If you believe that Federal stimulus spending is a good tool to help kickstart our ailing economy, what better way than with a high-speed rail infrastructure project?
High speed rail has been talked about for over a generation as a “Good Thing”, but the necessary political and financial conditions have never aligned as well as now. Go Obama!
Pricing can be usable too: “Any time you can take something that’s normally complex for customers and make it a no-brainer, you’re closer to closing the deal.”
(Via Signal vs. Noise.)
New Fundamental Law of Network Economics: “intersys writes ‘A new fundamental law of economics has been formulated by Rod Beckstrom, former Director of the National Cyber Security Center. In Words: The value of a network equals the net value added to each user’s transactions (PDF) conducted through that network, valued from the perspective of each user, and summed for all. It answers the decades-old question of ‘how valuable is a network.’
(Via Slashdot.)
Wired takes a look crowdsourcing:
The demand for low-end design has ballooned in recent years alongside the profusion of start-ups and small businesses. Conveniently enough, so has the supply of what we might call “low-end designers” (amateurs, recent grads and the like). According to Forbes there are 80,000 freelance designers in the United States alone. Most of these are, proverbially speaking, waiting tables.
Is Crowdsourcing Evil? The Design Community Weighs In | Epicenter from Wired.com
Feb 22
you can’t make this stuff up: “
Breaking news from The Huffington Post:
Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community’s top legislative priority.Participants on the October 17 call — including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG — were urged to persuade their clients to send ‘large contributions’ to groups working against the Employee Free Trade Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.
…Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to Republican senatorial campaigns were needed, they argued…’If a retailer has not gotten involved in this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to [former Sen.] Norm Coleman and all these other guys, they should be shot. They should be thrown out their goddamn jobs,’ Marcus declared.
Not only are some of the most non-trusted companies in America blatantly trying to buy off Congress, but they’re using our bailout money to do it.
This will ONLY change when elections are citizen funded. Join our strike4change to (1) starve the beast, (2) just say no, or (3) fix this absurd system — now. No money until a candidate commits to citizen funded elections.
“
(Via Laurence Lessig, via Huffington Post.)
Tyler Cowen is a man of many talents with a new book out. It is called Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist.
Along with pithily-named books, Tyler is well know for his guide to ethnic dining around the D.C. area.