Going to California

It had been a long time since I had taken a road trip that far, and thankfully now after the fact I regret how long it had been and not how far this trip was. The trip was a great success. Below I'll share some of the reasons. First, a brief synopsis:

We left OKC and took I-40 west almost as far as it goes. The destination was Disneyland and Newport Beach, but as always the journey was at least part of the destination. The Grand Canyon was the highlight on the return. In between we took in many of the classic Route 66 diversions. My thoughts:

• You cannot appreciate the vastness of this country and especially the western portion without driving it. We clocked 2,980 miles round trip.
• Before we left, we each guessed how many moving trains we would see. The high guess was 40. We surpassed that number before hitting LA. The final total was 77, which was suppressed somewhat since some of the return drive was after dark.
• Not once did I hear, "Are we there yet?" Grandparents being along made it much better--specifically by having a second minivan and generally by just being there. If nothing else, it meant we outnumbered the kids four to three. DVD movies, iPads, and car swapping helped, but the kids were great in their own right. They never resisted when I wanted them to look out to see something. Chalk this up as a virtue of the dreaded screen time--they were never so bored with looking out the window as to not appreciate when something was worth looking at out the window.
• On the way out we hit the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, Central Ave (old Route 66) in Albuquerque, Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque, noticed the lava flows in Grants, NM and the continental divide just outside of Gallup (for some reason this concept was hard for me to grasp as a kid), the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, a small bit of the Petrified Forest, and a great dinner for two in Flagstaff on the patio at Brix. I was very surprised by how fun and charming downtown Flagstaff is. 
• The Mouse knows what he is doing. The parks are orchestrated masterpieces. Nothing is left to chance or half effort. The staff ("cast members") make one feel as if he is Truman Burbank from "The Truman Show" where it is all meant for him. 
• California Adventure is underrated. We had apprehension of spending our second Disney day there (we had one-park-only passes). Fortunately we risked it. There was as much or more to do for each kid (2, 4, & 9) as there was in Disneyland. The crowd was not as intense; hence, the lines were shorter. Presentation-wise it is laid out better. In aggregate the rides were better. The 13-hours in this park did not seem as exhausting even though it came two-days after Disneyland (welcomed exhaustion due to thorough fun, but exhaustion nonetheless).
• Newport Beach, Balboa Island, Corona Del Mar, these places are of another realm. Truly amazing places. Disappointed to find Bluth's Banana Stand in Newport is fiction, but the ones on Balboa Island did not disappoint. 
• On the way back we skimmed the edge of Joshua Tree N.P. moving on to the surprisingly cool highway 62 from Twentynine Palms until Parker, AZ (the road reminded me of the uber-popular California Adventure ride Radiator Springs; there were stretches for miles where people had arranged rocks to form messages on the parallel-running railroad tracks), London Bridge and Lake Havasu, a really big (some might say Grand) Canyon, the rejuvenating scenery of Sedona, and another dinner for two in Flagstaff this time at Cottage Place. 
• Especially in California you can see lots of evidence of social desirability bias and poor economics (and congruently poor environmentalism) in the name of good intentions. Some apparently see it as a virtue.
• My formula for successful, stress-free travel is having a well-researched but flexible agenda, taking a go-with-the-flow attitude to both the desires of others as well as the reality on the ground, accepting that it is largely about exploration not efficient logistics (you are a wanderer not a deliveryman), and knowing when to call it a day (take breaks, rest; travel is supposed to be refreshing). Admittedly, I am not perfect at practicing this. 

Some pictures:

 

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I'm back from the land of make believe. Time to catch up. I'll have a summary post of my travels very soon.

I want to go to there and there.

Drilling and filling cavities might soon be a thing of the past.

Melinda Moyer offers a sensible examination of the science around "carbs bad, fat good" and "fat bad, carbs fine".

Here is a nice bit of push back against the extremes of over-scheduling, over-planning, and over-perfecting our children s' summers.

Ten general consumer-oriented firms have tremendous reach because of their vast brand empires as summarized in this graphic.

I love this post by Steve Landsburg because it captures an important point I try to make often. It is a point lost on many people, and in making it I get (unfairly in my opinion) the reaction from others that I am confrontational, judgmental, and snobby. You can like red while I like blue. Those are opinions. There is no right or wrong without further context. But if you tell me you like red and then always choose blue, my telling you that your behavior seems inconsistent is a good observation--not a bigoted one. Further, telling me that red is the better color to paint the ocean in a picture may not stand up to scrutiny, and we may have left the realm of equal-value opinion with this added context. Further still, opinions that have no right or wrong cannot have any arguments to support or defend them. The existence of any logical argument for or against an opinion means there must be to some extent or another right and wrong (illogical) opinions in a particular case. In short, the interjection of "it's a matter of opinion" is in many cases a cop out. And "agree to disagree" is often the argument of the weak/lazy minded with a touch of condescension.

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I want to go to then.

Don Boudreaux on Piketty. Steve Landsburg on Piketty. Garrett Jones on Piketty.

Sugar bad, but fat good. I think this lady got the message.

The tide may be turning in the fight against those who want to spend OPM on the bright and shiny things. And the World Cup brings us fresh fuel to our well argued fire.

Sticking with sports, the game makers have settled with current and former college athletes. And Scott Sumner offers some critical thoughts about how anti-trust should be applied to sports leagues and organizations.

As a student of logic, I found these fallacies that don't but should exist to be quite interesting.

Detroit rapidly deteriorating as seen from Google Street View. Maybe if the just had some strong zoning laws, they could have avoided all this mess . . . No. When broad economic forces are working against you, you cannot reverse the decline by legislation or good intentions. D.C. offers a case in point.

Arnold Kling will not be invited to give a high school graduation speech any time soon, but he should be.

How to think and how to learn--including acing exams with hardly any studying. Sounds like good advice. Too much time is spent on worthless rote memorization. After all, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

These ants are nuts!

I'm going on vacation shortly. L.A. La-La land. In my mind, I'm already there. To that end, here are some great travel tools. Especially don't miss Rome2rio.

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Two short videos lead us off. Work is a means not an ends. The world we live in is wonderful; be happy.

I want to go to there.

I want to go to then.

Tradesports is back, baby. Can't keep a good man down for long it seems.

I'd like for us to think hard for a moment about hard-boiled eggs. Next, please quit trying to make me feel guilty about foie gras.

Turning now to the item du jure in economics: Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". There will be more soon, much more (including something about how, oops eeps, looks like his data may have had spreadsheet issues). For now just a few points with which I heartily agree: Landsburg says income inequality is something to celebrate. Cass Sunstein takes an Alfred E. Neuman approach to the issues Piketty raises (note, I do NOT heartily agree with the FDR conclusion at the bottom of the piece). But let me recast Sunstein's argument a little more clearly.

For those who reflexively agree with Piketty’s worldview, a question.

In which world would you rather live:

1. A world (starting from where we are today) in which the rich however defined (e.g., top 5%, top 1%, top .01%) see their wealth grow at 5% per year while the rest of society sees its wealth grow at 2% per year, or
2. A world (starting from where we are today) in which everyone sees their wealth grow at 1% per year?

How you answer this question says a lot about how personal envy ranks for you versus your love for others. I am not saying this is the choice we face. I am saying if it were, which would you choose?

Russ Roberts offers a great, short lesson in economics specifically regarding GDP and government expenditure. A snippet:

Here's the fallacy. Suppose I want to know your income for the year. I ask you and you tell me you made $50,000 in salary. Another way I can get to that number is to add up everything you spent money on--food, rent, clothing, entertainment, savings and so on. As long as I count everything, I get to the same number, $50,000.

Suppose I find out you spent $5000 on entertainment. It would be very wrong to say that without that spending, your income would only have been $45,000.

Read and understand this post from Scott Sumner, and you will have a better grasp on current monetary macroeconomics than quite a large portion of the economics-commentary professional class.

Climate Alert! A really small change might happen to the Earth in 100 years. So, panic now? No.

Scott Lincicome at Cato discusses two trade policies that make domestic gasoline prices higher than they would otherwise be.

Here is a sports-statistics lesson applicable and important in a wide range of fields from medicine to business: "...the complexity of a stat should not be its selling point. If a stat tells you something, but you can't act on it, it's no good." read the whole thing.

Not good at investing? Blame your caveman ancestors. Hint: Your problem is you don't and are not built to understand risk well.

Information technology and networks are all busted (HT: Barry Ritholtz). Have a nice day . . . for the record, I'm not as jaded and pessimistic as this piece, but I think there is much truth here.

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Into the caves

Out on the shore

If you're looking for poetry, look elsemore.

Sumner illuminates the thing versus the thing that is done.

In Europe silver spoons aren't just a good idea, they're the law! Is a world of Ricky Stratton's really the progressive dream?

Insider trading as a parallel to prohibition.

It's Derby time; hence, it is julep time.

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I want to go to there.

We are so amazingly wealthy. Not only can we afford to use resources towards the manufacturing of superfluous jewelry; we can do so to the extent of using this magnitude of technology, craftsmanship in high focus in this case. I am not being sarcastic about affording it. Many manufacturers such as the one showcased here are truly profitable proving they improve upon the status and use of the world's resources.

The French labor unions are working hard to make sure nobody works too hard in France (or perhaps at all eventually--be careful what you ask for).

Speaking of unions and government interference in free-market labor, Ohio Republicans would rather the state subsidize one kind of non-employed workers than have them earn a wage.

Once we as a society realize that environmentalism is economics not religion, we will have advanced significantly from where we stand today. I took this article as a small, positive step in that direction.

First they came for the large fountain drinks . . . a lesson in bad scientism.

This one might be labeled fast and loose statistics applied to television, but it is pretty cool just the same. (HT: BoxScoreGeeks)

I look forward to reading Michael Lewis' Flash Boys, and I expect he'll pull some of the mystery out of high-frequency trading. But as Noah Smith skillfully points out, we just don't know if HFT is on net bad or good--too much remains in the shadows. Perhaps The Shadow knows, but the rest of us are in the dark.

As if we needed another example, Obama is a demagogue and a hypocrite. Thankfully, we have Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs to set us straight on the myth of gender-pay inequality. Unfortunately, they may have goofed on a calculation of the profit opportunity the assumed gap implies. Thankfully, we have Steven Landsburg to shore up the gap and improve still upon the argument. And finally, Megan McArdle offers thorough insight and reasoning on the issue.

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This is one of the greatest shots I've ever seen of the greatest city on Earth. It looks best perhaps on an HD tablet. Be sure to zoom in for the full effect.

If that puts you in the mood to get stuck between the moon and NYC, perhaps you'll need a place to stay.

If you're traveling to NYC by air, don't be afraid. It is a very safe way to travel. Just look at this stunning visualization of all the air travel in a single day in Europe.

Leaving NYC for now, here is a great story about inventor Alan Adler. Not only did he invent my favorite device for making phenomenal coffee (the AeroPress), but he invented my favorite flying disc (the Aerobie Flying Ring). I still have my Aerobie from the 80s. That sucker can fly and on a line. 

And you thought you'd make it through the link post without any economics homework--not so fast. John Cochrane is breaking down the case for cost-benefit analysis in financial regulation. Reading through this earns you $100 in MagnitudeMoney redeemable at the blog's gift shop (coming soonish). Alright, it's long, but it is worth it.

I'll be back soon with a WWCF and so much more. But in the mean time, catch up on your reading.

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What a country!

I've suspected this for some time, and I don't think it will be very controversial before too long except maybe among old-timers.

Mungowitz at KPC had a couple of very good ones worth reposting. Here is the first--graffiti unchained. Here is the second--close calls.

A few years back I did a 180 on antibacterial soaps, et al. because of reading and learning and doing some thinking about what makes the most sense biologically/evolutionarily. Megan McArdle has more to that end. (If I had been doing it back then, this could have been the fulfillment of my continual New Year's Resolution.)

Here is a very good summary on why we MUST END the senseless, horrific war on drugs.

I want to go to there.

The Cape Crusaders

I've just returned from a family vacation in Cape Cod and Maine. We spent four lovely days in Cape Cod followed by two in lower-coastal Maine with Portsmouth as our base of operations. Here are some thoughts:

• There is plenty to do on the Cape as well as plenty of ways to do nothing but relax. It is a highly recommended retreat. 
• It is hard for an outsider to appreciate how out in the country Cape Cod can be. As we learned navigating our way back from Scituate (see "Boston detour" below), you travel from rural to rural. And New England is not the flat, open, grid-patterned world a midwesterner is used to.
• To uncharitably generalize, Cape Cod is the Upper East Side gated by Branson . . . if the Upper East Side were in the country and the cast of Hair Spray ran Branson. This is quite unfair, but it gives a sense of how diverse some of it is. 
• There are different traffic norms up there. I noticed stopping to let people in including stopping on a busy two-lane road to let someone make a left turn. As a result, many drivers proceed with the expectation that you will allow for this. Hence, many times cars pulled in front of us or stopped to wait for us with the drivers giving irritated looks when I didn't notice what they were expecting from me.
• In many places there was a tolerance and incorporation of weeds (I'm saying in the small green spaces of nice businesses) that would not be acceptable in this part of the country (particularly Texas and Oklahoma).
• But there is seemingly less tolerance for "neglect" of a property or perhaps more respect for what "neglect" a neighbor will see. Upkeep is impressive in almost all corners. In that same vein you see a bit of the delicate balance between historic devotion and modern adaptation. Political signs about proposition XYZ being "wrong" for [insert a Cape Cod town] allude to this. Of course one problem is  what if the Cape Cod style of house falls out of fashion. What if population/ownership turnover leaves these many properties significantly less desirable? 
• On the road the exit numbers do not match the mile markers. They simply count up from the road's origin. This seems so wrong that we can call it stupid. Am I missing something? Isn't the system in the west superior in every sense? And do we really need a full mile marker sign every tenth of a mile? Is this a kickback to Big Sign? 
• The Boston Detour aka, the Undependable Train, a lesson in good business practices, character, and adaptation. To my three-year-old son, Max, there are two things in this world: trains and not trains. On Tuesday we were to do a bit of the former by riding the Cape Cod train from Hyannis to Provincetown. This is a narrated scenic ride with one departing at 11:30 and one departing at 2:30. Since we were 30 minutes away in Chatham, the 2:30 was the better option leaving us time before to take in Sandwich (a place but we did coincidentally eat a sandwich there). Upon navigating the mess that is Hyannis, we arrived at the train depot about 1:45. The whiteboard sign out front read "TUESDAY: no trains today [frowny face]". Ever the optimist, I went inside to confirm our fear. Two people sat chatting, and it took them a minute to process that I might need some assistance. Once awoken from their unresponsiveness, they were friendly, but the answers I was given were unsatisfactory on several levels. I was told mechanical issues halted today's trains. But then I was told that I really should make reservations rather than just walk up. You see sometimes they don't have enough customers to run the trains. But then I was told there is no way to know, which I would like to being that I was coming from some distance away, because often they have a lot of walk-up traffic at the last minute. Contradictions aside, the fact remained that I had to go out to the car to tell a little boy he was not going to ride a train today. The letdown was as predictable as it was sad. We scrambled for ideas. There are lots of commuter trains in the area running to Boston. If we could connect with one, that might save the day. Thankfully smartphone technology enabled that brainstorm hope to become a reality. We headed toward Plymouth, but after further research we opted to go farther to Scituate for the best chance to make a train with time to spare. Thirty minutes later we were waiting at the station enjoying donuts with plenty of time before the 3:40 arrived. Into Boston we went. We emerged from South Station as rush hour was projecting people into it. We cleared the crowds and made our way to Quincy Market. Lobster rolls, clam chowder, and pizza recharged us. Outside we saw a familiar performance: a street performer we had seen a little over a year before in Denver. Her act, style, and looks were unmistakably the same. Time was ticking and we wanted to do a little more. We went to the North End both for me to see the fruits of the Big Expense Dig remarking how "close" the North End is to downtown now (it is amazing the effect) and to enjoy some treats from Mike's Pastry. The charm of the streets and excitement of the restaurants made me long for more time. But we didn't have it. After a moment enjoying gelato, the kids didn't want pastry, we began our trek back to South Station. Only now the overcast had turned to sprinkles which turned to drops. We had one umbrella between the four of us walking with the youngest curled under the stroller's awning. While at first we thought we could make it, the heavier rainfall was changing our minds. We ducked into a doorway for cover. By luck it was a CVS. Inside we fled for two essential items. Our unexpected detours had us in need of both an additional umbrella as well as a phone charger. Remember, outside of Boston travel is rural to rural. The combination of navigation and train planning had drained our phones. The pictures of Boston finished them off. Getting back from the train station to the main highway in the rain-filled dark was not an attractive idea sans Google Maps. At this point I was excited for the character building exercise I was about to put my kids through. We had about .7 miles to walk, much of it uphill, in significant rain, with temperatures dropping, and pushing a stroller. But they didn't even flinch. In fact they enjoyed it. My daughter protested loudly when we considered a subway ride escape. We made it to South Station. The imaginative story we concocted on the train-ride back will be the inspiration for a future post. This could have been a low-point or breaking point in the trip. Instead it was just another highlight.
• The apparent housing irrationality: I thought I had stumbled onto an obvious business mistake. On the scenic highway 6A leading into Provincetown, there are quite a few condos for rent. In the pictures below is the group that first caught my eye. They start at $200,000 a piece. Presumably the ones with ocean access are even pricier. Zillow has them at $325M. They appear to be the size of Monopoly pieces. My conclusion of an apparent business mistake came when I spotted similar real estate about a half-mile down and farther from town that was for sale--price undisclosed. The second set of properties was in shambles. Something seemed amiss. Was this a great arbitrage opportunity? Was it simply irrationality on the part of the sellers of the highly priced condo properties, et al? Land restrictions perhaps were to blame, but that didn't quite jibe unless coupled with building/renovation restraints. Materials and labor would be perhaps $50 per square foot. These were priced at approximately $2,000 per square foot. If that is the going rate, the dilapidated property and many others are free hundred dollar bills laying in the street. How could a freely functioning market let such a disequilibrium exist? My first conclusion was a poor one--that uninformed/disengaged sellers were suffering housing crisis amnesia. My second conclusion wasn't much better--that government restrictions must be preventing supply at a drastic affect. Upon more thoughtful reflection, I think I have the missing consideration: risk. While all of the prior explanations probably were at play somewhat, we should never underestimate the effect of uncertainty. This was no disequilibrium per se. Once I had properly channeled von Mises, it became clear. Markets are only in equilibrium in textbook models. In the real world markets are constantly moving toward equilibriums taking in new information and realizing new knowledge. Pricing down the quaint, efficiency condos carried a big risk of lost profit. Investing heavily in renovating the run down properties or converting raw land was far from a sure bet as well. The next sale at $325M might be the last for a long while or it might be the start of a boom. These huge unknowns implied huge bid/ask spreads--just what we found travelling highway 6A.
• I couldn't help but notice how recycling has gone cultish in New England. No sooner had I done so I saw this excellent Cato Unbound issue on environmentalism. More on that to come . . .
• Portsmouth is an awesome town worth a weekend excursion for those in the area. 
• Travelling up the shoreline in Maine was excellent. I needed a lot more time for Maine. 
• The people of New England seem to have an appreciation for summer that is more taken for granted in the south. Their summers are beautiful. And the experience of them is a truer glimpse of nostalgic (perhaps stereotypical) Americana to me that what we see in the hot Southwest. I like it.
• Two gripes related to the rental car. First, we rented a Chevy Traverse. The short review on it is it sucks. The longer review is that it seems to be a car built by a factory in 1985 who happened to know about some technological and style features demanded by people in 2013. Remember how Soviet warplanes always had a "strange" resemblance to their better designed American counterparts? In Soviet Russia, Chevy Traverses you. Second, do we really need severe tire damage gating around rental cars? This is the best way to prevent theft? How many times is a driver in a confusing situation (like the Manchester Airport's rental car return garage) backing into these compared to how often a thief is deterred by them? 
• Speaking of the airport, the Stasi have a new method of winning compliance. The TSA agent who checks IDs gave my kids TSA sticker badges. I was hoping they would refuse when offered, and they did hesitate like it was a trick--smart kids. I had to bite my tongue. I found this little propaganda infuriating. Don't make my kids an advertisement for your unwarranted policies and ridiculous behavior. 
• Let's not end on a sour note. This was a great vacation. Here are some pictures:

These are $200,000+ condos.