Norblog #0

I'll label my normblog 0 since mine is anonymous, and not intended for public consumption.

Pomeroy Kinsey is ageless, married and has some kids. He was born in the south, having grown up in a small town in one state, but moved to a city in an adjacent state when he was a little older. He attended college at a state school, and graduate school at another state school. He is not athletic, nor will reading books on sports or attending the sports games of his kids ever make him so. He likes to read comic books, fiction, and books on sex, drugs and economics (not in that order). He is particularly fanatical about movies, believing they are both important intrinsically and useful when used as a conversation starter with Christians. He plans to one day teach a perpetual sunday school class for high school students on movies and christianity (but only after he gets tenure).

Why do you blog? > Mainly because I get bored and enjoy telling other people what I'm doing. I also used to think it would be a complement to doing research, and maybe that's true, but I am more skeptical of that possibility now than, say, 5 years ago.

What has been your best blogging experience? > Making a network of cyber-friends back around 2000/2001 when several of us ran blogs and read one another constantly. That was my first taste into the communal possibilities of blogging, and I miss that.

What has been your worst blogging experience? >I've had several. But the worst was when I commented on a public blog that a certain famous southern writer's nephew was probably not as close to his famous uncle as he believed, then learning that the nephew had found the comment, and chewed out a relative of mine. That was the most visceral piece of evidence about the consequences of talking about people behind their back. The technology appears to function as a kind of megaphone, broadcasting your little throwaway comments until they finally reached the ear of whomever. That's great if you want them to hear it, but horrible if you were secretly gossiping. But now I watch my mouth, so cause and effect, I think I've been sanctified through it.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > (1) Get a very nicely designed blog. Consider paying for it. It matters. (2) Have comments but allow people to post anonymously. (3) Don't say anything you wouldn't say if the person was standing in front of you. Be a grown-up, in other words.

What are your favourite blogs? > Marginal Revolution, Meaningfulness of Little Things, Perez Hilton, The Superficial and I Watch Stuff. I read more tabloid blogs than I used to, and much fewer ones of real content. Just can't seem to find the time to devote to blogging like I once did, which is a good thing.

Who are your intellectual heroes? > Gary Becker, Roger Ebert, Robert Johnston, Jane Jacobs, Alan Moore, Christopher Nolan, JJ Abrams, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some others.

What are you reading at the moment? > Too many things. Lots of economics articles are half read on my desk. I'm also reading Drug War Heresies. I have several others I'm ready to start, but haven't yet.

What is the best novel you've ever read? > I'll go with a safe one: Anna Karena. I definitely loved it. I swear, though, it's been years since I've read a freaking novel, so I'm drawing a blank.

What is your favourite movie? > I'm not going to say it's my favorite, because I need more time to answer the question. I'll just say Once Upon a Time in America, by Sergio Leone, is by far one of my favorites. I also loved Bottle Rocket, Rear Window, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Pulp Fiction, and a crapload of others. I have a hard time saying what my favorite it, unfortunately.

What is your favourite song? > The song I almost always listen to before I give a talk is "Criminal" by Eminem. Usually because I need to get really pissed off and angry before I can handle being in front of a crowd. But, nowadays, I'm listening to Chris Pureka nonstop, so I guess any of those songs qualify.

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > Tons. I once took a hardline position that the only appropriate way to defend the Christian faith was to follow a very specific argument called the transcendental argument for God. I find it incredible I ever believed so strongly about that, but it was actually a personal dogma. I started grad school as a committed anarco-capitalist who believed taxation was plunder. Long story short, that gradually started to disappear during graduate school, but the biggest blow was when I taught environmental economics and learned about market efficiency. Amazingly, because I come to economics through the route of the Austrians, I was so amazed by the invisible hand that I actually knew nothing about the concept of market efficiency. During that course, not only did I learn more deeply about how markets were efficient, but I also realized that they could fail to be efficient in the presence of (a) externalities, (b) imperfect market structure, and/or (c) imperfect information. Governments also fail, and may even fail worse given the self-interested actors who we rely on to implement the changes we need. But, having said that, what I learned from teaching environmental economics both taught me to the core of what I now consider the core principles of economic theory (namely, marginal benefits=marginal costs as an efficiency and equilibrium condition), and it has seemed to move me much more into a moderate zone, politically. The last change to note is that when I was an Austrian in conviction, I eschewed empiricism, and now I tend to be purely positivistic when it comes to science. All of my intellectual energy is spent trying to learn more about the methods I can use to teach or convince myself as to whether some treatment has any effect at all, for instance, and I'm much less likely to be found thinking my hypotheses are worth anything without empirical tests.


What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > That economics can be usefully and seriously applied to the study of non-market phenomenon

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? >I no longer combat philosophical theses. Maybe that enforcement of drug prohibition is the best, most cost-effective way of reducing the harms associated with drug consumption? That's at least the one right now. I'm flighty and erratic, so it'll be different in six months when I start on the violence and video game research I'm doing.

Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > Gary Becker's Nobel Prize lecture and Jane Jacobs' book, Death and Life of Great American Cities. Also, strangely, I'd put Ebert's column in there too.

Who are your political heroes? > I don't have any. I can't seem to be seriously engaged in politics. I seem to just get distracted by political phases.

What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > Markets are best. Markets tend to allocate resources efficiently, except when there are externalities or some kind of problems with information acquisition and information asymmetries. The idea of the Pigouvian tax has always fascinated me, and I favor using it in every situation where there is a legitimate case for the market failure due to externalities. Not the sexiest answer, but there you go.

If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Decriminalization of drugs combined with significant investment in prevention and treatment for drug users to reduce drug associated harms. I would, in other words, through a set of taxes and regulations achieve an "optimal amount of drug consumption" that minimized total costs of drug consumption (including the resource costs associated with lowering drug consumption).

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > Our own bad hearts. Seriously, I'm skeptical of the notion that peace and security are awaiting for us ever.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > Yet to come. I am optimistic that the kind of "absolute poverty" will be eliminated in all of the world, even the poorest parts of the world. Inequality, on the other hand, appears more likely to continue. But I tend to be more concerned about absolute poverty than I am about relative income differences. Nevertheless, I am optimistic that the "best" in that sense is coming.

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > Probably.

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Friendship.

What is your favourite proverb? > "We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand," Eric Hoffer.

What, if anything, do you worry about? > My family's safety.

What would your ideal holiday be? > A month on a vacation with just my wife, with her picking the place, and money being no object.

What do you like doing in your spare time? > To be honest, in my true spare time, I love going to the movies by myself. I haven't been to the movies by myself in years, which means I don't have much spare time.

What talent would you most like to have? > I'm happy with what I have. But if I could have anything, I wish I was really good at constructing my own economic models. I have many theories, but have trouble working with the neoclassical framework from scratch. So, I wish I could do what Alvin Roth does.

What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > Independently wealthy and then professional poker player. I love poker, but hate the risk so would only like to do it full-time if my family didn't have to pay the costs for it.

Who are your sporting heroes? > I hate sports.

Which soccer and basketball teams do you support? > My university's teams. But it's a weak preference. I just hate their teams less than all others.

How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? > It'd be sweet. No doubt we'd move closer to my family, though where exactly I'm not sure. Maybe Indianapolis, but probably St. Louis. We both are in love with St. Louis since visiting some friends there several years ago. I would miss the economic research, and so would probably try to get a job at a university with the agreement that I won't take a salary if they'll let me be on their faculty, and maybe keep trying to teach and do research. I actually feel like I'm living the life I want to live, so it's hard to imagine it being different because of winning the money. I'm fortunate to want to do what I'm doing for my calling in life.