Hybrid Hold-Up

If you are a fan of hybrids, please read this article and the articles it links to.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but if you are going to “do something good” at least make sure it is actually good.

“Public” Financing

I am 100% opposed to the idea of using taxpayer money to fund political campaigns. It is, literally, forcing you and I to pay for campaigns we do not support. Democrats tend to support public financing because a) they are less opposed to using tax dollars for this kind of thing and b) Republicans allegedly know more rich people.

The Obama campaign has true public financing:

He could argue that the collective action of 1,000,000 people voluntarily deciding to contribute money to his campaign is much more democratic than a government-imposed levy on the taxpayer.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this means Obama’s ideas are correct. Far from it. But I do hope that his campaign, and the overwhelming response to it, will show that taxpayer-funded campaigns are dumb and that if you really want public financing, ASK the public.

Excuse Me, Excuse Me, What’s My Motivation?

This is one of the best things I’ve seen in awhile:

Mike Moffatt has signed up with Stickk.com to try to lose some weight and he wrote to Tyler and myself.

I need to find people to give the money to if I fail, so I thought I’d ask the Economics blogging community for help. If you agree then if I fail at my goal, I will pay Marginal Revolution, or the charity of your choice, $100.

Here is my response to Mike:

Hmmmm….I am not sure whether to be pleased at the prospect of a free $100 or upset that you consider $100 in our hands to be such good motivation! Speaking personally, however, I understand the difficulty of losing weight thus I want you to know that if we receive the $100 we will not send it to India, we will not give the money to cancer research, we will not give the money to any cute animals instead we will use your money to squash the poor, to fight against universal health care, and to gas up our Hummer. Moreover, we will do this while drinking fine wine, smoking cigars, eating foie gras and laughing uproariously.

There that ought to help.

If there are other left-wingers out there who would like more motivation to accomplish their life goals then do know that Tyler and I are here to help.

Sorry to copy the whole post, but it loses something outside its original context.  You should visit the link though.  I’m sure the comments will be just as good.

This has me thinking. I mean, I’m not sure if this would motivate me or not. I know that my $100 is only enough money to pay the coffee kid for a couple days, so it’s not as if my failure would single-handedly win the day for the opposing side. But logic and reason aside, I wonder which potential recipient would motivate me the most?

Acton is Talking About Cuba

Read it here:

The way to change is to open up: to make travel easier, to send missionaries, to allow Cubans to attend U.S. universities, to import Cuban cigars, and to encourage tourism to Cuba. Now is the time to free the Cubans.

If we want Cuban to be capitalists, we probably shouldn’t be teaching them that capitalism hates them.

This is DC

From EavesdropDC:

Two GW students in the audience of the Clinton policy speech yesterday:

(In complete seriousness)
Guy 1:I should have brought my Capitol Hill intern badge.
Guy 2:Hmm…
Guy 1: My intern badge, I should have brought it with me.
Guy 2: Aww yeah man, you would have totally gotten access!

I love a good power-seeking DC intern story.

This Probably Explains the McCain Thing

I forgot about this until just now.

Email, to me, from Catholics for McCain:

Friends,

Here is a great article on the work Senator Brownback has done to bring conservatives together for McCain. You can be sure that the Catholics for McCain team is excited and ready to go for John McCain!

God Bless,
NAME REMOVED

Director, Catholics for McCain

My response:

Please take me off your list. I am neither Catholic nor “for McCain.”

Thank you,

Jeff

Can You Hear Me Now?

Where did she get the cell phone?

She owes her possession of the cell phone almost 100% to inequality. Here’s the brief history of her phone:

About 25 years ago, rich people in the West decided that they wanted to talk on the phone in their cars. After they reached a critical mass, companies decided to develop the technology into a consumer product. As a result of competition, companies figured out how to sell the product cheaper, opening the market to average, and then lower-income customers. Pretty soon, people in fairly remote places can throw up a couple towers and, although many never had “land lines,” can now use cellular technology.

Here’s the REALLY good part of the story. It absolutely REQUIRED wealth inequality. If you took all of the wealth in the world in, say, the 70s or 80s, and redistributed it equally, no one would have been able to afford the first cell phones. (Clearly the average American couldn’t afford one when they first came out, and the average American would be poorer under this scenario.)

This is why “consumerism” is not a bad thing. People in Africa can talk on cell phones because greedy Americans didn’t like going indoors (or to a pay phone) to conduct business (or chat with a friend).

Someone Isn’t Going to Be Very Happy

I don’t usually do a very good job of checking my visitor activity, but I happened to check it this morning.

Here’s what I saw from yesterday:

I’m guess that the “Returning Visits” will probably remain somewhere in the neighborhood of zero.

There goes my cushy appointment in the McCain Administration.

More From The Constitution of Liberty

“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful means that human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from trying to do better.”

Anyone care to guess the only organization that can grant “the use of coercion to prevent others from trying to do better?

Hayek on Ignorance

“All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant.  Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include themselves among the ignorant as well as the wisest.”  - The Constitution of Liberty

If for no other reason, you should be a libertarian because of this quote.  Liberals and Conservatives alike believe that a select few have the plan to save the masses.

Libertarianism’s “big plan” is to force no big plan on anyone because, after all, the planners are just as ignorant as the rest.