Newmark's Door

Once again, you can't make stuff like this up.

As of July 29, the IRS had a backlog of 10.2 million unprocessed individual returns [3.7 million as of Nov. 11, 2022]. Blame the pandemic, sure, but also the agency’s embarrassingly outdated, paper-based system, which leaves stacks and stacks of returns cluttering shelves, hallways and even the cafeteria.

On the Pipeline, paper tax returns aren’t scanned into computers; instead, IRS employees manually keystroke the numbers from each document into the system, digit by digit.

Maybe true, but I don't think you should try this at home.

Funny or tragically sad, you decide:

You can google "sample diversity statement" and get untold numbers of examples. This is such a rote exercise that some universities like UNC even give you examples about what they expect you to say. They don't care if you actually mean anything you say, they just require you to say it.

Like the key to real estate is "Location, location, location," my key to personal finance is "Save money, save money, save money".

"Why liberal college professors can’t admit their own complicity".

I read a number of pieces that claimed legalizing pot would be such a great change. Maybe in a perfect world, but never underestimate the ability of government to screw things up.

"As much as $400 billion . . ."

See also "Congress is shocked, shocked by the COVID fraud it created" and "Scathing audit finds Andrew Cuomo’s New York lost $11 billion in unemployment fraud in 2020".

The author concludes "yes" and I think so, too.

Irving Kristol didn't call the Republicans "the stupid party" for nothing.

"Yesterday's conspiracy theories are today's legacy media news reports . . ."

Related: "Missouri Doctor Faces $500 Billion in FTC Fines for Promoting Vitamin D3 During Pandemic".

The inimitable Andrew Ferguson says goodbye to Speaker Pelosi in his unique way.

Amusing. (Link via Marginal Revolution.)

"Follow the midfield" and three other potentially useful suggestions.

I would say this is astonishing, but these days a lot of what I read and hear about seems astonishing.

Not much detail is given on the methodology of this ranking, but I really question whether #1 is ranked correctly.

The late, great Marvin Gaye in another fine mosogotam remix.

"One of the key changes—pun intended—to the pop charts in the last 60 years is the demise of key changes. What happened?"

Unusual for a list of this type, I am largely in agreement with the highest ranked ones.

The Federal Reserve is largely a failed institution. Despite more than a century of experience, it remains inept at basic monetary policy, let alone extraordinary measures such as last-resort lending."

Mr. Murakami writes about a surprising advantage to writing in a language he was not a native speaker of.

That's easy: they're happy. But the article explains that you will want to distinguish true smiles from expressions that are close to smiles but aren't.

(Gated) paper by Bruce Yandle. Here's the abstract:

George Stigler’s pathbreaking 1971 article set forth a clear and testable economic theory of regulation and fundamentally changed how economists and others organized their thoughts about government regulation. Until Stigler’s work appeared, the public interest theory, the notion that elected officials and bureaucrats sought first to respond to the broad public desire for government services, dominated the literature. Stigler changed that and in doing so pushed the public interest theory aside. But there was something lacking in Stigler’s regulation theory that suggests there is still a strong role to be played by the public interest theory. While Stigler argued that politicians respond primarily to private interest demand for their services, it is still the case that politicians must explain their actions to the broad public and must work to make certain that the private interest regulatory benefits they produce are actually delivered. Justification and assurance of delivery are functions that are served in the Bootlegger/Baptist theory of regulation. Because the Bootlegger/Baptist theory combines the demand of two interest groups for the same regulatory service, the result will be more regulation. And the fact that both Bootleggers and Baptists will assist in seeing that regulation benefits are delivered, their activity reduces the cost encountered by politicians when seeking to serve the two groups. Again, more regulation will result.

I believe all economics majors and even some non-economics majors should take a course in Public Choice. 

Number 1 is that Schrödinger's cat isn't really both dead and alive.

Quora discussion. One suggestion that seems potentially useful: The "hollandaise is never made to order".

Noted economist Richard K. Vedder: "An even bigger problem is the vast increase in resources now used to achieve nonacademic goals."

Take a sample IQ test.

This online test gives an indication of general cognitive abilities, represented by an IQ-score between 85 and 145 where 100 is the population average. This test does not serve as a substitute for a professional intelligence test, such as those administrated by a psychologists or Mensa – which has a license to offer a selection of intelligence tests.

This test consists of 35 problems that must be solved within a 25 minute time limit. 

An interesting look at one of the reasons for Costco's success.

I'm skeptical, but, hey, two minutes isn't much.

This is something I've thought: the problem with getting and keeping good K-12 teachers is not so much "low" pay but working conditions. Specifically, disruptive students and . . . all those dopey meetings.