The Bluewater and the LMM

So. The YYM drove over to the beach compound for the night. We went for dinner, because that's what you do. Went to Bluewater, a tourist place but with a very nice view of the IntWat. I wore my "Dad clothes."

The LMM took a photo, but I can't post it, on which more anon. Will try, though. As soon as we sat down, the LMM decided that she would like to be the center of attention, as befits a Queen exiled to wed a commoner like me. So she kicked both her sweater and her purse into the ocean.

(Two things: 1. Why did she have a sweater? It's 95 and direct, bright sun where we are sitting. If you have to ask that, you don't know the LMM. She always needs a sweater. 2. Okay, she didn't kick it into the ocean. She kicked it into the IntWat. Nonetheless, there it was ten feet below the rail where we were peering over at it, floating, a purse/sweater clump of flotsam in nasty saltwater. Not Jetsam. Flotsam. Words have meanings....)

The LMM appeared to believe that if she just yelled LOUDLY enough at the purse/sweater clump, it would magically do what she wanted. To be fair, this works at our house, but then she is dealing with me, or the dogs, and we are all afraid of her, and have some capacity for independent movement. If she yells at home, then action is taken and things get done.

"I dropped my purse! I dropped my purse!" And pointing. Everything in the large restaurant stopped, and I think some people up on the highway bridge likely looked out their windows. The LMM is not large, but she has considerable vocal puissance.

I jumped heavily over the rail, and landed heavily down on the dock. Unsurprislingly, another fellow, aroused by the yelling, also jumped over the rail, and got there faster. (He was not as heavy). He fetched the flotsam, and delivered it to the LMM, dripping (the flotsam was dripping, not the guy, and not the LMM).

All the tables (well, the people AT the tables) around us started telling each other of times that they had had something similar happen. And giving advice about how to save the iPhone (rice. Always with the rice). Anyway, before long a little kid at the next table tipped over a big glass of iced tea, and won the "new center of attention award" away from the LMM. But for a few minutes, she was the "It Girl" of the Bluewater.

I'll try to post the pictures, if the rice works. We used the LMM's phone to take the pictures..... (With thanks to Donna Gingerella for the entertainment portion of the dinner, and a show).

Happy at Wrightsville Beach

Our annual two weeks at Wrightsville Beach, near Wilmington, NC, are pretty much our favorite time of the year.

A local ad.  Hokey, as one might expect.  But it makes us happy.

For Dads: Past, Present, and Future

Concon

A picture from our walk yesterday, at the beach in Concon.  The LMM sits and looks out over the biggest patch of "nothing but water for 14k kilometers" in the world.  There is nothing west of here except New Zealand, unless it´s wet and salty.

You can see the hotel there on the right.  Lots of little beach kitsch stores and shops nearby, but the immediate area of the hotel is pretty rocky and natural.

My Week at Hermosa Beach

So, here is the panorama.  My hotel, the Beach House, is the one with the white railings, the one I stop on briefly going from the left to right.  A pleasant little spot...

You Play, We Pay

An article about how hard the folks out on the sandbar...er ... barrier islands of NC have it.

Best quote: "this is the price you pay for living in paradise." Well, no. This is the price *WE* pay so you can live on a freakin' sandbar.

Look, you loonies are welcome to live out there. But the state subsidized insurance for decades, and pays for new roads, and rebuilds broken roads. That money comes from people who have to pay to visit paradise.

So you can live there at public expense.

I have no problem with people living out there. If they like it, good for them. And emergency services, in cases where the emergency is unpredictable? Okay by me.

But living on a sandbar that never gets higher than 8 feet, in an area where storm surge from a hurricane hits 12 feet or more at least once a decade? Why do I have to pay for that?

(Nod to the Blonde)

Your post is full of fail

Over at "Democracy in America", M.S. appears to be a bit confused about what the words "rival" and "excludable" mean, as well as over whether a picture proves or disproves his point.

He's taking on LeBron over whether the government does or should mainly provide public goods. He has somehow grokked that public goods are non-rival (my consumption doesn't reduce the amount available for you to consume) and non-excludable (you can use the good whether you pay for it or not). As I pointed out earlier, national defense is pretty close to a pure public good.

In the real world, things are not so simple, as some goods may be conditionally rivalrous and excludable (James Buchanan called these "club goods") and some goods are forced to be non-excludable by force of law.

M.S. says the following:

Roads are rival and excludable. Unemployment insurance is rival and excludable. Health insurance for seniors is rival and excludable. Primary education is rival and excludable. Police protection is rival and excludable. Art museums and history museums are rival and excludable. Swimming pools, parks and zoos are rival and excludable.

Well, roads are conditionally rival and generally non-excludable by dint of government policy. That is, the government levies taxes, builds roads and anyone can drive on them without paying a fee (turnpikes and private toll roads are few and far between in this country).

Same goes for primary education. I don't see how one can claim that primary education in the US is excludable. It could be excludable, but government policy has made it non-excludable.

In theory, police protection is close to a pure public good in the area where the police have jursidiction. Now it's true that if a cop is at my house, there's one less cop around to go elsewhere, but the "law and order" brought by a police force is non-rival. And, at least in theory, police don't charge victims of crimes for their services. Anyone can have the police come and fill out an accident report.

Anyone making the statements M.S. made on an exam in an undergrad public econ course would be getting an F.

Then comes the funny fail part of the post. After the rant about how roads, parks, and museums are "rival and excludable", i.e. NOT public goods, MS concludes as follows:

So, then we have the second claim, that with public goods, adding extra people to the mix with no spending boost is compatible with those additional people getting more or less the same services as the previous consumers. I think my objection to this is best illustrated with a few pictures.

And people, can you guess what he shows pictures of? A road, a beach, and a museum!

In other words, the very things he just got done vociferously claiming were NOT public goods!

Yikes!

Wilmington - Wrightsville Beach

Had a great time in Wilmington - Wrightsville Beach last week. Had some adventures. First, went to Redix several times. Hard to explain Reddix. Here is the sign out front:

So....yes, they really do sell fine clothing (if you are a frat boy like me, who likes orange and blue plaid pants with a pink polo shirt, all way over-priced. This is HEAVEN for my tastes in clothing.) (If you put Angus in Redix, he would be screaming like the witch in Oz after they poured water on her: "I'm melting! MELTING!"). And they really do also sell hardware and fishing tackle. You have to see it. Lots of hardware, and lots of appropriate clothes if your name is "Trip" or "Trey" or "Reg."

Of course, a declaration on a sign that anything is "in" is suspect. Perhaps they meant that they had just received a shipment of SillyBandz, but I think they were trying to tell their audience about style. (No hipsters go to Redix, unless they were sentenced to community service among the hip-impaired like me).

Later one evening we went to Jungle Rapids, a finely tuned entertainment complex that hoovers the wallets of parents most effectively. That's fine, I played pinball and put a new high score on the Simpsons machine, easy because I think no one had played it at all since the last power failure. Then we played Putt-Putt, and I got smoked by the EYM and the YYM, neither of whom have any respect for their elders. (If Angus had been there, he could have told the boys that I am really, REALLY good at Putt-Putt. But he wasn't).

There was one appalling thing at Jungle Rapids: This game below. You likely know the game "Whack a Mole!" where you take a mallet and hit the mole that pops up. Pretty fun, especially when I used to pretend all the moles were Ken Shepsle. (Okay... I still do that). But this game with the cow? You have to hit the lit tit, or rather milk it. They light up and go dark, quickly and in random sequence. If you look closely (click on the pic, for a better view) you will see that the back left tit is lit.

I watched for a while, and only saw one little kid play it. His parents thought it would be cute, and tried to take pictures. But when the tits started lighting up in sequence, the little kid (he was maybe 4) starting crying his head off. He was NOT going to grab those things.