Shades of the classic Radford article, except the time is now and the author is Stephen Lankenau:

Since the mid-1980s, cigarette-smoking policies have become increasingly restrictive in jails and prisons across the United States. Cigarette black markets of various form and scale often emerge in jails and prisons where tobacco is prohibited or banned. Case studies of 16 jails and prisons were undertaken to understand the effects of cigarette bans versus restrictions on inmate culture and prison economies. This study describes how bans can transform largely benign cigarette “gray markets,” where cigarettes are used as a currency, into more problematic black markets, where cigarettes are a highly priced commodity. Analysis points to several structural factors that affected the development of cigarette black markets in the visited facilities: the architectural design, inmate movement inside and outside, officer involvement in smuggling cigarettes to inmates, and officer vigilance in enforcing the smoking policy. Although these factors affect the influx of other types of contraband into correctional facilities, such as illegal drugs, this study argues that the demand and availability of cigarettes creates a unique kind of black market.

Hat tip goes to Vaughn Bell.

Canadian entrepreneur Steve Earle traveled to Greece with plans for what he hoped would be a flourishing business in a sunny, island-rich nation: a sea-plane airline.

But Mr. Earle's company, AirSea Lines, went bust five years later in 2008–hindered in large part, he says, by government bureaucracy. "They killed it by inertia," he says. "Greece is an unsustainable reality."

AirSea's odyssey illustrates one of the key problems preventing Greece from generating the economic growth it needs to pay off its heavy debts: Critics say a sprawling civil service has tried to secure its own survival through an opaque patchwork of fees, taxes and red tape. The European Commission estimates the administrative burden of Greece's bureaucracy–the value of work devoted to dealing with government-imposed administration–is equivalent to 7% of gross domestic product, twice the EU average.

There is much more here.  By the way, here is a new blog on the Greek financial crisis, in both Greek and English.

The sometimes-corrupt agencies rate securities and, in response, markets sometimes ignore these ratings but other times use these ratings to achieve nefarious ends, such as when mortgage-backed securities were overvalued and used to game the financial system.

Reform proposals aim to improve the quality of the agencies and limit their corruption.  Imagine honest agencies, overrating securities half the time and underrating them the other half of the time.  The underrated occasions still would be ignored while overrated securities still would be used to game the system.  The core problem would remain about half of the time.

An alternative proposal would be to remove the legal power of the ratings and require each agency to hire a convicted felon as CEO.  Board members would be restricted to men with ten years or more experience as a department store Santa Claus, or eleven-year-old female fans of Hannah Montana.  If the agency is wrong some of the time no matter what, and that error has bad consequences, should we not aim to lower the credibility of the agencies rather than restoring it?