In Defense of Blackmail, a Robot Nurse, and Other News Items
Robin Hanson defends blackmail.
Robot nurse. He comes up short on TLC. HT: Jason Shafrin.
Antsy politicians: when they can’t tax or spend, they regulate.
Should college students get food stamps? 30,000 Michigan students just lost theirs.
How do you make a voluntary Ponzi scheme work? Make it mandatory. Peter Orszag on the CLASS Act.
Robot lacks TLC? That’s an understatement.
The CLASS Act was the brainchild of Sen. Ted Kennedy. Enrollees who pay annual premiums of about $1500 for five years; only three of which have to be while employed, will qualify for a benefit that can reach $25,000 per year.
What is essentially a three-year advance requirement is short enough to game the sustem. People will have an incentive to wait until they foresee problems before they sign up. For instance, someone could sense they will have problems and sign up and make it through three years of work. They could then retire and continue to pay premiums for two more years. For total premiums of $7500 they would get an annual benefit of $25,000.
The CBO does not believe the program will remain solvent. The architects of the program have estimated about 2.5 times the number of participants that the CBO estimates. CBO also expects adverse selection just as I do.
I did not realize that blackmail was such a hot topic. If you think of information as a marketable item, then blackmail makes perfect sense. (I’m thinking: website for blackmail secrets… with a PayPal wall… Thanks, NCPA for making me rich.)
Should college students get food stamps? No.