I’ve posted about this before.

Today I saw another great article by Jeff Jacoby trying to argue for common sense in organ donation regulations.

There are many anti-market policies and regulations that result in harm. But, this one is so breathtakingly stupid and deadly that I find myself embarrassed to live among large numbers of people who approve of it.

Here’s some sense from the Jacoby article:

No one would dream of suggesting that medical care is too vital or sacred to be treated as a commodity, or to be bought and sold like any other service. If the law prohibited any “valuable consideration’’ for healing the sick, the result would be far fewer doctors and far more sickness and death.

The result of our misguided altruism-only organ donation system is much the same: too few organs and too much death. More than 100,000 Americans are currently on the national organ waiting list. Last year, 28,000 transplants were performed, but 49,000 new patients were added to the queue. As the list grows longer, the wait grows deadlier, and the shortage of available organs grows more acute. Last year, 6,600 people died while awaiting the kidney or liver or heart that could have kept them alive. Another 18 people will die today. And another 18 tomorrow. And another 18 every day, until Congress fixes the law that causes so many valuable organs to be wasted, and so many lives to be needlessly lost.

Jacoby may be a little optimistic with his “No one” estimate, but the point is valid.

I understand that it’s natural and common to think that there’s something wrong with body parts being bought and sold. But, it seems clear to me that anybody who reasonably weighs the costs and benefits of prohibiting such a market would realize that the costs are much higher.

We’re told that we’ve thankfully removed the religion-driven, irrational, stupid, policy makers from dominance. Ok, so let’s see some smart policy-making!

I’m waiting.

While commuting today, I listened to this podcast with Richard Epstein, on Econtalk (Russ Roberts’ invaluable series on economics-related topics). I highly recommend this, and the other podcasts in the ongoing series.

Whenever I hear Epstein speak, I’m incredibly impressed by the way he has so much information organized so well and explained so clearly and thoroughly. I realize that he’s a professor who is used to outlining and lecturing about complex technical material, but this is something extraordinary. Even if he were referring to notes, which I doubt, his ability to first describe the outline of what he’s going to explain, and then to explain it in long but perfectly executed sentences packed with information is just incredible to me.

Perhaps people like John Stuart Mill were able to think and speak like that in the 19th century, but very few people manage to do it today.

Read The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant.

Many people think it’s important to be a part of a great cause. One larger than yourself.

Well, the fight against aging seems like a great choice for such a cause to me.

It can produce real good, and not just the false hope that most other “great” causes produce.

There was an intriguing Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal last week comparing many of the Obama administration’s “plans” to that of the famous South Park underpants gnomes whose plan was:

Phase 1: Collect underpants.
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!

It’s true that if you listen to the speeches and observe the policy prescriptions, the plans (e.g., diplomacy, health care, green “investment,” budgets, auto industry) do look a lot like that of the gnomes.

But, I don’t think Obama or his advisers are idiots.

I think that they believe that most of us are idiots.

I think they believe that their policy agenda is enlightened, and it doesn’t really matter how they get it. They think their ends justify almost any means. They have no problem lying about what causes will have what effects, or about what numbers will add up, or even about what their intentions are (net spending cut???). They’re confident that enough people will be gullible, or economically illiterate, or just generally innumerate enough to let them succeed in doing what they “know” will be best.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty disturbing.

I’m very confident that they’re wrong about what’s best.

I hope they’re wrong that enough of us are foolish enough to let them force it on us.

You must read this response by Clifford S. Asness (of AQR Capital Management) to President Obama’s shameful demagoguing of the Chrysler bondholders who refused his ridiculous deal to help the UAW and Chrysler delay bankruptcy.

Some excerpts:

Let’s be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients’ money to share in the “sacrifice,” they are stealing. [emphasis mine]

…

The President’s attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to “sacrifice” some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.

…

This is America. We have a free enterprise system that has worked spectacularly for us for two hundred-plus years. When it fails it fixes itself. Most importantly, it is not an owned lackey of the Oval Office to be scolded for disobedience by the President.

I am ready for my “personalized” tax rate now.

Awesome.

Schadenfreude isn’t pretty. But, it’s difficult for me to work up much sympathy for Senator Arlen Specter, who was a deciding vote for the disastrous stimulus bill, switched from the Republican to the Democratic party based on his better chance to win re-election in Pennsylvania as a Democrat, and now feels betrayed by what he, probably truthfully, claims was a broken promise by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he would be able to keep his seniority after the next election (something crucial for his campaign prospects).

Many politicians are lying scumbags who remain in office long after they even remember what principles they originally claimed to have had. Specter is a prime example of this, and it is only fitting that he feels treated as badly by another lying scumbag as he did the rest of us.

Now that he’s been mistreated by the Democrats, I wonder how he’ll figure out whom to betray with the rest of the votes in his short career as a junior Democratic senator.

So, President Obama wants to assure us that he’s being fiscally responsible, by urging his cabinet (representing all federal departments) to reduce their combined budgets by $100 million over the course of a year.

What a relief! And here I was thinking that he was piling up outrageous, unsustainable, levels of debt.

It’s good to look for ways to spend less money, but this gesture would be hilarious if it wasn’t a serious attempt by the President of the United States to change people’s attitudes about what he’s doing.

Greg Mankiw gives us some perspective:

Just to be clear: $100 million represents .003 percent of $3.5 trillion.

To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year–approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.

I’m not sure which possibility bothers me more: That Obama is stupid enough to think that this is a significant gesture, or that he thinks everybody else is stupid enough to think so.

Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog asks something I’ve been wondering about lately:

By the way, can anyone tell me what the evidence has been for the contention Barack Obama is “really smart,” because I sure don’t see it. Yeah, he went to an Ivy League School, but so did I and there were plenty of people there I wouldn’t trust to run a lemonade stand. Sure, he gives a nice prepared speech and seems to have invested in that vocabulary building course Rush Limbaugh used to peddle on his  show, but what else? All I see is a typical Ivy League denizen of some NGO who thinks he/she can change the world if only someone will listen to them, who just comes off as puerile if you really spend any time with them.

I’m sure that Obama is really smart in some ways. He’s figured out how to be personally charming, how to inspire people, how to remember lots of details of policy issues and to be able to repeat summaries of different points of view. In short, he’s smart enough to be a great campaigner. But, is he smart enough to recognize a flaw in his policy prescriptions? I’m sure he thinks that his leftism is on the “smart” side of political philosophy, but is he smart enough to see a problem with surrounding himself with “smart” people who all think they can figure out what’s best for everyone, but who have never demonstrated the ability to successfully manage anything?

I think he’s smart enough to be really, really, dangerous. I’m with Penn Jillette, and I’d prefer a president who was a bit less smart and a lot more humble about what the state should be doing to help us.

I’ve been dieting (low carb) fairly aggressively for the past month.

Lately I’ve been frustrated by my lack of progress as measured by my scale. It reported that I lost about eight pounds fairly quickly, and then stayed within three or four pound of that for the next several weeks.

This morning I got on the scale and it registered a gain of about forty pounds over yesterday’s weight! I laughed and was happy about it. It reminded me of what a mistake it had been to rely on weight to measure my progress. Weight is a very loose proxy for fitness. If I lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 5 pounds of muscle, I’ve done much better than if I lose 15 pounds of fat and also lose 5 pounds of muscle. But, the scale would report that the latter scenario was more successful.

Of course, I knew this already. It’s just that measuring weight is easy, so many of us fall into the trap using weight-loss to measure our fitness success. It’s like looking in the wrong place for a lost item because that’s where the lighting is better.

But, I don’t need fancy equipment to notice that my clothes are fitting more loosly, my energy is increasing, my face looks a little less round, etc. I knew I was making progress, but I still let that stupid number frustrate me.

Of course, I’m still going to get a new scale. But, I won’t use it as the primary indicator of my fitness.

During the campaign, candidate Obama told us he would deliver a “Net Spending Cut” (one instance is near the beginning of this video). He indicated he was a believer in Pay-As-You-Go and would cut wasteful spending to match each spending increase.

What has he delivered and proposed since being elected?

Take a look at this analysis, and this article about the massively different forecast from the “independent” Congressional Budget Office.

The bottom line is that he’s on track towards doubling the national debt. Not just by continuing the horrible Bush administration fiscal irrisponsibility, but “In fact, the budget office found that Obama’s projected deficits are more than double what they would be if the president had merely stuck with the current spending and taxation proposals left by the Bush administration.”

No reasonable person could believe that these are the proposals of someone who intends to produce a “Net spending cut” or to practice his often mouthed “fiscal responsibility.”

Absent a massive increase in productivity and growth (what I’m hoping for), and most of Obama’s policies are extremely anti-growth, we’re heading for debt levels that almost everyone agrees are unsustainable. The pain he’s causing will be severe.

Yes, I know that it’s par for the course for politicians to lie in order to get elected. But, many seemed to be so thrilled by his rhetoric and novelty that they believed something better was really about to happen.

Turns out it’s not better at all. The conservative claims that he was the “Most liberal member of the Senate” seem to have been warranted.

What we’ve been getting so far is: Change You Can Believe In If You’re An Idiot.