Drunk Driving

Megan has a great suggestion for handling the problem of drunk drivers: a conviction should change your driver’s license to indicate that you’re not allowed to buy alcohol. Why has nobody done this? I suspect that it’s difficult to get incentives right. But I wonder: who would lobby against this?

Experienced VP Wanted

There’s lots of talk these days about how much experience a VP candidate needs to have. I wonder what experience people think is required. So, I was amused to find this analysis of earlier VP candidates and their experience level. This includes the 1972 Democratic nomination of Sargent Shriver, whose main qualifications was being married to JFK’s sister, having run the Peace Corps, and having served as ambassador to France. That sets the bar pretty low. But read them all and find the interesting note that the Vice Presidency was created as an afterthought to solve a specific political problem.

UPDATE: Some readers interpretted the above as a critique of Sargent Shriver. That’s not my intent. My criticism is that the emphasis placed on particular kinds of experience (which Shriver happened to lack) is wrong.

Free Trade Please

I am always frustrated that any thinking person is opposed to free trade. Maybe people just need to hear about it in different ways. To that end, I’ve collected a bunch of free trade arguments in a Google Notebook.

The economic logic is clear: free trade leads to prosperity. The empirical evidence is clear: free trade leads to prosperity. The anecdotal information, while not conclusive, is impressive. Here is some new anecdotal information. I had not recognized that some industries are already free of trade barriers and, as you would expect, these industries are very healthy and lucrative for everyone involved.

So why are so many politicians so opposed to free trade? It’s simple, really. A lot of businesses and unions could make a lot more money if they restricted consumer options, i.e. disallowed free trade. These “special interests” are only too happy to bribe make big campaign contributions to politicians who will help them take money out of your pocket and put it into theirs. Many politicians are willing to go along, thinking they can con voters by talking about “protecting American jobs” or some such hooey. Lots of people get suckered in, just like P. T. Barnum said. People who would never condone shoplifting are often happy to help pick your pocket out of some twisted notion of “social justice” or “the common good”.

This is not a partisan issue. Politicians of both parties are willing to whore themselves in this fashion. Some are more brazen than others, and our choice is often to go with the lesser of two evils. Think about it come November.

Political Realism

During the pandering election season, it’s easy to get swept up in politics. We all have our preferences, either liking some candidate more or disliking some candidate less. Don Boudreaux has written a great piece that puts it all in perspective. His little essay is so good that I’ve put it in my Great Posts Notebook, which is where I flag anything I consider “must read” material.

Anyone who sets out to be a professional politician must be some kind of rascal. Every now and then you find someone who accidentally falls into political office, usually for some special purpose, but that’s rather rare. Generally, politicians should be regarded with suspicion as latent criminals and con artists.

Sarah Palin

Awesome. I guess they don’t refer to John McCain as a maverick for nothing. From what I can see, all of the conservative Web sites are on fire. What had been lukewarm support for the somewhat heretical McCain may just turn into an inferno. Palin seems like a serious conservative reformer, has a great backstory, gives a good speech, and is photogenic. The Obama campaign won’t dare talk too much about inexperience since that knife cuts both ways. McCain’s announcement may be a true game changer.

Assault on Reason

Arnold Kling notes that electoral campaigns are brutal assaults on reason. After listening to a bit of Obama last night, I can testify to that. Kling makes seven pledges – easily demonstrable facts, really, that expose the pathetic nature of most of what passes for political discourse.

Sand In The Gears

Most commentary on the news, and particularly politics, is remarkably dull. But this is funny. Sigh. I wish I could write like that. Heck, I wish I could think like that!

Convention Synopsis

If you find the Democratic convention too boring for words, but would like to get a little more insight than legacy media gives you, this synopsis is pretty good.

Perception vs Reality

Megan point us at the strange case of improving traffic safety by making traffic feel unsafe. She points out that there are many cases where we take actions for their perceived value, not for their actual value. Of special interest are the cases where the perceived and actual values are trade-offs, i.e. increasing one decreases the other. I’m inclined to think that all effort to increase the perceived value of something actually decreases our potential for getting to real value; it’s simply opportunity cost. Opportunity costs tell us we give up something whenever we make a choice, so any effort to improve perceived value decreases the attainment of something which has real value.

Political Bosses

I’m already sick of convention coverage. You can’t get away from it. I’m particularly sick of commentators contrasting modern conventions to the conventions of yore. It is commonly accepted that, back in the day, political bosses ran the show and aren’t we more enlightened now? Sorry to pop their bubble, but political bosses didn’t go away. We just have new bosses.