Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The forsythia are budding, which is always exciting as it is usually one of the first explosions of color we see in the spring, but this year winter keeps on wanting to give. It’s a giver. After a relatively warm and wet, but not snowy winter, we are now expecting 16 inches of snow between today and Thursday. We’ll see! I’ve got the snowblower gassed up and wood for the stove. We’ll stay snug at the LHH.
This past Thursday and Friday I was able to take some of my students to the annual meeting of the Northern New England chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). The chapter generously sponsors my students and thanks to gifts from my program’s alumni, the Department was able to pay for them to stay the night in the hotel. The members were fabulous with my students - everyone made them feel welcome and went out of their way to give them career advice. It’s so satisfying to see so many people taking the time to mentor young folks. I just wish I had been able to convince more students to attend the meeting.
This Sunday instead of the usual FITW newsletter, I am back with my 7th FITW podcast. This week’s pod is an interview with my colleague Rachel Campagna who studies negotiations and trust. I hope you like the interview.
On to the links! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: CBC, Calgary judge rules 27-year-old can go ahead with MAID death despite father's concerns
Why: Canada has a program called Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) which is physician (or nurse practitioner) assisted suicide. The program requires someone have a “have a grievous and irremediable medical condition” in order to qualify. This article highlights the approval of MAID for an otherwise healthy 27-year old woman diagnosed only with autism and ADHD. I have been seeing many cases like this where people are getting approved for MAID who do not have a painful terminal illness, such as late-stage cancer or a terminal and undignified disease Alzheimer’s. This concerns me because New Hampshire is moving forward with it’s own physician-assisted suicide law. I actually support medically assisted death but only in terminal cases. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts - feel free to share in the comments or email me.
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What: Noahpinion, Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper
Why: The economist Michael Munger has a great phrase I have heard him use - if you want prices to fall, you have to let them rise. Higher prices attract more supply, which causes prices to fall. It’s really simple. The problem with things like housing is the government gets in the way and prevents new supply from coming on line, which prevents the price from falling. Read the whole thing.
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Watch
What: Tyler Cowen, The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (12 min)
Why: Cowen basically says China could grow rapidly over the last few decades because it was engaged in catch-up growth. Now it has reached a point where it needs more crowd-sourced investment because as catch-up growth slows, you need better allocation of investment. The Chinese government directs most investment and it has done so poorly because decision making is centralized. They have now over-invested in areas such as housing that is unneeded.
Oh - this is a 2015 video. It’s still true, and as far as I can tell, is getting worse.
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What: Peter Zeihan, The New Face of Military Technology (9 min)
Why: Zeihan points out we are at a military technology inflection point: we have a democratization of precision weapons. The democratization is happening in terms of which countries have drones (everyone) as well as who directs the drones (front-line soldiers). Both of these facts are changing the way warfare is fought.
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Listen
What: The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie, Pano Kanelos: 'Ideology Is the Death of Ideas' (68 min)
Why: Kanelos is the president of the newly founded University of Austin. It will admit its first class of students this fall. I wasn’t familiar with Kanelos, but I am familiar some of the other trustees of UATX, including Bari Weiss and Niall Ferguson, both of whom I have featured in RWL. UATX is a really exciting idea. It’s a liberal arts college founded on the idea of … well, a liberal arts college, or at least what it is supposed to be. Higher ed has become occupied by a Progressive left monoculture and it is difficult to not be a Progressive leftist and be comfortable, or even survive professionally. Liberal arts colleges should be committed to intellectual diversity, and that is not what liberal arts colleges and universities have become. Kanelos offers a vision of intellectual curiosity without the constraints of Progressive ideology. I wish UATX well and I hope it represents a turning point in higher ed.
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What: The Capitalism and Freedom in the Twenty-First Century Podcast, Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics co-author and U Chicago Econ Prof) on His Career and Decision to Retire From Academic Economics (88 min)
Why: As the title says, Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics and related books and podcasts, is retiring from academia. I’ve been a fan of Levitt for years, so it’s sad to see him leaving academia generally, and economics profession specifically. His complaint is less about ideology and more about rigidity. To be successful in academia (i.e., to get tenure), you have to publish papers in academic journals (unless you want to be the president of Harvard. I have published more papers than the former president has, and I don’t consider myself “well-published”. But she was very good at playing Progressive ideology. But I digress…). Most academic papers have little or no impact, and are often not really read even by the people who are citing them - I hear that from colleagues all the time. Publishing is important, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re someone like Levitt, you can have far more influence by producing a podcast and books for the popular press. To the degree academic papers move knowledge forward, I have to admit to being skeptical, not just because I am not fond of doing it. If no one reads what you write, you can’t be moving the needle much. The endeavor largely seems to be one of signaling more than knowledge creation. I wish Levitt well and I hope with his move that we will hear more, not less, from him.