Month: May 2010

The legal system in Zimbabwe

Victims of crime in Zimbabwe's capital city Harare are now allowed to ferry the alleged perpetrators of those crimes from prisons to court after the state prisons service ran out of fuel, according to local reports Thursday.

Conditions have improved significantly in Zimbabwe's 42 jails since last year when an estimated 1,000 inmates had died in the first six months of the year of disease and neglect. But the Department of Prison Services still cannot provide transport to take prisoners awaiting trial to court.

The story is here (or try this link) and I thank Craig Richardson for the pointer.  Here is Craig on the collapse of Zimbabwe.

When do you see free refills on drinks?

Jacob, a loyal MR reader, asks me:

When I last visited New York City, I was annoyed that most restaurants there do not offer free refills on soft drinks.  Why is this?  An easy answer is that it is due to the fact that most restaurants do not have soda fountains, but this explanation is unsatisfying as it does not explain the underutilization of soda fountains.  In Europe it has been suggested previously on the blog that this phenomenon is due to high taxes on sugar, etc. but I do not think this applies in NYC.

Since I don't ask for refills, I can't vouch for the empirics, but let's say that's true.  The first-order economic prediction is that drinks are sometimes used to charge for table space in the restaurant, a'la the Lott-Roberts paper.  The more that land costs, the more that table space costs the restaurant.  New York City establishments are usually crowded.  That means they want to keep on charging you for holding the table and that means no free refills.

That's just a guess.  Do they have lots of free refills in North Dakota?

Ameyaltepec black bean stew

I find this recipe improbable, but I enjoy it and it is cheap, easy, healthy, and eco-friendly.  A version of it was first served to me by the de la Rosa family and I believe it was cooked by one of the daughters-in-law of Felipe de la Rosa.

Pour two cans of Goya black beans into a pot and let them simmer over low heat.  In a separate pan, heat four fresh jalapeno chiles and one not-too-large cinnamon stick in canola oil, Mexican cinnamon of course.  After a few minutes, stick that in a blender with enough water to make it work.  Pour the blended mix back into the simmering black beans.  Let simmer a bit more.  Toss in a small amount of sliced white onions with five minutes to go (optional).

Serve with rice or fresh tortillas and squeeze some lime over the top.  See if your local Latino market will sell you Mexican Coca-Cola.

When did Greek economic policy turn bad?

Stan Tsirulnikov forwards to me this very interesting paper (JSTOR, gated for many of you).  Here is an excerpt from the summary:

For twenty years up to 1974, Greece enjoyed rapid growth, high investment and low inflation; during the next twenty years, growth and investment collapsed and inflation became high and persistent.

After 1974, debt and deficits rose sharply as well, and later EU transfers helped postpone the necessary fiscal adjustments.  At this same time Greece was becoming more democratic, in part because the previous autocratic arrangements were collapsing.  The figure on p.150, representing the difference between the two periods, is a knockout.  And after 1974, the average rate of gdp growth goes from 7.1 percent to 2.1 percent.

The full reference is "The Two Faces of Janus: Institutions, Policy Regimes and Macroeconomic Performance in Greece," George Alogoskoufis, Economic Policy, Vol. 10, No. 20 (Apr., 1995), pp. 149-192.

Addendum: Here is an ungated copy.

What should be the penalties for oil spills?

The US Supreme Court has struck down a $2.5 billion punitive damages award against oil giant Exxon for its role in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

The high court said the award should be reduced to the amount of compensatory damages in the case – $507.5 million.

That was from June 2008.  Here is a more general history.  Googling "exxon valdez punishment managers" does not yield obvious answers (what other problem does that remind you of?).  The CEO, Lawrence Rawl, stayed with the company four more years until the mandatory retirement age of 65.  Do you know more?

Here is one report on the BP CEO.

The new Arizona immigration law

Here is a perspective from Megan McArdle:

I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this law, in fact, if it required the police to check the immigration status of every single person they pulled over, without any gauzy "reason to believe" fig leaf to cover up what's really going on.

Raise your hand if you think that law could have passed in Arizona.

Now, anyone whose hand is raised, contact your psychiatrist immediately.  You need to check the dosage on those meds.

If you think that immigration is a pressing problem, then the place to enforce it is in areas of life that are already regulated pretty intrusively:  border crossings, employment, landlord/tenant relations.  These are places where enforcement can be stepped up quite dramatically without massive intrusion into the ordinary lives of law-abiding citizens.  But quasi-criminalizing looking different . . . well, it's not just wrong. It's un-American.