From an interesting site called ePodunk, which looks to be somewhat legit, is a graph depicting the pattern of relocation/flight from hurricane Katrina.

What? No one fled to North Dakota? The picture is based upon a selected set of data, but nevertheless might be fairly representative of where people went to get away from the storm and its aftermath.

Nov. 30, 1905 was Thanksgiving. The day's NYT notes that the formal holiday of Thanksgiving was created during the Lincoln administration during the Civil War - a period during which the country had little to be thankful for.

The article describes the same basic holiday we have today - food, visiting with family, watching football, playing golf, oh, and more food. There are voluntary organizations providing dinners to the poor and homeless. It is all comfortably familiar.

The last paragraph, however, mentions that turkeys were selling for between 23 and 28 cents per pound and "there was no dearth of supply." I bet there wasn't. According to the folks at eh.net, $0.23 in 1905 would be:

$4.77 using the Consumer Price Index
$3.85 using the GDP deflator
$22.04 using the unskilled wage
$27.83 using the GDP per capita
$90.31 using the relative share of GDP

The loss-leading turkeys at the grocery store during the Thanksgiving/Christmas period sell for about $0.40-$0.60 per pound, putting the nominal price of these turkeys not much higher than a hundred years ago. However, this article points out that (in 2005):

Sendik's on W. Blue Mound Road in Brookfield was taking orders for Amish free-range turkeys from Wisconsin for $1.49 a pound, while Jacobson's, the butcher shop in Brennan's in Brookfield, offered free-range turkeys from northern Minnesota for $1.99 a pound.

At the end of the turkey spectrum are heritage turkeys, breeds that were nearly extinct a few years ago, according to Tricia Riley, general manager at Fields Best in East Troy. ..The fresh heritage birds have been selling for up to $13.69 a pound on the Internet, Riley said. Fields offered them for $3.35 a pound this year.

For some turkeys (or turkey-marketing techniques) the nominal price hasn't changed in a hundred years - isn't that impressive. For the high-end, fancy turkeys the real price hasn't changed in a hundred years - that, too, is impressive (perhaps moreso). If the demand for turkeys was static, this would suggest no change in the technology of raising turkeys. However, the demand for turkeys has likely increased with the increase in population, income, and the number of households with deep-friers, therefore the technology for raising turkeys must have improved and reduced real costs (even for free-range turkeys!) in order to keep real prices constant.

Yet more evidence of the power of markets.

The spot price of gold yesterday “burst” (the verb used by the normally sober Financial Times) through the $500-per-troy-ounce “barrier” (a term used in 236 news stories, by Google News’s count) for the first time since 1987. What does it mean? Nothing special. It mostly means that the dollar isn’t worth what it used to be. The Consumer Price Index (1982-84 = 100) that stood at 113.6 in 1987 stands at 199.2 today. So $500 today has a purchasing power equivalent to only $285 [$500*(113.6/199.2)] in 1987 dollars. In real terms, the price of gold has now just about returned to where it was in 1935, when the nominal price was $35 per ounce and the CPI was 13.8: $35*(199.2/13.8) = $505.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is lobbying Phi Beta Kappa with this letter to enlist its support in fighting against campus speech codes.

Uh. Good luck with that.

In related news at my shop:

Today, John Lott (of More Guns, Less Crime fame) is speaking at the Capital University Law School and on the main campus. Rather than engage in a debate about his ideas, there is in fact a concerted effort to organize a boycott among faculty and students of the event. Fair enough I guess but hardly in the spirit of open engagement that universities are supposed to be about.

There have been some rumblings that one of the flyers used to publicize the event is "offensive to Catholics". (I think it's funny!) To my knowlege there has been no complaint filed using our speech code, but this illustrates exactly the type of chilling effect (to use a term that used to be popular with the left) that such speech codes can engender.

The AP reports on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's statement yesterday to the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on cable and satellite TV "indecency":

If providers don't find a way to police smut on television, Martin said, federal decency standards should be considered.

``You can always turn the television off and of course block the channels you don't want,'' he said, ``but why should you have to?''

One rhetorical question, so many answers. How about: You should have to because you’re a free individual who subscribed to cable or satellite TV in the first place -- it isn't beamed onto your TV screen without your permission. You should have to because it follows from respecting your adult neighbors’ liberty to choose the TV channels they want. You should have to because if you don’t, some cluster of politicians of bureaucrats will treat you and your neighbors like children.

Senator Inouye (D-Hawaii) told the cable and satellite executives at the hearing: “If you don’t come up with an answer, we will.” The power of dictating what TV other adults should watch is never so dangerous as in the hands of those who presume themselves qualified to exercise it.

Forget smoking and loud stereos, how about 12 satellite dishes on your neighbor's front porch?

Evidently he can dial in 5,000 channels, which puts channel surfing in a new perspective. On the other hand, he probably got to watch the Georgia-Georgia Tech game last Saturday - we got stuck with ND-Stanford (even though the ND-Stanford game was exciting, and the GA-GT game wasn't).

How far we have come since November 29, 1971. Ah, the good old days of Pong. The simple game didn't elicit Congressional investigations and parental ratings. Did pong cause a lot of sleepless nights? Were there bleary-eyed sophomores stumbling into class the next day? .

Who knew international trade could help domestic businesses?
For those who don't know, Shreveport has a large number (if my classes are representative) of trade protectionists, people who are more than eager to challenge me when I try to argue the benefits of free international trade, outsourcing, etc.

So, it was great to see this story in our local dog trainer today.

For those without patience, "Bell Machine Co. Inc., a Shreveport manufacturer, will announce hundreds of new jobs for skilled workers this morning. The jobs are the result of an international trade contract and extend beyond the 150 positions the company announced a few weeks ago."

The last line: "I think it goes back to supply and demand and the fact that Bell Machine has a reputation for quality. The company is well-run, and that was realized by this company that's coming."

Doesn't it all go back to supply and demand?

My colleague Gary Roseman has been selected for a Fulbright. A well-deserved honor for an outstanding teacher.

1. Two weeks ago, I blogged on the anti-Wal-Mart propaganda film "The High Cost of Low Price" and it's false portrayal of a hardware store closing in Middlefield OH. (Of course, Wal-Mart doesn't drive anyone out of business--customers do.) After that posting I got an email from someone familiar with the Middlefield area. He tells me that it is much more likely that a successful local hardware chain drove H&H out of business than did Wal-Mart. (This makes sense since Wal-Mart has only modest overlap--some paint and lawn/garden merchandise--with typical hardware stores.) The writer (who asked that I not quote him directly or post his name) indicates that one of the local chain's stores is located close to Wal-Mart and H&H and that the local chain seems to have suffered no harm from Wal-Mart's opening nearby.

2. From a recent AJC story:

Just before Labor Day, Noviello hangs a "help wanted" sign in his Struthers store window. He must replace salesclerk Anna Allgood, 49, who is leaving for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., where she can get medical insurance. Her pay will be $6.95 an hour.

Noviello says he'll start his new hire at $5.75 because he can't afford more. "I don't make any money," he said.

So much for Wal-Mart's low pay and lousy medical insurance.

3. Yesterday's WaPo had a must-read article defending Wal-Mart from a "progressive" perspective.

In a lecture on international trade the other day I made note of the fact that our largest trading partners are Canada, China, Mexico and Japan. Canada and Mexico of course make sense because of their proximity. China and Japan are actually close "economicially" even if they are distant "geographically" because all that separates us is the ocean, and shipping by sea is vastly cheaper than by land.

One of my students was able to get me some shipping data from his father's logging business. Here are the data he gave me:

(1) To get a shipment of logs from the source 90 miles to Columbus, OH by truck costs $250. $2.78 per mile.

(2) To get a shipment of logs from Columbus to San Francisco (2110 miles) by rail costs about $925 (he quoted me $750-1100 so I take the midpoint here). $0.44 per mile.

(3) To get a shipment from San Francisco to Shanghai (7270 miles) by ship costs about $1700. $0.23 per mile.

A news item:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fatter rear ends are causing many drug injections to miss their mark, requiring longer needles to reach buttock muscle, researchers said on Monday.

Standard-sized needles failed to reach the buttock muscle in 23 out of 25 women whose rears were examined after what was supposed to be an intramuscular injection of a drug.

Two-thirds of the 50 patients in the study did not receive the full dosage of the drug, which instead lodged in the fat tissue of their buttocks, researchers from The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin said in a presentation to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

On my recent trip to Oman, I had a middle eastern dessert called Umm Ali which means "Ali's Mother". It's a sort of middle eastern bread pudding, sweet with nuts and raisins; it is much tastier than the bland Northern European version.

Anyway, my host told me the dish originated with an Irish woman named O'Malley who lived in the region in the past. I tried to find some verification of this but couldn't come up with much except what I found on this page.

Anyway, if true, this would be a great example of Tyler Cowen's basic view of how trade occurs between cultures.

Professors and others: Please remind your students that December 1 is the deadline for the Association of Private Enterprise Education essay contest on free market economies! Urge them to submit their essays! Remember -- first prize is $2500, second is $2000, third is $1500, and honorable mentions are $250. Complete instructions can be found at here.

The Nov. 28, 1905 NYT has an article in which one Charles F. Thwing, then president of Western Reserve University, provided his reasons for disliking college football:

Among the evils of football as now played are danger to life and exposure to injury; temptation to fraud in making up teams; temptation to betting; temptation to brutality; enthusiasm becoming so great as to become a form of hysteria; disadvantages to the scholarship of some scholars; to great frequency of games; inability of athletic associations to handle properly large sums of money; the public exhibition of young men who are primarily students; reports in newspapers giving false interpretation and false impressions of college value.

Gee, that doesn't sound much different from today's anti-sports crowd. I guess the point is that mixing big-time athletics with the pursuit of knowledge was, is, and will likely continue to be, a difficult chore.

The story then goes on to list President Thwing's suggestions for saving the game:

Let the sport be idealized, the ideal to be not victory, but love of the sport itself; wise administrative bodies in charge of the teams; competent medical supervision of players; players to be required to maintain reasonable standing in studies; officials in sufficient number and power on the field to instantly check unduly rough playing; fewer games and fewer hard games; permitting every student in college to play football, if agreeable to parents and the student is physically fit.

Except for the first and the last point, Dr. Thwing's vision has basically been implemented over the past hundred years - even if imperfectly.

The Fraser Institute has published the Economic Freedom of the Arab World report that measures economic freedom in 16 Arab nations. The methodology is similar, but not identical, to that of the Economic Freedom of the World report which includes only 10 Arab nations.

On Monday of last week, the Omanis put on an amazing gala dinner to make awards to the countries that scored best in the various categories and overall.

Our local fishwrap has an interesting article outlining how bad things can get for the BCS system if either Texas or USC happens to lose this coming weekend. I don't see either happening, but I am notorious for bad predictions in college football.

Two Boston Fed economists are challenging the Levitt/Donohue abortion-crime link. Some excerpts from a WSJ article:

But now economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston are taking aim at the statistics behind one of Mr. Levitt's most controversial chapters. Mr. Levitt asserts there is a link between the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s and the drop in crime rates in the 1990s. Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Boston Fed, and Christopher Goetz, a research assistant, say the research behind that conclusion is faulty.

The Boston Fed's Mr. Foote says he spotted a missing formula in the programming of Mr. Levitt's original research. He argues the programming oversight made it difficult to pick up other factors that might have influenced crime rates during the 1980s and 1990s, like the crack wave that waxed and waned during that period. He also argues that in producing the research, Mr. Levitt should have counted arrests on a per-capita basis. Instead, he counted overall arrests. After he adjusted for both factors, Mr. Foote says, the abortion effect disappeared.

"There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term," the authors assert in the report. Their work doesn't represent an official view of the Fed.

Edward Glaeser, a Harvard professor who helped referee Mr. Levitt's original abortion submission to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, said the Foote critique isn't damning, though it does suggest the impact of abortion on crime has not been as strong as Mr. Levitt has argued. "These guys have put the [data] through the wringer," Mr. Glaeser says of Mr. Foote and his research assistant. "There is no question that the results get smaller and weaker, but there still seems to be something there."

BTW, I still think it might be interesting to test the abortion-crime link using variation in state funding of abortions for low-income mothers.

Today we are concerned that people show their "admiration" for members of Congress by providing gifts/cash/contributions in return for "assistance" in certain matters, such as Casino licenses and so forth. Such "admiration" is not new, nor is it really practical to try to stop it in all of its forms. A radical idea that is almost guaranteed to work (and is therefore almost guaranteed not to be implemented) would be to remove the motivation for such "admiration," that is, deny the federal government (read: Representatives and Senators) the ability to distribute rents to the chosen/connected. The inability to distribute rents would dramatically reduce the number of people who offer their "admiration."

In light of recent events, the Nov. 27, 1905 NYT presents a problem that today might not seem bad:

Two years ago, after Speaker Cannon was sworn in, an attempt was made to bring in large floral pieces and place them upon the desks of members, but the Speaker issued positive orders to stop the proceeding...A standing resolution of the Senate was adopted during the last session of Congress barring flowers from the Senate chamber...Rivalry of admirers of members of the two houses reached a stage where half the desks were buried in flowers, and the persons they were meant to compliment were completely hidden. This condition led to the ban on them.

House and Senate members being hidden/buried in flowers? That might be an improvement over the ways they seek attention nowadays.

As we head into the last few weeks of the regular season in college football - and the anticipation of bowl season grows - there is a lot of rumbling about reforming the BCS system. For the past few years, complaining about the BCS has become an annual sport in and of itself. However, if it weren't for the Ivy League in 1905 there might not be a BCS to complain about because college football might not exist (at least in its current format).

In 1906, the entity that will become the NCAA will be created to regulate/reform college football. Reading the 1905 NYT has been interesting in this particular area - in 1905 there were numerous deaths, severe injuries, riots, and overall bad behavior, in college football. In the same year, attendance figures reached all-time highs and the schools are discovering that there is a lot of money in big-time college football.

The Nov. 27, 1905 NYT has a story about football reform, with the following opening paragraph:

Following the suggestion of President Roosevelt for uniform eligibility rules in college athletics and for the elimination of unnecessary roughness, brutality, and foul play in the American game of football, the University of Pennsylvania has taken the initiative for the suggested reforms, and has addressed a circular letter on the subject to the heads of all universities, colleges, private schools, and other institutions in the United States interested in athletics.

The story includes the sent to the university presidents. In essence, it describes the major areas the NCAA will eventually codify:

Prof. Hollis of Harvard has expressed the same thought. In his opinion the backbone of college regulation of athletics rests in three rules.

1. A definition of professionalism.
2. A rule which should require all members of athletic teams to be genuine students of the college which they represent, and to be satisfactory in their studies.
3. A rule to prevent the procurement of good players from other colleges by social or money inducements.

As amazing as it sounds, the Byzantine rules and regulations that the NCAA has passed over the years focus on these three basic issues. In a flash of naivete, however, the folks at Penn asked for voluntary adoption of the regulations they propose:

It [the committee] believes that they [the enclosed rules] will provide for all the exigencies which have hitherto arisen or that may arise, and if interpreted and accepted in the broad spirit by which was appropriately described by President Roosevelt as a "gentleman's agreement" will do away with the evils which have undoubtedly menaced inter-collegiate athletics, and will promote the best interests of clean, gentlemanly amateur sport.

The voluntary adoption of these rules proved difficult to enforce, requiring the NCAA to put some teeth in their enforcement efforts in the late 1940s and into the early 1950s.

Nevertheless, without Penn and other Ivy League schools, there is a high probability that college football could have been banned in the early 1900s and we wouldn't have the BCS to gripe about. While the Ivy League was relegated to Division I-AA status in 1981, fans of college football owe a nod of thanks to these schools for saving the game in its first series of crises.

As we head into the last of the civil-war Saturdays (last week, Auburn-Alabama; last night, WV-Pitt; today, TX-Texas A&M, Arizona-ASU) including GA-Ga Tech (Go DAWGS) , Oklahoma-Ok. State, Ole Miss-Miss. State, Florida-Florida State, and don't forget Rice-Houston, a bit of the higher arts for the football fan. From the Nov. 25, 1905 NYT:

JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE

Just before the battle, mother,
I am buckling on my splint,
While the surgeon on the side lines
Fixes arnica and lint.
On my head's a helmet, mother;
On my shoulder is a pad;
Rubber bandages and nose guard
Shield from ill your six-foot lad.

Just before the battle, mother,
I am thinking some of you,
Still I can't forget the full back
Whom I've sworn an oath to do.
I am going to paste him, mother -
I shall put him in a trance.
See -- e'en now at my suggestion
They have brought the ambulance.

REFRAIN
Farewell, mother, you may never
Recognize me any more.
But that full back will be missing
When the battle cries are o'er

In the early 20th century, automobiles are a luxury (and an extreme danger) and the majority of long-haul travel is by railroad. Earlier in November, the 1905 NYT reported that the annual freight tonnage and passenger travel on the nation's railroads had reached an all-time high, revenues, profits, and dividends were also at all time highs, and that state government's were trying to figure out how to extract more tax revenue from those railroads that operated in their states (any of this sound familiar?).

The Nov. 24, 1905 NYT reports on a test of an electric locomotive that reached fifty miles per hour in a test run:

General Superintendent Bent of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Superintendent Gibbs of the Pennsylvania Railroad were among railway officials who went on a short trip out of Philadelphia to-day to test a new electrical locomotive designed to replace the ordinary steam locomotive, especially on branches and spur lines.

The new engine is capable of making fifty miles an hour...The equipments consist of an eighty-horse power gasoline engine connected to a fifty-kilowat Westinghouse generator, supplying a storage battery of 103 cells of two and one-half volts each.

This story is interesting in a few respects. First, why are the railroads trying to innovate on the venerable steam locomotive? After all, in 1905 there are few cars, no interstates, no airplanes, no semi-trucks. The railroads, as an oligopoly, are the sole providers of long-haul travel for freight and people - and as such, it is often argued, there should be little innovation in such an industry. However, economists have long argued that innovation is necessary in a dynamic world. Railroads are no different, in this respect, than automobile, computer, or digital camera manufacturers. All of these industries are comprised of companies who are consistently trying to lower costs while at the same time ensure that their customers are willing to pay for their services. In retrospect, it is evident that the railway industry will face considerable pressure over the next fifty years, and it is likely that long-range planners in the railway industry saw this as well.

Second, the railway industry of 1905 received considerable flack for being dangerous (1905 was the deadliest year, to date, for railway accidents), noisy, dirty, and, while many would grudgingly admit that the industry provided a valuable service, there were many who demanded reform and government intervention in the market. Today's automobile industry faces many of the same accusations. Perhaps the semi-private companies that comprised the railway industry in 1905 were innovating to stave off further regulation? Note that the story does not suggest that the railway industry had asked for tax breaks for introducing what in essence could be considered a hybrid train engine (although there might have been).

Finally, there is an interesting technological parallel here. While today's automobile manufacturers (and the greens) whine that they do not have enough tax breaks to fully implement the hybrid technology for automobiles, it seems that the hybrid idea has been around - gasp - for a hundred years (in the end, the diesel-electric locomotives of today are similar in concept if not scale as the hybrid automobile). Such innovations can be made better over time, but it seems that we haven't come all that far in the idea of the hybrid. Did railroads lobby for tax breaks to introduce the cleaner, quieter, and likely more cost efficient, hybrid? Perhaps, but then today's lobbying on the part of the automobile manufacturers would be no different - alas.

A final thought strikes me. Although reading the paper from 100 years ago makes ex post analysis most convenient, there are still lessons to be learned. If the story told us of a compressed air engine that could make 50 mph, and in the end the compressed air engine was not brought on-line, then we would know that the story was not important. In this case, we know that the hybrid locomotive will eventually make it big - of course, therefore, the story is of interest.

However, my point would be to consider this. The next big thing is not immediately clear - to you, me, the government, or anyone else for that matter. Private enterprise ultimately provided the diesel-locomotive, affordable automobiles, and the rest of the products that we see in our times. Which story describes the "next big thing?" We won't know until, perhaps, a hundred years hence, but the important lesson is that such stories can and should be written. More specifically, one of the best aspects of the private-enterprise based economy is that such stories are written every day - and eventually the next big thing is created - almost always without government involvement.

Last night on Letterman, the band played guitarist Link Wray’s song “Rumble” as the show went to a commercial break. This morning I discovered the sad reason why (hat tip to Jeff A. Taylor at Reason Hit & Run): Link Wray passed away earlier this month and was buried on Friday. He was 76. Here is the official Link Wray site; here is a fan tribute site; Rolling Stone has an obit here.

You’ve heard his menacing instrumentals even if you don’t know the songs by name. Among other placements, two of his songs play in the background of the Jack Rabbit Slim’s scene in Pulp Fiction. He was a huge influence on the surf instro music of the 1960s (Dick Dale et al.) through to today’s post-Pulp Fiction bands.

I saw Link play in Atlanta seven years ago, and in St. Louis in April this year. Both times in small clubs. This April's was an unpolished show, since it was early in a tour with a pick-up drummer and bass player who didn’t know the material yet. But the guitar-playing was timeless. I hope I’m as cheerful and energetic at 76 as Link was.

Koch Industries is buying Georgia-Pacific. So what? Check out this description of Koch's management style:

There's nothing like a dose of Austrian economics to juice up the getting-to-know-you process.

Georgia-Pacific, meet Charles Koch, a Midwesterner on a mission to take some of corporate America's longest-held principles and turn them upside down.

Part philosopher, large part tycoon, Koch has wasted no time introducing himself to the new recruits at Georgia-Pacific. Just two days after privately held Koch Industries announced its eye-popping plans to acquire the Atlanta Fortune 500 company, there was the professorial chairman, at the head of a class, schooling 70 Georgia-Pacific executives in the ways of his Wichita, Kan.-based empire.

Let other companies have their Six Sigma and one-minute managers. Koch Industries is sticking to a homegrown style that's grounded in the free-market principles espoused by economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek.

Add a little psychology and science to the mix and you've got what Charles Koch calls "Market Based Management," a trademarked set of business principles that he credits with making Koch Industries the $60 billion private powerhouse it is today.

Boiled down to the simplest terms, Koch's philosophy pushes people to think like entrepreneurs, to constantly question themselves and each other.

Forget the old top-down, command-and-control stuff. Koch contends his company is more like a free nation, where the native language is spoken in terms of "comparative advantage" and "spontaneous order."

Another story here.

Townhall.com reports:

The atheist who is fighting to take the phrase "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance filed a lawsuit late Thursday seeking to prevent the U.S. government from printing the national motto -- "In God We Trust" -- on any future coins or paper money.

In the suit filed with the U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., Michael Newdow claims that the present use of the phrase "violates the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the United States Constitution," and he seeks to stop the government from using it on mint coins and print currency, as well as in "any act or law."

Newdow’s suit fails to challenge what’s really unconstitutional about our present currency notes and coins, namely that the US government is not empowered to issue fiat money. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the power to “coin money”, but not to print money. Article I, Section 10 forbids any state to "coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". No section empowers the Congress to emit bills of credit (paper money) or to declare anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender. For a serious discussion of the Constitution’s monetary provisions – and how the courts have made a hash of them – see Richard H. Timberlake’s Cato Journal article on “The Government’s License to Create Money”.

Reason Associate Editor Matt Welch does some great reporting on eminent domain in the LASD. He finds ample space nearby a proposed eminent domain taking. The school district says it wants space farther away from the freeway than the land for sale. How much farther away are the homes slated for demolition? One-tenth of a mile.

From tonight's Simpson repeat:

[Bart has just been expelled from Springfield Elementary].

Marge: Bart, I love you, but sometimes I don’t love your choices. (sigh) Now we have to find another school for you.

Homer: Yeah, and if you get kicked out of that one you’re going straight in the army where you’ll be sent straight to America’s latest military quagmire. Where will it be? North Korea? Iran? Anything’s possible with Commander Cuckoo-Bananas in charge.

Dan Drezner is upset that he cannot find a single Republican congressman who wants what he wants. Would it matter if he did? After all, whatever your theory of how policy gets made (median voter, Leviathan, etc.), the role of a single politician is of no importance, unless he or she is the decisive voter.

The real problem is not that there are no politicians who believe what Drezner believes, or what I believe, or what you believe. The real problem is that we permit politicians to make collective decisions in areas where individual decisions would be superior.

The real shame is not that government is filled with people we disagree with. It is that so many people are more concerned with who is in power, rather than what power they have.

Evidently the $100 laptop prototype exists in someone else's imagination and likely will be funded out of our pockets.

Here's a Quicktime movie (8 minutes) at the prototype's unveiling. It's pretty neat, but very ambitious.

From Advertising Age:

The 2005 Time Person of the Year is brought to you by ... Chrysler.

The automaker has signed a seven-figure deal that latches it to the year-end cover-story franchise, ensuring, at least for the next four weeks, nearly every Person of the Year mention will be accompanied by a Chrysler spot, banner, button or bumper.

I want to sell sponsorship of my exams (as well as sponsorships for hints), but somehow I think that is not allowed.

Does Chrysler already know the person of the year? What if it were Osama or some other non-desirable (at least among Chrysler's target consumers)? Oh, the article states that the "finalists" have been determined to be: "Steve Jobs, Bono, the Google Guys, Valerie Plame, Lance Armstrong and rumored front-runner Mother Nature.'" Okay, this time it doesn't look like such a bad bet - and the value of the Time Person of the Year is arguably higher when there are fewer "wildcards" in the list (Plame is not really an issue of such magnitude is it?).

Likely no future "Adolf Hitler" will be a (sponsored) person of the year...

The Nigerian emailers received the Ignobel for literature last month. Perhaps the sunshine this provided has made the spammers scurry to other countries. More likely a sufficient number of spam filters have been set to filter out the word "Nigeria" and other African countries where hidden loot can be released upon the signature of a single U.S. citizen.

As far as markets go, I am not sure where this falls - virtual Tiebout? - but in my email box I just received another promise of instant riches, this time from the U.K. (heads up?)

Hello,

Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal Ethics. I introduce myself as Liam Johnson a staff in the accounts management Section of a well-known bank here in the United Kingdom.

One of our accounts with holding balance of 15,000,000 pounds (Fifteen Million British Pounds) has been dormant and last operated in the past 3 years. From my investigations and confirmations, the owner of this account is a Foreigner by name Gerald Stone died on the 4th of January 2002 on a plane crash in Birmingham here in UK

The usual litinany of explanations and assurances follows. There is actually a confidentiality disclaimer at the end, making it look somewhat legit, but now I have to readjust my spam filter.

Tort reform becomes a political issue every now and then, usually with a couple of extreme examples of people suing for lots of money for seemingly little damages. Over at The Club for Growth's blog Andrew Roth posts about a new coffee-burn lawsuit against Dunkin' Donuts (for a measly $10m). Sounds a little high, but heck, let a jury decide (personally, I favor arbitration in these cases - if the arbitrator feels there is gross negligence on the part of DD then perhaps it goes to the courts? This previous post suggests instantaneous arbitration might not be so good.).

The Nov. 22, 1905 NYT reports on what I think is an even better suit (not giving anyone ideas, mind you):

DES MOINES, Nov. 21 - Miss Ella Hamilton thinks the kiss she alleges that Hayden Marquis, a wealthy young man, stole from her is worth $10,000. That is the amount of damages she demands in a suit filed to-day in the District Court. The suit will come to trial at the January term.

I have a suspicion we won't see any more references to this case. However, from EH.net, the $10,000 in 1905 would be worth:

$207,607.55 using the Consumer Price Index
$167,450.44 using the GDP deflator
$958,117.58 using the unskilled wage
$1,210,103.71 using the GDP per capita
$3,926,695.46 using the relative share of GDP

Ouch. However, this does support my working practice of never kissing women who have not offerred to be kissed (hence no stealing).

Tort reform? Perhaps it is a problem that is a hundred years old and needs to be resolved. Do frivalous lawsuits such as this, and coffee burns, increase when the economy is up or when the economy is down?

(HT: Darren Grant asks how do you prove the kiss? CD's comeback - how do you prove possession of stolen goods? Mike Ward asks if it's truly frivolous - virtue was important back then.)

"The Game" is not Auburn-Alabama, nor Georgia-Florida, but Yale-Harvard. The 2005 version was played last weekend - Harvard pulling it out in triple overtime 30-24. Today, the two teams are non-scholarship Division I-AA teams that don't draw a lot of attention. However, in 1905 the teams were two of the best in the country.

The Nov. 22, 1905 NYT actually reports that the officials for The Game had been decided by the two teams:

It was announced to-night (Nov. 21) that Yale and Harvard had agreed upon officials for Saturday's game. They will be Paul Dashiel of Annapolis, umpire; Matthew A. McClung of Lehigh, referee; Mr. Whitting of Cornell, head linesman. The selection of the umpire was not made until to-night (Nov. 22).

What's the big deal? In 1905 the rules for American Football were still in flux, with considerable violence on and off the field during the games. Unlike today games, in which the rules are standardized and "professional" if not "proficient" referees are selected by the conferences and assigned to games, in 1905 it is likely that a bit of agreement about the arbitrary nature in which rules were to be interpreted and enforced was necessary.

This year there have been several Division IA games that seem to have been affected by poor officiating. In 1905, it is almost guaranteed that the outcomes could be affected by arbitrary officiating. Hence, an additional transaction between the two teams had to be incurred before the game could be played - a small benefit from having conferences/leagues handle the assignment of officials.

Talk about markets in everything (with a nod to MR):

TORONTO and DAYTONA BEACH, FL, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ - Harlequin Enterprises Limited (www.eHarlequin.com), one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction and the global leader of series romance and NASCAR, the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States, today announced a new licensing agreement.

Under the agreement, Harlequin will publish a variety of women's fiction titles that will be included in the NASCAR Library Collection, which provides a high level of authentication and quality to NASCAR-licensed books. The novels, by some of Harlequin's bestselling authors, will have plotlines centering on NASCAR and will bear the NASCAR brand on their covers. Harlequin will also be the first publisher of women's fiction for NASCAR.

The debut title in the new program, IN THE GROOVE by award-winning author Pamela Britton, will be published on January 31, 2006 to coincide with the Daytona 500. IN THE GROOVE will be the first fiction title ever published as part of the NASCAR Library Collection.

I wonder if this former driver is the NASCAR version of Fabio.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

About half the children of Wal-Mart employees are either uninsured or covered by government-subsidized insurance such as Medicaid. Nationally, about one-third of all workers' children are uninsured or covered by government-subsidized programs.

Nothing like a good old fashioned apples-to-oranges comparison. On one hand we have Wal-Mart workers (avg wage roughly ten bucks, avg educational attainment probably a high school diploma) and on the other hand the entire national labor force which is surely better paid and more highly educated.

For more on Wal-Mart and health insurance for workers' children see this previous post.

I'm pleased to welcome Ed Lopez of San Jose State University's economics department to our merry band of bloggers. Ed is a George Mason Ph.D. who has written on term limits and other public choice topics. Ed was formerly on the faculty at the University of North Texas before moving to SJSU this year. His UNT webpage is here, including links to his research page and publications.