Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1547

School Choice in the Land of Stalin's Birth

Here's Rick Hess writing at Education Week about education policy in the Republic of Georgia:

The 2005 law on general education, as enacted by parliament, declared, "The state shall protect freedom of educational choice of a pupil and a parent…The state shall finance education of a pupil from the central budget by a voucher [and:] every parent has a right to get a voucher for financing the education of a child who reaches school age." And, just for good measure, showing the libertarian bent...

Wisdom from Will

George Will has a few questions for Kagan. They are superb.

Oops, they may have made the data up

Remember that Daily Kos poll that showed Republicans are dangerous, evil, loons?

Mark Thoma quotes Bruce Bartlett who quotes a poll that shows Republicans are crazy. They think that Obama should be impeached, ACORN stole the 2008 election and other implausible or ugly "partisan" views. According to the poll,  24% of Republicans think OBama wants the terrorists to win. Another 33% aren't sure if he does or not. Frightening.

I went on to say that given that the poll was from the Daily Kos, maybe ...

In Dubious Battle

Ms. Marlan S. Maralit

Organizing Department

American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees

Dear Ms. Maralit:

Thanks for your mass e-mail this morning inviting me to recommend students for AFSCME's Alternative Union Break: Summer Session.  I understand that students who attend this four-day program are taught how to "fight for a better country," and to promote "social and economic justice," by becoming union organizers.

Alas, I know no student who'd be interested in your program. ...

The Political Animal

Here's a letter to DC news-radio station WTOP:

In this morning's 6 am hour, your Capitol Hill reporter, Dave McConnell, excused Sen. Robert Byrd's long-ago active membership in the KKK as simply being "something that had to be done in West Virginia back then to get ahead in politics."

No doubt.  But what does it say about Mr. Byrd that he willingly championed reprehensible ideals just "to get ahead in politics"?  And what does it say about politics that it attracts men and women, such as Mr...

Good day for Hayek

The latest EconTalk is Bryan Caplan talking about The Road the Serfdom and Eugene Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future.

And in today's WSJ, I give four reasons for why Hayek matters more than ever.

That Which Has Costs Often Has Benefits

Here's a letter to the Washington Post:

Deborah Hahn writes: "Until the damaged BP well in the Gulf of Mexico is capped, please publish daily a front-page picture of wildlife covered in oil, in misery, dying, unable to be cleaned" (Letters, June 26).  Ms. Hahn believes that "such pictures are needed to educate the public" about the "horrors of what oil accidents do to our fellow creatures."

Oil accidents are indeed horrible.  But they are the very visible downside of a product with an enormous...

Obsessed With Aggregate Demand

Here's a letter to the New York Times:

If Beijing doesn't further raise the value of the renminbi, Paul Krugman wants Uncle Sam to impose trade sanctions on Chinese producers ("The Renminbi Runaround," June 25).  Mr. Krugman justifies his embrace of protectionism by pointing to today's high unemployment rate: by making Chinese goods less costly for Americans to buy, Beijing's monetary policy allegedly reduces "demand for goods and services to generate the jobs we need."

If Mr. Krugman is...

Some Links

PERC's Terry Anderson – an incredibly creative and insightful economist and economic historian – explains in today's Wall Street Journal that it's safer to drill "in 'the backyard.'"  Here's a key 'graf:

When kids play baseball, there is a risk that windows will get broken. Playing on baseball fields rather than in sand lots, however, lowers the risk considerably. Putting so much onshore land off limits to oil and gas development is like closing baseball parks. More windows will be broken and...

The beauty of models

Eventually, and sometimes right away, they're ugly. The WSJ reports (HT: Reuven Koblick):

BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.

The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get...