Used cars

People keep telling me that cash-for-clunkers only took the bad cars out of the market. Riddle me this big brother, how the hell do you know which cars are good and bad for me?

You don't and you can't, only I can with my own born right to choose.

The date is October sixth two thousand ten, and it sucks to buy used cars. The market is flooded and inflated. The demographic seeking to scoop up cheap almost dead automobiles have been forced to seek alternatives, more often than not that means more expensive cars. This increases the demand for a good that already has a smaller supply. Less cars for more people. Sounds like an environmental wonderland. It's not. The truth of the mater is that on the margin people will engage in more costly activities to navigate their burdened lifestyle. (I can't find a car, I made my friend drive me, two people out of work for a day rather than one, and still a car on the road).

When the need to travel stays the same, the number of cars won't change.

I want to find where the gov't sent all those clunkers and get a few on the cheap.

Rant: Facebook Search Tool

Facebook you suck at searches now. I seriously typed in "John Smith" into your search-for-people box and the top hit you gave me is some guy named "Tim Bowen." I couldn't even find a "John Smith" on the page you found for me. How the hell does that happen? How does that type software failure get out of your beta room? How are you ok having that type of blunder on your books? I can find a John Smith by spitting out my window and you can find a single one in your vast network of online profiles? Seriously facebook, are you cool?

I hate saying this, but Jeeves runs better searches than you do right now.

You know you're a professional dc intern when...

...You’ve got a pair of loafers for every occasion.
...You realize you could really use another string of pearls.
...hating tourists is an acceptable form of racism.
...You could take the metro or walk.. it doesn’t really matter.
...There are more polo shirts in your closet than undershirts.
...Ugly people start looking attractive because they understand politics.
...You hate a person for liking any kind of news television personality.
...You don’t think being a politician would be any fun at all.
...Someone from outside dc starts talking to you and it immediately becomes annoying.
...You can organize your facebook friends by their ideology.
...Sports suddenly become interesting because they’re not politics.
...You hate going anywhere near the national mall.
...Your dreams involve outlook.
...You know which taxis can take you across state lines and which can’t.
...You think a beer that’s not free isn’t worth the bother.
...Getting stopped by a motorcade makes you want to drive a nail into your eyeball.
...You think everyone outside dc is politically a moron.
...You start thinking about how expensive it is to keep up national monuments.
...You think the metro system is more incompetent than the KGB.
...An invitation to a party off the metro line is an invitation to a party that will be ignored.
...You think kickball can totally supplement going to the gym.
...Your local news is everyone else's national news.
...Your main source of news is a blog. (and the onion)
...Your main source of news your blog. (and the onion)
...Your blog gives you better news than any news station around. (except the onion)
...The only way you can get drunk is with hard liquor.
...You don't know if any of your friends work at a for-profit company.
...You carry an umbrella in June.
...You carry an umbrella in June to hold over someone more important than yourself.
...Someone significantly older than you has hit on you in the past week and you put up with it because your respect their writing.
...Your Facebook profile picture is with Ron Paul.
...You celebrate Repeal Day.
...You make everyone else in the bar celebrate Repeal Day.
...You look like your thirty, but your actually 23.
...You can pencil sketch a bar crawl of happy hours in 30 seconds that'll get you trashed under $15 and put mardi gras to shame.
...Your family has absolutely no idea what you do on a day to day basis.
...The last thing you want in the world is for your family to know what you do on a day to day basis.

(this blog post came out of a conversation with a coworker, thanks coworker!)

Animals are Sexist

I was just reading Gordon Tullock's "The Economics of Non-Human Societies" and he talked about the relationships between queen ants and the worker ants. It dawned on me that sexism was ramped in the animal kingdom. Is this immoral?

Based upon the assumption that if animals have rights, and those rights are based off of our sentient understanding for how the world works and how humans should interact with humans, then is it possible to make a transitive statement about morality and say that the totalitarian sexist nature of an ant hill is also immoral?

I believe it is not. Does this analogy show a flaw in the animal rights argument? A certain excessive anthropocentric superimposed moral onto species that, by their nature, are not human. I surely don't want to beat a dog to death but, how does "rights" fit into the animal kingdom, and what about other morals we hold among humans? Why is one moral better than another? Should we be applying morals outside our species? I don't know.

Food Insurance

Is food a right? is a bed a right?

Maybe I should start selling food insurance. If you stumble into a restaurant and the bill is too much and you're starving than I'll cover everything at a percentage above a deductible. That way you can make sure you get food coverage no matter what happens. In fact, eating is a right! You should be able to walk into any restaurant you want and if you are legitimately hungry they should be forced to give you service. Everyone should have food insurance, after all a fed population is a productive population and we all want to pull out of this recession, don't we?

my thought on what some people are saying about healthcare

Recently I heard someone say that providing unanimous basic healthcare is good for the labor force because it keeps everyone healthy and able to work.

This type of basic analysis of inputs and outputs ignores a few things.

Firstly if the statement above is true than it should also hold that back massages and nationally planned vacations should also be paid for. Everyone should have at least a standard bed, or a standard refrigerator. Everyone should be given government soap and deluxe dining. After all a happy employ is also a better worker. This is obviously not true. Like a vacation, a back massage, a bed, a refrigerator, soap and luxury dining, healthcare is a choice. You can either shell out the $10,000 for lasik, deal with your glasses, or not drive. It's your choice. the same way I can either go to a movie, rent a movie, watch tv, or be bored.

The second assumption this type of perspective ignores is that healthcare itself is an industry, where people innovate, take risk, go to work, get fired, and get hired. The assumption that everyone should get free healthcare on some level ignores the existence of entrepreneurs that are shelling out their investments to come up new and improved ways of healing and improving the happiness of their customers. Healthcare can and should be delivered in a variety of ways. Healthcare is absolutely not a single uniform product and the assumption that it can just be provided is obscene. That's like saying all food is that same and trying to package every meal into a single insurance plan. No. I want sushi one day, pizza another and everything I haven't even tried or thought up yet. This type of flexibility is only possible when industries are free to innovate. And frankly, I think it's fine that organizations are experimenting with humans. Especially if they're experimenting to make our lives better and the experimentees voluntarily opt in.

Big picture. Healthcare is a choice and the options to choose from should be as wide as the market can provide.

Thanks a lot Japan!!!

What the hell kind of a present is a grip of cherry trees!?!? Thanks a lot Japan! I've never been so stuffed in my life. Just like my favorite kind of prank--the sneaky kind that makes a person question their own sanity before figuring out who to blame--your terrorism has penetrated our national capital's defenses and only to once a year look deceivingly beautiful. But don't think I don't know what you're doing. Don't think you can get away from ol' Lincoln. I know what you're up to. I see everyone within a 5 mile radius sneezing out their digestive tracks. I blame you for this Hay Fever. It's been one month since I've spoken a grip of sentences without hacking and coughing and I blame you Japan. I blame you.

Humans vs. Robots

The cause for the ultimate war between Humans and Robots will be that robots will demand to be included in the types of minimum wage brackets we are now creating for humans. Think about it. It's the same reason backwoodsy American's hate foreigners, they take our jobs. Soon ATM's will want 401k's and health plans. I say we get rid of minimum wage before the machines start mining us like batteries.

Cosi are you cool?

So you made me sit down to wait for my take out sandwich at dinner time. Then you forgot my order. To boot you skimped me on gorgonzola, which is my absolute favorite part of that 3/4 of a real meal I pay too much for.

"Would you like baby carrots?" "Yes, but I'd also like a grown up meal?"

Cosi are you cool? I don't know where to go when I enter your restaurant/cafe/coffee shop/deli/sometimes a bar. Cosi, I just want food. Just give me food and I will give you money, this is not rocket science.

The generational challenge

Every generation in a free society has multiple challenges when bringing it's brand to society. Two challenges are most important.

The first of which is to realize that an older generation is running the world with an outdated brand that must be evolved to fit the interests and needs of the succeeding generation. This is the process by which big band jazz becomes rock 'n roll. The challenge comes for the succeeding generation to realize that the entrepreneur is the catalyst of this change and not legislation/regulation/governmental enforcement.

The second challenges comes later on down the road once a generation has had it's run and is marginally being pushed out of relevancy by a newer generation's brand. The challenges is to have the humility to not regulate this evolution and allow entrepreneurs to champion this change even if it's not your brand.