Coffee and Paper

1. The only surprising thing about this blog is that it took so long to arive. "Bush pictures + lolcat meme = hilarity".

2. The public health/economic approach is to use tax incentives to engage in behaviors which are either healthier for the people (a kind of soft paternalism), or which reduces externalities associated with certain behaviors (like drunk driving). But then there is the fact of politics, where tax revenue and political purchases are related, and don't necessarily care about those social costs. Cigarette taxes for instance are important sources of revenue for many states, but the taxes have gotten so high that demand has fallen off considerably. In other words, we're on the other side of the laffer curve when it comes to cigarettes in many places, and by actually lowering taxes on cigarettes, states could increase tax revenue. But, isn't the goal to reduce smoking not raise revenue? Maybe not.

3. Obama may be the most followed on Twitter, but McCain is ahead on youtube. (ht to whoever I just saw that on).

Kind of light this morning. I'm busy trying to field a survey, which is not going as well as hoped, and so now I'm stuck re-calling individual respondents all day. As the group I'm targeting is a clandestine group who would prefer not to be contacted, it's going pretty slowly.