Teknisk utveckling på bilfronten

Krocktest - Chevrolet Bel Air '59 mot Chevrolet Malibu '09:

(Direktlänk)

Krocktest - Tata Nano; nypris ~17 000 kronor:

(Direktlänk)

Top Gear om Honda FCX Clarity; drivs av bränsleceller - tankas med väte, med vattenånga som enda "avgas":

(Direktlänk)

Tidigare inlägg på samma tema:
- Krocktest och tekniska framsteg

Economic Freedom of the World, 2007

Frihetsfilosofi bör i mitt tycke betraktas ur moraliskt perspektiv snarare än vilket resultat det ger , men ibland behövs det påpekas att det omoraliska dessutom är gravt samhällsskadligt även ur ren effektivitetssynpunkt. Som exempel på detta har Cato Institute nyligen gett ut Economic Freedom of the World, 2007 (pdf), med följande kritererier för ekonomisk frihet:

• personal choice
• voluntary exchange coordinated by markets
• freedom to enter and compete in markets
• protection of persons and their property from aggression by others.

Som mäts inom följande områden (mer detaljerat vad som mäts anges i rapporten):

[1] Size of Government: Expenditures, and Taxes, Enterprises;
[2] Legal Structure and Security of Property Rights;
[3] Access to Sound Money;
[4] Freedom to Trade Internationally;
[5] Regulation of Credit, Labor,and Business.

Ur sammanfattningen:

Since 1980, there has been a gradual but steady movement toward economic freedom. Monetary policy has been more stable, trade barriers have declined, high marginal tax rates reduced, and exchange rate controls virtually eliminated. Consider the following. The median inflation rate was 4% in 2007, down from 14% in 1980. Among the 93 countries with data in both periods, only 17 had a double-digit average annual rate of inflation during the period from 2003 to 2007, compared to 61 for the five years ending in 1980. The mean tariff rate fell from 26.2% in 1980 to 9.0% in 2007. The number of countries imposing marginal tax rates of 50% or more fell from 62 in 1980 to 9 in 2007. Fifty countries imposed exchange rate controls that generated a black market premium of 10% or more in 1980, but only three in 2007.

The economic progress during this era has been impressive. The world’s inflation-adjusted, per-capita income rose from $5,400 in 1980 to $8,500 in 2005, an average annual growth rate of approximately 2% (Shleifer, 2009). Over this quarter of a century, the one-dollar-per-day poverty rate fell from 34% to 19%, life expectancy has risen from 64.4 years to 68.1, and the infant mortality rate has fallen from 53% to 36%. Other indicators of quality of life such as school attendance, literacy, and access to clean water have all improved.

Indexutvecklingen för de 102 länder som rankats sedan 1980 (5,55 motsvarar ungefär Burundi i 2007 års mätning, 6,70 motsvarar ungefär Israel) [samtliga diagram i inlägget klickbara för förstoring]:
Hongkong toppar listan över ekonomisk frihet, USA hamnar på en sjätteplats och Sverige placerar sig på 39:e plats (mellan Spanien och Peru) med 7,28/10 i totalbetyg. Sveriges betyg i de individuella kategorierna spänner mellan en 137:e-placering i Size of Government och en 8:e-plats i Legal System & Property Rights.

Några ytterligare diagram:

Ekonomisk frihet kontra köpkraftsjusterad BNP per capita:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra köpkraftsjusterad tillväxt:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra fattigaste tiondelens andel av den totala inkomsten:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra fattigaste tiondelens inkomst i dollar:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra förväntad livslängd:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra 2008 Environmental Performance Index:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra politiska rättigheter:
Ekonomisk frihet kontra civila rättigheter:
Tidigare inlägg på temat:
- Ekonomisk frihet kontra BNP per capita

Vad är det som går och går men aldrig kommer någonvart?

Warren Meyer på Coyote Blog skriver att han importerat en klocka från Tyskland. Ställföreträdande världsförbättrare har självfallet sina frågor kring detta, så Fedex är stadgade att ägna någon halvtimmes arbete åt att bland annat ta reda på ifall klockan har visare, ifall den drivs av batteri, ifall den har alarmfunktion och hur länge den fungerar per uppvridning.

Dokumentet med elva frågor finns scannat i inlägget. Han skriver även:

This would be one of the dumbest things I have seen from the government had it not been for the egg licenses I have to hold.

Och även det dokumentet finns scannat i det inlägget.

Kvasimarknader igen, eller regleringars naturlag

Några engelska städer beslutade att tömma soptunnorna än mer sällan - en gång varannan vecka, vilket medför att en ansenlig del av de boende fått brist på soputrymme.

Och sålunda - från Daily Mail:

Homeowners struggling to cope with fortnightly rubbish collections have sparked a nationwide black market boom in stolen wheelie bins.

Officials have warned that unscrupulous thieves are cashing in following a massive rise in thefts and scams run by gangs of 'white van men' targeting family homes.

Thousands of bins are disappearing to fuel the demand for extra bin space since many councils switched to fortnightly collections in 2007.

Flikrensning

- Birth Defect Study Casts Doubt on Phthalate Fears - Scientific American

- Children taking part in a study to measure how much exercise they do fooled researchers by attaching their pedometers to their pet dogs. - BBC

- The McFarthest Place: 145 Mi to the Nearest Big Mac - Strange Maps (lite på samma tema, även om jag ogillar vinklingen - Wal-Marts utbredning i USA, 1962-2007)

- "Both in terms of the number of accidents and the blood alcohol of the drivers in those accidents, the research consistently showed that zero tolerance laws had no effect," Grant said. - EurekAlert

Synvilla

Don Boudreaux om jobbskapande

Från Cafe Hayek:

Adam Smith correctly understood that the desire to consume is what justifies production, and not vice-versa. If Mr. Hawkins were correct that the ultimate goal of economic activity is production, then he should be just as pleased to have set before him for dessert a fresh-from-the-oven sawdust-and-earthworm pie as he is to have an apple pie.

Några tidigare inlägg om jobbskapande:
- Homer Simpson om jobbskapande
- Den evigt aktuelle Bastiat

Vardagskreativitet

Will Wilkinsons inlägg om att du inte är John Galt är ett i mängden som jag bara inte kan släppa. Jag älskar en värld där andra människors genialitet i samspel lett till exempelvis att jag kan åka över broar jag inte har en aning om hur de är konstruerade, i en bil jag inte har en aning om hur den är byggd, klädd i något jag aldrig hade kunnat göra själv, mätt på livsmedel som inte ens fanns tillgängliga för bara några årtionden sedan.

Fascinerande många har fascinerande revolutionerande idéer, och allt byråkrati och politik kan åstadkomma är att kväva sådan kreativitet, så mitt primära motstånd mot trögrörlighet i alla dess former är att det bromsar andra snarare än hur det direkt påverkar mig.

Ett genialiskt kreativt exempel i mängden - Ogori Café:

I grabbed a café menu, quickly translated some Katakana (you'll get surprisingly far in Japan by learning this phonetic alphabet!), and found something I kind-of almost.. but not really.. wanted.

"I'll take an orange juice, please," I explained, in poor Japanese.

"Hai!", was the eager response.

A few moments later, I picked up my orange juice.

Except it wasn't an orange juice.

It was an apple drink called "Appletizer", some weird candy, and a little card.

Yeah. Now I was confused.

The guys behind the counter and I immediately launched into a humorous, protracted, Englishanese attempt to understand what the hell just happened. Through judicious fumbling, and after a great deal of precise hand-waving and mangled pronouns, it turned out to be something like this:

At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered [men betalar för din egen beställning]. The next person gets what you ordered.

(Via Eric Crampton)

Dagens i-lands barns medianålder 100 år?

Johan Norberg hann självfallet före att skriva om rapporten som beräknat att hälften av dagens barn i rika länder blir äldre än 100 år (idag dör enligt SCB cirka hälften av Sveriges befolkning runt 83 års ålder).

Och som Norberg skriver så letar Ekot med ljus och lykta efter vad som skulle kunna vara negativt i nyheten - bland annat hjärtkärlsjukdomar, cancer och demens. BBC skriver dock också om artikeln:

[Forskarna bakom studien] said there was no evidence that the old old age group were unhealthier than their younger counterparts, partly because the frailest people died first, leaving the most robust to survive past 85.

Danish research had shown that as many as 30% to 40% of individuals were independent from the ages of 92 to 100.

And a study of US super-centenarians (age 110 to 119 years) showed that, even at these advanced ages, 40% needed little assistance or were independent.
/.../
"Present evidence, however, suggests that people are not only living longer than they did previously, but also they are living longer, with less disability and fewer functional limitations."

Svenska förhållanden, under en period då till och med åldersgruppen 15-74 år blivit 0,94 år äldre - ur Buller och hjärtinfarkter - dödsfall per 100 000 invånare i hjärtinfarkt 1987-2006 [klickbar för förstoring]:
Ur Malignt melanom, igen - dödsfall per 100 000 invånare, samtliga cancertumörer, 1987-2008 [klickbar för förstoring]:
Också ur BBC-artikeln:

[Professor Kaare Christensen, of the Danish Ageing Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark, who led the study] said: "The linear increase in record life expectancy for more than 165 years does not suggest a looming limit to human lifespan.

"If life expectancy were approaching a limit, some deceleration of progress would probably occur."

Och undrar någon över "fetmaepidemins" påverkan så säger tidigare nämnde Christensen:

"Life is a lottery and some obese people will live to a 100 and some thin people will die early."

Vidare, gällande "fetmaepidemins" vagga - från ABC News:

The trends included in the article show that many Western nations will have most people living past 100, with half of all babies born in 2007 in the U.S. likely to live to age 104.

Att leva uti hundrade år är alltså inte längre något särskilt hoppfullt att sjunga vid barnkalas, men det skulle faktiskt inte förvåna mig nämnvärt om "Ja, må hen leva uti två hundra år" låter fullt möjligt redan när dagens barn ska sjunga för sina barnbarn.

2009 års Ig Nobel-vinnare utsedda

Ig Nobel-priset, "for achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK", har delats ut för 2009 - vinnarna (referenser finns på Ig Nobel-sidan):

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle. (Ur resultatet: Full bottles broke at 30 J impact energy, empty bottles at 40 J.)

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years. (Resultatet, enligt Dr. Van Antwerp: "After analyzing the difference between his left and right hand, he found no noticeable differences and no arthritis had developed.")

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over. (Resultatet: "Here we show that human females have evolved a derived curvature and reinforcement of the lumbar vertebrae [ländkotan] to compensate for this bipedal obstetric load.")

LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas. (Det kan även noteras att råvaran här tydligen är luktfri.)

Tidigare vinnare finns listade på Ig Nobel-sidan, men är kanske mer överskådliga hos Wikipedia. Grunderna till priset känns inte särskilt konsekventa, men några exempel:

1993: Medicine - Presented to James F. Nolan, Thomas J. Stillwell, and John P. Sands, Jr., medical men of mercy, for their painstaking research report, "Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis."

1996: Public Health - Presented to Ellen Kleist of Nuuk, Greenland and Harald Moi of Oslo, Norway, for their cautionary medical report "Transmission of Gonorrhea Through an Inflatable Doll."

1999: Biology - Presented to Dr. Paul Bosland, director of The Chili Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for breeding a spiceless jalapeño chili pepper.

1999: Literature - Presented to the British Standards Institution for its six-page specification (BS 6008) of the proper way to make a cup of tea.

2000: Biology - Presented to Richard Wassersug of Dalhousie University, for his firsthand report, "On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles [grodyngel] from Costa Rica".

2000: Computer Science - Presented to Chris Niswander of Tucson, Arizona, for inventing PawSense, software that detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard. (Tröga tangenter upptäckte jag för övrigt just via katthjälp.)

2001: Physics - Presented to David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts, for his partial explanation of the shower-curtain effect: a shower curtain tends to billow inwards while a shower is being taken. (Mer om den effekten här.)

2005: Chemistry - Presented jointly to Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? It was found that swimmers in the experiment reach comparable velocity in both media. (Mythbusters har för övrigt tagit sig an det experimentet: del 1, del 2.)

2006: Physics: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, for their analysis that explains why spaghetti breaks into several pieces when it is bent. ("We have shown that releasing an elastic brittle rod from a bent configuration is sufficient to make it break.")

2008: Medicine: Rebecca Waber and Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.