Bow Ties and Banjos

Check out this intriguing graph:

The whole article can be found here.  Have fun commenting, kids.

When I feel old and tired (because I am old and tired) I sometimes get re-energized by thinking of some of the things I’ve done and seen that I would not have seen and done if I wasn’t so darn old.

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I remember growing up hearing about the Wall, reading about the Wall and the tragedies that befell people who were trying to escape from East Germany.  I remember the fear of the Soviet Union, partly inspired by a country that had to build barriers to keep its people in.  And I contrast that to the vast number of people who still try to come TO the USA, not who want to escape.  That makes me realize that this is still a special place, a blessed place,  and I fear that it’s specialness isn’t appreciated by those who were not around to know what the Wall was really like and what it symbolized.

I remember watching it fall on TV; to me it was a more unbelievable TV event than any other I’ve ever seen, including the Moon landing in 1969 (which I also got to see).  I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to touch a piece of the Wall – there’s a section at Rice University at the James Baker Institute.  Here’s a picture:

Freedom is precious.  Learn from the Wall.

It’s great to be from Texas.  Even in bad economic times, there is a lot to be proud of.  We have relatively low taxes, a comparatively strong economy, a political culture that is compatible with my beliefs, etc. etc. etc.  And it’s nice to see confirmation of the pride I have in Texas along with confirmation of some of my strongly held economic beliefs – that prosperity is created by liberty, low taxes, freedom, self-reliance, less government interference and other free market principles.  That’s also the conclusion of this column from the Los Angeles Times that concludes California’s high-tax, high-benefit model does not work.  The author contrasts California’s failures with Texas’s successes particularly in light of the lower-tax, more modest benefit approach taken by Texas.

Want further validation that Texas is doing something right?  An interesting post today referred to the relative prices of renting a U-Haul truck to go from Texas to California or New York versus the cost to rent the truck  to go TO Texas.  It’s a remarkable difference, illustrating the relative forces of supply and demand (there’s a great economics study in there!).  U Haul has too many trucks in Texas, so they discourage the movement of their trucks to Texas by raising the price, and they encourage getting the trucks out of Txas by low prices.  Here’s a quote:

Writing about California’s troubles in National Review, I noted:

If you want to know where the future is headed, look where the people are going. And if you want to know where the people are going, check with U-Haul. Here’s an interesting indicator, first noted by the legendary economist Arthur Laffer: Renting a 26-foot U-Haul truck to go from Austin to San Francisco this July would cost you about $900.

Renting the same truck to go from San Francisco to Austin? About $3,000. In the great balance of supply and demand, California has a large supply of people who are demanding to move to Texas. There’s a reason for this.

Renting a 26-foot U-Haul to move from Austin to New York City in the first week of January will cost you $911. From New York City to Austin: $2,251. I’m finding this metric useful.

Like I said, I’m glad I live in Texas.

Eline van den Broek of the Netherlands takes only about 4 minutes to explain why maybe we shouldn’t be so fast to envy the healthcare systems of the European countries.  Be careful about what we wish for – it is sometimes worse than what we’ve got (which is pretty good to begin with.)

Even in the sports pages, you sometimes find stories that make the day a little brighter.  This story, about a high school volleyball game, shows why I still feel good about the state of America – there is still an inherent goodness in our country, in Texas, in our spirit.  It shows one of the rewards of teaching young adults – they very often do the right thing, without the adults having to tell them to.  People can still inspire; high school students can do great things; and ultimately it’s all about God, and faith, and people, and relationships.

Read the article – you’ll feel better all day.  I promise.

This helps explain why some of us are skeptical and cynical about government and the information we receive about the economy and the economic recovery.  This story relates the claim that the stimulus plan has saved 935 jobs at a Georgia organization.  That’s impressive – saving that many jobs surely helped that local economy.  But the employer only has 508 employees.

How can a business with 508 employees possibly have “saved” 935 jobs?  Just doesn’t compute!

The whole “jobs saved” statistic is so riddled with problems that it shouldn’t be used or reported with a straight face.  It’s a made-up number that is unprovable and unverifiable.  If we can get real economic data, we can figure out what’s really happening.

Be knowledgeable consumers of economic information, please.

At keithhennessey.com, Keith Hennessey reports that a former White House colleague of his, Tevi Troy suggests this method for producing children who favor tax cuts not tax increases:

Make each of your kids spread his or her Halloween candy out on the kitchen table.

Take one-third of it.

Say, “That’s called TAXES.”

Repeat each Halloween.

I figure it will take maybe two years of this to turn them into lifelong tax cutters.

For most kids, this is probably the first income they have earned through their own labor.  Maybe it’s better they learn about taxes now, rather than 10-15 years from now when they first ask “Who the h*** is FICA?”

You might see a cheating dynamic in future years, in which your Halloween taxpayers try to hide some of their income from the taxman.

This is pretty clever; wish I’d thought of it years ago when my kids were trick-or-treating.

I like this a lot.  Read it if you have the time or interest.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/10/27/the-constitution-not-that-old-thing/

One of my friends and frequent critics points out in a comment that I am taking the “conservative” position, one that seeks to preserve the way things are.

I recently had the good fortune during some class testing to begin rereading one of my favorite books, Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman.  In his introductory section, he addresses the issue of whether his positions are conservative. He wrote: “As developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the intellectual movement that went under the name of liberalism emphasized freedom as the ultimate goal and the indiviudual as the ultimate entity in the society.”  Liberalism at that time supported laissez faire economics, free trade, the development of representative government, reduction in the arbitrary power of the state, and protection of civil freedoms of individuals.

Friedman claims this labeling changed after 1930.  The 19th century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective way to promote welfare and equality. Post-1930 20th (and 21st) century liberals regard welfare and equality as either prerequisites of or alternatives to freedom.  In the name of welfare and equality, modern liberals favor a revival of policies of state intervention and paternalism. 

Modern conservatism, the type that is the intellectual successor and heir to 18th/19th century liberalism, doesn’t seek to conserve; it never did. It was always a radical philosophy. The focus is just very different – the modern conservative seeks to conserve those state interventions and social institutions that promote freedom and wish to change and do away with those that interfere with freedom.

I don’t generally use the labels.  I care passionately about freedom and liberty.  If given a choice between government provision and involvement or private, there are a few, but only a few, areas where I would prefer the government.  If that makes me “conservative,” so be it.  But those who misunderstand conservatism and think it is a lockstep movement in agreement and harmony on a limited number of social issues misses the point. Based on recent polling showing most Americans consider themselves “conservative.”  I understand that all “liberals” don’t think alike or take that same position on all issues.  So what’s the point of the labels?

Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, who became famous for his over-the-top statements about how the Republicans wanted everyone to die quickly as part of their health plan, has apparently created a website called “namesofthedead.com” because “Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die simply because they have no health insurance.”  Supposedly this website is to honor those poor unfortunates who die due to the callous, horrible American healthcare system. If you want to see for yourself, feel free;  I don’t want to increase traffic to this atrocious website.

What this website actually honors is poor statistical research and invalid conclusions formed from defective statistical data. You see its based on a study published last year by the American Journal of Public Health.  Here’s the problem:  they used data from a health survey conducted between 1988 and 1994. The questionnaires asked a sample of 9,000 participants if they were insured and how they rated their own health. The federal Centers for Disease Control tracked the deaths of people in the sample group through the year 2000. Drs. Himmelstein, Woolhandler, and company then crunched the numbers and attributed deaths to lack of health insurance for all the participants who initially self-reported that they had no insurance and then died for any reason over the 12-year tracking period.  They never verified if those who reported no insurance in fact had no insurance.  They made no effort to determine if those who died had obtained insurance before their deaths.  They made no effort to investigate the cause of death (really – what does death due to a car accident have to do with whether you had insurance?)  And lest you think this is nitpicking, the study itself notes many of these limitations, including limitations in its methodology of expanding its conclusions from its sample to the entire population of the United States.

Another source of concern: the researcher responsible for this flawed statistical research is the same researcher responsible for many of the claimed correlations between medical bills and bankruptcies and for the sound-bit factoid that claims an American dies every 12 minutes from lack of medical insurance.

Let’s debate realities using real statistics and real information, please.