ISN'T THAT WHAT THE TILT-A-WHIRL MAKES YOU DO? SCSU Scholars might have identified the most infelicitous four-letter department identifier. (They also suggest the new course is the academic equivalent of a Tilt-a-Whirl.)

THE MIDDLE CLASS SQUEEZE. New source of Company Mail Apt. 11d has a number of posts on related topics. One, taking issue with Daniel Drezner post on inequality (and referencing inter alia The Two-Income Trap (see also here and here) comments on how costly downtown housing is. New York Deputy Fire Chief Richard Picciotto mentions in his Last Man Down (details or compare prices) the long commute he and his firefighter colleagues and other civil servants face owing to the high housing prices closer to work. A caller to the Rush Limbaugh program made a similar remark about commuting distances in California owing to housing prices, one factor contributing to the recall. Automobile registration fees are either higher or proposed to be higher. (The registration fee increase takes effect October 1.) There is an anomaly here (another of those nagging small problems?,) namely that housing prices diminish with distance from the central business district in proportion to transportation costs, such that a resident ought to be indifferent between paying to live next to the office and walking or living at a distance and commuting. (This version, which perversely closes whenever I open another window, introduces the pi-r-squared notion that the amount of land available at any distance increases with the square of the distance, which has to enter into the bid rent function in a way -- perhaps bigger houses??)

There might be more to the puzzle than meets the eye. Professor Laura correctly notes that there is a price premium to houses in better school districts, which ought to be part of the bid-rent curve. But a colleague active in local politics tells me something more: in the sprawling parts of Greater DeKalb (west and northwest Chicagoland, to those of you east of the Fox River) the zoning boards sometimes mandate larger lots on parcels recently annexed or zoned for development, in order to reduce the strain on school districts and the water system. (There is a whole line of research on whether or not suburban development pays sufficient taxes to provide for the additional government services, which I leave to the reader to find as an exercise.)

Professor Laura also comments here and here on second-wave feminism's effect on women and child-rearing, linking to an Atlantic review of Arlie Hochschild's Commercialization of Intimate Life (details or compare prices) that Milt's File commends, potentially for other reasons. The subtext in all three of the Apt. 11d posts I mention remains the middle class squeeze (I think, more accurately, the yupscale squeeze,) and I offer a bit of related reading. Cornell's Robert Frank wrote Luxury Fever, a lament for the relentless raising of the bottom-end product (we'll argue another day about whether that's profligacy or progress -- the book details and price comparison are enough.) In the course of writing the book he suggested that something along the lines of sumptuary laws or consumption taxes might be of use. U.S.A. Weekend's Jean Chatzky offers a different set of suggestions. I can relate to this: "I grew up in Wisconsin, the daughter of academics. We lived in a modest house on a street filled with kids. Thinking back, there were lots of signs that money wasn't plentiful during most of my adolescence. For entertainment, my parents and their friends had potlucks and bridge nights, alternating houses." She doesn't mention pitching a tent on vacation trips, or five people sharing one bathtub and one toilet. Our neighbors perceived my folks as rich because we had mostly new furniture (not counting the stuff my parents built themselves, or restored) and we kids got some new school clothes each year. No air-conditioned land barge (the SUV can only tow a yacht, it cannot be one) or private bath -- not to mention hot tub -- in Mom and Dad's bedroom or sitting room nobody sat in. Did I mention we were home-schooled? If you check the Milwaukee Public School records you might think otherwise, but we were all reading at the age of three or four, and I knew more computation tricks before I started first grade than I did by the time they finished with me. (Rediscovered most of them, Allah be praised.)

The final 11-d post of interest is a from-the-belly view of work life. I repeat ... there are gains from trade in coming up with alternatives to the tournament treadmill, we will pay you a lot but we will own you, and I bet a mandatory 35 hour work week isn't the quickest way to discover them. (Summer has passed, and with it the "early Friday getaway" rush hours on the expressways leading to Greater DeKalb (or more suitably, toward Wisconsin) but I bet there's some give to the treadmill around the edges, not all of it for family emergencies.)

SUPERINTENDENT'S NOTE: The above post has been revised for content and punctuation on September 30.

FUHGEDDABOUT CORE EQUIVALENCE. Knowledge Problem (thanks for the visitors) finds Newsweek coverage of experimental economics. I like this: "In a bout of insomnia one night, Smith concocted a plan to demonstrate this notion by putting his students through a trading game. Buyers were given a maximum price they could pay, and sellers were given a minimum they could demand, for an unspecified good. Classical theory said that with such imperfect knowledge of the market, players could never agree on the best price. To Smith’s shock, the unwitting buyers and sellers agreed on the best price —after a few rounds of bidding. Smith was convinced he’d fouled up and kept running experiments to prove the old assumptions correct. He couldn’t. The field of experimental economics was born." In fact, principles students can figure out this equilibrium fairly fast. Start with an ordinary pack of cards. Retain only the numbered cards (2-10). Shuffle and deal. Inform the holders of red cards that they are buyers who cannot pay more than the number on their cards. The holders of black cards are sellers who must accept at least the number on their cards. Their mission is to find a trading partner with whom they can negotiate a mutually agreeable price. By the second round, the holders of the red 2s and 3s want a redraw, and the holders of the black 9s and 10s realize the comparative advantage fairy has been unkind to them. By the third and fourth round the holders of the red 4s and 5s or black 7s and 8s begin to have similar thoughts.

There is a complete set of instructions for this activity in an issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives from the early 1990s.

This statement by Vernon Smith's colleague Charles Plott is a good insight into the maturation of economists: "Economists tend to become economists so that they can think about big things, like international trade relations and the global economy. The profession simply wasn’t prepared to think about these simple ideas." Perhaps not at the time, but the lure of the nagging small problems, and the insights gleaned from working them through, contribute greatly to the development of economics.

CAMPUS VISITS. Positives and negatives, from both the student and university viewpoints.

NOTICE OF LINE RELOCATION. Crescat Sententia have moved (and promptly weigh in on viewpoint diversity.) (Hat tip: Ox Blog.)

SECOND SECTION: (What, no Fourth 28 tonight?) Jacob at Volokh Conspiracy has an extended post that motivates the Crescat Sententia post referenced above; note in particular the many possible reasons an academician might have to blame "system bias" for personal failure. The reason to pursue an academic career in the first place is to answer the calling, the priestly concept of "vocation" might not be far off, and the day to stop pursuing it is the day it stops being fun.

CHEAPER STEEL MAKES YOU STRONG. Cal Pundit comments on this coverage (use your Chicago Tribune passcodes.) The Chicago Sun-Times urges ending the steel tariffs. You saw it here first (April 29 entry, in case engineering work is in progress on the archives.)

SOCIALIZED AS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Joanne Jacobs links approvingly to a proposal from a former schoolteacher for the return of some of the proper forms to education. Perhaps that sort of socialization would prevent the emergence of this moral dilemma recently observed on the Chicago L.

A TITLE IX FIDDLE? Cranky Professor presents the distinction between "cheerleading team" and "spirit squad." (For all the good it did Maryland, still on probation, still a source of hilarious administrators' actions.

STOP US IF YOU CAN. No shock and awe air campaign for the Badgers.

DISPLAY SIGNALS AND RUN AS SECOND 28. Duty calls. Perhaps more posts this evening. For now, scroll down, dear reader, as there are updates to several of yesterday's posts.

SEWER SOCIALISM. Ninety-two more potential bad guys off the street, information leading to the arrest of murderers of Coalition troops gathered, and 200 recently-trained domestic policemen working with U.S. military police in the roundups. Details in this report, which also details the Ba'ath party response to people who sell videotapes that question their authority. On the way to work, I heard a radio news broadcast to the effect that some Iraqis are being paid $3 a day to shovel the streets and load the shovelings onto Department of Public Works trucks that now operate in all parts of Baghdad. Hence the title of my post. It is not a pejorative; rather it is a tribute to the long-past administrations of Milwaukee, where there were at one time lots of good parks, music instruction in the schools, and twice-weekly trash pickup. The last big-city Socialist mayor was Milwaukee's Frank P. Zeidler, who still lives in Milwaukee. On his watch, the city had a triple-A bond rating. (What is less well known is that Mayor Zeidler is among the founding members of the Model Railroad Club of Milwaukee (scroll down, and discover some famous names in model railroading among the founders.)) At Cold Spring Shops, the Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow O Scaler."

A BLOW TO RAILWAY PRESERVATION. From the Interurbans list on Yahoo.com comes news of a fire at the National Capital Trolley Museum. The local papers have no online coverage yet, nor does The Magazine of Railroading. Losses include "a recently and completely restored Johnstown streetcar, a Washington PCC, a Washington single truck sweeper (operable), a Washington work car (operable), and some equally irreplaceable European cars. The Johnstown cars is just a skeleton, the carbody of the PCC is warped and twisted, the wood cars were reduced to warped frames."

National Capital is an interesting place to visit, as its operating tracks bridge Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, and the museum has limited acquisitions to streetcars.

UPDATE: Baltimore Sun coverage, a statement from the Museum, and some photographs provided by Museum member Paul Henry, quoted in the original post. Sources: members respectively of the Yahoo traction and O Scale Trains discussion lists.

SHIPPING TO CHIEF WIGGLES. Dynamist posts useful information for shipping to APO addresses. She wishes all L'Shana Tova. (In this vein, I heard the most interesting arrangement of "Deck the Halls" in a minor key with shtetl-style fiddling on a radio program Friday afternoon.)

PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE PASTA! "Don't discount the costumed Italian sausage (really) parading on Waveland Ave., who carried a sign that said, 'Brewers do their part to help Cubs.'" I am not making this report up (as Dave Barry or Anna Russell would put it.)

NINE RAIDS, 1,517 PATROLS, 74 POTENTIALLY BAD GUYS OFF THE STREET. More here, including evidence of advice from the locals, and evidence of scratch-building supplies being gathered to improvise weapons.

THE WAR AT HOME. David Maraniss has written a new book on two days in October 1967, in Madison and in Vietnam. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel offers some excerpts today. More Monday and Tuesday, by which time I will locate the usual information about the book.

POSSIBLE SOURCE OF COMPANY MAIL? Butterflies and Wheels have a number of think-pieces up on various controversies of interest to the Superintendent.

IN DEFENSE OF DIVERSITY TRAINING. This is the best the Diversity Boondoggle can come up with to rebut this?

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE. Eugene at Volokh Conspiracy recommends Jonathan Rauch's Forget Haves And Have-Nots. Think Do's And Do-Nots, a roundup of recent research on poverty. Rauch quotes Brookings's Isabel Sawhill: "If people did a few things -- graduated from high school, got a job, and delayed having a baby until they married -- our analysis shows that would eliminate a huge chunk of poverty in this country, and that would be far more effective than anything we could feasibly do through the welfare system alone." That's consistent with what we understood thirty years ago. What is encouraging is that sociological research comes up with similar findings.

Or, in bumper sticker language: It Takes a Village. If the Village has all the redeeming features of a hippie commune combined with the Projects, good luck.

THE MODAL VOTER THEOREM. Randy at Volokh Conspiracy notes the absence of gridlock in the quick Congressional enlargement of the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to keep the Do Not Call list on schedule. "Perhaps genuinely popular legislation is not so hard to pass after all? Perhaps the other stuff is harder to enact because significant segments of the population oppose them? Perhaps the country is genuinely divided ideologically and each side is blocking the favored reforms of the other? Perhaps even genuinely popular constitutional amendments would be swiftly enacted as well despite what we hear about how impossible it is? But perhaps the ones that get proposed more often involve ramming something down someone's throat and our system makes that harder to do? But then again perhaps this is just a fluke and does not mean much of anything." Quite so. Sometimes the median voter is also the modal voter. My guess is that relatively few people welcome having their dinner interrupted. As Chicago Report puts it, "In the case of Do Not Call legislation, the total lack of opposition would seem to indicate the overall reputation of telemarketers as the lowest species of human existence. Thus, the cost of their extinction to the society at large is perceived so minuscule, and the benefits so great, that there is effectively no opposition. Right or wrong, it sure sends a message to anyone planning to make their living bugging the hell out of people."

(On the other hand, are most people so out of tune to the preferred private times of the members of their social circle that spontaneous action couldn't defeat the telemarketers? Imagine everybody turning their telephone ringers off from 5.30 pm to 7 pm, or ignoring all rings and letting them go to voice mail or the answering machine.)

Some other times, there is a median voter, but the median might best be represented as the mean and mode of a bell curve, in which case there are gradations of agree or disagree that have to be on board to get a majority that includes the mean. In such cases a compromise of some kind is possible (does that include the exemption for charitable and political fundraising callers?) that will make people who strongly agree (because it has been watered down) or strongly disagree (because it is there) with the compromise angry. That compromise includes people whose positions are 1.5 standard deviations or less from the mean, assuming such a metric is possible. Perhaps that's why the angriest delegates in the House are those from districts with a lot of housing projects or a lot of religious fundamentalists, moving from left to right.

The hardest problem arises when preferences have two modes. That's where Chicago Report's worst case scenario really bites: "As the stakes increase so does the controversy. So ultimately, for important changes to be made, legislation has to [be] 'rammed down the throat' of the opposition. Gridlock serves the vital function of requiring the winning side to be a little more than just 51%." The stakes are likely to be higher (or in politicized departments with fighting factions, where the stakes by definition are small) and the opportunities to arrange a compromise that includes 51% of the votes diminish.