<i>Insurance plans that offer contraception are, over time, significantly less expensive to employers than those without.</i>
Do you have research that confirms it? I can see how this could go either way, depending on the elasticities. I would imagine it depends on the characteristics of the employees. It takes a certain kind of woman to say "Screw it, I'll just take my chances" in response to not being given free birth control pills.
<i>If conservatives hold on to the contraception issue for too long, they may see that their desire to highlight a legitimate religious freedom issue begins to tarnish their well-earned reputation as the group that defends small and medium-sized business interests. It seems to have gone a similar route 70 years ago.</i>
This would make sense if conservatives were proposing that contraceptives be banned, or that employers be legally barred from paying for their employees' contraception. They're not, so it really doesn't.
Fun fact: Failure to acknowledge the not-at-all-subtle distinction between "The government should not mandate/subsidize this" and "The government should not allow this" is the leading cause of palm-shaped imprints on the faces of libertarians.
This stuff seriously ticks me off. Because that cartoon wasn't anti-Obama--it was pro-Obama. There are any number of perfectly legitimate reasons to oppose Obama and the Congressional Democrats. "His mother had sex with a black man" is not one of them. And when Republicans spread stuff like this, it lends credence to the smear that all opposition to Obama is racially motivated. The Democrats couldn't hope for better PR than garbage like this.
*I can't think of any sane moral calculus in which calling someone names is worse than demanding that the government force other people to give you stuff for free. But perhaps your capacity for rationalization is greater than mine.
It depends on how much of a deterrent effect there is. If we deter ten murders for each person wrongly executed, I think that's a pretty good deal. If it's less than one, not so much.
Also, DNA evidence cuts both ways. It should cause us to be more skeptical of the methods that led us to those wrongful convictions in the first place, and convictions based on those methods, but it should also cause us to be more confident in convictions where we do have DNA evidence available.
It's funny--the death penalty is applied even more unevenly on the basis of sex. And speaking of Duane Buck, the psychologist who testified during his trial that blacks have a higher recidivism rate than whites also testified that men have a higher recidivism rate than women.
Why is the race thing an issue, but not the sex thing?
I've been hearing a lot about a supposed right to health care lately. That's a form of welfare. And if you took a poll of a random sample of the population, I'm pretty sure you'd find a sizeable minority, or perhaps even a majority, who say that people have a right to food and shelter, even if they can't afford it. The specific phrase "right to welfare" may be out of vogue, but I think you'll find a lot of people still agree with the concept.
I'm pretty sure that he means the Constitution as ratified in 1787-88 as opposed to a "living constitution" whose meaning evolves in vague, unwritten ways according to changing social norms, rather than the unamended Constitution as opposed to the amended Constitution. I guarantee you that he does not think that all Amendments to the Constitution should be regarded as null and void.
And really, as far as the constitutionality of federal welfare programs goes, what he meant is a moot point, because I don't think there are any amendments that are relevant to that particular question.
Also, a bit of historical context: At the time there was some concern that some states would gang up on others and use the power of the federal government to extract resources from those states. This is one reason we give each state two votes in the Senate without respect to population. It's also why, prior to the sixteenth amendment, there was a constitutional prohibition on levying direct taxes other than in proportion to each state's population.
Giving Congress the power to run a welfare program would have provided a loophole in this prohibition (tax each state in proportion to population and then distribute funds unevenly), so there's no way the Constitution would have been ratified if it had been understood as giving Congress the power to hand out cash like that.
Or, proof by contradiction: If Article IV, Section 3 had really granted carte-blanche spending powers, then that would include the power to spend money for the purpose of raising armies, and thus it wouldn't be necessary to enumerate the power to raise armies explicitly in Article I, Section 8. And yet there it is, along with the power to establish and maintain a navy, and to establish post offices and post roads. Therefore Article IV, Section 3 does not actually grant carte-blanche spending power to Congress.
The constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase was in fact hotly debated at the time.
And the Constitution does say how Congress may spend tax revenues. It has an extensive list of items on which it may spend money.
The part about disposing of property seems pretty clearly to me to refer to real property, not to money, as Article IV Section 3 otherwise deals exclusively with territorial issues. The brief discussion of this section in Federalist 43 seems to confirm this.
See also Federalist 41, in which Madison assured constitutional skeptics that the general welfare clause was not in fact intended to grant carte-blanche spending power to Congress.
So what kind of jobs should we be focused on expanding?
That's socialist thinking, in the most literal sense of the word. There have been countries that have tried letting the government decide which sectors of the economy to expand, and it always ends badly for everyone but the undertakers.
"We" shouldn't be making a conscious effort to expand the pool of any particular kind of job. The best the government can do is get out of the way, or, if you're into the aggregate demand thing, push on that and let the market channel it where it will. But micromanagement of the economy is a really bad idea.
You're not thinking on the margin. If you have absolutely no interest in having children, then obviously tax credits that refund a third of the cost isn't going to change your mind. But if you'd like to have another child but just don't think you can afford it, then a subsidy really can make a difference.
He's making a valid point--it's just that "empirical evidence is overrated" is a terrible way to summarize it. What he's really saying, if you read the whole post, is that shoddy, uncontrolled, N = 1 empirical evidence is overrated. Fertility rates have dropped off the cliff all over the developed world. The fact that the US fertility rate has held steady for 40 years may be significant. What you'd really have to do is look at all developed coutries and see whether fertility rates have fallen more slowly in those countries where the subsidies have increased more quickly You'd probably want to control for some other factors, too.
Out of curiosity, how many semesters of economics have you taken?
Now, on the other hand, military and Peace Corp service both have something of a positive correlation with output.
Not saying that's not true, but it's...not consistent with the stereotypes of Peace Corps members with which I'm familiar. What are you basing that on?
Seems to me that the same thing could be accomplished with an optional, more rigorous track in high school. Signals have to be hard to reproduce to be effective, but 10% of a person's productive lifespan seems like overkill.
Incidentally, I did eventually finish my bachelor's degree. I learned nothing of any real importance that I had not already learned on the job. It just made it easier for me to get other jobs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The More Things Change : Contraception Controversy Edition”
No, <em> and <i> are both valid. The problem, as I suspected, is that I was typing tags into the WYSIWIG editor.
"
<em>Testing</em>
"
Damn you, WSYIWIG editor!
"
<i>Insurance plans that offer contraception are, over time, significantly less expensive to employers than those without.</i>
Do you have research that confirms it? I can see how this could go either way, depending on the elasticities. I would imagine it depends on the characteristics of the employees. It takes a certain kind of woman to say "Screw it, I'll just take my chances" in response to not being given free birth control pills.
<i>If conservatives hold on to the contraception issue for too long, they may see that their desire to highlight a legitimate religious freedom issue begins to tarnish their well-earned reputation as the group that defends small and medium-sized business interests. It seems to have gone a similar route 70 years ago.</i>
This would make sense if conservatives were proposing that contraceptives be banned, or that employers be legally barred from paying for their employees' contraception. They're not, so it really doesn't.
Fun fact: Failure to acknowledge the not-at-all-subtle distinction between "The government should not mandate/subsidize this" and "The government should not allow this" is the leading cause of palm-shaped imprints on the faces of libertarians.
On “Trust, Standing, and Communication”
This stuff seriously ticks me off. Because that cartoon wasn't anti-Obama--it was pro-Obama. There are any number of perfectly legitimate reasons to oppose Obama and the Congressional Democrats. "His mother had sex with a black man" is not one of them. And when Republicans spread stuff like this, it lends credence to the smear that all opposition to Obama is racially motivated. The Democrats couldn't hope for better PR than garbage like this.
On “At My Real Job: DNA and the Death Penalty”
*I can't think of any sane moral calculus in which calling someone names is worse than demanding that the government force other people to give you stuff for free. But perhaps your capacity for rationalization is greater than mine.
"
It depends on how much of a deterrent effect there is. If we deter ten murders for each person wrongly executed, I think that's a pretty good deal. If it's less than one, not so much.
"
Also, DNA evidence cuts both ways. It should cause us to be more skeptical of the methods that led us to those wrongful convictions in the first place, and convictions based on those methods, but it should also cause us to be more confident in convictions where we do have DNA evidence available.
"
It's funny--the death penalty is applied even more unevenly on the basis of sex. And speaking of Duane Buck, the psychologist who testified during his trial that blacks have a higher recidivism rate than whites also testified that men have a higher recidivism rate than women.
Why is the race thing an issue, but not the sex thing?
On “What Is Welfare For?”
I've been hearing a lot about a supposed right to health care lately. That's a form of welfare. And if you took a poll of a random sample of the population, I'm pretty sure you'd find a sizeable minority, or perhaps even a majority, who say that people have a right to food and shelter, even if they can't afford it. The specific phrase "right to welfare" may be out of vogue, but I think you'll find a lot of people still agree with the concept.
"
I'm pretty sure that he means the Constitution as ratified in 1787-88 as opposed to a "living constitution" whose meaning evolves in vague, unwritten ways according to changing social norms, rather than the unamended Constitution as opposed to the amended Constitution. I guarantee you that he does not think that all Amendments to the Constitution should be regarded as null and void.
And really, as far as the constitutionality of federal welfare programs goes, what he meant is a moot point, because I don't think there are any amendments that are relevant to that particular question.
"
Also, a bit of historical context: At the time there was some concern that some states would gang up on others and use the power of the federal government to extract resources from those states. This is one reason we give each state two votes in the Senate without respect to population. It's also why, prior to the sixteenth amendment, there was a constitutional prohibition on levying direct taxes other than in proportion to each state's population.
Giving Congress the power to run a welfare program would have provided a loophole in this prohibition (tax each state in proportion to population and then distribute funds unevenly), so there's no way the Constitution would have been ratified if it had been understood as giving Congress the power to hand out cash like that.
"
Or, proof by contradiction: If Article IV, Section 3 had really granted carte-blanche spending powers, then that would include the power to spend money for the purpose of raising armies, and thus it wouldn't be necessary to enumerate the power to raise armies explicitly in Article I, Section 8. And yet there it is, along with the power to establish and maintain a navy, and to establish post offices and post roads. Therefore Article IV, Section 3 does not actually grant carte-blanche spending power to Congress.
"
See my comment below. I'm fairly certain that that doesn't mean what you think it means.
"
I'm occasionally tempted to say, purely as snark, that crying "racism" is just a leftist's reflexive response to any critique of the welfare state.
I'm usually able to resist the temptation, but it's really hard when they keep baiting me like this.
"
The constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase was in fact hotly debated at the time.
And the Constitution does say how Congress may spend tax revenues. It has an extensive list of items on which it may spend money.
The part about disposing of property seems pretty clearly to me to refer to real property, not to money, as Article IV Section 3 otherwise deals exclusively with territorial issues. The brief discussion of this section in Federalist 43 seems to confirm this.
See also Federalist 41, in which Madison assured constitutional skeptics that the general welfare clause was not in fact intended to grant carte-blanche spending power to Congress.
"
There have been a number of amendments since then. Which one do you believe authorized the federal government to run a welfare program?
"
So what kind of jobs should we be focused on expanding?
That's socialist thinking, in the most literal sense of the word. There have been countries that have tried letting the government decide which sectors of the economy to expand, and it always ends badly for everyone but the undertakers.
"We" shouldn't be making a conscious effort to expand the pool of any particular kind of job. The best the government can do is get out of the way, or, if you're into the aggregate demand thing, push on that and let the market channel it where it will. But micromanagement of the economy is a really bad idea.
"
No, they were in fact replaced by "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" in the public school system back in the '90s.
On “What Exactly is Overrated Here?”
According to the chart, $2,000.
Per year. For eighteen years.
You're not thinking on the margin. If you have absolutely no interest in having children, then obviously tax credits that refund a third of the cost isn't going to change your mind. But if you'd like to have another child but just don't think you can afford it, then a subsidy really can make a difference.
"
He's making a valid point--it's just that "empirical evidence is overrated" is a terrible way to summarize it. What he's really saying, if you read the whole post, is that shoddy, uncontrolled, N = 1 empirical evidence is overrated. Fertility rates have dropped off the cliff all over the developed world. The fact that the US fertility rate has held steady for 40 years may be significant. What you'd really have to do is look at all developed coutries and see whether fertility rates have fallen more slowly in those countries where the subsidies have increased more quickly You'd probably want to control for some other factors, too.
Out of curiosity, how many semesters of economics have you taken?
On “Ironic Blog Post Of The Day”
Now, on the other hand, military and Peace Corp service both have something of a positive correlation with output.
Not saying that's not true, but it's...not consistent with the stereotypes of Peace Corps members with which I'm familiar. What are you basing that on?
"
Seems to me that the same thing could be accomplished with an optional, more rigorous track in high school. Signals have to be hard to reproduce to be effective, but 10% of a person's productive lifespan seems like overkill.
"
Is Esq. synonymous with J.D., or do they have slightly different meanings?
"
Incidentally, I did eventually finish my bachelor's degree. I learned nothing of any real importance that I had not already learned on the job. It just made it easier for me to get other jobs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.