This is just nuts…nuts. In a world with skyrocketing agricultural commodity prices, congress wants to push through a $300 billion farm bill filled with juicy nuggets of pork like subsidies for racehorse breeders and $5 billion in direct payment to farmers whether they need it or not. Most of it is going to megafarms of course.

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It seems a little odd to be offering political analysis in a moment of so much human suffering, but it must be noted that the Chinese government’s response to the massive recent earthquake in Sichuan province is a damned sight more open and competent than I expected. On the negative side, China is still blocking international aid workers. On the positives side, the state media is broadcasting in what appears to be an accurate and timely manner and foreign correspondents are allowed to do their jobs. It seems that the regime is learning from the past. From the NY Times: (more…)

What would the world be like now if the human race was split into two distinct groups and kept evolving? It almost happened, say this article (more…)

Which presidential candidate have the soundest economic policy? Well, these economists don’t really seem to want to tell you: (more…)

Jesus made me puke: Rolling stone goes undercover at a Megachurch

Wetland water treatment: Georgia town finds creating wetlands solution to water shortage problem. Score one for innovative ideas coming from the local level.

Lasik, benefits fuzzy for some?: This is not really an AOTP-relevant link. However, I put it up as a public service announcement.

Denmark tops Economist magazine’s business environment rankings: It seems social safety net not incompatible with good business environment and responsive labor market. Think “flexicurity”. (HT: Will Wilkinson, who quips “These United States finish just under Sweden. If only we could adopt the Nordic model and have a less fettered capitalism!”)

Federal ‘Reading First’ program not helping kids read better, said study: No Child Left Behind centerpiece program not helping kids get ahead either.

DC Madam commits suicide: Faced with up to six years in jail.

Clinton-McCain Gas-tax holiday panned by economists Duh! In related news, Obama hits back with blunt 60 second spot.

Labor gets bigger, but does that means stronger?: Meet Andy Stern. He is growing SEIU membership despite the current hostile environment against unions. But is he doing so by giving away the store in closed-door meetings with bosses? (more…)

This does not happen often:

Political freedom loses much of its point in the absence of psychological freedom. Rationality and the capacity for moral agency develop. That’s why we do not think children have the same rights and responsibilities as adults: they haven’t developed the requisite capacities. But this development can be retarded, creating adults with little more than a child’s capacities, reinforcing childlike dependency. If you don’t worry about this, then I wonder in what sense you care about human freedom. (more…)

Federal Air Marshals are getting left on the ground because their names got on the no-fly list. So now we’ll get some action on the bloated and festering problem, perhaps? As for the rest of us who are inconvenienced, serves us right for having the same names as dirty terrorists, doesn’t it. (more…)

In the comments to my post on “free” public parking, Quasibill said that he would rather have decentralized power because local cronyism is less damaging than centralized cronyism. Here is his argument: (more…)

Aurora Johnson, and other dental therapists like her, is proving that you don’t need to go to dental school for four years post-collegiate training to fill and drill cavities. Ms. Johnson received a two-year dental therapy training program and refers more complex cases to qualified dentists. Although the program is currently confined to Alaska for now, with skyrocketing dental and medical costs, it’s hard not to see Ms. Johnson as the leading edge of a new paradigm of providing medical care that integrates less-highly trained professionals to provide some of the basic care currently only provided by doctors and dentists.

It’s hard to argue that Johnson is not doing the people of Ulaskeet, Alaska good: (more…)

Jackson have posted before about how publicly built highways are not an expression of the free-market. Now, via Yglesias, we see another way in which our tax dollars go to support the automobile’s dominance in America — subsidized parking.

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Talkleft — Snipes gets the max Wesley got Martha’d. Hard to root for the man who brought us Money Train, but isn’t equal protection of the law supposed to be a good thing?

Matthew Yglesias — Credit Where Due Yglesias showers Hillary with faint praise — or is it real praise? — for being a better obfuscator than Obama.

Andrew Leonard — The Washington Food Crisis Consensus Poor countries strongarmed into cutting support to farmers now feeling the pain?

Nabakov’s last work will not be burned Contrary to his dying wishes.

Megan McArdle — Commodity Soothsaying Megan refuses to play the commodities forecasting game. Mentions The Economist’s “$5 oil”cover story in 1999, just as oil started to run up. A gold star to any reader who finds me a jpeg of that cover plus the text.

Greenpeace activists targets Taiwanese fishing boats Just bizarre. Who died and made you the tuna police, Greenpeace? I’m all about protecting fish stocks, but not vigilante environmentalists boarding vessels and “confiscating” fish aggregation devices.

UPDATE: Better Taipei Times story with more details about what happened exactly. Will write more about the Tuna situation shortly. (more…)

Dubner observes that Starbucks in Manhattan are now listing the staggering calorie count of their stale and awful baked goods and mediocre coffee beverages in anticipation of NYC regulation that would require such postings on restaurant with more than 15 locations in the city.

A great natural experiment, he thought…

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No, not McCain. His good friend, real-estate developer and fundraiser extraordinaire Don Diamond.

Mr. Diamond is close to most of Arizona’s Congressional delegation and is candid about his expectations as a fund-raiser. “I want my money back, for Christ’s sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?”[...]

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Human are social animals and I think it is an illusion to think that we can ever be, or would ever want to be, completely free of others. However, I think that as societies we can choose how to structure that obligation. When we talk about freedom on this blog, it is usually in relation to the state. But the truth is freedom from tradition and family obligations can be just as important.

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Daniel Gross, one of my favorites on Slate, explains in no uncertain terms why the senate’s “Foreclosure Prevention Act” is such a terrible idea. (more…)

We’re less than halfway into April here in Taipei and it’s already time to put away the sweaters. In fact, it was already so warm and saturated with humidity today that I felt ready to keel over right over the bar in El Toro 20 minutes into my shift.

I was never so glad to see the first customers of the night walk through the door. The owner of El Toro, with reluctance, turned the air conditioning up to full blast. They’ll probably stay on all summer long — as long as there are customers in the restaurant. Meanwhile, the mercury is going to inexorably creep upwards until it hits a plateau around the mid to high nineties and stay there, seemingly forever.

This doesn’t make the owner happy. The current administration in Taiwan, in a craven bid to pander to voters, have put in temporary freezes in the price of gas and energy. But those price controls will eventually have to go, and Taiwan is steeling itself for a steep utilities price hike in the coming months that will undoubtedly be felt keenly by a populace already suffering through an economic downturn.

“If our utilities were $10,000NT (roughly $330USD)a month last summer, it might go up to as high as $14,000NT this year…” said Chef Charlie. The owner said nothing but furrowed her brows.

“Good,” I thought to myself, diplomatically not voicing that thought… (more…)

Sorry for the lack of posting, all. I’ve been on holiday in Japan and then started a new job the day after I got back to Taipei. But one of the good things going on holiday is good for is reading books, which I never seem to get around to in my normal life anymore.

From my vacation reading (Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen) comes this fascinating nugget about life expectancy in Britain.

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I am of two minds about this…part of me thinks ‘hmmm’, mixing sharp instruments and alcohol, that have the potential to go very badly. On the other hand, there is something irresistibly appealing about getting a haircut AND a whiskey at the same time. Especially at the price!

Morning Edition, March 20, 2008 · People have been gathering at a bar in the nation’s capital to take advantage of a Tuesday night promotion: Get a haircut, along with a shot of whiskey, for $12.

Since last year, patrons were able to come to the bar for a “buzz cut.” Then the promotion ended — not because the haircuts were bad, but because city officials cracked down. They say the bar didn’t have a permit.

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Why do I find this insanely amusing?

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) – A famous series of jokes uses the actor Chuck Norris, martial artist and star of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” as a paragon of masculinity and omnipotence. “Guns don’t kill people, Chuck Norris kills people,” goes one. “Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet, water gets Chuck Norris,” goes another.

Similar thinking can be applied to the current state of financial markets. Here, then, is the world of money recast in Chuck Norris terms.

Chuck Norris doesn’t target inflation. He roundhouse-kicks it until it begs for mercy.

The Chuck Norris dollar buys 3 Canadian dollars, and trades at parity with the euro.

Chuck Norris doesn’t supply collateral, only collateral damage.

The tears of Chuck Norris would supply enough liquidity to solve the credit crisis. Too bad he never cries. (more…)

It wasn’t so long ago that Alex Tabarrok was wondering out loud, “What credit crunch?”

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According to sex workers’ advocate Juhu Thukral on Democracy Now, ex-governor Spitzer did more than persecute prostitution rings as an NY attorney-general. As a governor, he actively pushed for tougher penalties for, um, those in his current position. You must have a heart of stone if you don’t find a little bit of gleeful schadenfreude in that.

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In my post, After Greed comes Fear, I excoriated the role of the unregulated market in the current sub-prime mess we’re in. Quasibill cried foul, pointing out quite rightly that the whole concept of mortgage-backed securities started off with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and all the rest of those cutely acronym-portmanteau-ed government-sponsored enterprises. To quote ‘Bill directly, “to lay this turd at the feet of “unregulated markets” has the causation entirely backwards.”

My response? I both agree with ‘Bill, and I stand by my post. It is possible for there to be both simultaneously too much government influence AND too little regulation. Read on… (more…)

There have been so many defaults on mortgages and the housing market is in such freefall that the chief investment analyst at Johnson Illington told NPR that for now at least, nobody want’s to touch them.

JOHNSON: If there are no buyers and you can’t sell it, it’s probably worth nothing…when you can’t sell a security, it’s really worthless.

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Jonathan Kulick over at Mark Kleiman’s worked out the rates for the prostitute hired by New York governor and former NY State Attorney general Eliot Spitzer at $1750/hr.

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Playmobile Security Check Point

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