Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Angus Deaton: The U.S. system encourages rent-seeking.

2.  World's Oldest Restaurants.  Sort of puts those "Since 1979" signs in perspective.

3. The Year in Search.

4. End of year columns from two Daves, Collum and Barry. (tl;dr--It boofed)

5.  Books are hot.

6.  Oreos are NOT vegan. Suppose you see someone who is vegan eating because there is a myth that Oreos are vegan. You are not vegan.  Should you tell them?

7. Increasingly interesting question: If you own a vehicle/appliance/phone/computer, can you repair or modify it? What really do you own?  Article 1. And Article 2. And Article 3.  On the other hand, some things survive unchanged for a long time, until we aren't sure of their actual origin.

8.  BP makes a claim that is classic "broken window fallacy."

9.  Anarchapulco. In which my man JT appears to be having some kind of ecstatic experience.

10.  The Graham-Paul war for Trump's brain. Even tiny territories can be hard to control, it seems.

11. Booze-monks.

12.  Foreign wars morph into domestic control.

13.  EN-B makes a good point. The only reason Louis C-K is "out there being heard" is that you folks are giving him a platform. You can't think that the people who heard the set didn't know the content of the set. All you are doing is advertising for the man.  And, sure, signalling your virtue to the tiny bubble of like-minded censorious cretins you hope to gain approval from.

14. A nice history of Westerly, hometown of the LMM. 

15.  Titania McGrath is back!  Most excellent.

Grand Lagniappe: 2018--the Year We Lost Hope

Okay, seriously, the real GL:

Monday's Child is Full of Links

 1.  Right to repair, explained (with thanks to Mr. Overwater).  Should these kinds of contracts be legal? You don't have to buy the product, after all.  Old issue of "tying," of course. Here are the "2018 highlights" for right to repair.

2.  I have no idea how much, if any, of this is real. Please help. In addition to all the other strangeness, the notion of a "vegan condom" has me staring out the window. What the.... (Did some checking. Goodness.)

3.  It's not really fair to blame the USPS for its inability to fund the lavish retirement bennies Congress promised employees.  That should be covered separately. But as it stands, they goin' down. 

4. Pretty impressive to get all natural and go kick down some Xmas decorations. Especially in Wisconsin. Pretty cold for nekkid decoration kicking.

5. Had never seen this. PBS did a Gordon Tullock video. On voting. Called Voting Schmoting.

6. Will transaction costs reduction spell the end of brick-and-mortar retail?

7.  Year of the Old Boys.

8.  Bannon goes full "Bond Villain." In a castle.

9.  Titanoboa.

10.  Home Alone, 2018 update.

Grand Lagniappe: Remy thinks it's beginning to look a lot like Christams....

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Making people valuable again.  Why, oh why, do so many folks fetishize jobs?  If stuff is almost free, they think that's a bad thing because there are fewer jobs.  And the jobs pay less.

2. Amar Bhide on the 2% solution.

3.  It is unacceptable to display the swastika; should the hammer and sickle be treated that way, too?

4.  He din' go out like a punk.  Brothel owner dies after major birthday party, still wins election, in Nevada.

5.  Angus is always a fan of "divided government." Because divided they bicker, rather than do stupid stuff.

6. Kim Davis is out.

7.  Toy library: sharing is apping.

8.  Classical liberalism and the problem of class.  My review of Hart, et al.

9.  Much of U.S. "aid" in Latin America is really a prop to thuggish dictators.  To paraphrase Ted Williams, "If you can't do do much good, you shouldn't do so much."

10.  Spoon Theory. And More. The original post.

11.  Florida Man, on midterms.

12. Promotion in Econ: Tyranny of the Top Five.

13. Tillman's wife, on "What Pat Would Have Thought."

14.  There was this. (about 1:00 for the Crenshaw part). And then this is pretty interesting.  Whole thing worth watching, but the part at 2:20 is quite funny. Some background.

15. In his own way, Woody-Wil was the Trump of his era. Only with extra eugenics.

16.  Charlottesville, with hindsight.

17. Peanut flavored.....IPA. 

18. Troubling truffles are not to be trifled with.

19.  Soon the meme will be "Google Trump," a frothy mix of...... (I mean if the Santorum can critique on likeability, and be right, it's only a matter of time).

20. It's actually true that it's hard to be poor in DC.  It's true. Yes, she has some money coming in soon, but it's a mistake to mock someone who is critiquing the DC housing market.

Grand Lagniappe:  "Hakuna THIS matata, you marsupial!"

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Stolen Colon.

2.  Rob Reiner posts Carl Reiner.

3.  Charlotte police respond to suspicious package call. What they found was terrifying.

4.  Innovation in education: Nairobi.

5. Rehnquist proposed to Sandy D after law school.  Wow.

6.  Sausage party, Mom presses charges.

7.  Toothy.

8.  Teaching reading.

9.  "Wuv....TRUE wuv...." A man and his pint.

10.  The next Arab uprising.

11.  For a while Krugman was always right, in my view. Then he became a shill for the Dems, and was always silly and over-simpliied. Then he was occasionally right, though ridiculous. And now he's pretty much always right again. As here.

12.  Lost baggage handler.

13. What could possibly go wrong with having armed paramilitary groups running around at night with guns at the border?  I guess we'll find out.

14.  Promethea Unbound.

15.  The rarely seen behavior of an actual Canadian being born.  Very cute little guy.

16.  To be fair, I doubt the dog is "pretending to be" a stray. It IS in fact, a stray, for the few minutes required to achieve the desired objective.

17. Violence and immigration.

18.  I'm not worried because it's offensive. I'm not not easily offended. But how could they have thought this was funny?

19.  Leave the driving to Uber.

20.  I have a prediction:  This video is the MOST AWESOME thing that Angus will see this week.  It was made for him, I think. Or for his sense of humor.  To do this unironically, for applause? It's almost as good as this. 



Grand Lagniappe:  I was once a Republican. Because Republicans once said things like this.

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  The American ideal of swift justice.

2.  Ashes, ashes, we all...go to the Haunted Mansion.

3. What do "chief diversity officers" actually DO?

4. Social credit system. It's only a matter of time. Bringing the chains back to blockchain.

5. So, the old rule was "don't run, don't lie, and don't be a jerk" when dealing with police. I guess we should add, "Don't lean up on one cheek and fart real loudly, and repeatedly."  And then there's Chris Rock's view of the matter.

6.  Oh......oh, my, no.

7.  Facebook ads: the bot may need some work.

8.  A "corpse flower." Named Morphy. Last time it bloomed, it looked like this. Hard to imagine what it smelled like.

9.  National Anthem, unplugged.

10.  That one personality trait...

11.  Trade wars are bad, and hard to win.

12.  The strain of xenophobia in the electorate has always been an important part of American politics. But it has rarely been enabled by a sitting President. Woodrow Wilson in the 1910's, and FDR against Japanese-Americans, yes. But this is remarkable.

13. Mike Pence changed the world, while we all tried to kill each other.

14.  Lou Dobbs? I have never admired the guy. But....really?

15. The immigrant caravan is a GOOD thing. Neoliberalism is the future we all want.

16. P-Bett has a new book....

17.  Jonah speaks wisdom.

18.  Lonely man, with a gun.

19.  The costs of patronage: Brit edition

20.  I get to talk with Russ R about Tomorrow.



Grand Lagniappe:  Andy hides behind Chrissy Teigen.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Our consciousness of light and color is determined by our language. Or partly so.

2.  Sears, Jim Crow, and the catalog as a subversive force.

3.  Maori hi-jinks.

4.  Magic the Rental Gathering....

5.  If people can sell "unicorn bacon," people, why do we even HAVE a state?

6.  Atwater set Hart up. 

7.  The election, predicted.

8. Love Gov, season 2, episode 1.

9. The Economics Department of Uber.

10.  CAFE vs Economics.

11.  People like scary movies. So of course they like scary but false claims about danger to children.

12.  As I argued years ago, it makes sense to "mine" landfills for valuable materials. Landfills are not the end of the world. They preserve many useful thing in anaerobic conditions.  And so it comes to pass.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1. Is "white liberalism" dying? Probably not, but there is some truth here.

2.  It's holiday time, just around the corner. If you want a sound recovery, buy toys!

3.  Robots. And sex doll brothels. Should robot brothels be illegal?

4.  It was consensual. Then, hours later, she changed her mind, and regretted it. That's not actually assault, though. That's being 19.

5. Nobody puts Baby in a corner. Well, the police do. Florida woman .

6. Him Too, or not Him Too?

7. LeBron on costs of climate change.

8.  We live in an age of wonders. Gecko butt-dialing is a thing. On the other hand, this happened. Fun to see, I suppose.

9.  Toyshare.

10.  Uber, but for voting.

11.  Empirical requirements of the natural rights argument for property.

12. Grandma reads the Wonky Donkey. That's all, just a laughing Grandma. Not everything has to be deep, people. Just skip to about 1:30, and you'll get the idea.

13.  Odd bedfellows...

14.  Play. Return. Repeat.

15.  Spiders.

16.  Our favorite headlines:  "Man run over by lawn mower while trying to kill son with chainsaw." That's actually the Tennessee version of "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar," folks.

17. Replication policy. 

18.  Is it a bad sign that "bail bondsman" is one of our most frequent job descriptions in poor neighborhoods?

19.  There are organized, extralegal paramilitary groups roaming the streets in the U.S., completely uncontrolled by the authorities. Because they ARE the authorities.

20. You can wear a special letter, identifying yourself as an ally. Or be an enemy. There is no neutral, middle ground.


Grand Lagniappe: That question, about wild bears? Yes. Yes, they do.

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  We are always on the verge of chaos....

2.  These folks are not conservative, politically. They just think that some leftist academics are fake. And they have some evidence.  Five others extend.

3.  Augur.

4.  Commodities. Easier to handle than investments.

5. A "slump" in dairy is actually a "party" for consumers. There is no guarantee you get a market price that makes your operation profitable. Unless there IS just such a guarantee.

6. If they give us "more" rights like this very often, we won't have any rights left.

7. This man really is an Ass. Dean.

8.  The new NAFTA.

9. Maybe we could use this kind of farcical aquatic ceremony to choose SCOTUS justices. Better than pulling your self out of beer vomit.

10.  The gig economy.

11. Sports has Stephen A. Politics has Michael A.

12.  Burger King Commercial, sort of.

13. Car cow. Has a FB page.

14.  Church wants to stop endorsing "Mormon" nickname. But they are not going to get people to stop saying "LDS." The "real" name is much too long.

15.  If you sleep, and actually WORK for four hours every day, in a focused way, you can be a success.

16. Food at the NC State Fair.

17.  Most important excerpts from RTS.

18.  Drunk birds.

19.  This is substantially true, I'm afraid.

20.  Vibrators. If you want your largely fictional book to sell, just entitle it "The Secret History of...."  As here.  The larger truth.

21. Who's zoomin' who?

22. The U.S. screwed up the "war on drugs" and made things much worse.

23.  Otis. The fat bear. 

24. 2019 Nobel in Economics: Nordhaus and Romer.  Nice. 

Grand Lagniappe:  At first this seems like it's not worth watching. Then it turns out that it's worth NOT watching. But, still....




If you want something sweet, and less appallingly creepy, then here's a dog lagniappe:

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Bananas.

2. Turtle has Lego wheels. Teenage mutant Lego turtles.

3.  Skippy and Murphy do this, too.

4.  Oh, like you've never wanted to smack a smug kayaker in the face with an octopus.  Because of course you want to. This seal rared up and did it, though.

5. The hunt is on in Flo-ROO-da. On the other hand, here is a Florida trifecta: 1. Baking cookies on a George Foreman grill, 2. while naked, 3. and then dealing with resulting fire by piling dry towels on the grill.

6.  The shopping cart dance, by tWitch. 

7.  Many US political institutions are anti-majoritarian....and that's a good thing.

8.  How to talk to women right now.  Ms. Knightley as Collette: always the same, or recognizably universal?

9.  Gallnippers. No, really, gallnippers. I don't think I've ever even seen one. Yikes.

10.  Gekko echo. And the place of profits. 

11.  Drunk hipsters on scooters. ELECTRIC scooters. It's the end of the world. Although maybe this is the end of the world. Either way, it's the end of the world.

12.  Stanton hits homer. Fan catches ball, hits Stanton.

13.  Gosarians. They are not Gosar worshippers. Although...well.

14.  Fewer bicycle commuters? Could it be....Uber?

15.  "Why the Worst Get on Top." Anyone who believes in statism after watching the event of the past week (month, year, decade, century) would need to explain why this won't just happen again and again.

16. Much of the history of Russian evil is written by the U.S.

17. Take a walk. I am very grateful to Skippy and Murphy, because without them I wouldn't walk enough.  Thanks, fellas. A sense of joy about something as simple as a walk is a big part of a good day.

18. Greg Weiner on Kavanaugh. Yes, exactly. It's sad, but BK is not funny, either. This, on the other hand, is hilarious.

19. Conservatism without classical liberalism is just dumb. Or dangerous. Or both.

20   One problem with the Metro is the "leadership" of the Metro. There really isn't any.

Grand Lagniappe: Kirk, the lady border collie, watches herself win a competition. With greetings to Paco, in Lubbock....

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1. Now, okay, let me understand this. Who was teaching whom to drive? And what happened?

2. I'd like to teach the world to drink, with soft drinks full of dope. I'd like to buy the world a Coke, to keep it full of hope!

3.  Are capitalism and a clean environment mutually exclusive?

4.  Tomorrow 3.0: (a) Tech firms sell reductions in transaction costs, disrupt property market. (b) WeWork passes JP Morgan as largest Manhattan office space owner.

5.  Trump is very different from Obama. But in one way--destruction of party organization in favor of personality cult--Trump is Obama redux.

6. Henry Farrell on DIC. Jennifer Burns on DIC.

7.  Florida woman. And Florida man.

8.  One thing you have to give the Left: they actually believe their dogma.  This post aged like a fine bottle of milk left out in the sun.

9. Intergenerational mobility in India.

10.  Just. Give. Them. The. Money.

11.  A review of "Life After Google" by Gilder.

12.  A student in my undergrad class wrote this. Nice.

13. You're probably sick of these ubiquitous "College football mascot's t-shirt cannon misfires and smacks him in the groin" videos. But I'm not.

14.  We spent a lot of money rearranging lunch rooms based on junk science. And the kids just ate elsewhere.

15.  The always thoughtful Reihan Salam.

16. Your unicorn name.... Please share in comments. I am "Violet Moon Cover".

17. My colleague Richard Salsman on Venezuela: "Socialism worked, as advertised!"

18.  "Blueprint" The evolutionary origins of the good society.

19. Doing this is of no interest to me. But I'm glad the world allows capitalism to create such an experience for those who want it. And it's fun to read about.

20.  Florida: First in blue-hair percentage, first in being awful, and last in difference between highest and lowest points in elevation.  If you are wondering, the highest point in Florida is Britton Hill, with a commanding view of Lakewood. Here's a photo of the "summit."  (Though when Dutch Boy was there, the highest point in Florida was in Gainesville!) (Note for people who are neither old nor baseball fans, I borrow from the old saying about DC: "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." The Senators were not usually very good).

21. In an emergency, you have to suspend the law. Unfortunately, the sort of people who want to enforce the law are sometimes those who value their own petty power over any conception of the public good. On the other hand, there may be more to the story, and there may be good reasons why the county intervened. Let's wait a week, and I'll try to find out more.

22.  Is it news when a Nobel-winning economist sacrifices democratic principles to admire Latin American dictators? No, I don't mean Friedman, he was FOR democracy.  No, I don't mean Buchanan, he never even really advised any Latin American dictators. Or anyone else, for that matter. I mean Joseph Stiglitz.

23. On being an octopus.

24. Chinese BBQ restaurant serves medical professionals. depends on impact factor of you publication journals. And bigger discounts for better pubs: the rich get richer.

25.  This is disturbing.





Grand Lagniappe: I'm guessing that this person's user name is "admin" and pw is eight asterisks. Not very concerned with security....

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  A most diverting and interesting web site. You can find the current wind direction and speed for any place on earth.

2.  A paper is retracted even before it was published. Not because it was wrong, but because it was upsetting. And then an update.

3. I'm lost. Is this real, or just a highly apt metaphor?

4.  "Even" progressive academics? I'm amazed that anyone is taken in.

5.  The markets/state dichotomy is bad social science, and even worse rhetoric for our side.

6. Good lord: "Does the reification of objectivity and detachment in the discipline serve to reinforce status hierarchies more than produce sound science?"  This is not from the English Dept. It's from an actual social scientist (well, a sociologist; but c'mon). For the record, the answer to the question in quotes is "no."

7.  The fact that the officer was yelling "Let me in!" makes it seem less likely that she was confused about which apartment she was entering. Still, a strange incident, all around.

8. Manhattan boat evacuation on 9-11-01 was the largest boatlift in history.

9.  Wow. Venezuela currently holds the record for self-inflicting de-development, abandoning both prosperity and democracy. But Turkey appears to want to give them a run for their money.

10. Once again, Cass Sunstein reveals that he favors soft fascism, with his technoclerics in charge, over democracy.

11.  Amazon sells reductions in transaction costs for consumers. The result is affecting real estate prices for warehouses.

12. The threat of "genius" in architecture.

13.  Good Lord. It's like I don't even KNOW you people.  Best Mexican Restaurant:  TB

14. Fall....in the South.

15. The NATION, on the "Inequality Industry." Interesting take, from a source I rarely read.

16.  State fought the cash. And the cash won.

17. Quite a bit of stuff here on the 10th anniversary of Lehman Bros.  Some of it is right, but not all of it.

18.  Drew Millard on Trump and Florence....

19. Evidence on the supply side of the gender wage gap.

20. Nice data visualization of US federal budget, since 1963.

21. On price-gouging. Courtesy of Florence.

22. Revolving doors and regulatory capture.

23.  The real cost of rent-seeking.

24. In the People's Republic of Carrboro, there is a rational person. His name is David Mabe.

25.  Just a few years ago, a number of people on the left were talking about how Venezuela was a model for development in the region, precisely BECAUSE it was "real socialism." Now, it is not real socialism, and never was.  It would be funny, if it weren't so not funny.

26. Skippy Squirrelbane is ready to suit up and get back in the game. He's old. But New England needs him and his talents.  Here is Skippy on the phone, talking to Squirrel Headquarters: "I have a very particular set of skillls...."

27.  My review of Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght's book, BASIC INCOME.


Grand Lagniappe: the stores don't run out of EVERYTHING, as a hurricane approaches

Leavin' on a jet plane.....

Very cool new paper just out in the QJE by Campante and Yanagizawa-Drott.

Here's the abstract :


We study the impact of international long-distance flights on the global spatial allocation of economic activity. To identify causal effects, we exploit variation due to regulatory and technological constraints, which gives rise to a discontinuity in connectedness between cities at a distance of 6,000 miles. We show that improving an airport’s position in the network of air links has a positive effect on local economic activity, as captured by satellite-measured night lights. We find that air links increase business links, showing that the movement of people fosters the movement of capital. In particular, this is driven mostly by capital flowing from high-income to middle-income (but not low-income) countries. Taken together, the results suggest that increasing interconnectedness induces links between businesses and generates economic activity at the local level but also gives rise to increased spatial inequality locally, and potentially globally.

And you can see an ungated version of the paper here.


The regression discontinuity design exploits the rule that flights over 12 hours need a third pilot. That worked out to be flights of over 6000 miles. So city pair flight connectedness drops at that 6000 mile point due to the discontinuity in costs. This exogenous variation in connectedness creates variation in economic activity.

Nice to see a paper with super cool identification also be about something important!  And this isn't the first such paper for Yanagizawa-Drott, as he also wrote the excellent "hate radio in Rwanda" paper.

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Interesting effect. It's probably actually an effect, to the extent that the sex of child is random. On the other hand, another interesting effect on female labor participation.

2.  Trends in kids' media use, 1976-2016.

3.  The Dub-MOE's review of "Illiberal Reformers." Nice.

4.  Of all the nonsense and dumb stuff government does, it is odd that the first thing cut back is libraries.  They aren't public goods, exactly, but they are extremely efficient mechanisms for sharing at low transaction costs.

5.  I was skeptical of Ms. Williams' claim about sex-based difference in treatments. But this makes a pretty strong case. I may just be wrong; I certainly don't know enough about tennis to have a valid idea what I'm talking about.

6.  "Various Clown Paintings," by Mike Cockrill. WARNING: This is not a happy thing. Unless you hate clowns. With thanks, sort of, to Amy Alkon.

7.  I'm INTJ.  Of course, that may not mean anything, actually.

8.  Jeffrey Tucker, on the reaction. To this.

9.  Oh, YEAH? Well, I'll just shoot myself in the OTHER foot, then.

10. Mike Shildt....from bottom rung at the grocery to top step of the dugout.

11. MAGA makeover of Nike commercial....

Grand Lagniappe: Dave Chappelle...."I want to wear Nikes, I don't want to have to make them."  As succinct a summary of comparative advantage as you'll ever hear.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Good for NPR. This is a very useful piece of reporting.  And it makes the other kinds of claims NPR makes more credible. (Pro-tip for Fox News: This is how news works....)

2. An amazing definition of sexism: any woman who decides to have children and raise them rather than "work" (!) is a victim.

3. New Hampshire: Live Bitcoin or Die!

4. Open inquiry in the classroom.

5.  Avital.

6.  Florida man is angry about bad restaurant review.

7.  Hard to know just how to explain this....

8.  Hard to know if they were expelled because they are atheists, or because the God they don't believe in is Allah.

9.  I hope these people don't have children, or even dogs, for that matter.

10.  Peak badass. What did you do today?

11.  Playing to a better democracy.

12.  How Trump survives....

13. Interesting and thoughtful review of T3.0 at Trotsky's Children.

14. U.S. companies on costs of tariffs....

15.  "Sprinting Naked Man." Sounds like a superhero.  I guess he sort of IS a superhero.

Grand Lagniappe: Port of Amsterdam video....

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1. The Tembro Sharing Economy Index (TSEI)

2.  Why do intellectuals hate entrepreneurs, but envy profits?

3. The "We must DO something!" people are, as usual, making things worse. This law is going to harm people with legitimate pain, while doing essentially nothing to stop overdoses and new addictions. Note well: new addictions are only rarely using medication prescribed for them.  I understand; your uncle's cousin's sister's friend's dogsitter got addicted that way. In terms of statistics, that is just NOT how addiction generally happens. "Fixing" that problem makes things worse, not better.

4.  A. Salter calls foul on Lubbock A-J. And rightly so.

5.  Profits.

6.  Man with no arms and no legs commits double murder. Now is armed and on the run. A Florida story.

7.  The art auction of the century. Or perhaps of late August.

8.  An economics joke.

9.  Political Libertarianism, by JT Levy

10.  Climate change and Aussie politics.

11. FDA: We got this. Milk is animal juice, not plant or nut juice. Because...well, because we say so.

12.  Dude. If you hate women this much, you shouldn't live in Katy....

13.  If you think people on the left, or the religious right, care about poor people and orphans....well, not so much. Pawns in a bigger game. (UPDATED IN RESPONSE TO COMMENT)

14.  Mere civility.

15.  JFK's Harvard application essay. Why blame the guy? He understood what he wanted and how Harvard would help him get there.

16. It's been fifty years since Prague Spring.  I just that "Trump Winter is Coming" is an unfounded fear....

17.  This is the best thing I've seen from Bad Lip Reading. Inspired.

18.  Florida Man. Not just some cash, but some donuts, and "off the secret menu."

19.  This is hilarious. Also sad. Note the date: May 2017. Outwitted and outmaneuvered at every turn. Yup, that's exactly wot hoppint.

20. The 1980s were the high point of terrible animation put to song. Magnificent.

21. Nice piece by D-Drez. We have SOMETHING to thank Mr. Trump for. Plus, Paul Krugman now occasionally remembers that he was once an economist. 

 The Grand Lagniappe: A baby aardvark. Looks like an alien/reptile rabbit/cute baby all in one.

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  They've got dead horses, don't they?

2. I don't know. Those Swedes are a little crazy.

3. I must admit: Ketchup packets bug me. Seems like a lot of packaging for very little ketchup, and much of it gets left in the packet. I understand there must be no cheaper way to deliver it, and monitor overuse (ketchup is more expensive than plastic), but ketchup packets bug me. They may not be around much longer.

4. Do WalMart "Supercenters" improve food security? Spoiler alert: For the most part, yes.

5. Trump lied. People yawned.

6.  Manhattan DA to stop prosecuting pot cases, at least for personal possession of small amounts.

7. The real problem is conservative McCarthyism, according to CGK's John Hardin. He is not wrong.

8. That forkin' blockchain...

9.  Mmmmm.....bbq. Best practices. Aluminum foil.

10. Russ Roberts and outrage. (He's against it)

11.  Editing a human.

12.  Is "free" consistent with "freedom"?

13. You probably don't understand the "blockchain." That's okay. Most people don't.

14.  Maduro is one of the very best illustrations of Hayek's "Why the Worst Get on Top." But even this schlomozzle is willing to admit their idiotic approach to socialism has "failed."

15.  It is odd that we have screening for airplanes, and not for water plants, electricity substations, and major highway tunnels. But maybe we won't have so much screening for airlines, at smaller airports at least.

14. Ontario ends UBI experiment, two years early.

15.  Timmy's in the well! Go get help, Lassie. Or at least dig out from the pillows.

16. The end of tipping?

17.  Things may seem bad. But as long as there are ice cream trucks, there is hope. And, there ARE ice cream trucks.

18. Vitruvius.

19.  Predicting fiscal crises.

20.  Measuring output, and prices, and productivity.

21. In the early 1990s I was often told, in condescending tones, that "Europeans are different.  We will have no trouble with opening our borders, because we are multicultural, unlike you reactionary Americans." Well, some Europeans are different. But not many.

22.  Books on speech.

23. Software eats the world. But some claims are, at best, exaggerated.




Grand Lagniappe:  Okay, Millenial Friends. This has totally happened to you, admit it.

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Only in Texas. Smokin' hot tortilla chips. No, really, smokin'. Twice. Or four times.

2.  Vomit fraud, by Uber drivers. It's easy to send a photo, of course. But it wasn't that passenger.  One guy was "lucky" enough to get defrauded twice in one day. Uber decided no one is that full.... 

3.  Our favorite headlines.  That's the Rhode Island version.  Then

4. On immigration, and the first stone....

5.  On the airline seat comfort question, I think the evil airline CEOs have a point.  The default is a relatively roomy, but expensive seat. If you want a DISCOUNT, then you want the smaller seat.  But then you can't complain that the seat is smaller. That's why it's cheaper!  If you don't want the smaller seat, pay the standard price.

6.  Hess's "Triangle of Spite." And more about the Hess Triangle.

7. Ocasio-Cortez, whatever she is, is NOT a socialist.  Our president, on the other hand...

8.  The "hot water challenge." Really? What is wrong with you people?

9.  This is NSFW. It's actually not safe for anything, and you shouldn't watch it. But some of the bad puns are pretty good. Still, you'll never get that  6  minutes back. Don't blame me. But it's a guy using the worst pickup lines in history, badly. What could be wrong with that? For context, that's all in response to this sort of thing.

10.  Ms. McArdle enters the lion's den, and says a lot of things that make sense. She will be publicly shamed for this, of course. The comments will be worth reading, if you like unintentional self-parody by half-wits.

11. Interesting commentary on the nature of competition. Neo-classical conception is that everyone is a price-taker. The "main line" economics answer (thanks, Peter Boettke) is that there are viable alternatives available to consumers. The point is that price-setters can still be disciplined by "competition," if regulators will allow it.

12.  It is far more likely, ridiculously more likely, that your child will be hurt in your house or in your car, than standing alone in a park or walking on a street. But so many people virtue signal ("I care") about nonsense.  We think nothing of the child being in our house, or car. Because the chances of danger are not THAT high there. The point is that the chance of your child being snatched by a stranger are much LESS than that. Kids should be free range.

13.  Your dog is MORE human than you think. Or, maybe less.

14. Understanding trade deficits.  And some more.

15. "Ghosting" employers. You can understand why young people might do this, because they feel they are not being respected or valued by employers. But it hastens the "gig economy."

16.  It's one measure of a society to look at how many of its citizens are caged up like animals. But its even worse when nearly 3/4 of the people put in cages have not even been convicted of a crime.

17.  The English Premier League is capitalist. The NBA is socialist.

18. The Koch brothers have principles. You may not agree with them, or not all of them. But this is a strange way to write about the attempt to shame CGK by saying he is not Trump ENOUGH.

19.  Alcohol and caffeine made civilization.

20. One thing that Ayn Rand and Immanuel Kant agreed on was this: your moral principle must generalize. This one doesn't .

21. I don't know that Harry Truman checked out Mozart while he did Tae Bo. But his story does remind us that there's room to grow.

22. Syndrome E. 



Grand Lagniappe:  This seems okay. But what if the "earth moves" because...well....you know. What then? (UPDATE: My "friend" Megan McArdle of the Wapo commented that I was too old to be jumping on the bed. It's good to have friends, isn't it?)

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  What sort of person does this? It's not like running a red light. There was no chance of this working out well.

2.  There has to be more to this story.  The "she's from Ukraine, they do things differently there" defense seems weak to me. A bit different viewpoint here. I do have to say that anyone who has been around a toddler for more than about an hour has considered hanging as a solution.....

3.  Trump is wrong about the EU. But he is not entirely wrong about NATO.

4.  There is little to no evidence that voluntary pre-K programs do any good. All the positive results come from non-random assignment, meaning that educated and motivated parents are likely the cause, NOT the pre-K program. A randomized trial finds no effect. The problem: the main difference is educational environment in the home the kids are NOT staying home at.  Pre-K has to help some children, it's just hard to find a way to measure that accurately.

5.  The policy of restricting or taxing plastic bags does essentially zero good. It is however (1) inconvenient and (2) pleasing to people who like to suffer inconvenience as a way of showing their love for the earth in pointless, and therefore religiously useful, ways.

6.  A problem with the "road" to liberty.  You might want to be a directionalist, like I am.

7. Iga is having a ninja shortage.

8.  At least the Manchurian Candidate PRETENDED he cared about the U.S.  This guy, not so much.

9.  MoovMo.

10.   Russia gets another pass.

11.  "Places of Persistence: Slavery and the Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States."

12.  Putting the "crow" into necrophilia.


13.  It's just cultural appropriation to impose your own, multicultural standards on the great works of the past. Some humility, younglings....

14.  This is not the Onion. This guy actually thinks that trolling people on the web is the key to success in mass elections.  No, really, he does.

15. Slavery did not make the U.S. rich. It made some people rich, and a lot of others poor.

16. The loss of a common culture. I don't think Deneen is entirely right, but he is certainly NOT entirely wrong.

17.  Not sure this is real. But it may be.

18. The tide of free speech....has it turned, on college campuses?

19.  All campaign strategies are local....

20.  My piece for the "The Hill," on UBI.

21. I'm sorry, ma'am. You've been deleted. Wow.

22. Cutest thing you'll see today: This little girl saw an abandoned broken water heater at the curb, waiting to be taken away. She thought it was a robot. And the cuteness ensued.

23. Why haven't higher wages (at the top end) reduced work hours? An interesting commentary on price effects and income effects of labor "supply." Or, are you willing to pay $1,000 an hour to go sailing? Even if you are really rich?

24. Why?  A drive-by bicycle shooting.

25. The road to socialism: Venezuela.

26. Black Jeopardy on SNL. One of them (the best, I think). Then another.  A third. Like all good comedy, it's partly mocking something directly. But it's also got some things that make your skin crawl and think about why that's not actually funny.

27.  Trans men on being men, compared to being women.

28. Talent. 

This, from V. Postrel.   What's more inclusive than extreme, semi-religious food taboos in the workplace?  The grand lagniappe, from Randy Simmons, in reaction to VP's article: