Medicine as a public good
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2d ago
Medicine is unlike most other goods and services in the extent to which it has important positive externalities – that is, benefits for people outside of the transaction, who are not the providers or consumers. (Of course it has negative externalities as well, including carbon emissions and notably, a huge quantity of plastic waste.) A straightforward positive externality is infectious disease control. Preventing or curing infectious diseases prevents them from being transmitted to others. This is an immense benefit to society that goes far beyond the direct value to people who are vaccinate ..read more
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Sunday Sermonette: Weird Theology
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4d ago
Now we say goodbye to Asaph, and start what was evidently originally a new hymnal. "Gittith" is probably a musical instrument, but it could be a tune. The meaning is unknown. Anway, whenever these were composed, they aren't monotheistic. In psalm 84, Yahweh is the "God of gods" in verse 7, and otherwise the "Lord of hosts," referring to an assemblage of god over which Yahweh is supreme.  Psalm 85 is another of those that refers to some unspecified time in which the nation is afflicted and God seems to have withdrawn his favor. It does not seem to refer to the Babylonian exile, however, b ..read more
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Medical Economics
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4d ago
Sorry for missing a couple of days, been bizzy. Anyway, to continue with our trashing of the "discipline" of economics (which is actually more a branch of theology than a science), it should be obvious that Medicine exists in a world even less like Economics 101 than most industries. To begin with, while our basic needs for food, clothing and shelter are predictable and roughly similar for everyone, our need for medical services is largely unpredictable, and it varies radically from person to person and time to time. Some people go for decades without really needing any at all, although there ..read more
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Wednesday Bible Study: QAnon
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1w ago
Psalms 81 and 82 are pretty standard fare. 81 is written for a specific observance, and it reminds the Israelites that they are God's chosen people and to be faithful. 82 calls on God to punish the wicked and reward the righteous -- as if he wouldn't do it unless we asked.  Psalm 83, however, is getting a whole lot of attention right now, from people who probably don't read this blog and who you probably are barely aware of. It describes a broad alliance against Israel, bent on its destruction, and calls on God to exterminate them, referring to the massacres of the Midianites in Numbers 3 ..read more
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Mark your ideas to market
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1w ago
That means that if you make a claim about what is possible or inevitable, you need to check it against reality. Here is reality. (I've put this graphic up before, but apparently some people have a short memory ..read more
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Distributive justice
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1w ago
One last point about Economics 101 may be the most important, is likely to be overlooked or even denied in the U.S. today. Economists claim they can show that if all their assumptions are true – perfect information, willing sellers and willing buyers, perfect competition, no externalities – the hypothetical free market will create what is called a Pareto optimum. That is a situation in which no person can be made better off without making someone else worse off. This is the basis of the claim that the free market allocates resources “efficiently.” But there can be a Pareto optimum in which e ..read more
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Goodness!
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2w ago
The essential, first-order or pure concept of "public goods" is whatever we benefit from that is "non-excludable" and "non-rivalrous." That means you can use it without paying for it, and if you use it, it's still there for others. An example, at least for the time being, is the oxygen in the air. Back in the good old paleolithic, there was a lot more of that. Basically, the land and the water and the plants and animals were there for the taking, and there was usually plenty so rivalry was uncommon. Of course, this only worked within your own tribe -- sometimes people of different tribes tried ..read more
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History Lesson
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2w ago
Psalm 78 is, I believe, the third longest psalm. It's also one of three so-called "long history" psalms. It basically recounts events from Exodus and Numbers, in chronologically confused order, and then skips ahead to touch on the establishment of the reign of David. The listing of the plagues of Egypt does not exactly correspond to the canonical version of Exodus we have today -- there are no caterpillars or frost in Exodus. This may just be a fanciful addition, or it may be that it draws on a lost version of the story. Once again, keep in mind that there were no printing presses and any docu ..read more
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The worst assumption of all
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2w ago
 Before getting back to Econ 101, I won't keep you in suspense. Aaliyah Edwards didn't play yesterday, so Auriemma had only 7 players suited up, which meant that Ice Brady had to play 40 minutes. The most minutes she has played in any game previously is 14. Ashlyn Shade also played 40 minutes, while Bueckers and Muhl played the entire game until Geno pulled them in garbage time. No problem. Marquette scored zero points in the last 14 minutes of the game, which means the box score shows a bagel for the fourth quarter. UCONN won 58-29. Apparently there's precedent for zero points in a quart ..read more
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But I digress
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2w ago
The UCONN women's basketball team has been short-handed all season because five players are out with season-ending injuries. So they've lot some game to the top teams but they've still managed to be undefeated in Big East conference play. Yesterday they faced Providence College in the second round of the Big East tournament. PC's strategy was to beat the crap out of UCONN center Aaliyah Edwards, which the referees for some reason allowed them to do, causing Geno Auriemma nearly to have a stroke on sideline. The assistant coaches had to put him in a double arm bar to keep him off the court. Pro ..read more
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