I read Bloom County throughout the eighties. It was a brilliantly funny comic, nothing like Doonesbury which was highly political. Yes, Breathed obliquely dealt with political issues ("caucus raucous!") but in an evenhanded fashion, which was unusual for back then. I'm amazed Breathed is bringing this back. I'm really looking forward to it and hope he has a long and humorous run.

No. I found it curious that the manufacturer, after having likely spent extra effort/expense on the rBGH-free animal, would be mandated to include the statement that there is no difference.

The manufacturer wasn't claiming any benefit to the rBGH-free animals; merely that they were rBGH-free.

I would suggest instead that non-GMO products should voluntarily label themselves as non-GMO, and enforce the veracity of that claim under truth in advertising laws.

The ag lobby has already blocked things like this. On containers of yogurt not made from cows given recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), you'll see a label which says that. But there's also a mandated label (at least in the mid-Atlantic) which says there is no difference in milk from cows given rBGH and cows not given it.

I read this in The Economist recently:

"Mr Putin and his associates know, from first-hand experience, that courts and judges in Russia are for the most part obedient puppets of their political masters. They also believe, wrongly, that the Western system works on the same principle, but just dressed up with more hypocrisy and flimflam."

I'm no fan of Putin, I think he's a corrupt oligarch. But I see things like this, shenanigans in the financial sector and various other regulations swayed by donations at all levels of government. And I have to wonder if Putin and his cronies are right.

I remember first seeing on a container of recombinant-bovine-growth-hormone-free yogurt that stated there was no difference between it and rbgh containing yogurt.

I thought - "What? Why would the manufacturer put both of those labels on his product?" Of course, it's because the agricultural lobby paid off politicians in order to force non-rBGH manufacturers to put such labels on their product.

You know how Tom Wheeler, former top lobbyist for the cable industry is now head of the FCC? Yeah, it's safe to assume that this sort of thing occurs throughout the US regulatory apparatus. You know the IRS scandal regarding the targeting of conservative groups? Yeah, Big Ag seems to do the same thing but through the regulatory apparatus.

You know, El Chapo broke out of jail, probably with the help of Mexican authorities. It was reported that "He then hinted that the authorities had been complicit in the jailbreak by posting: 'The dog (slang for the Mexican government) dances for money, and I've bought it.'

Fortunately, we don't have law breaking like that here. First the bribery and conflicts of interest are legalized of course, THEN the "favors" occur. So - no illegality.

[Aside: I notice your interesting post is at 0 points: Reminder to certain mods: There's no "-1 disagree"]

Regarding your post - what is the net result of individuals being able to pick up a small gig here and there? What is the social cost of that? Yeah, it can generate some spending money, but is the overall result to drive down wages of workers, while increasing wealth among business owners?

Or does it lower costs for business, both in regulation and wages, leading to greater business innovation and business creation, and greater social welfare?

Or does it lead to deflation as wages are pressured down? How about deflation along with greater income inequality leading to even worse social outcomes?

I don't know - but my point is that policy makers (politicians) should be trying to understand the big picture, guided by what most improves social welfare, and not what gets them the most contributions (hah).

"Creative Destruction" is the destruction of the "worse" which is replaced by the "better". Hopefully resulting in better overall social welfare.

Would the destruction of the current model of the taxi industry lead to higher general social welfare? If the choice is between concentrating more of the profit at the top and less of it among the workers, probably not. If it means more profit for workers, and more workers, then it would improve social welfare.

Trying to identify which model improves social welfare is the key. Change is scary and disruptive, and not always good. But without technology-driven change, we'd still have a wagon-wheel manufacturing industry. On the other hand, we have lost a great deal of manufacturing, with all the costs and benefits that entails. IMO the costs outweigh the benefits in losing manufacturing.

Unfortunately, we don't see creative destruction in other important areas such as finance or politics. The financial system imploded in 2008, due to consistent patterns of misjudgment and malfeasance. But, they are among the biggest donors to federal politicians, so they received a rescue. I can understand saving the banks, but no executives were penalized, much less jailed. And the business models didn't change. Too Big To Fail just got bigger. Also, we don't see creative destruction in politics where the game is heavily rigged to favor the incumbent. If taxi drivers can convince (i.e. contribute sufficiently to) local, state and federal politicians, they may be able to save their business model, regardless of the social welfare implications.

The first point has been addressed many times already - even if you're powering your electric car on 100% fossil-fuel electricity you're still doing better than burning gasoline.

Do you have a link? A document dump is not helpful - just a clear link from an authority.

Googling led to these links:

What is the efficiency of different types of power plants?

The International Energy Administration (IEA) indicates that combined cycle gas plants have a higher average efficiency than coal plants. Simple cycle plants have efficiencies ranging from 35 - 42% and combined cycle plants have efficiencies of 52 - 60% compared to efficiencies of up to 46% for supercritical coal plants and 50% for ultra supercritical coal plants.

Maximum theoretical efficiency of internal combustion engine

1) In an area which gets most of its electricity from fossil fuels, like DC Metro, the energy is still being mostly obtained from fossil fuels - including coal. So instead of directly using a fossil fuel, I'm using it with one degree of separation via electricity.

2) How long it lasts: Every X number of years, the battery has to be replaced at very significant cost.

3) How gracefully does the battery degrade: When the battery starts degrading, what does that do to performance?

4) Environmental impact of building and disposing of the battery: Are giant leach pits being left behind and aboriginals being looted?

5) Annual and lifetime carrying costs are hazy versus those of an oil burner.

The problem with drone pilots is there's no prestige in the job currently and no future outside the military with that training. It's not like a pilot who can take that training when he leaves the military and make a lucrative career out of it. And on top of that - there's no medals for bravery or heroism for a drone pilot, even if he does something that saves a platoon.

It's a weird beast, the drone operator.

Drones are absolutely essential and helped save a lot of lives, both American soldiers and "collateral damage" in acting as a long range gunsight with precision munitions. But it's probably got the least applicability on the outside.

Nowhere did you label your timeframe. The 3K rent sounds like a month, the 10K in carrying costs could be over who knows what timeframe, and the 28K interest makes no sense. I clearly labeled my timeframe.

Google says 280K in interest, not 28K @ 3.92% interest over 30 years. Just Google "interest calculator", and Google displays their built-in interest calculator.

If interest rates ever normalize - even go to 5%, interest jumps to 373K - about the price of the house.

How much people can borrow determines how much they pay for real estate, for the most part. And there's evidence we're at peak debt now. There are two measures - the absolute amount of debt, and how much people have to pay to service their debt. That second measure, the debt service ratio / financial obligation ratio, put out by the central bank, is paradoxically at historical lows. Credit low interest rates for that I suppose, or it's just flat out inaccurate, as the About link admits it's difficult to measure.

There's also competition with big all cash investors, though they're down to around 36% of purchases at this point, which drives up prices.

You can speculate on a 100% increase in the next 7-15 years, but that's a rearward looking indicator and the central bank and government have already done a tremendous amount of intervention already, between the bailouts and quantitative easing (lowering interest rates plus buying mortgages and government debt with printed money). Will it continue? Who knows, I'd say it's a 50-50 shot, provided the distortions they're introducing (namely that low interest rates spark asset bubbles) don't break something.

Houses have carrying costs which people need to understand as well. Investors often buy with no mortgage so they don't have to pay interest costs. Interest is typically the biggest single cost for the buyer using a mortgage. As far as the investors go, they're in and out as quickly as they can be to avoid the other carrying costs of the house - taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance, other fees. The hidden costs of home ownership, at CNBC - they're claiming 6K a year on average carrying costs. And that's a Zillow spokesperson talking about that, so they might even be understating the carrying costs.

To make a profit on a house, the selling price plus the sum of rents have to be greater than the sum of the carrying costs.

Unless of course, large financial companies and well-connected donors are threatened by that circumstance.

Then, the central bank will step in, through its many channels, to put a floor under rental prices ("So I think if we spent enough money, got enough of a hit right now, it would look like a floor on house prices, and we might have something every bit as good as a floor on house prices."). The multiple government housing agencies (Fannie, Freddie, FHA, VA, USDA, etc) can also step in to influence the rental market, as they did the housing market.

Blackstone is a company securitizing rental flows and selling them. They are the largest private equity company in the world ("By both profit measures, the first quarter set quarterly records for Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm").

The former head of the US central bank, Bernanke, is now employed by Citadel, a massive hedge fund.

My point is simply this: house prices did not revert to historical norms because of the big players - donors - that would have been deleteriously impacted by it. With big players moving into the rental market, if something went wrong with their business plan, don't expect them not to use their clout to get the government and central bank to do something about it.

Fair enough.

First, a thought experiment: Imagine Acme company sells widgets at 10 dollars each. One hundred people buy the widgets. Another hundred would like them, but cannot afford them. Uncle Phil sees this. Uncle Phil is a multi-billionaire. Uncle Phil says to those who cannot afford them, "I'll buy you your widgets for you." So now you have two hundred people buying widgets. The business sees its demand going up, and thus begins increasing prices. Most of the original hundred keep paying. Phil is a multi-billionaire so price isn't an option. The business owner wants maximum revenue, which is the maximum (price x quantity). So, business keeps jacking up costs until he reaches that point. If the widgets are essential to life (i.e. have inelastic demand), the original hundred do everything they can to keep paying the higher price.

So - that's the thought experiment.

Here's a paper by a Nobel (equivalent) laureate in economics, the conclusion of which states that subsidies will drive up prices in monopolistic environments (see page 28, the first paragraph of the section titled 'Conclusion': "This paper demonstrates two ways that a subsidy may increase equilibrium prices in a monopolistically competitive market"). My addition is that they drive up prices when demand is inelastic as well: Paper by Joseph Stiglitz (PDF).

You know who else wrote a cogent article on this? The Duke adult film actress, "Belle Knox." She talks about the impact of government subsidies in education, which isn't a monopoly, but for which demand is inelastic.