The unintended consequences of reform

In all the posting done about Governor Palin's resignation, few have noted the irony that she was a victim of her own ethics reform measure. A post from HotAir makes the point better than I could:

A legal device like Alaska’s drive-thru ethical complaint system will always do more damage in the hands of political operations, than good in the hands of well-meaning individual citizens. Organized groups with agendas to push have abundant time, energy, and discipline to exploit such mechanisms. If the Alaskan system was adopted in the fabulously corrupt political climate of Chicago, the likely result would be the elimination of the last few reasonably honest politicians, who would be buried under a flood of bogus ethics complaints mass-produced at the local union halls. The lovely dream of the lone citizen crusader, using his lunch hour to file a complaint against an untouchable crook in high office, fades into the ugly reality of groups like ACORN, issuing target lists to their foot soldiers.

Sarah Palin supported the ethics reforms that were used to mummify her in legal paperwork. John McCain was hamstrung by the elaborate campaign finance laws he helped design, even as his opponent cheerfully ignored them, disabling minimal security from his campaign donation website to accommodate a flood of shadowy cash.

Will the third time be the charm?

There has been buzz about the possibility of a another stimulus package since the first Obama package does not seem to be curing the recession. I was wondering why they were not calling it a third stimulus, but Donald Marron made that point before I could type anything. (The Bush stimulus package of 2008 would be the first one, a stimulus package that was actually properly timed.)

Quote of the day?

If I did a quote of the day, this would be one that would make it:

Obama and his team seem sharply opposed to the view that creative destruction is a valuable economic force. They seem happy with what might be called destructive destruction--the obliteration of value and wealth without any resulting positive change.

Taxicabs and medallions

Found on Carpe Diem and traced back to its source at The Washington Examiner:

The soaring number of taxicab operators in D.C. -- roughly 8,000, most of whom own their own cars -- is a "pressing and urgent problem," Graham said. There are more licensed drivers in D.C. per capita than any place in the world, he said, and new applicants continue to take the required class, giving them access to the driver exam administered by the D.C. Taxicab Commission. A glut of drivers could jeopardize the chances of any cabbies making an adequate living, Graham has said.
....
New York City's medallion system, established in 1937 during the Great Depression in response to a ballooning number of unregulated taxis, artificially capped the number of cabs on the road, to what is now about 13,000.

The medallion program, however, made it very difficult for the average New Yorker to join the industry as an owner: The May 2009 price for an individual medallion, those held by owner-operators, was $568,000. The cost of a corporate medallion was $744,000.

D.C. Taxicab Commissioner A. Cornelius Baker said during a recent meeting that the city must move "toward a regulated taxi force" and create a system "that sustains our drivers and also creates wealth for them in the long term."

When the ordinary workings of a competitive market are seen as a problem, what chance does capitalism have? (The New York medallion program was being used as an example of the problems of regulation forty years ago when I was a student. It is amazing that other cities want to emulate it.)

California dreaming

Kevin Hassett writes about the deficits spending of California and the Obama administration:

It takes years and years to make a mess as terrible as the California debacle, but the recipe is simple. All that you need is two political parties that are always willing to offer easy government solutions for every need of the voters, but never willing to make the tough decisions necessary to finance the government largess that results. Voters will occasionally change their allegiance from one party to the other, but the bacchanal will continue regardless of the names on the office doors.
....
The federal picture is so bleak because the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S. I would imagine that he would be the intergalactic champion as well, if we could gather the data on deficits on other worlds. Obama has taken George W. Bush’s inattention to deficits and elevated it to an art form.

It's tough being a teen

From Forbes, noting that the teenage unemployment rate is 24%, the worst since 1965. Clearly the recession is a big part of that, but also,

Lopez Eastlick says there is another major factor: rising minimum wage requirements. Minimum wage increases raise the bar for entry-level employment. From 1997 until 2007, the minimum wage stood at $5.15. Congress raised it to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 last year, and in July it is scheduled to increase again to $7.25.
....
"For teens who are not in the work force, as many as 10 years later there are financial impacts to that. Ten years later, if you were not employed, you're lagging behind your peers," says Lopez Eastlick. "There's an invisible curriculum you learn from having a job."

(For more bad news for young people in today's job market, see the last link here.)

Update: From the New York Times, "Say Hello to Underachieving":

If the only problem were tedium, students might find a recessionary summer unpleasant but endurable. But some expressed concern that the economic gloom might be a preview of harsh career realities that await.

“The worst thing about this summer is the lack of hope felt by so many kids,” Lydia Wiledon, a Barnard undergraduate, wrote in an e-mail message. “College students ready to thrust themselves into work find nothing, and those most in need are edged out by older, more skilled individuals who are overqualified for such foot-in-the-door opportunities. I worry about how this employment drought will affect my generation in the future.”

Lack of hope? Didn't we just elect Hope? The problem with the unwanted leisure?

Students who enter the job market during a recession can see their wages lag behind comparable students who graduated in better times for as long as 15 years, according to a recent study by Lisa B. Kahn, an economist at the Yale School of Management.

A month ago Iowahawk outdid himself with his post on "funemployment":

As frivolous as it sounds, funemployment is a statement about American society. Experts say it's a sign that Americans are slowly embracing a healthier lifestyle that centers on self-actualization, survival, and Twitter rather than the often soul-crushing burdens of corporate careerism. These experts frequently credit the Obama Administration.

"Recession is a great opportuning for people to get outside, enjoy a sunny park bench, and have fun," said Robert Lester, a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Business. "And President Obama is making that kind of fun possible for more and more people every day."

Read the whole thing if you need a laugh.

Why the 21st century may not be China's

From the Economist, found via Tigerhawk:

China is still a relatively young country, with a median age of around 30. But, uniquely among developing countries, it is ageing extraordinarily fast, so by 2050 its median age will have risen to about 45. Over the next few decades the ratio of elderly dependants to people of working age will rise steeply, from 10% now to 40% by 2050. From about 2030 the country will have more elderly dependants than children (see chart 8), whereas in most other developing countries the opposite will remain true for the next few decades. China’s pattern of ageing is very similar to that in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The difference is that in China this is happening at a time when the country is still relatively poor.
....
So there is now an economic, as well as a human-rights, case for relaxing the country’s “one-child policy”. Many Chinese academics think it can be only a matter of a few years, but the government seems in no hurry. “Family planning”, as it likes to call the policy, is seen as a success, easing pressures on the environment and resources of all kinds. There is no explicit population target, but the latest forecasts suggest that numbers will keep growing from about 1.3 billion now to a peak of around 1.46 billion by 2030 and then start declining gently.

In fact, even if the restrictions were loosened immediately the birth rate might not tick up by very much. In the big cities many people are already leading the sort of lives that have brought down fertility in richer countries.

Global Warming

From Commentary's Contentions on faith and global warming:

For my part, it reminds me of a paper I once graded at Yale. The student author was absolutely persuaded that carbon monoxide caused global warming.

When I pointed out that CO was indeed toxic, but that no one called it a greenhouse gas, and that it was not the same as CO2, the student had no idea what I was talking about (and refused to revise the draft). All evidence had become irrelevant: what mattered was asserting his ill-informed belief, and refusing to reconsider on the grounds that doing so would be akin to apostasy. In a student, that is sad; in the making of policy, it’s both expensive and foolish.

See the comments, and also this at the American Spectator Blog.

File under "Rational Ignorance"

From the Huffington Post:

As newly anointed Minnesota Senator Al Franken prepares to take his seat in Washington, a new survey published today indicates that a majority of Minnesota voters can no longer remember whether or not they voted for him.

Should we trust people's choices in the political arena (democracy) but reject them in the market?

Greenpeace and unintended consequences

I found this rather old post about dolphin-safe tuna fishing from on link on Newmark's Door:

By trying to help dolphins, groups like Greenpeace caused one of the worst marine ecological disasters of all time. Few other fisheries are as bad for groups like sharks and sea turtles as the purse seine fishery, and none are as large in scale.