The Economics of Post-Disaster Reconstruction

Here’s an interesting article, distributed by the Libertarian Party of California, comparing 1906 San Francisco with 2006 New Orleans and concluding that private free markets do a much better job of reconstruction than federal funding.

In 1906, there were no federal or state income taxes, and not even a sales tax! The city depended on the property tax for its public revenues, and with the buildings demolished, the property tax was now mainly a land-value tax. Tapping the land value, along with bank loans, insurance, and mutual aid, become the means for the coordination of expectations. Landowners had to pay an assessment based on the value of their site as though it were developed.

To pay this charge, an owner had to put up a building quickly; otherwise there was a tax expense with no revenue. The neighbors were in the same boat, so they all rebuilt. And the fact that they knew that everybody else was under the same pressure solved the expectations problem that puzzles today’s economists. If a landowner could not rebuild, his incentive was to sell to someone else who was willing and able to do so. Tapping the site value pushed everybody to rebuild quickly, and the insurance money and bank loans provided the financial means.

Now, a hundred years later, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful and spectacular cities in the world.

Internet Access in Class

Folks at Harvard Law School have been discussing whether to ban students from using laptops and accessing wireless internet during class.

We have wireless connectivity at my law school, too, and I am always online during class. Usually, I have up an instant messaging chat with my Study Partner so we can (a) make snide remarks about what’s happening in class, (b) discuss how tired we are, (c) talk about Boston Legal, (d) recite song lyrics and poetry to each other, and (e) help each other when we miss or don’t understand a remark from the professor. I have also used the internet during class to quickly research recent cases regarding difficult points of law on Lexis-Nexis and access other reference materials like an online law dictionary or Wikipedia. A few times I have also used the Internet Movie Database to check up on esoteric pop culture trivia spouted by our Contracts professor. But for the most part, I try to keep my classroom internet use to what is actually pertinent. (Sometimes I just read the news though — usually in Civil Procedure, while the professor is explaining personal jurisdiction to somebody for the forty-seventh time.)

However, from where I typically sit in the back of the room, I have seen people online shopping, playing games, looking at comics, and doing sundry other things. Good for them, I guess.

I suppose I could survive without internet access in class, but for me it makes the whole experience better. When the professor has to stop and re-explain something I already understand, I can go online and look at something more interesting. When the professor says something that piques my interest on the topic, but raising my hand to ask a question would send the class off course, I can go online and look up an answer for myself. But most importantly, I can chat with my Study Partner, who makes class a lot more fun.

Misplaced Priorities All Around

Here’s another (local) story where everybody is wrong.

• Society is wrong to make public education compulsory. Where people are not learning by choice, they are not learning. There is no way to make somebody learn, so by making education compulsory we are only rounding up people who don’t want to be there and creating a situation where behavior and discipline problems will rise to the surface with amazing speed.
• Professional educators are wrong to hang high school graduation on the results of standardized tests, which do not measure anything meaningful beyond a student’s ability to perform on a standardized test. Real life is about responding to situations that test-writers couldn’t imagine in a million years and improvising. Standardized tests are about spitting out decontextualized knowledge.
• Students are wrong to put so much stock in “walking” with their class. There are far more important things than graduating from high school and being at the ceremony with your friends. At my high school graduation, I had to sit through lame student speeches, bad student singing, lots of wind (we were outdoors), and all the clichéd lies (e.g., “you all worked hard to get here,” “we’ll never forget this moment,” and “we’ll keep these friends forever”). Mostly I was just thinking about not seeing all the cute girls every day anymore.

If you want to cry over missing something, choose something good. If you got paralyzed from the waist down and missed out on being a professional baseball player, go ahead and cry about that. If you weren’t around when your baby was born (this one clearly only applies to fathers), go ahead and cry about that. If unforeseen circumstances caused you to miss the job interview for the best job ever, cry about that. But for crying out loud, don’t cry about missing your high school graduation. (Or your high school prom, or pretty much anything else in high school.)

Saying Unpopular Things, Preaching to the Progressive Choir

Here’s another interesting commentary on the alleged rape by Duke lacrosse players: “With no forensic evidence to corroborate the accuser’s identification, the case is reduced to a true ’she said, he said’ prosecution. But the ’she said’ part is getting weaker and weaker, and the ‘he said’ part, stronger and stronger.”

But since rational thinking is extremely out of vogue in our society, I suspect that even if the charges are dropped, resentment will remain because the defendants happen to be white, male, and relatively well-off. Already “concerned sexual-assault victims advocates who once viewed this case as an opportunity to increase awareness on college campuses but have begun to fear its repercussions.” People have too much invested in the presumed guilt of the lacrosse players. It fits the mythology too well: rich white males gang raping a poor black woman, forced by circumstances to earn her living as an “exotic dancer.”

But there’s no chance in hell that a rich white male, once accused of a crime, will succeed at asking his detractors to behave reasonably and suspend their belief in his guilt until it has actually been proven in a court of law. God forbid. Because we all know that the legal system does nothing but prop up the interests of rich white males, therefore no one can be trusted in this case, except for the black woman in the middle and all of her supporters amongst women and other minorities.

When you have a crime that involves allegations of serious sexual misconduct by rich white males and a racial element, there are way too many people in our society who will completely forget that allegations and indictments are not the same as a guilty verdict and no amount of actual evidence will convince them otherwise.

Conversely, so no one will irrationally assume it from silence — as I am absolutely sure they would do, based on my experience with forgetting to preach to the progressive choir — there are also way too many people in our society who will completely forget that allegations and indictments are not the same as a guilty verdict and no amount of actual evidence will convince them otherwise when you have a crime that involves allegations of anything by black males, rich or poor.

Did you get that? I.e., it’s entirely possible to hold the views laid out in each of the preceding paragraphs, both at the same time. Furthermore, if we want to live in a really progressive society, then we will allow people to hold one or the other views independently without expecting them to also elucidate the other. (That is, anyone should be able to say that white males are subjected to racism and sexism without also having to remind everyone that black males are also subject to racism and sexism, and vice versa.)

Meanwhile, we have stuff like this flying around:

At Kentucky, a woman who claimed former Wildcats basketball star Chuck Hayes raped her sued last week in U.S. District Court in Lexington seeking $75,000 and unspecified punitive damages for an incident she says occurred April 20, 2005, at the men’s basketball dormitory.

Prosecutors declined charges in that case after publicly expressing doubts about her credibility, part of what Alison Kiss of Security on Campus Inc. called the “revictimization” of rape accusers that she believes is occurring in Durham.

Apparently, unlike every other crime, when a woman alleges rape, questioning her credibility (or even just “expressing doubts about her credibility”) is out of bounds for some people. That is, women who allege rape should always, always, always be given the unmitigated presumption that they are telling the truth. Sure, okay, that’s fine. Let’s do that. But then let’s do the same thing for everybody who alleges any crime. Let’s make it a new rule: expressing doubts about the credibility of anyone who alleges to be the victim of a crime is absolutely disallowed. How’s that?

Nope, not gonna work. It flies in the face of workable public policy. If all accusers were given not just the presumption of truth, but protection from doubt, then anyone could accuse anything and daring to suggest that their accusations were false would itself be a suspect activity. So why do we accept that approach for alleged victims of sexual assault? Because in our culture, expressing doubts about the credibility of a woman, especially an alleged victim of sexual assault, is almost never presumed to arise from any actual evidence of her credibility, but is immediately assumed to be the result of sexism. Thus, questioning the credibility of a woman who alleges sexual assault is itself a suspect activity.

But not only does that completely contradict the idea of equality for women, it actively attributes a detriment to men by placing their words and actions under a constant cloud of doubt. This will not be a truly free or progressive society so long as any group chosen simply for its race, sex, gender, religion, ethnicity, or national origin is left under a constant cloud of doubt.

Let me say that again, lest the progressive choir not feel preached-to and decide to attack me:

Every single person and every single group must be afforded the same default level of protection and credibility regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, ethnicity, or national origin, or this will not be a truly free or progressive society.

In fact, let me say it again, in another way:

In our society, the only way to protect the rights of all individuals, regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, ethnicity, or national origin, is to attach consequences only to conduct as shown by evidence and never to group identity.

Year One Almost Done

I have completed the course material for my first year of law school. Last night was the last class. There are three final exams: Torts on Monday, Civil Procedure on Thursday, and Contracts the following Monday. (Or, you might say I must still face three tests: the Breath of God, the Word of God, and the Path of God. The penitent man will pass.)

However, I must say that, after their trying valiantly to scare the crap out of us on the first night, my overriding response to the first year of law school is, “Huh? Is this all there was? That’s what everybody was so terrified of? Pshaw.”

Yes. Pshaw.

Of course, maybe after the final exams I’ll be singing a different tune, but I don’t think so. My scores were already very good on the first midterms and have only gone up on subsequent exams. Confidence? I have plenty.

In other news, I’ll start training to be a small claims advisor for Fresno county courts in a couple weeks. That should be an interesting experience. Also, I was recently elected Clerk of the Exchequer for the local senate of the Delta Theta Phi law fraternity. (For those not familiar with archaic terminology, “Clerk of the Exchequer” means the same thing as “Treasurer.”)

It’s a Kind of Magic

So if a magician turns out his pockets to reveal nothing is there, even though he is actually carrying stuff, is it entertainment, performance art, or crime prevention?

It’s a Kind of Magic

So if a magician turns out his pockets to reveal nothing is there, even though he is actually carrying stuff, is it entertainment, performance art, or crime prevention?

Interesting Local Lawsuit

Looks like some interesting legal stuff is going down here in my hometown.

Cast Off the Shackles of Yesterday

Enjoy the lively discussion about free speech and women’s rights over at my brother’s blog. Nothin’ gets my blood flowing like a healthy dose of controversy.

Law School Mishmash

So, after last week’s blast of blogging, I am back to the studies pretty heavily. This is the last week of classes, with finals next week, so I can’t be slacking off. Gotta fill in all those little gaps in my knowledge. (What are the three ways the court may construe the failure of a condition in order to avoid a forfeiture? What exactly is a “primary right” in a jurisdiction that allows claim splitting and how does that affect questions of issue preclusion? What state of mind does a private individual plaintiff need to prove in order to recover presumed damages in defamation where the matter is a public concern? How may the rights of a third-party beneficiary be vested?)

Earlier today I did a little research on the California bar association website. There are 51 people licensed to practice law in Madera (yes, it’s a relatively small town — about 50,000 people) and 15 of those people are graduates of my law school. That means, according to my calculations (a phrase I like to use whenever I can), 29% of the lawyers practicing in my hometown came from my law school. I rather like those numbers.

In other news, my Dear Study Partner thinks we ought to enroll in two classes for the summer session, instead of just one (which is all that’s required to complete the JD program in three years). Right now we’re looking at Tribal Sovereign Immunity and Advanced Tort Law. It will cost an extra thousand bucks to enroll in a second class and it will be a lot more work, but I agree with her that these are two fascinating subjects that we won’t have an opportunity to take again. She’s pretty persuasive. Especially when I agree with her. That’s what I get for being on the same proverbial wavelength.

And now for something completely different.

Tonight (technically yesterday — it’s past midnight) was the last night of Torts. Tomorrow (tonight) will be the last night of Civil Procedure. Then Wednesday will be the last night of Contracts, which happens also to be the only class in which we will still be covering new material on the last night (assignment and delegation of rights and duties). It seems like only a few weeks ago I was reading cases about intentional torts and trying to figure out how to brief a case. Now I can ask and answer questions like the ones up in the first paragraph of this entry.

(In case you’re wondering, here are the answers to those questions: The court may avoid forfeiture by construing an alleged condition as a promise the breach of which is not a material breach, by excusing the failure of the condition, or by recognizing the course of performance of the party against whom enforcement is sought as a waiver of the condition. A primary right for the purpose of claim splitting arises where damages to to the plaintiff come from the same conduct by the defendant; thus, in a jurisdiction that allows claim splitting, where the damages to the plaintiff may lead to recovery under either a tort or a contract theory but the conduct of the defendant that gives rise to the claim under either theory would be the same, there is only one primary right that provides only one cause of action. A private individual plaintiff suing for defamation regarding a public concern must prove actual malice by the standard established in New York Times v. Sullivan, which means that the defendant knew the statement was false or was reckless as to the truth of the statement, where recklessness requires that the statement is not likely to be true or the defendant entertained substantial doubts as to its truth but published the statement anyway. The rights of a third-party beneficiary may be vested and become irrevocable where the third-party learns of the contract that will confer a benefit and assents to the terms, or where the third-party detrimentally relies on the benefit to be conferred by the contract, or where the third-party learns of a change to the contract that may adversely affect his or her benefit and sues to enforce the original agreement. No, I made no reference to my notes and yes I just drank an alcoholic beverage. If you are a law student, don’t trust me; go read a book.)