Monday, November 16, 2009
Seen around and about...
[] The "butterfly effect" in action -- or here, the mosquito effect:
[] Monkey economics. Topics: Rewards to education and "human vervet capital" ... monopoly profits ... loss of monopoly profits due to competition ...
[] Betting on the health plan at Intrade: "A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009" -- now down to 5%, at this writing. (More precisely: "You can buy this at 6.4 ... sell at 4.5").
[] Ramirez cartoon.
[] What is US citizenship worth? To most, apparently less than $675.
[] "Congress Approves $500 Billion For Monument To Human Folly" . It seems as reasonable as any other part of the spending stimulus -- in fact, particularly appropriate.
History Matters: If you paid a $4 poll tax in 1910, your great-grandchild gets a polio vaccine todayMosquitoes caused the poll tax in 1910.
[] Monkey economics. Topics: Rewards to education and "
[] Betting on the health plan at Intrade: "A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009" -- now down to 5%, at this writing. (More precisely: "You can buy this at 6.4 ... sell at 4.5").
[] Ramirez cartoon.
[] What is US citizenship worth? To most, apparently less than $675.
Currently, citizenship application and processing fees in the US are $675 per person ... [and] were increased by 69% in July 2007.Clearly demonstrating: (1) The value of citizenship is less than $675 to the 50 percent who stopped applying for it; and (2) The governmental bureaucratic attitude of "if it doesn't work do more of it, especially if it costs people money".
The number of US citizenship applications from legal residents dropped by 50 percent in the two years after the price increase. As a result, the Federal agency handling citizenship applications still runs a budget deficit, suggesting to some bureaucrats that the price needs to be raised again.
[] "Congress Approves $500 Billion For Monument To Human Folly" . It seems as reasonable as any other part of the spending stimulus -- in fact, particularly appropriate.