Asymmetrical Information

Can't see Mom spending 1.5 billion on convincing you to get married. In fact, if you gave Mom 1.5 billion, I don't think she'd be nagging you about much again.

If all it takes is a $1.5B marriage proposal, uh, excuse me while I go hit up Bill Gates for a loan.

Should we start picking baby names? No, you're right, that's rushing things a bit.

Ah, but think of the kind of wedding you could put on for $1.5B....... :-)

Hey, fro 1.5B, I'll get divorced and REmarried.

On the other hand, I have a feeling it doesn't work that way.

Darn it!

The faceless federal bureaucracy has been a howling success in encouraging people to have children without getting married (and supporting them and their children when they do), as well as in encouraging people who are married and have children not to stay married. Why assume that the same bureaucracy could not successfully encourage marriage before childbearing and/or fidelity, if given the opportunity. Of course, it might ultimately take as much money as is now spent supporting unwed mothers and their children, which is a bunch more than $1.5 billion. However, it might end up being a bargain, net-net.

So how many single people are there with mothers in the USA? A million? 3 Million? So if there are 3 million that is $500 each, about enough for budget wedding photograpy. I'll bet your Mum would spend HEAPS more than $500 each for a wedding. I know mine would spend that much in airfairs just to get there. (Though think of the money she'd save overall in phone calls asking me leading questions about "are there any dates I should keep free?" No, come to think of it, she'd still be ringing me, only now it would be about grandkids)

So even the governments money is still a drop in the bucket.

What the government COULD do is reduce costs. Hey, if they passed laws busting up the DeBeers diamond monopoly, that would reduce the cost of getting married by heaps more than $500 each.

> Hey, if they passed laws busting up the DeBeers diamond monopoly, that would reduce the cost of getting married by heaps more than $500 each.

That's one theory. Another is that another pricey token would take the place of the diamond ring.

Speaking of DeBeers, now those bastards are pushing the Right Hand Ring. They know millions of gullible women will lap it up and consign more Africans to the mines and cruel attacks.

So that would be the "right hand wring" then...as in "wring the collective neck."

I do not think this is something the Federal government should be involved in. The money could be spent in much better ways. Certainly with the deficit we have in our budget - this only indicates how absurd the politicians in Washington can be.

I do not think this is something the Federal government should be involved in. The money could be spent in much better ways. Certainly with the deficit we have in our budget - this only indicates how absurd the politicians in Washington can be.

> Hey, if they passed laws busting up the DeBeers
> diamond monopoly, that would reduce the cost of
> getting married by heaps more than $500 each.

That's one theory. Another is that another pricey token would take the place of the diamond ring.

Yeah, like a power drill or something.

Seriously, I've wondered what would take the diamond ring's place (and cost "two months salary", yeah right). Are emeralds or rubies or other stones even in the same ballpark?

The international stature of De Beers makes a single sweeping piece of legislation a bit difficult. I don't know that much about De Beers specifically, but it seems like this would be along the lines of talking about passing a law to tear down OPEC. We have such laws. OPEC isn't a U.S. company and can ignore them perfectly legally.

On the other hand, if you do a little bit of reading you'll find that there are a couple of functional processes in the U.S. for fabricating diamons. They do a reportedly excellent job. Right now their market share is far too small to take away any power from De Beers, but wait and see. De Beers has supposedly been outfitting some of its larger clients with expensive equipment designed to differentiate between mined and fabricated diamonds on the basis of microscopic differences.

What's worse than a Harberger Triangle? Rent Seeking.

Hopefully they'll change some of the policies that encourage single mothers. I'm not sure how they can do that, politically. Anyone proposing to cut benefits to single mothers is just asking for pictures of sad children and overworked mothers sobbing because they lost their benefits. On the other hand, getting rid of marriage tax penalties (perhaps just eliminating joint filing) or putting in some marriage tax benefits would help a lot.

Bolie IV

Once again the Bush administration demonstrates its eagerness to disregard its own avowed conservative principles (get big govt out of people's lives) in pursuit of electoral politics. This 1.5 billion dollar boondoggle will play fabulously with the bible thumpers, homophobes, and other loyal adherents of the presidents base.

Sapphires. Rubies and emeralds are too soft for a ring you plan to wear every day for the rest of your life.

Of course, there's also the CZ option -- buy ten in a lot and just switch rings when the first one breaks . . .

Sapphires. Rubies and emeralds are too soft for a ring you plan to wear every day for the rest of your life.

So maybe we need to come up with a way to diamond-coat the rubies and emeralds...

Cut the cost of diamonds and you will be putting a bloody tiara on her head at the ceremony.

Sapphire, aka aluminum oxide? Sweet! Plenty to go around, and widespread commercial processes for making it.

All in favor say...

Rubies are red sapphires.

There are two companies that, according to their press releases, will soon be manufacturing large quantities of gem-quality diamonds by two different processes. They claim that the only microscopic differences are a lack of flaws in the artificial diamonds. That is, deBeers will be trying to convince people "it isn't genuine because it's perfect". If deBeers manages to convince the public that therefore flawed diamonds are more valuable, how long until the synthesizers learn to add flaws? And will some of deBeers own best quality small stones fail their test?

Before rushing out to invest in these new companies, think a bit about the "according to their press releases" part...

Artificial aluminum oxide gems (sapphires or rubies depending on which impurity is added to color them) have microscopic bubbles, which are round in contrast to flattened or elongated flaws in natural gems. That's because synthetic rubies and sapphires are made simply by melting and recrystallizing the raw material, while natural gems form in hot spots far underground where high pressure squashes the bubbles. This seems to suggest a way to make synthetics that are indistinguishable from natural, but AFAIK it hasn't been done yet.

If you really want to invest in crystals, silicon is probably a better bet.

The two diamond manufacturing companies referred to above were recently featured in Wired magazine.
http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html
The company in Florida is (thus far) concentrating on production for jewelry. The company in Boston however, is more interesting (to me), since they're developing diamond computer chips. Think of the processing speed of a diamond computer chip, and it's greater resistance to heat, instead of silicone. This just opens up a world of possibilities for peripheral components to complement it.

Well look at that, one thowaway line has diverted the entire point of this comment thread. THis must be the internet or something.

Right, let's get back to planning Jane's wedding.

As far as I understand it, the pro-marriage promotion idea is for pre-marriage counseling. I've gone through it (you can't get a Catholic wedding in my diocese without it, or an episcopal waiver) and highly recommend it. Whether the government funded stuff will be up to the same quality, I don't know. I suspect not.

As far as I understand it, the pro-marriage promotion idea is for pre-marriage counseling. I've gone through it (you can't get a Catholic wedding in my diocese without it, or an episcopal waiver) and highly recommend it. Whether the government funded stuff will be up to the same quality, I don't know. I suspect not.

Heck, is this benefit retroactive? I have no plans to ever divorce my wife, is that worth something?

And as one of those "Why oh why do I have to vote for Bush?" Republicans (Hey, I'm only a few % points away from being Libertarian), I shiver at the thought of the Gubment hopping in and putting in their stubby little fingers into anything on such a personal level.

Jane,

I liked Atlas Shrugged several times, my name is John (actually, "Jon") and I'm not so sure about this marriage proposal either, but, well, maybe we could make a go of it somehow. I'm poor but honest (see blog masthead for grisly details).
Two can live cheaper than one and I'd be willing to do New York if that's where JG's gotta be.
I used to live in Princeton NJ and visited NY often, still have friends there.

So, can I have permission to ask you to marry me someday (someday)? Or would you prefer to leaf through my blog first and see how shallow I am?

Jon(athan)

Well, if there are some libertarian sympathies on this blog, I'd like to throw in my (slightly cranky) $0.02 - it seems like maybe the something the gov could do to promote marriage is get out of the biz of routinely assigning custody of children to the mother in divorce cases - heck, if the cost of getting hitched for a man is the very real (what's the divorce rate ~52%?) possibility that half a guy's money and his children will be in the custody of a hostile stranger, well, it's not too surprising that some fellahs might be looking hard and nervously at entering the institution of marriage. That's a pretty high transaction cost for exiting a contract! Not to say that women are getting a better deal out of a bad situation (their economic situation is often much worse after divorce), but that government may be distorting the institution by making the cost of leaving it very expensive.

Of course, the social costs of exiting marriage were higher previously too, and marriage rates were higher as well. Any thoughts?

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