I am serious.

The presence of a Department of Education does not mean the Federal Government runs the education system. Public Health, Safety (police), and Education are the sovereign domain of the States.

The Federal government can only attach conditions to grant money offered to the States. What those conditions can be are extremely limited, and States are not obligated to take the money. What is being described in the article is well outside the limits for the conditions. Obama is just declaring his support for the efforts of an NGO.

There are also serious limits on those strings, particularly on how specific they can be. The Federal government can't, for example, set requirements for curricula, let alone require specific courses or require using particular contractors.

The White House cannot outsource what it doesn't do. Education is under the sovereign authority of the various States, not the White House or any branch of the Federal government. The only influence the Federal government has regarding education comes from attaching strings to grant money.

Depends what form the aid takes. If you're just handing over finished goods, that disincentivises local entrepreneurs from making them. Setup some wifi access, and you provide opportunities for them to exploit.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. It's not a matter of what has a greater effect, just that there is a difference between what motivates men and what motivates women. It suggests women prefer a more direct approach to improving social welfare than the abstract/indirect/systemic route you describe.

And that's a good thing. The two approaches can be entirely complimentary. Providing reliable internet access provides social and economic opportunities, and exposes people to ideas like property rights and free enterprise while also providing the means to advocate for them politically. Working to provide access to clean water leads to healthier people with a little more free time to think about starting a business or overthrowing a dictator.

If, for the sake of convenience, we say there is a masculine approach and a feminine approach to solving problems, we can leverage that and "outflank" problems - attacking them from two directions at once.

about differences in male/female incentive structures. Perhaps explaining why there are fields where one sex dominates - if women prefer work with a focus on direct social benefit, it would explain why they comprise the majority of nurses, teachers, social workers, etc.

instead of over the internet, they would pay $0.000000. Hell, the labels might even want to pay them for airtime.

I think he's jockeying for a position in the band. It's no secret that the only thing keeping him from abandoning science is the fact that he can't meet the choreographic requirements of membership in a boy-band.

I knew physics had to be good for something...

may be an "old school" policing tactic, but Palm Pilots are a pretty "old school" device.

It's really not a very straight-forward market, is it...

A doctor tells you what to buy (and gives you permission to do so). The pharmacy buys it at the market price, though they may have done so on the futures market. The consumer buys from the pharmacy at a price that may have nothing to do with the market price, and could be further distorted by insurance.

Still, once it goes generic, there's a lot more flexibility in pricing for the consumer. If I buy mine at RiteAid, it's $160/month. CVS, $130/month. At Walgreens, I pay $75/month.

In the end, the biggest distorter of the price is insurance. If your policy covers the price of prescriptions (minus copay), you have no idea what the price actually is. Wherever you go, you pay the same. So the only market ends up being between the manufacturer and the pharmacy.

Thank you! Not only was your reply funny, it kicked off a spate of other funny posts.

Great Job!

Nope. I'd still expect it to be the case. As it has been for centuries.

Just the same one there's always been - don't tell anyone where you live.

Someone lost an interstellar war in a big way.

Considering that this happened far, far away, and therefore long, long ago; I think we all know who was responsible. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...