Did Yankees Fan Really Get Hosed in Deal for Jeter Homerun Ball?
A lot of people are saying that Christian Lopez, the guy who caught Derek Jeter‘s 3,000-hit homerun ball, got hosed by the Yankees when he gave it back in return for some signed memorabilia and Yankees tickets worth an estimated $70,000. According to a Bloomberg article, the ball’s estimated value could be as high as $250,000. So the knee-jerk reaction of a lot of headlines was to assume that Lopez left $180,000 on the table, even though last month, Bloomberg reported a much more conservative estimate of between $75,000 and $100,000 for Jeter’s 3,000-hit ball. I’m not saying it couldn’t go for $250,000, but assuming it’s a given seems presumptive. Read More »
How “Patent Trolling” Taxes Innovation
Applying for a patent is expensive. Fees can exceed $25,000, and most applications require at least a couple years of effort. We might expect that anyone considering applying for a patent would be fairly certain of the merits of their case for one. And yet, of the patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that are subsequently litigated, 40% are declared invalid in court.
A court’s declaration that a patent is “invalid” means it should never have been granted in the first place, usually because the invention has been done before, or because it’s obvious to anyone familiar with the patent’s particular scientific or technical field. So why do so many people spend so much time and money filing for patents that are ultimately declared invalid? Read More »
L.A.’s Carmageddon: Would Building a Train Be Smarter Than Widening the 405?
The “mother of all traffic jams,” in the words of L.A. County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, is coming to Los Angeles. On the weekend of July 16/17, an 11-mile segment of Interstate 405 will be closed as part of a $1 billion widening project. Reading of the expected traffic jams, and having recently returned from western Europe, where I traveled mostly by train, I was reminded of an earlier traffic nightmare.
This example I learned from Robert Caro’s 1974 masterpiece The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Robert Moses was New York City’s “master builder” in the mid-20th century, and famously hated public transportation. Read More »
Are the Benefits of Prescription Drugs Large Enough to Excuse Overdose Deaths?
That is the question I found myself asking while looking at a new Centers for Disease Control report that analyzes drug-overdose deaths in Florida from 2003-2009. I am guessing the answer is a resounding yes, but it’s probably a question worth asking. During that period, the death rate for prescription drugs rose 84.2 percent, from 7.3 to 13.4 per 100,000 people. (Note that these numbers represent unintentional deaths, not suicides — although when you’re talking about death by drugs, the intention isn’t always clear.) Interestingly, the death rate from illicit drugs — primarily heroin and cocaine — has fallen 21.4 percent, to 3.4 per 100,000 people. Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 