Economic interests promote freedom May 3, 2012
Posted by federalist in Economic Policy, RKBA.Tags: FFA, NFA
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Minnesota is one of the 10 states where gun silencers are still prohibited. But when a gun company threatened to move its manufacturing to a neighboring state, Shooting Wire reports:
A couple of weeks ago, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed a bit of legislation (H.F. 1816) into law that accomplished a couple of things. The primary goal – allowing Minnesota firearms dealers to legally possess suppressors for research and development, product demonstrations and law enforcement sales, was one that was easy to see.
The second thing it accomplished was actually what it prevented. It kept JP Enterprises from leaving Minnesota for more a more hospitable business climate. If the bill hadn’t passed, JP Enterprises had planned a relocation to either Wisconsin or South Dakota – places where the suppressor laws were more lenient.
I don’t think JP is even a notably large employer.
I wonder if a large number of gun manufacturers got together they could exert enough economic leverage to get the Firearms Freedom Act passed in one or more states? It would certainly be profitable in a large state since commerce in suppressors and “short-barrel” rifles would be liberated from the ATF’s $200 tax, paperwork, and excessive delays before buyers can take possession.
Realtor Cartel Update: Massachusetts April 25, 2012
Posted by federalist in Real Estate.add a comment
One way that people have gotten around the Realtor Cartel is by nominally joining it. Indeed, when the barriers to entry are only a few thousand dollars of test and licensing fees it can make sense to join the cartel (i.e., become a “Realtor”) just to save on the costs of a single property sale.
The Massachusetts cartel moved in 1999 to raise its barriers with a “continuing education” requirement. This had the intended effect: The number of licensed agents fell 58%. The justification for the requirement was that it would improve the cartel’s service to the public. A study just released by Benjamin Powell and Evgeny Vorotnikov concludes this was a sham:
The study found no evidence that either the volume of complaints, or those requiring a response from the board, decreased after mandating the continuing education courses.
In other words, full-time agents changed the law to limit their competition from part-timers and enhanced their own incomes in the process. Sadly, the much-touted benefit to consumers has yet to be seen.
How much of Higher Education is Content? April 20, 2012
Posted by federalist in Education.add a comment
Because if there’s one thing the information age has taught us it’s that content wants to be free.
Lectures look to me as much like content as movies and music. Five years ago I wondered why we weren’t simply recording and distributing the best lectures by the best lecturers, instead of charging students to attend small performances of lower quality in person.
Since then we have seen an explosion in “open-source” courses offered by universities. The Khan Academy led a proliferation of excellent, free, online teaching for K-12 students, and is no longer alone.
Now here comes Silicon Valley with the for-profit tech ventures that aim to provide free online education and, somehow, make money on the side. Since what they’re doing is providing content presumably the initial business strategies will mimic all other profitable content providers: upselling and advertising.
And eventually they should find a way to undermine the old-fashioned higher-education cartel. I’m kind of surprised it has taken so long.
Currency Arbitrage – Update April 9, 2012
Posted by federalist in Finance.add a comment
The Canadian government has finally decided to stop minting pennies, something we should have done years ago.
Economics of Human Sex Markets February 27, 2012
Posted by federalist in Human Markets.2 comments
I recently came across Hooking Up Smart, a blog aimed at young women that tries to explain the practical realities of the market for sex. These are both simple and interesting:
The commodities that trade on human sexual markets are Commitment, Sex, and Attractiveness. The first two commodities are behavioral, so their supply can fluctuate with social norms, whereas Attractiveness is mostly fixed and out of the control of each market participant. (Both genders have evolved Attraction to gene-linked “beauty” characteristics of the opposite sex, many of which are immutable, that contribute to the survival and success of offspring. What men experience as sexual Attraction is generally a combination of a woman’s “beauty” and apparent fertility. What women experience as Attraction is generally a combination of male “beauty” together with a man’s power, wealth, or social status. In each case the most Attractive market participants enjoy above-average sexual capital and are referred to as “alphas.”)
Men make the market for Commitment: A male’s optimal reproductive strategy is to inseminate any woman who might bear children, but only to support women with children who are (likely to be) his own. Given the chance, a man will try to “lock up” the most Attractive women he can, at least while they are fertile; sex with more promiscuous or less fertile women is a lower-cost but less reliable means of reproduction.
Women set the market price for Sex: They have relatively few shots at reproduction, and they disproportionately bear its costs. The primal female mind balances the value of a prospective mate’s genes to her offspring with the fact that his long-term support might more than overcome genetic deficiencies when it comes to her children’s survival.
Given these instincts, an optimal human sexual market would be one that “clears” only via committed monogamy. If sex is traded by women only to men who trade commitment, then everyone in the market can have their sexual instincts satisfied. Note that this social arrangement was the western ideal (if not reality) for many centuries: Men agreeing to long-term support of a woman and her offspring in exchange for that woman’s sexual availability and fidelity.
Another arrangement that has appeared frequently in human societies is committed polygyny (i.e., one man potentially committing to multiple women). Relative winners in this regime are alpha males and beta females. Women generally have a strong instinct for hypergamy (i.e., “marrying up” to obtain the best possible genes and/or resources for their children). Polygyny gives the most number of women access to the most desirable men. Losers in polygynous societies are alpha females (who can’t secure the commitment of alpha males, as they can in a monogamous society) and beta males (who are deprived of the chance to mate at all). A large population of unmated men tends to be destabilizing, so polygyny tends to work only when alpha males have enough power to contain those destabilizing forces, or else when the sex ratio of a population is highly skewed (e.g., due to protracted mortal warfare).
Hooking Up Smart links to a good essay by Robert Frank on modern marriage (a.k.a., Commitment) markets. Most of the blog’s content deals with the fallout of the western 20th-century “sexual/feminist revolution,” which vastly lowered the market price for Sex and consequently reduced the supply of Commitment. The consequences, for both society and individuals, have been terrible. The only winners in this regime seem to be alpha males and sexually sociopathic females. (And this is disregarding the toll taken by an explosion in sexually-transmitted diseases.)
Higher Education Bubble Update January 31, 2012
Posted by federalist in Education.add a comment
The higher education industry’s credential cartel is under financial threat, … legal threat, [and] cultural threat.
That’s the latest from James Taranto, who has been one of the more eloquent heralds of the higher education bubble. He elaborates on the credential-writing nature of the cartel:
The industry has exploded over the past few decades based on a business model that focuses more on selling the college degree as a credential–an “investment” that yields an increase in one’s own “human capital”–than on persuading young adults that education is intrinsically valuable.
If someone could offer a less expensive job-hunting license–one that assessed an entry-level job-seeker’s worth to a prospective employer at least as accurately as a college degree does–then the demand for college would plummet, as young adults could realize the same gains from a much smaller investment.
Last year I proposed a facetious alternative.
Charles Murray is another scourge of higher education I have cited frequently. His latest commentary on the subject is buried in a withering attack on the Department of Education:
The bachelor of arts degree as it has evolved over the last half-century has become the work of the devil. It is now a substantively meaningless piece of paper—genuinely meaningless, if you don’t know where the degree was obtained and what courses were taken. It is expensive, too…. And yet the B.A. has become the minimum requirement for getting a job interview for millions of jobs, a cost-free way for employers to screen for a certain amount of IQ and perseverance. Employers seldom even bother to check grades or courses, being able to tell enough about a graduate just by knowing the institution that he or she got into as an 18-year-old.
So what happens when a paper credential is essential for securing a job interview, but that credential can be obtained by taking the easiest courses and doing the minimum amount of work? The result is hundreds of thousands of college students who go to college not to get an education, but to get a piece of paper. When the dean of one East Coast college is asked how many students are in his institution, he likes to answer, “Oh, maybe six or seven.” The situation at his college is not unusual. The degradation of American college education is not a matter of a few parents horrified at stories of silly courses, trivial study requirements, and campus binge drinking. It has been documented in detail, affects a large proportion of the students in colleges, and is a disgrace.
Lazy Law: BATFE edition January 4, 2012
Posted by federalist in Government Regulation, RKBA.add a comment
It is unfair for ATF to hold individuals to a standard that they cannot articulate themselves.
In a prime example of Lazy Law, the Washington Times describes how the ATF hurts the firearms industry with capricious, secret, and at times contradictory bureaucratic rulings on what manufacturers can build. The Bureau issues approvals for products that it can arbitrarily revoke at any time without compensation to those who lose money as a result.
Lazy Law Update December 12, 2011
Posted by federalist in Government Regulation.add a comment
During a long story on one example, the WSJ offers this update on the proliferation of laws, rules, and prosecutorial power I call Lazy Law:
Today, there are an estimated 4,500 federal crimes on the books, a significant increase from the three in the Constitution (treason, piracy and counterfeiting). There is an additional, and much larger, number of regulations written to enforce the laws. …
Many of these federal infractions are now easier to prosecute than in the past because of a weakening in a bedrock doctrine of Anglo-American jurisprudence: the principle of mens rea, or “guilty mind,” which holds that a person shouldn’t be convicted if he hasn’t shown an intent to do something wrong.
Precious Metals September 30, 2011
Posted by federalist in Markets.add a comment
What is the lingering obsession with gold? I was amused by an ad campaign launched this month by Palladium Alliance International: “I’m so over heavy metal” points out that palladium is intrinsically more desirable for white metal jewelry than silver, platinum, or alloyed gold.
Whether you’re buying metal for investment or for jewelry the relative merits of palladium are compelling:
- Unlike gold, palladium has significant industrial uses (similar to platinum) that provide price support near its current trading levels.
- Palladium is as rare as gold and platinum, but currently sells at less than half the price.
- Palladium is stronger than silver and gold.
- Palladium is light — half as dense as gold and platinum, almost as light as silver.
- Palladium doesn’t tarnish like silver.
Score: Bubbles & manias – 1; Efficient Markets – 0.
Education QOTD from Montessori August 17, 2011
Posted by federalist in Education.add a comment
Traditional American schooling is in constant crisis because it is based on two poor models for children’s learning: the school as a factory and the child as a blank slate.
From Angeline Lillard’s Monetsorri: The Science Behind the Genius.
Law Education Update July 17, 2011
Posted by federalist in Education, Judiciary.add a comment
Medical students learn from real doctors in a real hospital during their education. In law, we’re learning from a bunch of academics who have deliberately elected not to pursue law as a profession.
Higher Education Update July 6, 2011
Posted by federalist in Education.3 comments
“Let’s Face It: Not All Students Are College Material.” (WSJ letter.)
In the debate over whether expensive and highly selective colleges lead to higher salaries, the latest answer is “no”—with a few exceptions.
The exceptions: black and Hispanic students and students whose parents didn’t get past high school. Top schools give such students access to networks otherwise out of reach, the researchers suggested.
Yale University raised $3.88 billion amid tough economic times, finishing the largest fund-raising campaign in its history that will help pay for its biggest expansion in decades, extend its international reach and make its school of music tuition free. The campaign exceeded its goal of $3.5 billion. More than 110,000 alumni, parents, friends, corporations and foundations contributed.
Infant formula vs breastmilk: oops June 24, 2011
Posted by federalist in Healthcare.Tags: breast vs. bottle, breastfeeding
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Advertisements for Enfamil powdered milk often include a striking chart showing that its formula produces infants with mental performance just short of that of breastfed babies, and 7 points higher than that of babies fed its previous formula, which wasn’t supplemented with DHA and ARA.
It appears they’re referencing a study published in the March 2000 Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. The performance metric was the Mental Development Index of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) II.
Anyone who has had a baby in this country knows that there is a raging war between breastfeeding fanatics and their opponents who maintain that (1) not every woman has the capacity or luxury to exclusively breastfeed her babies, and that (2) formula is a reasonable alternative to breastfeeding. The former “breast nazis” tend not to tolerate exceptions to the “breast is best” mantra: Failing to exclusively breastfeed is considered tantamount to child abuse because even modern formula fails to confer all of the health benefits of breast milk. Meanwhile, two generations of adults who were often raised exclusively on formula say, “Relax, we turned out alright.”
Without wading into the debate or the data, I had sympathies for both groups: One would presume that human milk is the optimal food for human babies, and it seems unlikely that scientists have identified and mass-produced every nutrient that breasts distill. On the other hand, it’s obvious that the full range of human potential has been realized in people who never tasted breast milk, and while we may not have perfected it there has been plenty of scientific attention to producing a formulaic substitute.
There exist many legitimate circumstantial obstacles to breastfeeding, so individual feeding practices should generally be respected. But this Enfamil study makes a strong argument for the “Breast is Best” camp: After all, up until ten years ago formula lacked two nutrients that contribute to a significant and measurable improvement in infant development. Oops! So what else is our formula missing, and what is the associated price we’re paying in human health and performance? The short answer: We’ll never know.
Formula has three extraordinary hurdles to jump before it can even begin to address this sort of question:
- A specific nutrient has to be identified that is lacking in the existing formula but is present in breast milk
- A performance test has to be created that can be applied to babies
- A double-blind test has to be run that shows a statistically significant difference in performance between babies fed with and without the nutrient
Perhaps the greatest obstacle is the second. For example, what developmental benchmarks are missing from the BSID? Not only is it hard to measure a baby’s performance on anything, but there is also quite a limit to the performance they can even display at such an early stage of development. Our best current tests might still be missing some testable characteristics, but they are certainly missing untestable or latent characteristics that manifest themselves later in life. However, by the time a human is fully developed any “breast vs. formula” effect has been so muddied by other nurturing factors that it can’t be statistically discerned.
Legal Cartel Update May 20, 2011
Posted by federalist in Judiciary.add a comment
I have complained before about the legal cartel’s barriers to practicing law. I did not realize that the cartel extends to financial participation in legal practice:
The ban on law firms accepting nonlawyer investors is nationwide, with the exception of Washington, D.C., under ethics rules established largely by state supreme courts. Violations of the rules can lead to disbarment.
The restriction on investors is decades old and stems from even older strictures against lawyers sharing fees with nonlawyers, for fear that might compromise their professional independence.
The present system of ownership restrictions “perpetuates economic inequity,” Jacoby & Meyers said in Wednesday’s court filings. “The small [legal] practice does not have access to the capital markets that the Wall Street [law] firms have,” it added.
QOTD: The Higher Education Bubble May 19, 2011
Posted by federalist in Education.1 comment so far
From an article on Peter Thiel:
“Universities are like the General Motors of the 1970s,” said Mr. Thiel, a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School. “They’re incredibly dominant, incredibly arrogant and impervious to change.”
“I don’t think there’s anything controversial about an education bubble,” he said. “Price is up by a factor of 10; quality hasn’t really changed. There’s something really crazy going on here.”
Benchmarking Gold as an Inflation Hedge May 4, 2011
Posted by federalist in Finance.add a comment
I have long derided “gold bugs” and others who claim precious metals are the best hedge against inflation. Here’s another way to look at it: You can buy dollar inflation protection from the U.S. Treasury in the form of TIPS. By shorting a suitable index of treasury bonds you can virtually strip out the interest-rate exposure of the TIPS, producing an investment with a government-guaranteed real return.
Now ignore all my other arguments against buying precious metals as a hedge against inflation. Even assuming the gold bugs’ best case scenario — that gold retains its real value — you still have to pay storage and transaction fees on the metal, so an investment in gold has at least a slightly negative real rate of return.
Except for the last few months TIPS have sold with positive real rates of return. So any rational gold bug (I know, oxymoron) should prefer the TIPS real-return strategy to investing in precious metals when TIPS offer positive real returns.
Granted, there are two risks associated with using the TIPS real-return strategy:
- The inflation measure used to calculate TIPS values might differ significantly from what you value. E.g., TIPS price food, clothing, and shelter, but you want to preserve your ability to buy silver bullets and steam engines.
- The U.S. government could actually default on its debt.
I’ve admitted in the past I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Treasury inflate its way out of debt. But in the dire situation that the Treasury actually defaults on its debt I believe you’re mistaken if you think gold bars are going to be any comfort. At that point you’re going to want stockpiles of real real value.
QOTD: Lazy Law Update April 13, 2011
Posted by federalist in Judiciary.add a comment
Richard Epstein provides the latest installment of this recurring feature:
Law is not just an idealized system of rules: It also involves the public administration of those rules by a wide range of elected and appointed officials in an endless array of particular circumstances. For those who would defend a just legal order, the basic challenge is to strike a proper balance—between limiting the discretion of these officials so that they do not undermine the rule of law, while also allowing them enough leeway to perform their essential roles.
Lately in America, we have done a poor job of preserving this balance. In practice—and, increasingly, in legal theory—government officials have been given unprecedented ability to make exceptions to the law, both in enforcing it and in respecting the rights granted under it. Indeed, the past year has seen two of the most enormous pieces of legislation in U.S. history—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—make the imbalance far worse. Both laws seek to dramatically transform vast swaths of the American economy; both give enormous power to the government to bring about these transformations. And yet both laws are stunningly silent on exactly how these overhauls are to take place. The vague language of these statutes delegates much blanket authority to government officials who will, effectively, make the rules up as they go along.
Is the U.S. Finally Ready to Normalize Firearm Suppressors? April 1, 2011
Posted by federalist in RKBA.2 comments
I have been a longtime advocate of firearm suppressors (a.k.a. “silencers”). Regrettably, the National Firearms Act of 1934 grouped these safety devices together with machine guns and explosive weapons. Fortunately I live in a state that doesn’t restrict civilian ownership of these items. I have jumped through the bureaucratic hoops and paid the $200 tax needed to legally acquire several suppressors.
A few years ago, following the Heller victory in the Supreme Court, I reached out to some of the pro-RKBA organization strategists and asked if it wasn’t time to push for broader access to silencers. One theory I suggested was that obstacles to acquiring silencers unreasonably discriminate against pregnant women, who can’t safely practice shooting sports without them (because fetuses can’t wear hearing protection). Their responses were all along the lines of, “Yes, we ultimately need to get silencers out of the NFA, but one adverse court ruling could set us back. This is not yet the time.”
Apparently the time may finally be upon us. I have seen a growing awareness of the benefits of suppressors within the shooting community: In real life they don’t “silence” guns, but they do make them quiet enough to shoot without hearing protection and not risk permanent hearing damage. They also reduce recoil and trap toxic gases produced by some firearm loads. Ten years ago many shooters weren’t aware that civilians can legally own suppressors. Now they routinely show up on the firing lines of shooting clubs. And state governments are beginning to realize that more suppressors are probably a good thing.
The Kansas legislature has passed a measure allowing the use of suppressors for hunting, fishing and trapping. It’s been sent to Governor Sam Brownback for his approval.
Suppressors for hunting? Absolutely.
One state has finally realized that the suppressor isn’t the whisper-quiet instrument of choice for assassins, terrorists or other undesirables. It’s a safety device which not only protects the hearing of the hunter, it protects everyone’s hearing within ear shot (ouch) of the firearm.
Hopefully, this common-sense recognition of a tool to control noise and protect hearing will kick-start more attempts to get suppressors removed from the ATF’s list of “generally terrible things that don’t belong in the hands of average citizens”.
For years, we’ve pushed the fact that most European countries not only approve their usage, they encourage it. It might be the single example of elected officials who are anti-gun not using a “European model” as the example of a rule we should follow.
Everyone who owns a firearm should be learning about suppressors – and pushing for their removal from the ATF’s Class 3 regulations. They should be approved for ownership under the same guidelines as any firearm accessory. It’s not a firearm, cannot be made into a firearm (think very quiet zip gun -at best), and is, in fact, a protective device that should carry the same restrictions as eye and ear protection.
It’s time that another voice of the people campaign remind a relatively receptive bunch of elected officials that there’s a need for review and revision of many ATF practices and policies.
College a Consequence of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? March 24, 2011
Posted by federalist in Education.3 comments
Michael Robertson points out a logical flaw inherent in many of the studies and comments on the value of a college education: In a sense college is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell people they have to get a college degree to earn more, then those most motivated to earn more will go to college. That doesn’t necessarily mean that college has contributed to their subsequent performance or production abilities.
For example, imagine a world in which the formal education system ends with high school. Society might tell high school graduates that to get ahead in life they have to spend a year digging a hole by hand and then another year filling it back in. Employers might reasonably conclude that people who perform that ritual have demonstrated a level of diligence, motivation, and responsibility that is not manifest, if not utterly lacking, in those who haven’t spent two years digging a hole. Furthermore, the fact that a person could waste two years in a hole instead of earning money also suggests they come from a supportive and resourceful family, so they are likely to have been natured and nurtured to produce excess wealth. Hole graduates would then justifiably get preference over non-graduates in the job market, marriage market, and any other situation in which their skills and aptitude can’t otherwise be measured or verified.
Yes, I think in too many cases American “higher education” is a waste of time and resources.
