EclectEcon

Tiff Macklem, UWO PhD, named Deputy Gubnor, Bank of Canada

Tiff Macklem, who was a teaching assistant for me back in the 1980s, has had a long, successful career with the Bank of Canada. He is presently with the Department of Finance and serves as Canada's G7 Deputy, but in July he will be moving back to The Bank as the Deputy Gubnor. He is an excellent choice. Quite frankly, I was surprised when he wasn't named Gubnor last year. Interestingly, he will replacing Paul Jenkins, who also has a degree from UWO.

For more, see this and this.

The Last Picture Show? My Exhibition at Cherryhill Library Runs from February 27th - March 31st

I don't know that it will be my last exhibition ever, but I will be putting up a photo show on Saturday afternoon at the Cherryhill Library. The show runs from February 27th - March 31st.  From the description of the show,

Over the past decade, much of the work by John Palmer has involved various geometric shapes and mathematical forms. This exhibition emphasizes those characteristics of his work.

Some of these photos involve straight-forward geometry.

But other pieces emanate from his new-found interest in cosmological puzzles, multi-verses, and their implications for both inner and outer meaning.

Some of my favourites:

• Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe
• Four Infinities?
• Rhomboid Reflections
• Kilmer's Revenge
• Joyce Kilmer? Who's She? [8-)]
• Fibonacci Scramble

I Couldn't Watch without Getting Tears in My EyesEven Reading This Moved Me

Joannie Rochette skated to a bronze medal in figure skating at the 2010 Olympics just days after her mother died suddenly and uexpectedly. Believe me, the tears were flowing in this household. This description is one of the best analyses of the figure skating event I have seen (most of the time I'm not all that keen on figure skating).

...But none of that mattered because I was too busy rooting for Joannie Rochette to make it to the podium.

The Olympics are full of manufactured feeling, but this was a dose of the real thing. Rochette's performance was moving, nuanced, and intimate. You could feel Rochette's desire to be there, with the crowd, even in the midst of her loss (the evidence of which was written all over her face every now and then). Having lost my own mother a year ago, I could imagine some of what she was experiencing, and, like everyone else watching, was struck by her grace and composure and clarity. TV commentators often go for cheap sentiment, but in this case, the words courageous and inspiring really did apply. (Too bad many of us can no longer hear them without a dollop of cynicism attached.)

Rochette's performance had a timeless patience to it and was suffused with a sense of longing. She has said her mother was very important to her skating; she even told reporters that she'd had to ask her mother to come watch her practice once a week, as a way of motivating herself. (Rochette noted, too, that it can be embarrassing for a young adult to say she needs her mom—her frankness won me over utterly.) If some of her footwork seemed less artful than Yu-Na's, the height of her jumps less stunning, so be it. She had our attention, and not merely because her mother died, but because her mother died and yet she went on to skate with a real quality of being present. You could see what this meant to her, and in that sense her mother lingered over the performance like the track of the skate on the ice. The performance was an act of ritual attentiveness, and we were lucky to witness it. At the end of her lovely, focused program—in which she offered up a number of solid jumps—she craned her neck upward and blew a kiss—to her father and, perhaps, also to her mother. Her eyes moved around the stadium almost as if she were looking for her. I couldn't help feeling that I wanted to say, as one motherless daughter to another, what millions surely thought: Surely her mother would have been proud. It's not sappy to say so.

Tears, again, as I re-read that. Very moving.

Hamas Founder's Son on Palestinian-Israeli Relationships

From Haaretz

With his memoir, Yousef hopes to send a message of peace to Israelis. Still, he admits he is pessimistic over the prospect of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas.

"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis," he said. "Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does." [emphasis added]

Gubmnt-Sanctioned Monopolies Lead to Higher Prices and Lower Quality

A recent study from Harvard* says that Canadians, on average, are paying more but getting less with their broadband internet providers [h/t Ms. Eclectic].

A new report from Harvard University says that contrary to what the CRTC states, Canada has some of the slowest and most expensive internet access in the developed world.

"Our company-level pricing study for the highest-speed offers in the countries we observe here locates all of the Canadian companies but one in the cluster with the slowest speeds and highest prices," said the report from the university's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

One reason for the higher prices and lower quality of telecommunications in general in Canada stems from the monopoly powers granted by the regulatory body, the CRTC. If we had more competition, especially for cell phone competition with broadband and for satellite competition, things would be much better.

*I view this as not necessarily positive.

The Nude Women of Curling: Better than an Insta-lanche?

My recollection of this is fuzzy, but I think the impact of people's searches for the Nude Women of Curling Calendar photos has now surpassed the phenomenal increase in traffic to this blog from when Glenn Reynolds mentioned my posting about "The Cartoonists Strike Back" on Instapundit four years ago. And the traffic at our blog devoted to curling has been more than 50% higher than it has been here for the same reason.

The Holographic Universe: An Extrapolation from Flatland?

Ever since I read some popular works for non-physicists about string theory and the possibility that there might be multi-verses and many more dimensions than just three or four to our known universe, I have been increasingly impressed by the imagination shown in the 19th century novel Flatland.

But now the concept of the universe (as we ordinarily might perceive it) as a holographic projection from more than just four or more dimensions seems like a similar mind-bending exercise [h/t Craig Newmark].

More importantly, confirming the holographic principle would be a big help to researchers trying to unite quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity. Today the most popular approach to quantum gravity is string theory, which researchers hope could describe happenings in the universe at the most fundamental level. But it is not the only show in town. "Holographic space-time is used in certain approaches to quantising gravity that have a strong connection to string theory," says Cramer. "Consequently, some quantum gravity theories might be falsified and others reinforced."

Hogan agrees that if the holographic principle is confirmed, it rules out all approaches to quantum gravity that do not incorporate the holographic principle. Conversely, it would be a boost for those that do - including some derived from string theory and something called matrix theory. "Ultimately, we may have our first indication of how space-time emerges out of quantum theory." As serendipitous discoveries go, it's hard to get more ground-breaking than that.

This is mind-blowing stuff, well beyond my ability to comprehend. And yet I find it terribly exciting.

[Reminder: If you're skeptical about string theory, or just want to learn more about some of the controversies, be sure to read Peter Woit's blog, Not Even Wrong]

When you read Flatland, just skim over the bleeding-heart socionomology of this book and revel in the mathematical imagination:

Greek T-bills: If I Had Enough Wealth...

I'd be really tempted to put at least 10% of it in Greek short-term debt. From Mahalanobis,

 

I'd be betting that Germany, the ECB, and possibly even the IMF will bail out not the Greek economy but Greece's creditors. Let's face it, Goldman made a bundle with a similar bet wrt AIG.

Whew! May We Have Our Money Back Now, Please?

I know lots of people in Canada get lots of thrills when Canadian athletes win medals at The Olympics. I don't, at least not much. And I certainly received negative utils from the "Own the Podium" campaign sponsored by the Canadian Olympic Committee. I sure hope they didn't get a whole tonne of taxpayer money to support their campaign "blueprint". As Michael said on his Facebook page,

With all due respect to the Canadian Olympic Committee, was this really ever in doubt?

And now they have admitted failure [h/t MT].

The head of the Canadian Olympic Committee told a media briefing Monday that Canada won't finish first in the medal count at the Vancouver Games.

Chris Rudge acknowledged it's unrealistic to catch the Americans.

Heading into Monday's competition, Canada is tied for fourth in the medal standings with nine. The Americans lead with 24.

Canada has spent $117 million in the last five years on Own The Podium, a blueprint to finish atop the medal standings at the Games.

It reminds me of the unhappy student a number of years ago who had written out a plan for being successful in university but just didn't have the ability to carry it out.

Anti-Semitism in Sweden (Malmo, of course)

And it is not just anti-Israel sentiment. It is both blatant and subtle, with the lack of protection of individuals, property, and freedom mirroring anti-Semitism elsewhere throughout history. I hope it isn't too late to turn things around there and elsewhere.

For details, see this.

In 2009, a chapel serving the city's 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.

... Hate crimes, mainly directed against Jews, doubled last year with Malmo's police recording 79 incidents and admitting that far more probably went unreported.

Support for Olympic Curling (and other?) Athletes

As I have watched the curling from the 2010 Olympics, I have heard several of the commentators tell us that so-and-so from such-and-such country is a full-time curler. S/he is sponsored by their gubmnt and unlike Canadian curlers does not have to have another job to support themselves. There is always a whinging, wistful tone to such pronouncements, suggesting that in Canada we should also provide gubmnt financing for our top curlers.

I find this tone and its implications offensive for two important reasons:

• It ignores the considerable sponsorship and prize money for curling that is provided by the private sector in Canada. Top curlers earn an acceptable (though probably not luxurious) living when their winnings and sponsorships are added up. This private support for curling in Canada is monumentally greater than the private support for curlers in other countries.
• If the gubmnt were to provide support for Canadian curlers, who should receive that support? Only the top teams? If so, how might the gubmnt bureaucrats determine which are the best teams? And keep in mind that the fourth best team in Alberta could well be considerably better (and more likely to win on the international level) than the best teams from some of the other provinces. Gubmnts are notoriously bad at "picking winners" in other industries, and I see no reason for them to be any more successful at picking winners in sports.

In fact, one might well argue that one of the several reasons for Canadian success in curling (aside from years of practice and inculcation) is that curlers in Canada must compete for sponsorship and prize money. Those who aren't very good don't receive much money; those who are better tend to receive more money. There is a huge incentive to improve one's game.

I doubt if these arguments would apply to all Olympic sports, but they certainly are important when discussing sponsorship for curlers (and probably most other sports for which private sponsorship and prize money are sizable).

Sex Sells: The Nude Women of Curling Calendar

Once again we have noticed a dramatic increase in traffic to this blog and to Curling, where I co-blog with Alan Adamson. With a few seconds of checking, we discovered that the higher traffic is not to read our brilliant insights, but is from people searching for the "Nude Women of Curling Calendar". Our friend, John Chilton, has sent us several recent links that mention the calendar; I guess the mention of the calendar elsewhere helps explain the sudden spurt of interest in the calendar and the searches that have led people to our sites.

We appreciate the traffic and the interest, and we appreciate the searches that people have made to find this artful work. At the same time, we hope all our visitors will look around and re-visit us for other reasons, too.

as if.

When Is Pinot Noir Just Plonk?

When it is fraudulently mislabeled. Truth in labeling is important if consumers are to trust future purchases. If they don't trust them, there were be an increased use of scarce resources as consumers spend more time and money to verify what they are buying.

Several parties in the Languedoc have been formally charged with selling millions of euros of fake Pinot Noir to Ernest & Julio Gallo for its Red Bicyclette brand. ...

The 13 defendants include executives from two wineries and five co-operatives, as well as negociant Ducasse and conglomerate Sieur d'Arques. Only the latter denied the charges.

'The executives from Sieur d'Arques maintain they were unaware the wine they were selling to their American client was not Pinot Noir, even though one of their own winemakers admitted it,' Battut told decanter.com.

'I think they were mocking the court.'

Between 2006 and 2008, Sieur d'Arques allegedly sold 135,000 hectolitres of vin de Pays d'Oc labelled Pinot Noir to E&J Gallo for €4m (£3.5m).

However the total production from those supplying the French distributors amounted to 15,000 hectolitres a year.

Battut said the case proves the defendants were knowingly involved in cutting the Pinot Noir with much less costly Merlot and Syrah, delivering the equivalent of 16m bottles, or 460 oil tankers – and making a profit.

According to French newspaper La Dépêche, one of the accused said that had the suppliers 'been asked to put Yoplait on the label, they would have' in order to satisfy customer demand. [emphasis added]

Dollars4Gold Annoyances

You all probably know the television advertisement to which I am referring. A woman opens the ad telling us how she received money from selling her old “jew-ler-y”  that was just “laying around…”

Then a man says something about sending them our unwanted and broken “jew-ry”.

I doubt if their bad grammar and mispronunciations are anti-semitic. And they sure don’t sound British. I expect they are just ignorant.

Update: In the comments, Bryan recommends this video from the Onion:

U.S. To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com

Play Tiger Bingo

Tiger Woods will be hosting a press announcement tomorrow (Friday) during which he will make a statement but accept no questions. It might be fun to play Tiger Bingo during the press session:

Set up your own bingo cards along with your friends, placing words according which ones you think he will utter first to give you a bingo.

Here is a suggested set of Tiger Bingo words or phrases:

Sorry	Golf	Sex	Father	Children
Family	Sweden	Club	Mother	Professional
Car	Island	FREE	Elin	PGA
“get on”	Addiction	Cart	Hole	“getting help”
wife	unfaithful	phone	apologize	sponsors

Green-Foolery at the Olympics

Speed-skating at the 2010 Olympics was delayed several times as the ice managers tried to deal with the new, electric ice surface refinishing machines. It turned out that these new “green” machines left grooves and puddles in the ice. Finally, authorities had the good sense to import a propane-powered standard zamboni to use for the remainder of the speed-skating events. For more, see this (h/t Eva).

And keep in mind that depending on how the electricity is generated and stored, it isn’t all that clear that electric-powered zambonis are any greener than the traditional ones.

The Ten Most Valuable Brands in the World?

I can understand that Wal-Mart is ranked as the #1 most valuable brand in the world, maybe. And Coke as the third most valuable. And maybe until recently Toyota belonged in the top 10. But I'm not so sure about the rest of them [h/t JJ]. The full list is here.

Excellent Teaching Advice

Craig Newmark posts the recommendations from him and Lee Craig. For the most part, their advice is similar to what mine would be. Craig's conclusion:

When I started teaching I thought that I was an educator who, if things went well, would at least occasionally entertain. Today I think I'm an entertainer who, if things go well, at least occasionally educates. I think the switch has made me more effective, and I'm pretty sure it's made me happier. 

Sometimes I worry that I entertain too much and educate too little. At the same time, it is clear that students seem to recall more when I use better, more frequent, and more lively examples.

The Scunthorpe Problem

What do each of the following have in common?

• Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England
• Penistone, South Yorkshire
• Lightwater, Surrey

The answer is here [h/t JJ]

The Contribution of the Olympics to the Budget Crisis in Greece

As the 2010 Winter Olympics begin, it is appropriate to recognize what a drain the Olympics can be on a small economy. Vic Matheson summarized it well at The Sports Economist:

...[T]he Olympics broke the bank. Government deficits rose every year after 1999, peaking at 7.5% of GDP in 2004, the year of the Olympics, thanks in large part to the 9 billion euro price tag for the Games. For a relatively small country like Greece, the cost of hosting the Games equaled roughly 5% of the annual GDP of the country.

Of course, the Olympics didn't usher in an economic boom. Indeed, in 2005 Greece suffered an Olympic-sized hangover with GDP growth falling to its lowest level in a decade.

While its hard to place all of the blame for the current Greek meltdown on the Olympics, the lingering debts from the Games are undoubtedly exacerbating an already difficult situation.

Reflections on the Vancouvre Olympics Opening Ceremonies

I must admit, the highlight for me was following all the comments (sort of mini-live-blogging) by my friends on Facebook during the opening ceremonies.

Interestingly, we all started out somewhat underwhelmed. But then at some point after the athletes were introduced, most of us started saying some positive things along the lines of "aesthetically pleasing", "I wish I had been able to work on the lights for this!" "I'm beginning to like this", etc. I thought Canada's native heritage was over-emphasized but at the same time didn't mind it.

I quite enjoyed the opening of the fiddling, but the conclusion of that section was too jumbled to be really pleasant. And for some bizarre reason I also really liked the lighting effects and transitions as the roller bladers performed.

I wasn't at all keen on what one FB friend referred to as the Peter Pan effects. They were hokey and unco-ordinated.

The full minute of silence was both moving and appropriate.

Too much solo singing and, although I understand why, too many and too-long speeches. Thank goodness there weren't any more than there were.

Truly unfortunate conclusion with the fourth arm not working, the complete confusion that ensued, and the anti-climactic ride through the rain by Gretzky. But the FB postings at that stage became especially funny, as you might well imagine.

He Was Just Saying Hello

Honestly, it was all just a big mistake. He wasn't flipping off a member of the provincial legislature; he was just saying hello to me and my students...

Liberal MLA Abel LeBlanc was expelled from the New Brunswick legislature Thursday for extending his middle finger at an Opposition MLA.

The member for Saint John Lancaster made the gesture at Rothesay MLA Margaret-Ann Blaney during question period.

For more information on his saying hello to my students, see this.

Addendum: When I finished posting the above information, I saw a CIBC ad on television that included a man whom I thought might have been a student of mine some years ago. To check it out, I did a Facebook search on his name. I didn't find him, but I did come across two other young men with the same name who obviously wish they had taken economics courses from me:

Changing Relative Prices and the Becker Model of Crime

According the Gary Becker's model of criminal behaviour, criminal activity will increase when its expected benefits increase relative to the expected costs. Similarly, if the expected benefits of crime fall (relative to the expected costs), people will engage in less crime.

And that is precisely what the data show in England [h/t MA]:

Burglaries have dropped as criminals turn to street muggings because domestic electrical items are now so cheap they are not worth stealing, according to a new report.

Why risk breaking into a home to steal a microwave or DVD player if DVD players sell new for $30 or less and microwaves sell for $60 or less at Wal-Mart? And wide-screen tvs are pretty cheap, too. It's far more lucrative to mug people, steal their smartphones or iPods, and resell those items.

Mr Treadwell [University of Leicester's Department of Criminology] found that there were 1.28 million domestic burglaries in England and Wales in 1999 - almost one in ten crimes recorded by The British Crime Survey.

But in 2008/2009 there were 744,000 burglaries - a fall of 536,000....

Mr Treadwell said: ''While we might have seen a decline in some types of crime, we have seen a rise in other forms of criminal activity, particularly young people who seem to be mugging one another.

''While DVD players for example, got cheaper, certain consumer items became smaller and were very, very expensive and sought after and so the latest mobile phone, or the latest ipod, which people carry about them, have become targets for robbers.''

 Treadwell attributes the change to "cheap Chinese labour". Perhaps this means that another benefit of increased globalization and Wal-Mart-ization is a reduction in crime rates?

Moral Hazard Anyone?

If the European Central Bank does indeed bail Greece out, what's to stop Portugal, Spain, and Italy from expecting similar bailouts. A reasonable perspective is

The easing worries about Greece came on scattered reports about plans for a rescue. Even if the country's financial wounds are bandaged, however, investors will still face questions about other strapped European countries.

Lapsang Souchong Tea: "the aroma of a freshly-tarred road at 100 yards."

Regular readers of EclectEcon will know that I have a thing for lapsang souchong tea, which I have described as "The LaPhroaig of Teas" because of its peaty, smoky flavour and aroma. It seems I am not the only person who really likes lapsang souchong tea. From Roger Ebert's blog at the Sun-Times [h/t Smitty]:

... I walked down Regent to St. James' Park, strolled around the ponds, came up by Prince Charles' residence, climbed St. James Street and returned the full length of Jermyn. I ordered tea. It consisted of tomato, cucumber and butter sandwiches, which the English are unreasonably fond of; ham and butter sandwiches, which I am unreasonably fond of with Colman's English mustard; and cookies -- or, excuse me, biscuits. The tea again was freshly brewed. I never saw a tea bag on the premises. I'd ordered as always Lapsang Souchong, which has the aroma of a freshly-tarred road at 100 yards. I find this aroma indescribably stirring. When I smell it I am walking through the twilight in Cape Town to visit my friend Brigid Erin Bates. [emphasis added]

I think my description is better.

It Is OK for Teachers to Disagree with Some Political Views But Not Others? Guess which...

From FoxNews (Europe), [h/t BenS]:

A British teacher was fired from his job after complaining that some of his Muslim students were celebrating the Sept. 11 hijackers as "heroes," the Daily Mail reported.

Nicholas Kafouris, 40, who taught at East London's Bigland Green Primary School for 12 years, is suing the school for racial discrimination after he was allegedly forced from his post because he would not tolerate the remarks of his students.

Kafouris claims members of his class, some as young as eight years old, openly praised Islamic extremists in his classroom, hailing the terrorists behind the attacks of Sept. 11 as "martyrs," the Daily Mail reported.

Kafouris alleges the students told him they "want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up," and "the Christians and Jews are our enemies, you too because you're a Christian," according to the Daily Mail.

Tantrums by the Elitist Interventionists

I was young, once, many years ago. Back then, like many of my cohort, I believed we had solutions to all the world problems and should be allowed to rule the world. But then I saw what happened as people with power didn't do the things we thought they should; I recognized the dangers of putting too much political power in the hands of what I have been referring to as "elitist interventionists".

Elitist interventionists don't much care about democracy. They simply have the hubris to "know" they are right and to think they should, by dint of their education and status, have the power to implement what they "know" is right.

One of my favourite writers, Arnold Kling says it very well here, where he uses the term "Progressives" to refer to that group I call "elitist interventionists" (I often add Ivy-League, but that ignores so many others). An excerpt [please note the sarcasm in the second paragraph]:

[T]he ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China's autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so On the one hand, the villains are a small minority in the Senate. Or maybe the villains are the incoherent majority of the people.

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.

I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Victor Davis Hanson Says There Is No Middle East "Crisis"

A good summary:

We are inundated with constant talk of the “Middle East crisis” and “the need to restart the peace process.”

Why? Is there a new Goldstone report on Tibet? Are the American people sleepless over the divided city of Nicosia? The brutal Turkish occupation of Greek Cyprus? The rough Russian annexation of Ossetia? The callous treatment of Muslims by the Chinese?

Of course not. A noble lie is that there is a “Mideast crisis” at all. “Occupied land” is not unusual. Palestinians are no more refugees than Cypriots or Tibetans. The IDF is far more moral a military force than the Russian or Chinese or Turkish army.

The reality? Hating Israel as a unique aggressor is simply predicated on five unspoken truths: 1) rampant anti-Semitism (one can hate Jews by the loftier notion of being “anti-Zionist”; 2) fear of radical Islamic terrorists; there are apparently no radical Tibetans hijacking planes or blowing up Madrid train stations due to Spanish ties with communist China; 3) oil, oil, oil. The Cypriots cannot enlist the Greeks to withhold 500 billion barrels of oil in the Aegean from world markets. If such a fantasy were true, Nicosia would be on the front pages; 4) Israel is Western, like the U.S., and in a most un-Western neighborhood, so hating Israel is a mechanism of hating the U.S. on the cheap; 5) demography. If there were a billion-person Orthodox community energized by a half-billion Greek-speakers, we most certainly would wish to solve the “Cyprus crisis.”

[h/t AlanP]

Drinking Hoppy Beer Can Help Strengthen Bones

... but the effect likely has a low mean, a negative quadratic term, and a high variance.  At least beer wasn't lumped into this study warning of increased risk of pancreatic cancer from drinking fizzy drinks.

    I'll drink to these studies (but I don't really attach much significance to them).

[h/t JJ]

Enviro-nazis and Garbage Inspection

Among my various FaceBook friends there has been considerable discussion of the "Green Police" superbowl ad:

The ad hit pretty close to home. In our community, we are now required to use clear garbage bags so the garbage collectors can examine our garbage to make sure we are recycling instead of just dumping recyclables into the garbage. (But let me add that I have not heard of a single instance where a curbside garbage collector has actually looked at a garbage bag and rejected it because it contained recyclables. There's a pretty serious principal-agent problem here since the garbage collectors are competitive profit-oriented private businesses who have an incentive to keep us happy and collect whatever we put out.)

The requirement for clear garbage bags came into effect largely because the landfill site had been filling up faster than expected, and for some reason the proprietors of the site did not choose to raise  the tipping fee at the dump site again.

Interesting ramifications:

• People objected to loss of privacy, so we are now all allowed to use one small "personal" opaque bag inside a clear garbage bag for "personal" disposables. 
• People responded so much that there is now concern that the dump site operator is losing money. Duh. They couldn't see this coming? Anyway, I find this ironic and amusing.

Recall that in this town we pay $2/bag for garbage pickup and there is competition between two different private services to pick up our garbage. Raising the tipping fees led to a price increase from $1. I am puzzled as to why tipping fees could not have been raised to accomplish this same result and meanwhile reflect the true opportunity costs of using the dump site.

I'm waiting for the enviro-nazis, akin to those in the ad/video, to go along the curbs some day, examining everyone's garbage, and warning those of us who might have put some recyclables into the garbage. I can imagine the local weekly doing a story along these lines. I can also imagine my reaction, especially when the recycling person rejects something that the garbage nazis think is recyclable and I'm caught in the middle.