Your Mom

I got a cheap iPod touch thanks to a supply shift that drove down prices. And they say classical economics is dead.

I use it to make notes, like this gem:

Tax: Do you usually sleep on your back?

Steve: ...

Tax: I usually sleep on my side.

Steve: I usually sleep with your mom.

True story.

Assorted Links

1. Good analysis of Rand Paul.

2. Are the Republicans governed by extermists or corporations? There is some tension in these theses.

3. Big story only black people are allowed to speak the truth about. Perhaps that, not racism, is why it get too little press.

4. "the fastest-growing group . . . are men who self-identify as 'mostly straight' as opposed to labels like 'straight', 'gay', or 'bisexual." I don't know what to make of that.

5. Landsburg on psychiatry. I don't think this is fair. It would be like economists asking the public what should count as a recession or unemployment, or biologists asking what should count as life.

6. Cell phone banking in Haiti. I wish I knew more about M-PESA.

7. Is Chinese education as great as everyone thinks? No.

8. I haven't kept up with financial regulation but I liked this summary

9. "Horizontal" health care programs were all the rage a few year ago. Now a Gates Foundation study says they don't work. I'm a little skeptical of the methods based on this AP report. Easterly weighs in.

10. A high school in MA is forcing every student to buy a MacBook.

11. Maureen Dowd wrote a good column for the first time in her life.

12. Ezra Klein on the word "bailout"

13. "Good" professors are easy professors.

14. More debate on whether the Internet is good for you

Gawker vs. Apple

I'm a little late to this story, but there are a couple important points that have been glossed over. This article makes the case for why Gawker is wrong.

I understand the moral calculus they used. We all feel intuitively that picking up something that someone else left behind is not as bad as seizing it by force, stealth or deception. But in the eyes of the law, it's still stealing. And buying stolen goods is a crime. In those rare cases where a journalist commits a crime and receives the benefit of prosecutorial discretion, it's usually because he can demonstrate there was a compelling public interest at stake. There is no such interest here. The only parties who benefited from Gizmodo's story are Gawker Media and Apple's competitors.

First, Bercovici commits the Cardinal Sin of Ethics: he equates legal with moral. As he says, he understands that they used a moral calculus with intuitive appeal, but "in the eyes of the law" what they did it wrong. QED.

Second, he's just wrong on the last point. Apple's main argument is that by publishing the story, sales of the remaining stock of iPhone 3GS will be depressed, costing them millions. That is probably true. But if people change their preferences when they get new information that means the consumers benefited, and--importantly--consumers gain more than Apple losses. Asymmetric information, like Apple knowing that the new phone is in development while consumers remain ignorant, causes markets the break down and become inefficient. Giving consumers more information shifts things closer to a perfect market and improves welfare. Pretending only Gawker benefited is silly, and the writer should know better--especially since he writes for a business news website.

Apple can argue that the story caused bad PR, but it would be a hard case to make. The story generated buzz about one of their products. The bad PR is a product of their aggression against Gawker, which is a choice they made.

I agree that Gawker "stole" the phone, in legalese. I agree they did it for personal gain--the stories were going to be a big hit and they did their due diligence writing good ones. They also hurt someone's career in the process of improving their own, not exactly, a heroic deed. But the world is probably better off for them having written the stories.