"That’s my wife Veronica giving her brother Vincent a shave. Oddly enough, people who perform such rituals every day are rarely Ron Paul supporters. Vincent lived until the age of 38 with his parents. He moved in with us after his mother died. He then made the transition to a nearby group home. He spends his weekdays with friends, coworkers, and staff at a sheltered workshop. He receives good medical care for various significant challenges.

Because of Social Security’s disabled adult child program, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host imperfect, sometimes costly, often essential programs, Vincent has been able to spend his adult life in relative dignity, safety, and comfort. Because of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and subsequent legislation, Vincent was able to attend public school, where he received important services. Because of those onerous class action lawsuits and the like, conditions at public and private care facilities are much better, much more community-based than they used to be.

Were it not for a host of policies that Ron Paul has consistently opposed, Vincent might well have exercised his individual liberty curled up medicated on a cot in the back ward of a gigantic state mental facility. His mother might have spent her final years going bankrupt, struggling to care for him at home or sending him away for institutional care. These comments might strike you as blogosphere hyperbole. They are not. These were common experiences across the country for hundreds of thousands of disabled people and their families well into the 1960s. In many places, inhumane policies persisted long after. Federal money and federal mandates were absolutely essential to address these concerns."

The market-based case for direct provision of goods, rather than subsidizing their purchase through the market.

Something very strange is going on here.  Even granted that people might have an understanding of "government programs" which doesn't include Social Security, what is happening when 1/4 of those who've received food stamps say they haven't benefitted from a government program?

I really shouldn't complain, because writing something like this, for this audience, is working for righteousness.  But (1) talking to haphazardly selected businesspeople is no way to evaluate an economic system (at the very least you should be talking to randomly selected business people).  And (2) THIS IS CAPITALISM, in which the means of production are privately owned, controlled and exchangeable in the market, and production and distribution are driven by calculations of profit in the marketplace.  The whole point of the article is the many ways in which Norway encourages people to become capitalists.

"Recently, the rise of digital cameras put a lot of firms in the film and film-development trade out of business. But now it seems that smartphones are killing the market for point-and-shoot digital cameras... [T]hese stories ... drive home the case for a reasonably generous welfare state. ... the ebbs and flows of technological change have profound implications for the organization of the economy. And while the forward march of technology is definitely a good thing ... it’s very easy for decent, competent, hardworking people to suddenly find themselves worse off than they were the year before through no fault of their own. The guy with the film development shop didn’t suddenly become lazier or less skilled the day his business became unviable, but he took an economic hit nonetheless. This churn and the attendant levels of risk and anxiety that it creates are an undesirable feature of the capitalist order. And the welfare state is the answer."

"Relative to, say, Kentucky, Europe is a continent full of countries featuring better educated, healthier, longer-lived people, with lower poverty rates and dramatically fewer poor children. It isn’t, however, as friendly to the interests of rich people or business managers."

Evisceration, but in a friendly way. (I am so out of it that hadn't heard about the whole airline inspection thing before this.)

Andy Gelman reviews Brooks & Manza's interesting-sound book on this subject. Gentle but firm corrections re causal inference.