No Cuts, No Fees, Education Should Be Free

By Josh Weil | Published: March 10, 2010

H/T Andrew G.


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Ignorance is Bliss?

By Josh Weil | Published: March 9, 2010

Once again, my favorite contrarian Robin Hanson has gotten me to think really hard about interpersonal psychology. In this post, he argues that we prefer someone to be ignorant in why they like us. I initially disagreed with him, but the more I think about his hypothesis the more plausible it seems.

I think his point is that if people aren’t sure why they like us, they will continue liking us. If they can easily rate us on our likable qualities, we are likely to be eventually overshadowed. Note this is different than the claim that we prefer to be ignorant about why people like us.

At first I thought this couldn’t be true. I want people to like me for who I am, and not be ignorant about why they like me.

But then I thought about it the other way. I want someone to like me, and not like me for certain reasons. If someone spends a lot of time with me and doesn’t know why they like me, they will probably find it hard to find other people they will like more and replace me.

Think about who you like, and why you like them. I’m willing to bet the people you like the most you like, “just because.”


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Digging up the Archives

By Josh Weil | Published: March 7, 2010

Here’s the introduction from Don Boudreaux’s prophetic essay from 2001 on his post 9-11 fears:

I’m writing these words in the early-morning serenity of my home, two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. All appears peaceful, fine, and as it was before September 11. My son, Thomas, is upstairs sleeping the sweet sleep of a child too young to comprehend what is happening. The world that he understands is that of Clifford the Big Red Dog cartoons, toy trains, and laughing with his mommy and daddy.

His child’s world was always destined to change into an adult’s world, with more worries, more pressing expectations, greater responsibilities. But by historical standards, even an adult’s world in modern America is wonderful.

The pressures ordinary American adults confront today are not those of most of our ancestors. We don’t regularly watch, helpless, as many of our loved ones die of famine. When our incomes fall, we don’t perish. And we’ve conquered legions of the diseases that killed our ancestors with brutal regularity. Most of what we today regard as hardships are trivial nothings compared to the cruel hardships of just a few generations past.

But will it continue to be so? Read More »


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Why Economic Growth Matters

By Josh Weil | Published: March 6, 2010

An excerpt from an upcoming article I am writing for the Cal Patriot:

The good news is the world is becoming more capitalist over the years. It’s completely possible in a few generations to make drastic economic progress. A 6 percent annual increase in GDP results in a doubling per capita income every twelve years. This is the track that “growth-miracle” South Korea is currently on. If these South Korean growth rates continue, the average citizen of South Korea will be twenty times richer than his grandparents. This is an amazing feat of economic progress.


Posted in Econ 101 | Tagged | 1 Comment

Who Are You Calling Friend, Buddy?

By Josh Weil | Published: March 5, 2010

An email I received this morning from attorney general candidate Alberto Torrico with critical commentary by yours truly:

Dear Friend,
For the first time in California’s history, our state government spent more money on prisons than higher education.
So? This is a meaningless comparison. Maybe it costs more to lock someone up than to send him to school. I’m all for controlling penitentiary costs, but don’t think there is a meaningful trade-off between total expenditures spent on prisons and schools. Ultimately I’d prefer if the state government spent 0$ on higher education and a positive amount on enforcing the rule of the law.

My name is Alberto Torrico, and I know we need to reform prisons and recognize that education is the key to our future and public safety.
Education is the best way to shut the revolving door of our prison system – where 70 percent of released inmates return after three years. I’m fighting to reform the prisons by requiring inmates to rehabilitate themselves through work, study or treatment before they are released.
Indoctrination of prisoners is way too creepy of a position. There are both innocent people in jail, and people locked up for harming nobody. Should they be subject to Torrico’s rehabilitation mandates? I think not.

Education creates strong communities. That’s why I’m working to expand preschool in every neighborhood so kids start school ready to learn. And I’m leading the fight to lower college tuition by taking on Big Oil with an extraction fee that can’t be passed on to consumers.
I’m more fearful of the power of Big Government to interfere with commercial activity and our lives then the effects of Big Oil. Petroleum is awesome. There, I said it. Eventually we’ll stop using oil, but right now it’s a good source of cheap energy.

I’m the child of Latino and Asian immigrants who worked as janitors so I could be the first in my family to attend college. I went on to teach college courses to new citizens. I know the true spirit of California opportunity and optimism is nurtured in great schools, not failed prisons.
Great. Then you should support school choice.

My campaign for Attorney General has earned the overwhelming support of law enforcement because they know that with 60 percent of prisoners functionally illiterate – education is the best strategy to prevent crime and rehabilitate criminals.
Does the industrial law-enforcement complex want more or less prisoners?

I hope you will join the California Federation of Teachers, the California Professional Firefighters, scores of local labor organizations and over 60,000 cops and deputy sheriffs who have endorsed me because they agree that the best way to protect public safety is to invest in education.
Unions are not guardians of society. They are cartels that raise wages above the competitive level through unfair Government privilege. Lawmakers should craft public policy without cowing to unions.

Believe it or not, Alberto Torrico does not have my vote.

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March 4th

By Josh Weil | Published: March 3, 2010

Tomorrow is a “day-of-action” strike in response to UC budget cuts, fee increases, and Subway shops. Based on the previous walkouts and the March 4th rhetoric, I’m predicting campus tomorrow will devolve into a destructive clusterf&#* of various politicos competing to make the most noise and gain status.

You can read a pro side here, at “Occupy CA.”


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Ideas pt.2

By Josh Weil | Published: March 1, 2010

Last post, I talked about the dangerous potential of government implemented top-down bad ideas. I think every sane person will agree that Chinese peasantry backyard steel production was clearly a horrible blunder. However, it’s not satisfactory to eliminate only the obviously foolish government programs (farm subsidies come to mind). There are high costs of government implemented top-down potential “good ideas.”

Today in the DeCal, we talked about school choice and American education. The free-market solution to the problems of our failing public school system is competition, whether it be vouchers or government entirely leaving the field. The federal solution is to incentive schools to set the bar high.

Two proposals on how to fix schools

Free-market:  competition
Government run: standards

Read More »


Posted in Government Spending, Knowledge problem, education | Tagged , | 3 Comments

State-Run Schooling

By Josh Weil | Published: March 1, 2010


Posted in Freedom, Unintended Consequences | Leave a comment

Blogging Break

By Charlie Deist | Published: February 28, 2010

In lieu of upcoming midterms and essays, I will not have an opportunity to blog about a number of things that have been on my mind lately. I’m going to outline a few things that I expect to have time to blog about later on this week:

  • Thinking clearly about health-care reform.
  • Book review of Albert Jay Nock’s Memoir’s of a Superfluous Man.
  • My experience as it relates to Bryan Caplan’s microecomic interpretation of Thomas Szasz’s theory of mental illness. Do preferences and constraints represent two distinct categories or are the lines impossibly blurred? The answer portends a radically different way of thinking about ethics on both a small and a large scale.
  • Examination of the obsession with income inequality over other forms of inequality which cannot be remedied by changes in government policy.

Stay tuned, won’t ye?


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