Freakonomics has some links to interesting studies of traffic congestion. The studies indicate that, paradoxically, sometimes a reduction in road options may decrease congestion. I think many St. Louisans would have thought this idea to be insane before the 2008 closing of I-64, when everybody saw the amazing lack of traffic problems that resulted. Now, granted, 2009 has not been quite as easy for traffic in St. Louis as it was the previous year, but it is still far better than anyone could have predicted.
Bingo and Bicycles
A couple months ago, the General Assembly approved a bill that would end taxation of bingo cards, allow organizations to hold more frequent bingo games and to spend more on advertising them, and make other minor changes to state bingo regulations.
Now, Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed the bill, invoking education as his reason:
“In light of current fiscal conditions, this reduction to education funding cannot be absorbed,” Mr. Nixon wrote
This comes just after the news that the state-subsidized bicycle race will proceed as originally planned, with the usual funding.
The state could have ended funding for the race, spent the money saved on education, and decreased the bingo tax accordingly. The bicycle race costs $1.5 million and the bingo tax brings in $2.2 million, so funds from the race wouldn’t completely cover the lost revenue if the tax were eliminated. But it would allow for a reduction, and the bingo bill’s other measures would increase revenue because more bingo games could be played. If a reduction in the tax is unacceptable, that’s no reason to maintain the restrictions on frequency of games and advertising expenses, which don’t affect education one way or another.
“Education” is a poor excuse for choosing bicycles over bingo. It doesn’t explain why the state doesn’t tax bicycles to pay for education and subsidize bingo games, which would be just as reasonable as the current arrangement.
Kidney Swapping and Selling
The Atlantic recently published an interesting piece about possible solutions for the kidney shortage, by former Reason editor Virginia Postrel. There are more than 80,000 people on the donor waiting list in the United States, undergoing dialysis while they wait 10 years (or much longer) for a kidney transplant. About 1,335 of these potential kidney candidates live in Missouri. Dialysis, a time-consuming four-hour process that is repeated three times a week, fatigues patients — 90 percent of them are unable to work even part-time. Because dialysis treatment is guaranteed by the government (and can potentially go on for decades) it is extremely expensive from a fiscal standpoint.
Postrel’s article lists suggestions for ways both to decrease the transplant wait time and to increase the supply of kidneys, which currently stands at approximately 16,000 per year. One of her suggestions, “donor chains,” would essentially allow a patient’s friends or family, who may be willing to donate a kidney but are not a match, to trade places with other willing donors who do match. The longer these chains of donor-recipients are allowed to grow, the more kidneys can be closely matched to existing biological needs. For people with lots of relatives and friends who are willing and able to donate, this would be a boon.
There are plenty of people who cannot take part in such a chain, though, and for them another interesting solution presented is to purchase healthy kidneys. Donating a kidney is not without cost, and there are very few people who would be willing to donate one to a complete stranger. Any major surgery comes with the risk of potential complications. While a person can live a very healthy life with only one kidney, this lifestyle has additional risks: A single kidney expands to compensate for its missing counterpart, making it more vulnerable to collisions or contact sports, for example. Offering compensation for a kidney donor is a way of taking into account and making up for the risks that the donor decides to undertake. (Also, as Andrew Sullivan’s blog notes, a kidney donor is thereafter limited to one alcoholic beverage per day, which might affect some people’s quality of life.)
The Atlantic article suggests that if Medicare paid donors even $25,000 or $50,000 for a kidney, the resulting equilibrium would cost less than than the current expense incurred by the government-guaranteed dialysis treatments — not to mention the immeasurable quality-of-life benefit for patients who would otherwise waste years of their lives on dialysis.
Some question the morality of “selling” organs like kidneys. They voice legitimate concerns that unscrupulous people would take advantage of the poor, or that debtors or drug addicts would rashly sell their kidneys. Internationally, the kidney market is not benevolent, because some kidneys for sale are taken from unwilling donors in prison.
However, if such a plan were implemented in the United States, each donor would first be required to undergo both a psychological and medical evaluation to ensure that he or she could undertake the ordeal. Waiting periods or payment plans could also be instituted that would prevent people from making snap decisions about becoming a compensated donor. A legitimate American market would also discourage coercive international practices, which mostly arise from transplant tourism. If kidneys are more readily available at home, gray-market transplants abroad would no longer fill a significant economic niche.
If morality is to enter the equation of whether to allow kidney sales in the United States, however, a better question to pose might be whether it is moral to let people die or linger for decades on a waiting list when there are already plenty of healthy kidneys available from willing donors.
Thoughts on Liberating Learning: The Seeds of Change
I’m reading Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, by Terry M. Moe and John E. Chubb. The first chapter, “The Seeds of Change,” introduces the main themes of the book: U.S. public education is inefficient and ineffective, but technology has the power to turn things around. Technology, the authors predict, will change the political realities that have prevented reform in the past.
The authors are vague as to what technologies they’ll be discussing. The first few examples are specifically about online courses, which I agree have tremendous potential. Other technologies, I’m not so sure about. I’ve heard jubilant praise for education computer games and those little devices that let students vote on questions posed to them, but I don’t think either will change the education market much. If they just mean technological progress in general, as opposed to, say, labor or capital, then the first part of the thesis is a truism. Of course, technological progress can improve education, the way it improves any other sector. Which innovations represent progress, however, remains a pertinent question.
The section on political resistance is more informative. It explains how reforms like online schools threaten public school employees, and how unions have succeeded at diluting reforms to protect the status quo. Some may blame education problems on a lack of concern about schools, but Moe and Chubb are right to lay the blame on the political process. Concern — nay, even panic — is everywhere. Meaningful action on the part of schools is what’s missing.
I’m looking forward to reading their analysis of why new technology can change politics in ways that other developments in the education sector haven’t.
Protecting Missouri Workers
Policy Pulse has posted a new article about the Employee Free Choice Act by staff reporter Audrey Spalding. Instead of directly combating the act in Congress, a group of Missouri politicians and business leaders rallied in favor of an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that aims to preserve the secret ballot for union representation. Read Audrey’s article for more information on the topic!
And the Lion Shall Lie Down With … the Chicken?
It’s proverbially difficult for some species to get along. This Wall Street Journal article (which is available for free, this time; my apologies to those who tried to read the gated article I linked to the other day) details the conflicts that have developed between chickens and humans, the humans being neighbors of the chickens’ owners.
Some people want chicken ownership to be illegal in cities and suburbs because they associate chickens with rural areas. Chickens don’t mesh with their idea of what should go on in a city. As one person quoted in the article put it, “Get a farm.”
The thing is, city ordinances are supposed to protect citizens’ property and safety, not to uphold a particular lifestyle.
Arguments that chickens attract predators, or that they get loose and cause trouble, are legitimate. I didn’t know that the city of Miami has pulled more than 6,000 chickens off its streets since 2003. That’s an outrageously high number of chickens. However, those problems could be prevented simply by enforcing limits on the number of chickens people keep and requirements that chickens be secured in their owners’ yards. The complaints are the fault of irresponsible pet owners, and have nothing to do with keeping chickens per se. There’s no reason to think chicken owners are less likely to care for their pets properly than dog owners or cat owners.
If you’d like to read more about chickens, here are some previous blog posts on the subject.
Testing the Homeschooling System
Many homeschooling proponents consider Missouri to be one of the best states in which to homeschool children, because state regulations do not require mandatory testing or teaching credentials. This has brought to the state many independent-minded people, who want to exercise their right to school choice freely.
The state’s homeschooling system is now being tested in divorce court. The wife in this case has homeschooled her children for eight years, having become disillusioned with the public school system after spending a year on the school board. Homeschooling parents have leapt to her support. She has given her kids standardized testing, even though this was not mandatory, and engaged them in activities like co-ops and scouting to help ensure they are socialized and well-rounded. Her husband, however, now wants to enroll the children in a private school.
Without speculating about the details of this particular case, this highlights the potential for vulnerabilities in the system. Parents should have the right to determine how their children are educated, and it is unfortunate that these particular parents cannot agree about what is best for their children. If the children are thriving in a homeschool situation, should the court take that into account when trying to arbitrate between their parents’ contrary wishes?
Another Great “You Paid For It” Segment on Eminent Domain Abuse
A few nights ago, Fox 2 in St. Louis broadcast a “You Paid For It” story about eminent domain. Featuring Elliott Davis, the piece documents the Missouri Municipal League‘s rather horrible decision to file a lawsuit challenging the petition process being used by supporters of eminent domain reform in Missouri. This is a perfect example of elected officials who think they know what is best for us and that we are too stupid to think for ourselves. It’s as though they’re telling Missourians: “If you only really knew what this petition did, and all the good eminent domain has done for you, then you would support eminent domain use for private developments.”
Beer Ads Around the World
This Wall Street Journal article made me think of my blog post earlier this month about North Korea’s first beer ad. (I didn’t have a video of that ad when I wrote the post, but I’ve since found it online here.)
It’s easy to make fun of North Korea’s state television station, but reading about advertising regulations in Russia makes the North Korean ad seem like a paragon of free expression. At least the North Korean ad had people in it — people you can see. The people even pick up glasses of beer during the course of the commercial and move them around. None of that would be permitted on Russian television.
A Russian regulator explains why people speaking or clinking beer glasses off screen is also unacceptable:
“It creates the impression that someone is present,” says Andrei Kashevarov, deputy head of the FAS. “We don’t want this trend to continue.”
You wouldn’t want viewers to get the impression that live people drink the beer being advertised!
In the United States, we enjoy a freedom to communicate and share ideas that people in other countries can only dream of. Clink clink.
