Disqus - Latest Comments for joenorton

Re: Presidential Interns

joenorton — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:39:46 -0000

Federally subsidized internships anyone?

Re: Finally, Brad DeLong calls me a liar

joenorton — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:30:40 -0000

I agree. Additionally, Russ, first time I read your quote about Phil Jones saying their was no trend I knew you meant statistically significant trend, I think it was obvious.

Re: A death and an addiction

joenorton — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:45:44 -0000

Deep post Blake. It took guts to write a post like this and I respect you for doing so. I'm sorry to hear about the breakup, and I hope you find your groove again soon.

This section got to me:
"But the romances that don’t end in marriage all have to end. And half of marriages end anyway."
Harsh, scary, and yet refreshingly true. What an interesting existence we have on this planet.

One cheesy quote I'm a fan of in moments like these, from the movie Blow -
"Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on."

Re: Why should you start a company in Philly? (open discussion)

joenorton — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:09:00 -0000

Dreamit is great, but it's not unique to our city. Dreamit is a spinoff of the yCombinator 'seed stage investor' model which has been done many places around the country, another notable one being Techstars.

Re: Political incentives

joenorton — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:01:22 -0000

"lobbyist and the wealthy win all elections and write all the bills."

Don't you see then? If lobbyist and wealthy control congress, then we are best off limiting congress's reach and power so that they control very little. If we had passed a large health-care bill then that gives congress a great deal more power and money to divvy out to donors in high places.

"Sure we can put off health care reform but eventually the budget will spiral and the death panels and rationing they were taught to fear will become real issues."

Why is the budget spiraling? A chunk is military spending and I'd support bringing that down, but the vast majority of the growth in the budget in the coming decades is from entitlements. Social security, medicare and medicaid are growing exponentially more expensive as as we go - and yet - it seems you support a brand new batch of entitlements? (Free Insurance for those who can't afford).

Lemme tell you some ways we can make healthcare cheaper without adding new entitlements:
- Tort reform
- Get rid of the arbitrary 'only compete in this state' insurance rules and allow all firms to compete nationally
- Get rid of the tax advantages to businesses for providing insurance, perhaps give the tax advantage to individuals instead so then we will have cheaper insurance as individuals (this would mean a lot to entrepreneurs and small businesses).

Re: Political incentives

joenorton — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:59:36 -0000

This was meant to be reply to Muir, I'm moving it now, my mistake.

Re: Higher Education Starved for Tax Dollars?

joenorton — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:35:49 -0000

Is that reliable though? It's only inflation if the same product now has a higher price... Inflation is price increase without a corresponding increase in quality, right?

Maybe you could measure tuitions nationwide and say tuition went up x%, so you'd say thats x% inflation. How can we verify that the quality didn't improve? (not saying it did, just how would we know?)

Re: Higher Education Starved for Tax Dollars?

joenorton — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:47:06 -0000

I go to a 'state-related' college in PA, meaning we are about 50/50 public and private. PA ws threatening to take away our funding because of huge budget problems and our college started freaking out, sending out petitions, telling us to call representatives, etc.

The whole time I was hoping we'd lose funding because this had the potential to jump-start my college into potentially becoming half-decent, even if more expensive. Sadly, PA decided to pave over the budget problems with gambling licenses and taxes and my college is left just as top-heavy and bureaucratic.

Re: Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

joenorton — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:06:39 -0000

Best Quote:

"There is no 'fundamental value.' There are only amounts people think it is worth."

Re: The True Cheats

joenorton — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:40:07 -0000

"American manufacturing has been hollowed out by this dedication to free trade above any other consideration."

Less people in the U.S. are employed in manufacturing then there used to be - that much is true. Don't you wonder why? Do you know for sure it's because of Free Trade?

Even though our Manufacturing sector employs far less people then it did 50 years ago, they produce a great deal more. This fact would indicate that the loss of employment in this sector is at least partially due to productivity increases (from technology, from human capital, etc.)

Additionally, you should recognize that the domestic demand for manufactured goods has been dropping as we've moved into the current 'information age'. Consumer demand in advanced countries such as the U.S. and a few other big boys around the world has shifted from manufacturing goods (because once we all have a fridge, 2 cars, and air conditioning then other things become relatively more important) to services. This is why we see the service sector growing, because Americans are buying less manufactured goods then we use to because of our affluence and relative abundance.

Check this link for some graphs if you want. Manufacturing employment is at it's lowest since 1941, and yet our productivity has never been higher.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com...

Re: Krugman Moves Closer to Protectionism

joenorton — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:58:21 -0000

I been telling the Philadelphia city council for months that Pittsburgh is taking our jerbs! Finally, some support from a titan of intellectualism such as Krugman!

Re: Testifying before the JEC

joenorton — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:00:51 -0000

I thought it went well. I am always happy to see you presenting on the Hill, and I think you do a tremendous job representing the 'hayekian' perspective on such issues. It really was very interesting hearing Stiglitz and yourself saying 100% different things, which you captured in your comment about economists not really being able to tell a congressman 'how to make jobs in baltimore' and not actually in much agreement about the great depression 75 years ago. A humble economist is a rare thing indeed.

BTW, I noticed this last time you testified as well, the main person always ends the testimony with their little closing statement, and it always seems pre-written and as if they didn't hear a word you said. I just wondered how much that bothered you because it definitely annoys me.

Re: Palmer, Cowen, and Boaz on Palmer’s New Book

joenorton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:19:17 -0000

Unimpressed by Tom Palmer. Not saying he isn't a good public speaker, but hardly the best I've ever seen and his subject matter is unoriginal IMO and delivered in an uninteresting fashion. Cowen's remarks are unfortunate. I have hoped that I simply mistook the superficialness of his blog, but his comments seem only to confirm this hypothesis. It's unfortunate, and even though Cowen and Palmer do not represent all of GMU or Cato, respectively, I still find myself feeling these organizations are less reputable then I use to think. I use to want to intern with Cato, to attend Cato University, and I find myself no longer wanting to do so after reading about their problem with the Lew Rockwell/Ron Paul group (if such a thing exists) and the ludicrous insinuations of Palmer and Boaz.

Re: Using The Price of Everything in class

joenorton — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:57:11 -0000

Steve Horwitz posted his list in the comment there. I had no idea about his bonus question, so I whipped out my copy and turned to 156 and tried to figure it out. Very funny, I definitely did not catch that my first read.

Re: Financial reform

joenorton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:46:24 -0000

I like this piece a lot. My favorite line:
"Recognize that having every American own a home is not the American Dream but the dream of the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors."

Re: Not Your Granddaddy’s Unemployment

joenorton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:33:24 -0000

We are all entrepreneurs. Some of us make better forecasts of the future scarcity and value of different occupations and skillsets then others. We either profit, or lose, from our ability to gauge these.

She studied Marketing - one of the most common (and IMO, not terribly difficult to do without a marketing background) majors, and went to GWU - one of the most expensive schools in the nation.

If she studied, say, Engineering, at a cheaper school, I bet she would have been able to keep her place and would have some offers.

To me, it sounds like she made some poor entrepreneurial decisions. I don't pity her in the least.

Re: Tyler Cowen on Health-Insurance Mandates

joenorton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:32 -0000

Well then Democrats are trying to ramdown 'health care financing programs'. Mommsen, it's very difficult to get coverage besides 'soup to nuts' because of the perversion that has gone down in the insurance industry. Americans have come to expect the 1st dime of cost for every doctors visit to be offset by insurance.

Re: Tyler Cowen on Health-Insurance Mandates

joenorton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:58:23 -0000

Maybe he'll live for another 5 - 10 years, hopefully I'll live 10x that long. In which case I would agree that my 'total health costs during my lifetime' is going to be greater than his 'total health costs for his lifetime' but what does this matter? I'll pay for my total health costs how I deem nescessary and he'll do likewise. This gives me incentive to stay healthy as long as possible because being unhealthy, and living a risky lifestyle (drinking excessively, abusing drugs, driving recklessly, starting fights, etc.) is personally very costly - and it should be, otherwise everyone would do these things much more frequently.

This argument is akin to the bailouts. If Banks make the decision to behave in an unhealthy and risky behavior it gives the wrong incentives if we don't let them take the loss which is the result of their behavior. By bailing them out, we tell them there is no consequence of their risky behavior - and this tells them that going onward, there is no check on their behavior so it's perfectly rational to continue acting in a risky and unhealthy manner.

Back to your time perspective argument... I don't want to pay more then I need to TODAY. I need to pay for food and tuition. TODAY if me and the incredibly unhealthy and risky person were in the same pool then I am paying for their healthcare. I have more urgent needs then healthcare atm so I try to optimize my lifestyle so that I don't have any expenses in that area.

I am an individual with rights and responsibilities. Let me make my own decisions, and let me profit or lose from my decisions.

Re: Tyler Cowen on Health-Insurance Mandates

joenorton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:47:40 -0000

Events which are distributed randomly, like 1 in 100,000 get disease XYZ or like 1 in 1,000,000 people in this region will have event ABC cause property dmg, these are insurable because every person in the pool has an equal % chance of having the incident.

I am not convinced about insuring smokers for lung disease, or obese folks for heart disease, or alcoholics for car insurance, etc. These events are not randomly distributed within a population but are the cause of the persons behavior.

Re: Tyler Cowen on Health-Insurance Mandates

joenorton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:57:31 -0000

If theres a 1 in 100,000 chance of me getting an illness, and I voluntarily contract out my risk and ask to be put in a pool with 99,999 other individuals with similar risk as me - and then we all group to offset anyones catastrophic loss, that's fine with me. That's voluntary trade.

Forced insurance is simply subsidizing. Plus there are many things which don't belong in insurance plans, like paying for each doctors visit and insuring people for things which are a direct result of their behavior (like can an insurance company insure an obese smoker against heart disease? He's not going to 'randomly' get heart disease, his actions directly attributed to it - these areas are where insurance gets awkward IMO.

Re: Tyler Cowen on Health-Insurance Mandates

joenorton — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:20:51 -0000

Think of this: You and your neighbor get new cars. You spend time every month working on it, maintaining it, making sure to keep it going strong. Your neighbor drives it into the ground and neglects it, big time. Then the day comes when his car breaks down and you get a knock on your door... your neighbor says his car is broken, and yours is running well, and that this means you should pay for his new car... Is this fair Gil?

If the obese smoker down the street from me starts needing a great deal of healthcare then why is it my responsibility to help him pay for it?

I'm a 21 year old male with no serious health conditions, shouldn't I be allowed to 'risk it' if I want and thus not get health insurance? If I choose to forego health insurance and elect to pay out of pocket for my doctors visits then why is it ok for the government to force me to buy insurance from them and subsidize others unhealthy lifestyle? It's just plain stealing, not to mention it causes all the wrong incentives.

Re: Munger on shortages and prices

joenorton — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:51:18 -0000

Great EconTalk. Covered stuff I know about the price system, but also dabbled in some higher level stuff about the economics profession as a whole and noted the 'unseen' effects which largely go unnoticed. Interesting talk.

Really great Mungercast, as long as you keep making them I'll keep listening.

Re: A turning point?

joenorton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:04:42 -0000

I think Russ is saying that this Nobel, and the debate going on recently about the wrong-turn in economics in general, has advanced the ball just a bit towards that goal. No one is saying 'done, all well and good since 8am Monday', just that it's an exciting time to be an economist because of the growing potential for a shift.

Re: Video Library | Foundation for Economic Education

joenorton — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:46:10 -0000

I really liked this video. He's a good presenter. Such an interesting topic...

Re: Let’s keep making the same mistakes

joenorton — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:29:09 -0000

Bravo sir!