The Calico Cat

Erika at Apartment 401 has an interesting comment about student loan deferments and graduate school. She says, "For smart students with undergraduate debt, graduate school is an attractive means of deferring student loan payments until their salary increases, instead of trying to work one's way up the career ladder making $400 a month debt payments in addition to rent and other living expenses."

When you add in the student loan deferments to the stipend one gets for attending a PhD program, it winds up being a pretty compelling choice for someone who is having trouble finding a job that pays more than $20,000 a year. If getting a PhD essentially pays the same as working at a crappy clerical job, why not go for the PhD?

I was able to defer those hated student loans while I attended the evening MBA program at ASU. Between the partial tuition reimbursement that my employer gave me, and the money I saved on the interest free student loan deferments (around $500 a month), I actually increased my disposable income by attending the MBA program.

Erika, however, is just a little inside an ivory tower when she writes, "As more and more students graduate with high student loan payments, I imagine that student loan payments will become an increasing factor in college major and career choice, as these students opt out of careers where the compensation at the bottom of the ladder is low."

Probably, in Erika's PhD crowd, a lot of peope went to college because they were interested in the subject matter they were studying. I too found this to be the case at the University of Pennsylvania (which is a private Ivy League school for those who are confused by the state school-like name). But in the real world of state schools, the overwhelming majority of college students are only in it because they think the college education will help them make more money. So majoring in something that will lead to a what they imagine to be a high paying career is their number one consideration, regardless of whether or not they are borrowing money to help finance the degree.

I've blogged before about student loans:

Stop the student loan madness 5/3/2004
Student loan rip-off 10/22/2003

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It just occurred to me that we let 18 year olds choose their college major, a choice that will potentially impact the entire future course of their lives. Yet the very same 18 year olds are considered too immature to choose to drink a beer.

For the rest of my life, whenever I think of "The President of the United States", it will always be you that I think of. You inspired me to be proud of being an American.

A limited role for the federal government, lower marginal tax rates, a firm stance against America's enemies, the belief that America can do good in the world and bring freedom to those who live under oppression. This is what you taught me and what I still believe in.

I doubt that, in my lifetime, there will ever be another President as worthy of the title.

Today I discovered the very hilarious Kerryopoly game at the Republican National Committee website. It’s funny because the Republicans are supposed to be the party of the rich, and the Democrats the party of the average working stiff, but we find out that the Kerry family owns multi-million dollar residences throughout the nation. Click on one of Kerry’s Monopoly board properties and you hear a funny song clip. When you click on his $9.18 million Nantucket vacation home you hear the theme song to Gilligan’s Island.

Tucked in with his real estate holdings and his $35 million private jet is a box that says that Kerry will impose a fifty cent per gallon gasoline tax and this will cost you $657 per year. Huh, how did that get in there? Isn’t this supposed to be just a funny spoof about how rich Kerry is? Why ruin it by putting in this gas tax stuff?

The GOP has presumably determined that no issue makes voters angrier than a tax on gasoline. I tried to find a Gallup poll or something that supports this hypothesis, without any luck. But I believe it from anecdotal evidence. I’ve floated the idea past regular people. Regular people who are registered Democrats. People go crazy when you mention the idea. “HOW DARE THEY RAISE THE GAS TAX!!!” they say. For some reason people don’t care that federal, state, and local governments claim nearly 40% of their income. As long as the price of gas is cheap, they’re happy.

A Bush Cheney ad released March 30 attacked John Kerry on the gas tax. The ad says, “Some people have wacky ideas. Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That’s John Kerry. He supported a 50 cent a gallon gas tax. If Kerry’s tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year.”

According to FactCheck.org, Kerry only mentioned a fifty cent gasoline tax briefly in 1994 and never proprosed or voted for any such legislation. “Kerry's support was so fleeting that the only evidence of it to surface so far are two old newspaper clips.”

I suspect that what really happened back in 1994 is that one of Kerry’s advisers said, “Kerry you idiot! Don’t you know that supporting a fifty cent gas tax is political suicide?” And then Kerry shut up. Now he no longer supports a fifty cent per gallon gasoline tax.

FactCheck.org also pointed out that the math was wrong. FactCheck.org says this tax increase which neither candidate supports would only cost the average household an extra $598 per year.

Despite the inaccuracies of the television ad, the Republicans are still going with the gasoline tax angle. On June 1, two full months after the television ad was released, the RNC issued a press release about the new Kerryopoly game. Apparently, the most important reason the Republicans can come up with for not voting for Kerry is a gasoline tax that he hasn’t publicly supported since 1994.

Do any of the people who came up with that half-baked television ad have even the least understanding of economics? Is it a “wacky idea” that people will drive less if gasoline costs more? Just the opposite, it’s basic common sense economics! If the price of something goes up, people use less of it. What could be easier to understand?

It is widely assumed that use of gasoline creates externalities. The validity of this assumption is worth examining in greater detail, but for the rest of this essay, let’s just assume that the assumption is true.

According to an economics textbook that I have lying around my apartment, an externality is “an action by either a producer or a consumer that affects other producers or consumers, yet is not accounted for in the market price.” In order words, by driving your car around you’re creating traffic congestion, pollution, and dependence on foreign oil, all of which impose burdens on other Americans, and you’re getting a free ride (no pun intended) because you’re not paying for those external costs. If the cost to others of the externalities is fifty cents per gallon, then a fifty cent per gallon gasoline tax would cause Americans to change their car buying and driving behavior to a more economically optimal equilibrium.

For the reasons explained in the preceding paragraph, Gregory Mankiw, who was appointed by President Bush to be the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, supported a fifty cent per gallon gasoline tax in a 1999 article he wrote for Fortune magazine.

An increase in the gasoline tax is not wacky at all. If you believe that the use of gasoline creates externalities, then a higher gasoline tax is the most sensible policy one could propose. What’s wacky is what’s really in Kerry’s energy plan. Instead of fishing up ten year old newspaper articles, it’s too bad that the guys at the RNC didn’t just visit Kerry’s website and read his real plan. But sadly, they probably did look at the real plan, and decided that attacking the non-existent plan from 1994 would make for a more effective campaign strategy. Getting Bush reelected is more important than promoting sensible energy policies.

So why is the real Kerry energy plan wacky? That's the topic of a future essay.

“Mistress Lee” is the dominatrix who claims that William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, was one of her “subs.” If this topic is new to you, you may want to start by reading my first post on this subject, William "Bill" Bennett client of Las Vegas dominatrix.

I’ve received yet another email from the dominatrix (which she presumably wants me to publish). She doesn’t say anything new about Bill Bennett, but she comments on George Tenet’s resignation and on President Bush’s trip to Europe.

Keep visiting the Calico Cat for more updates about Bill Bennett and the dominatrix, including more of “Mistress Lee’s” thoughts on President Bush. Is Bush dom or sub? “Mistress Lee” has the scoop.

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

Wonkette has finally picked up the story about former Secretary of Education William Bennett and the dominatrix. Link to her post: Meee-ow! Hot Virtuecrat S&M; Rumors!.

This is a big step forward in the Bill Bennett dominatrix story. Wonkette’s blog is read daily by a lot more people than my blog. A lot of her readers are in Washington and in the media. Even though Richard Leiby of the Washington Post says she’s a “foul mouthed vixen,” her blog is A-list, so her posts get attention. My blog is B-list at best.

I never informed Wonkette about the story, but the same source who has been emailing me has also been emailing Wonkette. The source also emailed her about my posts. Wonkette allowed me to scoop her on the story because she says “the Gawker Media Empire Legal Adviser (a.k.a. this guy in Denton's building who's watched a lot of 'Law and Order') told us we should probably lay off.”

Luckily for me, I’m unemployed and rent an apartment. Nothing here for Bill Bennett’s lawyers to get. There is also comfort in knowing about Batzel v. Cremers (9th Cir. 2003) which seems to give a lot of leeway to website operators like myself. And I went to law school, so I can represent myself if I were ever sued for libel—although I had little luck using my legal skills to fight a speeding ticket I received on I-395; I took it all the way to a jury trial in Arlington County Circuit Court and lost.

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Wonkette also seemed to find the story about how I named my blog to be amusing. She quoted the following that I wrote in my first post:

That idea turned out to be a big failure. Sure, around a hundred people a day find my blog while searching for calico cats, but none of them stick around to become regular readers. They don’t buy anything either. I used to have some links to cat merchandise at Amazon.com, but there wasn’t a single sale. Cat people are cheap. That explains why I was able to buy this domain name from some guy in Canada for only US $400. And I was probably ripped off too. There’s no commercial value in cats.

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If you want to find out if President Bush, according to “Mistress Lee,” is dom or sub, keep visiting the Calico Cat.

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

“Mistress Lee” is the dominatrix who claims that William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, was one of her “subs.” This story has yet to be picked up by the mainstream media, but several blogs have already linked to me, including this post at corrente.

If this topic is new to you, you may want to start by reading my first post on the subject, William "Bill" Bennett client of Las Vegas dominatrix.

As previously promised in my post Bill Bennett and the dominatrix: where’s the buzz?, I bring to you this new email from “Mistress Lee.” She sent this to me after I posted her earlier emails. I bolded the only sentence where she writes about Bill Bennett. The rest of the email contains insults, threats, BDSM shtick, and boasts about how strong she is. It appears below in its unedited entirety.

Keep visiting the Calico Cat for more updates about Bill Bennett and the dominatrix, including “Mistress Lee’s” thoughts on President Bush. Is Bush dom or sub? “Mistress Lee” has the scoop.

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

Article in the Chicago Sun-Times about Jessica Cutler, Wonkette, and blogging in general. It doesn't say anything new.

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Much more interesting feature in The Guardian. It appears to be written by Jessica herself. She has some very interesting comments about Capitol Hill and life in general.

She has a very interesting description of "Fleet Week" in New York City, and says "women love a man in uniform, especially boy-crazy girls like me." Very scary, reminds me of an episode of Sex and the City.

She has some fashion advice: don't shop at Talbot's or Ann Taylor, the outfits from those places "are totally without any kind of sex appeal whatsoever."

And she tells you why you shouldn't write a letter to your Senator:

It's a must read for people following the scandal.

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The best way to gauge interest in the Jessica Cutler story is the sitemeter at the archive blog. Visits were down during the holiday weekend, but today (Wednesday) and yesterday there are approximately 25,000 visits/day. During the peak day of the scandal last week there were nearly 90,000 visits.

It's a scandal that never really made it into outside the beltway America. When I mention it to regular people I know, they ask "what's a blog?" The hip young women in New York City who would be the target market for Jessica's book have never heard of her.

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Ana Marie Cox supposedly gets paid a salary to maintain her Wonkette blog. I have no clue how the blog makes enough money to pay anyone a salary. Prior to the Jessica Cutler scandal, her blog was getting as many hits per day as my blog has been getting the past few days. I have advertisements here, hoping to cash in on some of the traffic. But I have hardly made any money at all. Enough money to pay for lunch, that's about it. My website eDateReview.com makes more money even though it hardly has any traffic. But it has targeted traffic, people are going there for a purpose. If you have a website that people are visiting for no purpose other than to be entertained by the content, there just isn't any money to be made.

My posts about William Bennett and the dominatrix have so far generated little buzz. Yet it’s a far bigger scandal than the Jessica Cutler scandal. All Jessica Cutler did was write about nobodies having sex with nobodies. Bill Bennett, on the other hand, is most definitely a somebody. He had a cabinet level position under President Reagan, was the “drug czar” under the first President Bush, and since then has been in the public spotlight constantly.

He is the author of many books, including The Book of Virtues, The Moral Compass : Stories for a Life's Journey, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, and The Broken Hearth : Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family. If anyone deserves to be called out for cheating on his wife with a prostitute/dominatrix, it’s William Bennett who has devoted his life to telling us how to be moral and virtuous, and making tens of millions of dollars doing so.

It’s Bill Bennett’s self-proclaimed authority on virtues and morals that made the news media so gleeful in exposing the story of his excessive gambling. This opinion piece by Michael Kinsley is but one small example of the kind of outrage caused by news of Bennett’s gambling problems. But despite the outing of his gambling problems, Bennett has not retired from the public spotlight. He still preaches virtues and morals, and now does it from the pulpit of a nationally syndicated radio talk show, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America.

Rumors of John Kerry’s affair with a staffer, Alexandra Polier, were quickly made public by the media, even though the whole thing was false. What’s the difference? Apparently, it’s acceptable media behavior to make public rumors of a normal extra-marital affair, even though there was very little evidence to back it up. But when a guy gets his jollies by being beaten up by a dominatrix, it’s too weird for the mainstream media to handle.

According to my anonymous email source, the media knows a lot more about this story than what I’ve reported on my website. Terry Neal of the Washington Post allegedly has an incriminating audiotape. (I sent an email to Neal that was unanswered.) According to democrats.com, Lloyd Grove of the NY Daily News and Josh Green of the Atlantic also have investigated the story. I am told that someone with detailed firsthand knowledge of their relationship, other than “Mistress Lee,” has talked to reporters. And of course there is “Mistress Lee’s” own confirmation that the story is true. I am told that there are casino videotapes of the two of them together, but casino employees won’t talk on the record because they’d lose their jobs for ratting out customers.

I am also told that this story is even bigger than just Bill Bennett. I am told that “Mistress Lee” has other high level clients, including governors, congressmen, and powerful businessmen.

I am unable to confirm any of this myself. (Of course, if anyone has any tips, my email address is on the sidebar of the blog’s main page.) The people who can confirm it, as well as publicize it, remain silent. What gives?

I already sent an email to Terry Neal but did not receive a response. Today I sent the following email to Joshua Green and Lloyd Grove:

We will see if I get a response. In the meantime, please keep visiting the Calico Cat. Tomorrow I will post yet another email from “Mistress Lee.”

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

On Saturday, I posted about the story that has been circulating since January, that William Bennett was the client of a Las Vegas dominatrix. William Bennett was the Secretary of Education under President Reagan, the "drug czar" under the first President Bush, and is currently the host of a radio talk show.

Now, for the first time ever published on the internet or anywhere else, I bring to you the actual words of the dominatrix, Leola McConnell.

Leola confirms that Bill Bennett was her client and that she has talked to reporters about it. She says that the story hasn’t been published in the media because “right-wing editors” are keeping it hidden. She also says that she is writing a tell-all book.

That’s the summary description of what she said. Now for the actual emails that were exchanged between us. You decide for yourself if my description is accurate.

At the end of each of her emails is a link urging me to support Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army terrorist group.

For the record, it’s the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, that’s the title on the homepage. I went there, I know the proper way to refer to my alma mater.

And as I explained in my last email to Leola that wasn’t answered, her name was already out there on the internet, and anyone using Google would have been able to find it as easily as I did. So there was no reason not to republish it.

Regarding her worry about “right wing nut case[s]”, I’m afraid that if she wants to see a real nutcase, all she has to do is look in the mirror.

Given the nuttiness of her ramblings, one might be tempted not to put any stock in it, but I have been in email contact with someone who claims to know someone with firsthand knowledge of Leola’s activities and clients. My source confirms that this story is real and that Bill Bennett really was one of her clients.

Please keep checking with The Calico Cat for continuing coverage of this developing story.

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

LA Times story about Ana Marie Cox, aka Wonkette. The story mentions the Jessica Cutler scandal, but it's really about Ana Marie and blogs in general.

Cox is defintely stealing all of Jessica Cutler's publicity. I suspect that Ana Marie will have a book published before Jessica.

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Wednesday's Reliable Source column is the first in quite a while that doesn't have anything about Jessica Cutler in it. I guess Leiby gave up on on it.

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Today was the highest traffic day since Friday, so there's still some residual interest in the Jessica Cutler scandal, but it definitely seems to be fading away, and I don't think the LA Times article is going to resurrect it.

Checking my referral logs, I found a referral from the following blog: Tufte's Economics Classes Blog. This is a blog that David Tufte, a professor at Southern Utah University, created for his microeconomics class. The idea is that each student has to write at least one post linking to something else on the internet, and write at least one comment about someone else's post.

My Organizational Behavior class at my MBA program at ASU (yes, not the world's best MBA program, I know) had a similar online discussion requirement, but it used a bulletin board system and not a blog. One big difference is that the entire world can read Tufte's Economics Classes blog, while the system at ASU was accessible only to those with a login ID and password.

This is a pretty interesting use of blogging software, and especially Blogger. The advantages of using Blogger for this type of exercise are that the new interface is easy to use, it now supports comments, Blogger supports multiple user blogs where each student signs in and posts with his own username, and it's completely free including free hosting at blogspot.

I'm proud that Dr. Tufte has listed the Calico Cat as an economics blog for his students to look at. Unfortunately, I've been mostly posting about political sex scandals because that's what people want to read. But I did recently post about economic behavior in the blogosphere, The free market of blogs.

In the past I've written a lot about the importance of marketing in today's economy, and I think my most insightful post ever was From Information Economy To Marketing Economy, which explains how our economy is changing from an information economy to a marketing economy because we are losing all of our information jobs to overseas competition. But be warned, I may have explained comparative advantage and mercantilism the wrong way. Don't assume that everything you read on the internet is correct!

Yes, the model of perfect competition described in economics textbooks no longer applies to today's economy. The truer explanation of competition can be found in the book Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter

It will be interesting to check out Tufte's blog in a few days to see if his students have written, or at least linked to, anything interesting.

In an email to Wonkette, that Wonkette dutifully published without comment, Jessica wrote:

I think this is its own mini-scandal right there. Staffers who work for Senators who pass laws and appropriate money to fight the "war on drugs," do drugs themselves in blatant disregard of the law.

I know of someone who was fired from a contracting position at an irrelevant government office in outside the beltway Virginia because he stupidly confessed in his background investigation forms that he smoked a joint while he was in high school. Meanwhile, the staff who work on Capitol Hill do coke after work. How is that right?

Check out the blog Last One Speaks for daily coverage of the hypocrisy of the war on drugs.

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In the rest of the email, Jessica brags about signing with a literary agent to write a novel, and she talks about the Kate Spade heels she wore to her Playboy interview. Kate Spade shoes start at over $200, I guess we know where she got the money from.

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I guess that Wonkette's comments about Jessica needing pyschiatric help haven't stopped her from receiving these exclusive email updates.

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Found an interesting bulletin board discussion of the Michelle Malkin opinion piece. The topic name of the thread: Here's how 24yr old D.C. girls supplement their 26K/year income.

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Jessica Cutler is the #1 search mover at MSN again. I don't understand why it keeps disappearing and then showing up again as #1. I can only conclude that Microsoft's software is buggy.

UPDATE

I think this story is a hoax. Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix.

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Jessica Cutler is no longer a top search mover at MSN. Otherwise, nothing is new on the Jessica Cutler front since my last update.

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Looking for something else to read? Why not check out this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, which is a collection of posts from around the blogosphere on topics related to business and economics.

After five days, Richard Leiby finally puts in print the truth about Jessica Cutler's age and lack of a college degree. Appearing in today's Washington Post:

Jessica Cutler's age being 26, not 24, was first blogged about here five days ago: Evidence that Jessica Cutler is 26, not 24.

And four days ago, the blog Destiny-land first posted that Jessica Cutler didn't graduate from college: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY SPEAKS!! DESTINYLAND EXCLUSIVE!! MUST CREDIT DESTINYLAND!!!.

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"Jessica Cutler" once again shows up as the #1 search mover at MSN, so traffic is up a bit from people clicking on the link, people who probably have no idea who Jessica Cutler is.

Unfortunately, The Calico Cat is moving down in the MSN search results, for mysterious reasons known only to the guys who programmed the algorithm.