The Revolution Continues...

Coursera, big producers of MOOC's (Massive Online Open Courses) has an interesting strategy as reported in today's Wall Street Journal and locally in the Tennessean where a pilot program involving many of the UT and Board of Regent's schools will be launched this fall.

We're seeing the emergence of a revolution in education.  Changes in technology prompt such revolutions and revolutions imply the need to adjust and adapt.  Interestingly, though not surprisingly, the article in the Tennessean includes this...

The classes offered in Tennessee will cost the same as any other class and are open only to those enrolled in the schools offering the courses.

Why not then just go with this model that is far less expensive?  

We'll let you (encourage you) to borrow a lot of money for your college education but...

I've not followed the whole Affordable Healthcare Act implementation closely but this reader comment (rhetorical question) on one of Tyler Cowen's (Marginal Revolution) posts is quite good.

Insurance, properly understood, is purchased to protect the buyer or an interested party of the buyer against  large, unexpected losses.  Apparently catastrophic coverage only (high-deductible) is discouraged or forbidden in the new regime.  Crazy.  So, buying a high-deductible plan might expose you to a loss of $10,000 or so.  Even if you don't have that kind of money on hand it is a rational approach to insurance.  People borrow for all kinds of things, college education being an obvious area.

The employer-based model of health insurance - low-deductible, high premium - has served to distort our collective perspective when it comes to insurance.

If it saved just one life...

... it still might not be worth it.  There are myriad ways we can reduce the probability of injury and death.  We could lower speed limits to 25 mph.  That would go a long way to reducing traffic fatalities.  The benefit of any reduction in the probability of injury or death has to be weighed against the cost.

So spending lots of money on storm shelters for school children?  Probably not the best idea.  Doesn't mean there is no response at all.  David Johnson at The Daily Beast lays it out.  Pull-quote...

building shelters for everyone in Missouri at this rate would cost $6 billion. Based on Missouri’s average of two deaths per year from tornadoes, this measure would save 100 lives over 50 years at a cost of $60 million per life. Even if the shelters last 200 years, the cost would be $15 million for each life saved.

If men don't like being out-earned by their wives we should expect to be able to see evidence in behavior.  Here is some interesting research that suggests that we can see differences between marriages where the woman earns more and the control group - other marriages.

For the Birds...

I've been thinking of building / acquiring / developing a pigeon loft.  I've already endured strange looks when I've articulated this particular vision... and from people who, ostensibly, love me.  This ought to change their perspectives.  A single pigeon just sold for over $400,000.  He is a fast pigeon (his name is Bolt after the sprinter).

So I will persevere in my plan to developed a stable (coop) of racing pigeons and forego putting any money away for retirement.  These birds and their winnings will be my retirement.

Seriously pigeon racing is big in some Asian countries.  Here's a story of how they actually "do" the racing... from Wisconsin, not an Asian country.

Education Savings Accounts, Why not?

Will Education Savings Accounts catch on?  I sure hope so.  While we're at it let's have personalized Social Security accounts as well.  Think of the sense of ownership a young person in a low-level job would have if he could see his retirement account grow before his eyes.  It would be his account, his money.  If he dies young it would go to his loved ones.  (Hat tip Jay P. Greene)

Summon the King's Horses and the King's Men...

David Brooks:

...So the story I’d like to tell is this: Over the past half-century, society has become more individualistic. As it has become more individualistic, it has also become less morally aware, because social and moral fabrics are inextricably linked. The atomization and demoralization of society have led to certain forms of social breakdown, which government has tried to address, sometimes successfully and often impotently.

Concern all around?

Conservatives sometimes argue that if we could just reduce government to the size it was back in, say, the 1950s, then America would be vibrant and free again. But the underlying sociology and moral culture is just not there anymore.  

Liberals also sometimes talk as if our problems are fundamentally economic, and can be addressed politically, through redistribution. But maybe the root of the problem is also cultural. 

One important question is whether and to what extent the state played a role or otherwise encouraged social breakdown.

Re-distribution: I'm for it BECAUSE I believe in free markets

Ever hear people moaning and wailing about income / wealth distribution?  What percentage of people think it's a problem?

Income / wealth distribution in the United States is not what people think it is nor what they'd prefer it to be.  It's worse.  Ezra Klein has a good summary of work done by Dan Ariely and Micheal Norton in 2011.  Side note:  I wondered why their work, fascinating and very well presented, was not getting more attention.  Now it seems a compelling video has gone viral.

This is fascinating stuff and a number of components are worth consideration.  Ariely points out that Republicans and Dems are not far apart with respect to both estimates of distribution and their expressions of preference.

Is College Worth It?

That is the title of a just released book by William Bennett.  Timely.  The book review in the Wall Street Journal is particularly good with respect to the provision of data...

1.  The cost of a college degree has, since 1990, risen four times the rate of inflation.
2.  Pay for college grads has fallen 5% since 2007.
3.  Nearly half of all grads work at jobs that do not require a college degree.

Read the whole review.

I particularly liked that Bennett has addressed the ballooning administrative costs associated with college.  From 1993 to 2007, per-student administrative costs leapt more than 61%.

What is Distributism exactly?

The first gazillion times I heard the term Distributism I asked what it was precisely.  I never got a good, simple explanation of the concept and always got the feeling, from the person using it, that I should already know what it is, that I should have an understanding of what he or she meant by it (sorry, I like some guidance when I'm confused).  Here's a good entry.  Uber Catholic commentator Mark Shea provides a good example / contrast.    It emphasizes subsidiarity, a concept in Catholic Social Teaching.  So it's a very Catholic thing.  I'm down with that of course.  So Distributism:  I'm not agin' it.  I'm fer it.

What Does Positive Spillover Even Mean?

I settled with 'Positive Spillover' obviously.  'Spillover' is the layman's term for what economists call an externality.  An externality exists when a third party, one not involved in a market transaction, realizes some benefit (positive extenality) or incurs some cost (negative externality).  Some cost or benefit 'spills over' from the market transaction.

Typically when you hear 'externality' it is assumed to be negative.  Pollution in all forms - air, water, noise - are examples of negative externalities.  A firm makes some product and releases the by-product of the process, let's call it crud, into the stream.  The crud kills the trout.  The fishing lodge downstream suffers a cost, no trout = no fishing = no business (that the trout die is only consequential to the extent that humans suffer a loss).