Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1580

An Open Letter to President Obama

8 March 2010

Mr. Barack Obama

President, Executive Branch

United States Government

1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. Obama:

CBS radio news this morning ran a clip of one of your recent speeches.  In it, you criticize insurance companies because they "ration coverage … according to who can pay and who can't."

My first thought was "not exactly; coverage is rationed according to who pays and who doesn't."  Ability to pay isn't the same thing as actually paying, and what...

Insidious

Daniel Kuehn comments on this post about how United States Sugar used environtalism to exploit the taxpayer:

From a purely environmental perspective, the move does make a lot of sense. The location of the refinery is very damaging for the everglades. And my understanding is it has been talked about and planned since Jeb Bush was governor – so it's not purely for the sake of U.S. Sugar during a tough time.

But the way that it has unfolded in the last year – particularly with Crist's connections...

Shocking

Shocking. Not.

Florida's plan to save the everglades really saved United States Sugar. The New York Times reports:

Nearly two years later, the governor's ambitious plan to reclaim the river of grass, as the famed wetlands are known, is instead on track to rescue the fortunes of United States Sugar.

The proposal was downsized only five months after it was announced. By April 2009, amid the deepening recession, the state said it could afford to purchase only 72,800 acres of United States Sugar's...

Not Terribly Original of Me, but It Must be Pointed Out to the Gray Lady

Here's a letter to the New York Times:

Paul Krugman says that the idea that unemployment benefits reduce people's incentives to find jobs is "bizarre" and at odds with "textbook economics" ("Senator Bunning's Universe," March 5).

Prof. Krugman must count himself and his wife, Robin Wells, among those who hold bizarre ideas – or who, when writing economics textbooks, misrepresent economists' views.  Here's what they wrote on page 210 of their jointly authored textbook Macroeconomics (2nd ed.)...

Trade and Worker Productivity

Here's my letter to the NYT on the op-ed by Alan Tonelson and Kevin Kearns:

Arguing for higher tariffs, Alan Tonelson and Kevin Kearns claim that the Labor Department is wrong to "deem any reduction in the work that goes into creating a specific unit of output, whatever the cause, to be a productivity gain" ("Trading Away Productivity," March 6).  These authors insist that, because American firms import increasing amounts of component parts for processing into final goods in the U.S....

Is the Productivity of American Workers Overstated?

Quiz time.  Read this op-ed, by Alan Tonelson and Kevin Kearns, that appears in today's New York Times and explain how the authors' understanding of productivity is confused – and fatally so for their case for higher tariffs.  (I've already sent my answer to the NYT in the form of a letter-to-the-editor.)

The jobs of yesteryear

I get a lot of emails from people worrying about America losing jobs to China. But most jobs are "lost" to technology. Here is a beautiful pictorial of some of the obsolete jobs of yesteryear. (HT: Planet Money) Mostly or all gone because of technology. Does anyone want their kid to grow up to be an iceman? Or a typesetter?

An Open Letter to Peter Orszag and Nancy-Ann DeParle

I'm taking this letter down for while in order to see if I can place it in a more-prominent location.  Sorry that it was up for a mere 15 minutes.

- Don

I'm Not Among the Faithful

Here's a letter that I sent yesterday to the L.A. Times:

Maxwell Kennedy, son of Robert, justifiably objects to the L.A.P.D.'s ghoulish public display of his father's blood-stained clothes ("Personal effects," March 4).  But there's another public display that I find even more objectionable.  It's one that, alas, occurs all too often, and an instance of it is revealed in the photograph that accompanies Mr. Kennedy's op-ed.

In that photo, the young and handsome Bobby Kennedy is standing upright...

Are We Living In Western Civilization?

Are we living in western civilization?  The great Steve Davies argues – compelling, I think – 'not really.'  Watching Steve's talk is very much worth your while – and not chiefly for the surprising prediction he makes at the end.