Cato at Liberty

Great author, I am a fan of his Martian Chronicles the most, there are so many short stories of his that I have come across that picking favorites is not fair. Today CATO released an interesting story about Ray and the form of censoring he faced which is one many here would never consider. That being authors being coerced to include or exclude groups based on influence they exert within society. We even see that today with big name authors, most common is when their works are brought to screen and characters take on new traits; physical or otherwise; to fit politically correct norms. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/censoring-ray-bradbury/

The trend for mass transit is to remove options from travelers, thus making itself less useful to us. As such, it's hardly worth funding. [1] That's not to say that it must be inherently so. Just that, so long as these projects are typical government projects that are expected to go over-budget and over-deadline with no repercussions, they will be used as a tool for political favors and cronyism, at our expense. [1] http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/denver-fools-the-wall-street-journal/ Quote: The old-style public transit system used cheap, flexible buses whose routes could be altered overnight to take people from where they were to where they wanted to go. When Denver first built rail, it substituted expensive but glamorous trains for inexpensive buses, but still allowed people to go from where they were–provided they were willing to drive to a park-and-ride station–to where they wanted to go–provided they wanted to go downtown. ... This has been tried before, of course, most notably in Portland. How well did it work there? In 1980, under the old bus-transit model, transit carried 9.8 percent of Portland-area commuters to work. By 2010, with seven different rail lines and scores of transit-oriented developments, transit carried just 7.1 percent of the region’s commuters to work.

I'm late to the discussion, but want to add a few things. First, is there really a large group of people who think that teachers a.) are whom to blame for the state of American education; and b.) are paid too much? The only time I hear about people making such arguments is in op-eds like this one that try to refute them. I think such op-eds are battling straw men. That said: 1. If you look at total compensation broken down by per-hour-worked (which I think is a fair metric), teachers are paid within the norms for their level of education, etc. There is a reasonable write up on this here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/hate-the-deception-not-the-teacher/ 2. I think a growing number of people are outraged at Teachers Unions, and Teachers Unions try to associate themselves back to just being "teachers". It's a dirty trick. People don't want employment contracts dictating how their kids are taught. They want teachers to be able to work longer hours if they're inclined to, try creative strategies, etc. They want to attract and keep the best teachers by paying them more than less effective teachers. Many (most?) union contracts dictate terms that disallow this kind of stuff. People are upset at the obstacles the union is putting up, not with the teachers that often are forced to have to join that union. 3. I am upset that we, as a country, continue to spend more and more per-pupil on education and have stagnant-at-best results. Something like only 40 cents per dollar spent…

Here is a post with many useful links from someone who was at the Overcriminalization hearing two days ago on Capital Hill that the article is talking about: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/07/23/overcriminalization/. The testimonies of all involved can be found there. Here are some quotes that IMO get to the root of the problem: "The amount of individual citizen conduct that is now potentially subject to federal criminal control has increased in startling proportions in the last several decades, beyond any understandable interest in dealing with federal programs, truly interstate issues, or international crime." "The sheer volume of modern law makes it impossible for an ordinary American household to stay informed. And yet, prosecutors vigorously defend the old legal maxim that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." That maxim may have been appropriate for a society that simply criminalized inherently evil conduct, such as murder, rape, and theft, but it is wholly inappropriate in a labyrinthine regulatory regime that criminalizes activities that are morally neutral." "When an innocent person sits down in a quiet room to assess his options following a federal arrest and indictment, you soon learn that you’ll be broken financially if you choose to fight and go to trial. The pressure to plead guilty — even if you are innocent — is enormous." The problem seems to affect not only individuals, but also corporations, with criminal liability law growing greatly in scope,…

If you look at the voting statistics, majority of uneducated and lightly educated (high school only) votes Democrat. College graduates lean Republican, while higher degrees (academia) leans Democrat. So it would be counterproductive for Republicans to have more less-educated voters, since those prefer Democrats. Education spending is another red herring - public schools spend no less and sometimes more than private schools, costs of K12 education per pupil tripled since 70s with little to no improvement in any measurable metrics, teacher employment has grown faster than enrollment for 40 years now. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/president-we-need-more-teachers-reality… Sorry for ruining your nice theory with facts.

This article well illuminates the dictum to beware analysts picking their own time horizons. Calculating impact from five-year growth rates is problematic for business cycle, responsiveness, and exogenous factors. Cato's reply is here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/tax-rates-impact-economic-performance-b…

Rebuttal: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/were-not-censoring-you-just-your-comput…

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120104/04545217274/cato-institute-d… http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-th…

For more on bogus numbers: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/

Those hypothetical money trees probably seem real to SOPA supporters. Among other things, this article explores how some wild guesses about hypothetical job losses from a 1986 speech keep getting cited as facts by Congress: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/ Or, if you prefer, there's also an independent review of their report: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120104/04545217274/cato-institute-d…

Yep, just like the Patriot Act wasn't to be used for anything but terrorism suspects, but it's being used for everything now. In 2008, 3 of 763 were terrorism related. More: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/patriot-act-provision-used-for-drug-cas… It will be the same with this.

People who oppose net neutrality don't trust the FCC to be a benevolent regulator of the internet. For example, this blog post has links to a number of longer form pieces that make the case against it: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-fcc-should-not-regulate-the-interne… And here's a post refuting the "money" argument: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/siding-with-the-geeks-on-network-neutra…

Julian Sanchez' "The Sun Never Sets on the PATRIOT Act" has context: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-sun-never-sets-on-the-patriot-act/ BORDC, who's helped lead the fight against the PATRIOT Act for years, has a lobby day on January 27. More at http://www.bordc.org/lobbyday/

Depends on how you score it. A big (% wise, bigger than that of Atlas Shrugged) sales increase preceded the video, e.g.: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/soaring-sales-for-road-to-serfdom/ suggests by about a year. On the other hand, hitting #1 on Amazon in the middle of this year...: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/hayeks-road-to-serfdom-1-on-amazon/

Here's a few more uses from google: "I think it's unfortunate when some use what has often been called the Washington Monument strategy," Mr. Pataki said at a news conference. "When you make a cut, you immediately say you are going to cut the Washington Monument because it is the most visible way to get public attention." http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/15/nyregion/suny-trustees-plan-cuts-und… http://writteninfo.com/2009/04/fire-department-in-fairfax-county-va-ca… http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/24528.html http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/07/15/the-washington-monument-synd…

Supposedly, ending the entire drug war would save the country $77 billion a year. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/03/12/end-drug-war-and-save-77-bil…

Interestingly, it may be that one could pay twice as much per teacher and still end up with a lower cost per pupil overall, as administrator overhead plays a large part in the regular cost formulation. $125 / 30 students ~ $4k, a fraction of both the DC metro public and charter school cost per pupil (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/03/dc-vouchers-better-results-a…

"Loser pays" might produce the results you want: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/12/10/marie-gryphon-on-loser-pays/

forgot to mention this but most of the Big 3's parts aren't even American: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/11/18/what-is-an-american-car/ Not to mention: "Cars.com found only four cars and six light trucks with a domestic content (meaning US or Canadian) above 75%. That list includes the Toyota Tundra and Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. Other Honda’s have a 60-70% domestic content, barely missing the cut"

>You can cite a lobbyist who actually claimed that without copyright, there was no way for any artist to make money? Or that with free sharing, no-one at all would spend money on entertainment? Or that no-one at all creates new art without the financial incentive? I'll grant you that the phrasing of the 'myths' on the site is more absolute than is generally used by copyright proponents, but the arguments are extremely common with minor qualifiers, e.g. that free sharing causes an extraordinarily large (albeit not 100%) reduction in the amount that people spend on entertainment (see generally http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/)… and (most importantly) the counterarguments still apply to the less absolute versions of the argument more commonly encountered in the wild. >If there are alternative business models that really are as effective as copyright or more so in incentivising the creation and distribution of useful works, why aren't we seeing vast amounts of such work, funded by such alternative models, in the age of the Internet? There is an extent to which we are. See: YouTube, github, etc. But a big piece of the trouble is that if you take any given business model, chances are the artist can make at least trivially more money by exercising some of the control the copyright monopoly provides over the work. And if copyright exists, why not do that? The consequence is that most business models are seen to involve copyright, even if they…

But they might better have first ribbonized the complaining article: MPAA: "Sanchez’s main argument is that theft has a negligible economic impact – only some inefficiency – because theft is beneficial" Sanchez (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/)… "Does that mean online piracy is harmless? Of course not. But the harm is a dynamic loss in allocative efficiency, which is much harder to quantify. That is, in the cases where a consumer would have been willing to buy an illicitly downloaded movie, album, or software program, we want the market to be accurately signalling demand for the products people value, rather than whatever less-valued use that money gets spent on instead." MPAA: "Extending this argument, shoplifting has no economic impact since shoplifters can spend the money they “saved” on other products . . ." Sanchez: "In many cases—I’ve seen research suggesting it’s about 80 percent for music—a U.S. consumer would not have otherwise purchased an illicitly downloaded song or movie if piracy were not an option. Here, the result is actually pure consumer surplus: The downloader enjoys the benefit, and the producer loses nothing." (The problem with the shoplifting analogy: those pinched Mach 3 razor blades are gone, and must be restocked at some cost. And whomever uses the pinched razors, needs razors of some kind, so the theft does diminish revenue. Theft of copyright doesn't force restocking to enable a legit sale, and…

The purpose of Stuxnex was to push back Iran's progress by a few years. Ah, but why bother? Iran's nuclear weapons are always just a few years away, in the future: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/bad-intelligence-but-in-which-direction… “Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’ A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.” “February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.” “January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.” “January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’” “April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’” “October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five…

You make a lot of popular assumptions in your post that are not supported by reality. I would be skeptical of the value that you are getting for your tuition in "Money, Media, and Power". >What we've seen happen in history is the massive consolidation of companies. Look at the media industry, for example. The media market is fluid and competitive. The top players today are not the same top players of 10 or 20 years ago. The industry has also not become much more consolidated over the past few decades. http://www.reason.com/news/show/29001.html >we all know that once a monopoly is established, a company has no incentive to innovate. A sluggish monopoly is a ripe target for new competitors, as long as the government or other barriers to entry don't get in the way. See Firefox/Internet Explorer. > If America is going to be more capitalistic, the people with the money should be driving innovation, not stifling it. They need to act responsibly with their money, and that includes being philanthropic and charitable. I have rarely seen innovation come from philanthropic or charitable acts. The vast increase in technology, efficiency, and productivity of the last 50 years can largely be attributed to selfish, for-profit actions. >When they just hoard it all and it becomes a competition to see who can hold the biggest pot, I don't think you deserve to have it in the first place In the process of "hoarding" wealth, they create value. See my previous point. > It's actually…

Over the last several decades I've been reading articles in the US/UK press of the "it's so glorious to live in Scandanavian welfare state X". The young whippersnappers that read HN won't remember these, of course. In the past, X was almost always Sweden. In Sweden and other Scandanavian countries there was always plenty of criticism of the US and its racial problems and how they didn't suffer any of those. Then they began to import non-Scandanavians and things changed. Malmo, Sweden now has the highest rape rate in the developed world. Author Bruce Bawer, a political liberal, published a book critical of evangelical Christians years ago and then moved to Norway to marry his partner (they're gay). Here's what he werote a few weeks ago: (http://memo.brucebawer.com/) "During the nine years and two weeks that I've lived in Oslo, I've seen the city change significantly -- for the worse. I don't remember exactly when it started reminding me of New York in the 1970s and 80s, but by now the resemblance is undeniable. Burglary, rape, gay-bashing, mugging, graffiti, vandalism: you name it, we've got it in spades, and it's still on the rise. Public stabbings and gang fights have become routine...The statistics are dire. Last month came news that the rate of reported crimes in Oslo is now four times that of New York; last week it emerged that Oslo's rape figures reached an all-time high in 2007; today it was reported that over 99 percent of street robberies in the city go…