But now you also have to decide what 'benificial' means. Does it mean more GDP? politicians and business types like to act as if it does. Does it mean higher economic welfare? You're more likely to get that answer from an economist, though many will still go on to consider only GDP because it's easier and it's what their employers care about.

You'll certainly find papers on the effect on GDP of things like infrastructure spending, top income tax rates and immigration. You're unlikely to find much beyond the abstract and theoretical about their effects on economic welfare.

So you can still argue that your policy will make people better off, even if the economic evidence on GDP is unambiguously against you.

Even if you couldn't, it still wouldn't matter. Economists don't run the economy, ordinary people are all too ready to dismiss them in favour of their prejudices and politicians are all to happy to sacrifice economic welfare for political reasons. And, of course, campaign funding and personal reasons.

(As an aside, for the US working hours and inequality should probably be at the top of the economic-welfare list....though infrastructure needs a serious kick up the arse there, too, AFAICT).

There are quite a lot of well known and in some cases proven ways to reduce traffic pollution, some available sooner than others. Some examples: better car emission standards, more and better trains trains, electric cars, high fuel taxes (to affect vehicle choice and travel distance), encouraging shorter commuting times or telecommuting and urban tree planting.

With millions of EU citizens living across borders, large trade flows and shared environmental and political concerns, getting rid of the EU will mean a new treaty organisation to handle all this stuff. 28x27 bilateral agreements on product standards, fisheries, competition, access to benefits and healthcare, taxation and energy isn't going to work.

There will always be something in the place where the EU is now. At least this one HAS a parliament, unlike the WTO, NATO, etc. Better to make it work.

Insurance may price some riskier drivers out of the market, or insurance companies may refuse to offer insurance at all. And they may impose conditions, and provide incentives (in the form of lower premiums) to use risk-lowering techniques (like minimum vehicle standards, driving courses, recording devices and the like) and make different choices (cheaper to insure cars).

I don't know about EU countries other than the UK, but the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act isn't quite /that/ wide. The time limit is different for different crimes (immediate for police cautions, never for prison sentences over 30 months - so you can certainly forget about having your conviction for mass murder spent). It doesn't require old records or publications to be destroyed. It doesn't require that no-one ever mention it, instead you can be sued for defamation if you do it maliciously (and, AIUI, you can't be sued for defaming a dead person so historians don't need to worry so much). And, employers are allowed to consider it anyway for some jobs (financial jobs, anything involving children, taxi driving, etc.). In fact, if you want to volunteer to work with children you might have much more than your spent convictions inspected, but pretty much any contact with the police at all.

What it does mean is that you can't be charged higher insurance premiums because you got caught speeding a few times ten years ago, can't be sacked from a shop when your employer discovers you shoplifter many years ago, etc. Personally I think it's of benefit to society as a whole because it provides an eventual route to a normal life for people who stop offending. In particular I'm thinking of lazy service providers who find it easier to say no than think about it, and recruiters who may think that someone poses no extra risk but worry that if it goes wrong they as individuals will get the blame.

Innovation and improved technology isn't just about invention. An improvement in technology is an improvement in the techniques people use to do stuff. A marvellous new thing used by hardly anyone is only a very small innovation. So, if a law limits access to new inventions then the improvement in technology is also limited.

I suspect that 'new product not developed because its expensive' doesn't attract readers well enough. Besides, just think of how many more people would be using better technology if they could buy a better phone with the same money. Abolish all patents today and there'd be a jump in the technology people use - in the short term.

It all comes back to the core dilemma of intellectual property: the cost of reduced adoption of a new invention vs the cost of it not being financially worthwhile to invent.

That's a terrible definition.....even later in the same Wikipedia article it's redefined as 'an attempt to obtain economic rent', linking to the entry on economic rent itself, which has a section on monopoly rent which specifically mentions patents.

Economic rent is pretty much everywhere in some degree, because monopoly power is everywhere to some degree (nothing is perfectly competitive). And I think it would be wrong to just assume that it always causes a welfare loss just because it's become a (justifiable) mainstream-ish term of abuse, a correctly designed patent and copyright system being an obvious counterexample. Maybe in a perfect first-theorem-of-welfare-economics economy, but not in a real one.

I think that's unlikely, at least for most drivers. How many times have you experienced an emergency stop from 70mph? Or practiced regaining control from a skid? Or when sliding on ice, or aquaplaning? Most drivers will have no idea how their car behaves in those situations and have no idea how good their skills are because they've never been tested in those circumstances, or have only tested them once or twice. One would expect that a self-driving car's abilities will have been tested much more.

Or maybe there are more controlled environments - moving people around certain parts of airports springs to mind - which will be the first targets. Places where pedestrian and other traffic isn't allowed. Public and legal acceptance is far more likely there, and it'd be a better and eventually cheaper service than waiting for one of a handful of buses.

Indeed - specifically, in this case, people wanting the US constitution to apply to a European court handling a case brought by a Spanish man against a Spanish company, Google Spain. The data was collected by Google Inc, but for the purpose of allowing Google Spain to sell advertising in Spain.

Given that most of the anti-EU sentiment in the UK has been whipped up by anti-immigration types complaining that the UK doesn't control it's own borders, I think we'd have to expect new barriers to moving in and out of the UK. For many anti-EU people here, limiting free movement and kicking out foreigners seems to be the whole point of leaving the EU. I think a lot of the political mainstream would themselves want to pretty much recreate the EU membership in other treaties, but would be under a lot of pressure to limit movement from the anti-EU public and parties. And I'm sure the EU would be anxious to respond in kind.

The EU has a common tariff system, and EU members impose these tariffs on goods entering the EU. For example, it's 8.8% for knitted gloves and 7.6% for other kinds of gloves. Think, just for a moment, what this implies for someone wanting to move goods in to the UK from Ireland or France - or to/from Scotland if Scotland ends up independent inside the EU. Think of what's involved in enforcing that, in declaring goods, understanding regulations and handling the payments.

Mmm...I can't help thinking there's a hole in that somewhere. Couldn't they use the account to accept a bunch of payments for sales they don't intend to fulfil, transfer the money to themselves and then leave you with the chargebacks? Quite possibly PayPal will come after you if your account is negative.

There have been studies by linguists attempting to demonstrate that language comprehension involves acting out the meaning in your head. Something like this:

• Take a bunch of sentences, some meaningless, some implying movement towards the hearer ('Scratch your nose'), some away from the hearer ('Close the drawer').
• Split people in to two groups. Give them all a box with two buttons on it, one near to them the other further away. Give them the sentences one at a time.
• Tell one group to press the near button if the sentence they hear is valid. Tell the other one to press the far one.
• Observe that the 'far is valid' group takes longer to assess 'action towards the hearer' sentences as valid than 'action away from the hearer' sentences. Observe the opposite for the 'near is valid' group.

If language comprehension can interfere with planning physical movement like that then it's not hard to imagine it degrading driving skill.

Unfortunately, as a society we've developed strong social expectations that phone calls be answered immediately. Not just in cars - in casual conversations, and if you've ever been in a queue being served by someone also answering the phones you'll know that callers get priority every time. And once you've answered there's a strong social expectation that you'll pay attention and respond, and you don't get the usual gestures and situational awareness that politely indicate 'I really need to deal with this other thing right now'.

So I suspect that the best thing the original questioner can do is to establish a reputation as the person who never answers calls in the car.

As for legal responses.....people mostly wouldn't do it if they thought it would lead to so much as chipped paint or a $50 fine, never mind injury or enormous fines. The problem is that it almost always doesn't cause any of those things. Cranking up the fines probably won't help - it's cranking up detection rates that'll help. And it gives a good excuse to callers if fines are a common experience.