It seems like not every patch of the ocean should be drilled because of the ecological impacts, and not every patch of the ocean should be prevented from drilling. Why not slap a fat old environmental tax per barrel of oil extracted (the tax should be equal to the expected marginal damage = probability of a spill * the cost of a spill), hell make it spatially different if some areas are more ecologically groovy than others, and then let the market sort out which places will be drilled. Low producing areas with high ecological costs will stay protected, while high producing areas with low ecological costs will be drilled. The collected revenue from the tax can then be channeled into green R&D or set aside in a trust for remidiation of oil spills or other environmental disasters.

It frustrates me that we tend to see these conflicts between the environment and economics as a zero-sum game. Drillers need to realize that some people do place very serious value on pristine environments, and environmentalists need to realize that not everyone shares their very high value on nature AND that perhaps by pushing for environmental taxes that tax the crap out of polluters, they might gin up some useful revenue for green causes and may have better success in the political arena than going for the full-out ban.

Since Krikorian and Malkin are both minorities, and they both espouse insane conservative opinions...

"As you've picked up by now, the religion Maher is describing is not imaginary, and in various forms and guises is professed by most people in the United States, including every president we've ever had or are likely to have in the foreseeable future."

That would be news to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison...

Of course, relying on countercyclical spending to dig you out of a hole would require running surpluses and cutting spending during economic booms to finance defecit spending during busts. Instead we doused the boom period surpluses in gasoline, lit it on fire, and pissed on its ashes.

I'm an academic economist, and when I see millions of people doing something, I hesitate to label it as "irrational" because it doesn't fit the cost-benefit structure just arbitrarily assumed. Revealed preference is the mother of all economic data, and clearly a whole crapload of people are revealing a preference for voting over using their time some other way. Why someone would take as an assumption that such behavior is irrational is beyond me - though if you assume that people only have preferences over outcomes as opposed to process it might appear irrational. But again, assuming that preference seems silly.

I don't think these economists are guilty of being economists, I think they're just guilty of trying to hard in a discipline that occasionally values "clevrisms" more than understanding what the hell is going on.

"I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. If you have a better idea, let me know."

Fair? What are you some kind of communist?

It's hard to say if this is just a misplaced sense of optimism or not, but I can see how confidence may grow just based on personal experience. My job is basically recession proof, but my wife's job is not, and there was a whole lot of talk of "reorganization/layoffs" over the winter. After surviving that first round of reorgs and no additional layoffs in sight, our personal spending ticked up a notch. I wouldn't be surprised if a similiar effect played out in a decent number of households around country. The initial panic of "ZOMG we're all going to get fired" is replaced by the realization that at the end of the day 90% of Americans are still likely to have jobs. Obviously that is little consolation for those that do lose their jobs. But when I talk to people whose jobs are basically 100% secure and they're still cutting back on spending, it would probably be a good thing (in aggregate) if they increased their spending. Seems like there should be a happy middle ground of spending between panic room mode and reinflating the bubble.

I second the concerns about rushing to judgement. Obviously containing lots of pigs in a small area could lead to the rise of flu between the animals, but it's the jump to humans that causes the problem (for humans). It's not clear that big agribusiness would increase the chances of that occuring, other than the fact that the have damn near a million pigs there. But would the odds of a animal-human jump be less likely if those million pigs were on thousands of small farms? My impression has always been that influenza tends to come from animals living in close contact with humans, so I'm inclined to wait for some more evidence before concluding that corporate hog farming "breeds" swine flu.

Agreed, any possible sympathy I may have drudged up over the initial (over)reaction to her pageant answer was vaporized the second she took up the crown of "teh gayz are oppressing me" crowd. Had she gone back home without another peep, I don't think anyone would care much at all about her artificial boobies or lying about her side-boob. Afterall, there are plenty of people in this country who agree with her and it is the law of the land in numerous places, as offensive as I personally find it.

But once you start yammering on the national media about how important your beliefs and values are, be ready to reap what you sow. As is all too typical, it turns out those precious beliefs and values are only important when they constrain other people's actions, and they're much more maleable when they might constrain your own actions.

But if you're going to enlist in the media culture wars, don't be surprised when you start taking enemy fire.