14 Nov 2013

Potpourri

Potpourri 12 Comments

==> Dan Kish (my colleague at IER) says, “Leave the fracking states alone!” (You should hear him off the record.) In all seriousness, Kish is one of my go-to guys when I want to know the real reason something happens in DC.

==> I thought Michael Duff’s comment here was hilarious, not about David Friedman, but about all of us libertarians.

==> Glenn Jacobs (wrestling’s “Kane”) talks Austrian economics.

==> Remember the UC Davis cop who pepper-sprayed peacefully protesting students? Taxpayers are funding him $38,000 because he suffered after the incident. Shame on you people for complaining.

==> The EU doesn’t think US police are your friend…

==> Mark Skousen thinks the government may be adopting his macro model.

==> This is all over the place by now, but just in case you missed it: Check out these hilarious pro-ObamaCare ads.

12 Responses to “Potpourri”

  1. Bala says:

    What’s your take on Skousen’s concept of GDE? How positive a development would it be that the BEA adopts his model of GDE?

  2. Jonathan Finegold says:

    1. Are all those ads official (legitimate)? Or are they making fun of Obamacare? The only ones that don’t seem to undermine the case for public coverage is pregnancy and child care. All the other ones are like saying, “Let the taxpayer subsidize all the high risk and, oftentimes, stupid shit you do!”

    2. This is hyperbole, but if the Holocaust happened sixty years later, it would be the Jews who would be paying damages to the Nazis, for all that post-genocide hate the Nazis were “burdened” with.

    • Ken B says:

      Remarkably they seem to be real ads from two real pro Obamacare lobby groups. Life imitates Monty Python.

    • Matt Tanous says:

      I particularly like the one that equated being a woman with a “pre-existing condition”, because women generally have higher health bills and thus insurance costs. Does that mean being a man is a “pre-existing condition” as it relates to auto insurance?

      • Tel says:

        … because women generally have higher health bills and thus insurance costs.

        If insurance can’t take statistics into account then what are they supposed to go on?

        Does that mean being a man is a “pre-existing condition” as it relates to auto insurance?

        It’s pretty well accepted in Australia that men have to pay higher insurance costs, not that “pre-existing condition” is in any way relevant, but the insurance company follows the accident stats. Oh yeah, and insurance is compulsory, so if you want to drive you have to suck it up. Did I mention we have no bill of rights here, and that enforcement of things like “anti discrimination” is highly selective? Then again, I think the USA is heading for worse, we in Aus have adapted to how these things work.

        • Tom E. Snyder says:

          In the US the Bill of Rights is ignored so in practice we are no better off than you are.

    • Gamble says:

      Those are real, I use that term lightly.

      There is somewhat of an out roar here in Colorado.

  3. Bharat says:

    Bob, I hear you’re starting an army on YouTube?

    Just pick a video and look at the comments section (e.g. this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCh_0D5kgm0 )

  4. Cosmo Kramer says:

    So how big will his settlement be after we complain about the $38,000 settlement?

    • Tel says:

      It just keeps getting worse until you learn you lesson.

      Buddy.

  5. Harold says:

    Re the EU and police – The EU times is not worth referring to – please don’t give them more attention. It is not trustworthy and definitely does not speak for the EU. AN indication is in the “crimes” section, which only has catagories for Immigration, genocide, Theft and Terroroism. Example story “A shocking new report released today by the Federal Security Service (FSB) states that as many as 5 million Americans have been “disappeared” by the Obama regime during the past 4 ½ years and are presumed to be dead in the worst incident of mass genocide since the Cultural Revolution that took place in the People’s Republic of China”

  6. Tel says:

    This is totally off topic. I’m trying to get people interested in an online Artificial Intelligence programming competition, revolving around a trading game. Here’s my initial suggestion (which hasn’t attracted much interest):

    http://forums.aichallenge.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3773

    I think a lot of gamer type people are more excited by blowing stuff up than by trade networks, so I’m plugging my ideas here because there’s a mix of coders, math nerds, and people interested in economics. Also, other people might have better suggestions. Ideally you want a game design that is:

    * easy to implement
    * easy to understand
    * can be converted to a graphical representation
    * requires strategy and subtlety to win
    * does not have a trivial solution

    I don’t mind doing some of the grunt work and paying rent on a few servers, etc.

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