Marginal Revolution

Hanson on Bounties

Robin beats me to a story on bounties in the Washington Post.  I couldn't have said it better so here is his full post.

A Post article today, Bounties a Bust in Hunt for Al-Qaeda:

Jaber Elbaneh is one of the world's most-wanted terrorism suspects. In 2003, the U.S. government indicted him, posted a $5 million reward for his capture and distributed posters bearing photos of him around the globe.  None of it worked. Elbaneh remains at large, as wanted as ever. ...

Since 1984, the program has handed out $77 million to more than 50 tipsters, according to the State Department.  ... In 2004, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) visited Pakistan to assess why Rewards for Justice had generated so little information regarding al-Qaeda's leadership. He discovered that the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had effectively shut down the program. There was no radio or television advertising. ...

In 2004, Congress passed a law authorizing the State Department to post rewards as high as $50 million apiece -- a provision with bin Laden in mind. Last fall, Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) went further, introducing a bill that would raise the cap to $500 million. The State Department has declined to boost the reward for bin Laden, arguing that more money was unlikely to do any good and would only add to his notoriety.

Let's see, billions spent via ordinary means, and millions offered in bounties, and it is the bounties they blame for Al-Qaeda's notoriety and failing to catch leaders?  The billions are spent and gone, while the millions in bounties we only lose when they actually work.  How then is this data suggesting we should prefer ordinary means to bounties?

Here is one of my previous posts on bounties.  The Rewards for Justice program has actually brought in some big catches.

Markets in everything, Japan edition

Mobs are legal entities here. Their fan magazines and comic books are sold in convenience stores, and bosses socialize with prime ministers and politicians.

Here is the full story, which focuses on the continuing powerful role of the mob in Japan.  Get this:

The most powerful faction, the Yamaguchi-gumi, is known as "the Wal-Mart of the yakuza" [TC: do they promise "Always Lower Prices"?]  and reportedly has close to 40,000 members.

No, this is neither Bryan Caplan nor Robin Hanson

It's Sir Thomas Browne, one of my favorite writers I might add, circa 1672:

Again, Their individual imperfections being great, they are moreover enlarged by their aggregation; and being erroneous in their single numbers, once hudled together, they will be Error it self. For being a confusion of knaves and fools, and a farraginous concurrence of all conditions, tempers, sexes, and ages; it is but natural if their determinations be monstrous, and many waies inconsistent with Truth. And therefore wise men have alwaies applauded their own judgment, in the contradiction of that of the People; and their soberest adversaries, have ever afforded them the stile of fools and mad men; and, to speak impartially, their actions have made good these Epithets.

You'll find the full passage here.  The point resembles Bryan but there is something about the spirit which reminds me more of Robin.  It's one of my favorite pastimes to find passages in early texts which in some way presage Robin Hanson; this means having to reread Gulliver's Travels every now and then.  By the way, the Burial Urn and the Garden of Cyrus are probably Browne's most compelling works.