Asymmetrical Information

Don't forget to tape "House, M.D." (Is tape still the appropriate term?)

Nah, in Jane's world you Tivo something. No tape involved.

What an interesting subject, it is something that I have been thinking a lot about myself. Fear of terrorism has taken us overboard, like into Iraq mistakenly, yet fear that our kids won't have good schools have taken us away from experimenting with vouchers and left us with mediocre schools for forty years now.

My thought is that irrational levels of fear afflicts both sides of our politics. Around where I live safety is always such a huge issue about everything.

The problems with irrational fear is that it stymies creativity, clear thinking, and seeks to avoid any error and all you end up with is error.

I think fear seems to stimulate all kinds of creativity, like the thought that going into Iraq was irrational or mistaken. And vouchers are just about teacher unions and not beaurocracy.

And a little fear focusses and clarifies thinking.

What brought this though on anyway? Sounds like paranoia.

Just read your paper. Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

/boo!

Mike Lawson

I wish I was in New York to see it.

Jane,

Read your paper. Not bad. While I doubtlessly have a bias on the matter, yours spanks Hayes'. The only quibble I'll make with you, is in the area of catastrophic risk. Specifically, its fairly common to have distributions with extremely low probability outcomes with catastrophic outcomes. In this case, even where strict cost benefit analysis would argue against fear it makes sense to consider the risk tangible. That said, good piece.