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 the cruise, the Bendors canceled, asked for a refund, and were issued vouchers for future travel purchased through Vantage!
Vantage claimed that the form of the refund would be a travel voucher, though, apparently this declaration was only in the fine print and only revealed after the Bendors had already paid their $10,666.14, including $978 for the travel “protection”.
Read the article for the ridiculous excuses Vantage gives to not return the money (protection is not a refund, the daughter–a Harvard law school grad–might make a career out of scamming cruise companies, we are the victim and being harassed). Despicable ethics aside, this story underscores the problem with asymmetric information. Markets do not work when one side has more information about the transaction than the other. Because this is known to be true, there are consumer protection laws that require providers of a product to disclose all necessary information about the product, and certainly Vantage did disclose the form of the “refund.”
June 29, 2009 |
Posted in: Policy |
By: Charles Parekh | 
Print
|
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 employers to provide insurance to employees, and it would subsidize health insurance for the poor.
The CBO estimates that this plan would cost about $1 trillion(!), and estimates by Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, said the bill easily could top $2 trillion. Using the CBO estimate, Utah Republican Sen. Orrin G. Hatch’s office calculates that the tab for this comes to $62,500 per uninsured person over 10 years.
Roughly $6,250 per uninsured person per year over ten years is not too bad, if we really could insure them. Herein lies the problem, however. The CBO also estimates that of the 46-47 million uninsured, the plan would, on net, only decrease that number by a mere 16 or 17 million people. That’s simply not that much bang for the buck.
June 28, 2009 |
Posted in: Policy, Politics |
By: Charles Parekh | Print
|
2 Comments
New Look
In honor of the weather finally getting warm, we have changed the look of the site. After several years of using the Chameleon theme, we have decided to modernize things by changing to the Emerald Stretch theme by Nikolaj Masnikov. All of the old functionality should be there, just with a new look.
I hope you enjoy it.
June 26, 2009 |
Posted in: Uncategorized |
By: Charles Parekh | Print
|
No Comments
LaTeX Support in WordPress
Using the WP LaTeX plugin, this website now supports the 
typesetting language. From now on, you will have the joy of getting more math in your posts.
To get you started, always remember that 
.
June 25, 2009 |
Posted in: Programming, Data and Metrics |
By: Charles Parekh | Print
|
No 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 of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The summary of the case is that the defendant, Fode Fofana, passed through a security checkpoint at Port Columbus International Airport. His bags passed through the x-ray without any suspicion, and he passed through the walk through metal detector (WTMD) without setting it off. Fofana had been selected for a secondary search based on the secret rules of the TSA (usually this is because you have a one-way ticket, pay cash, or buy a ticket at the counter). During the secondary search, which involves opening bags, he was found to be carrying a large amount of cash and three false passports.
June 22, 2009 |
Posted in: Policy |
By: Charles Parekh | Print
|
No Comments
