Disqus - Latest Comments for nicole

Re: Grandpa’s Little Helper

nicole — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:16:25 -0000

Brian has mentioned a couple times as well that his next book is going to be about this. As someone who really enjoyed The Myth of the Rational Voter, but will most likely remain childless, I am eagerly awaiting reading his full-length argument.

Re: More Reasons Jamie-Lynn Is a Bad Example

nicole — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:23:03 -0000

Will, thanks for this post, those figures are staggering.

The more I read of this exchange, the more amazed I am at how much I really, really do not want children, at least for a very long time. My life would be completely different, and significantly worse, if I had had a child when the opportunity arose. I would be living with my parents, working retail or maybe clerical, and I would be stuck in a tiny room with a noisy sticky 18 month old every night. I would never be alone, I would never get to read or relax. And that's if I had had a kid after graduating college!

Instead I have a career I love, I support myself, and get to enjoy reading your blog posts in wonderful, peaceful privacy.

Other commenters who think there are currently limitations on life after having children but these can somehow be removed, either through men helping out more or government intervention or whatever--none of these things can give you back your own life, to have all to yourself, without an intruder on your time and space that you may end up not even liking all that much.

Re: Catallaxy: Frankly, It’s Unnatural

nicole — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:23:26 -0000

I'd like to see more information on the middle study he mentions, of children of "secular parents" attributing creation to God. I can only assume that children of secular parents /= children who have never had anyone tell them about God, because it would be pretty hard to find such children. And does secular parents mean non-fundamentalist, non-religious, or actually atheist? Just seems like maybe this is only showing that children are more credulous than adults.

Re: John Cassidy on Libertarian Paternalism: Way Too Libertarian!

nicole — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:46:29 -0000

Your last sentence is spot-on. I wasn't expecting to find a diatribe about the housing crisis framing a book review, and I never thought I'd see Obama accused of being a crypto-libertarian because he doesn't want to force everyone to buy health insurance. He really takes this to a new level--zero respect for individual freedom.

Re: Liberaltarianism: Back the Future

nicole — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:21:52 -0000

It’s not the 70’s anymore with big government Democrats trying to fix every problem with a new government program, Socialism is dead, Democrats are not Communists in disguise, and not all government programs are evil.

In general I agree with your post, but with universal healthcare one of the main obsessions of this campaign season, I have to disagree with this statement. Democrats are actually willing to say they don't support Obama's proposal because it doesn't force people to do something they don't want to do. Meanwhile, I don't see Democrats lining up to do anything at all about the obscene and ruinous war on drugs or the militarization of police. If they were actually willing to come out and be pro-legalization, I might reconsider, but as things stand they just are not that "socially liberal"—where do most Democrats stand on prostitution? Gambling? Raw milk? Selling organs? Assisted suicide? Seat belt laws? Trans fats? Gay marriage? &tc. They barely even want to admit they are pro-choice anymore.

Re: What Books Would You Ban?

nicole — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:05:29 -0000

Certainly if I were going to ban books I'd go right ahead and become a petty aesthetic tyrant. I've never cared for Anne Tyler. Right behind would be chick lit (Devil Wears Prada, etc) and anything marketed as "young adult"—grow up already and deal with some real prose.

Then I would set my sights on general woo: The Secret, Chopra, The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Bad pop nonfiction like Louise Brizendine's The Female Brain and anything by Naomi Klein.

Oh, and Crime and Punishment. One of my all-time most-hated. "Without God anything is permitted" my a**.

Re: 2006/12/22/niche-social-networks/

nicole — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:29:25 -0000

Vote LibraryThing

Re: Oil Speculation

nicole — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:51:00 -0000

I got this too and sent an annoyed message back (which I had to then send via a customer service form) pointing them to the recent WSJ article on the ban on onion futures trading and telling them how disappointed I was. I was hoping one of the many econblogs I read would comment on it!

Re: Bastiatian Wisdom

nicole — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:58:50 -0000

What a great letter! After five years living there, I can hardly believe there is anyone in Montreal this sane. I tip my hat to you, M Descôteaux.

Re: Culturally Appropirate Health-Care

nicole — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:49:33 -0000

Everyone knows white men don't have a culture.

Re: Frankly Confused

nicole — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:52:34 -0000

Isn't this known as the Naomi Klein Fallacy by now? Republicans talk up the free market while engaging in massive amounts of rent-seeking, and libertarians end up being called corporate shills by the left?

Re: Frankly Confused

nicole — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:08:14 -0000

Can we at least agree that when you have corporations running the government it's not a free market?

Yeah, that's what I (thought I) was implying in my original post. cpurick is right on.

Re: Dubner on The Price of Everything

nicole — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:37:59 -0000

Funny, I was thinking more along the lines of "Be sure not to read the comments. They are even more upsetting than anticipated." Sigh.

Re: They don't know what they're doing

nicole — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:25:31 -0000

Hmm...Rangel...that name sounds familiar. Might this be Rangel who has several illegal rent controlled apartments and doesn't pay his taxes Rangel? Or some other one?

Ahh, there's nothing like accusing people of "murder" for spending LESS THAN 1% of how much oneself has helped to waste.

Re: Hubris

nicole — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:32:03 -0000

But Obama explicitly says he's not passing on these problems to the next generation. How does that show a recognition that he is trading off future taxes and inflation for growth now?

Re: Hubris

nicole — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:15:38 -0000

But I think the idea is "we're not going to put off infrastructure spending, health care reform, education reform, etc." Those are the burdens he's not going to place on future generations. But obviously solving those burdens isn't going to be free.

Despite comments to the contrary, I am not being disingenuous (mea culpa, no I did not click through). How is spending now and paying for it later not passing on a burden? If the only "burden" is deciding whether to spend, maybe. Or if you think the burden lies in living with unreformed healthcare and education. And that's assuming his solutions are actually solutions.

On the other hand, if Obama's "reformed" healthcare and education end up being more burdensome both because they are bad policy and because they are expensive, then you're passing on a significantly worse situation to the next generation.

Sorry, I just find it pretty offensive to have him usher in massive spending and at the same time act like he's being responsible toward future taxpayers.

Re: Twitter

nicole — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:47:29 -0000

I am leaning yes to Twitter. I am thinking automated tweets of Cafe Hayek posts and, as EvanM suggests, "I think it would be useful for commentary on smaller news bits. For example, instead of a full-fledged blog entry, we could get stuff like 'Incentives work: http://tinyurl.com/etc'"</p>

It's a good way to get the word out and I think there is a good-sized community on Twitter that would be interested.

Re: Arcadia

nicole — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:30:15 -0000

I'll be crossing my fingers for someone to get you a contact. I would love to hear him on EconTalk!