Update: Included uncertainty

“If we don’t know how many people there are, how do we know how many buses we need?” –Census Advertisement on an AC Transit bus in Berkeley, CA.

I regularly use public transportation to get around Berkeley and I usually find the service to be good. I don’t know exactly how much it costs AC Transit to run their service or how they determine the number of buses needed to meet demand, but I don’t see how an exact count of the number of people living in Berkeley would help in the decision-making process. A private sector bus company would determine an optimal quantity of output based on historical rates of ridership, historical fares, and the marginal productivity and substitutability of inputs such as the buses themselves, fuel costs, and driver salary. The profit-maximization process ensures that people’s needs are met without over-utilizing resources that have more productive uses elsewhere. A top-down approach that sets the number of buses based on a city’s population will likely be inefficient.

It is possible that government can improve information by conducting a census survey, but the market laws of supply and demand do a pretty good job of allocating most resources, including most forms of passenger transport like airplanes and automobiles. Imagine the same ad outside of a Toyota dealership, “If we don’t know how many people there are, how do we know how many Camrys to manufacture?” Maybe I am being too nit-picky, but I think that the ad sends the wrong message: without government planning, things wouldn’t work, so fill out your 50-page-long census and don’t whine. Maybe a completely privatized bus system would fail to best serve the needs of a community, but the same could be said of nearly any industry in which the market has proven itself to be extremely efficient at providing us with what we want. Even if you argue that transportation is a public good, that is only an argument for subsidizing low-income riders, not for central planning. The “public transportation as natural monopoly” argument fails as well, since no monopoly can maintain its power for long without providing a quality service unless government grants the monopoly special privileges or sets too strict of barriers to entry.

Mostly, I just don’t like the fact that government is out there advertising itself. Where are the Galbraiths and anti-advertising progressives like him when government engages in campaigns of misinformation??

It’s a shame that a decidedly anti-corporate, anti-war, pro-gay rights candidate has little chance against an illberal, ineffective and demagogical politician like Nancy Pelosi. Berg is a living testament to the danger and degradation that governments bring upon their citizens. Berg was unable to experiment with an effective new drug which was not approved until after his illness caused him to go blind. For an analysis of this kind of government failure, you can visit FDAreview.org. Also, if you want to help Berg out with his campaign, visit his website.

When I shop at the flea market, I always half-expect to see one of my old stolen bikes for sale. I knew when I bought the bike that there was a good chance it was stolen, and although I hate to feed the vicious cycle of bike theft, the significantly lower prices justified the minor moral breach in my mind. However, I faced a much greater dilemma in deciding how to procede after finding the note.

One the one hand, it was her bike. As a believer in property rights I was tempted to return it no questions asked. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure that it was her bike, nor was I sure that she had acquired it justly herself. Without some sort of proof of legitimate ownership, she had no more legal claim to the bike than I. I supposed that I had a clearly superior bargaining position, but being unsure of the law, I didn’t want to run the risk of future negative consequences (even if improbable) over such a small issue. In the event that she did have proof of purchase, contacting her would mean that I would lose my superior bargaining power and no longer be entitled to a settlement. At that point she might offer me a reward or she might just issue me the ultimatum of return it or deal with the police.

At this point I paused and I thought about what I would have done if I had been in her position and wanted to maximize my expected future value.  This value includes the value of the bike times the probability of return minus any resources, such as time and settlement amount, invested in recovery. In equation form:

EXPECTED  VALUE = [(Bike value + sentimental value) x (probabilty of return)] – (settlement amount or time spent proving ownership to police)

If I were her, I would have had little hope that the person would return the bike if they did not expect anything in return. Therefore, I would have offered an award between the amount that I expect the bike was worth to the thief and how much it was worth to me. With a lower offer, the probability of recovery would be close to zero so my expected value would be low.  There would be an optimal settlement amount that maximizes expected value. I’m not sure what the optimal settlement would be, but if the bike were of great value–say, $250–I would have offered at least $70.

Once I had contacted her from my cell phone, her bargaining power increased, along with the probability of recovery for each dollar amount of settlement. Knowing this, she offered what I considered a somewhat “low-ball” settlement for a bike she claimed to have saved up for a whole year to buy. Ultimately, my honesty cost me up to $100, that is, the settlement amount minus the value I placed on the bike. I imagine that she did not expect to hear from me, thinking that I was a dishonest thief, so she instead decided to vent her anger in the form of a note. Sadly for me, although Mimi behaved irrationality, she ended up with a much better deal than if she written a more rational note.

I’ve been inspired by the Reno Students For Liberty club to make a statement about student government. The Reno folk do good work and are rightly recognized for it. They recently received thousands of dollars of student money for an “Abolish the ASUN” event complete with ponies, pizza, and a mechanical bull. Government waste at it’s finest.

On that theme, I’ve officially declared my candidacy for ASUC President. My name will appear on the ballot as Josh “Abolish the ASUC” Weil. Vote for me if you don’t believe in the legitimacy of the ASUC.

My campaign platform:

1. Veto any bill that doesn’t return money directly to students.
2. Promise not to speak for students.

The ASUC takes your money and spends it on things that you probably wouldn’t have chosen to spend your money on in your private capacity. By eliminating a multi-million dollar budget, we could potentially refund students about $100 a semester (back of the envelope calculation). That’s more than enough money to start your own student club.

Our current President has a nasty habit of sending emails in support of causes some students are behind and others aren’t. Even if 99.9% of the student body voted for me (which would never happen considering voter apathy and persistent low turnout), I still wouldn’t make statements on behalf of students. I believe an ASUC politician only speaks for one person: himself. If people voluntarily want to create a group and elect a leader that speaks for that group, I’m all for that. But here at Berkeley, we have no choice.

So begins my first campaign for higher office. Who knows, I might even end up on top. There’s a chance greater than zero that I will win.

H/T Andrew G.

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.”

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?

Until September 11, I was confident that Thomas would grow up in a world even better than the wonderful world his mother and I grew up in. I was confident that his future would offer him an array of choices richer even than the smorgasbord available to those of us born during the mid-twentieth century. And I was confident that the most precious possession he could have liberty would grow.

My confidence in this future has plummeted. Even the great and wise optimist Julian Simon warned that warfare legitimate and illegitimate spells trouble. Improvement in the quality of our lives depends on free minds and free markets. Indeed, civilization itself must be nourished by a never-ending stream of thoughts and plans and actions that are creative and diverse. Genuine diversity of thoughts, plans, and actions genuine creativity genuine experimentation genuine freedom to challenge existing dogmas, deities, and demagogues all these requirements for a free society are at the very least severely cramped during wartime.

I don’t venture here any opinion on just what steps the U.S. government today should take to punish those responsible for the September 11 attacks. But I do offer some questions that I hope people ask and demand be answered reasonably.