Feminism in 1930

From the 1930 blog:

A survey of the 500 female students at Stanford got 225 responses. Summary: About 90% expect to marry, with 40% currently in love. College men and fraternity members preferred. 70% “do not enjoy kissing for its own sake”; 20% believe in “companionate marriage”; 80% believe in divorce; 30% “consider themselves experienced in love”; 20% “approve of the double standard of morals”; most important qualities in husband: personality, appearance, and wealth. Favorite cities: San Francisco, New York, Washington, Los Angeles; most admired women: Mrs. Hoover, Helen Wills, mother, Amelia Earhart; most admired men: Lindbergh, Hoover, Edison, David Starr Jordan, Admiral Byrd. Religion: almost half Christian, 15% no religious faith, 7% “exotic Oriental creeds”, 1% spiritualism.

No, I Don't ike Crop Insurance

That's prejudiced, I know.  So that tells you to take my opinions with a grain of salt.  But here's a report of an analysis of the private crop insurance industry which, to my mind, isn't exactly favorable.

If I weren't old and tired I'd try to track the contributions of crop insurance to politicians., but I am so I won't.

John Phipps has a similar reaction, plus a nice graph.   

Everyone Can "Nudge"

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness is  by Drs. Sunstein and Thaler. Under the banner of libertarian paternalism they argue the government can nudge people into better decisions.  For example, if the default option is to enroll the new employee into the 401K plan, enrollment will be higher and savings greater than if the default is not to enroll.

This is all well and good, and I approve.  But everyone can nudge, as it turns out in a NY Times article on the adoption of credit cards in taxis, a measure the cabbies initially resisted.  Why have they changed their minds?  The credit system provides pre-set tip amounts, so it makes it easy for the customer to tip, and to tip larger amounts than they might otherwise do. 

Bureacucratic Catch-22

I'm no fan of HIPAA, the law which tries to protect the privacy of patients.  Here's an example.--applying the law literally can prevent a person from accessing her own data, when someone else has stolen an identity.

Oh, To Be a Student Again

This is really nice--a comparison of size ranging from coffee bean to carbon atom, and lots of neat stuff  in-between.from a scienceblog post. Hat Tip Monkey Cage

Back When Ticker Tape Was Ticker Tape

Apollo 11


No, earlier than that.  Unfortunately, I can't find the sort of image I'm remembering from the late 40's and early 50's when ticker tape was really what was thrown out of windows during NYC parades.  Ah, memory.

Friday Cat Blogging

For some reason, I don't do as good photos as Ann Althouse and Kevin Drum do. I've done one previous Friday cat blog--this is a recent photo of our older cat (the no. 1 entity in the household) in a thoughtful mood. Cats are above and beyond our human messes, so this is appropriate for this week's news.

When the Free Market Meets Romantic Ideology

As a liberal I may over-estimate the strength of free market capitalism in conquering beliefs, but this excerpt from an Agweb report on an ERS analysis of organic dairy doesn't make me change my mind:

Most organic milk operations are small, with 45% milking fewer than 50 cows, and 87% fewer than 100, the study says. But the largest organic dairies, those with more than 200 cows, account for more than a third of organic milk production and are far more likely to generate returns above their capital and labor costs. That suggests that organic milk production will migrate toward larger operations, the authors say.

The World Is Filled With Whippersnappers--Yes, Ezra Klein I Mean You

I mostly like Mr. Klein's work, but the transcript of his chat today provokes the title.  First, he admits he had no credit, because he always used a debit card.  Second, he's asked why the limited range of brackets for the income tax, and I get the blinding revelation that Mr. Klein was at best a babe in arms when Sen. Bradley and Rep. Rostenkowski got through the 1986 tax bill. I recommend the book on that process to anyone who wants to watch sausage being made.

The Present in the Past

From the 1930 blog, two items:

1. In 1930 two of the corporations with the longest run of paying dividends were the NYCentral and Pennsylvania Railroad.  By 1970 or so both were bankrupt, partially because Ike had adopted Mr. Raskob's suggestion for coast to coast superhighways.
2. The volume of fruits and vegetables being shipped by rail was notably higher--an ill omen for the sort of localized production which used to occur in Ontario county, NY, and southern Illinois.  Of course, this sort of shipment soon moved to trucks.