Michael T. Maloney: A Few Memories

Michael T. Maloney passed away this week. We both loved applied price theory and golfed to the exact same handicap.

We both liked sailing too and together sailed around Long Island in less than 24 hours. He frequently asked why we had to spend so much time scouring the ocean for our competition. To this day I don’t know how to answer this question coming from a first-class IO economist, but perhaps he did not want to imitate Ahab too much.

I wish to find better pictures (Skip has several on facebook) but here we are crossing the starting line first in 2011. Below we are about half way down the island on the ocean side.

Our 2011 corrected finish time was the best in that year’s fleet (and many other years’ fleets). We (Mike and me and 2 others) especially liked beating the two U.S. Navy college teams, which had crews of a dozen each, larger boats, and of course government money.

We almost lost Mike a few years ago when he parked in front of his house, went inside, and minutes later saw his Suburban completely crushed by the falling of a large tree.

An indicator of both how he viewed economics as a unified field and how much he enlivened his department is the number of colleagues who published articles with him despite coming from different subfields. Bobby (McCormick), Skip (Sauer), Bob (Tollison), Bruce (Yandle), Bentley (Coffey) and Matt (Lindsay), to name a few. Also many Clemson students.

Mike was particularly saddened when Matt Lindsay passed away in 2015. I hope they are together again.

Coronavirus and What it is Like to Speak with Trump

One viewer says "You play it very straight which at this point is unheard of in Washington."

Look at all of those CEA charts!

(Fox News shows CEA charts from "the brand new economic report from the White House" while the Secretary of Labor provides narrative).

Running Government Like a Businsess

Lou Dobbs knew what we were doing

Tax Reform on TV

The War on Poverty

According to Milton Friedman

The war on poverty of which so much has been made since then has been a very good thing indeed for many thousands of civil servants who have been able to make excellent careers and many thousands of academic people who have been able to do study after study on poverty.

From Friedman on Galbraith

CSPAN covers economic impact

At the 4:58 mark, Dr. Aaron acknowledges that "there is a tradeoff." That was a big surprise to me, because Dr. Aaron was the lead signatory on the economists' letter to Congress saying that there is no tradeoff: the ACA both helps people and grows the economy.

Radio interview with Kudlow and Batchelor

Jumps to 19:46
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My one cent

Apple refused to list my book for $3.00 -- they listed it at $2.99.
Amazon went with the $3.00 price for about a week, and then cut it to $2.99.
BN is still charging $3.00.

Individual mandate penalties beginning to be paid (includes IRS link)

Matt Drudge famously said he's paying his.

Just paid the Obamacare penalty for not 'getting covered'... I'M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX!

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) March 21, 2014

Here are the IRS instructions, where self-employed taxpayers are told to consider including their 2014 individual mandate penalty with their estimated tax payments beginning April 15, 2014.

Gerri and Sebelius

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3223019970001/white-house-denying-obamacares-impact-on-jobs/

Lou Dobbs and Me

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3218002758001/is-obamacare-a-disincentive-to-work/

Both Sides Agree Less Work Because of Obamacare: Kudlow Report

Since October 1, Obamacare has created positive social value

The best industrial organization economists understand that products have many attributes. Coca-Cola is not simply a substance for quenching consumers' thirst. Consumers value its brand image, familiarity, packaging, etc., which is why it dominates competing sodas despite tasting the same.

I urge Obamacare critics stick to legitimate critiques rather than fabricating them through economic misunderstandings. For example, healthcare.gov was supposedly built at a cost of over $600 billion. Although I agree that healthcare.gov has delivered hardly any value by enrolling (a handful of) people in health insurance, we cannot conclude that the social value created by Obamacare since October 1 has been negative.

First, the social purposes served by healthcare.gov go beyond enrolling people in health insurance, just as the social purposes of Coca-Cola go beyond quenching thirst. I am no fan of Obamacare and thereby don't bear the burden of proof of said value, but can point to entertainment value as an example. Many times lousy unknown films make $50 million in a few months, and that understates the social value created because intellectual property like films cannot monetize all of the social value. I'm confident that healthcare.gov has created more aggregate entertainment than, say, The Smurfs 2 or The Last Exorcism Part 2, which, in the span of a few months, each generated social values in the $20-120 million range.

Millions of Americans are chuckling over videos like these:

You might say that the enjoyment is offset by the pain experienced by Obamacare supporters when they view such videos. But as of October 1 there weren't that many Obamacare supporters (why would NBC and other major networks feature this kind of entertainment if it were offensive to half of the potential viewers?), and the few of them who exist can and do choose to ignore the allegedly major problems with healthcare.gov.

Like international trade, farce is usually a positive-sum game. My best guess is that the entertainment value generated by healthcare.gov during October 2013 is about $200 million, with more value forthcoming, albeit at a diminishing rate.

Second, healthcare.gov didn't cost $600+ million to build. Nobody knows for sure (that's part of the entertainment value!), but healthcare.gov appears to cost $125-150 million. If healthcare.gov created value only via entertainment, it has already generated a surplus in the neighborhood of $50 million.

As I said, healthcare.gov has still more valuable product attributes. Somebody needs to quantify the value of reminding the public (and economists) about "Bright Promises, Dismal Performance" better than Milton Friedman ever did. Who knows what corruption might be uncovered in the Congressional hearings -- corruption that would have persisted undetected but for healthcare.gov.

Jimmy Spithill Likes Supply & Demand

I think he does ... here are the pictures what do you think?

Last year Supply & Demand crashed the America's Cup practice course in Newport RI and these shots were taken from Supply & Demand as Spithill's Oracle boat rounded the mark and Supply & Demand was approaching it, starboard hull flying :).

Here's Dean Barker and his crew:



Thanks to Scott Klodowski for the photos. Or maybe Meredith took them ... (bunch of pics mixed in one folder).

Kudlow Report Clips

This is the 1000th Supply & Demand post, beginning September 15, 2008.

On Kudlow Report tonight. Twice?

I will be on CNBC tonight -- probably on two different segments of the same show.  Perhaps a sign that there are too many TV channels :)

The Redistribution Recession in Video Format

Watch the 28 minute video offering an overview of the main arguments and results from The Redistribution Recession.

hosted by youtube

(NOTE: Setting quality to 720 HD gives the best resolution)

Jobs Report Debrief