Here’s Kevin Drum on trading personal information for discounts—at the supermarket and the newsstand:
Today, overall supermarket prices are still the same as they’ve always been, they’re just tiered differently: those with cards pay less and those without cards pay more. So on average, consumers haven’t benefited. What’s more, competition is generally fierce in the supermarket [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Economics'
Privacy and Tiered Pricing
May 29th, 2010 · 11 Comments
Tags: Economics · Privacy and Surveillance
Framing and the New Paternalism
April 5th, 2010 · 13 Comments
My friend Glen Whitman has an excellent essay over at Cato Unbound that takes aim at what’s been variously called “new” or “soft” or even “libertarian” paternalism. I’ve been relatively open to at least some of the ideas circulating under those banners—at least as libertarians go—but Glen’s arguments certainly provide ample reason for severe skepticism. [...]
Tags: Economics · General Philosophy · Law · Libertarian Theory · Nannyism
Measuring Piracy on PS3
March 31st, 2010 · 8 Comments
Mike Masnick at Techdirt is fuming over Sony’s decision to remove the ability to install third-party operating systems on the Playstation 3 with their next big firmware upgrade. I don’t think I was even aware of the feature, so it’s of little practical import to me, but apparently there are quite a few coders and [...]
Tags: Art & Culture · Economics
Checking in on the Healthcare Debate
December 15th, 2009 · 33 Comments
I have enough of my own issues to pay attention to, so I’ve been doing my best to scrupulously ignore the running health reform debate, but in this town there are limits to what can be blocked out. As I understand the current state of play, we will still have a mandate and a “non-discrimination” [...]
Tags: Economics · Horse Race Politics
I Don’t Think It Works That Way
October 14th, 2009 · 4 Comments
Megan sez:
That’s a bold prediction. I’m skeptical. I think it is more likely is that this thing passes, and fails spectacularly. There are too many moving parts, and if any of them breaks, the whole thing rapidly starts to spin out of control and eat a gigantic hole in the deficit. If it does break, [...]
Tags: Economics
But It’s a GENUINE Fake Nobel
October 12th, 2009 · 10 Comments
It seems like every year someone feels obligated to remind us that the Economics Nobel isn’t a real Nobel Prize because it’s not one of the categories established by Alfred Nobel’s will. Yglesias does the honors this year, implying that this is some sort of strange scam where the Bank of Sweden somehow convinced people [...]
Tags: Economics · Language and Literature
Two Kinds of Innovation
August 17th, 2009 · 10 Comments
A commenter on the other day’s patent post makes an important point:
I also thought that even if an idea is obvious, it won’t be implemented until someone realizes that they have a need for it. I guess this falls under the question of whether there’s prior art, but it would also be a reason why [...]
No Data, Please, We’re Americans
July 30th, 2009 · 7 Comments
In the middle of a group discussion of health care reform last week, an acquaintance expressed puzzlement that the current debate isn’t more heavily focused on international comparisons. Modulo all the important differences—cultural, institutional, demographic, and so on—between the United States and other developed countries, shouldn’t we be spending most of our time weighing the [...]
Lisa, I Want to Buy Your Rock
July 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Another prime example of the sort of talking point I find grating not so much because it’s specious as because it’s so shamelessly, disingenuously specious:
So here’s a little test for our Republican friends to help them decide the status of the nation’s economy. I dare them to answer these questions truthfully, as Americans first, and [...]
Tags: Economics
Cringely Inducing
July 21st, 2009 · 7 Comments
Sometimes I swear the Times runs articles just to make my head hurt. Consider this op-ed by one Robert X. Cringely, who does actually appear to be a fictional character dreamt up by Arthur Sulzburger (or other, darker forces) to be the instrument of my torment:
Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft [...]
Tags: Economics · Markets · Tech and Tech Policy