Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

I just looked up the famous quote from J.S. Mill in his Utilitarianism, chapter 2, on happiness versus content. It is good cheer to anyone dissatisfied; would you changes places with the fool? (Of course, remember the character who did make that choice in the movie, The Matrix. (more…)

Doesn’t this bring cheer to the day?

Three Hierarchies has a good post on The Church. The basic idea is that if you accept that baptism by Copts is valid and that baptism by Mormons is not, you are saying that Copts are Christians and Mormons are not. (more…)

An old trick question in price theory is to ask

“A monopolist has a fixed cost of 4 and a marginal cost of 3Q. What is its supply curve?”

The trick is that a monopolist is not a price-taking firm, so it has no supply curve, because the supply curve shows the quantity of output a firm produces for a given market price. The monopolist does not take the price as given– he realizes that if he produces more, his price will fall.

But I don’t like that trick. In fact, a monopolist’s supply curve *is* well-defined if you think of the supply curve in the simplest, most natural way— as the quantity a firm chooses if it is confronted with a given price. The only difference with the monopolist is that this is not his ordinary situation. It can happen, though— for example, if the government sets the price. Thus, we should say that a monopolist’s supply curve does exist; it simply is not relevant to his choice of output in ordinary circumstances.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has good data on state and county
employment and earnings, nicely arranged by industry (NAICS) code. In 2003 Monroe County Indiana had 80,550 jobs, of which about 8000 were in manufacturing and 11,000 were self-employed. Health care and retail trade were each about as big as manufacturing, and government (which must include Indiana University) was about 20,000.

Kenneth Elzinga’s 2000 essay, “The Academy and Jesus,” is the best work I know on how to be a Christian university professor. It is so practical it shows me clearly my own deficiencies, and my lack of will to reform them, but it is all the better for that. As he says,

To me, one of the most profound and sobering teachings of the Christian faith is that, unable to serve Jesus my Lord directly, my students (among others) become the appointed agents authorized to receive what I owe my Master.

After looking at Professor Ribstein’s Business Movie website, I looked for a game theory list and found

Professor Michael Shore’s game theory and popular culture page, with lists of movies, TV shows, and so forth. If you know of others he omits, please let him know.

I also looked through my files a bit, and found this email. I forget who it’s from.

If you like Survivor, I highly recommend the movie Atanarjuak. It’s a traditional Inuit story of a struggle for dominance between two family groups in the Canadian high Arctic 1000 years ago. Despite the rivalry, cooperation between the groups can be necessary for (literal) survival. The situation is complicated by sexual conflict both within and between family groups. Natural ability in the competition may be offset by alliances and strategy. I’ve only watched Survivor a couple of times, but the parallels are striking: think of it as real world Survivor. Another interesting feature of the story is that there is no ‘external’ law enforcement. Cooperation is maintained solely by kinship ties and calculations of reciprocal altruism. I found it to be a very interesting anthropological exploration of a minimalist culture (ie small numbers, isolated, resource poor) — and a good story in its own right.

OpinionJournal has an interesting op-ed on how the Pew Trust tried to get Congress to think there was popular demand for the campaign-finance “reform” that led to the big role of millionaire money in the 2004 election:

Mr. Treglia urged grantees to keep Pew’s role hush-hush. “If Congress thought this was a Pew effort,” he confided, “it’d be worthless. It’d be 20 million bucks thrown down the drain.” At one point, late in the congressional debate over McCain-Feingold, “we had a scare,” Mr. Treglia said. “George Will stumbled across a report we had done. . . . He started to reference the fact that Pew was playing a large role . . . [and] that it was a liberal attempt to hoodwink Congress. . . . The good news, from my perspective, was that journalists . . . just didn’t care and nobody followed up.” The hoaxers–a conspiracy of eight left-wing foundations, including George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation–have actually spent $123 million trying to get other people’s money out of politics since 1994, Mr. Sager reports–nearly 90% of the spending by the entire campaign-finance lobby over this period.

I came across the Sonnenbraubrewery, which is near St. Gall in Switzerland. It looks as if it brews good beers. It has been in the Graf family since 1891. My ancestor Samuel Graf, a tailor, came from St. Gall to Illinois around 1835. I wonder if these are the same Grafs?

WORLD magazine tells us of official persecution of Christianity in Indonesia.

On Sept. 1 a West Java court gave three-year sentences to three Sunday school teachers for including Muslim children in their local church program, called Happy Sunday. More specifically, the court convicted the three women under Indonesia’s Child Protection Act of 2002, which prohibits influencing children to convert to a different religion….

The three Javan women–Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti, and Ratna Bangun—were careful. Their Muslim Sunday school students received written permission from their parents allowing them to join, those who did not were turned away, and the church snapped photographs of the parents and children together.

Victoria Toensing in the Wall Street Journal gives two examples of the idiocy of FISA’s ban on monitoring phone conversations of terrorists on US soil, and a reason why the President did not ask to reform the legislation in 2001: (more…)

Here is a way to think of the importance of the death penalty. Suppose you were faced with either acquittal, life in prison, or death. We’ll say acquittal is a punishment of 0 and death is a punishment of 1, and try to figure out how bad life in prison (value P) is by comparison. We can come out with a measure if you are indifferent between (more…)

I happened upon a good site for
Latin quotations. Here
are the best:

at si laxaris, cum voles, erit utilis. (Phaedrus)
You will quickly break the bow if you always keep it bent;

Contra verbosos noli contendere verbis. (Dionysius Cato)
Against the wordy contend not with words.

Crudelis lacrimis pascitur, non frangitur. (Pub. Syrus)
The cruel person is nourished, not broken, by tears.

De minimis non curat lex. (Legal)
The law doesn’t concern itself with trifles.

Dum loquor, hora fugit. (Ovid)
While I talk the hour flies.

Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. (Turgot)
He seized the lightning from the heavens and the scepter from the
tyrants. (Said of Ben Franklin)

Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam. (Pub. Syrus)
Even a single hair casts its shadow.

Ex vitio sapiens aleno emendat suum. (Pub. Syrus)
The wise man corrects his own fault from the fault of another.

Fiat justitia, ruat caelum. (Legal)
Let justice be done, even though the heavens collapse.

Frangar, non flectar. (Motto)
I will break but I won’t bend.

Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo. (Binder)
The drop carves the stone not by force but by repeated falling.

Latrante uno, latrat statim et alter canis. (Anon.)
When one dog barks immediately another one barks too.

Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. (Ovid)
I see the better course and approve of it, but I follow the worse.

The 2003 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics has the results of an opinion poll on the death penalty for murder. (Question: “Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder?”) In 2002, 66% did, with more in favor than opposed in all demographic groups except Jews, where the split was 48-50. I’ve blogged on such polls before, with attention to Europe.

For supporters, the most prevalent reason by far was “An eye for an eye/they took a life/fits the crime”, with 37%, compared to 11% for “Deterrent for potential crimes/set an example”. Does this mean retribution is the most important reason for the death penalty?

The
State Department
reported that homosexuality was actively prosecuted in Egypt in 2001, at least.

In a February retrial of 50 men first arrested in Cairo in May 2001 on
suspicion of homosexual activity, a criminal court convicted 21 of
“habitual debauchery” and sentenced them to the maximum 3-year sentence.
The verdict was pronounced although judges had not allowed any
substantive discussion of the case during several hearings. In May 2002,
President Mubarak ratified the verdicts against two men, who had
allegedly advocated a belief system that combined Islam and tolerance
for homosexuality and had been subsequently convicted of violating
Article 98(F) and sentenced to 5 and 3 years in November 2001. Although
he ratified the verdicts against 2 of the defendants, the president
ordered the retrial of the remaining 50 in a regular criminal court; the
State Security Emergency Court acquitted 29 of the 50; 20 others
received 2-year sentences and 1 received a 1-year sentence for “habitual
debauchery.”

Mona Charen at NR reminds us of the mild response of many people to the 1972 Munich massacres of Israeli athletes by Palestinians. Maybe the tepid response to Al Qaeda and Iraq is nothing new; it’s always easier to keep out of the fray.

Following the murders of eleven Israeli athletes on German soil a
mere 27 years after the Holocaust, the Olympic Games were suspended
for a day. The Olympic flag and the flags of most competing nations
were lowered to half-staff. But the Arab nations insisted upon flying
their flags at full mast. Avery Brundage, president of the
International Olympic Committe, praised the Olympic movement in a
speech after the massacre, but said not one word about the dead
Israelis.

Of the terrorists who took part in the Munich attack, three were
imprisoned in German jails. Just a few weeks later, PLO terrorists
hijacked a Lufthansa plane and threatened to kill the passengers
unless the three Munich terrorists were released. Germany promptly
complied.

MR NOBODY

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house!
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr Nobody. (more…)

I came across an interesting excerpt from the Midrash, Christian in tone, from a source I haven’t been able to find on the Web (it was cited in a Jonah commentary I own).

They asked Wisdom, ‘What is the sinner’s punishment?’
It told them: ‘Sinners — let them be pursued by [their] evil’ [Proverbs 13:21 [+/-]Proverbs 13:21 [21]Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.
].

They asked Prophecy, ‘What is the sinner’s punishment?’
It told them: ‘The soul that sins — it shall die!’ [Ezekiel 18:20 [+/-]Ezekiel 18:20 [20]The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. (ESV)
].

They asked Torah, ‘What is the sinner’s punishment?’
It told them: ‘Let him bring a guilt-offering and gain atonement!’

They asked the Holy One, Blessed be He, ‘What is the sinner’s punishment?’
He told them: ‘Let him repent and gain atonement!’ (Midrash, Yerushalmi Makkos
2:6).

(from p xx, Jonah, Nosson Scherman, 1978)

I like that summary very much. Wisdom is natural law. The Holy One is Jesus.

Clayton Cramer tells us of some “boodle ordinances” I hadn’t noticed: (more…)