here.

4,051 Decks of Cards

were used to make this incredible structure. I couldn't embed that particular video, but here's another of the same man:

Wake Me Up Tomorrow

"The Federal Reserve is currently rolling over all maturing Treasury securities, but in the future it may choose not to do so in all cases."

From Bernanke's testimony on the Fed's exit strategy, before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, in Washington, D.C. on February 10, 2010.

Cultural Economics

I watched most of "Life and Debt" tonight, in my ongoing search for information regarding the IMF, World Bank, etc. It's a documentary about IMF and World Bank loans that are often granted on harsh terms and with less regard to the borrower's interest as compared to the lender's (remember, these loans are for the specific purpose of advancing the borrower, not the lender). Also probed was globalization and the opening up of Jamaica's ports in conjunction with the devaluing of Jamaica's currency, and how these actions destroyed many domestic industries. All the while, the movie is narrated by a woman who has an obvious disdain for western culture and wealth.

But, it was a good experience. I wasn't convinced by its anecdotal evidence of the evils of free trade. However, I was intrigued by how much the U.S.'s protectionist policies (subsidies & tariffs) adversely affected Jamaica's wellbeing (e.g., Chiquita and Dole bananas are protected Latin American imports). Also intriguing, the IMF insisted upon devaluation based upon their snap shot of the world market, in order to boost Jamaican domestic industry relative to the rest of the world. But because Jamaica is so dependent on exports, many domestic industries (and citizens) suffered in the long term.

And it goes on and on. The video was mildly educating, more so for people who are already familiar with the system, to give them a human emphasis on textbook economics.

I'm coming to see economic development more and more something that cannot be forced upon people. IMF and World Bank loans, whether they come with strict conditions or not, tend all the more to destabilize global resource flows: there are just too many variables to account for. On the one hand, you can devalue a country's currency to stimulate domestic industry, but on the other hand, doing this will destabilize domestic industry. Or, liberating trade barriers subjects smaller economies to un-liberated trade barriers of large countries, hurting the small countries all the more; this is, of course, not an argument against opening up trade barriers, but instead against protectionism as a whole. However, now you have an entire community of folks who think that free trade impoverished their culture. Are you better off in the grand scheme of things?

Also interesting in my studies of these organizations is how efficiently (that is, inefficiently) knowledge can travel between agents at the top level to the people that they're trying to help. You have westernized, government-sponsored loan agencies attempting to help third-world, non-english speaking cultures. There's so much that can and does go wrong, and yet, the IMF and World Bank are still here.

A Follow-up

I want to make it clear that cutting the salt intake of Americans is not the aim of an "industry crackdown." It's simple: people who aren't dieing from high blood pressure-related complications will die from something else. After all, people must die at some point. Thus, life-sustaining care will manifest itself in some other area, and that's something that the study doesn't take into account.

Let me reiterate: let's assume that the tax on salt would indeed cut salt intake by 6 percent, and "[result] in 327,892 fewer strokes and 306,173 fewer heart attacks." Let us assume further that the cut in salt consumption would make many high blood pressure medications superfluous, saving the government money in these areas insofar as people use government assistance programs and the like. This is not unreasonable, per se, and I wouldn't debate it.

But we must consider that often, individuals with high salt intakes have a bad diet to boot, and there arises a whole caboodle of problems that, frankly, kill people. If we're still talking about people who use the government dole to pay for their medical care, there's no reason to believe that a new set of complications wouldn't be covered by such aid. Worse, still, is if people live longer while on government medical aid; costs haven't decreased in such a scenario.

The problem with this study is that it's just a snapshot of the state of things minus people with high blood pressure. This is understandable, but no less fallacious, considering the impossible task it would be to map out all the other scenarios and ways that people could die if not from high blood pressure-related complications, and how these paths would affect medical costs for the government.

It's like justifying a tax on tobacco by citing lower medical costs. But that's dubious, if smokers die at a younger age, requiring less medical care than otherwise, thus saving money in the long-run.

So, it isn't about costs. It never was/is/will be about costs, because the government multiplies the cost of anything it breathes legislation on.

Instead, this is about control. Every damn thing they do is about controlling every facet of your life.

The Elephant and the Ant

This is why you don't give anybody the authority to take your income and monopolize arbitration.

"Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday."

The U.S. government wouldn't have to save a damn dime in healthcare costs if it wasn't in the entitlement field in the first place.

"The team estimated that a government-industry effort could cut Americans' salt intake by 9.5 percent."

There is no "government-industry effort" when the former party has compulsory jurisdiction over the latter. As Thomas Sowell put it, "When there is a partnership between an ant and an elephant, who do you suppose makes the decisions?"

The writers of this article know that the above is true, because just a few lines later they write,

"By contrast, a tax on salt would cut salt intake by 6 percent, resulting in 327,892 fewer strokes and 306,173 fewer heart attacks, the team calculated... If cooperation is not voluntary, new regulations on sodium content of processed and prepared foods might be necessary..."

With this said, I must observe that conservative pundits are too late when they talk about the dangers of giving more control to the government over our health matters. This article clearly proves that they already have too much control.

49 Stars And Counting

Hope you saved your Haiti-aid receipts: Another quake, this time in Chile.

Thankfully, however, this one didn't wreak near as much destruction, so we won't have to see humanitarian plight every time we turn on the tube. That is by far the worst part about disasters, disease, and celebrity deaths/scandals: I have to see/hear about it everywhere I go.

And before you say it, I'm not insensitive. I just don't care much for countries that deliberately made themselves poor through inane policy over the years. You can cite "building codes" all day long as a major factor in saving lives, but that's not necessarily true, because building codes keep marginal builders out of the market, possibly hurting a far greater number of people that don't have a natural disaster speaking up for them.

Have you noticed that H1N1 hype has just plummeted to nothingness? What happened to all of that? Kind of like every other potential plague... false alarm. This is why I don't take media hype seriously, even when it involves tsunamis and food poisoning. It never materializes like the professionals say it will.

And I was looking forward to having only 49 states. One step closer to smaller government, eh?

Around The World In A Few Weeks

There is a dearth of formalized material about the international monetary system relative to the Fed, U.S. fiscal policy, and many other macroeconomic features of the U.S. economy in standard macro and monetary textbooks, or so I've found.

So, I spent a lot of today looking for stuff that would help me better understand it all. I started my search with the IMF, because it seems very political and thus should put a human face on these concepts for me.

I found a book about World Bank and IMF aid to Pakistan. It's pretty decent, even though it relies exclusively on econometrics and empirical analysis. I read a bit of it today, and have established that as far as Pakistan goes, between 1972 and 1999, IMF aid is negatively related to gross output. Imagine that!

I found a 33 minute video with Paul Krugman and some other important guys. It was not helpful at all; it was more of an emotional appeal about the conditionalities of IMF loans, if you could even call it that, than an educational video about the causal mechanisms of the IMF. I saw one on Jamaica a year ago, before I cared about this stuff, and it played the same guitar string. This reaffirms my suspicion that the IMF is very politicized, at least externally, and like so many other issues plaguing economic debates, true knowledge of the subject is possessed by few.

Tonight I went to Wikipedia to learn about IMF SDRs, and then to CATO to learn why SDRs will likely never become an international currency.

All in all, a productive day. I'm going to dabble on the IMF for another week, then onto the World Bank, and then so on.