California has some of the strictest insurance regulations in the country. It is the only state where insurers are not allowed to base their rate hikes on catastrophe models — forward-looking calculations of risk — or the rising cost of reinsurance premiums, according to both Zimmerman and the Department of Insurance. Under current regulations, insurers are only allowed to use catastrophe models to calculate rates for earthquake insurance. One proposed change under the Sustainable Insurance Strategy would expand that to wildfire risk, as well as the risk of post-earthquake fires an ..read more

Serious arguments, economic and moral, exist to justify the state (the central and sovereign apparatus of government). Serious objections to these arguments also exist. It is interesting to note that most people, including most economists, ignore both kinds. I thought about this when I read the funny factoid reported by the Wall Street Journal about the king’s horses running amok in London this morning (“King’s Horses Run Amok in London, Escaping Monarch’s Birthday-Parade Practice,” April 24, 2024): Several of the king’s horses and a few of his men sparked chaos on this capital’s streets Wedn ..read more

Wisconsin comedian Charlie Berens has a great routine about 4-way stops in the Midwest. Midwest drivers are so nice and obsequious that they’ll endlessly wave the other guy on at the stop sign, even when they were there first and have the right-of-way. Like all good comedy, it’s funny because it’s at least a little bit true. As a small-town Midwesterner, I can vouch for the authenticity of the joke. In the past month I have had three separate Midwest stop sign incidents, in which the other driver, having the right-of-way, attempts to yield and wave me on, out of turn. Now I’m a proud Midwester ..read more

Political and moral philosophy are related to economics, and even less stealthily to the older political economy. The economist cannot recommend a government policy without making or accepting a value judgment consistent with who is going to be helped and who will be harmed. At least, he must believe that the policy falls within the ethically acceptable functions of government. Some of the great economists of our time have also been great political philosophers. I am especially thinking of Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, and Anthony de Jasay. The latter is not as well known as the two others ..read more

It seems obvious that moral artificial intelligence would be better than the alternative. Can we make AI’s values align with ours, and would we want to? This is the question underlying this conversation between EconTalk host Russ Roberts and psychologist Paul Bloom. Setting aside (at least for now) the question of whether AI will become smarter, what benefits would a moral AI provide? Would those benefits be outweighed by the potential costs? Let’s hear what you have to say! Please share your reactions to the prompts below in the comments. As Russ says, we’d love to hear from you.   ..read more

Thomas Sowell frequently emphasizes the importance of thinking beyond the immediate and obvious impact of some economic policy and thinking through the larger implications. He actually wrote an entire book dedicated to this idea – Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. A similar and useful exercise to evaluate an idea is to really try to work out not what will unfold next, but what that idea, if true, should imply for the present situation. Here are two common examples where this would come in handy. First, some people believe that all the value a business generates for consumers and s ..read more

In recent years, the Republican Party has been drifting toward authoritarian nationalism. The globalists within the party are moving toward retirement, and younger people who are deeply skeptical of the previously dominant neoconservative wing of the party are replacing them. I am also skeptical of neoconservativism, but do not believe that authoritarian nationalism is the answer. Consider the sort of rhetoric that is becoming increasingly widespread: Republican leaders in Congress are torn over what to do with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after the congresswoman spoke at a weekend event organ ..read more

  A commenter on a recent Pierre Lemieux post wrote: The only shot Trump has (and had) at the Presidency is due to the arcane system used in America to elect Presidents (why not use direct presidential elections like the rest of the world? … it is so much clearer and easy to understand! … even France abandoned electoral colleges in 1962!!) The commenter could be right about the presidency of other countries. I don’t know enough to know. But if he extends it to Prime Ministers, he’s wrong. The Parliamentary system I grew up with, as a Canadian, eh, is one in which the Prime Minister is t ..read more

Would an AI simulation of your dead loved one be a blessing or an abomination? And if you knew that after your own death, your loved ones would create a simulation of you, how would that knowledge change the way you choose to live today? These are some of the questions psychologist Paul Bloom discusses with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts as we stand on the threshold of digital immortality. (0 COMMENTS ..read more

Five Fiscal Truths by Ryan Bourne, Cato at Liberty, April 18, 2024. Excerpt: The recorded federal deficit from 2023, at $1.7 trillion (or 6.3 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP), was 23 percent higher than in 2022, but even that was pushed artificially downward by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recording the Supreme Court’s cancellation of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan as a one‐​off spending cut. The underlying figure was around $2 trillion, or 7.4 percent of GDP. This is easily the largest deficit recorded outside wars or acute emergencies since the Great Depression of ..read more