Truck and Barter

All Vaccine, All the Time

Well, let's hope not. It's just that I've had limited time, and -- to my great delight -- the vaccine post below has generated a bit of discussion that I feel the need to mention.

Many thanks to the folks that have hit the post with a Trackback, including those where the discussion is most pominent including The Knowledge Problem and Catallarchy.

Let's restate the argument I did make: government purchasing policies, codified into law, have helped, in large part, to create the vaccine shortage we're all hearing so much about. The argument I purposefully did not make is that the government is 1) buying all vaccines "below cost", 2) forcing companies to sell to other buyers at their discount or "below cost", or 3) the sole and entire cause of the shortage.

First, the "below cost" thing. This is actually a possibile reality. In the discussion presented by the IOM, the drastic die-off of vaccine producers occurs at around the same time as the US changing policies over purchasing. Now, correlation not implying causation of course, there might well be evidence that the price the US government dictated was, in fact, below what it cost some vaccine producers to generate their stock of the goods. Of course, some of these companies could have been in trouble to begin with, some might have been bought up, or any number of things. I have no evidence on this, and made no claims that it was so. However, the limited number of companies able to produce these vaccines (actually 2 for flu; I mention 5 below, but those are for the range of childhood vaccines mentioned in the IOM report and the news articles) means that there are at least two companies for whom costs do not exceed revenue.

My point was about a "shortage", not a total absence of the good. Companies can still produce some of the good at a certain price and make money; no one's saying they can't. If no company could make money with these vaccine products, we'd expect either complete exit from the market, or government subsidies to keep them afloat. But that there are companies producing the good also doesn't mean that there is enough to go around. A cap on the price that can be charged for the vaccine means a company will make only a certain amount. This all seems uncontroversial.

Forced discounts work largely like a cap on prices. When the US government is the majority buyer of the good, pulling down the price that they will pay will dramatically limit the amount of profit the company can pull in. Production will shift to reflect this. With over 50% of sales going to the USG, this, in effect, makes them a price-giving entity. The other 50% is made up of other governments, private institutions and individuals. With some goods, it would be possible to charge the other 50% a higher price and make back some of what was lost when the government decided that it didn't like the price it was getting. (Well, it's not that simple, but we'll keep it neat for now.)

What complicates this is that vaccines have characteristics that make one type of consumer a poor substitute for another. The usage of vaccines is effectively controlled through the regulation of their delivery; medical professionals are the ones that can purchase and use them, for the most part. (I've still not seen information on the legality of someone calling up Chiron and ordering themselves a truckload of childhood vaccines; I'll be happy to adjust my thoughts accordingly depending on the information.) So if the government buys them to sell to doctors and hospitals at lower costs, and then says other people aren't allowed to do the same, there is a big restriction on the rest of the market for such vaccines. And because many of the people who would buy them (doctors in the US, in this case) suddenly have a low-cost supplier (the USG), the company is again unable to capture new customers to help generate better returns. Why buy from the maker when the middleman is selling them for cheaper?

More confusing to me is the argument that vaccines aren't produced in larger quantities because there is a lower return on them, so having your majority buyer pay drastically less doesn't matter. Such a practice makes slim margins lower, and creates incentives to bring the amount supplied down even further, which isn't good policy regardless of the level of return prior to the discount. But why do we think that the low return would persist in a more open market? If the demand were growing year by year, I would tend to expect vaccine producers to raise prices to make it worth their time to produce. Clearly the demand for these things is strong (though, I admit, it is at least partially driven by the cheap price the government offers); the natural incentive would be, it seems to me, to find a price that does make a decent return and to find ways to produce more for lower costs. Companies don't just ditch products that make lower returns than their big sellers. Again, as I said below, the demand is there every year, and every year we talk about shortages once again.

Now, as people have rightly pointed out, vaccines are not just an assembly line product. The flu mutates, and every year the vaccine has to be a little different. However, I sincerely doubt that these researchers have no idea what the necessary vaccine might be until, say, Oct 12 every year, and cannot start production until sundown on that day. Investment in R&D; might extend the timeline for production, which in turn could drive down costs (assuming that high-paced research costs more in manpower and hours worked overall). But it doesn't appear that we're seeing that. Also, the other childhood vaccines that are in short supply don't exhibit such a high rate of mutation, and so could be planned for on a longer horizon. The controlled delivery mechanism (having to sell to licensed distributors like doctors) would still restrict supply to some extent, but in the long run I believe the supply would better match the demand than the situation we have now.

(Sidenote: as to the nature of vaccines, they are far from being a public good. Clearly they are both rival and excludable. If they weren't this whole discussion would be moot since we could all have some at no cost to giving it to the next person. Now, a healthy populace might be more along the lines of a public good, but the vaccine itself strikes me as a way to make a public bad rival. But that's off-the-cuff and possibly a bit tangential, unless we want to discuss the reasons the government might be inclined to subsidize vaccine production.)

Compounding this is the traditionally horrendous job government does at estimating demand. The government could, of course, place a bigger order than it did last year. The reports from the post below, however, indicate that the federal government bases its estimate on the estimates from the states. So now you have to introduce the attempts to estimate demand from 50+ (does the US Virgin Islands participate? etc.) states with the constraints of a politically driven budgeting process. Will this year be worse than last year? Better? What happens when ordering becomes counter-cyclical? (That is, last year the USG had too much because it was a "down" year, and thus buys less this year, which just so happens to be a huge flu year.) If the government shouldn't be picking how many cars to make every year, why the hell should we trust it to decide how many flu shots are needed in your neighborhood?

Perhaps I take it too much as an article of faith that capping prices reduces supply, and government intervention introduces large inefficiencies. But I think in this case it's clear that by taking on the major purchasing role only to force a reduction in prices, and then regulating/affecting in other ways the potential pool of consumers for the vaccine producers, the government is drastically hurting the production and sales process of these companies, resulting in a shortage that is leaving people not only sick, but vulnerable to life-threatening disease should the unfortunate soul be old, young, or have a weakened immune system.

Bin Laden Studied Economics

I was going through some of essays from the university days and came across the following which I thought was relevant today. I wrote it in the year 1999 long before 9/11.

….it might be worthwhile to consider bin Laden's ideological roots, and how someone who studied economics and management in King Abdul Aziz University turned out to be America's most wanted terrorist.

Continue reading "Bin Laden Studied Economics"

Monthly Bill Fatigue

Christopher Stern of the WaPo lets people complain about both unnecessary and necessary luxuries. Monthly bills take up too much discretionary income! They are separating the haves from the have nots! Many people are spending too much money on cable TV, cell phones, and other services billed monthly! The rest can't afford them!:

Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills.

Excuse me, but consumers have discretion with their discretionary income; why should choosing "new" services be a worse choice for those dollars than any other? Should the "haves" choose goods and services that they think make them worse off? Should they be forced to save those dollars, or be required to spend them on Gucci handbags, or should they be redistributively taxed so that the poor, too, can get HBO? These are the fundamental questions, and no real answers are given to them.

Continue reading "Monthly Bill Fatigue"

Quote of the Day

A new cabinet Minister was recently assigned as Minister of Gender, Family Development and Social Security in the Maldives (shown in the photo). In a recent interview she was quoted saying the following:

“It is your (media’s) problem that you are promoting thin women and not looking at fat women (to find beauty in them)! Perhaps with the right medical attention those who need to thin needs to get thin…

I can’t see any sense why the media would conduct any program that promotes unhealthy dieting habits. Media should not air any programs that endangers health. We can still diet in a good way but I have to say that most of Maldivians’ eating habits are not good. We eat too much hedhika (oily snacks)! We should eat more vegetables and fruits. We should also eat the right amount and not in excess. If this is so, then it’s not a very big issue. Everybody wants to look beautiful. If in this era people think thin people look beautiful, then people will try to stay thin…It’s not good to go hungry to become thin.”

Real Interest Rates in Iraq

According to a frequent commenter on my Iraqi Dinar post, the private Baghdad based Al-Warka investment bank is offering 15% nominal interest on savings accounts (denominated in Iraqi Dinar). According to Central Bank data (pp. 28-30), the Iraqi government banks were offering 6.3% this June, down from 7% in January. If I'm reading this document right, Iraqi government debt is rediscounted at 6.35%.

The public banks are offering loans for 11%. If the private banks offer 15% on savings, how high are the interest rates on their loans? I'll try and find out.

Even if I can, it's tough to extract the real interest component from the nominal figures , because World Bank price inflation estimates in Iraq vary from 8.5% for consumer prices to 15% for the GDP Deflator. Meanwhile, the Central Bank bulletin (p. 29) shows price indices increasing one month and decreasing the next (however, food prices continually decreased and rent continually increased in 2004).

Overall, it seems that real interest rates vary widely in Iraq, so it's hard to come to any solid conclusions about the cost of capital made available in financial markets.

As an aside, I wonder how much capital is made available by the sometimes maligned Iraqi Dinar speculators who hold their currency in private Iraqi Banks...

Sad Maldivian Fact of the Day

In a recent speech, the President of the Maldives (Mr. Gayoom), quoted some alarming statistics on the prevalence in the Maldives of a rare hereditary disease called thalassaemia:

“Another health issue of great concern to the Maldives is that of thalassaemia. Nationally, one in five persons is a thalassaemia carrier and one in every 120 newborns suffers from this blood disorder. If preventive steps to reduce the incidence of thalassaemia in the Maldives are not taken, informed projections show that in 50 years’ time, the cost of treatment could consume over 40 percent of the per capita health expenditure. And what is worse, half the country might have to become blood donors for the other half, a nightmare situation that would be quite unsustainable…”

Continue reading "Sad Maldivian Fact of the Day"

Quick Addition on Vaccine Issue

Surprisingly, the SFGate has a clear and sensible take on the underlying causes of the vaccine shortage:

The fundamental problem is that government regulatory policies and what amounts to price controls discourage companies from investing aggressively to develop new vaccines. Producers have abandoned the field in droves, leaving only four major producers and a few dozen products. Only two companies make injectable flu vaccine, for example: Chiron, unable to supply any product this year because of allegations of contamination; and Aventis Pasteur, whose 54 million doses will be all that are available. (In addition, 2 million doses of FluMist, an inhalable nasal vaccine, will be ready.)

And make sure to read their suggested corrections. Not sure I agree with them completely, but in sum they might approximate the repealing of the bad policies that got us to this point in the first place.

Average Age of Automobiles in the US

Inspired by Buzzcut's comment on Steve Verdon post on smog, I would like to look at the mean age of autos in the US, and the median age of autos in the US. Since the mean is persistently greater than the median (as expected), the distribution is persistently skewed towards older cars. Is this distribution becoming less skewed over time?

Continue reading "Average Age of Automobiles in the US"

More Troops Yesterday -> Lower Readiness Today?

"We never had enough troops on the ground..."

Prior to the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. During the war, concerns about troop strength expressed by retired generals also provoked angry denunciations by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Countless times, I've read this type of criticism of the Bush/Rumsfeld tactic of sending in fewer troops to Iraq than many generals wanted. Now, I don't want to get into who is "right" or "wrong" on this matter, or on the morality of invading Iraq in the first place; instead, I'm assuming Iraq had to be invaded, and that the long-term goal is to forcibly democratize and liberate Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

We know that Bush/Rumsfeld paid a large price in Iraqi instability for having fewer troops. But I have not seen addressed the question of whether having sent in more troops initially would have actually cost less in the long run, or would have better met long-term objectives.

Note that I cannot answer this question, but I think it must be asked.

Continue reading "More Troops Yesterday -> Lower Readiness Today?"

It's That Time of Year Again

Fall is here, and that means winter can't be too far behind. As an anyone with a mother knows, that means it's the season for the flu. Fortunately, there's a pretty easy way to protect yourself -- get a flu shot! Sure, needles are no fun, but the vaccine is excellent at making sure you don't get sidelined by one or more really nasty bugs. One quick stick seems worth avoiding the pain and suffering of the flu. This is especially true for the young, the elderly, and those with poor immune systems, when the flu can actually become far more serious a problem. So, go today and sign up for your flu shot.

That is, if there are any left.

What this season once again means is it's time for the country to be inundated with stories about vaccine shortages, and almost no critical thought as to why this keeps happening.

If you have any faith at all in the notion of supply and demand, wouldn't it seem reasonable to think that that at least one of the companies that produces vaccines would see this cycle, and start gearing up production around summertime every year? The demand is certainly there; the government has moved into talk of rationing, fer cryin' out loud. Yet, here we are again.

Why does this happen? Well, here's the CDC's explanation:

In the United States there were recently shortages of many vaccines in the recommended childhood immunization schedule. Some of these shortages were widespread while others were localized. Reasons for these shortages were multi-factorial and included companies leaving the vaccine market, manufacturing or production problems, and insufficient stockpiles. Consequently, some shortages were only specific to one manufacturer.

Hmmm. "Multi-factorial" sounds pretty serious. Lots of things going on, tons of moving parts, too much to explain to the lay person. Well, let's see what non-scientist friendly familydoctor.org has to say:

A vaccine shortage can occur for many reasons. Some of the factors may be:

The company that makes the vaccine is not able to produce the vaccine fast enough.

The company decides to stop making the vaccine for business reasons.

The vaccine's supplier is not able to send out the vaccine quickly enough.

Often, a combination of these factors causes a vaccine shortage in one or more areas of the country.

Well, that seems reasonable. But...hold on. If people need and want it, and it happens every year...why can't you produce it fast enough? Wouldn't a company produce a little more in downtimes knowing that a surge is coming? But this time we get hints of "business reasons".

Unfortunately, that doesn't help me much. Business, to me, implies lots of things. Bad management, accounting irregularities, hostile takeovers, horrendous labor conditions. Maybe the corporation is just inept as well as corrupt, and our health is at the mercy of cold "business reasons."

Let's ask people who should know, like folks who study medicine!

The National Immunization Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) administers the vaccine purchase program for the federal government. Each state government has its own immunization program, which estimates the level of vaccines needed to assure access to immunization among underserved groups of children and adults. Vaccines purchased by CDC are shipped to public health clinics and private healthcare providers participating in programs for disadvantaged patients. At present, the U.S. government spends more than $1 billion annually to purchase childhood vaccines alone. Additional public funds are used to reimburse the costs of administering vaccines (through Medicaid and SCHIP payments, for example) and to reimburse physicians and other health professionals who buy vaccines for older adults through Medicare.

CDC negotiates a federal contract for each vaccine product, using large volume purchasesas leverage to obtain discounts on the manufacturer’s list price. The 50 states also rely upon the federal discount price for vaccines purchased with state revenues. In recent years the discount has declined significantly. The discount pricing process also has the effect of deflating payments to pharmaceutical companies, which tends to discourage future investments in vaccine development.

Hold the phone! You mean to say that government purchasing of vaccines at a forced discount has something to do with this? Could these be the mysterious "business reasons" that cause some companies to underproduce vaccines?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I say.

I suppose to anyone who was paying attention when this measure went into place and had a bit of economic sense about them, this is old news. And frankly, the point has been made before. I just think it's worth bringing up again. And again and again until people start to see the connection between government driven health care and undersupply of goods.

Imagine, now, that the government were to do the same thing for x-ray machines, painkillers, MRIs, nurses, obstetricians, and just about everything else. Government need not be the "provider" of health care to make lives worse. It need only be the majority purchaser, dictating prices to companies and potential doctors. Even with a second-tier in the system for those people who want to shell out money themselves for better care (though I have problems with people paying twice and getting one service), imagine the disparity in health care treatment between those who can pay and have access to the advanced care, and those who have to wait in lines hoping their heart murmer isn't something serious. How many doctors are going to choose to participate in the socialized system?

These shortages, that extend well beyond flu shots into treatments for preventable diseases in children are directly caused by government action.

Maybe regulation not only causes crime, it makes people sick, too. The Hechts from that last link put it best:

The flu vaccine shortage is just the tip of the vaccine-storage iceberg. Children (and adults) are endangered by the current situation.

For the Love of Property

Chinese peasants fight corrupt, land-grabbing, police-wielding, Commies:

[R]esistance to land grabs in China's 34 provinces has sometimes veered into violence, raising the specter of popular rural unrest that has haunted China's rulers throughout history.

Continue reading "For the Love of Property"

Brains out for Bucks

According to the Washington Post, brainy game shows are now dominated by former academic quiz bowlers. One question: what took them so long? Answer: They've always been there, but the big money is bringing them out in droves:

Tom Waters, a Savannah, Ga., golf shop owner widely considered the grand master of the game, changed his view of TV game shows, which he held in disdain despite his own $12,500 win on "Jeopardy!" nearly 20 years ago.

"There was a split in the community. Some of us thought 'Millionaire' was beneath ourselves. Some would swallow pride and prostrate ourselves."

At first, Waters took what he considered the higher ground.

"Then they came back with $10 million and I thought, 'I'm less a purist than I thought,' " said Waters.

He passed the tryouts but his fingers were too slow in the first round to get into the so-called hot seat and compete for the big money.

"The biggest hurdle is blind luck," he said. "The hardest part is getting drawn. I'm amazed at the number from the quiz bowl community that got on. One night's episode, there were two people I knew on it."

Thanks to Walter Williams, who always insisted that everything has a price.

Carnival of the Capitalists: Almost Anniversary Issue

Check out the CoTC at Drakeview, now nearly one year old! Note that T&B; has not appeared often in the CoTC, since I try top submit only exceptional posts...

More Economics of Terrorism

Despite having spent a good deal of time in graduate school looking at this very issue, I realized only recently that I hadn't been blogging much about it. Perhaps it's that I was worried that if I started, I'd just never stop, as I am wont to do with so many things.

But now, via Mahalanobis I see that Corner Solution has put up a couple of thoughts on the issue. Dochia has listed some interesting papers, and you should check out the trackbacks there as well. All interesting stuff.

The only problem is, I'm not buying it. Well, that's a bit much. How about I say, I'm incredibly skeptical of what's been mentioned so far. In specific, the supply and demand analysis of terrorism might be interesting, but it's not very helpful. I'm all for applying the lessons of economics to understanding terrorist groups, and do think there are some insights from institutional econ that would certainly be of use in understanding the functioning of such groups.

But here's my basic problem: terrorism is, by and large, becoming synonymous with suicide terrorism. (Caveat: the number of political kidnappings in Iraq will necessarily affect this, though it's been tracking in proportion with suicide bombings so I don't expect the ratio to be changed much.)

Here's the catch, then: suicide bombers die. Which, by definition, includes a cessation of all benefits from being a living person who is evetually going to be a martyr (Iannacone explains some of the gains from being seen by a religious group as someone that devoted to the cause; recognition, stature in the group, not to mention the physical benefits often awarded to families of suicide bombers like cash transfers, free housing, free education, etc.). To abstract these benefits for the moment, let's just call it utility. Why would someone choose to end the stream of utility gains by choosing to die? Perhaps the individal is other-regarding enough that the improvement of someone else's life is enough to believe that ending their own is worth it. Or maybe they're just crazy. None of these, however, are easily dealt with in the economic literature I've read. At least not directly.

Belonging to groups, as numerous people point out, confers significant utility to the member in a number of ways. Membership and the desire to fit in can drive a large number of behaviors. But why, then, would one choose to end that association through suicide? It's not that it doesn't happen regularly, so there must be some answer. However comparisons to other extremist groups that have resulted in group-suicide are problematic to me. The pressure from a group that is all doing the same thing at once (or in groups -- think Jonestown) exerts a very different pressure than getting an individual to perform an act where there are no others around. Seeing that your group is about to disappear, you may well be induced to drink the Kool-Aid. Walking alone into a crowded marketplace with dynamite strapped to your chest and no familiar faces around, it would seem, loses some of the direct peer-pressure effect.

Terror "firms" are interesting to consider, but of vital importance then is the idea of recruiting into the suicide bomber ranks. Supply and demand can potentially address why terrorist groups persist, why they use suicide bombers, why they're structured the way they are, and more. But I don't see that it addresses how you convince someone to stop being with a wife, children, friends and the religious community.

My answer? Two parts; the person is bored, and he or she likes killing people.

Taken in reverse order, some of this is semantic. By "likes", I mean that we should consider that utility is derived from the death of others. Think of yourself as a soldier in war, choosing killing over death. This utility isn't "pleasure", but rather the gains that come from having fewer people in the world looking to kill you. Even if the threat is only perceived, it's still a utility gain to see that those you think COULD be seeking your death are diminished in number. Some religious groups, or more accurately terrorist groups that use religious iconography and messages, teach to their members from the earliest age that their targets are enemies, and that the situation is tantamount to war. Killing the other side's soldiers in such a case is a useful activity and could, potentially, convey utility. So, when faced with asymmetric force structures, the person seeking to kill as many of the other side as possible will have to choose methods such as suicide bombing.

But still the question arises, why not just kill from afar, and live a long life gaining more and more utility along the way as the number of deaths increases? That's the boredom part.

Despite good evidence to the contrary, people still insist on claiming that poverty causes terrorism. What the authors of the linked study do find, instead, is that downward movement in economic position may well incite people to participate in terrorism. But they need not be moving from prosperity to poverty. Instead, I think, this is an indication that people's view of the future is a heavy indicator for potential participation. That is, the contributing inputs to discount factor of the individual as it pertains to their future stream of utility might be a big determinant in choosing suicide over living.

With stagnant or declining economic situations people may have little reason to believe that the future holds much worth or reward. Even those who would qualify as "middle class" (a highly relative measure, but let's go with it for now) could discount the future value of income/utility enough to believe that the future is bleak, at best. In a place where there are few jobs, and the jobs that are present are laborious and unchanging (the economy of Palestian territories has changed little over 30 years; or compare the incidences of terrorism in the economies of some former Soviet sattelite countries during the same time period) there may be little reason for hope.

With nothing to do and no reason to believe that things will get better (boredom) and a belief that killing the enemy could help (liking to kill), perhaps suicide bombers are rationally choosing suicide over living? Of course, the utility from killing needs to come in the moments before death, and there is a need to assume that the bomber believes his or her action will create change. So, it's not clean by any means, but so far it's the best that I've got.

(NOTE: This is done quickly during work hours, so I may update or refine later.)

Bill Gates' "Virtuous Cycle"

I like Bill Gates language on international trade and development:

"China and India are the big change agents for the years ahead," Gates told students at the University of California Berkeley. "We have to go into the risky new areas. That's what's going to allow the United States to stay at the forefront..."

"It's a little scary to me that people are thinking of this as a zero sum game," Gates said, referring to criticism of outsourcing and growing overseas tech markets.

"We're at the start of a process where the whole world is getting into this virtuous cycle," Gates said.

Whoever wrote that Reuters summary picked out excellent quotes. This "virtuous cycle" language is not unique to Gates, of course; but it occurs again and again in Gates' speeches, regardless of topic.

In a White House speech on 4/5/2000, Gates said:

[If] you had to pick who's the big winner in all of this, you'd definitely have to pick consumers. Technology is putting them in the driver's seat. Think about what electronic commerce does if you're trying to buy a product. It lets you go out to the Internet and look at products and services of every kind. Whether you want to look by price, by reputation, you'll be able to find products that never would have been available through traditional distribution channels -- products that are unique to your particular interests. And so it's the consumers who are in charge as price transparency climbs.

Now, that makes businesses innovate in a way that really wasn't necessary before, whether that's innovation in quality, customer service, or simply the price of the product. And it's that virtuous cycle that's allowed capitalism to work better in this era than ever before.

Just a decade ago, people wondered: Would the PC revolution eliminate jobs? Would it make jobs in some ways worse? Today, we know that certainly, on balance, technological advancement has led to lower unemployment that they've gone hand in hand. And so this technology revolution has been one of the greatest job creation engines ever.

In November 2001, Gates uses it in supporting open-source software:

But back to this week's visions. Diplomatically, Bill says free software has a role: "We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together."

It comes up when talking to Bill Moyers in May 2003 about international health and poverty issues :

Absolutely. And that is the most amazing fact that should be widely known. You know essentially Malthus was wrong. If you raised wealth and you improve health, particularly if you educate women, then this virtuous cycle kicks in and a society not only becomes self-sustaining, but it can move up to a fully developed status.

The virtuous cycle shows up when Microsoft reps discuss university-industry relations, and so on and so forth.

No snappy conclusion... I'm just noting how one man's mind works.

Moore for Free

Michael Moore has been disinvited to speak at GMU. Sad.

Don Boudreaux notes Moore's dismissal smells politically motivated. I agree, even though Moore's invitation could equally well have been politically motivated.

However, I object to Moore speaking at GMU for a reason Don doesn't mention: Moore is not worth his $35,000 pricetag. I think that the university was overpaying for his services; until Conservatives objected, they were suckers at the bargaining table. And there is at least one person who agrees with me--Michael Moore:

Moore, in a telephone interview last night from his home in Flint, Mich., told The Washington Post he intends to speak at George Mason anyway. "I'm going to show up in support of free speech and free expression," he said.

You see, to get Michael Moore at a discount--in this case, a freebie--all you have to do is give him a day's worth of free advertising in the major papers.

A while back, Robert Fisk admitted to a packed GMU crowd that there was no massacre in Jenin; his potent exposure of the injustices of Israeli confiscation of land owned by Palestinians was worth the crowd's attention. If Moore were only half as intelligent as Fisk, it might well be worth it going to see him.

Baseball in DC

I'm so happy that the Expos are moving to DC, not because I am a rabid baseball fanatic, but because the Expos are NOT moving into Northern Virginia!

Virginia Governor Warner and state Republicans get my praise for not being as fast and loose with the public purse as DC government representatives:

Washington, selected this week over Northern Virginia as the new home of the Montreal Expos, "put a lot more public money at risk than we did," Warner said.... "I am not going to put a lot of taxpayer money at risk."

He disputed claims by Bill Collins, a top booster for Virginia baseball, that the state was turned down because the governor would not support bond financing of a stadium in Loudoun County.

Warner said he wasn't the only high-level foe of bonds; that they were "strongly opposed" by House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman John H. Chichester, R-Stafford.

Warner said public dollars would have covered about one-third of the cost of a Virginia stadium.

In separate comments at an economic development conference in Richmond, Warner said Washington's bid for the Expos included about $100 million more in public funds than the Northern Virginia offer.

"We pursued it very aggressively," Warner said. "But I take very seriously my job as steward of the taxpayers' money."

Government bonds would have been "pledging the state's balance sheet" to the sports venture, Warner said on the radio show....

Warner said there was "no appetite" to impose additional taxes on Virginians to support professional baseball.

DC agreed to pay all the costs of a brand new stadium. Suckers.

UPDATE: Max Sawicky is all over this one.

Government Gets Out of the Way (A Little)

Note that governments can do sensible things. In the wake of the devastation wrought by serial hurricaines, the executive government of Florida is relaxing government licensing requirements for specialty building contractors:

Spearheaded by the Florida Home Builders Association, the executive order temporarily alters contractor licensing regulations in order to keep the state's home-building industry on track. The goal, says Edie Ousley, FHBA's director of public affairs, is to provide qualified labor and quality materials to begin the rebuilding process in regions hit hard by the hurricanes.

"We're thankful that the governor issued this order allowing out-of-state, licensed contractors to help with re-roofing homes in Florida," says Ousley. She adds that the FHBA will be "monitoring the rebuilding efforts very closely" over the next few months.

In other words, this requires local governments to get out of the way of contractors licensed elsewhere. Can all of us (who are not locally-licensed Fla. contractors!) agree that this is good policy? Should it be extended beyond the emergency period?

The full text of the executive order is here.

Regarding the "Draft"

Those who think a military draft likely should ask themselves one single question, "why the hell would they want you?"

In other words, you're not that important.

Hat tip: A former mentor, in a different context.