Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

For $16, I find I can buy insurance from Travelocity against the risk of having to cancel to my flight. As you see below, I get back my ticket money if I or somebody in my family gets sick, or if my car crashes on the way to the airport. Not a good deal, probably, but an interesting concept.

Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption

In the event You are prevented from taking or completing Your Flight because:

(a) You, a Traveling Companion, or an Immediate Family member suffers an Injury,
Sickness, or death; or
(b) You or Your Traveling Companion
    (i) are hijacked, quarantined, required to serve on a jury, or subpoenaed;
    (ii) has a principal residence made uninhabitable by fire, flood, volcano,
earthquake, hurricane, or other natural disaster; or
    (iii) are directly involved in a documented traffic accident while en route
to departure;

The Insurer will pay up to $500 for:
Trip Cancellation - non-refundable Flight cancellation charges.
Trip Interruption - the airfare paid, less the value of applied credit from an
unused return travel ticket, to return to Your city of residence or rejoin the
original Trip (limited to the cost of one-way economy airfare by a scheduled
carrier, from the point of destination to the point of origin shown on the
original travel tickets).

IMPORTANT: You must be medically capable of travel on the day You purchase this
coverage. The covered reason for cancellation or interruption of Your Flight
must first occur after the date that Your cancellation coverage began under this
plan.

I found a site, “Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls” that tells you various ways to reduce your junk mail. One thing I did was to try to stop all the credit card offers and loan offers I get by calling 1-888-567-8688 and giving info to the computer to stop use of my credit rating for that purpose.

Credit offers: The major credit agencies all sell aggregate credit information any bidder. Direct mail and credit companies generate mail based on demographics including zip code, income band and credit payment patterns. Stopping this is easy, you just need your address, former address within two years, and social security number. One call does it all for agencies Equifax, Trans Union, Experian and Innovis. Dial 1-888-5 OPT OUT (or 1-888-567-8688) 24 hours a day.

Daphne Patai was here last week to give a talk, and at dinner she said that someone had once told her that the purpose of the detailed law of Orthodox Judaism is to make you think always about God. I like the sound of that. It makes more sense than the idea of “fencing the law” that I have heard before— that by interpreting the Law to require extraordinary efforts such as not turning on lights on the Sabbath one would minimize violations of the Law. That kind of fencing is not the way to minimize violations at all. Far more important is self-examination and other less cut-and-dried activities, and that kind of fencing and the neglect of the heart that it induced is what Jesus criticized in the Pharisees. But “to make you think always of God” is much better.

I don’t think, though, that God wants us to be obsessed with Him, any more than a woman wants a lover to be not only madly in love but obsessed with her to the neglect of the rest of his life. The Westminster Catechism begins

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

The second part of the answer seems reasonable, from Biblical evidence, but it pertains most to the afterlife. Since Man was created by God, the first part must be correct, but it is not much of a clarification. Which is better, the active life or, as Aquinas says, the contemplative life? Should we be doing good things in the world, or be forever worshipping? I suppose I am twisting what he meant, since he himself wrote books and taught, which is not worship. He was a Dominican, not a Benedictine monk. I am inclined to think that God wanted us to be involved in the Earth, not merely to be waiting out our mortal life and trying to keep our minds off it. Otherwise, why put us here on Earth?

Mark Newman has a good cartogram page, and lets people download his software. Here is a world population cartogram. India and China are about a third.

I also like his GDP map.

From Tyler Cowen, I think (but I can’t find the link), I noted down this article on the Judge Rotenberg center, which uses electric shocks to teach students how to behave. (more…)

From Marginal Revolution:

It is a little known fact that the United States today uses far less water per person, and less water in total, than we did twenty-five years ago. It must be due to more efficient irrigation.

That is water expert Peter Gleick, quoted in the excellent article “The Last Drop,” (not on-line), from the 23 October The New Yorker.

Here is more detail.

* Total water use in the US in 2000 is lower than it was in 1975.

* Per-capita water use in the US in 2000 is lower than it has been since the mid-1950s.

* The economic productivity of water (dollars of Gross National Product per unit of water used) is higher than it has ever been: it has more than doubled since the 1970s, to $6.20 per hundred gallons used.

A new thought on global warming: even if there is a 10% chance of bad things happening because of global warming, we should have a plan to deal with it. And even if there is a 90% chance, we should have a plan that is reversible, not causing permanent harm.

I think this lends argument to plans such as getting ready to put soot into the atmosphere to make it more opaque— but for waiting to do so until the bad effects are noticeable. If we were to be restricted to CO2-emission-reducing policies, it makes for a complicated and interesting tradeoff between restricting now, possibly uselessly, and restricting later, when adjustment costs are higher.

A friend commenting on an earlier post on telephone design told me of the

Retro Phone Handset. It is an old-fashioned handset that attaches to a cellphone. A good idea! If I used a cellphone more, say, as my basic phone, maybe I’d get one.

have been delinquent in replying to comments and emails from a month or two ago, but I will try now. First, though, is what Pastor David Mensah of Ghana told us this morning: the Gospel is what is important, and the things that divide us are secondary. Wrong beliefs about God are sin, and at some point the differences are so great that we might not be worshipping the same God, but there is a lot of room for disagreement among Christian brethren. Just as someone can be a Christian and a fornicator or a liar, so somebody can be a Christian and believe grossly false things about God. I might be one of those. I probably am, actually– it is hard to believe correctly, and easy to be presumptuous. But I will try to be correct. (more…)

James Lileks on October 6 says,

Wife’s out with friends at one of those jewelry parties. I’m trying to think of a male equivalent. A peripheral party? Get your friends over and show them 40 USB accessories?

Great idea! Actually, after my student party Friday I had the idea that next time I should try a Show-and-Tell Party. Each guest is to bring something to show and tell. A guest’s guest could be the “something”, but second-order guests need not bring anything, though they could (we had 17 children in the house, besides the 3 babies).

What is the use of experimental economics? Student subjects are not businessmen, nor do people respond in the same way to rewards of $20 as they do to $2000. The context is too much like a game, where winning and losing, and having fun in the process, are more important than dollar gains or losses.

These things are all true, but do not destroy the value of experiments entirely. You cannot have students playing at being firms and conclude that oligopolies behave in a certain way, or even look at student bubbles and say that the stock market is the same. And it is hard to get true willingness-to-pay, or risk aversion parameters out. What we can hope to see, though, is what kinds of rules of thumb people in general use, what subtleties they miss, what mistakes they make, and what procedures they like. If we find something in a context where we can conclude it is a general human tendency, then we can conclude that real-world actors also feel the pull of those tendencies, even if custom, experience, context, or intellect override them. And maybe the real-world actors will indulge in or succumb to those things on occasion.

In addition, experiments can be useful to remind us of variables missing from our models. Thinking hurts— so our models should perhaps include a cost of thinking. Unequal splits cause discomfort. Unfairness incites rage. Bidding in auctions can be fun. All these have real-world implications, and all are proper subjects for economics, as involving tradeoffs that a person must make.

Being an economist, I get to at least learn more about my subject from inefficiencies. IU is smart enough to bring the flu shot nurses to the buildings where employees work, rather than make each employee travel to a doctor. But then, the employee must write down his name and address, etc. on two separate forms (waste 1), and write down his university and insurance ID numbers (waste 2). Waste 2 is the more serious. I doubt even 1% of employees know these numbers. Thus, each must go to some effort to find the numbers. Also, explaining this and filling out the forms takes more than ten times as long as actually getting the shots. Alternatively, the secretaries doing the registration could have a list of employee names and numbers. Or, of course, the system could use names instead of numbers, and in case of ambiguous names make an inquiry.

This is a good example because it is all internal to the employer. They could minimize both the total time spent by employees and the costliness of the time (using secretaries instead of professors, programmers, etc.) by shifting the effort.

A friend told me he was benefiting from the non-prescription drug 5-Hydroxytryptophan, which works a bit like an SSRI, except it isn’t a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but is supposed to help produce more serotonin. This is an interesting drug from a regulatory point of view. From Wikipedia: (more…)

Six
Conservative Guys, we learn that Democrats in Congress were quite happy with one of their colleagues (Gerry Studds) who had not only been friendly with pages, but engaged in unnatural acts with one. They accept donations from him, and named a marine sanctuary after him when he retired many terms after his misdeed.

One more thing: the comparison to Studds should not be used to excuse or
diminish Foley’s behavior, but I think it can be used to illustrate the rank
hypocrisy on the part of the Democrats here. Someone should pull together Studds
FEC records and old newspaper clips to see which Democrats who are outraged
about Foley were supporting (through endorsements and/or checks) a member of
Congress who had sex with an underage male page.

I’d start with this: John Kerry’s listing of the “Gerry Studds Stewardship
Award” in 2001. The original site is down, but a text site is still available
here.

Also, Congress should give some thought about changing the name of the Gerry
Studds National Marine Sanctuary on Stellwagen bank (see here, again courtesy
John F. Kerry, who also accepted a campaign donation from Studds in 2004).

The SCG site has links. Here is one for the
Gerry
Studds National Marine Sanctuary.

From Jurisdynamics,

As the Harvard philosopher WVO Quine wrote, “for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind.” He wrote this because Homeric gods were not supposed to be taken to exist on faith, but rather as explanations of phenomena like Volcanic eruptions and lightning strikes.

Here are three passages that say Jesus is a being higher than men. These are not incompatible with Arianism, but they are incompatible with Jesus merely being a judge and redeemer.

Matthew 28:16-19 [+/-]Matthew 28:16-19 [16]Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. [17]And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. [18]And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19]Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (ESV)
: Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Luke 24:51-52: And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:

John 1:1-3, 14 [+/-]John 1:1-3 [1:1]In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2]He was in the beginning with God. [3]All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (ESV)
. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; without him was not any thing made that was made…. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

“Baptism (Early Christian)” (by Kirsopp Lake from The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, (1964) page 380 ff.) is very good on the authenticity of the baptismal formula in the Great Commission, laying out all the evidence objectively. I hadn’t realized that *all* the ancient manuscripts do include the Trinity. The evidence against it is mostly that Paul didn’t mention it when he wrote about baptism. Here is the Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20 [+/-]Matthew 28:18-20 [18]And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19]Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20]teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (ESV)
:

18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost :

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

I’ve decided to start a mushroom webpage. I’ll put pictures of mushrooms I come across there, and anthing else mycological.