tfl: The Flatiron Life

(HT: Russ Roberts)

“President Bush Calls On Business Leaders To Create 500,000 Crappy Jobs”

The Onion Radio News reports more truth than the MSM.

Zach sent me this post about free vs. farmed fish in British Columbia. I have posted about oceanic fisheries before.

A new study found that the way fish farms are organized in BC led to a increase in wild fish deaths due to parasites. The BBC story reporting the study describes some changes that can be made to the fisheries in order to reduce this risk.

Are there similar issues with bird farms today? Is this a factor in the spread of Avian Flu?

Do you think the undomesticated brothers of ancient cows, pigs, and goats had these troubles too. Seems likely, as I don’t know of many wild versions of these beasts.

Today I heard this report from NPR’s Adam Davidson. It is about Ft. Payne, AL, the former Sock Capital of the World. (It is also the home of the greatest country music group of all time).

Ft. Payne is no longer the Sock Capital of the World because we liberalized trade in socks and removed the tariff in the ’80s. Free trade is good, but if you concentrate of particular jobs it might look devastating. Over half of the sock mill jobs are gone in Ft. Payne. Much of the report concentrated on this.

However, it is not that dismal. At the end there is this gem.

Jimmy Durham, the county economic development officer, shows just how grim things have been for the sock business here.

On street after street, he points to buildings that used to house sock mills, most of which are now gone. With all these businesses shuttered, you might think Durham is in despair about the future of Fort Payne. He isn’t.

Those closed sock factories are reopening as new businesses.

He points to Steadfast, which makes bridges; Ferguson, a major plumbing supply company; a distribution center for Children’s Place; two new metal tube manufacturers; a high-tech label maker. For a town of only 13,000 people, this is a lot of new, good-paying employment. These jobs pay more than sock-making jobs.

In fact, most of 4,000 recently laid-off sock workers quickly found new jobs.

Joscelynn, Is this an example of what Joseph Schumpeter called Creative Destruction?

Dr. Williams explains why so much of what we choose is done peacefully and a few things we choose be come big overblown issues. Any idea on one key difference?

Milton Friedman explains how the price system fosters harmony and cooperation, in 2 minutes 15 seconds.

(HT: Cafe Hayek)

Before our next president imposes British NHS style health care on us. Although, this could be a good side job for someone with a strong hand and clean pliers.

Here is the follow up to the John Stossel article I blogged about last week and later clarified.

Again, I think Stossel is a mix very correct and incorrect.  He shows an example of an employer health care plan that puts patients in control and keeps costs down for employers, Whole Foods oddly enough.  However, he sees their adoption of HSAs are evidence for his less insurance stance.

I don’t see it this way.  I see putting consumers in charge, like they are for nearly everything else, as the moral of this story.  If consumers want to buy the insurance with high premiums but low deductibles, they should be free to.  If they want to buy insurance that covers everything that might ever ill them, they should be free to.  If they want to buy just insurance that covers coma, ingrown nails, and UTI or any other combination and someone will sell it to them, they should be free to.  If they want to pay cash only for service, they should be free to.

The ills with the system today are twofold.  First, insurance purchases are biased toward being  made by employers in the tax code.  Second, there is one level of care inforced by the state.  True, premiums and deductibles my vary but the service offered is the same.  The combination of these factors means if some one is able to find an inovative way to offer insurance it will be many years before anyone is able to take advantage of it.  This is even the case with change inacted by the state in this area.  HSA and MSA were created years ago, but few have this option.

How often have you said this or heard it said? Is insurance the answer?

Imagine if your car insurance covered oil changes and gasoline. You wouldn’t care how much gas you used, and you wouldn’t care what it cost. Mechanics would sell you $100 oil changes. Prices would skyrocket.

This is John Stossel moving the health care debate to something a little bit easier to grasp. You might say you cannot compare health care and auto care because one is a necessity of life. However, given the publics apparent inelastic demand for gasoline, I am not sure I know which is the necessity.

Read this weeks article spelling out the problem. Next week he promises to have some solutions.

Walter E. Williams reports it will soon be pontificated that tax avoidance is a sin.

Prof. Williams asks the Bishop of Rome

 Should the Roman Catholic Church support the welfare state? Or, put more plainly, should the Church support the use of the coercive powers of government to enable one person to live at the expense of another? Put even more plainly, should the Church support the government’s taking the property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn’t belong?

Catholics may be in the spotlight here, but all to often when I am at the Temple or read the Social Principles I wonder the same thing about the UMC.