Author: Joshua Hedlund

Perspectives in Gun Shootings and Other Risks

Following last weekend’s Aurora tragedy, liberal columnist Eugene Robinson took a typical stand:

Will we even pretend to do anything to prevent the next mass shooting by a crazed loner? I doubt it. We’ll just add Aurora to the growing list — Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson — and wait for the inevitable…

Congress should pass an assault weapons ban this morning and the president should sign it tonight…

Eugene is upset that the risk of a mass shooting in America is high enough that one occurs every few years while there is little will to lower that risk. It’s a reasonable position, but I think the high visibility of these tragedies skews people’s perceptions about risks. I think the risk of this kind of tragedy is already so low that it’s 1) hard to lower the risk even more, and 2) hard to justify lowering this risk relative to many other risks we could be lowering.

Continue reading Perspectives in Gun Shootings and Other Risks

It Doesn’t Matter Where US Olympic Uniforms Are Made

I briefly mocked this controversy a few days ago, but the impacts of outsourcing/offshoring are so misunderstood that I think it deserves a closer look. A couple weeks ago we learned that the US Olympic uniforms produced by Ralph Lauren were manufactured in China. This upset a lot of people, including some Democratic senators like Harry Reid, who thinks they should “burn them and start all over,” and Chuck Schumer, who wants to require Olympic uniforms to be made in America. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan is also upset.

These reactions are silly. Do we care if the athletes eat fruit from South America or grains from Asia? Does Chuck Schumer care if his clothes are made in America?

You don’t even have to believe widely accepted economic theories about comparative advantage to see that free trade works for everyone, even within the Olympics. Mark Perry points out that “the Brazilian Olympic equestrian team is using saddle pads produced by Wilker’s Custom Horse Products in Cool Springs, Tennessee.” Daniel Ikenson at Cato observes:

Continue reading It Doesn’t Matter Where US Olympic Uniforms Are Made

The Paradox of Shrink

Earlier this week Alex Tabarrok highlighted the opposite trends in the numbers of fires and firefighters. Despite the 40% decrease in fires over the past 35 years, the number of career firefighters has increased 40%. With the huge increase in firefighters per fire, a lot of them spend more time tagging along with ambulances or finding other city busywork.

Many commenters denied this was proof that firefighters are oversupplied, but I think they either have to be oversupplied now or very undersupplied 35 years ago. Given the apparent lack of a fire apocalypse in the 80’s, and the increasing non-firefighting work of firefighters today, I think the evidence is pretty strong. Some argued that it’s useful for firefighters to answer medical calls as they often arrive quicker than ambulances, but that doesn’t prove that firefighters need to be the ones doing that, especially if “it costs $3,500 every time a fire truck pulls out of a fire station in Washington, DC.”

If firefighters are oversupplied, who is to blame? It’s easy to pick on pushy unions taking advantage of budgets in good times, but maybe we need to look no farther than ourselves.

Continue reading The Paradox of Shrink

The Economics of Home Alone

Last night I watched Home Alone, the 1990 hit film about a boy who is accidentally left at home and defends himself from a couple of dumb burglars. I couldn’t help thinking about many of the interesting ways life has changed in the last twenty years.

1. VCRs were worth stealing. It’s hilarious that the crooks are excited about breaking into the McCallister home because of its “stereos” and “VCRs.” VCRs had become much cheaper and popular by 1990 (Somewhere around 65-70% of households owned one), and based on multiple anecdotes from highly scientific Google searches it looks like they were available around the $200 range (about $357 in 2012 dollars), though more expensive ones existed. Common, valuable, easy to steal.

Today, of course, you can get VCRs for $20 or less at thrift stores. Almost 80% of households own the newer DVD players, of which numerous models exist for under $50. Blu-Ray DVD players are easily found in the $100 range. So after 20 years, more households have much better technology that is much cheaper to buy, even before factoring inflation. Sometimes capitalism is awesome like that.

Continue reading The Economics of Home Alone

Everything You Need To Know About Last Week’s News

In reverse order of importance:

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got divorced. Or maybe it was the week before. Somehow they managed to stay in the headlines all week.

There was some controversy over a revelation that US Olympic uniforms were made in China. Next they’ll be telling us the athletes sometimes eat fruit grown in South America! By the way, the 2012 Summer Olympics start July 27.

The sun is ramping up to the most active phase of its 11-year cycle. On Thursday it released an X-class solar flare directly at the earth. Looks like pretty much all it did was create some pretty auroras when it slammed into the earth’s magnetic field over the weekend. (SpaceWeather.com is an incredible resource for keeping up with this stuff.)

Continue reading Everything You Need To Know About Last Week’s News

White House Petitions and the TSA

There’s a petition over on the White House website to “Require the Transportation Security Administration to Follow the Law!” A federal appeals court ordered the TSA to do some stuff a year ago and they still haven’t done it. Unlike most meaningless Internet petitions, if this petition gets to 25,000 signatures in 30 days the White House will issue a response – and it’s already about halfway there after five days.

Continue reading White House Petitions and the TSA

The Maddening Media

Is it just me, or are the maddening hypocritical focuses of Democrats and the media even more maddening than usual lately?

They’re obsessed that Romney used the word “Obamacare” at an NAACP speech, but they don’t care that Obama and many other liberals have used the same word many times.

They’re obsessed with getting Romney to release his old tax returns, but they don’t care that Obama won’t release his old college transcripts.

They’re obsessed with Romney’s contradictions about his past work at Bain, but they don’t care about Obama’s contradictions about his past involvement with the extreme left New Party.

Continue reading The Maddening Media