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Questions for Ari Kohen about Life Without Personhood
Dr. Ari Kohen of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln has several thought-provoking posts up this week about the ethics of abortion (see here, here, here, and here). He was responding mostly to Rand...
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Google Didn’t Even *Try* to Make Google Reader Profitable
Ryan Avent and Paul Krugman have posts up this week about the economics of Google Reader. The model they’re using is basically one in which Google has high fixed costs and monopoly power in the RSS...
View ArticleI Find Your Lack of Concern for Low-Wage Workers Disturbing
Darth Vader is a Rawlsian. Chad Stone, an economist whom I greatly admire and enjoy reading, thinks that a $9 minimum wage is not such a bad idea: You don’t have to abandon basic principles of supply...
View ArticleSurprisingly Not an Onion Article: “Tea Party group boycotting Fox News for...
“Particularly after the election, Fox keeps turning to the left,” said 70-year-old Stan Hjerlied to the Beast… Hjerlied believes that “we are really losing our only conservative network.” … One...
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Children and Gay Marriage
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) supports civil marriage for same-gender couples – as well as full adoption and foster care rights for all parents, regardless of sexual orientation – as the...
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The Global Fund and PEPFAR (among others) Will More Than Survive the Sequester
This is not to say I agree with the Republicans, but a certain observation they like to make seems to be supported (albeit marginally) by this email: …and the Republicans’ point is this: you hear...
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What Would You Do With a Quarter-Trillion Dollars?
That is the question Chana Joffe Walt poses at the end of this outstanding podcast about Social Security’s quarter-trillion-dollar disability program, which over-pays the able-bodied, under-serves the...
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What on earth is “Frederick Douglass Republicanism Methodology (TM)”?
“I don’t know, but it smells fishy.” Hey, aspiring GOP political operatives, here is some free political consulting you didn’t ask for: If you think your party’s annual conference needs a breakout...
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Frederick Douglass On His Former Master
Frederick Douglass, 1856 Following yesterday’s post on Frederick Douglas Republicanism Methodology (TM), in which an alleged white supremacist at CPAC sarcastically asked if Frederick Douglass forgave...
View ArticleQuestions for Dr. Ben Carson about the Definition of Marriage
Dr. Ben Carson has said that no group, be they gays, pedophiles, or bestiality supporters, gets to re-define the definition the word “marriage.” Here is his argument: “Well, my thoughts are that...
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The Problem of “Food Deserts” is Not (all) About Access
From a great big study published by the CDC: There’s no strong evidence of an association between living within walking distance of places to buy food and being overweight or not, researchers said...
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Are Adaptation and Mitigation Substitutes?
Air conditioners for sale in Mumbai, India, where A/C has become “a new status symbol.”Source: Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times Humanity has at least two ways of dealing with climate change:...
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If You Want to Discuss Fiscal Multipliers, Discuss the Fed’s Reaction Function
A friend points me to this paper by Menzie Chinn, and calls it “a critically important insight.” I’m not really sure what to think of it. I think it is critically important, but not for the reasons...
View ArticleAssorted Links
1. Private space ship. Should cost a quarter-billion dollars to develop, and ten million dollars to put into space. 2. What is the most fundamental human right, according to (some) North Koreans? 3....
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How to Pay for Open-Access Academic Journals
This screen is a total bummer. “You do not have access”? “Purchase this article for $12″? I already paid for this item, in foregone tax revenue and subsidies to higher education. This is from AMSTAT,...
View ArticleAssorted Links
1. North Korean officers. 2. Watch this 9-year-old talk about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything more cogently than many adults. 3. Will we soon be able to record our dreams? 4. This...
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The Cowen Bump
Last week my post on food deserts was featured on Marginal Revolution. In case you were wondering what is the effect on page-views of one share on MargRev, here are a couple data points (click for...
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Dementia is America’s Costliest Disease (and The BRAIN Initiative is Probably...
Where others see a parent suffering from dementia, economists see foregone wages and expensive treatment. Both are important. Timothy Taylor reports: …1 person in 7 in the United States over the age of...
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Stylized Fact of the Day: Means-Tested Programs Have Doubled in the Last...
As a fraction of GDP, that is. The growth is mostly due to a) more recipients and b) each recipient receiving more in benefits, not more means-testing. Here is the CBO report, and here is the relevant...
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*Should We Abolish The Minimum Wage?*
From left to right: Russ Roberts, James Dorn, my Main Moderator John Donvan, Jared Bernstein, and Karen Kornbluth. Should We Abolish the Minimum Wage is the most recent Intelligence Squared U.S....
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