Once In A Lifetime

You may ask yourself

well...

how did I get here?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Tom Daschle, head of HHS.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

PS Still in the tank as much as ever

Architect Quote

My new favorite quote:

"After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done."

-------------- Frederick Olmsted

Seen at Joe Sherlock

A Question

When I grew up, the standard example of oxymoron was "military intellegence."

Can we change that to "journalistic ethics"?

Bonus: I looked up how to punctuate the end of both sentances here.

Competition versus Choice

OK, if Rand Simberg can write that he wants to ditch the label "capitalism" and replace it with free markets, I'm going to ask that we stop talking about competition in the free market and talk about customer choice instead. I think that choice is the better term because the only competition that helps is where the customer choice determines the winner. Customer choice free from restriction or coercion is really what we mean when we say free in free market. We need to get the focus off the company and on to the customer where it belongs. Sometimes people get the wrong idea with competition and think that if company A does something to hurt company B - like pay stores to not carry the other guys products, or spread false rumors - that is good because it is "competition".

We're really not interested with actions that reduce competition between firms in the market place, but with actions that reduce customer choice - and that includes government actions, not just company actions. When the customer isn't free to choose, then the market isn't really free, which is both economically inefficient and yes, morally wrong.

I'm going to harken back to my Hayek - who basically said a society should be built on private property, free markets, representative government, and the rule of law. And they really aren't 4 separate things.

Newspapers Dying Before Our Very Eyes

Newspapers used to make economic sense. In the age of mass production of uniform product, they were an efficient ay to transmit timely information. Additional copies were cheap compared to the fixed costs associated with printing, so it made sense to include everything in order to appeal to the the widest readership possible, which spread the relatively large fixed costs over the widest possible subscribership. The inefficiency of having much, if not most, of the paper no of interest to a particular reader was made up by spreading the fixed costs over as many people as possible. The two big advertisers - department stores and classified - also wanted as large an audience as possible. In the age of mass communication the newspapers had advantage over competitors - first radio, then TV. The first is that reading is much faster than listening. Second, people can access the information in a newspaper on their terms - TV and radio require you to sit through the broadcast to hear what you are interest in. So in the one size fits all world of mass communications newspapers ruled.

The economy of scale also drove to monopoly. Only a few of the largest cities kept more than 1 mass circulation daily newspaper. When I was a kid the St. Louis Post Dispatch became the St. Louis's only daily newspaper when the Globe Democrat owners decided it would be more profitable to run the printing presses fo the Post than it was to print and distribute the Globe. Two attempts were made later to create a second newspaper: first a revival of the Globe, and then the brand new Sun. Both were failures. With the monopolies came a drop off in quality. The Post was never a better paper in my lifetime than when it was tying to fend off The Sun. Quality all across new media has fallen as a result. But poor quality isn't the biggest problem facing newspapers.

The problem for newspapers is that with the advent of the internet, newspapers are no longer an efficient way to distribute information. Instead of pushing out the same universal product to every customer, consumers can pull only what they want when they want it via the internet. The problem for newspapers is that everything they know about the newspaper business, as opposed to the news gathering business, hurts them in this new model. The internal power structure is set up all wrong for the new model. The culture of the newspaper is geared to putting out the product every 24 hours and providing as little product support as possible once the newspaper is in your hands. Didn't get your copy - they are only too happy to get a copy in your hands as fast as possible. Provide corrections, clarifications, or follow up once you have it in your hands - not so much. So the typical newspaper website is just like the newspaper, although they have been adding more interactivity and faster updates with time.

Now newspaper advertising is drying up, never to come back. What they are going through is not a downturn but the end of the mass circulation metropolitan daily. The classified ads are going to Craigslist (once you've used Craigslist, you'll never buy another newspaper classified ad) or Monster for jobs. All that's left are car ads and the car companies are having their problems, just like the department stores. Every advertiser has to be pondering the high cost of untargeted advertising - the same revolution in universal push versus targeted pull.

Technology created newspapers; technology is what is killing them.

Congratulations, President Obama

You won the election, now what?

PS: My condolences on the loss of your grandmother.

You Go, Grandma

So I'm perusing the post election results at Instapundit when I come across his link to a NYT story - kids are safest under grandparents care - and I have to take a look. The key:

The study is important because grandparents are a growing source of child care for working and single parents. Some health researchers speculated that grandparents may be out of touch with modern safety practices, and as a result, they worried that children being cared for by grandparents might be at higher risk for injury.

But the opposite appears to be true. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed caregiving and injury data from the National Evaluation of the Healthy Steps for Young Children Program. The program includes information about 5,500 newborns in 15 United States cities during 1996 and 1997, with follow-up over the next three years.

The analysis showed that having grandparents as caregivers cut the risk of childhood injury by about half. Compared to organized day care, care by other relatives, or even care by a mother who doesn’t work outside the home, children who were cared for by a grandmother were less likely to be injured.

When I read this, of course my first thought is "You go, Grandma".

But I noticed how drably they wrote this. They would have willingly thrown grandma under the bus had the results been what I daresay they were hoping for, with a headline like "Killer Grandmothers" or "Grandparents - the hidden peril", or even "Grandparents: We knew they lost their touch when they let the grandkids eat in the living room!". And they buried a couple of other things, two. Like just how good are these "modern safety practices", anyway. My generation rode bikes without helmets, rode in cars without seat belts, and those of us who survived into crabby middle age are just fine. And you have to go to the primary source to discover that single moms are a menace, OK, show a higher rate of injury.

I Voted Today

The wife and I got up at the usual time and went straight to the polls - well, almost, I took a shower, which just goes to show I do have some regard for my fellow man. Still, we were there about 15 minutes before the polls opened - early enough to beat those poor canvassers standing outside handing out literature. But there were oh, about 75 people in line in front of us, but at least we were indoors, unlike a lot of my coworkers.

A good chunk of the neighborhood was there, so while I held her spot my wife would wander off to chat with the neighbors or even see the baby twins one family brought. I got stuck with the talkative older lady who doesn't seem to get out much. Eventually we made our way in to vote where we passed up the fancy touch screen systems and went for the paper ballots. I've never actually voted beside my wife before, and we were a bit chatty while voting. It took about an hour for us to vote - not too bad, but it did seem longer than it has in a while (I remember the Clinton-Bush-Perot vote as particularly lengthy).

I live in a purple neighborhood in a purple state (Missouri), although I noticed only 1 family with both an Obama and a McCain sign in the front yard - one of those mixed marriages. I keep hearing about the enthusiasm gap and all, but I think McCain voters turned out too - in part because we're getting more polarized - and I don't see either outcome of this election changing that one bit, Palin helped provide some enthusiasm (certainly here in Missouri), and just to show the media and the pundits they're not as smart as they think they are - a reason the media never seems to pick up on, let alone report, but an important one, nevertheless.

You know, while we all say we like to vote for the person, people sure seem to be just as enthusiastic to vote against the other person.

How I Learned to Love Economics

I disliked economics in college.  I agreed with the claim that the subject was dismal.  

And then I started to read economics books and articles on my own, and I discovered a practical use for it.  

I'm sure you've heard sometime in your life the statement "If it helps only one person (or the common variation if it saves only one life), it will have been worth it."  This is always said in an attempt to end all further debate on the subject and usually is offered as an argument to continue whatever "it" is - typically spending money on the speaker's pet project.  Once upon a time, I used to nod my head and give the matter no further thought.  

Economics changed that.

Now when that line of argument is used, I respond with "No, you have to look at other courses of action (or ways of spending money) and choose an option or mix of options that helps (or saves) the most people. "  In other words, if you spend a million dollars to save just one life, but there are other ways to spend a million that save more than one life, then no, all things being equal, it wasn't worth it, it was a mistake.

One word of warning - you're not likely to change the person's mind when you go this route.  I'd leave off the mistake part if I were you, and just get to them to think about better ways.  And don't mention the economics angle - instead tell them about the Zen of chess and how the way to win is always make the best possible move.   They might actually see it your way.  

People want to get better at chess, or think about how they can apply game related insights to their lives.  They don't want anything to do with economics, which is forever telling them they have can't have it all but must make difficult choices.  You can't win at economics, but you can win at chess, and that makes all the difference in persuading people.

Just to Clarify

I'm not anti-intellectual, I'm anti-academic.  

For an academic, there isn't a difference between academic and intellectual.  For an intellectual, they differ.

I became an anti-academic in college, and I haven't seen a reason to change yet. 

Funmurphys in Exile

I'm having a problem with my host for Funmurphys, such that on my own domain I can't run Movable Type.  Given the lack of response of my host I have no hope they'll fix it, so I'll be switching when I get a few minutes to rub together.  In the meantime, I'll be posting here in exile.

During the over 2 month break my desire to write has been rekindled so I hope that my quantity and quality will be improved.  The only downside is that Blogger seems to lack multiple authors, so we may all post as Kevin Murphy.  At least I'll be able to tell the difference.