In 2019, payroll employment rose by slightly over 2.1 million. That’s actually the slowest growth since 2011.

And yet it is still pretty impressive, given the low unemployment rate and the slow growth in the prime age population. So where are all these workers coming from? Why were my predictions from a few years back too pessimistic?

I’ve already discussed several factors:

1. The unemployment rate declined by more than I expected.
2. Boomers kept working longer than I expected. (Five years ago, I thought that I’d be retired by now.)
3. Illegal immigration increased by more than I expected.
4. Deportations are occurring at a lower rate than under President Obama.

And now The Economist points to another factor.  Guest workers have increased by nearly 200,000 in just the past three years:

You might object that my payroll numbers are for non-farm workers, and most of the guest workers are in agriculture.  But these two sectors are probably closely linked.  I doubt the actual amount of farm work has increased that sharply in recent years, rather guest farmworkers are doing non-farm work or they are displacing other non-guest farmworkers.  Those might be American farmworkers, but more likely they are illegal immigrants.  The displaced workers may then get jobs in the non-farm sector.

In any case, this surge in immigration helps to explain why employment and GDP growth has held up better than I expected.  It also tells us something about the actual priorities of the Trump administration:

Corporate tax cuts, deregulation, more guest workers, more illegal immigration and fewer deportations, bigger trade deficits, no infrastructure plan, obsessing about IP theft in China.

Does this look like an administration committed to helping downtrodden blue collar workers, or an administration committed to helping billionaires?

I like the corporate tax cuts and the guest workers and the lack of an infrastructure plan.  But then I’m an evil cosmopolitan neoliberal.  And even I would favor a more pro-manufacturing set of policies than Trump, notably a reduction in the fiscal deficit, which would tend to reduce our trade deficit.  Removing the steel and aluminum tariffs would also help our manufacturers.

Stephanie Keith/Reuters

• Thousands of heavily armed men and women braved the 30-degree temperatures in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday to proudly show off their firearms and its accompanying accessories.
• Some enthusiasts near the Virginia capitol carried a .50 caliber rifle capable of firing armor-piercing rounds or an underbarrel grenade launcher. One controversial radio host even rode in an armored vehicle and warned through its PA system, "If they try to take our firearms, 1776 will commence again!"
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Thousands of heavily armed men and women braved the 30-degree temperatures in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday to proudly show off their firearms and its accompanying accessories.

The annual gun-rights rally was largely held to lobby lawmakers and protest the new set of gun-reform bills proposed by a Democratic majority in the Virginia House and Senate. The rally was clouded by safety concerns, which Virginia's Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said was prompted by "credible threats of violence."

Northam cited state intelligence that indicated armed militia groups were planning to storm the Capitol during the event, prompting him to declare a state of emergency and issuing a temporary ban against firearms on Capitol grounds.

While thousands of unarmed gun enthusiasts entered the Capitol grounds to protest, thousands more stood outside the secure zone, toting their firearms and tactical accessories.

Here are some of the firearms and equipment the enthusiasts displayed at the rally:

Around 6,000 people were estimated to have taken to the Capitol, and another 16,000 outside a secure zone.

Protesters chanting "we will not comply" and waving signs likening gun control to racism flooded the area, armed with their firearms and tactical gear.

Despite the presence of firearms, the protests were largely peaceful. A 21-year-old woman was arrested and charged with wearing a mask at the event, despite multiple warnings from law enforcement officers, according to ABC News affiliate WVEC.

M203 grenade-style launcher.

One person decked out in tactical gear carried an underbarrel M203 grenade-style launcher attached to a modified assault weapon, which appeared to include a collapsible buttstock for greater firearm control, a laser mount for accuracy, and a holographic sight.

These modifications surpass the effectiveness of standard-issued gear for many US service members. They also may have complied with existing laws. Colt Manufacturing, the iconic company that once created M-16 and AR-15 variants, was one of the few companies that produced a $2,000 M203 that complied with civilian regulations.

This particular M203, which would ordinarily be used for 40mm grenades by the US military, was repurposed to shoot 37mm non-lethal smoke and flare rounds, according to Task & Purpose.

Terradyne armored vehicle.

Conservative provocateur and embattled showman Alex Jones rode inside a truck made by the Canada-based armored vehicle company Terradyne.

"If they try to take our firearms, 1776 will commence again!" Jones reportedly yelled in a microphone, referring to the year when the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Britain.

Terradyne includes a 6.7 liter V-8 turbo diesel motor capable of producing 330-horsepower for all of its rapid-patrol vehicle variants, including a civilian version.

The company on its website describes the vehicle for "discerning individuals" who require "executive protection" or a "rolling panic room."

See Also:

• These 10 countries face the biggest humanitarian crises in 2020
• USS Abraham Lincoln shatters US Navy's record for longest post-Cold War carrier deployment with 10-month around-the-world tour
• 15 photos show a US nuclear missile silo that for decades was ready to strike the Soviet Union at a moment's notice

The post U.S.A. fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

The Atlantic has a recent piece on how the optometrist industry is rigged against consumers:

In every other country in which I’ve lived—Germany and Britain, France and Italy—it is far easier to buy glasses or contact lenses than it is here. In those countries, as in Peru, you can simply walk into an optician’s store and ask an employee to give you an eye test, likely free of charge. If you already know your strength, you can just tell them what you want. You can also buy contact lenses from the closest drugstore without having to talk to a single soul—no doctor’s prescription necessary.

Another Atlantic article finds similar problems in dentistry.  The NYT finds similar problems in health care:

Much of what we accept as legal in medical billing would be regarded as fraud in any other sector.

And NPR provides an example:

For Her Head Cold, Insurer Coughed Up $25,865

If you think these are isolated incidents, think again.  I personally know of similar examples (one involved an $8,000 bill for a mild cold, paid by taxpayers), so I very much doubt that they are unusual.

It’s not just health care.  Consumers buying cars are ripped off by a car dealer cartel, which prevents direct sales from manufacturers.  The fireman industry is a huge rip-off, with America having roughly twice as many fire stations as needed, as a huge cost to taxpayers.  Young homebuyers are ripped off by older homeowners who prevent new construction in towns like Reston, Virginia. There are similar examples in dozens of other industries, perhaps hundreds of others.

Politicians often complain that middle-class Americans are lagging behind because the system is rigged against them.  They are right.  But the politicians don’t tell the entire story.  Only a modest portion of the rigging is done by big corporations like Facebook, Google, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.  The biggest problem is various interest groups comprised of middle class people, who rip off the general public.

If we had free markets in health care, dentistry, optometry, fire protection, home building, car retailing and many other industries, then we could shed enormous numbers of workers from useless activities.  These workers could then produce useful output elsewhere, dramatically boosting real GDP and living standards.  The WSJ reports that our living standards are being depressed by a lack of workers:

The U.S. Furniture Industry Is Back—but There Aren’t Enough Workers

If a politician promised to crack down on doctors, dentists, teachers, firemen, and older homeowners (like me), they’d certainly get my vote.  Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only vote they would get.

And yet, we should not despair.  There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.  Despite all of these inefficiencies, living standards continue to rise:

Median family income adjusted for inflation was $29,000 in 1955. Today it’s just over $63,000, an all-time high. . . .

In the 1950s camping was an acceptable vacation. Hand-me-downs were acceptable clothes. A 983 square foot house was an acceptable size. Kids sharing a room was an acceptable arrangement. A tire swing was acceptable entertainment. Few of those things are acceptable baselines for most households today. The average new home now has more bathrooms than occupants.

In 1971, I stayed in a hotel for the first time in my life, at age 16.  I shared a bedroom with my brother, and we had a tire swing in the backyard.  No computer games in those days.  And yet you’ll hear “experts” tell you that living standards haven’t risen since the early 1970s.

We could do much better, but we are still doing pretty well.

HT: Aaron Renn, Tyler Cowen

I am 12 days into 19-day trip to New Zealand. Everything here is upside down. They drive on the left and celebrate Christmas on a hot summer day. Even the moon is upside down, with the brighter portion at the top. (Orion’s sword hangs upward.)

I don’t have much to say about the NZ economy, other than that everything seems fine. This country doesn’t seem to have any serious problems, at least that are apparent to tourists. (I imagine that the locals would find plenty to complain about.)

Astronomers tell us that no one place is the center of the universe, or perhaps that each place is equally in the center. That’s not true of Earth, where London is near the center and New Zealand is in the middle of nowhere. It might help to examine the “land hemisphere” and the “water hemisphere”, defined as the hemispheres that contain the most and least amount of land:

Notice that New Zealand is near the center of the water hemisphere. Its closest significant neighbors are Australia, which has fewer people than metro Tokyo, and Antartica, which has some penguins. North of the 38th parallel, the northern hemisphere is full of big cities like Beijing, Rome, London and New York. South of the 38th in the southern hemisphere you have Wellington and Christchurch. That’s it. It’s lonely down here.

Some random observations:

1. Prices seem lower here (compared to the US), except for gasoline. Houses are also expensive. Living standards seem a bit lower, but there are many intangibles in favor of New Zealand (weather, informal culture, trust, lack of congestion, personal freedom, etc.)

2. There seem to be more cows and fewer sheep than during my previous trip (in 1991).

3. Auckland seems like a smaller Sydney. It has a new district along the waterfront that is similar to San Francisco’s SoMa and Boston’s South Seaport. There is good art deco architecture throughout New Zealand.

4. Domestic flights are convenient and very cheap.

5. Wellington seems like a small big city. The national capital area is utterly unpretentious, with a child’s playground right in front of the Parliament building, and an ordinary suburban residential area right behind it. I wish America behaved more like New Zealand.

6. Lots of stuff is free (museums, national parks, etc.) Much less security than in the US, and much, much, much less than in China. In many ways, New Zealand seems almost the exact opposite of China. BTW, New Zealand is about 5% Chinese and 5% Indian, much higher percentages than in the US.

7. The drinking age is 18, and smoking is allowed in more places than in the US. Prostitution is legal. There are far fewer frivolous lawsuits and hence people are freer to do fun things that are risky. There are fewer walls than in the US, and much, much much fewer than in China. You can pretty much roam around wherever you wish. It is number 3 in both the Fraser and Heritage Economic Freedom Indices, and when you add in politics it may well be the freest country on Earth.

8. Pound for pound, it might be the most scenic country in the world, at least the developed world. There is an enormous variety of interesting scenery. It’s also very easy to get around. The roads are not crowded (outside a few cities) and parking is not an issue. Unfortunately, the glaciers are receding fast.

9. They have the sort of agricultural productivity that was very valuable throughout most of human history. Unfortunately, it’s Australia that has the resources that are valuable today (iron, coal, gas, etc.) This is one reason why Australia is richer. They also lack economies of scale. Americans wrongly think the rest of the world is hurting us with unfair trade practices, but New Zealand really is hurt badly by the unfair trade practices of others (which protect farmers in rich countries.)

10. They have fewer than 5 million people in a country 10% bigger than the UK and 30% smaller than Japan. (Physically speaking, New Zealand is a bit like Japan.) Their population has recently been growing at 2%, which is perhaps the fastest rate for any developed country? Their bigger cities seem to have the same restrictive zoning problem as in Australia and Canada, keeping house prices high.

People often think of paradise in terms of tropical islands in the South Pacific, such as Tahiti and Bora Bora. Perhaps temperate New Zealand is the the real paradise.

Michael Rulle directed me to a WSJ article by Greg Ip on the decline in central bank effectiveness:

The Era of Fed Power Is Over. Prepare for a More Perilous Road Ahead.

The Federal Reserve and other central banks have long been the unchallenged drivers of financial markets and the business cycle. “Don’t fight the Fed,” goes one Wall Street adage.

That era is drawing to a close. In many countries, interest rates are so low, even negative, that central banks can’t lower them further. Tepid economic growth and low inflation mean they can’t raise rates, either.

Since World War II, every recovery was ushered in with lower rates as the Fed moved to stimulate growth. Every recession was preceded by higher interest rates as the Fed sought to contain inflation.

But with interest rates now stuck around zero, central banks are left without their principal lever over the business cycle. . . .

It’s not just the WSJ, you see this sort of thing all over the place.  Bloomberg reports that Larry Summers is making the same sort of claim:

Summers Calls Bernanke Speech ‘Last Hurrah’ for Central Bankers

Fortunately, this pessimism is 100% wrong. We are entering a golden age of central banking, where the Fed will become more effective and come closer to hitting its targets than at any other time in history. Over the next few decades, inflation will stay close to 2% and the unemployment rate will generally be relatively low and stable. And this certainly won’t be due to fiscal policy, which is currently the most recklessly pro-cyclical in American history.

The conventional wisdom on monetary policy has been pretty consistently wrong, mostly because of the widespread tendency to conflate “monetary policy” with “interest rate path”. At the time, most people incorrectly thought money was not too tight in the 1930s, and not too easy in the 1970s, and not too tight in 2008-09. Today they look at low interest rates and wrongly conclude that the Fed is nearly out of ammo. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

In fact, Fed policy is becoming more effective because it is edging gradually in a market monetarist direction, with more focus on:

1. NGDP growth

2. Level targeting

3. Market forecasts of aggregate demand growth

If they continue moving in this direction, then NGDP growth will continue to become more stable, the business cycle will continue to moderate, inflation will stay in the low single digits, and unemployment will stay relatively low and stable.

It won’t be perfect; the business cycle is not quite dead. There will be an occasional recession. But the business cycle is definitely on life support.

We had 4 recessions during 1920-30, 4 recessions during 1949-60, and 4 recessions during 1970-82. My younger readers will never experience that sort of actual “business cycle”, with one recession right after another.

As an analogy, when I was young I would frequently read about airliners crashing in the US. One crashed a few miles from my apartment during the late 1970s. My daughter is a junior in college and doesn’t recall a single major airline crash in the US, excluding a couple of small commuter planes in the 2000s (she was only 2 during 2001). After each crash, problems were fixed and planes got a bit safer.

Recessions and airline crashes: They are getting less frequent, and for the exact same reason.

The post Urban growth and its aggregate implications appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

With a mix of relatively strong and relatively weak polls for each of the major candidates, the top line of our 2020 Democratic primary forecast has been roughly unchanged over the past several days.

In a race without a clear favorite, former Vice President Joe Biden remains the front-runner, with a 39 percent chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates. He’s followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders with a 23 percent chance, Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a 13 percent chance and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a 10 percent chance. The chance that no one will win a majority of pledged delegates is 14 percent. All of those figures are within 1 percentage point of when I last wrote about the forecast on Saturday.

The twist, though, is that this time Biden’s strongest new polls — at least, in terms of how much they helped or hurt him in the model — were in Iowa and New Hampshire, whereas he got middling numbers in new polls of Nevada and California (along with a not-particularly-great set of national numbers).

In a Monmouth University poll of Iowa released on Monday, Biden led the pack with 24 percent of the vote, followed by 18 percent for Sanders, 17 percent for Buttigieg and 15 percent for Warren. Meanwhile, an RKM Research and Communications poll of New Hampshire, conducted for Franklin Pierce University and the Boston Herald, had Biden ahead with 26 percent of the vote there, leading Sanders at 22, Warren at 18 and Buttigieg at 7.

None of that puts Biden in a spectacular position. But the conventional wisdom (at least as espoused by prediction markets) seems to assume that Sanders is considerably more likely than Biden to win in Iowa and New Hampshire. That isn’t really true based on the polls in each state, however. Of the three most recent Iowa polls, for instance, Biden was tied for the lead in one and led outright in another, the same as Sanders. Our model essentially regards Biden and Sanders as co-favorites in each of the first two states, with Warren and Buttigieg also having decent chances.

And if Biden does win the first two states, he’d be in a very strong position, with a 92 percent chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates and a 95 percent chance of winning a plurality.²¹ On average in such scenarios, Biden would win 2,747 of the possible 3,979 pledged delegates and 50 of the 57 nominating contests.

So as much as we like to emphasize the uncertainty in the outlook, scenarios that involve Biden winning do come up more often than those for other candidates. And some of those scenarios involve Biden winning the nomination easily.

Others could involve a split outcome in the first two states. What if Biden wins either Iowa or New Hampshire but not both? He’d be the favorite overall, but that could lead to a reasonably close race. If he won Iowa but lost New Hampshire, Biden would have a 56 percent chance of a pledged delegate majority and a 67 percent chance of a plurality. The reverse scenario — where Biden loses Iowa but wins New Hampshire — would be slightly better for him, giving him a 66 percent chance of a majority and a 76 percent chance of a plurality.

Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic primary forecast in full; you can also see all the 2020 primary polls we’ve collected, including national polls, Iowa polls, New Hampshire polls, Nevada polls and South Carolina polls.

A judge has ruled that truck drivers in California are not subject to Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), a new gig economy law that seeks to reclassify many contractors as employees. 

The regulations, which went into effect January 1 of this year, were drafted in response to Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles. Filed by Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, the landmark court case established a three-pronged "ABC test" to determine if an individual is properly labeled as an employee versus a contractor: a contractor must control their workload, not perform work within the business's primary scope of operations, and be "customarily engaged" in the occupation. Companies are trying their level best to circumvent that standard, which would unravel large portions of the gig economy. 

Enter Judge William Highberger of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Highberger did not find that truckers specifically pass the ABC test, but that the test itself "clearly run[s] afoul" of federal law. He cites the 1994 Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which stipulates that the "use of non-employee independent contractors (commonly known in the trucking industry as 'owner-operators') should apply in all 50 states to increase competition and reduce the cost of trucking services."

Feuer plans to appeal the decision, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Businesses in other industries, though, must still deal with blowback from the law, which has caused issues across the state. Uber and Lyft have a pending lawsuit against the legislation, arguing that their contractors pass the ABC test. Freelance workers—from journalists to translators and digital content creators to transcribers—find themselves especially hamstrung by the new regulations, which prohibit any person from submitting more than 35 assignments in a year to the same company or publication if the outfit does not hire them on as an employee. 

Although the law is in its early stages, companies have already decided not to hire freelancers but to instead end their contracts. Vox Media, for example, which hosts the site SB Nation, laid off 200 California freelancers at the start of the year, telling them that the working relationship would become financially untenable. The company will replace those contractors with 20 part-time and full-time positions. Several other companies, such as Rev and Scripted, have also severed ties with their California freelancers and will instead opt to work with contractors who live outside the state.

"These were never good jobs," Assemblywoman and AB 5 author Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) said earlier this month. "No one has ever suggested that, even freelancers."

Freelance workers seem to disagree, however. Alisha Grauso, an entertainment journalist who identifies as a progressive, told Reason that the bill hurts the vulnerable groups it wants to help. 

"The reality is it still falls primarily on women to be the caretakers and caregivers of their families, and freelancing allows women to be stay-at-home mothers or to care for an aging parent," Grauso notes. "Being made employees kills their flexibility and ability to be home when needed. I cannot stress enough how anti-women this bill is."

The post 40-year-old tractors are now a hot commodity appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images

• Since September, bushfires have razed an estimated 25 million acres in Australia. That's an area larger than South Korea, and it's 7 million more acres than burned in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest last year.
• Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate and more than one billion animals have perished.
• Drought conditions and record-breaking temperatures contributed to the fires' unprecedented size and intensity. 
• Three graphics show the devastating scale of Australia's bushfire crisis.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

More than half of Australia is choking on smoke, and skies across the country glow orange as bushfires continue to ravage the continent.

Since the start of the bushfire season in September, an estimated 25.5 million acres have burned, according to Reuters, and at least 25 people have died. More than 1 billion animals have perished, and an estimated 2,000 homes have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.

Australia experiences fires during its summer, which runs from December to March, but this year's crisis — which comes on the heels of a heat wave and prolonged drought — is unprecedented. The fires that plagued the Brazilian Amazon this year, by comparison, burned through 17.5 million acres of rainforest.

The smoke plume from Australia's blazes is nearly unfathomable in size: 1.3 billion acres of sky are engulfed in ash and smoke that can be seen from space. That's an area three times the size of Mexico, half the size of Canada, and bigger than the 11 biggest US states combined.

In December, an official in New South Wales said the state was experiencing the "longest" and "most widespread" period of poor air quality in the state's history.

"I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background," Michael Mann, a US climate scientist who is on sabbatical in Sydney, wrote in the Guardian on January 2. 

Dry conditions in Australia's bushland, wooded areas, and Blue Mountain National Park have made the land ripe for sparks. Australia experienced its driest spring ever in 2019. December 18 was the hottest day in the country's history, with average temperatures hitting 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit (40.9 degrees Celsius).

In the last 15 years, Australia has experienced eight of its 10 warmest years on record. Winter rains, which can help reduce the intensity of summer fires, have declined significantly, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. That meant that when the fire season started, it was savage and seemingly unstoppable.

"We used to see hundreds of thousands of hectares burned in bushfires, but now we are seeing millions on fire," Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, told the Herald.

These three graphics that reveal the unimaginable scale of the Australia fires.

Compared to other recent fires (and even to the US' worst blaze ever), Australia's bushfire crisis tops the list.

Last year was a year of fire. Blazes cut through 6.4 million acres of the Siberian tundra over the summer, while 2.5 million acres of Alaskan wilderness went up in smoke. More than 100,000 fires started over the course of 10 August days in the Amazon rainforest.

But Australia's bushfires dwarf all of those events. In fact, this season obliterates the country's previous record for worst wildfire season; that was in 2009, when the Black Saturday bushfires razed 1.1 million acres. 

Added up, the burned land in Australia as of January 7 is about the size of the US state of Virginia.

The radius of the resulting smoke — 1.3 billion acres — is equal to the area of Alaska, Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Wyoming, and Michigan combined.

Nearly 70% of Australia is covered by a haze of smoke.

If that smoke cloud hung over Europe, it would engulf half of the continent.

See Also:

• Chris Hemsworth and his family are donating $1 million to Australia fire relief efforts
• Surreal photos show smoke from Australia's bushfires turning the sky in New Zealand orange — 1,200 miles away
• Celebrities who donated their time and money to Australia fire relief efforts

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Samsung

• Samsung's new Odyssey G9 super-ultrawide monitor has such high specs that even the most powerful gaming PCs won't be able to keep up with it.
• It has the ability to play games incredibly smoothly at up to 240 frames per second (fps), but PC gamers will likely have to dial down their games' graphics settings to achieve anything close to 240 fps, even with the most powerful PC hardware you can buy.
• Otherwise, the G9 is exactly as wide as two monitors side by side, which also means twice the work for a gaming PC.
• Not to mention the G9 has a sharp 1440p resolution that's sharper than the standard 1080p resolution on many monitors (but not as sharp as 4K, like most TVs these days).
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's not every day when I can say that a computer monitor is too powerful for a computer.

But today is one of those days: Samsung's new Odyssey G9 super-ultrawide monitor has such high specs that even the most powerful gaming PCs won't be able to keep up with it.

It's like two screens stuck together, which means twice the work for your PC. But we've seen that before, and it's not such a big deal as the graphics cards powering computer have gotten increasingly powerful.

Apart from its gorgeous glossy white design, what sets the Odyssey G9 monitor apart is how many frames per second (fps) it can display. Indeed, the more fps the better with gaming, as it means smoother gameplay and even a competitive advantage in some cases. And gamers and monitor companies seem quite content in the 144 fps range for enthusiasts and professionals.

But Samsung seems intent to make your PC seem insufficient and underpowered with the G9's ability to play games at 240 fps. 

Check out Samsung's new Odyssey G9 monitor:

Samsung's Odyssey G9 is a 49-inch 5120 x 1440p monitor that's essentially the same thing as if two 24-inch monitors were stuck together.

The G9's aspect ratio is 32:9, which is exactly two standard 16:9 monitors side by side. The main benefit with the G9 and other super-ultrawide 32:9 monitors is there's no bezel, or border, running down the middle of the screen like you get with two individual monitors. So, on its own, the G9 demands twice the power from your PC, at least while running a game. 

Games will run incredibly smoothly if you have an incredibly powerful PC and if you dial down your game's graphics settings.

The G9 uses a VA display panel that's well balanced for gaming. It has 1 millisecond input response time that some gamers appreciate for fast-paced games. Combine that with the G9's 240Hz refresh rate that can display games at 240 frames per second (fps), and you have yourself an incredibly quick, smooth, and immersively wide monitor. 

With that said, you'd only achieve those 240 fps at 1440p resolution if you have incredible powerful PC hardware, like Intel's 9th-generation Core i7 or i9 processors, and a graphics card like the $1,200 Nvidia RTX 2080Ti.

Even with those specs, it's unlikely that you'll run recent AAA games at their highest graphics settings at 240 fps. My personal PC runs on a Core i7 9700K and a 2080Ti, and I'm getting about 100 fps on "Battlefield V" at "Ultra" graphics settings on a similar 32:9 monitor; the 1440p Samsung CRG9 monitor with a 120Hz refresh rate.

You'll likely need to dial down a recent game's graphics settings quite considerably to get the 240 fps that the G9 is capable of. But you should be able to play some popular older games like "CS:GO" at 240 fps with decent graphics settings.

If you're not planning to play games at 240 fps, there may be little point to consider the G9.

It has a deep "1000R" curvature that's designed for immersion and to let you see the screen's edges more easily with your peripheral vision.

It also supports HDR1000, which basically means it has decent brightness when playing games in HDR.

And if that's still not enough, the G9 supports AMD's FreeSync 2 technology and has Nvidia's GSync compatibility. Basically, those two features prevent screen tearing; where part of the screen seems to lag slightly behind other parts of the screen.

See Also:

• Forget 2019 — here are the 9 biggest games coming in 2020
• 'Fortnite' made $1.8 billion in 2019, analysts say — that's down 28% from 2018, but it's still the biggest game in the world
• I consistently recommend smartphones from a company that few in the US have ever heard of over Apple's iPhones or Samsung's Galaxy phones — this is why

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's latest 15-inch Surface Pro 3 laptop is a masterpiece for people who like big screens and are willing to pay more for a cutting-edge design

Shrinking the number of refugees in the United States is a priority for the Donald Trump administration, which has already reduced the quota of refugees allowed in the US, made it harder for them to apply at the southern border, and signed executive orders to bar refugees from certain countries.

It seems to be less of a priority for individual states, including Republican ones: Of the 26 US states with Republican governors, 15 have asked Trump for more refugees.

According to an executive order signed Sept. 26, 2019, states have until Jan. 21, 2020 to provide written consent for resettlement programs to be in effect on their territory. As of Dec. 28, according to the State Department, 33 states had requested refugee-resettlement programs, 15 of them run by Republican governors:

• Arizona (Doug Ducey)
• Arkansas (Asa Hutchinson)
• Indiana (Eric Holcomb)
• Iowa (governor: Kim Reynolds)
• Massachusetts (Charlie Baker)
• Nebraska (Pete Ricketts)
• New Hampshire (Chris Sununu)
• North Dakota (Doug Burgum)
• Ohio (Mike DeWine)
• Oklahoma (Kevin Stitt)
• South Dakota (Kristi Noem)
• Tennessee (Bill Lee)
• Utah (Gary Herbert)
• Vermont (Phil Scott)
• West Virginia (Jim Justice)

While some governors haven’t yet decided, like Maryland’s Larry Hogan, others have expressly outlined a desire for more refugees. A consent letter from Utah governor Gary Herbert (pdf) pointed out the role of refugees in Utah’s society and in its history. “Our state was founded by religious refugees fleeing persecution in the Eastern United States,” Herbert writes. “Those experiences and hardships of our pioneer ancestors 170 years ago are still fresh in the minds of many Utahns. As a result, we empathize deeply with individuals and groups who have been forced from their homes and we love giving them a new home and a new life.”

In states struggling with low population growth and many available jobs, refugees can be a boon.

Significantly, no governor—Republican or otherwise—has explicitly asked not to resettle refugees in their state. While the executive order was designed as an opportunity for conservative states to cosign the Trump administration’s anti-refugee policies, so far it has resulted in the opposite.

Enlarge (credit: picture alliance/Getty Images)

A number of years back, there was a great deal of excitement about using viruses to target cancer. A number of viruses explode the cells that they've infected in order to spread to new ones. Engineering those viruses so that they could only grow in cancer cells would seem to provide a way of selectively killing these cells. And some preliminary tests were promising, showing massive tumors nearly disappearing.

But the results were inconsistent, and there were complications. The immune system would respond to the virus, limiting our ability to use it more than once. And some of the tumor killing seemed to be the result of the immune system, rather than the virus.

Now, some researchers have focused on the immune response, inducing it at the site of the tumor. And they do so by a remarkably simple method: injecting the tumor with the flu vaccine. As a bonus, the mice it was tested on were successfully immunized, too.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Marc/Airbnb

• Rental sites like Airbnb and HomeAway offer up stays in everything from cabins to castles.
• Many of the castles are surprisingly affordable, especially if you bring a large group of friends. 
• You can stay in medieval castles in Ireland, England, Belgium, and Spain through HomeAway and Airbnb. 
• There's even a French castle available for stays that will only cost you $12.83 per night on HomeAway if you come with a group of 15.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

You can rent a 13th-century castle located on a lake in Ireland.

This manor is surrounded by seven acres of wooded parkland in Galway, Ireland. It sleeps 12, comes with access to the lake by boat, and it's decorated with tapestries of ancient kings and knights. 

The base cost for the castle is $231 a night, which is just $19.25 a night when divided between 12 people. The listing requires a minimum four-night stay to reserve the castle.

See the HomeAway listing here.

This French castle can sleep up to 15 people.

Located in a park near the sea, this castle in Lannion, France, offers guests views of greenery and the ocean. It has seven bedrooms and a lounge room, as well as a pool on the property.

The castle costs $28.13 per night if you split it between 15 guests. A minimum three-night stay is required.

See the HomeAway listing here.

You could pay just $7 a night to stay in this authentic French castle.

The wing of the castle in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandy, France, that's available for rent has enough room for more than 16 people. It has a game room, a projector for watching movies, and a tennis court on the property. 

The base cost of the home is $112 a night, which is just $7 a day for each guest if you bring 15 of your friends. 

See the Airbnb listing here.

See Also:

• 6 reasons why I love traveling solo
• The best 25 cities to live if you want to keep your New Year's resolutions
• The coziest coffee shop in every state

The Middle East Media Research Institute

• President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike on Friday which killed Qassem Soleimani, arguably the top military figure in Iran.
• The airstrike comes less than two years after Soleimani degraded Trump in a speech, calling him a "bartender" and a "casino manager."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In the wake of the US airstrike that killed Iran's top general, a video has resurfaced of Qassem Soleimani giving a speech in which he likened President Donald Trump to a "bartender or a casino manager."

Soleimani gave the speech in July 2018, in response to Trump accusing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of making "demented words of violence and death." Trump cautioned Rouhani from threatening the US, saying they would "suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before."See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: The true story behind the name 'Black Friday' is much darker than you may have thought

See Also:

• This map shows where US-Iran tensions have flared in Iraq, which culminated in the strike killing Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani
• Trump was eating meatloaf and ice cream at Mar-a-Lago as news of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani's assassination broke
• Protesters stormed the US Embassy in Baghdad and torched parts of it on New Year's Eve

The Financial Times reports that the recent corporate tax reform is beginning to encourage companies to bring intellectual capital back to the US:

Google has overhauled its global tax structure and consolidated all of its intellectual property holdings back to the US, signalling the winding down of a tax loophole estimated to have saved American companies hundreds of billions of dollars.

The internet search company said on Tuesday the move was designed to simplify its corporate tax arrangements and was in line with OECD efforts to limit international tax avoidance, as well as recent changes to US and Irish laws.

Google’s actions came ahead of the close of the so-called “double Irish” tax loophole, which has been used by US companies to channel international profits through Ireland and on to tax havens like Bermuda — putting them outside the US tax net. That led American companies to amass more than $1tn offshore as of the end of 2017, when President Donald Trump’s tax reform changed the treatment of overseas profits.

This action does not impact the actual GDP of the US, as even profits supposedly “held overseas” are in fact owned by US multinationals. It’s an accounting gimmick to avoid taxes, which has no implications for variables such as national income, productivity, exports, etc. But these tax shifting activities do impact measured levels of national income, productivity, exports, etc.

A paper by Fatih Guvenen, Raymond J. Mataloni Jr. Dylan J. Rassier and Kim J. Ruhl provides an example:

Consider the iPhone, which is developed and designed in California but assembled by an unrelated company in China, with components manufactured in various (mostly Asian) countries. Taking some hypothetical ballpark figures, suppose the bill of materials and labor costs of assembly amount to $250 per iPhone and the average selling price is $750, for a gross profit of $500 per phone. For simplicity, assume that there are no further costs of retailing and that all iPhones are sold to customers outside of the United States. 

Two important questions arise from this simple scenario: First, defining GDP as total domestic value added, how much should each iPhone contribute to U.S. GDP? Second, given the profit-shifting practices described above, how much of each iPhone’s gross profit is actually included in U.S. GDP? 

To answer the first question, note that the $250 paid to contract manufacturers and suppliers in Asia is not part of U.S. GDP, whereas how much of the $500 gross profit should be attributed to U.S. GDP depends on where that value is created. If consumers are willing to pay a $500 premium over the production cost for an iPhone, it is because they value the design, software, brand name, and customer service embedded in the product. If we assume these intangibles were developed by managers, engineers, and designers at Apple headquarters in California (Apple, U.S.), then the entire $500 should be included in U.S. GDP. In the national accounts, the $500 would be a net export under charges for the use of intellectual property in expenditure-based GDP, matched by an increase in Apple’s earnings in income-based GDP.

They suggest that much of this output is actually attributed to tax havens such as Ireland:

Suppose that Apple generates intangible assets in the United States and legally transfers them to a foreign affiliate (e.g., one in Ireland). Payments for the use of intellectual property will accrue in Ireland rather than in the United States, which means that the returns to Apple U.S.’s intangible assets are attributed to an Apple affiliate outside the United States and not included in U.S. GDP.

Productivity in the US, especially in high tech industries, is higher than the reported figures. Until the recent tax reform, this problem had been getting worse over time. They report that the practice of US multinationals parking money in tax havens tends to inflate reported GDP in countries like Ireland and Netherlands by 9% to 13%. In the US, the reduction in measured GDP is closer to 1%.

So far, the effects of the recent tax reform on measured US GDP are relatively small. But if the Google decision is copied by lots of other companies, it has the potential to raise reported GDP, productivity, and exports in the US, without affecting actual GDP, productivity and exports.

This process could disrupt a NGDP targeting regime. Fortunately, the impact would be too small and too gradual to lead to a significant business cycle. More likely the unwinding of overseas IP investments would add a few tenths of a percent per year to reported GDP in the US, at most.

As far as Ireland is concerned, if they ever abandon the euro I strongly suggest they target domestic labor income, not GDP.

After over two hundred years of debate about American constitutional law, there aren't many new ideas in the field that are simultaneously good, original, and potentially useful in the real world. But Cato Institute scholar Clark Neily's proposal for "constitutional small claims courts" is one of them. Here's the problem:

A public defender pseudonymously named Don Zeko posted an infuriating thread on Twitter yesterday in which he describes confronting a police officer in the parking lot of a courthouse as the officer was in the process of citing a woman for saying the word "b*tch" in public.

The officer claimed this was disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail. Zeko pointed out to the officer that it is, in fact, not illegal to curse in public (as a constitutional lawyer, I would add that there is a First Amendment right to do so) and that the charge would certainly be thrown out.

The officer then ordered Zeko to get in his car and drive away, and Zeko believes he would have been arrested had he stood his ground, as he later wished he had.

This may seem like a trivial incident… But there are three key points to make about this encounter.

First, this kind of thing happens all the time. Just noodle around on YouTube a bit and you'll be struck by the utter banality of it all: The casual disrespect, intimidation, deceit, manipulativeness—it's shocking how so many officers misbehave so flagrantly, even when they know they're being recorded.

Second, as discussed below, there are rarely any consequences for officers who engage in the sort of low-level harassment described by Zeko and depicted in the links above….

Third, while this sort of petty tyranny may pale in comparison to beatings and shootings, these micro-assaults on people's freedom are antithetical to liberal democracy and, in the aggregate, corrosive to the rule of law. The message is clear: "I'm a cop. If you don't want to get hurt, don't challenge me."

Unfortunately, our system is not well designed to address constitutional violations that do not produce significant physical injuries or otherwise provide the opportunity to recover substantial monetary damages…

And Neily's original solution:

[T]here's an easy, virtually off-the-shelf solution that involves nothing more than combining two utterly commonplace features of our existing system: traffic tickets and small claims court….

[I]magine a system like this: The city has a website where people can file small claims against police officers like the one described in Zeko's Twitter thread. There's one field for the officer's name and/or badge number, another for a brief description of what you claim happened, and another where you can list any injuries or damages you believe you sustained. And as with small claims court, there's a way to include any documentation you might have, including a recording of the incident, photographs of bruises or other physical injuries, witness statements, etc….

But won't officers constantly be tied up in constitutional small-claims court to the detriment of their other duties? Nope, not at all. First, as with traffic tickets, there will be a way for them to simply admit liability (or decline to contest it) and pay up….

Second, traffic courts typically schedule hearings on all of the contested citations a given police officer has issued in the past X weeks or months for the same day so the officer only has to spend one day in court testifying about those cases. We could do the same thing in constitutional small claims court: Schedule all of the contested cases against a particular officer on the same day, just like traffic court but in reverse……

And again like traffic court, there could be a set schedule of fines—or, in this case, damages awards—for particular sorts of misconduct….

Clark goes on to address a variety of possible objections, and also proposes a clever way to find the necessary funds to pay successful claimants, while simultaneously incentivizing officers to minimize these sorts of violations. As the saying goes, read the whole thing!

Even if fully implemented, this idea will not fully end police misconduct of the sort Clark describes. Far from it, most likely. But it would give victims a real shot at getting compensation, and could give police considerably stronger incentives to avoid such shenanigans.

I would like to propose two extensions of Clark's idea, which I hope he might regard as friendly amendments:

First, these constitutional small claims courts are unlikely to be effective unless the doctrine of qualified immunity is lifted as a possible defense, or at least severely limited. Currently, that defense gives misbehaving police such broad protection that they are not held liable even for such blatantly illegal acts as stealing $225,000 in private property while conducting a search, and shooting a helpless child who was lying on the ground (the officer was actually trying to shoot the family dog, who posed no threat). If this license to kill and steal applies in Clark's proposed constitutional small claims courts, they are unlikely to be effective, as officers would not be held liable for the vast bulk of the misconduct these courts are supposed to provide compensation for. Clark himself is an advocate of abolishing qualified immunity, so I suspect he would not contest this point.

There is a simple fix for the problem: a state or local government that establishes constitutional small claims courts can also mandate (in the same legislation) that the defense of qualified immunity does not apply to claims filed there, or at least should be given a narrow scope. Even if qualified immunity persists in more high-stakes cases, it is implausible to argue that officers must have it in small claims cases, where all they stand to suffer is a modest financial loss.

My second extension is to apply the constitutional small claims concept to other government employees who often violate constitutional rights in small, but painful ways: regulators, CBP and ICE agents (they also get away with far more serious abuses, of course), CPS/child welfare agencies, public school administrators, and others.  It may be that different agencies will require somewhat differently structured small claims systems. But the basic idea is broadly applicable.

Others may well have their own ideas on how Clark Neily's idea can be extended and improved. For the moment, I will end by applauding him for this valuable contribution to the debate over how to remedy constitutional rights violations.

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No, this headline does not reflect any ill will toward the Chinese economy, rather I am celebrating a rare victory in the war on moral hazard.

In the US, the problem of moral hazard seems to be growing worse over time.  It began with FDIC insured bank deposits.  Then the doctrine of “too-big-to-fail “was added.  Then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were implicitly backed.  Later, their backing was made explicit.  Now there’s talk of bailing out student borrowers, and pension fund bailouts may be coming down the road.  Federal flood insurance encourages construction in flood prone areas.

I have frequently argued that moral hazard plays a big role in modern financial crises, but it’s hard to get other economists interested in the problem.  Most seem to treat it like a minor concern.

Therefore it’s nice to see a major economy taking important steps against moral hazard:

China’s had another record year of corporate bond defaults. That’s not a crisis. It’s a plan.

A decade ago, defaults almost never happened, but that wasn’t because companies in China were always healthy. It was a reflection of the tightly controlled financial system, where companies were often linked to the government and bonds were largely bought by state-owned lenders. Authorities have often stepped in to ensure that financially troubled enterprises didn’t crash into default, out of concern over social unrest in the event of job losses or missed payroll payments.

This system imposed little discipline on borrowers. Now global investors are coming into China’s bond market. Though many companies are still state-backed, policymakers are getting more comfortable with defaults. Without them, bond buyers would have little incentive to make a careful assessment of a company’s creditworthiness.

Government guarantees of debt obligations lead to inefficient investment decisions.  In China, this has shown up in the construction of numerous “ghost cities”, such as the Binhai area of Tianjin.  I visited this area in August, and snapped a picture of a forest of empty skyscrapers:

If the Chinese government is serious about allowing debt defaults, it will reduce the incentive of investors to misallocate resources.  This should make China’s economy more productive.

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images

• KFC fried chicken has become a Christmas tradition in Japan. 
• Takeshi Okawara, who helped launch KFC in Japan in the early 1970s, played a major role in creating the tradition, casting Colonel Sanders as a pseudo-Santa Claus figure. 
• Okawara even says he lied to the media, claiming that fried chicken was a Western Christmas tradition — a claim he says he still regrets today. 
• Sign up for Business Insider's retail newsletter, The Drive-Thru.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Japanese tradition of eating fried chicken on Christmas may be built on a lie. 

The first KFC in Japan opened in 1970. The store manager, Takeshi Okawara, struggled to drive sales. Customers didn't know what to make of the red-and-white striped roof and the English signs, unsure if the store was selling candy or cutting hair. Okawara told Business Insider's podcast "Brought to you by..." that at times, he had so little money he slept on flour bags in the back of the store. See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: Rare Italian white truffles cost over $4,000 per kilo — here's why real truffles are so expensive

See Also:

• Kroger warns that Facebook postings offering free groceries for a year are fake
• The 7 biggest comeback stories in retail
• Chipotle is testing new restaurant designs, and they reveal the chain's massive plans for the future

SEE ALSO: The parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut is increasingly likely to acquire more chains, and it reveals a massive shift in the fast-food industry

Michal Durinik/Shutterstock

• Karl Reipen, a German-multi-millionaire, wants 10 "nice people" to move into his remote, 540-acre New Zealand estate.
• The estate features a winery, stables, and views of the Tasman Sea.
• Reipen posted an ad in the "New Zealand Herald's" holiday accommodation section looking for applicants.
• The only requirements for applicants are that they are under 70 years old and don't mind the isolation of the estate, as the closest cities are 90 minutes away.
• Reipen bought the house 10 years ago with the fortune he made selling canned ice coffee. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Moving in with a roommate you don't know can be a dicey proposition, but this particular opportunity is a bit more enticing than what you'd find on Craigslist.

Karl Reipen, a German multi-millionaire and iced-coffee mogul, is looking for 10 "nice people" to share his remote New Zealand estate with him.See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: People are still debating the pink or grey sneaker, 2 years after it went viral. Here's the real color explained.

See Also:

• You can watch the northern lights and polar bears from your table at this remote Canadian diner
• You and 7 friends could rent an entire castle in the English countryside for $59 a night
• You can drink spiked hot cocoa and eggnog on an adults-only Christmas train ride in Tennessee

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

• Boeing announced on Monday that David Calhoun will become the aerospace company's CEO and president effective January 13, following the firing of former CEO Dennis Muilenburg.
• Calhoun had been the chairman of Boeing's board of directors, on which he had served since 2009, and was a senior managing director at Blackstone, leading that firm's private-equity portfolio operations division.
• Before working at Blackstone, Calhoun was the CEO and chairman of Nielsen Holdings and a senior executive at General Electric, where he led multiple divisions, including transportation, aircraft engines, and transportation systems.
• Boeing has this year been gripped by a huge crisis over its handling of two crashes involving the 737 Max plane. The two crashes, in October 2018 and March 2019, killed a total of 346 people.
• Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Boeing announced on Monday that David Calhoun will become the aerospace company's CEO and president effective January 13, following the firing of former CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

"Under the company's new leadership, Boeing will operate with a renewed commitment to full transparency, including effective and proactive communication with the FAA, other global regulators and its customers," Boeing said in a press release. "Dave has deep industry experience and a proven track record of strong leadership, and he recognizes the challenges we must confront."See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: Why it's so hard for planes to land on water

See Also:

• Why airplane takeoffs and landings are so dangerous
• NASA says a clock error sent Boeing's new astronaut spaceship veering wildly off course during its maiden voyage
• BMW appeared to make fun of Elon Musk's tweets about Tesla Cybertruck reservations

The fourth paragraph of a recent New York Times story about vaping on college campuses notes "a growing health crisis that has killed more than 50 people and injured more than 2,500," which it says led Congress to raise the minimum purchase age for e-cigarettes to 21. Later the Times concedes that the deaths and injuries are "largely attributed to vaping products containing THC." But that inconvenient fact does not stop the Times from conflating college students' nicotine vaping—the main subject of the story—with vaping of potentially deadly black-market cannabis products.

That sort of misleading reporting remains sadly common despite the mounting evidence implicating vitamin E acetate, a cutting and thickening agent that began showing up in illegal THC products this year, in the recent outbreak of vaping-related respiratory illnesses. Two days before the Times published its story, The New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study that strengthens the case against that additive, which is not found in legal e-cigarettes.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed lung fluid from 51 patients with "probable or confirmed" vaping-related respiratory conditions and found vitamin E acetate in 48, or 94 percent. As Boston University public health professor Michael Siegel notes, "the three cases in which vitamin E acetate was not detected were not confirmed cases, and each had other potential explanations for their illnesses. One had a multi-drug overdose, one had a fungal infection, and one may have had a bacterial lung infection."

These results, based on cases from 16 states, are similar to the findings of a November 15 CDC study that found vitamin E acetate in every lung fluid sample from 29 patients in 10 states. The new study also examined lung fluid samples from 99 healthy subjects, including 18 "exclusive users of nicotine-containing e-cigarette products," and found no vitamin E acetate. The study "provides evidence," the researchers say, that vaping products "can deliver vitamin E acetate to respiratory epithelial-lining fluid, the presumed site of injury in the lung." In light of this study and earlier findings, the CDC is now describing vitamin E acetate as "closely associated" with the lung injuries.

The NEJM study, which tested 47 lung fluid samples for THC, also provides further evidence that self-reports may not be reliable in identifying which patients have consumed cannabis extracts. "THC or its metabolites were detected in BAL [bronchoalveolar-lavage] fluid samples from 40 of 47 patients," the researchers report. "A total of 9 of 11 patients who reported no use of THC-containing e-cigarette products in the 90 days before the onset of illness had detectable THC or its metabolites in their BAL fluid. Among the patients who had available laboratory data or who reported product use, 47 of 50 (94%) had detectable THC or its metabolites in BAL fluid or reported vaping THC products in the 90 days before the onset of illness."

As a CDC official noted after the earlier BAL study, THC would not necessarily be detectable in the lung fluid of patients who had consumed it. Without urine testing, it's impossible to confirm the self-reports of patients who deny using cannabis products, possibly because they are reluctant to admit illegal drug use.

The researchers suggest two ways in which vitamin E acetate, which was first publicly identified as a potential lung disease culprit in early September, might be causing patients' symptoms (endnotes omitted):

Although the ingestion and dermal application of vitamin E acetate have not generally been associated with adverse health effects, the safety of inhaling vitamin E acetate has received little attention. Vitamin E acetate is the ester of vitamin E (α-tocopherol) and acetic acid. The structure shows a long aliphatic tail that can penetrate a layer of surfactant to align the molecule in parallel with phospholipids. Phosphatidylcholines undergo transition from a gel to a liquid crystalline phase when exposed to increasing amounts of tocopherols, such as vitamin E acetate. Transitioning to a liquid crystalline phase would cause the surfactant to lose its ability to maintain the surface tension that is necessary to support respiration in the lung, thus providing a possible mechanism by which vitamin E acetate could cause respiratory dysfunction.

Another potential harmful effect of vitamin E acetate that may contribute to lung injury occurs when it is heated in e-cigarette products. Heating vitamin E acetate in these devices may create ketene by splitting off the acetate group from some or all of the vitamin E acetate. Ketene is a reactive compound that has the potential to be a lung irritant, depending on concentration.

While the researchers caution that "the causative agents" responsible for the lung disease outbreak "have not been established," the evidence so far overwhelmingly points to relatively new additives or contaminants in black-market cannabis extracts, as opposed to legal nicotine e-liquids. Yet leading media outlets such as The New York Times continue to imply that nicotine-delivering e-cigarettes might be causing the lung injuries, suggesting that policies like raising the legal vaping age or banning flavored e-liquids are logical responses instead of panicky non sequiturs.

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[Sorry for the interruption; we will return to our regularly scheduled Adversarial Collaboration Contest tomorrow.]
[Epistemic status: I’m linking evaluations made by people I mostly trust, but there are many people who don’t trust these, I haven’t 100% evaluated them perfectly, and if your assumptions differ even a little from those of the people involved these might not be very helpful. If you don’t know what effective altruism is, you might want to find out before supporting it. Like I said, this is for maximally lazy people and everyone else might want to investigate further.]

If you’re like me, you resolved to donate money to charity this year, and are just now realizing that the year is going to end soon and you should probably get around to doing it. Also, you support effective altruism. Also, you are very lazy. This guide is for you.

The maximally lazy way to donate to effective charity is probably to donate to EA Funds. This is a group of funds run by the Center for Effective Altruism where they get experts to figure out what are the best charities to give your money to each year. The four funds are Global Health, Animal Welfare, Long-Term Future, and Effective Altruism Meta/Community. If you are truly maximally lazy, you can just donate an equal amount to all four of them; if you have enough energy to shift a set of little sliders, you can decide which ones get more or less.

If you have a little more time and energy, you might want to look at the charities suggested by some charity-evaluating organizations and see which ones you like best.

GiveWell tries to rigorously evaluate charities that can be rigorously evaluated, which usually means global health. They admit that they have to exclude whole categories of charity that try to change society in vague ways, because those charities can’t be evaluated as rigorously. But they do a good job of what they do. Most of their top charities fight malaria and parasitic worms; this latter cause is interesting because these worms semipermanently lower school performance, concentration, and general health, suggesting that treating them could permanently improve economic growth. You can donate directly to GiveWell (to be divided up among their top charities at their discretion) here, or you can look at their list of top recommended charities for 2019 here.

Animal Charity Evaluators is the same thing, but for charities that try to help animals, usually by fighting factory farming. You can donate to ACE’s Recommended Charity Fund, again to be divided up among their top charities at their discretion, here, or see their list of top recommended charities for 2019 here.

AI Alignment Literature Review And Charity Comparison is a report posted by LW user Larks going over all the major players in AI safety, what they’ve been doing the past year, and which ones need more funding. If you just want to know which ones they like best, CTRL+F “conclusions” and run it through rot13. Or if you’re too lazy to do that and you just want me to link you their top recommended charity’s donation page, it’s here.

Vox’s report on the best charities for climate change lists ones that claim to be able to prevent one ton of carbon emissions for $0.12 and $1, compared to the $10 you would get on normal offset sites. Their top choice is Coalition For Rainforest Nations (but see criticism here), and their second choice is Clean Air Task Force.

You might also want to check out ImpactMatters (a version of GiveWell focused on literal First World problems), Let’s Fund (a site that highlights charities, mostly in science and technology, and runs campaigns for them), this post on the Effective Altruism forum about which charities people are donating to this year, and this list of what charities the charity selection experts at the Open Philanthropy Project are donating to.

And if you’re not actually lazy at all, you might want to check out some interesting individual charities that have been making appeals around here recently (others can add their appeals in the comments if they want).

The Center For Election Science tries to convince US cities (and presumably plans to eventually work up to larger areas) to use approval voting, a form of voting where third party candidates don’t “split the vote” and you can vote for whoever you want with a clear conscience. They argue this will make compromise easier and moderate candidates more likely to win. They’ve already succeeded in changing the ballot in Fargo, North Dakota, and as the old saying goes, “as Fargo, North Dakota goes, so goes the world.”

Happier Lives Institute wants to work directly on making people happier, but they realize nobody really knows what that means, so they’re doing a lot of meta-research on what happiness is and what the best way to measure it is. Aside from that, they seem to be working on cheap mental health interventions in Third World countries.

Machine Intelligence Research Institute works on a different aspect of AI alignment than most other groups; this comic explains the technicalities better than most sources. They are secretive and don’t talk a lot about their work or give a lot for people to evaluate them on, so whether or not you donate will probably be based on whether they’ve won social trust with you (they have with me).

Charter Cities Institute is trying to work with investors and Third World governments to create charter cities, autonomous cities with better institutions that can supercharge growth in the Third World. For example, a corrupt Third World country where doing business is near-impossible might designate one of their cities to be administered by foreign judges under an open-source law code, so that enterprise can take off. Think of it as a seastead, except on land, and with the host country’s consent (they’re hoping to profit off the tax revenue). David Friedman’s son Patri is leading another effort in this direction.

Finally, if you’re really skeptical and don’t believe any charity can accomplish much, you might want to consider GiveDirectly, which just gives your money directly to very poor people in Africa to do whatever they want with.