He's failing to differentiate between internal debates over future White House policy, and baldfaced spin about the facts.

When Obama officials were spinning the State Secrets privilege defense, the policy was already set, and they were trying to explain their factual justification for their actions. With anonymity, they can get away with BSing us about the facts and justifications, and no one knows who to hold accountable for the lies. This is a BAD use of anonymity. When the administration takes a major action, they should be able to defend it on the record.

In ongoing policy debates like Social Security, there may not be facts yet, just factions. Social Security destroyers/reformers, Social Security preservationists, etc. When members of those factions tell you what is going to happen, they may be expressing their belief that they have the upper hand and their views will become policy. Knowing that there are multiple factions who believe they are being taken seriously by the President, even when they refuse to come forward without anonymity, is extremely valuable because it tells us where the debate is and where to act! This is a GOOD use of anonymity.

(Of course they could always be telling opinion journalists what they want to hear, but good journalists will at least occasionally catch that.)

Real advantages of the airport connector:

* Net time savings of 3-5 minutes

* Reliability related time savings of 5-10 minutes

* Reliability = fewer missed flights

* Reliability = less anxious transit experience

* Not a vomit comet like the shuttle bus

If money were completely fungible, are the time savings enough to justify the project? Maybe, maybe not.

But you shouldn't undervalue the quality-of-experience benefits.

The real reason OAK needs the connector is SFO. Bay Area airports have too much total capacity right now. SFO is gradually stealing budget airlines from OAK, flights at OAK are down 20% already, and the Port of Oakland's bonds just got downgraded:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/090305/20090305006211.html?.v=1

The Oakland port authority figures they will continue to lose business until they can offer a better travel experience. A 20% decline off their revenue of $150 million is $30 million a year. Obviously they won't get that all back, but it's not far off the cost of the connector.

Also it's likely that certain airlines have made it very clear they want the connector if they are to stay at OAK...

Chile's also been in the world economic news for foolishly privatizing their social security system.

Nearly everyone who opted into the private plans did poorly over the last 20 years compared to the public plan, and that was before last year's crash. Right now, I doubt even the worst libertarian shill could defend Chile's decision.

Last I heard they were trying to unwind that disastrous privatization, and fortunately it looks like they'll have the money to do it.

But she may be addicted to the deal, or to the trade, not just to shopping or hoarding. There is a difference.

She's much luckier than many shopping addicts -- they can't find a way to sell their depreciated designer rags, once they realize it doesn't bring them pleasure.

On Ebay, it's easy to turn stuff around for the same price -- possibly even a profit.

So Cary's advice isn't all wrong. She might indeed be able to turn it into a vocation of sorts. If she can let her things go.

Many people waste hours on Ebay because they feel like they need to be around watching the last seconds of auctions, so other bidders don't snatch things away.

These people need help. They need sniping software which will automatically bid in the last few seconds of an auction. The people they're 'bidding against' in the last seconds are using it, so they should too.

There are several free sniping websites -- I like gixen.com. For tracking a large number of auctions, there are convenient sites with low monthly fees like justsnipe.com.

Lack of empathy and a stunted, rational actor view of humanity go hand in hand, and reinforce each other in a very sinister way.

This process gives us the majority of economists, financial scammers, war profiteers, Dick Cheney, and the legal discipline of law & economics, of which Richard Epstein is apparently one of the stars.

Most of them are not outright sociopaths (although, statistically speaking, quite a few are) -- just trapped in an socially impoverished existence where money is vastly more important to them than social goods. That is to deny the nature of humans as social animals; very strange for self-professed conservatives.

It's a strange thing that the people most stereotypically deficient in empathy and human interaction (i.e. the coders of Silicon Valley) tend to have a much richer view of humans than the very serious right-wing legal scholars and economists who advise presidents.