Archive for the ‘Policy’ Category

Flying and Child Safety Seats

There is a thread currently going on at Flyertalk, my favorite website, about whether or not to mandate child safety seats for small children, who currently travel in their parent’s lap. The reasoning is that in any heavy turbulence, a parent may not be able to hold the child, thus putting that child in danger. [...]

June 30, 2009   Posted in: Economics, Policy  No Comments

Fine Print is Too Overwhelming

A story in the New York Times describes the ordeal of the Bendor family, who purchased a cruise and travel protection from a company called Vantage Deluxe World Travel. The travel protection plan would protect them if they needed to cancel for any reason. When the father in the family had a heart attack before [...]

June 29, 2009   Posted in: Policy  No Comments

Kennedy-Dodd Health Care Bill: Why Even Bother?

The Congressional Budget Office release very preliminary numbers on the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill. The plan, which is mostly supported by Democrats, and mostly supported by President Obama, still lacks details. The upshot of the plan, from my skimming of the bill, is that it would require everyone to purchase health insurance, it would require [...]

June 28, 2009   Posted in: Policy, Politics  2 Comments

A Win for the Fourth Amendment

In some good news for our civil liberties, Federal courts have ruled to suppress evidence found at an airport checkpoint by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) because it violated the defendant’s fourth amendment rights. For those of you in need of a refresher, the fourth amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. Specifically:
The right [...]

June 22, 2009   Posted in: Policy  No Comments

GM Bailout: Lessons from Amtrak?

In a post on the Daily Beast, Economist James Langenfeld draws a number of lessons  between General Motors and Amtrak. You should read his post, but the point is that, like Amtrak, the US government has made a giant commitment to GM with no real signs of profitability anytime soon. He points out that, “It [...]

June 21, 2009   Posted in: Economics, Policy  No Comments