Truck and Barter

You don't say...

What do you mean, municipal wi-fi networks aren't the unalloyed good they were sold as?

Across the United States, many cities are finding their Wi-Fi projects costing more and drawing less interest than expected, leading to worries that a number will fail, resulting in millions of dollars in wasted tax dollars or grants when there had been roads to build and crime to fight.

I was recently in Pittsburgh, PA. Which has a downtown network that can be used "free" for two hours. I say "free", since I had to register. For the benefit of sending my info to the city, which I assume logged my IP and thus knew roughly where I was and more...I got slow service that could only be used in certain positions since the repeaters were weak and stationed poorly for coverage.

But, you know, it's hard to tell how these things will pan out.

"Economical" Mathematics

One of the sites I visit regularly is the Numb3rs blog, written by a mathematician at Northeastern University. The site deals with the math topics that arise in the show of the same name. (No link given, for reasons below.) He does a great job of explication, and provides some interesting links. It certainly makes the show more enjoyable knowing that there is a good independent reference for the material.

But I find this odd:

Numb3rs appears on CBS which is part of CBS-Paramount, a very large corporate entity, as is TI. Neither supports this blog in any way even though your blogmeister reviews scripts for mathematical content gratis for the show. I do this as an effort to promote the understanding of mathematics -- the same reason I write this blog. In spite of several requests, neither CBS nor TI will provide a link on any of their websites to this blog; they won't even mention it as a resource. What's even more surprising is that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), a group supposedly dedicated to mathematics education, and tied rather closely to TI, has also refused to reference this blog as a resource for mathematics education.

I suppose this could simply be another case of old media not quite understanding the value of having numerous in-roads for new viewers. The number of math blogs has blossomed of late (witnessed by the flourishing -- and highly entertaining -- Carnival of Mathematics), much like economics blogs in 2005/2006. CBS and Texas Instruments are, of course, private entities free to link to whomever and whatever they wish. Though, if they want to willingly ignore -- while relying on the expertise of -- their best ambassador, I'll feel free to ignore linking to their sites.

And while I don't find it at all surprising, I do think the most telling piece of information is the fact that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics are so dense as to ignore the value of something like the Numb3rs blog. While Dr. Bridger makes some note of the NCTM's connections with TI, I can't speak to it directly -- unfortunately, I also have no reason to doubt it, either.

Aside: Access to the NCTM's documented standards for math education is pay-for-play. Seems they've learned a bit of economics themselves. Though not enough; free dissemination of the work might promote wider adoption. Never forget that not-for-profit is not equivalent to not-for-revenue. End aside.

That a public group has decided to shun connections to anyone outside their direct control is sad, though not at all unusual. Perhaps the decision to ignore Dr. Bridger's site is a remnant of the rift NCTM had with groups of actual mathematicians who disagreed with their attempts to revive the New Math teaching paradigm. The narrow view emphasizes the fact that groups like the NCTM are largely more concerned with their own existence than in achieving their stated goals. What could possibly hurt in showing kids the work that actual, employed mathematicians do on a day to day basis? Unless, of course, that means they get exposed to things that contradict the "consensus" view of the NCTM.

-The NCTM recommends "decreased attention" for "finding exact forms of answers". (5.8.O)

I'm sure this is comforting to anyone who relies on, well, anything built by engineers.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

I'm shocked. SHOCKED! PETA -- that is, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- apparently has differing standards for which animals are worthy of those ethics. Lowest on the list? Animals raised as food stock.

In the wake of the Denver blizzards, hundreds of thousands of animals have been left stranded to die of starvation or freezing. PETA has refused (as of this writing) to do anything to help out. Not that PETA's set up as emergency relief, of course, but this appears particularly callow given the typical rhetoric that comes from these people.

Why are the suddenly stranded cattle less worthy of rescue than the chickens raised for your plate? My wild guess is that the blizzard achieves the same goal as the Holocaust on Your Plate campaign: they both hurt the sellers of meat. I know, I know, it's crazy to think a public organization has a political goal aside from it's stated altruistic vision -- and it seems to have truly caught some people off-guard -- but it seems possible in this case. As it did when there was a wish for foot-and-mouth disease.

The Economics of Remainders, or, Cash still the best gift

Nothing says "I thought about you" like a gift of cold hard cash. Seriously. It means you thought enough to say "I don't know your preferences as well as you do, and what I'd really like to give you is a little slice of selfish pleasure, so go spend this on anything your heart desires."

Don't buy it? Well, it seems like those gift cards are a big way to say "I thought of something you kinda like, but only in large, general terms, so here's a way to spend money within that broad category." But don't feel like you're doing people that much of a favor. Turns out, those things are big boons to the companies that sell them:

Retailers profit from unused gift cards - Yahoo! News

Companies are profiting from your forgetfulness, and the hope that you don't value the gift-giver's dollar the way you value your own. Why else would you let that remaining $5.43 just go to waste sitting on a gift card that's collecting crumbs under the seat of your car? Sure, Aunt Helga wanted you to spend ALL fifty bucks, but really, what can you get for a few bucks, and besides, the store is all the way on the other side of town...

Well, there is an option at SwapAGift, but then you have to be willing to consider your valuation of $100 here versus $100 there. The swap brings down the deadweight loss of Christmas, but doesn't eliminate it. I see it more as a new weapon in the quiver of people who will eat at specific restaurants because they get double mileage points on Thursday lunches when using a credit card.

The cynic in me likes to think that the gift-card sellers have simply learned a valuable lesson from big-city governments, who have long been relying on the remainders from unused farecards for riding on the local subway system as a way to keep the system solvent. Of course, that's not always enough.

Cost Benefit of Bikini Waxes

Tim Harford has put online a recent column of Dear Economist not available on the FT site.

Dear Economist, Bikini waxes: boyfriends seem to like the results, but they hurt. What would you say were the costs and benefits? Yours, Sylvia, via email

Related; Cost Benefit of Circumcision

Afghanistan Drug Control- GAO’s views

A recent report from GAO; Afghanistan Drug Control: Despite Improved Efforts, Deteriorating Security Threatens Success of U.S. Goals

“The prevalence of opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan imperils the stability of its government and threatens to turn the conflict-ridden nation once again into a safe haven for traffickers and terrorists. To combat the drug trade, the U.S. government developed a counternarcotics strategy consisting of five pillars--alternative livelihoods, elimination and eradication, interdiction, law enforcement and justice, and public information. The Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2005 directed GAO to examine the use of all fiscal year 2005 funds administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Department of State (State) for Afghan counternarcotics programs. To comply with this mandate, we examined progress under each counternarcotics pillar, challenges faced, and efforts to ensure that funds were used for intended purposes. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed pertinent USAID and State documents and met with cognizant U.S. and international officials in Washington, D.C., and Afghanistan. GAO makes no recommendations in this report. USAID, State, Department of Defense, and Department of Justice were provided a draft of this report, but did not provide formal comments.”

Related;
Afghanistan’s Other War
Afghanistan- on the road to a narco-state?

Violence is not sexy

BBC reports;

“Wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia's most violent cities have called a sex ban in a bid to get their men to give up the gun.

Dozens of women are said to be taking part in what is being called the "strike of crossed legs", a move backed by the mayor of Pereira…”

Related; Center for International Policy’s Colombia blog

Breast-Feeding haves and have-nots

“I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living,” said Jennifer Munoz, a former cashier at Resorts Atlantic City Casino.

NYT reports on a new inequality that has been breeding;

“When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after maternity leave, she learns what is behind the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation Room.”

Whenever she likes, she can slip away from her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through InStyle magazine as she holds a company-supplied pump to her chest, depositing her breast milk in bottles to be toted home later.

But if the mothers who staff the chain’s counters want to do the same, they must barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.

“Breast milk is supposed to be the best milk, I read it constantly when I was pregnant,” said Brittany Moore, who works at a Starbucks in Manhattan and feeds her 9-month old daughter formula. “I felt bad, I want the best for my child,” she said. “None of the moms here that I know actually breast-feed.”

Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.

But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time…

In corporate America, lactation support can be a highly touted benefit, consisting of free or subsidized breast pumps, access to lactation consultants, and special rooms with telephones and Internet connections for employees who want to work as they pump, and CD players and reading material for those who do not. According to the nonprofit Families and Work Institute, a third of large corporations have lactation rooms…

…73 percent of mothers now breast-feed their newborns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But after six months, the number falls to 53 percent of college graduates, and 29 percent of mothers whose formal education ended with high school. In a study of Oklahoma mothers who declined to breast-feed, nearly a third named work as the primary reason…”

Related;
States promote nursing, protect moms
The Case for Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding Legislation in the U.S.
Grey Market in Breast Milk

A New Maldives in Pictures

Photos via ZERO X.

It is heartening to see that democratic space seems to be widening. But the trend these days of authoritarian leaders seem to be let individuals and small groups express their anger- the motto goes something like this, ‘you can express discontent but just don’t get organized’

Related;
Government Ends Hulhudelhi Dispute With Promise Of New Harbour; predictably another island is now demanding a new harbour.
Government Accuses MDP Of Breaching Westminster House Agreement
How Not To Hold Talks
Photos of recent demonstration in the south of the country

Learn from the England

In earlier post I commented that Brookings had suggested that State Department should follow DFID’s lead in the development aid. Now Posner suggests, “We Need Our Own MI5”;

“Intelligence succeeded in part because of the work of MI5, England's domestic intelligence agency. We do not have a counterpart to MI5. This is a serious gap in our defenses. Primary responsibility for national security intelligence has been given to the FBI. The bureau is a criminal investigation agency. Its orientation is toward arrest and prosecution rather than toward the patient gathering of intelligence with a view to understanding and penetrating a terrorist network….

The bureau's tendency, consistent with its culture of arrest and prosecution, is to continue an investigation into a terrorist plot just long enough to obtain enough evidence to arrest and prosecute a respectable number of plotters. The British tend to wait and watch longer so that they can learn more before moving against plotters.

The FBI's approach means that small fry are easily caught but that any big shots who might have been associated with them quickly scatter. The arrests and prosecutions warn terrorists concerning the methods and information of the FBI. Bureaucratic risk aversion also plays a part; prompt arrests ensure that members of the group won't escape the FBI's grasp and commit terrorist attacks. But without some risk-taking, the prospect of defeating terrorism is slight.

MI5, in contrast to the FBI (and to Scotland Yard's Special Branch, with which MI5 works), has no arrest powers and no responsibilities for criminal investigation, and it has none of the institutional hang-ups that go with such responsibilities. Had the British authorities proceeded in the FBI way -- rather than continuing the investigation until virtually the last minute, which enabled them to roll up (with Pakistan's help) more than 40 plotters -- most of the conspirators might still be at large, and the exact nature and danger of the plot might not have been discovered. We need our own MI5, not to supplant but to supplement the FBI…”

More at their weblog.

Why Mentors are Important

Even criminals need mentors!

"Our analysis," write Morselli, Tremblay and McCarthy, "focuses on the effects of mentors on two aspects of criminal achievement: illegal earnings and incarceration experiences ... Proteges with lower self-control attract the attention of some criminal mentors, who provide the structure and restraint that lead to a more prudent approach to crime. This approach involves fewer and more profitable offences that lower the risks of apprehension and, perhaps, promote long-term horizons in crime."

The researchers used a painstaking protocol: "We collected information on monthly illegal earnings and on the number of days that respondents were incarcerated. After calculating the total for criminal earnings and incapacitation experiences for the period, we applied logarithmic transformations to create our dependant variables."

Their calculation resulted in a big payoff. As they put it: "Our findings suggest that strong foundations in crime offer an advantageous position for continuous achievement and the presence of a criminal mentor is pivotal for achievement over one's criminal career."

- Dastardly development; Mentors are crucial - for a career in crime (Improbable research column)

Related; Incentives for Delinquency

Are Asian billionaires Stingy?

Sepia Mutiny raises an interesting question about lack of wealthy Asian especially Indian philanthropists;

“In general, I’m scratching my head trying to understand why rich desis have taken after their white counterparts spending habits in every way except this one: a penchant for big ticket charitable giving. Is it simply that they’ve got new money, and they’ll start to give in a few decades once their appetite for weddings, cars, houses and jewelry has been slaked? Are they simply numb to poverty having grown up with it? Is it something cultural that I’m missing? If so, what - all the desi religions emphasize charitable giving, so it’s not that.

Are rich brown people simply more selfish than rich white ones?”

Some Indian billionaires are known for their lavish lifestyles ( Mittal spend over $ 55 million for a wedding and $ 127 million for a London mansion) but their western counterparts like Bill Gates and Soros are well known for the opposite.

May be Mittal had never read a World Development Report - Bill Gates read a World Bank World Development Report and realised he could do something to improve public health in the world's poorest countries, so he started the Gates Foundation. Or just may be that Asian philanthropists’ work are not publicized enough.

Related;

Deepak Lal tells a tale about a wealthy Indian and how he decided on the inheritor to his wealth in this podcast book discussion.

Blogs discussing the latest World Wealth Report- New Economist and Andrew Leigh

A discussion with Matthew Bishop, American business editor of The Economist who ealry this year wrote a survey of philanthropy in the magazine; “It's very, very striking that the new philanthropists, the likes of Bill Gates or Pierre Omidyar, who founded eBay, or Thomas Hunter, the Scottish retailer, who are coming into the field, are all very concerned about how do we make sure that our money isn't wasted, that it actually does make a difference. And they're rethinking the way philanthropy is done"

The benefits of corruption are not worth the costs

An interesting paper on corruption; Does Corruption Produce Unsafe Drivers? by Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, NBER, CEPR and IZA), Simeon Djankov (International Finance Corporation), Rema Hanna (New York University Wagner School of Public Service) and Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University and NBER)- quite a handful of authors. Here’s the abstract;

“We follow 822 applicants through the process of obtaining a driver’s license in New Delhi, India. To understand how the bureaucracy responds to individual and social needs, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: bonus, lesson, and comparison groups. Participants in the bonus group were offered a financial reward if they could obtain their license fast; participants in the lesson group were offered free driving lessons. To gauge driving skills, we performed a surprise driving test after participants had obtained their licenses. Several interesting facts regarding corruption emerge. First, the bureaucracy responds to individual needs. Those who want their license faster (e.g. the bonus group), get it 40% faster and at a 20% higher rate. Second, the bureaucracy is insensitive to social needs. The bonus group does not learn to drive safely in order to obtain their license: in fact, 69% of them were rated as “failures” on the independent driving test. Those in the lesson group, despite superior driving skills, are only slightly more likely to obtain a license than the comparison group and far less likely (by 29 percentage points) than the bonus group. Detailed surveys allow us to document the mechanisms of corruption. We find that bureaucrats arbitrarily fail drivers at a high rate during the driving exam, irrespective of their ability to drive. To overcome this, individuals pay informal “agents” to bribe the bureaucrat and avoid taking the exam altogether. An audit study of agents further highlights the insensitivity of agents’ pricing to driving skills. Together, these results suggest that bureaucrats raise red tape to extract bribes and that this corruption undermines the very purpose of regulation.”

I learned about it via Sepia Mutiny.

Related Links;

Driving in New Delhi- Don't complain about standing in line at the DMV

Parking tickets, diplomats and corruption

Peter Foster in New Delhi ( the blog of Daily Telegraph's South Asia correspondent)

TI India chapter

Podcast of the Day- The Nanny Nation

A discussion about the proliferation of state regulation. Can't eat this, can't stand there, can't say that. Is the state meant to decide it all for us? Are we handing over too much, too willingly or are we happy having a big nanny? Participated by the following;

Ross Homel; Head of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University; Homel's 'Pathways to Prevention' work won the 2004 National Violence Prevention Award.
Elspeth Probyn; Chair of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney; columnist with The Australian newspaper; author of 'Blush: Faces of Shame, Sexing the Self and Carnal Appetites'.
Andrew Leigh; Lawyer, political adviser, author, economist; currently with the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU; co-author of 'Imagining Australia: Ideas for Our Future'

I liked the suggestion made by one questioner that we have to pass a law making common sense compulsory.

Related;

See more downloads from the Ideas Festival

As if children mattered …I can do no better here than to summarise some of the key points that the famous American developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner made in a lecture I heard him give in Sydney exactly 25 years ago – a quarter century ago, but with ideas and research findings as applicable today as they were then.

Michael Burleigh on Political Religion; Nazism, Communism and even the French Revolution are clear examples of political movements that aroused 'religious' zeal and made absolutist claims. English historian Michael Burleigh is a critic of extremist movements of the Right and the Left and he joins Rachael Kohn to discuss political religion. Recorded at the 2006 Sydney Writers Festival.

Drug regulation and drug safety; Today a special feature about the regulation of drugs and drug safety. We'll hear from two leading critics of the American system, particularly how the US Food and Drug Administration approves new drugs for release. Norman Swan also talks with an Australian expert about the situation here in this country.

The Hedonic Treadmill

A positive correlation between subjective well-being and GDP per capita at a point in time, and a tendency for gains in subjective well-being to decline when GDP capita exceeds US$ 10 000.

I wonder why Mexico seems to be an outlier.

Related;

Gross Domestic Happiness (via Mankiw blog)

Subjective Well-Being Research

Prosperity Brings Satisfaction - and Hope

An earlier post about GDP and Wellbeing and An Overdose of Happiness

See also New Economist’s posts on Happiness

Sexonomics- Women Sell, Men Buy

John Allen Paulos in his latest ‘Who’s Counting’ column reviews this paper, ‘A Theory of Prostitution’ which tries to answer the puzzle: Why is it that prostitution is so relatively well-paid?

“Developing the consequences of their mathematical model, Edlund and Korn argue that the primary reason for the income differential is not the risk sometimes associated with the practice of prostitution but rather that prostitutes greatly diminish their chances for marriage by virtue of their occupation. Men generally don't want to marry (ex)prostitutes, and so women must be relatively well-compensated in order to forgo the opportunity to marry….the authors also conclude that prostitution generally declines as men's incomes increase…Wives and prostitutes are competing "commodities" (in the reductionist view of economists, that is), but wives are distinctly superior in that they can produce children that are socially recognized as coming from the father. ..Thus, if men have more money, they tend to buy the superior good and, at least when wives and prostitutes come from the same pool of women, tend to buy (rent) the cheaper good less frequently….Putting these two tendencies together suggests that if one wishes to reduce prostitution, increasing the incomes of both men and women is likely to be more effective than imposing legal penalties.”

Abstract of the paper;

"Prostitution is a profession that is low-skill, labor intensive, female, and well paid. This paper proposes the following explanation. A woman can be either wife or prostitute, but not both. If marriage is a source of income for women, then the prostitute has to be compensated for foregone marriage market opportunities. Hence, prostitution must be better remunerated than other low skill occupations. Furthermore, we discuss the link between income and prostitution, and show that prostitution may decrease not only in female income but also in male income, suggesting one reason why prostitution has seen a secular decline in developed countries. We point to the role of male sex ratios, and males in transit, in sustaining high levels of prostitution, and discuss possible reasons for its low reputation. Finally, we argue that recognition of prostitution as a female strategy may add to the understanding of the evolution of marriage patterns."

Related:

- Thinking about prostitution
- See earlier post Cost of Safe Sex

A Deeper Look at the VHA

Via MR I saw this post at Brad DeLong's place reprinting the content from a Krugman piece at the NYT (RR, but included for completeness).

The crux of the point, in case you don't feel like backtracking through all of that, is that Krugman is suggesting that the Veteran's Health Administration is a model of efficient, effective health care, provided by the government to boot.

Last year customer satisfaction with the veterans' health system, as measured by an annual survey conducted by the National Quality Research Center, exceeded that for private health care for the sixth year in a row. This high level of quality (which is also verified by objective measures of performance) was achieved without big budget increases. In fact, the veterans' system has managed to avoid much of the huge cost surge that has plagued the rest of U.S. medicine.

To what can we attribute this, you might ask? Why, to the very fact that it's entirely centralized and run by the government!

The secret of its success is the fact that it's a universal, integrated system. Because it covers all veterans, the system doesn't need to employ legions of administrative staff to check patients' coverage and demand payment from their insurance companies. Because it's integrated, providing all forms of medical care, it has been able to take the lead in electronic record-keeping and other innovations that reduce costs, ensure effective treatment and help prevent medical errors. Moreover, the V.H.A., as Phillip Longman put it in The Washington Monthly, "has nearly a lifetime relationship with its patients." As a result, it "actually has an incentive to invest in prevention and more effective disease management. When it does so, it isn't just saving money for somebody else. It's maximizing its own resources. ... In short, it can do what the rest of the health care sector can't seem to, which is to pursue quality systematically without threatening its own financial viability.

Well, I can't claim to have any experience with theh VHA system. But I'm always a little leary about these "just-so" stories, especially when it involves government bureaucracy. So I just have a couple of points to make about the VA.

First, the potential usage pool is highly restricted. Because they treat only veterans, they don't have to deal at nearly the same level as other hospitals with the surges in demand, the heavy use of emergency rooms as just-in-time care for things that could have been treated sooner and far more cheaply. The drastically smaller size in population isn't a trivial factor; some things don't scale up as well as we'd like, especially under pressure from things like HMOs to prevent expensive unused capacity.

In addition, many of the vets treated by the VA are often covered by other forms of health care. Here are some statistics on coverage by alternative health care regimes for vets. Vets with alternate forms of coverage are clearly opting to alter between them when they see a better deal or better treatment. Non-vets don't have this option. With a unversal payer system, no one would have this option.

On those achievements "without big budget increases": we should account for the fact that the number of vets in the US is both aging decreasing. So as the population treated is going down, the cost of treating them is going up. (Link to 2005 CBO Report: "The Potential Cost of Meeting Demand for Veteran's Health Care.)

More from the CBO report (it's a long excerpt, but eliding too much would be misleading):

VA has had difficulties coping with the large influx of new users seeking pharmaceuticals and outpatient care. Although VA has substantial excess inpatient bed capacity in many facilities, the influx of new enrollees seeking pharmaceuticals and outpatient care has exacerbated waiting times for all veterans wanting to see a VA provider. By the end of 2002, about 300,000 enrolled veterans were on waiting lists for VA medical appointments.

Waiting times have been a long-standing problem for the department. In 1993, the General Accounting Office (GAO, now known as the Government Accountability Office) found that veterans frequently waited eight to nine weeks to obtain appointments at some specialty clinics.(8) In 1996, lawmakers enacted legislation requiring VA to serve veterans in a timely manner.(9) In response, the department initiated a number of actions to address waiting times and waiting lists, including better tracking, better scheduling, and use of a primary care model--that is, coordinated health care delivery through interdisciplinary teams.

Accompanying the rise in the number of veterans seeking care at VA facilities were substantial increases in the annual budget for VHA. Although VA medical budgets were relatively flat in real terms in the mid-1990s, they grew by an inflation-adjusted 4 percent to 10 percent each year from 2000 to 2004. Those budget increases were appropriated by the Congress to fund the rapidly increasing demand for VA health care that followed the change in eligibility rules after 1996.(10)

In part because of the long waiting lists and influx of new patients that VHA could not accommodate in a timely manner, in January 2003 then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi decided to cut off enrollment of new P8 veterans--those without service-connected disabilities who have income above $25,842 per year (for a single veteran) and above a geographically adjusted means test. Veterans in that priority group who had already enrolled in the system were "grandfathered," however, and could continue to seek care from VA. According to the department, "Until the waiting time for medical appointments can be reduced to an acceptable standard, it would not be in the best interest of those most in need of care for VA to enroll additional priority group 8 veterans."(11)

So, there is some contradiction to Krugman's assertion that this success (of which there does appear to be some) without "big" budget increases. Of course, one Budget Office's "substantial" may not be another man's "big."

More importantly, however, a good deal of the success seems to have come at the cost of restricting access to care. The system was not working well with its current demand, so it was pared down to keep future demand limited. The flexibility to respond to changing demands required shifting care away from specific people. If a single-payer system becomes inefficient and ineffective much like how the commenters on DeLong's site all agree the VHA was a few years ago, would it be able to deny care to subsets of the population while it takes time to retool? Maybe a series of "rolling blackouts'" while the health care network tried to figure out how to expand capacity in time with soaring demand?

I don't dispute that there have been significant, benficial changes at the VHA. What strikes me as less clear, however, is that it has been an unmitigated success of policy. The only cost in restructuring the system hasn't been a "small" budgetary increase for the same or better level of care. And the increasing demand that has put strains on this system before isn't going to be exacerbated much (if at all) by returning vets from Iraq since, as the CBO points out, inpatient care is actually underutilized right now. It's the aging current vet population -- the population whose ailments are among the most expensive to treat in large part because they persist for quite a while -- that is going to test whether or not "one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate" is a stunning success or not.

Do Kids Have Too Much Choice?

Normally I'd hold in special suspicion those who suggest that there is too much choice in the world. That the alternative means I would be required to trust another person to make that decision about when there is "too much" entirely negates the argument. Abundant choice is the result of the lack of such a figure. The alternative is day-long queues for the One Kind of Toilet Paper.

But does this hold when it's children making the choice? A recent study suggests requiring girls to take math and science courses might produce more women computer scientists.

For the purists among you: yes, I agree that in theory it might be better to have all education pivately funded and thus avoid the stifling question of what the state is requiring our children to learn. But you tell me when a serious coalition in Congress (here or whatever you might have abroad) is about to vote to end public schooling and I'll jump on the phones to help drum up support. Any takers? No? Ok then...

I'm not sure strapping kids into science classes is a great way to proceed, but this does provide some evidence (to my mind) against the seemingly widespread belief that some children just don't have to take certain classes if it's not their "preference". (Personally, I was allowed out of math classes in my sophomore year of high school because I finished the lowest requirements and evinced an aptitude for other areas. I'm paying dearly for that now.) If this is even partially accurate, it's a damning picture of schools as well as the general state of pedagogy for public education. Dismissing a certain canon of subjects for softer material and trying to make school only about "critical thinking" skills obviously results in some poor consequences:

Instead, it seems that restricting the choices available to adolescents, and making it mandatory for all pupils to study maths and science subjects throughout their secondary education, correlates with a higher proportion of women going on to study computer science at university.

"The principle of being free to pursue your preferences is compatible and coexists quite comfortably with a belief in essential gender differences. This essentialist notion, which helps to create what it seeks to explain, affects girls’ views of what they're good at and can shape what they like," said Charles.

She goes on to say that the implications for policy are clear: rather that letting kids discard subjects too soon, governments should insist on more maths and science for everyone, for longer.

"As other research has repeatedly shown, choices made during adolescence are more likely to be made on the basis of gender stereotypes, so we should push off choice until later," she concludes.

For a simultaneously hilarious and tragic view of what the permissiveness in education has done to technical skills, try this.

Just as interesting as the results of the study, however, is the point about early-age decisions being made along gender-stereotype lines. Does this mean that all those people learning about how to teach kids to learn how to learn and who refuse to "box anyone in" are actually producing grown-ups with stronger, not weaker, stereotypes about gender roles? Would it be these people that we should put in charge of the variety of cereal?

New Pull Prizes On the Way

Pull prizes like the Ansari X-Prize have some intuitive appeal to me. I like the idea of private fundraising for work that's been historically ceded to the government. I was glad to hear that more prize competitions are on their way.

Video Game Economics

I suppose I am open for attacks that I'm just finding things that reaffirm my prior beliefs, but I am truly becoming more and more certain that online gaming worlds are just about ready for use as places to perform economic simulations that might be too expensive, too hard to randomize, or just too ethically "iffy" in the real world (randomizing people in schooling, social staus, income endowments, etc).

This weekend the WaPo ran a great article on massively multiplyer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and the real markets for online goods that are cropping up. Included is a mention of a site I'll admit to stopping through every so often: GameUSD.com, where you can track the progress of various game currencies against real-world measures.

And -- though I'm terribly late in linking it by internet-standards -- there's this interesting note from the BBC about Sony Online Entertainment's responses to Katrina. Apart from the laudable efforts to collect donations for people caught in the devastation, SOE is making sure that those people who play EverQuest will have their accounts, and -- possibly more importantly -- the items they own online, protected:

"Additionally, for our 13,000+ players actually in the affected areas, we will be suspending billing until such time as they are able to play again" said SOE in a statement.

"In addition, any items or structures in any of our games, which decay over time, will be preserved until the user's next login."

Spend Time in the Lunchroom

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend the back-and-forth between Arnold Kling and J. Bradford DeLong. I trust these two highly intelligent men need no assistance from the likes of me in the larger debate. That, of course, doesn't mean I'm going to refrain from commenting. Apologies for the echo-chamber nature of the thing.

But, as J. Bradford mentions his own jaw does, mine dropped at this early point in the post:

Nobody I know has any complaints about WalMart's efficiency.

This, after mentioning the size of various other "large organizations". Clearly, this man has not spent much time in lunchrooms, coffee-klatches, or near people on smoke-breaks at such firms. That could be the only explanation for his not knowing anyone that has trouble with Wal-Mart (or IBM, or Toyota) efficiency. One need not even spend a full week in a large company to get an earful about slow HR, turnaround times on expense reimbursements, bizarre choices for management promotions, IT desk ineptitude (yes, I guarantee this happens at IBM as well -- in fact, if not more complaining there simply because of the sheer number of people who would be convinced they know how best to fix whatever the problem is), and so on and so forth.

Granted, this is not quite the same as the efficiency needed for getting products to a store on time, but I would challenge anyone to find even a Wal-Mart manager that doesn't have strong suggestions on better ways to order, deliver, and sell goods (let alone human resources policy). I would say, though, that these forms of inefficiency are among the most important to consider. The DeLong post doesn't have the most critical part of the question, namely, "...as compared to...". Considering the federal government, I also couldn't name a single person who would suggest Wal-Mart is on the losing side of any comparison.

The difference, of course, is in the ability of companies like Wal-Mart to correct their inefficiencies. Due to control over the staff, IBM, Toyota, GM, Disney, or most any private company can work to weed out inefficiency by removing the people who either created a problem or were incapable of fixing the problem. Firing someone for underperformance in the US federal government is, I daresay, near to impossible. Crude incompetence doesn't qualify one for termination. Actual harm to others, theft, or something similar is often the bar set for termination. Entire federal buildings could be filled with the people who have their jobs simply because their management is waiting for them to retire. The process of getting them transferred, let alone fired, is too exasperating, too time consuming and filled with administrative hassle to even consider.

Note that this is not simply anecdotal results from a few outdated agencies. I'd suggest a quick re-reading of section 2, chapter 3 of Oliver Hart's Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure for a pleasantly quick-yet-theoretically-tractable discussion of the incentives between workers and managers. The ownership of complementary assets and the resulting investment in human capital towards those specific assets helps drive efficiency, addressing directly the point DeLong makes about Wal-Mart finding it more efficient to organize as a single company of 1.5 million. (As an aside, this seems like a needlessly superficial characterization of firm structure, since the various groups within a company will face a number of similar problems -- e.g. hold-up -- as we see working across separate firms.) Point being, government employ purposefully, often radically, divorces the incentives of workers from those things that would help drive efficiency. Case in point: in one section of the US Dept. of Agriculture where an acquaintance of mine worked, the person in charge of setting wages (choosing the dictated pay level) has no contact with the people who were managing the group in which my friend worked. The group management had no say, and could only appeal to another division for increases or reprimands. Reduction and firing is unheard of. What interest would there be, then, in working efficiently when it has absolutely no impact on salary?

I agree that there ought to be serious discussions on when certain types of organization should be adopted above others. But I do find it almost alarming that DeLong could suggest, as he seems to be, that a US federal agency could operate anywhere near on par with a private firm if only the right manager was in charge. Political management is answerable to those who appointed them (and, in the case of the Bush administration, often not even then), while those below -- those that do the vast bulk of the work -- are answerable to others who suffer the same lack of aligned incentives as the entirety of the bureaucracy.

Poll

I saw over on Kudlow's blog this story on a Pew poll which found that four out of every ten adults in Mexico would migrate to the U.S. This is unsurprising since 1 in 10 Mexicans already lives in this country. Recent reports from across the border makes it sound like drugs gangs have the run of the place.

The immigration issue has once again come front and center with Bush's plan for a guest worker plan. People such as Congressman Tom Tancredo and blogger/columnist Michelle Malkin have been talking about this issue for a while. While Bush denies it, his plan seems to offer a defacto amnesty. This has already lead to an increase in illegal immigration as this Washington Post article suggests.

So, it would appear that a guest worker program may cause a tidal wave of immigrants from Mexico if the poll is correct and anecdotal evidence is right. I say we take them. I am one of those on the right that supports easy immigration policies. Of course, there are potential economic consequences of allowing a large number of unskilled workers in the country. Namely, they won't have health insurance and will stretch an already overburdened public health care system and, also, they could drive down wages on the low end. However, as the article points out, even the educated want to move to here.

This leads to a larger question of whether we can absorb 30 million immigrants from another culture. Pat Buchanan would say we can't and that Latinos have already had negative consequences on our culture. I strongly disagree with him on this point and wonder why he thinks American culture is so weak. That is, why after absorbing many immigrants before that it will be Latinos which doom us? Victor Davis Hanson has made some interesting points in some of his columns and what he says is similar to my experiences(his comments on the guest worker program is here). There are negatives as he points out, but also a ton of positves. The proliferation of taquerias being just one. Also, the fact that many latinos grow up to be patriotic Americans who serve dispraportionally on the front lines in the armed services.

As Kudlow says "Looks like we're doing something right", but more importantly an easy immigration policy is consistent with freedom and free markets.

Hard America

HedgeFundGuy at Mahalanobis makes some comments about Hard America/Soft America. Actually, he refers to why we produce mediocre 18 year olds and highly productive 30 year olds. What happens in those intervening years? This reminds of some comments I ran across years ago on a website of an Indian student attending a U.S. institution as a graduate student. He was slightly perturbed that his fellow American students were just interest in what was going to be on the test and not more intellectually curious. I think this goes a long way in explaning why people in this country become enourmously productive.

People in this country are interested in learning only what they need to get the job done and not necessarily in peripheral knowledge. How often have I heard a comment from a kid that math isn't needed? A lot. I was once trapped next to a teacher on a flight to London who wanted to explain to me that it was more important that a student feel good than about actually learning. It was an 11 hour flight so I was polite, my reaction would have been much different otherwise. I worked with many people who simply couldn't do basic fractions. I think to a certain extent, education people or as Barone calls it, Soft America is fairly ignorant of what is needed in a competitive economy. Lord knows they do all they can to prevent competitive forces from entering the education field.

The point I'm getting at is that kids are ignorant of what skills are needed. So, we have the ignorant teaching the ignorant. It isn't enough to say that you get out of an education what you put into it if you don't know what you should know and neither does your teacher. We need a system that transmits market signals to kids at a younger age, higher standards will go a long way since kids will learn only what they need to pass a class.

More Use of Shame

Since it seems that shame works best if you can expand the group of people who repeatedly interact with those who are being "shamed", this strikes me as a particularly cost-effective method:

U.S. city unveils sex solicitor billboards of shame

Naturally, I'll avoid the thornier issue of sex work legalization...for now.

The Limits of Shame

While shame -- or social opprobrium -- can be used to curb behavior upsetting to groups, one must still take into consideration the opposing forces. In the case of publicly identifying those homeowners that fail to keep up their properties, one has to ask if the effort and money that would be incurred by the offending homeowner is worth less to them than not having a "Scarlet Letter" signal attached to their property. Judging from some of the places I've lived in and around, this might not always be the case. Not to mention the fact that these people already certainly have some inkling that their place is unlike the rest of the neighborhood in terms of orderliness and cleanliness. The cost of shame would have to be significant to alter the behavior of someone who is already apparently far less concerned with "outward appearances".

One of the reasons I'd argue such a tactic would work is that the makeup social group in the case of homeowners would tend to be fairly constant over time. People move in and out, but not terribly rapidly. The offending homeowner would have to cope with repeatedly interacting with the neighbors he has offended. The less dynamic the change in actors in the social network, the more shame could affect behavior.

As a counter-example to illustrate the point, I cite the near-ubiquity of adult magazines at airport kiosks and bookstores. From the small terminal-side stands for news and candy to the in-house Border's, I could have had my pick of several titles of adult magazines. While Pl4yb0y might have once had some slightly mainstream credit with semi-popular authors publishing short stories in its pages, I imagine such value disappeared with the rise in competition against P3nth0use. Surely these would not be part of the regular offering if, in fact, no one was buying them. But who, I wondered, would sidle up behind a mom and her kids buying some candy and aspirin and in front of a dapper elderly man who still dresses for travel, and lay down the latest copy of any of these publications*? Isn't there a reason adult-material shops are located behind barred windows, or off highway service roads? Simply keeping materials out of windows would serve the public restriction against displaying materials for any child to see. The more stringent measures seem more calculated to serve a clientele eager to keep some sort of anonymity. (Sidenote: And indeed, the demand must be strong enough in airports to support such a range of sellers. That people would frequent the more popular and more crowed Borders over the small cart in an quiet terminal implies such. Even more interesting to me is that the Hotelling effect obtains here as well. Several mobile snack/news carts carrying such materials were located by terminal junctions, where most of the large stores have permanent space rather than gathering in the empty spaces between gates.) The difference, of course, is that whatever shame that exists lasts only briefly, and only in connection to a highly fluid set of people. When waiting in line to buy something from the magazine stand, you don't much expect to see any of these people again. There are few worries, as there would be living in a neighborhood that knows you are the one who refuses to mow your lawn, that interactions would be sustained and repeated.

With a lot of time available waiting for a delayed flight in Houston, this is the sort of thing that keeps my mind occupied.

*Please note: I do not mean to suggest that people who purchase adult magazines should be "ashamed". Rather I here use the term "shame" to express the emotional cost of revealing something potentially embarassingly personal to the outside world through such a purchase. Whether or not one should be ashamed (and I'm on the side of "no", so long as the content is produced free of coercion) is beside the point, since we exist in a world with social institutions that still hold to such mores.

[N.B. Odd spellings of publications, and lack to links thereof, are intended to keep down the amount of unwanted traffic from search engines and spiders.]

Regulation on Everything: Think Different Edition

(With apologies to Marginal Revolution)

From the Technology Liberation Front I see that some kind-hearted government folks are looking at the possibility of extending V-Chip technology to our iPods (of which I am now a proud owner; the Cult card comes soon) and assorted other media. In fact, Senator Clinton is going to be introducing legislation that would

“create a program to study the impact of electronic media on children’s cognitive, social and physical development, focusing in particular on very young children and infants. The program will also examine the links between media consumption and childhood obesity.”

So the fear is that all of this access to technology is making kids fat? Then why make technologically delivered media an easier crutch?

Hillary: “Just a decade ago, we made great strides to keep children away from inappropriate material. But we face a complex new world. All across our country, kids today are playing increasingly violent video games while sending instant messages to friends and strangers on-line and listening to music they’ve downloaded on their I-Pods. How does a parent today who wants to protect their child from violent or explicit content have a chance? Parental responsibility is crucial, but we need to make sure that parents have the tools they need to keep up with this multi-dimensional environment. All of us need to rise to this challenge.”

(Quote from TLF.)

See, I think people have this exactly backwards. Here's my argument. Suppose I really do believe that there ought to be some sort of governmental intervention in people's personal eating habits. In that case, I want television, music, movies and video games to be as graphic and filthy as is entirely possible. Blood, gore, graphic sex, hate-filled language, mistreatment of minorities and women -- and that's just the Disney channel. In fact, I'd suggest government subsidies to pornography producers, tax breaks to video game companies researching high-definition evisceration graphics, and endless loops of George Carlin's "7 words" on the public access channels. Rap music written by serial killers. Government research into more and varied spam for impotence drugs and kinky sex phone lines.

That's what will make my kids skinny. After all, if television, games, movies, and music got so horrendous, then there's no way in hell I'm letting my kids just sit around and surf the web or channel-flip. Go on, then, boy. Get out into that great big world; Congress says its good for you.

Sigh. Using technology to regulate choice simply makes it easier to rely on the technology, and thus makes it more likely to have overweight children. It's not like Rolie Polie Olie is lower on carbs that Blue's Clues. And all that thumb work on the X-Box might wear off a Tic-Tac or two, but that's about it. My friends weren't thinner than me because they played Super Mario Cart while I was mowing down Nazi's in Castle Wolfenstein.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the technology isn't really the issue. I'd offer the suggestion that technology happens to be a strong indicator for something else. Something that boils down to personal choice on child rearing, for good or ill. (I played a lot of video games growing up, and never once have I considered taking a semi-automatic to school.)

In my opinion, regulating technology is wonderful way to feel like you're "doing something", but if my money is being spent to figure out why kids are fatter today than they were 20 years ago, is it too much to ask that the people doing the study ask slightly better questions?

IMMEDIATE UPDATE: It only dawned on me after posting this what this post might do to the Google Ads and search results. If it gets bad, I'll move the bulk of the post "below the fold" to see if it helps.

Price Gouging Sans Tragedy?

Just :46 seconds into this report on the Michael Jackson jury selection process, and the reporter (Carrie Kahn) dredges up the evil spector of "price gouging."

The worries over price gouging usually arise in the wake of some natural (as though others were "unnatural"?) tragedy, such as the hurricanes in Florida. In this case, however, the epithet is being applied to people who are "lucky" enough to have their businesses close to the courthouse where the Jackson trial is taking place. Rooftop locations for viewing, local eateries, hotels, and other places have raised prices -- or in the case of spectator seating, had to create them to answer a demand that was not there before -- as the swarms of journalists and onlookers have flowed into town.

Aside from the trouble I have in viewing any sort of price changes in the face of changing demand as "gouging", I'm even more confused by the use of the term in this instance. Clearly the reporter is attempting to make a case that the circus surrounding the Jackson case is somehow tragic in nature and scope, as it comes with the things that normally attend a great tragedy or shock. And, to go further, we see that the trial atmosphere brings out the worst in some local merchants who have been so crass as to charge for the use of their space, raise prices on a hamburger, or take advantage of similarities in naming. Clearly we should see this as a great failing all around.

Obvisouly the reporter feels she is above it, and should be excluded from this, though she herself makes her living on the spectacle, gains notoriety and thus financial and reputational reward in proportion to amount of coverage and the continued public fascination with what is, no matter the outcome of the trial, a horrendously flawed and troubled man. If she didn't, would not the labels she hurls at businesspeople indicate that she herself would be horrified by her own participation?

My issues: First, does Carrie Kahn's pay increase with this sort of trial, given the nature of the work as opposed to other stories? Does she, or any journalist such as this, get an increase in pay or expenses due to the 24-hour scope of the work, the locality pay, or other varying factors? If she does, why is this not "price gouging", since the reporters are charging more in the face of greater demand?

And second, why can't we see these trials as boons to local economies? Reporters flock in, with all their attendant camera and sound people, various commentators and professional spectators are on constant watch, and all of them need places to sleep, eat, and get a drink after a grueling day of picking through the gory details. Local restaurants and hotels and bars most likely didn't stock up heavily in hopes of a future rush; their prodcuts are now relatively more scarce. A price increase seems not only natural, but beneficial. The resources move to the people more willing to pay, and the seller gets an appropriate price. If they went too high, no one would buy the burger/beer/hotel room/plastic lounge chair on a roof; then they come down.

Rather than engage in the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing of concern about why we're all so obsessed with these sorts of events, I'm choosing to appreciate the spur in commerce this means for those folks in Santa Maria, California. (Hmmm, do I smell a research topic? Judicial Spectaculars: The economic benefits of sensational trials.)

It's a good explanation, but my finacee will still glare at me...

In an all-too-rare post at The Idea Shop, Andrew Chamberlain has a great explanation for why punctuality is inefficient.

Here’s the logic: You don’t know when I’ll show up, and waiting is costly. If you’re early you’ll have to wait. If you’re late you won’t. So you come late. I do the same thing. Presto, we’re both late.

Lessons in Incentives

Hospitals are trying to figure out if it sends the "wrong signal" to have a Mickey D's in the lobby ready and waiting for the guy who just had heart surgery.

At a time when two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, putting their hearts and arteries at grave risk, health officials and physicians are urging people to be watch their weight and eat healthier.

Having french fries at a leading center for treating heart disease sends the wrong message, officials of the Cleveland Clinic believe.

Of course, if the hospital is private property, I don't mind at all if they decide that the only food service should be through Seattle Sutton, Lean Cuisine, Baja Fresh, the Outback, or Cold Stone Creamery. Then again, I would mention that, at a time when hospitals are losing money, turning away rent from high-volume places maybe isn't the wisest financial move. If they're just going to stop through a drive-thru on the way home, why not capture some of the market? But that could just be me.

If people bore more of the direct cost for their medical problems -- heart disease in this case -- would they be more willing to take care with their eating habits? Sure, the heart poblem the man in the story is having treated is going to drive up premiums, and makes it hard for him to get new or different insurance, but that's a far cry from getting a bill a week later that has, say, a five- or even six-figure bottom line. If there was some sort of tote-board next to the refrigerator, totalling up the likely medical costs for every extra slice of cheese or spoonful of sour cream, then the answer is clear. Since people are often very bad at weighing potential risks and assessing the future, however, it's not so clear.

To be sure, the poor are both the most likely to be without health care, and also the most likely to be overweight. The issue, I think, stems from the progress in making processed foods has driven out costs while infusing the product with items that put on weight. Or at least their concentration has increased dramatically -- think "high fructose corn syrup". Without paying monthly premia, these people also don't face a direct cost for health care, but do assume a much higher risk and face a far more worrisome situation. Eating well is an expensive proposition in this country as compared to pre-packaged meals and fast food, however, and the increased risk doesn't reduce the gap.

But my question then becomes: is providing state-funded health care -- such as proposed plans to extend health insurance in an ever-more socialized way -- to the riskiest possible group going to help in terms of producing better health results? Certainly the costs of health care provision would be driven up by the new people who are now using services at a higher rate than the less risky group. And the presence of health insurance hasn't created a drive towards healthy living among the covered. In fact we'd expect the opposite. I understand that some people would feel better knowing that more and more people are covered, but I'm not certain that I see how this results in what I assume to the be ultimate goal of health insurance and thus access to health care: healthier people. (Note that I don't count children or coverage of children in this, since I think there is a strong case to be made about their inability to understand -- though how we cover children alone is a question I've not got a good answer to.)

Is the desire to make sure people are covered, or to have healthier people? If it's public funds being spent to achieve and end, I'd prefer to have a clearer purpose.

More Subsidization, More Doctors?

(NB: Please excuse the haste and possible inconsistencies of this post. I can honestly say this is the first time I've posted to T&B when I've been exceedingly annoyed.)

I just turned on the radio -- NPR, my usual when it's not C-SPAN -- to hear a report by Patricia Neighmond on a study about a potential shortage of doctors. (I've not located the full study yet. I'll have to listen to the report again.)

Essentially, the problem is this: while the population grows and thus the demand for health care, the US is graduating only about enough doctors to replace the ones that are retiring. Population and demand will soon outstrip supply. In the course of the interview, Neighmond lets the guest opine on how the country might confront such a problem. And how does the man respond?

"It's the right time to spend more money on training more doctors." (A paraphrase, but a close one.) And it went by the Neighmond with nary a comment.

In a world of skyrocketing malpractice premiums, higher insurance bills for patients, and ballooning court awards to winners of court trials (see first item), are we sure that it's the cost of the education that is the problem here? Why might it not be, oh, I don't know...the fact that the strong financial incentives to incur the debt in the first place are being eroded through massive regulation by the AMA, FDA, the federal government and more? With all the technique and expertise it takes to be a doctor in the world's most advanced health care industry, are we really certain making it easier for more people to go to school is the best idea? Wouldn't we expect to draw more of the wrong kind of people to medical school if we make entrance easier? Might we not see such a surge in demand for attending medical school that schools might start to accept more people in order to capture more of the funds (perfectly acceptable to me on the part of the hospitals -- but why should I be on the hook for the income of a university because someone's gotten some of this "training money"?). Oh, certainly there might be some dedicated folks that such a policy would draw, much the same as there really are good people working for the government (there are, I promise, I've worked with them). But at the margin, why should we make the temporary price of education lower when we could allow the future profit stream to rise and thus induce a lot more people to become doctors?

This strikes me as similar to the problem with the supply of teachers. In order to get more teachers, states frequently drop the requirements for becoming one. This allows in more people, but they are not necessarily the ones best qualified to become a teacher. As a result, we have more people getting little to no better results from the education system. It seems to me that the requirements are moving in precisely the wrong direction. Harder qualifications to enter the profession could limit the pool, allow wages to rise and begin to draw the people who either have the innate ability or the willingness to work hard in order to achieve the financial and emotional rewards of becoming a teacher. Meanwhile, better trained teachers might better handle the larger class size that will result from the short-run reduction in supply of teachers.

Why is the default position -- "clearly the government needs to spend more money to fix the problem" -- accepted so blindly by some reporters? There are good reasons we don't have doctors sitting on the Council of Economic Advisers, and why we don't have economists doing brain surgery. Why not take a moment to realize that a good person to comment on econo