voluntaryXchange

A Bizarre Map

Some of Mexico’s coastline has gone missing:

Maybe I’m nitpicking … but I looked at this … and then I looked at it again … and again.

I know the coastline isn’t really important to the subject of the map, but it’s there for the rest of the country to give a frame of reference.

Technorati Tags: map,mexico,oil,coastline

Could We Build a Death Star by 2500 A.D.?

The vXboy is into Star Wars; how could I not link to this estimate of how much it would cost to build a death star?

The skinny: 13,000 times the world’s current GDP.

My addition to the meme?

• Suppose the government takes 25% of GDP in taxes, and
• Spends a fifth of that on defense, and
• Spends half of that on building a death star, and
• Global real growth is 3% per year, then:
• We’d need 520,000 times our current global real GDP, and
• That could occur by doubling our real GDP 19 times,
• Which at 3% would take us about 450 years.

That’s right, by 2500 AD we should be able to build a death star, using plausible assumptions.

Technorati Tags: death,star,cost,build,2500 AD

Utah Legislators Are Clueless About Economics

Utah is changing how it’s state liquor stores revenue is managed.

Through House Bill 354, the DABC would no longer collect profits from the sale of liquor, beer and wine. Instead, the revenue from the 86 percent mark-up on booze would go directly to the Tax Commission and deposited into the state's general fund.

"Each year, we had a division bragging about much money they could make," said sponsoring Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden. "While it was great to have a source of revenue during these recent lean times, I was never comfortable with an agency trying to sell as much liquor as possible.

Because they were always trying to increase profits, Wilcox said DABC managers weren't sufficiently focused on the primary purpose of controlling the distribution of alcohol in Utah.

Let’s see.

1. They have a statutorily fixed mark-up.
2. All textbook methods to increase profits rely on changing the mark-up from zero to some positive rate that maximizes profits.
3. Yet, changing mark-ups works because it changes the quantity demanded.
4. Back to # 1: the mark-up is fixed, so they can’t change the quantity demanded (although it might change from other factors).
5. Back to # 2: there’s no evidence that the current mark-up is profit maximizing; certainly its intention is to be quantity mitigating.

In sum, Utah already has a system in which profit maximization can’t be taking place.

And yet the primary complaint of this legislator is that profit maximization is taking place.

Technorati Tags: utah,alcohol,mark-up,profit,legislation

New Sex-Ed Rules One Step Closer

Here’s the latest in Utah:

State lawmakers moved a step closer Wednesday to making human sexuality instruction in Utah public schools abstinence-only or nothing at all.

After long and sometimes uncomfortable debate, the House passed an amended version of HB363. It now moves to the Senate. …

Parents should be the ones who teach their children about sex, said Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden.

…

Wright said there's plenty to talk about.

"Why don't we just be honest with our children and tell them right up front that sex outside of marriage is devastating. There is no evidence that it is nothing [sic] else," he said.

As a parent of a Utah teenager and a “tween”, here’s what I’ve experienced.

We have had lots of talks with our kids about sex.

When our kids tell us what their peers know about sex, it’s very limited. Other parents clearly don’t talk the talk.

Our son went through an opt-in seminar with fathers in 5th grade. They covered far less than was covered for me in New York state in 1975. They spent an inordinate amount of time discussing deodorant.

Our teenager emphasizes, almost daily, how they cover essentially no material at all in his required health class. He has had this teacher for other subjects, and says that she is not a slouch. Sounds to me like she’s already afraid to cover anything.

The College of Science at SUU is in discussions to terminate it’s Human Sexuality class because there is too much push back from stakeholders about morality issues.

Technorati Tags: utah,sex,education

Pediatricians Firing Customers

Firing customers isn’t common, but it is a standard part of the discussion in management classes, programs, and books.

It’s what you’re supposed to do when the customer creates more costs than benefits.

Pediatricians have recognized this, and are starting to drop families who don’t vaccinate their children.

The reason is that these families impose extra costs on the practice and externalities on the pediatricians other patients.

Living in Utah, where many parents don’t vaccinate, I can tell you that this is a source of anxiety every time we’re in a public place and see other sick kids.

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: vaccination,pediatrician,ban

Literally Unbelievable

A site of Facebook posts from people who think stories from The Onion are true.

I get students like this once in a while, and they make teaching macroeconomics very hard.

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: facebook,onion,true,think,literally,unbelievable

Most Dangerous Keywords to Search

Drive-by malware purveyors are most likely to hit you when you search of these words:

Technorati Tags: malware,keyword,search

Elasticity of Contraception

Oral contraceptive demand is extremely inelastic.

Emily Gray Collins and Brad Hershbein report that a 200% increase in the price of oral contraceptives led to a decline in purchases of 2-4%. That’s an elasticity of –0.02.

Via Marginal Revolution.

Technorati Tags: oral,contraceptive,elasticity

Cool Photo: Rocket and Aurora

A rocket being launched during the aurora on Saturday night, near Fairbanks:

Technorati Tags: rocket,aurora,fairbanks

R.I.P. Jeff Zaslow

Quoted in full:

I didn't know Jeffrey Zaslow ("Remembrances: Journal Columnist Jeffrey Zaslow Dies at 53," U.S. News, Feb. 11). Nor did I know Randy Pausch, Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly, Chesley Sullenberger or any of the "Girls from Ames." Yet, thanks to Mr. Zaslow's clear and compassionate prose, I felt I knew them all, along with a larger cast of retirees, brides, parents, daughters and "average Joes" who peopled his columns.

As I read of his death, I mused on the piece he might have written about the writer and man we came to know. He might have noted ruefully that we wait until a person's death to shower him with tributes. He might have suggested that a life lived so well is better celebrated than mourned. He might have contrasted Mr. Pausch's months of preparation and farewell to his wife and children with the sharp, unexpected announcement received by the Zaslow family. I hope that he would have concluded, as I have, that every column—each a celebration of joy, loss, courage and resilience, a hymn to the ties that bind us all—was a love letter to his wife and daughters.

My condolences to them, to you at the Journal and to readers who have lost a friend.

Caroline O'Connell

Dublin, Ohio

[emphasis added]

This was a letter to the editor, published in The Wall Street Journal on February 16.

Technorati Tags: jeffrey,zaslow