lines in the sand

Math without the Math

Great blog for us analytical types.

HT Russel Roberts

Stopping Left Lane Vigilantes

Keeping slow traffic out of the fast lane is the object of a bill filed for the next session of the Florida Legislature. They tried once before, but Governor Jeb vetoed it.

If it passes, cars in the left lane of a highway will have to move over if a faster vehicle comes up behind them. That's a good idea, although I'm sure many editorials, letters to editors and maybe even an ex-governor or two will complain that “It forces people to speed.”

They will have a point. It will certainly encourage (not force) speeding, but even with that downside there are good reasons to pass the bill:

• It will put speed limit enforcement in the hands of police, where it belongs, rather than with the Left Lane Vigilantes who park in the left lane at the speed limit, determined to keep others from their lawbreaking. In free-flowing traffic, there is no need to be over there unless you are passing someone (or unless approaching a left exit, something the state is trying to eliminate.)

• It will help traffic flow by having a clear rule against obstructing traffic.

• It will improve maneuverability in traffic. Moving gridlock is worse than traffic that is just slow. When two cars travel side by side, even at normal speed, vehicles behind them are forced to do likewise and find it hard to change lanes when they need to. I've been in the left lane a mile or two before an exit and missed it because there were no openings in the next lane to move into. And if there had been one I probably couldn't have reached it since it would have been moving at the same speed I was. With this law, adjacent lanes will be more likely to move at different speeds, reducing the gridlock.

• It recognizes the real world and human nature. There are jerks on the road and I generally give them clear path to their fate rather than have them weave through traffic and involve a bunch of us. And more often than not, even the non-jerks are speeding to some extent. I drove from Orlando to West Palm Beach the other day averaging about 80 on the Turnpike. I'd guess that was average for most people that day since I passed about the same number that passed me. It was 360 miles round trip and the only driver I saw with a problem was the one who got pulled over by two state troopers.

• It will reduce road rage (see the previous four items), the stated purpose of the bill.

Most things in life involve tradeoffs, and traffic safety is one of those. More speeders may mean some risks will increase, but the net effect of this legislation is likely to be safer roads.

Update: Mike Bennett, the Bradenton legislator who filed the bill, has an op-ed on it in the Orlando Sentinel today.

In Kitty's Best Interest

JD is my Hemmingway, or polydactyl, cat.  Good thing he lives with me and not in Key West where the government is looking out for his kind.

From the Mises Institute:

According to the USDA, the Hemingway Home is an exhibitor of cats, and must hold a USDA animal welfare license. Ordinarily, such licenses apply to circuses or zoos, which hold animals as exhibits. Yet this is not the case with the Hemingway cats. These cats live in this place. While visitors to the Hemingway Home are clearly interested in these cats, this is incidental. These cats are in the home where they and their ancestors have lived since 1935, not on display. The USDA has repeatedly denied the Hemingway Home applications for such a license. USDA inspectors have conducted an intensive investigation of the Hemingway cats (since October 2003), and have never claimed that there is any problem with the health, safety, or welfare of these cats. Why then have they denied all license applications in this case?

The USDA insists that these cats be confined, restricted from roaming. A six foot stone wall surrounds the grounds of the Hemingway Home. Yet USDA inspectors have deemed this wall insufficient. They want to throw these cats into cages.

The USDA has also suggested the installation of an electric fence around the Hemingway Home premises.

How is it that a law intended to promote animal welfare could lead to cats being caged or shocked with electricity?

Considering this previous post, once we've been told what is in our best interest will our cages just be bigger and less tangible?

The Answer to Minimum and Excessive Wages

A lot of discussions lately on two wage issues - minimum wage and excessive executive pay.  Sam, in a comment to this post, has the best take on both arguments:

My friend spoke in favor of minimum wage laws.

I asked him if I agreed to work for him for $3.50 per hour, who elses business was it?

He replied: "Nobody's".

I rest my case.

No Free Ride for Helmets

The Orlando Sentinel gets it right, sort of:

... Florida allows helmeted cyclists to motor about without insurance, while asking its non-helmeted bikers to carry just $10,000 in health insurance. That allows motorcyclists to ride absent the responsibility the state demands of other motorists -- responsibility that requires carrying policies covering the cost of the injuries they cause.

As I've pointed out before, the public purse is better protected against the cost of helmetless motorcycle riders than the helmeted ones, $10,000 insurance for the first group, none for the others.  It really works out about the same, though, as the insurance really does cover the difference between them pretty well: helmeted riders usually cost $30,000+ in an accident while unhelmeted ones are typically about $10,000-$15,000 higher.

They're still hung up, though, on the idea that motorcycle helmets are a public safety issue rather than a personal one.

Libertarian Oxymoron

A very interesting discussion over at  The Becker-Posner Blog of the term libertarian paternalism, an odd term at best.  The key argument in favor of the concept goes

Modern research argues that sometimes individuals may not have enough information to effectively pursue their interests. In these cases, it may be suggested that government regulations and rules help guide individuals to the better pursuit of interests they would have if they had additional information.

My counter to this would be that maybe government does have better recources to identify the best way for one to persue his interests, but it can't possibly know better than an individual what his interests are.

Last year there was the case of a California motorcyclist who was stopped a number of times for riding without a helmet.  He was already terminally ill, but the "regulations and rules" had determined it was in his interest to die hooked up to tubes and wires rather than doing something he loved.  And if this is an exception, isn't that what it means to be an individual?

(I hadn't visited that blog before, but it's a keeper and is now on my blogroll.)

Crapless Computing

I will probably be buying a new computer in the next few months, so I've bookmarked this PC Decrapifier for that day.

UnFair Tax

Mr. Paul Hale doesn't like the Fair Tax and wrote a letter to the Roanoke Times:

Suppose someone earned a million dollars a year. That person could support his family with steak dinners every night, buy a luxury car, an expensive bass boat, take a vacation to Australia, and still spend less than $100,000 -- 10 percent of his yearly income.

A family earning $30,000 a year will probably spend closer to 75 percent of their income, just making ends meet.

Heaven help them if they have to trade cars. They might end up paying taxes on 80 or 90 percent of their earnings. Even the most frugal low-income family would probably pay taxes on close to 50 percent of their earnings.

What is fair about having a rich man pay taxes on 10 percent of his earnings, while the average man, earning far less, pays on 70 to 90 percent of his?

I begged to differ and wrote this one:

In his letter today, Paul Hale says the Fair Tax is not really fair, but his attempt to demonstrate it omits a key feature – the prebate.

His millionaire will actually pay taxes on less than 10% of his earnings, but the low earner will pay on no more than 2% of his and may even make money.

This is because every family of four receives a check, in advance, to cover the tax on the first $26,400. Sure, the rich family may only spend $100,000 and be taxed on only $73,600, but if the others spend 90% of theirs, they will pay tax on just $400, or 2%.

And if, as Mr. Hale suggests, they manage to spend just 80%, their prebate will be $552 more than their taxes.

Remember, too, that neither family will pay Social Security or Medicare taxes under the Fair Tax.

There is no way to make any tax completely fair, but this plan offers a vast improvement over the current state of affairs.

Re-entry

This morning's sky was so interesting out in Colorado they interupted this newscast.

Despite the broadcasters' assertions, it wasn't a meteor shower but a spent Russian booster re-entering the atmosphere.

Government Payrolls

Coyote has a good question:

Is there any state where a college men's football or basketball coach is not the highest paid state official?