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Legal Problems
Economists often say that the law should be written to promote efficient outcomes. That’s more ambiguous than it sounds. Suppose I want to take an action that causes you harm; for example, I want to...
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Blog Notes
Note added on 4/5: Readers who want the short version can skip down to where it says “Edited to Add”. I’m somewhat hesitant to post this, since I believe my regular readers will find it all to be...
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Missed It by *That* Much
Why do senior citizens get so many discounts? A lot of it is because they have the time to shop for bargains — so if you don’t give them a bargain, they’ll find someone else who will. We talked about...
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Friedman on Psychic Harm
Four terrific posts by David Friedman, partly on psychic harm, partly on talking about psychic harm. I’d recommend these highly even if they hadn’t invoked my name. Landsburg v Bork: What Counts As...
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‘Bam’nesty
According to the New York Post, “President Obama’s temporary-amnesty program has paid off for 454,000 young immigrants who were brought here illegally.” That’s all well and good, and I don’t begrudge a...
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Another Rationality Test
In front of you lie three urns, labeled A, B and C. Each contains 2000 balls. Urn A has 2 reds and the rest black; Urn B has 20 blue and the rest black; Urn C contains 1 red, 10 blue and the rest...
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Cats, Dogs and Coin Flips
The solution to yesterday’s rationality test: This one is much much simpler (and much less infuriating) than some of our earlier rationality puzzles (e.g. here and especially here), but it has a good...
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I GIve Up
These were the posted prices at my local gas station this morning: (Note the 5 cent discount for cash on regular and premium, as opposed to the 65 cent (!!!) discount on plus.) Unless this was just a...
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A Dog Who Really Wants A Cat
Since we’ve been talking about dogs and cats this week: Hat tip to my sister Barbara. Click here to comment or read others’ comments.
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Terror, Truth and Torture
Last week was not the first time the United States was transfixed by an act of terror. In 1964, three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi were (quoting Wikipedia) “threatened,...
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A Sip of Monstrous Moonshine
You and a stranger have been instructed to meet up sometime tomorrow, somewhere in New York City. You (and the stranger) can decide for yourselves when and where to look for each other. But there can...
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