Marginal Revolution

The trip so far

Not everyone liked it when I suggested that vouchers have the potential to be "TARP for the elementary schools."  With New York and Los Angeles in some disarray, Chicago is arguably North America's "coolest" city right now; the new contemporary wing of the Art Institute is the best "new U.S. museum" in many years.  The Austrian-language dialogue in Brüno is the funniest part of the movie and enough to make it, despite its flaws, a comedy classic.  I should not have told my Las Vegas cabbie (while he was driving) that the real estate market there will not recover for another twenty years.  Lotus of Siam, in Las Vegas, is one of the best Thai restaurants in the United States.  In case you had forgotten, here is how to order in a good ethnic restaurant.  I haven't arrived in Mobile yet.

The next generation of conservative (broadly) thinkers

Who are the up-and-comings?  Drake Bennett has the answers.  He covers Luigi Zingales, W. Bradford Wilcox, Megan McArdle, and Reihan Salam.

*A Happy Marriage*

That is the title of the new novel by Rafael Yglesias.  Here is a tiny excerpt:

Although a credulous consumer, Enrique was a skeptical lover, and he demanded to know what was wrong.

I devoured this book eagerly on a plane flight and I recommend it highly to those who are married, have been married, will be married, should be married, and should not be married. 

The blogger son Matt, in the form of a fictional persona, makes numerous cameo appearances.  The economist Paul Joskow, in the form of a fictional persona, makes a cameo appearance.  In real life he is Matt's uncle.

How many other novels explain to you -- tongue in cheek -- the exact difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics?

In my view Rafael Yglesias is one of the best American novelists of the last twenty years and probably the most underappreciated.  Here is my earlier post on his earlier novel Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil.

Assorted links

1. The slide toward protectionism in the Great Depression, by Irwin and Eichengreen.

2. BookGlutton.com: write in a collective virtual margin for your books.

3. More on Marilyn vos Savant.

4. Newsweek Q&A about Create Your Own Economy.

5. Cultural snobbery and the Kindle.

6. Time magazine on homosexuality, circa 1966.

ATMs in casinos

Should the service fee by high or low?  It could cut either way.  A low service fee encourages withdrawals and thus gambling, which is profitable for the casino.  A high service fee takes in money from the desperate and those with high time preference.

It was $4.99.  (Of course that is n = 1.)

On the other hand, they let you take out up to $1000, well above the average.

Another user told me you are especially likely to get $100 bills from the machine.  Perhaps the hope is that you will buy $100 in chips rather than trying to break the bill.