Last week was very busy for me, with doing taxes and substantially rewriting our wills. So this is biweekly rather than weekly.
We Are Still Measuring Inflation All Wrong
by Alan Reynolds, Cato at Liberty, February 26, 2024.
Excerpt:
If the U.S. measured consumer prices in the same “harmonized” way other countries do —by simply excluding dubious guesstimates of Owners’ Equivalent Rent— the average rate of inflation was 2.3 percent over the past twelve months, 1.1 percent over the past six, and zero over the past three.
New technologies, new totalitarians
by Noah Smith, Noahpinon, February 27, 2024.
Excerpt:
The internet’s inventors thought it would be a force for human freedom, enabling regular people to speak up from a position of relative privacy without getting government permission or paying large fixed costs. And for a while, in the 1990s and 2000s, that’s more or less how it turned out.
Then two things happened. First, internet users migrated from the Web (where attempts at tracking can be detected and blocked) to apps, which watch and record pretty much everything you do in the app. Second, internet use switched from PCs to smartphones, which are far easier to track in physical space, and far easier to link to a user. Together, these changes turned the internet into a technology for universal surveillance. A sufficiently powerful government can use your phone, and the apps on your phone, to track where you are and what you’re doing at all times.
Interestingly, though, Smith goes on to point out how narrow the Chinese government’s aims are vis-a-vis the United States.
Biden’s Inaccurate and Inadequate Lip Service to Marijuana Reform Ignores Today’s Central Cannabis Issue
by Jacob Sullum, Reason, March 8, 2024.
Excerpt:
Contrary to what Biden said, his pardons for people convicted of simple possession under federal law do not entail expungement of criminal records because there is no way to accomplish that without new legislation. The distinction matters because Biden has emphasized that “criminal records for marijuana possession” create “needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities.” His pardons do not remove those barriers. The certificates that pardon recipients can obtain might carry weight with landlords or employers, but there is no guarantee of that.
GMU economist reported to DEI office for criticizing plan to mandate DEI courses
by Jennifer Kabbany, The College Fix, February 27, 2024.
Excerpt:
An economics professor at George Mason University was recently reported to its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office after he publicly criticized an effort underway to add two diversity-heavy courses to graduation requirements.
Economist Bryan Caplan posted on X his strong objection to the proposal — which is on the cusp of being implemented even as several states across the nation have enacted laws that curb diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and offices in higher education.
“George Mason University is a public university, funded by Virginians with a wide range of political views about the nature of justice. The Just Societies Initiative is a thinly-veiled effort to teach far-left (or ‘woke’) views of justice as the One True Position,” Caplan posted Feb. 20.
“Even people who agree with such views should ponder the justice of creating an official state-sanctioned orthodoxy and requiring all students to spend multiple classes feigning agreement with it.”
READER COMMENTS
steve
Mar 10 2024 at 1:52pm
Caplan got reported to the DEI office? What happened after that? As the chair of my department I occasionally had people reported to me. Most fo the time I investigated and determined it was nonsense or a misunderstanding. While my corporation/department had no DEI staff or activities I did have a couple of the younger staff ask about it. I asked them to write up what problems it would solve for us and to offer a choice of DEI programs that could offer metrics showing improvements. That would be the last I heard about the issue.
Steve
Jon Murphy
Mar 11 2024 at 8:08am
Last I heard, the office said they were not conducting an investigation at that time but would continue to monitor the situation.
Either way, I’m sure you can see the chilling effect such a letter has on freedom of Speech.
steve
Mar 11 2024 at 11:34am
Yes and no. Intimidation only works if you allow yourself to be intimidated. My impression is that medicine has almost as much petty politics as academia. Reporting someone sometimes meant there were real issues or just a misunderstanding but it was often a power play or an attempt at getting revenge. Free speech doesnt mean the petty stuff goes away, assuming this was that kind of complaint. You just need to stand up for yourself. As a chair I always protected my guys in those kinds of situations.
My caveat here would be that he is posting on X. For whatever reason normal people seem to sink to the level of the most toxic people there. Caplan could be correct in what he is saying but if he is being a jerk about it that will put the university in an awkward position. Its still a financial entity.
Steve
David Seltzer
Mar 11 2024 at 3:04pm
Steve said: “Intimidation only works if you allow yourself to be intimidated.” Well said Steve. My personal approach is the willingness to fight our adversaries in a phone booth. With apologies to Muhammed Ali.
Jon Murphy
Mar 11 2024 at 4:29pm
True. But Bryan has the power of tenure. Others who do not, can more easily be intimidated into silence. And, indeed, one thing we have seen a huge increase of on campus is self-censorship among both faculty and students.
These things have very real effects.
David Seltzer
Mar 11 2024 at 7:42pm
True enough Jon. But that trade-off is exactly what those DEI despotic bullies rely on. Ali stood tall in the face of the draft and was stripped unfairly of his title and prime fighting years and lost millions. He knew that was going to happen but still refused conscription.
Ahmed Fares
Mar 10 2024 at 5:36pm
Empires rise and fall. You guys had a good run.
‘Biden’s DEI rules are worse than HAMAS’: Top microchip makers are postponing US expansion and instead expanding in dangerous Israel and Russia because American grants come with so many ‘equity’ caveats
David Henderson
Mar 10 2024 at 10:37pm
Thanks for the link.
Richard W Fulmer
Mar 11 2024 at 10:35am
A 2015 study by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management found that a toxic worker costs a company far more than a top 1% performer adds. If that’s correct, then the toxic workers that our public schools and universities are producing, and the toxic work environments that DEI-driven HR departments are creating, will likely have – and perhaps are already having – a discernable impact on profits and GDP. Small wonder that Intel and Samsung are wary of swallowing Biden’s poison pill.
Comments are closed.