Still No Cash for Clunkers
Last year I blogged about the Cash for Clunkers program in which the government subsidizes consumers who turn in their beat-up old cars to buy new ones. I noted that this program was likely to have a host
of negative unintended consequences that its proponents were ignoring.
The bad news is that the House of Representatives has now passed a Cash for Clunkers bill. The good news is that the version they passed applies to so few vehicles that there is virtually no incentive for anyone to take advantage of the program, so its unintended consequences will be smaller than they otherwise would be. Read More »
Markets Give Geithner a Vote of Confidence
Treasury Secretary Geithner‘s fears about unemployment appear to be disappearing fast. Or at least his personal fears. According to the prediction markets at Intrade.com, the chances that he departs his post this year have declined from a high above 40 percent to around 10 percent. Read More »
Friend Turnover
Seven years from now, a new study reports, your friend group will probably look entirely different, even though it’ll still be the same size. Utrecht University sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst surveyed 604 people about their friends and again seven years later, and found that only 48 percent of people’s original friends were still part of their network after that time period. How will social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter affect the rate of friend turnover in the next seven years? Read More »
Sin-Vestments
American and international health insurers hold $4.5 billion worth of stock in tobacco companies, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds. The study’s co-author says the stock holdings represent a conflict of interest: “If you own a billion dollars [of tobacco stock], then you don’t want to see it go down…. You are less likely to join anti-tobacco coalitions, endorse anti-tobacco legislation, basically, anything most health companies would want to participate in.” Read More »
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