The Brewers lost to the Reds yesterday. The Cubs had the day off. The Brewers’ magic number remains 13. Any combination of Brewer wins and Cub losses adding up to that number will ensure that the Brewers end the season with a better record than the Cubs.
Both teams have 13 games remaining.
Comments Off on Cubs Watch – 9/21
Posted in Sports
The Brewers were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs with last night’s 9-2 loss to the Giants. I’ve long gotten used to my beloved Brew Crew missing the playoffs. That’s why this despairing fan has set up secondary goals, such as beating the arch-rival Chicago Cubs.
Fortunately, this goal is still doable. The Brewers are 69-79 entering tonight’s game. The Cubs stand at 68-81. That puts the Brewers’ magic number at 13. Any combination of Brewer wins and Cub losses adding up to 13 will ensure that the Brewers end the season with a better record than the Cubs.
This blog will be keeping tabs, and hoping for the best.
The American Spectator has kindly asked me to contribute to their blog. My first post ran today. It’s about Boston’s proposed ban on non-diet soda sales in government buildings. Read it here if you like.
Blogging at this site will be unaffected.
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Posted in Nanny State, Publications, regulation
Samuel Burgos is 8 years old. One day he brought a toy gun to school in his backpack. That got him expelled from his Miami school for two years. Toy guns violate his school district’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons.
The district offered to place Sam in a correctional school; his parents opted to home-school him instead. His father told the local NBC affiliate, “I can’t sit here and allow them to send my kid to a school where students have committed actual crimes,” Burgos said. “He hasn’t committed a crime.”
Sam misses his friends. And he may have to repeat the second grade. All because common sense has gone missing from Broward County’s schools. That’s what makes the school board’s response especially galling:
The school board says it’s common sense to know that this kind of item can’t be allowed on school campus and that responsibility also falls on parents to know what their children have in their backpacks.
The Burgos family has suffered enough. Toy guns are not weapons. They are toys. The school board should exercise a bit of common sense and reinstate Sam immediately.
Posted in education, Nanny State, Regulation of the Day
Tagged broward county, common sense, education, florida, guns, miami, public schools, toy guns, zero tolerance, zero tolerance policies
Via Larry Reed, here’s a link to an animated picture that tells the story of Rome. It’s a simple picture. But it tells an amazing story. It’s fun to watch it and play the events over in my mind.
The map begins as a tiny dot in 510 B.C. That’s the year before Tarquin the Proud, the last of the Roman kings, was overthrown. That event marked the birth of the Roman Republic. Roman territory quickly grows, despite the famous Punic Wars against Carthage. Romans come to view the Mediterranean as “Mare Nostrum” — our lake.
But not forever. The Empire starts shrinking in the third century A.D., slowly at first and then with alarming speed. Population pressures in the Far East push Goths and other barbarians into Roman territory faster than they can be assimilated. They turn hostile.
Eventually the Empire splits into Eastern and Western halves. The Western halfdisappears after 476. The Eastern half survives for another millennium as the Byzantine Empire. It prospers for a while, but it spends its last few centuries as a depressing rump of what it once was.
It’s a fascinating story; in learning it, one learns much about human nature, about art, philosophy, literature, economics, politics, war, peace, church and state, and more. No wonder it has captured so many imaginations over the years.
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Posted in History
Ryan Radia, CEI’s Associate Director of Technology Studies, talks about obstacles and opportunities for job creation in the high-tech sector. Regulatory uncertainty is making companies wary of making long-term investments. The sheer number of regulations makes it very expensive to hire workers. According to an article Ryan and I coauthored at RealClearMarkets, rolling back the regulatory state could pave the way for more jobs.
Comments Off on New CEI Podcast: Creating High-Tech Jobs
Posted in CEI Podcast, Economics, Technology
Tagged cei podcast, deregulate to stimulate, deregulation, employment, hi-tech jobs, podcast, regulation, ryan radia, Ryan Young
Most people doubt Congress’ ability to spend money wisely. The stimulus has given them some proof:
-$800,000 for an African genital-washing program.
-$700,000 to create computer software that can tell jokes.
-$1.6 million to irrigate a golf course inTexas.
-Thousands of dollars to replace – twice – a sidewalk “that doesn’t front any homes or businesses, and leads into a ditch”
–300 truckloads of oyster shells.
Bonus non-stimulus spending: “[T]he Census spent $23,000 on a totem pole in Alaska. Census representative Hector Maldonado says the agency thought it was a great idea. The plan was to increase participation in Alaska, but despite the totem pole, participation dropped in the state by two percent from the last census.”
And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety.
-Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 25.
That sentence is more important to understanding how markets work than most people realize. The ability to feel empathy is part of what makes us human. It is also what makes market economies possible.
Without empathy, killing the customer would be at least as common as serving him. Mutual exchange — trade — is an act of peace. That wouldn’t be possible without the human ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes and feel for them. After all, it’s a lot easier to hit someone and take their stuff. And yet few people do. Empathy is a big reason why.
Adam Smith was one perceptive guy. Others have filled in gaps in his thought, and proven him wrong on some details. That does not take away from the fact that he was as perceptive as any thinker in history.
Comments Off on Who Says Economists Are Selfish?
Posted in Economics, Great Thinkers, Philosophy
Tagged adam smith, benevolence, Economics, enlightenment, liberalism, market economies, market process, peace, Philosophy, scottish enlightenment, selfishness, sentiments, theory of moral sentiments, Trade, war
Over at RealClearMarkets.c0m, my colleague Ryan Radia offer some ideas for how to create more high-tech jobs. Our main points:
-Do more with less. This often involves cutting workers who aren’t productive enough to offset their wages. Sounds like bad news. But it’s actually crucial to job creation. That’s because in the long run, automation frees up resources — and employees — for new opportunities.
-Hiring new employees means jumping through countless regulatory hoops. According to a 2005 study by economist W. Mark Crain, compliance costs average $5,282 per employee at large companies. Small businesses pay $7,647 per employee. Some of those resources could have been spent hiring more employees. Over-regulation causes unemployment.
-Politicians can’t create jobs. But they can help to foster better conditions for wealth and job creation. Regulations cost businesses and consumers $1.17 trillion last year alone. Congress should roll them back. Some companies fear potential clampdowns on their businesses. Congress should leave them alone. Some failing businesses are eating up resources that could be better used elsewhere. Congress should stop bailing them out.
Comments Off on Clearing the Way for High-Tech Jobs
Posted in Business Cycles, Economics, regulation, Technology
Tagged creating jobs, deregulate to stimulate, deregulation, economic liberalization, employment, high tech jobs, job creation, jobs, realclearmarkets, realclearmarkets.com, regulation
Russ Roberts nails it over at Cafe Hayek:
Please remember that the cost of the TARP isn’t the cost to taxpayers. Even if banks paid back every single penny, the cost of the TARP is that it reduces current and future prudence.
Comments Off on The Real Cost of TARP
Tagged bailout fever, Bailouts, cafe hayek, prudence, risk, russ roberts, tarp
Inertia Wins! 
