First.  From the NY Times today: “At the same time that high crop prices are prompting farmers to expand into millions of acres of land once considered unsuitable for farming, Congress is considering expanding a federal insurance program that reimburses farmers for most losses or drops in prices.”  (See the article here.)  Yes, the proposal (at least in its current form) would get rid of another expensive program in the process, but why do they  think its a good idea to privatize profits and socialize losses?  How do they not understand that this will contribute to raising prices in farm land? (Farmland bubble?)  Perhaps we should get rid of all government guaranteed student loans and provide college degree insurance.  You pay for college, but if you don’t finish or can’t get a job with the degree (or a job that pays above some threshold), you collect the insurance.  Yeah, that’ll work.  Sure it will.  Trust me.  It couldn’t possibly have any negative outcomes.

That, I gather was preaching to the choir.  So now something more people here will disagree about.  Also from the NY Times today: “Residents of San Diego and San Jose voted overwhelmingly to cut the pension benefits they give city workers. And they did so in a way governments traditionally avoid: moving to cut not just the benefits of future hires, but also those of current city workers.”  (See the article here.)  I’m sorry, but though I understand that the contracts with unions were in some sense illegitimate (they should not have been agreed to in the first place), breaking the contracts and leaving people without the income they came to expect (legitimately came to expect, in fact, since they likely would not have been in a position to consider how the government should not be able to agree) seems to me decidedly wrong.  Change the future contracts, sure.  But unilaterally changing contracts signed long ago?  No.  For more, see this, my first post on BHL.

Third.  On a different note (sort of), a student pointed me to this (thanks Chris!).  It might be interesting if CNN got some responses from readers (or writers) of this blog.