Among the things I did in New York was visit Tim Smeeding, an economist at Syracuse University who works on income distribution and related issues. Coincidentally, he’s quoted in this NYT story today on the continuing increase in the US poverty rate.

Like about a hundred thousand other Brisvegans, my son and I spent the day at the Ekka[1]. A good time was had by all. The great thing about going to the show is that it never changes: laughing clowns, dodgems, fairy floss, show bags and woodchopping are just as they were in the shows I went to as a child. The Ekka has one extra event we’ve added to our list – the Silver Spike tracklaying contest held by QR. And this year they had a human cannonball. It’s a wonderful way to spend a public holiday.

fn1. Short for Exhibition, our annual show.

Thanks to a reader at this blog, Nicola’s one per cent pledge has been successful. Congratulations to Imogen!

Meanwhile today is the last day for my Niger famine appeal. So far readers have donated $250, and my matching contribution makes a total of $500. To restate, I’m asking people to donate money to help with the Niger famine (feel free to substitute an alternative cause or organisation if you think it would be more worthwhile). Just send in a comment announcing your donation, or advise me by email, by Sunday and I’ll match it, up to a total of $1000. I’m giving to Medecins sans Frontieres.

Remember this is all tax deductible. So, if you’re on the top marginal tax rate, a donation of $100 actually costs you only $50. With my matching $100, the total amount given will be $200, enough to save many lives. But, if your budget is tighter, and you don’t benefit from tax deductibility, even $10 or $20 can make a difference.

Appeal closed Generous readers, listed below, have raised a total of $720. With the matching contribution, that’s a total of $1440. In comments, Ian Gould has announced another forthcoming appeal on the same lines, in support of the LifeStraw, a low-cost water purification device.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

wilful 50
Stephen L 100
Mark Bahnisch 150
Youie 50
Jack Strocchi & Claire Rodda 20
Harry Clarke 100
wbb 50
James Farrell 50
email 150
Total 720

Nicola’s one per cent pledge needs only one more signatory to come into effect. Here’s you chance to be decisive!

Meanwhile, my Niger famine appeal has raised $500 ($250 from generous readers, and a matching amount from me). It runs until Sunday, so there’s plenty of time to check the lounge cushions for a cache of lost gold coins or whatever.

Bus passengers say thanks to the driver as they disembark.

Via Chris Bertram at CT, another try from Nicola at a charitable pledge aimed at overcoming the free rider problem inherent in lots of desirable activities. I will give 1% of my gross annual income to charity but only if 100 people will too. Nicola has a blog, as you would expect. Go over and sign up to the pledge!

I’m always interested in ways of using the Internet to promote good collective actions like charitable giving. The tsunami appeal earlier this year was a big success, but the gimmick of tying the amount paid to comments on the blog seems to have got tired, as gimmicks do.

So I’m going to go for something much simpler this time. I’m asking people to donate money to help with the Niger famine (feel free to substitute an alternative cause or organisation if you think it would be more worthwhile). Just send in a comment announcing your donation, or advise me by email, by Sunday and I’ll match it, up to a total of $1000. I’m giving to Medecins sans Frontieres.

Remember this is all tax deductible. So, if you’re on the top marginal tax rate, a donation of $100 actually costs you only $50. With my matching $100, the total amount given will be $200, enough to save many lives. But, if your budget is tighter, and you don’t benefit from tax deductibility, even $10 or $20 can make a difference.

I’m usually dubious about profiling, but I must break with my usual scepticism to support former ASIO officer Michael Roach who says

They need to be given a criteria as to what they should be looking for and there is a criteria. What the public needs to be looking for, what the trained officials need to be looking for, is somebody standing in the corner, somebody who’s holding onto their backpack, somebody who looks really concerned and anxious. Somebody who’s clean shaven …

My review of Affluenza by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss was in yesterday’s Fin (subscription only). Thanks to all who commented on the earlier draft.

One point that attracts a strong reaction whenever I make it refers to

the vigorous hostile reaction to arguments of this kind. Although this reaction is often phrased in terms of attacks on ‘paternalism’ or (switching genders) the ‘Nanny State’ it is notable that policy proposals for differential taxes on luxury goods attract far less hostility than do purely cultural critiques of excessive consumption. The former threaten only the hip pocket of luxury consumers, while the latter threatens their sense of self-worth.

The response is typically along the lines of “My self worth is fine: I just object to people giving me unsolicited advice to change my lifestyle.”

Well, let’s see. In the time it took me to, read the book, write this review and get it published, I’d say I received at least thirty phone calls from people suggesting that I needed their services in relation to mortgage refinancing, negatively geared investments, telephone plans and so on. I was presented with hundreds of advertisements on TV and the Internet suggesting that I should consume more of just about everything. Even walking down the street, I’m presented with billboards, direct solicitations and so on, all with the same message. And, then, of course, there’s spam. Yet half the blogosphere seems to be upset by the mere existence of a book suggesting they are spending too much.

I don’t object to the TV ads: if I want to watch AFL on TV, it has to be paid for, and the ads are part of the deal. And as long as I don’t get hit with sneaky pop-ups and so on, the same is pretty much true for Internet ads, though I tend to avoid ad-heavy sites, and only run into them by mistake. But if I accept TV and Internet ads a straightforward commercial transaction – my attention as long as the ads can hold it, in return for the content it’s bundled with – then the billboards, spammers and phone pests aren’t just annoyances, they’re thieves, trying to take my valuable attention without paying me for it.

With the exception of spammers and phone pests[1], I don’t have a strong objection to advertising in general, though some examples annoy me. Still, when I see people complaining about the coercive nature of Clive Hamilton’s arguments, I have to wonder if they’re living in the same country as I am.

fn1. I’ve signed up for the ADMA “Do not call” list, but this is purely voluntary, and doesn’t include most of the worst examples.

The news of deaths from bird flu in Indonesia is pretty scary. Although, as I’ve mentioned recently Indonesia has made a lot of progress in many respects, the handling of this threat so far seems to show the worst of both worlds: all the ill ffects of authoritian habits combined with the timidity of weak politicians. There have been a lot of coverups, and an unwillingness to tackle the necessary but unpopular task of slaughtering affected flocks of birds. Things seem to be improving now, but there’s a long way to go.

It seems very likely that, sooner or later, bird flu will make the jump that permits human-human transmission, and quite likely that a major flu pandemic will result. The world, including Australia, is very poorly prepared for this. One thing we could do to prepare is to adopt a national program encouraging annual flu vaccinations for everyone, instead of just for limited categories of vulnerable people.

The main benefit of this is not that the shots would provide immunity against a new and deadlier flu variant (though there might be some limited benefit of this kind) but that we would have the infrastructure, production facilities and so on to undertake a mass vaccination against such a variant if it arose. As it is, it seems likely that many countries will be scrambling to get access to an inadequate world supply of vaccines, but if Australia and other developed countries ramped up normal levels of production, it would be much easier to generate extra supplies for our neighbours.

I haven’t looked into it, but my guess is that, even without considering the possibility of a pandemic, the benefit-cost ratio from such a measure would be pretty high. Flu is very costly in economic terms, and I suspect that, if pain and suffering were thrown into the balance, a program of universal free vaccination would come out looking pretty good.

Update There’s lots of good background in Foreign Affairs. A piece by Michael Osterholm reprinted in the AFR Review section recently, is very good and stimulated my thinking on this topic.