Author Archives: ray

Raising Taxes = Cutting Costs

I was reading a NY Times article about how lobbyists are fighting the “last big plans to cut healthcare costs” and noticed that one of those “big plans to cut healthcare costs” is actually a tax hike. The tax on gold-plated insurance plans is the last vestige of most economists’ favorite idea, eliminating the tax exemption [...]
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Regulation Stifles Competition

I’ve always been of the opinion that often the primary outcome of government regulation is to stifle competition. Here’s another case that proves the point, brought to us by TechDirt. Some new taxi cab services sprung up awhile back in Tampa, Florida. They use electric vehicles and don’t charge for the rides. The cabs are wrapped [...]
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Fellow Senators Clear Dodd In Mortgage Scandal

Dodd’s fellow Senators on the ethics committee of cleared my favorite Senator of breaking the rules. He didn’t do anything they wouldn’t do. They did slap his wrist for using poor judgment in getting caught. The New York Times article on the topic brings up an interesting point at the end: Meanwhile, Representative Darrell Issa of California, [...]
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Why Do People Blindly Trust Technology?

Our eyes are wrong, the GPS is right.
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Never Happy

First lawmakers and the public are up in arms about business travel to resort locations. Now they’re pissed off that government agencies are discouraging travel to these resort locations. It’s a different news cycle.
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Health Care Reform From This Guy?

This article in the New York Times just leaves me shaking my head. It could be good news depending on the result, and it was good for an ironic laugh. But no matter what, it shows how much trouble our politicians have put us in and how little chance we have. Representative Henry Waxman, chairman [...]
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Perfection

Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game, 27 up – 27 down. DeWayne Wise was put in as a defensive replacement and showed exactly why when he robbed Gabe Kapler of a home run.
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