"Specifically on the question of home size, we have various policies in the tax code that encourage..."

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:16:27 -0400

“Specifically on the question of home size, we have various policies in the tax code that encourage people to take a large chunk of their savings in the form of housing, which encourages people to buy bigger homes than would otherwise be the case. And then on top of that, rules against “accessory dwellings” and/or “overcrowding” and minimum lot size requirements all discourage the construction of small homes. All things considered, in other words, we have a lot of public policy that pushes the size of our houses bigger than pure market considerations would dictate.”

- Matthew Yglesias » Big Houses and the Market

Cakewrecks

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:53:00 -0400

Cakewrecks

When States Outlaw Sound Economics

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:07:42 -0400

Todd Zywicki notes:

The State of Florida has activated its price-gouging hotline in anticipation of Tropical Storm Fay. “Price gouging statute violators could be fined $1,000 per violation, up to $25,000 for multiple violations in one day.”

Florida gas stations are starting to run out of gas … . It is almost as if the two stories are related in some way…

Anyone who witnesses the law of supply and demand being honored, I mean “suspects price gouging is asked to call 866-NO-SCAM.”

On Joe Biden

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:06:00 -0400

Now that VP speculation has centered on Joe Biden, Brad asked me to explain this post of mine in more detail. So here are some scattered thoughts as to why Joe Biden is a joke.

First, as Jon Chait once wrote, “Joe Biden’s just a barrel of gaffes.” He seems to do stuff like this all the time:

And remember this controversy:

And with things like this, it’s hard to buy that he’s not just a little more racist than most politicians.

(And I’m not to sure what to make of comments like this).

Biden’s greatest sin, though, is not the slip of the tongue, or racial insensitivity. It’s his arrogance. You may remember that he dropped out of the 1988 race for the Democratic nomination after he was caught lifting parts of a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock (not to mention numerous others). You may not remember that he responded to all this by giving Kinnock a copy of all of his own speeches and offering to let Kinnock copy from them.

Like most Senators, Biden has a special and ridiculous pet cause … cracking down on raves. You get the sense that people like Biden read one alarmist article in Newsweek and Time and think they’re informed.

If you’ve ever watched Senator Biden question prospective judges (or anyone else in a hearing), then you know that he really, really, really loves to hear himself talk. Look, I know that all politicians like to hear themselves talk. Biden is different. Seriously, watch him at a hearing. I defy you not to laugh. Here’s one account:

The reviews for Biden’s first crack at Samuel Alito, the humorless Supreme Court nominee, were murderous. The New York Times had Biden out on Page One — normally a position to kill for — only this time it was not a paean to his considerable merits, but an account of how it took him nearly three minutes of throat-clearing to ask his first question and then took the rest of his allocated 30 minutes just to get in four more. He concluded with about half a minute still left to him — something of a personal best that even he had to acknowledge.

“I want to note that for maybe the first time in history, Biden is 40 seconds under his time,” he told Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, no clipped speaker himself.

The Post had a similar account of Biden running off at the mouth. In that piece, Dana Milbank wrote that during Biden’s round of questioning, he “spoke about his own Irish American roots, his ‘Grandfather Finnegan,’ his son’s application to Princeton (he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said), a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is ‘not a Princeton fan,’ and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).”

And like most of the self-obsessed, Biden talks about himself in third person:

In trying to ignite his candidacy, Mr. Biden is trying to change some habits that accompany spending more than half a life as a senator. When asked in an interview about his propensity to speak at great length, he responded with a brief foray into third person, saying: “Yes, that’s the thing Biden has to get over. I’m conscious of it. I don’t always meet it, but I’m working on it.”

And naturally, he overstates his accomplishments:

The famous ego also makes periodic appearances. When the Supreme Court’s rightward drift comes up, the former Judiciary Committee chairman says, “Imagine had I not defeated Robert Bork”—forgetting that he had the help of 57 other senators in rejecting that nominee.

Now, personally, I don’t like the way that Joe Biden denigrated my favorite legal scholar, Richard Epstein, during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

It’s not enough for Biden to simply take on anyone who expresses a preference for liberty. He has to belittle them too:

(Biden’s response cost him at least one voter).

Despite all of the above, Obama might choose Biden because (1) for some reason, reporters think Biden is a foreign policy genius, and (2) Biden would easily fit into the role of attack-dog. But it might be a little awkward for Biden to be an attack-dog against McCain, since Biden publicly supported the idea of Kerry choosing McCain as his running mate just four years ago. And, for the life of me, I don’t get the fawning of the press over Biden’s foreign policy credentials. Reporters are always saying things like, “granted, the man has an enormous ego, but he knows his foreign policy.” That’s absurd. He knows his foreign policy just ever so slightly more than the reporters who cover the Senate. That’s not terribly impressive.

Will Obama pick Biden? It sure seems like Biden is the pick. I just can’t believe that Obama is going to do it.

Taking Back the Praise

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:47:20 -0400

A few months ago, I praised Obama for deciding not to give out “street money” in Philadelphia. Looks like I have to take back the praise.

It’s a rather absurd world where our police dress...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:04:40 -0400

It’s a rather absurd world where our police dress in camouflage and hoods in order to seize plants.

Japanese Bakeries

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:24:00 -0400

One of the best and most surprising things about Tokyo is that you can’t go fifteen feet without passing a fantastic bakery.

There are bakeries like this EVERYWHERE. If you walk around the train station, you’ll probably find 20 of them. Even if you don’t want to eat these treats, you can smell them, and they smell wonderful. Shinjuku Station in Tokyo is probably the best smelling train station you’ll ever find. (I suppose that’s setting a low bar, though).

One afternoon, we stopped at a particularly pretentious cake shop. It had a restaurant area with a cake menu. We purchased the six bites below for $15. (Because a drink purchase was required as well, our bill was for about $30).

Overpriced, perhaps, but it was good. Each of those little bites had about 5 or 6 layers of all kinds of different things going on. Here’s a closer look:

Still, you don’t have to spend $30 to enjoy good baked goods in Japan. Just stop into a 7/11 and buy one of the many stuffed bun treats. They’re priced like Twinkies but taste better.

You can even stop by a place where you learn to bake the cake you then eat, no reservations required. It may take an hour or two, though:

There is a clear infatuation with American things in Japan (more on that later), and this is no less true when it comes to bakeries. For example, there is this:

And despite all the great bakeries in Tokyo, the hottest places right now are the few scattered Krispy Kremes, which regularly boast lines of 1-2 hours. Late at night, however, the line is shorter:

Wherein Nicholas Beaudrot Fails to Understand that "Striking Down Legislation" is not the same as "Legislating From the Bench."

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:33:26 -0400

Wherein Nicholas Beaudrot Fails to Understand that "Striking Down Legislation" is not the same as "Legislating From the Bench."

This is what my yearbook photo would have looked like,...

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:26:00 -0400

This is what my yearbook photo would have looked like, apparently, if I’d graduated from high school in 1970. You can make your own, for any year between the fifties and the nineties, here.

Is it just me, or do I look a little like Judd Hirsch?

"And he does it with gusto, especially during the hyperviolent opening movie-set war scene in which..."

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:37:00 -0400

“And he does it with gusto, especially during the hyperviolent opening movie-set war scene in which body parts go flying, and one actor-soldier attempts to keep his innards from spilling out of his stomach wound. Though this bit is played for obvious laughs and is intentionally phony-looking (the soldier looks as if he had been hit with a big pot of cassoulet rather than mortar), the scene skews more yucky than yukky because Mr. Stiller has so little sense of modulation.”

- Tropic Thunder - Movie - Review - The New York Times

Manohla Dargis is one of my least favorite film critics (too often her reviews read like free-form, associative exercises in wordplay that leave you wondering if the movie is any good), but “more yucky than yukky” is a good line.

Encounter at the Fish Market and a Few Words about Japanese Television

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:24:00 -0400

On our first morning in Japan, we visited the Tsukiji Fish Market. While we were there, we watched two strangely attired men walk by us, surrounded by a film crew. The man in the top hat even shook my wife’s hand, although I didn’t get that on video.

We had no idea who these strange men were.

Later that night, we were watching Japanese television and we saw this.

I’m not entirely sure what is happening in this comedy clip. Apparently, the man in the top hat just lost on a game show, but maybe it doesn’t really matter, because he already has lots of money. This seems to be very funny to the audience.

Let me add just a few words about the strangeness of Japanese television. It is largely awful. Now, I know that the language barrier probably precludes me from forming any intelligent opinion about this, but … well, that’s just not true, because it is impossible that any dialogue—no matter how intelligent and finely crafted—could have saved most of what we saw.

One show consisted of a panel watching Punk’d. So, at home, you’d see Punk’d , but you’d also see a small box in the corner of the screen that showed the reactions of panel members to what they were watching, flashing from one of them to the next. Thus, you’d see one smiling, one laughing, then one looking skeptical. The purpose of the show seemed to be to see their reactions to watching Ashton Kutcher play a prank on Wilmer Valderrama.

Oddly, this box-in-a-box device, used to capture the reaction of panel members to video, was used in about a third of the shows we saw.

Dramatic shows seemed to be ridiculously melodramatic (think Mexican soap opera) and poorly acted. Production values were terrible. To put this in perspective, we were flipping through channels and stumbled upon an old, dubbed Star Trek episode, which played like the Godfather compared to the other shows on TV.

Some shows cut to commercial in the middle of a scene … there was no act break; a character could be in mid-sentence, but the station was going to take its commercial break anyway. And then at the end of the commercial break, you’d be thrust right back into that sentence.

But Japanese television is redeemed by the commercials, so silly, loud, and ridiculous that you can’t help but smile. If there were a channel that played nothing but Japanese commercials, we would have watched it all night.

Japanese Bathrooms

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 05:42:00 -0400

An American cannot visit Japan without being somewhat in awe of Japanese restrooms.

First, take the public restrooms. Now, in America, I use a public restroom only with great reluctance; urinals, sure, but only a dire emergency can get me on a public toilet. (Perhaps this is too much information?) But in Japan, public bathrooms are incredibly clean, sleek, and inviting.

Part of the reason they are so clean, perhaps, is the pleasant fact that you don’t actually have to touch anything. In many restrooms, from the urinal to the soap to the sink to the hand-dryer, everything activates upon detection of motion. And speaking of hand-dryers, check out how cool they are. No hot air blowing in your face with these.

Speaking of motion detection, here’s one toilet I encountered that opened up upon entry into the stall.

Second, a word about hotel bathrooms. They come stocked with every amenity you could imagine, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, and hair brushes. The showers have large, pump bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and soap. The counter has pump bottles of soap and a shaving cleanser. The mirrors—oh, the glorious mirrors—fog up everywhere except a for a large rectangle above the sink at face-level (this part of the mirror is heated). And the toilets are equipped with various capabilities you just don’t find in America. For instance, when you sit on them, more water begins to fill the bowl. Some seats were heated. Many had a deodorizing function. And all of them had spray-shower/bidet functions. These functions shoot a stream of water to clean off your underside.

(My personal review of the spray: Not necessary or helpful. It mostly just leaves you wet, and as you turn the power of the stray higher, it becomes unsettlingly invasive.)

These high-tech toilets don’t seem to be limited to hotels. We walked through several large electronics and appliance stores, and all of them had large showroom space devoted to rows after rows of high-tech toilets.

Now, why are the Japanese so interested in high-tech toilet technology? I guess I have three theories about this. First, Japan loves high-tech everything, so why wouldn’t this include toilets? Second, places like Tokyo are cramped … you’re not going to have a sprawling house or even an big apartment. So to make up for limited space, you upgrade the little things to make your quarters more comfortable. And third, Japan values cleanliness. When you sit down at a restaurant, they bring you a hot towel to clean your hands. When you walk the streets, you’ll see storekeepers cleaning their sidewalks and notice the absence of litter. The theater floors are free of stickiness and staining. So of course the bathrooms are going to be pristine, and the toilets are going to try to assist you in keeping yourself clean as well.

"Let’s see if we can follow this. When Amtrak doesn’t have enough riders, it needs to be..."

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:03:42 -0400

“Let’s see if we can follow this. When Amtrak doesn’t have enough riders, it needs to be subsidized with taxpayer money. Now it has too many riders, and that’s also a reason to subsidize it with even more taxpayer money?! Where else but in govt. is increased demand seen as a problem, and a need for more funding. Has Amtrak ever broken even, let-alone turned a profit?”

- Amateur Economist: All Aboard: Too Many for Amtrak

Politeness and Courtesy in Japan

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:43:45 -0400

In light of Japan’s neon signs, giant television billboards, and high-tech gadgetry, perhaps it is a bit surprising that the politeness of the Japanese people left the most overwhelming sensory impression upon me. Although I loved much about the country, this courtesy was by far my favorite thing about Japan.

Here are some examples of the courtesy we witnessed:

When our cab driver in Nagoya thought (mistakenly) that he might have missed the turn to the restaurant that were were going to, he shut off the meter and apologized for the mistake, then continued to drive without charge to our destination. This would never happen in the states.
When my wife asked the cashier at the grocery if she knew what a certain fruit we’d purchased was called, she did not, but she instantly summoned another employee who went off on a quest to identify the mysterious fruit and provide the requested information. In the states, the cashier would have just shrugged and said “I don’t know.”
Every person we asked for directions patiently tried to understand our inquiry and then took great care to make sure that we understood their directions. I mean every person … ticket takers, policemen, transit workers, random people on the street. Everyone.
At the movie theater, people took great care in choosing their seats to ensure that the wouldn’t hinder or obstruct the view of anyone else. We watched an older couple quietly debate whether a seat two rows ahead of us would possibly obstruct our view. Now, mind you, it couldn’t have, since (1) it was stadium style seating, (2) they were two rows down from us, and (3) like most older, Japanese, these people were considerably shorter than us. But they still were concerned about our view. Also, during the movie, no one talked or made any noise. When was the last time you had that experience in America?
We had a snack at the counter of a small fruit shop in the basement of one of the department stores. When we left, I pushed in our seats so that they didn’t stick out from the counter. The fruit chef quickly came out from behind the counter and profusely apologized for my having to push in the seat, suggesting it was his dereliction that led to my assumed inconvenience. (This is one of those instances where the politeness is a little weird).
We showed up at a department store a few minutes before it opened, and waited with a crowd for the doors to open. When they did, all of the employees of the store were waiting by their counters, and they bowed. Not just a little bow, but a full, back-is-parallel-to-the-ground kind of bow. I wish I’d caught it on video, because it was pretty impressive … all these very professionally attired and groomed people dropping in this incredibly deferential manner … it felt like a movie.

If these minor examples can’t convey just how polite the Japanese people were, maybe this can: We went to a few fast food restaurants during our trip (Wendy’s and some local chains too). The people behind the counter were professional and competent and friendly and smiling. They all acted as if they enjoy their jobs. I don’t believe for a second that they all actually do enjoy their jobs, but they acted like it. They were pleasant and courteous and helpful. They—indeed, almost everyone—acted as if they were being filmed for an employee training video. That sounds like it could be creepy, but it wasn’t at all creepy. It was really, really nice.[1]

Imagine if you could go to movies without having to worry about noisy people; if you could go to restaurants without having to worry about surly service; if you could take a cab without worrying the driver was trying to cheat you. All of these things make everyday live MUCH more pleasant.[2] Since the common courtesy practiced in Japan is a significant enhancement to the quality of one’s life, it’s worth questioning why the Japanese practice this courtesy, and why, too often, we Americans don’t. I have some thoughts on this, but I’ll save them for another post down the road.

——

[1] Maybe this is one of the reasons that McDonald’s has a low-end stigma in the United States, but is still a symbol of quality in Japan. When a McDonald’s is clean, its employees are friendly, and its food is prepared properly, it is a much better restaurant than the McDonald’s we know in America.

[2] Now, I should add that people in Nagoya (aside from the taxi driver) were less overtly polite and helpful to us than those in Tokyo and Kyoto. That’s certainly due in part to the fact that Kyoto and Tokyo more commonly tourist destinations. But Nagoya was still a far more polite and courteous place than most American cities; only in comparison to Tokyo and Kyoto did it seem to pale.

Preface to My Thoughts on Japan

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:08:09 -0400

We’re back from Japan. It was an incredible trip. While I was there, my mind was swimming with thoughts and observations that I wanted to blog about … not because these thoughts are certain to be interesting to others, but because I want to preserve my impressions for myself. But maybe these thoughts will be interesting to you, so first, I’d like to state some caveats.

There are many reasons that my observations and conclusions could be wrong. First, I was in Japan for only 8 days. That’s hardly long enough to make sweeping conclusions about a country and a culture. Second, I don’t speak Japanese. That means I couldn’t read most of the signs or understand most of the conversations around me. This means I was often left completely ignorant of context—which is troubling when you want to analyze and conclude. Third, we went to Japan as tourists. What we saw is surely not a good representation of all of Japan. We saw a simplistic geographic and socio-economic sliver of a complicated country.

Having stated these caveats (and there are certainly more), let me backtrack just a bit. I’m not a good tourist. I have little interest in historic sites or modern monuments. My interest is more anthropological. I like to see how people live. This means I’d rather visit 10 groceries than 1 temple. That’s not to say we didn’t visit temples … we did. But we visited more groceries. We watched a movie in a theater. We ate in lots of restaurants and went to lots of stores. And we spent most of our time walking the streets … looking at neighborhoods and gas stations and dry cleaners and restrooms and office buildings.

You can’t help but challenge your beliefs (cultural and political) when you visit a foreign country. There were things that were better in Japan than here, and all of these things have been forcing me to consider “why?” This leads to big, ideological questions, as in, “why are they better?” and “why are we worse?” . . and to more personal, introspective questions, like “why do I like these things more?”

It’s easy to pontificate on all things political and social from inside the comfort of one’s home, but visiting another country lets you look at and analyze things not easily represented by data. It also does something else—it reminds you of the vastness of humanity. When you ride the subway in Tokyo and see a group young girls giggling over something they just read on their cell phone, you begin to think about their social circle … and their schools … and their families, and you start to see all these personal connections that they have—these very full lives—and you can’t help but think how amazing it is that halfway across the world people live lives just as full and fulfilling and complex as we do. I know that this is an obvious point—and don’t misunderstand me, I’m not claiming that this was in any way revelatory. But it is one thing to know this in theory and another thing to see it in practice. When you walk through the Shinjuku Station and you’re surrounded by tens of thousands of commuters on their way to jobs or to home or to visit friends, you can’t help but feel smaller; you can’t help but realize that you don’t exist to these people … that your life and family and social circle is completely irrelevant to them, just as they’ve been all their lives to you. It is, in fact, more than a bit disconcerting. So when we met up with one of my wife’s old friends and her husband in Kyoto, it seemed like all the more magical an experience … suddenly we were relevant to someone in Japan; somehow, we’d bridged the divide of geography and culture.

I don’t expect any of my blog posts on Japan to similarly “bridge the divide of geography and culture,” but I hope they make me feel a little closer to a place that I loved. Expect posts on Japan to stretch out over the next few weeks.

Hit & Run > “A five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits,...

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:00:27 -0400

Hit & Run > “A five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes” - Reason Magazine

"In Alabama it is illegal to recommend shades of paint without a license. In Nevada it is illegal to..."

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:41:29 -0400

“In Alabama it is illegal to recommend shades of paint without a license. In Nevada it is illegal to move any large piece of furniture for purposes of design without a license. In fact, hundreds of people have been prosecuted in Alabama and Nevada for practicing “interior design” without a license. Getting a license is no easy task, typically requiring at least 4 years of education and 2 years of apprenticeship.”

- Marginal Revolution: Designing Monopoly

"HitMeLater is simple. Forward any email to 24@hitmelater.com and it will send it back to you 24..."

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:42:57 -0400

“HitMeLater is simple. Forward any email to 24@hitmelater.com and it will send it back to you 24 hours later, putting it on the top of your inbox pile. You can change the number of hours to anything you like, up to 1,000 hours ahead (3@hitmelater.com sends it back three hours later). Alternatively, put in a day (Wednesday@hitmelater sends it back the next Wednesday). If you send it something it doesn’t understand, HitMeLater sends back a polite email message saying “We’re not sure what you want.””

- HitMeLater: A Snooze Button For Your Email

"In fact, the world oil shortage is political, not geological. In the U.S., the government prohibits..."

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:01:34 -0400

“In fact, the world oil shortage is political, not geological. In the U.S., the government prohibits drilling offshore. In Nigeria, civil strife has shut down major production. In Libya and Iran, Washington effectively blockaded and isolated the nations for years to inhibit new production. In Iraq, of course, the U.S. destroyed much of the infrastructure since the first Gulf war in 1991 and then blockaded reconstruction. In nations such as Russia and Mexico nationalism and corruption curtail increased production.”

- Open ANWR Already!: The case for drilling—and more energy production - Reason Magazine

The Folly of Obama’s Tax Plan — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:22:16 -0400

The Folly of Obama’s Tax Plan — The American, A Magazine of Ideas