Free Markets Archives

April 08, 2007

Organ donors and organ donation

A new bill would give organ donors a medal. In other words, millions for medals but not a cent for compensation. If people weren't dying it would be funny.

Thanks to Dave Undis at LifeSharers for the link. Unlike Congress, Dave is really doing something to solve the organ shortage.

"Your Congress at Work," by Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution, April 2, 2007

References:


LifeSharers - Sharing Life, Saving Lives

If you or a loved one ever need an organ for a transplant operation, chances are you will die before you get it. You can improve your odds by joining LifeSharers. Membership is free.

LifeSharers is a non-profit voluntary network of organ donors. LifeSharers members promise to donate upon their death, and they give fellow members first access to their organs. As LifeSharers members, you and your loved ones will have access to organs that otherwise may not be available to you. As the LifeSharers network grows, more and more organs may become available to you -- if you are a member.

Even if you are already a registered organ donor, you should join the LifeSharers network. By doing so, you will have access to organs that otherwise may not be available to you.

By joining LifeSharers you will also make the organ transplant system fairer by helping registered organ donors get their fair share of organs. Most organs transplanted in the United States go to people who have not agreed to donate their own organs when they die. That's not fair, and it's one of the reasons there is such a large organ shortage.

By joining LifeSharers you will help reduce the deadly organ shortage. By offering your organs first to other organ donors you create an incentive for non-donors to become donors. As more people register as organ donors, fewer people will die waiting for transplants.

LifeSharers is free to join.

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February 25, 2007

"The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't"


And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."

"Kurt Vonnegut and The No Asshole Rule," Bob Sutton, Work Matters, February 22, 2007

"The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't," by Robert I. Sutton

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December 03, 2006

AP provides "shoddy goods"

When a company defrauds its customers, or delivers shoddy goods, the customers sooner or later are going to take their business elsewhere. But if that company has a virtual monopoly, and offers something its customers must have, they may have no choice but to keep taking it.

That’s when the customers, en masse, need to raise a stink. That’s when someone else with the resources needs to seriously consider whether the time is ripe to compete.

The Associated Press is embroiled in a scandal. Conservative bloggers, the new media watchdogs, lifted a rock at the AP.

"Say no to AP’s shoddy work," by Jules Crittenden, The Boston Herald, December 3, 2006

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September 24, 2005

Free Markets at Work

[I]f there's four words I never want to hear again, it's "prescription drugs from Canada." I'm Canadian, so I know a thing or two about prescription drugs from Canada. Specifically speaking, I know they're American; the only thing Canadian about them is the label in French and English. How can politicians from both parties think that Americans can get cheaper drugs simply by outsourcing (as John Kerry would say) their distribution through a Canadian mailing address? U.S. pharmaceutical companies put up with Ottawa's price controls because it's a peripheral market. But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that's going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren't going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise -- just as the Clinton administration's intervention into the flu-shot market resulted in American companies getting out of the vaccine business entirely.

"No Time for Kerry's Europhile Delusions," by Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, October 24, 2004

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August 21, 2005

MSM - political polarization - greater sensationalism - falling costs to new entrants

Richard Posner had an interesting op-ed in the NYT.

The current tendency to political polarization in news reporting is thus a consequence of changes not in underlying political opinions but in costs, specifically the falling costs of new entrants. The rise of the conservative Fox News Channel caused CNN to shift to the left. CNN was going to lose many of its conservative viewers to Fox anyway, so it made sense to increase its appeal to its remaining viewers by catering more assiduously to their political preferences.

The tendency to greater sensationalism in reporting is a parallel phenomenon. The more news sources there are, the more intense the struggle for an audience. One tactic is to occupy an overlooked niche -- peeling away from the broad-based media a segment of the consuming public whose interests were not catered to previously. That is the tactic that produces polarization. Another is to ''shout louder'' than the competitors, where shouting takes the form of a sensational, attention-grabbing discovery, accusation, claim or photograph. According to James T. Hamilton in his valuable book ''All the News That's Fit to Sell,'' this even explains why the salaries paid news anchors have soared: the more competition there is for an audience, the more valuable is a celebrity newscaster.

The argument that competition increases polarization assumes that liberals want to read liberal newspapers and conservatives conservative ones. Natural as that assumption is, it conflicts with one of the points on which left and right agree -- that people consume news and opinion in order to become well informed about public issues. Were this true, liberals would read conservative newspapers, and conservatives liberal newspapers, just as scientists test their hypotheses by confronting them with data that may refute them. But that is not how ordinary people (or, for that matter, scientists) approach political and social issues. The issues are too numerous, uncertain and complex, and the benefit to an individual of becoming well informed about them too slight, to invite sustained, disinterested attention. Moreover, people don't like being in a state of doubt, so they look for information that will support rather than undermine their existing beliefs. They're also uncomfortable seeing their beliefs challenged on issues that are bound up with their economic welfare, physical safety or religious and moral views.

"Bad News," by Richard Posner, New York Times, July 31, 2005

via anguswit

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August 20, 2005

Classified trouble for newspapers ... and eBay

AdJab links to a story "about the impact of craigslist on classified advertising, especially the growth of it online."

We use craigslist to advertise job openings ... and my 77-year old mother-in-law uses it to sell things that she used to sell on eBay ...watch out eBay ...

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August 19, 2005

Academics as merit badge collectors

Asymmetrical Information has a great post about academics ...

Many academics of my acquaintance profess to be aghast at the "status seeking" in which their neighbours engage--and yet I have never met anyone as obsessed with collecting professional merit badges as an academic. Nor have I experienced any other organisational culture, even in hyper-competitive consulting or investment banking, in which professional success is so readily confused with personal worth.

"Money money money money" ... maybe that's because the free market isn't at work in the halls of the academy ... tenure ...

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