Wednesday assorted links
2. On political anger (pdf). And methods to limit violence at demonstrations. And “Do black Americans have the courage and conviction to look the hateful monsters in the eye and offer a love so radical that it reminds them their hatred does not define them?”
3. “Users would be able to earn “Karma Coins” by meditating and teaching Buddhism. The coins could be spent within a special Buddhist community called the “Lotos Network.”” Link here.
4. Millennials don’t care about classic movies.
5. Gelato sushi > sushi gelato, or so it is claimed. And the Neptune forecast is for diamond rain.
6. Receiving welfare does not seem to dis-incentivize future achievement.
7. Kevin Drum offers a rebuttal on market power, but he cedes the entire ground on mark-ups. Concentration is up somewhat, but that is not the debate at hand. Bookstores are an excellent example of where concentration has gone up, and real choice has gone up too. Nor do I see a big problem with pricing (Amazon used anyone?), though of course the marginal cost of producing an extra book copy is pretty low and thus the measured mark-up should be high. Pharma? A given drug has falling mark-ups over time, for new drugs the price falls from infinity. For phone service, these days prices are tumbling. Airfares falling too. Search engines? p = 0. An unusual “fail” from Kevin.