voluntaryXchange

The Forgotten Stimulus Package

Ed Lazear points out that discussions of the need for a “second stimulus package” blatantly ignore the fact that Obama’s initial package was already the second one (and any new one would be the third).

How quickly we forget (or in the case of the legacy media, suppress).

By June 26, about $56 billion was spent on the stimulus from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed Feb. 17. A large proportion of that actually reflects mere transfers from the federal government to state governments, so the amount that has gotten into the economy is significantly lower.

But even if we call all of the $56 billion spending, it's still not enough to make a meaningful impact. By this point of the year in 2008, the Bush administration's tax-rebates got out about $80 billion.

Yep, the Bush administration got cash to spend back into consumers hands faster than the Obama administration got cash to spend back into … um … well … the hands of a different set of government officials.

Technorati Tags: second,stimulus,bush,tax,cuts,obama

Wilderness my A**

The Mill Flat Wildfire is burning up the town at the next exit of the interstate (photos here – my view looks like # 4).

Folks back east probably think this is a new thing, and don’t have much sympathy for “those crazy westerners”.

Except that a Federal agency has been letting this fire burn for over a month.

While the fire ignited on July 25 as a result of lightning, Eaker said the forest service allowed the fire to burn in the wilderness area.

We have a National Forest Service to manage these sort of things. In fact, here they are a few days ago talking about how it was under control.

Perhaps we need a National Subdivision Service to kick some sense in to them.

… Don and Connie Ondrisko said they too are angry the fire wasn't contained earlier. The couple are waiting to see if their 3,200-square-foot house was still standing on its lot next to the national forest boundary.

Don Ondrisko said when he called the U.S. Forest Service to inquire about suppressing the fire, he was told that there was nothing that could be done because it was burning in a designated wilderness area.

Ummm … if you live in a subdivision, you have a responsibility to not undertake activities that endanger your neighbors. Why does that stop when your neighbor is a National Forest?

Technorati Tags: mill,flat,fire,wildfire,new,harmony

Friday Fun – Horror Movie Career Starts

FOXNews.com has a slide show of today’s stars in their early horror movie roles.

P.S. How are we supposed to feel about the cameltoe in another FOXNews slideshow available this morning? Just wondering …

Technorati Tags: horror,movie,star

Cash for Clunkers as Contractionary Monetary Policy

The rebate one may have gotten from the federal government to trade in a clunker is taxable at the state level.

The big message in economics is that decisions have secondary and often unanticipated and unwanted consequences.

In this case, the clunker program is a form of contractionary monetary policy!

The reason is that owners are turning in one illiquid asset (the clunker) for a different illiquid asset (the new car), but the tax will have to be paid in cash – a liquid asset. Since liquidity is withdrawn from the private sector – ouila, contractionary monetary policy.

(Yes, there is an expansionary effect from the new liquidity in the state government’s coffers, but most economists would assume that this would not be large enough to cancel the contractionary effect since the change in marginal utility will be larger for a household than for a government.)

I also wonder about buyer’s remorse. How many people were not informed about the tax, would like to back out of the deal, and can’t because the motor on their clunker has been destroyed with sodium silicate?

Technorati Tags: cash,clunkers,tax,contractionary,monetary,policy

Cool Photo – Loch Ness Monster Edition

I find this kind of implausible, but the Loch Ness photo on Google Earth is really intriguing.

Technorati Tags: loch,ness,monster,google,earth

Why Our Healthcare System Is Great (In Spite of Low Life Expectancy)

From samaBlog:

One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks.

In their 2006 book, “The Business of Health,” economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place. [emphasis original]

Rob Sama drew that from a piece by Steve Chapman who continued with this gem:

That discovery indicates our health care system is doing a poor job of preventing shootouts and drunk driving but a good job of healing the sick.

That sounds a lot like your favorite hospital show – like, say, Nurse Jackie.

It makes me wonder if in the hospital dramas in other countries they have far less trauma patients coming in the door and far more unhappy endings for people with routine problems?

Technorati Tags: healthcare,care,trauma,homicide,accident

Bush III

Obama was going to change everything … because Bush was bad and mean and stupid and ignorant and stupid and mean and bad …

Except for rendition – which is now the policy of the Obama administration.

FTNItK: rendition is the euphemism for sending a foreign national suspected of terrorism back to their home country where they are more likely to be tortured.

N.B. Rendition was invented by the Democrats in the Clinton administration, but it was wrong for the Republicans under Bush to continue that policy, because it is right for the Democrats under Obama to continue that policy because they can do it better. Nyah nyah …

Technorati Tags: rendition,obama

Obamacare and the Libyan Hijacker Release

Am I the only one who sees the connection here?

A national prison system, in conjunction with a national health system, has discharged a terrorist rather than pay for their terminal care.

If you believe the story about compassionate release then you’re probably also one of the dim bulbs that buys acreage on the moon from craigslist.

Wake up! This is about cold hard cash.

Any economist worth their salt could tell you that as the marginal cost of housing a prisoner goes up (due to illness) and the marginal benefit of keeping them off the streets goes down (due to illness) that you’re going to see rational decision-makers choose to let these people go.

The message here is that if we get Obamacare, we’re not going to see “death panels” for Grandma. Rather, we’re going to see them for prisoners.

Think about some of the questions that will come up. Can we release someone because they’re expensive? Can we euthanize someone who wasn’t sentenced to death? Do we judge their potential threat based on their crime or their choice of weapon (even an invalid could use a gun effectively). What about prisoners with Alzheimer’s?

Technorati Tags: obamacare,libyan,terrorist,release

There’s a Journal for Every Paper

When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection" appeared in a recent edition of Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress.

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: I like this paper very much. I think it could actually be a good tool for teaching dynamic modeling in the classroom, and it comes with Matlab code. And you can’t beat this:

The key difference between the models presented here and other models of infectious
disease is that the dead can come back to life. Clearly, this is an unlikely scenario if taken
literally, but possible real-life applications may include allegiance to political parties … [emphasis added]

Via Geekend at TechRepublic.

Technorati Tags: zombie,infection,epidemic,outbreak

Spending Other People’s Money

More proof that politics is merely about spending other people’s money:

The council also had the option to look at going through a special bond program, the Build America Bonds, part of the Federal Stimulus Program that would help lower the interest rate over time and ultimately save the city and taxpayers [sic] money, said [retiring] Mayor Gerald R. Sherratt.

"Let's get going on this," he said. "It's a wonderful deal. We could end up saving $1.14 million."

Ummm … tell me again how spending yields savings?

Oh … that’s right … it’s what happens when you intentionally omit parts of a complete thought to change its meaning; as in “… would help lower the interest rate over time and ultimately save the city and taxpayers money [off of the amount of other people’s money we were going to spend anyway] …”.

Some people get this, but then they remember that their real job is to spend other people’s money:

Council Member [and mayoral candidate] Steve Wood agreed that going with the Build America Bonds program would be beneficial for the city, although residents may not agree since ultimately they would have to repay the government funding.

"This is wonderful," he said. "Although, I am sure we will still have residents that don't agree and will argue that they will have to pay it back anyway, but we really like the way this is."

In this case what is really meant is “… I am sure we will still have residents that don't agree [that we should be borrowing now to spend money they haven’t received yet] and will argue that they will have to pay it back [since we’re going to use this as a justification to do what we like] anyway …”.

This is a good time to remind everyone of Milton Friedman’s quote about the four types of spending:

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

FWIW: the quoted folks are in the local government of Cedar City, Utah. Generally speaking, I think this is the best run place I’ve ever lived – so these could be reasonably interpreted as the opinions of benevolent politicians.

Technorati Tags: government,spending,borrowing,build,america,bonds