Taxes, Economics, and Halloween
Seems like this is an appropriate day for this lesson about tax policy.
The last thirty seconds of the three-minute video actually contain some very good economics, roughly akin to this classic cartoon. Yes, incentives matter.
Speaking of cartoons, here’s one with a Halloween theme.
And since it is Halloween and everyone is thinking about candy, these two parodies of The Candyman song (here and here) are rather appropriate.
Keynesian Economics in a Cartoon
I’ve written extensively about the flaws of Keynesian economics, and I’ve even narrated a video on the flaws of Keynesian theory.
But this clever cartoon may be more effective than anything I’ve ever done.
If you like cartoons that teach economics, check out this gem. It’s not on Keynesianism, but it’s very good.
Meet the New Minerals Management Service
In a move reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration is cracking down on the Minerals Management Service…by changing the agency’s name.
The MMS has fallen into disrepute because, well, as E&ENews PM put it, “employees accepted gifts from oil and gas companies, participated in ‘a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity,’ and considered themselves exempt from federal ethics rules.” The “drug and sex abuse [occurred] both inside the program and ‘in consort with industry.’ “ The New York Times reports that MMS employees “viewed pornography at work and even considered themselves part of industry.” Yet this government agency somehow failed to prevent the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So the Obama administration is giving MMS a makeover. The agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service will hereafter be known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement.
That’s exactly how the Bush administration dealt with the unpopularity of the Health Care Financing Administration, the agency responsible for Medicare and Medicaid: by changing its name to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. With candor and humor — two scarce commodities in such circles — Bush’s HCFA/CMS administrator Tom Scully explained the rationale:
The health care market . . . is extremely muted and extremely screwed up and it’s largely because of my agency. For those of you who don’t follow CMS, which used to be called HCFA, we changed the name because it was so well loved. I always say it’s kind of like when Enron comes out of bankruptcy, they’ll probably change their name. So, HCFA—Secretary Thompson and I decided to confuse everybody. We changed the name to CMS for a couple of years so people wouldn’t realize we’re actually HCFA. So far, it’s worked reasonably well.
For more on the pervasive cozy relationship between big business and big government, read Tim Carney’s Obamanomics.
For even more candor and humor concerning Medicare, read David Hyman’s Medicare Meets Mephistopheles.
Schumer Fouls Out
Chuck Schumer is perhaps my favorite U.S. Senator because of his endless capacity to make me laugh. He often reminds me of Inspector Clouseau, the earnest but bumbling detective from the Pink Panther movies.
Through an excellent post by Scott Lincome today, I learned not only that official NBA jerseys (those worn by the players) are made for Adidas in upstate New York, but that Senator Schumer is attempting to thwart the company’s decision to move production to Thailand.
I share Scott’s assessment of the absurdity of Schumer’s efforts, but more importantly, I wanted to share this humorous footage of Schumer’s awkward nativist appeal that basketball is an American-centric game….conducted in front of German-born NBA Star Dirk Nowitski’s jersey.
Classic!
This Won’t Put Al Gore in the Christmas Spirit
This has not been a good week for the global warming alarmists. They’ve been caught with their pants down on the Climate-gate email scandal, and they are terrorized by my colleague Pat Michaels. So this is the time to add some insult to injury with a very amusing video.
On the topic of amusing videos, here’s one on health care put together by Ladies4Liberty, featuring Cato’s Nena Bartlett.
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