Trading Places

The Free Exchange blog has posted a fascinating chart from a recent Brookings paper:

The most likely explanation for the shift is a combination of demographic change and increases in commuting costs, due to growing congestion and rising petrol prices. Two questions: will the trends continue? And will the trends feed on themselves? Suburbanisation and central city depopulation were subject to strong feedback loops which generated several decades’ worth of social and geographic change, from the mid-1950s to the turn of the millenium. If suburbs become a source of domestic outmigration, will that mark a point of departure from the previous forty-year trend?

Once Patients Pay, Health Costs Will Fall

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‘The 50 Best Protest Signs of 2009′

Below are some of my favorite protests signs included in The 50 Best Protest Signs of 2009:

Quote of the Day

“Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.”

~ Frederic Bastiat

Obama continues U.S. trade war

According to the Financial Times:

The US will impose tough new duties on Chinese steel piping imports, raising tensions with its biggest trading partner and emerging geopolitical rival.

With Chinese piping imports worth $2.8bn in 2008, the case is the biggest against China brought before the International Trade Commission, a US trade body, but follows other US actions to counter a flood of goods that Washington claims China is exporting at below market prices.

Friction between the US and China has been building this year after disputes over tariffs on tyres, cars and chickens. China denounced a move by the US earlier this year to tax imports of Chinese car and light truck tyres as a “serious act of trade protectionism”.

Something is seriously wrong when China denounces protectionism and the U.S. defends it.

China kind of frightens me

Police officers stand alongside new cars provided by government to ensure public security over the new year holidays. (Photograph: Reuters)

The Unintended Consequences of ‘Green’ Traffic Lights

Oswego Police Dept./ April 6, 2009

Several U.S. cities have switched to LED traffic lights because they last longer, burn brighter and use 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. Unfortunately, “green” traffic lights also emit less heat leaving them unable to melt snow, a serious problem across the Midwest.

In April, Lisa Richter was making a left turn on green in Oswego when she was struck by a vehicle traveling the opposite direction, killing her instantly.

Authorities say Richter, 34, might still be alive if not for an unintended consequence of green technology — the LED traffic signal facing the other driver was obscured by snow. Oswego police Detective Rob Sherwood called the snow-covered energy-efficient signal “a contributing factor” in the crash.

“If the light had not been covered, I personally feel the accident would have not occurred,” he said.

“Green” light manufactures have already said they could add “a heating element to LED signals,” but that would simply diminish the signals’ energy savings.