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I’ll Raise My Glass to That

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP Intern, 2008

If anything is keeping women from succeeding these days, it’s our conviction that a clear ceiling separates us from some elusive heights. Perhaps some women climb timidly, fearing at any moment to bump their heads on that glass; perhaps some rise manically, flailing about like a blindfolded child hacking at a piñata, trying to shatter that ceiling; but some of us simply live life to the best of our abilities and squash whatever remnants of chauvinism we do encounter. After the establishment of widespread cultural acceptance that men and women are of equal value and merit, one of the most degrading ideas about women today is that we do not see the sky directly, but only through a lens, a glass ceiling.

All this to say, Heather MacDonald has an entertaining and insightful piece in City Journal.

The struggle for women’s equality comes down to this: the men’s grill in the Phoenix Country Club has television and a bar, while the women’s grill has neither of those amenities—though it soon will, following renovation. The New York Times deems the separate and unequal Phoenix grill rooms so laden with national significance as to merit front-page treatment, which it provided on Saturday.

It’s been a hard year for the cause of female victimhood, as the Times’s close attention to one golf club’s eating facilities suggests.

[...]

The Rosa Parks role in this break-down-the-barriers battle is played by the Van Sitterts, a couple who, two years ago, wanted to eat eggs together in the men’s grill room rather than in the club’s formal dining room. Having failed to persuade the board to change its policies—presumably because most members are happy with the single-sex socializing options—they did what any self-respecting aspirant to victimhood does today: they went whining to the government. Instead of resigning their membership and joining another club, they petitioned Arizona’s attorney general to intervene. The AG was only too happy to comply, brushing aside the legal nicety that private clubs are in theory not subject to antidiscrimination laws and ruling that the club was violating those laws, since (pending renovation) the women’s grill room has neither a television nor its own bar. Television and booze are available elsewhere in the club, and women can bring drinks into their grill. But in the spirit of angry young wives who tally every pair of socks that they and their husband fold, the absence of absolute tit-for-tat equality in one room’s appurtenances means that women occupy an unbearable position of inferiority.

[Emphasis mine]

HT: ifeminists.

Meter Feat

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP Intern, 2008

Coyote says it all: “Oh My God! 40% of Sick Days Taken on Monday or Friday!“

On that topic, our very own Gov. Jennifer Granholm here in Michigan hails the achievements of our own gas-meter-inspection folks:

In 2007, the Michigan Department of Agriculture inspected 30,262 gas and diesel fuel meters at more than 3,100 locations across the state, which is the highest meter inspection since 1996, resulting in increased compliance efforts by the fuel industry.

Increased inspections have driven meter accuracy up five percent since 2004 to more than 99 percent.  Overall meter compliance has increased 12 percent – from 80 percent in 2004 to approximately 92 percent.

I can tell you I slept much easier after I read that! Yes, sir; our biggest city may be in shambles, our education system may be appalling and our economy may look like one of those poor earthworms that get stranded on the sidewalk and shrivel in the sun, but, by gum, our gas meter compliance rate is 92 percent!

A Video Is Worth…

Posted on by hkmead
1

-Hannah Mead, MCPP Intern, 2008

I think a metaphor is appropriate to describe my general assessment of governmental action. It seems to me that whenever a crisis hits, the government instinctively does the most counterproductive thing possible. Sort of like these goats:

(I actually just wanted an excuse to post that hysterical video, but I do think my metaphor fits pretty well.)

In What World Does This Make Any Sense?

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP Intern, 2008

OK, this is just mind-blowing. Florida’s 2005 Senate Bill 572 (link pdf) states:

Upon a declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor, in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of residents, any person who offers goods and services for sale to the public during the duration of the emergency and who does not possess an occupational license under s. 205.032 or s. 205.042 commits a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Now, I haven’t bothered to look up s. 205.032, etc, but those really don’t matter. If everyone is exempt from the restriction then the bill is meaningless and only a ploy to make Floridians think their government is doing “something” about prices and shortages in emergency situations. If, however, the bill accomplishes anything at all, it is the most absurd piece of legislation ever. In what world does it make sense to ban the exchange of goods in an emergency when people are most in need of the most basic necessities? Maybe I’m just too blond, but I can’t wrap my mind around this.

Continue reading →

Don’t Be Fooled

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP Intern, 2008

Warren Meyer (Coyote Blog) rips into a new EU proposal to staunch fuel prices. The whole post is marvelous and well worth reading. However, I found his debunking of a misreported fact to be crucial:

I was amazed at the statement that BP made net profits of 63.4%.  It took me a while to figure out that this was the quarter over quarter profit growth, not the profit margin.  I can’t tell if these guys are just ignorant or if this is a translation issue into English, so i will give them the benefit of the doubt.  In case you are wondering, BP’s net profit margin in the first quarter of 2008 was 8.3% of revenues, which in the grand scheme of industry is actually below average.

[Note: Commenter Sameer Parekh corrects Meyers' figures a bit, taking into account the taxes on BP.]

That makes a big difference! I mean, even I was getting a little disapproving of BP when I read the bill’s statement that the company was making off like a bandit. It goes to show how important statistics are, and why so many people are so irritated with the oil industry.

Continue reading →

Beat that dead horse

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP intern, 2008

I’m always baffled by Michigan’s economic improvement strategy: tax the successful businesses to subsidize unviable ones.

Commenting on new “job-creating measures,” Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Speaker of the House Andy Dillon remarked,

At a time when more job-seekers are entering the workforce, Michigan’s already battered economy is feeling the effects of a struggling national economy being driven by a crisis in the subprime market and high oil prices.

Their solution? Film incentives, tourism promotion (which focus, as my coworker regularly notes, is counteracted by our torn-up roads) and “a loan program for job creation or retention projects.”

The Mackinac Center’s Jack McHugh provides alternative analysis of Michigan’s obscene unemployment: Continue reading →

Up Is Up

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP intern, 2008

(Or, in Michigan’s case, down is down.)

As I crawled through legislative records, I found this charming provision in the Michigan Consumer Protection Act of 1976:

(1) Unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive methods, acts, or practices in the conduct of trade or commerce are unlawful and are defined as follows:

…

(z) Charging the consumer a price that is grossly in excess of the price at which similar property or services are sold.

I, for one, am certainly glad to know that it’s not only economically impossible for me to sell a pencil for $1000 but illegal as well. While we’ve got the laws of supply and demand mandated in legislation, we may as well codify scientific laws. Why don’t they legislate that all goods displayed in stores are to rest on the top of the shelves instead of magically floating above them?

SAY IT AIN’T SO!

Posted on by hkmead
3

-Hannah Mead, MCPP 2008

You knew it was coming: Antitrust legislation that completely violates every notion of justice and economic sense: Granholm Announces Legislation to Help Protect Consumers at the Pump.

Here’s the appalling part:

The legislation would amend the Michigan Consumer Protection Act by granting the attorney general the ability to issue a civil investigative demand against companies believed to be in violation of the act without having to first obtain a court-ordered subpoena based on probable cause. And the legislation would clearly define what is considered to be a grossly excessive price for goods and services. With these amendments, the attorney general would be able to more efficiently and readily investigate a potential violation of the act, including consumer complaints against the gasoline industry for price-gouging. [emphasis mine]

So now we can sue companies whenever we’d rather pay a cheaper price. I can’t even believe this — and you know it’ll pass.

Continue reading →

Mudflaps and backfiring

Posted on by hkmead
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-Hannah Mead, MCPP intern, 2008

A concept economists tend to get all wound up about is that of externalities. Externalities are costs or benefits of an action that don’t accrue solely to the actor. For example, the driver of a truck is unaffected by the mud his back tires kick up; that is, he does not bear the full cost of driving, and others bear the negative externality of mud splatters. I don’t know if it’s codified or simply convention, but we use mudflaps to minimize that externality.

Similarly, finding a solution to pollution and other issues of environmental quality is fraught with difficulty. Who ought to bear the cost for what, and how do we find that out and enforce it? This is a valuable question, and, Coase theorem notwithstanding, plagues policymaking. Inefficiency abounds as we fail to figure out how to internalize costs and benefits through either governmental or market means.

At the IHS Koch Summer Fellow Program seminar, the presenters took various angles on this issue, but most agreed externalities are likely a market failure. Dr. Mark Pennington, however, made a strong and, imho brilliant, point: “Politics is the art of externalizing costs.” We do well to keep this in mind when automatically looking to the government to address inefficiencies in the economy.

Lab Rats

Posted on by hkmead
1

-Hannah Mead, MCPP intern, 2008

This past week a contingent of interns at free-market institutions met in D.C. for a conference hosted by our sponsor organization, the Institute for Humane Studies‘ Koch Summer Fellow Program. Fascinating and stimulating as all of the lectures were, I particularly enjoyed the change of pace provided by Prof. Bart Wilson‘s experimental economics demonstrations. This is an area of economics I haven’t explored much, and I couldn’t help but be impressed as he constructed a perfect supply/demand chart solely based on our interactions in a double-bid auction process. Continue reading →

Pirates! Politics! Perverse Incentives!

Posted on by hkmead
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At long last I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 this past weekend. I had refused to watch it because the second was such a disappointment to me. I finally gave in, and I must say I rather enjoyed it. One aspect of the film particularly struck me: The most evil entity is not a band of thieves with a marked disregard for human life, not a sea monster the size of a ship, not even a heartless captain intent upon destroying souls, but a corrupt corporate executive.

This is probably another instance of Hollywood’s obsession with vilifying capitalists, but the East India Trading Company was actually far from a free-market organization. The EITC was granted monopoly rights over British trade with India, was uniquely exempted from customs tariffs and became a force for Britain’s colonization of India.

Continue reading →