Heavy Handed metaphor alert

Shout it from the rooftops! The Myth of the Falling Bridge

All hail to Evan Soltas for this piece, and may the Lord protect him from the wrath of his erstwhile pals.

By all means read the piece, but let me break down the highlights for you:

For the last 40 years, our infrastructure spending has tracked the rich country average, and it has not been falling recently. The quality of the roads we drive on has gone up and the  percentage of "deficient" bridges has gone down (to 21.9% in 2009 from 37.8 in 1989).

In other words, we don't have an infrastructure crisis, we don't need a politically run national infrastructure bank, and, whatever the intrinsic merits of more stimulus may be, we don't have trillions of "no-brainer" investments in infrastructure that are desperately needed.

Maybe, just maybe, we can now stop piously repeating the calls of a special interest group (the American Society of Civil Engineers) for more money to be funneled their way.

What inaugurations are good for

Pickin' up wimmen, right Bill?

James Buchanan: a personal remembrance

I got hired as an assistant professor at GMU in 1984, right after the Public Choice Center moved there from Blacksburg. GMU interviewed me at the AEA meetings that year. It was a two-stage interview. I met in the living room with Phil Wiest and someone else who I can't recall. After having "passed" that initial interview, I was escorted into the bedroom where Jim was sitting on the bed in a shirt and tie and stocking feet (and pants too!).  He proceeded to grill me for about 20 minutes. I left the interview thinking it had not gone well.

But I got a flyout and, after surviving some serious hazing from Gordon Tullock at my job talk, got and accepted an offer.

Shortly thereafter Jim won the Nobel Memorial Prize. As an assistant professor, I would circulate working papers to several senior colleagues (Tollison, Tullock, Crain, Buchanan). Jim would respond with a typed letter giving comments and criticism. I was made an associate of the Public Choice Center and started getting summer money.

Then I wrote a paper (never published) testing whether surprise deficits raised interest rates (they didn't). Never got any comments from Jim. In fact, I don't think he ever spoke to me again.

But I didn't get kicked out of the Center, and he supported me for tenure (if he hadn't of, I wouldn't have gotten it).

Buchanan was both an intimidating and an inspirational figure to me as a young professor. I would not ever say we were friends or even friendly, but I learned a lot from him and his support was important for launching my career (such as it is).

The Culture that is Football: Mutant Ninja Edition

"I was doing what I usually do, moseying to the locker room and meandering around. Naturally, I just wanted to step back, but I did the righteous thing and I stepped up. I caught him, I saved his life, I tapped into my inner superhero, which I do have. I'm usually a ninja, but my Spidey-senses told me he was going to take a fall, so I saved his life. He owes me his first-born or something. Actually I don't want that. Maybe a sandwich or something."


 ~Martellus Bennett describing his post-game heroics