Good Movie about how the public discourse is pretty well controlled

Its Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent


http://www.hulu.com/watch/118171/manufacturing-consent

If you can't explain it to a six year old,

you don't understand it yourself. - A. Einstein.

Altruism Stuff

Here's two articles brought up by Prof Geisinger:

Becker and Stigler

Akerlof and Kranton

Topics

Week 9: Public Choice Theory

Week 10: Fran and Jess

Week 11: Alex and Flossy

Week 12: Mike and Mike

Week 13: BigDog and The Stead - WXPN 8pm Sundays

Regarding Sagoff

Two things:

• Does this cause anyone else to worry about applicability issues? Accepting, for the sake of argument, the notion that social regulation shouldn't be defended on economic terms, by what process should a regulator hope to achieve a legitimately fair outcome? Political process, Sagoff's choice, seems weak, as it demands that a pretty exacting and exhaustive amount of democracy occur. I don't see how legitimately shared values can be understood, let alone realized, without recourse individual consumer choice. People don't consciously care enough to make the choices through voting that they make through incentivized consumer behavior. No?
• The Mineral King example is great, but I came to the opposite conclusion as the author. Within reason, isn't there an acceptable and achievable hybrid between the economic and the social good? When Sagoff spoke of the Forest Service violating "the public trust" and of the class and the American electorate responding in "overwhelming opposition", I could only wonder as to how much information digestion was required to manufacture so many opinions. Were people really eschewing the utility that would be derived from the land through its proposed use, or were they maximizing the utility that comes with feeling like a righteous, anti-corporate defender of Gaia? This isn't judgment - I am completely self-righteous. But isn't Sagoff just trading overt consumer choices for covert ones, and, in the interest of consistency with his program, a useful and reasonably legitimate process of preference measurement for an inexact process, one weighted toward the severity, rather than breadth, of public opinion?

Mark Stehr

Seat Belts

Possible Class Discussion Topics

1: Mark Stehr, a professor of economics at LeBow, seems to LOVE measuring compliance with incentives under different regulatory regimes. He has papers on the effects of cigarette taxes, seatbelt laws, sunday alcohol sales, bicycle helmet mandates and condom usage. His paper on seat-belts is provided in the post above. Maybe we should read this or another of his articles for an upcoming class and I'll contact him to gauge his interest in coming in for a conversation. Your thoughts?
2: Martha Nussbaum's book, Animal Rights, contains a debate between Judge Posner and Peter Singer, regarding the boundaries of moral existence. Posner argues for a human-centric view of morality, while Singer espouses a utilitarian perspective based upon the ability of creatures to feel pain. Is this something we want to discuss, or is it too far afield? My initial thought is that it may fall way outside the range of our discussion, but I wonder, based on our recent conversations, whether insights gleaned from this sort of argument might affect our consideration of incentives and the reactions groups and individual actors have to them. Again, thoughts?

My Myth: Presidents create jobs.

This is not about regulation, but it is about economics. Very cool.

Karl Okamoto, “After the Bailout: Regulating Systemic Moral Hazard"

SSRN-id1292476

A student (unnamed) just supplied this:

Good Housekeeping Funding Model

It's free to submit a product for review, but if approved you pay to use the logo and advertise your status.

Their Website takes third party ads (through google) and they have a print magazine which, presumably, takes advertising as well.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/history/good-housekeeping-seal-faqs

Good Housekeeping

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/history/about-good-housekeeping-seal

Rabbits.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-31/spousonomics-how-economics-can-help-figure-out-marriage-by-paula-szuchman/

Costs of Bargaining

Breyer refers to the "costs of bargaining," but what ARE they?

I'm struggling to sort out how our very expensive but very much middling heath care system fit into this framework.

Maybe there are some things that markets can't capture...

In the healthcare system, the intersection of private and government action create a flawed system.

What we want from a healthcare system is "health and wellness", i.e., lack of disease, long life, healthy kids. Our health insurance system provides short-term access to health care services.

Healthcare services are a component of health and wellbeing, but the market seems unable to provide health and wellness to the population as a whole. (We're around number 50 in the world in terms of life expectancy, on a par with Cuba and Bosnia).

An example: I currently smoke from time to time. I'm currently an Aetna customer. If I keep smoking, it could cost hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in health care costs when I get older. It's a pretty safe bet that Aetna won't be paying for my care. So what does Aetna care if I quit? Are they going to be agressive in spending money to help me quit? No.

Likewise, are they going to pay for my gym membership? Or create powerful incentives for me to workout? ( They might offer some discount on gym membership...) If they had to pay for me as a wheezing fat old man I'd think they might look at me differently.

Watch This!

Via John Stead

Misshapen Fruit Only Recently Salable in Europe

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106114358
Btw, this has an audio component!

My last for a little while, but this is great:

http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=12899662

Any thoughts?

Here's the letter the Senators sent to the EPA:
http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/griffin/NEWS9/PDF/1007/EPALetter.PDF

Cooler Blog - Cure Worse than Disease?

http://volokh.com/2011/01/29/credit-card-rates-at-record-high/

Cool Blog - Regulatory Failure?

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report

In the Crystal Ball: More Regulation for Psychics

In the Crystal Ball: More Regulation for Psychics

The FTC and the Internet - Event Audio/Video » Publications » The Federalist Society

The FTC and the Internet - Event Audio/Video » Publications » The Federalist Society

Not sure if anyone is interested, but this is the new opinion ruling ObamaCare unconstitutional.

Vinson opinion

Dean Dennis' Suggestion on the History of Deregulation

7_YJR_325_1-25-11_1157

From Prof Geisinger

Thanks for backing me up Sean. You can also check out the green lantern in Slate from a few years ago. Here's a link: http://www.slate.com/id/2200158/
So, if we don't know how to act on our preference for environmental protection in the marketplace, my question for everyone is can we rely on the market to fix the problem? Are there reliable "environmental seals of approval" like the Good Housekeeping seal that we can use to guide our choices?
There seems to be demand for this kind of information, so I'd expect the market to respond.

Paper v. Polystyrene Cups

Just thought I'd get the posting started with a bang... or a burn.  Get used to the shtick, as it shows no signs of abating.
Check it out.