With two simple questions Bill Gates provides us more insight into globalization than half-a-dozen books.

Twenty years ago would you rather have been a B-student in Poughkeepsie or a genius in Shanghai?  And today?

That’s Bill Gates, according to Tom Friedman in an interview in the April issue of Wired.      

Raves for deaf people:

Aurally frustrated, some deaf hip-hop DJs in East London started setting up their own parties. The kids went mad for it, and soon deaf raves ["Rave" in the UK just means loud DJ party of any sort–Ed.] were drawing hundreds of people from all over the country. I went to one recently at Hackney Ocean and the music was so loud I had to make myself deaf using earplugs.

Inside the club the walls were pulsing to the music but the 500-strong crowd was silent because everybody was just doing excited, drunken sign language. I had no idea what…they were talking about but they were partying way harder than people with ears that work. After years of not being invited to the party, these kids had finally created their own scene and it was exploding.

On stage there was live deaf karaoke where hot deaf girls were frantically signing the lyrics to R&B hits.

Then there was the deaf dance-off, where breakdancers battled to see who was the best at body-popping out of sync to the music.

But the highlight of the night had to be Britain’s first deaf rapper, MC Geezer, who signs-rhymes and raps out of time…

Yes, fixed costs are falling.  And thanks to Nacim Bouchtia for the pointer, my apologies if you find the language in the link offensive.

Here is the link, I am debating Max Sawicky. My first installment reads as follows:

Whether or to what extent we should have an estate tax will depend on other fiscal choices we make.  But the case for an estate tax is not as simple as Max thinks:

1. It is not clear if the estate tax raises much if any revenue.  The very rich engage in tax avoidance strategies.  The apparent revenue raised is often offset by a lower intake from income and capital gains taxes.  Furthermore it has been estimated that the costs of implementing tax avoidance strategies are roughly equal to the (gross) revenue raised.

2. The estate tax does not do much for equality.  In fact it increases consumption inequality — presumably the relevant measure — by encouraging the rich to spend more money before they die.  Joseph Stiglitz and Alan Blinder have raised this concern.

3. Estate taxes add yet another layer of taxation on savings and investment.  Imagine that you must first pay taxes on earned income.  You then pay taxes on the income derived from savings and investment.  You then face estate taxes when the funds or resources are passed down to the next generation.  Savings and investment, of course, are a well spring of economic growth.  It is no wonder that the fairness and efficiency of the estate tax has come under such question.

In the early 1990s, Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell — two liberal economists — wrote: "In short, the estate and gift taxes in the United States have failed to achieve their intended purposes.  They raise little revenue.  They impose large excess burdens.  They are unfair."

Addendum: Here is the permanent link.

Bryan Caplan trots out all the usual arguments, you know the ones I use myself when debating opponents of the market.  Start with legal laissez-faire and let airlines weigh conflicting preferences and then implement the profit-maximizing policies.

I still don’t want cell phone use on planes, but I’m not going to tell you some fancy-wancy academic story about externalities imposed on infra-marginal consumers.  I am still, however, looking for a good argument to use against him.  Can I claim that cell phone calls are a socially wasteful means of signaling to your spouse that you care?  Can I claim that commercial airplanes are modern (short-term) monasteries, and that markets undersupply such temples of silence?