When I was in undergrad studying economics, we talked about “Rational Ignorance.” The idea is that acquiring information is costly because it takes time that one could spend doing something else. For instance, instead of reading the newspaper, I could watch a movie.

The concept of rational ignorance explains the reason why many people are poorly informed about the news. Many people simply have other tasks that they find more valuable than reading the newspaper, and if those activities fill up 24 hours in a day, the newspaper will not be read.

Rational ignorance is such an interesting concept to me because I have always considered it to be a “good American citizen” thing to do to be very informed about the political process to make an informed vote in an upcoming election and participate in general political discourse. However, when I’m busy, I don’t read the newspaper. Over the past few months, I’ve been busy, and I really have not kept up with primaries and debates. At first, I felt bad about it, but the more that I think about it, the less bad I feel.

Full Disclosure: This is not an advertisement, although the link to the Amazon Kindle is an affiliate link to Amazon.  I am actually going somewhere with this article beyond the Amazon Kindle. 

The Amazon Kindle is not getting the kind of hype it deserves.  Why?  Because although the Kindle is far from a perfect product - it’s not close yet - it is going to shine some much-needed light on E-Book readers.  This could potentially lead to the end - or at least the near death - of the majority of print media.

The Kindle is an E-Book reader.  It’s about the size of a book, it has a small keyboard, a cellular internet connection, and most importantly an “E-Ink” screen that displays books.  The battery can last for more than a week without recharging.  The Kindle’s main purpose is to read books.  If you want to buy a book, you can use the Kindle’s built-in online store to purchase books wirelessly, using its free cellular internet connection.  Additionally, you can subscribe to NEWSPAPERS/blogs/other publications on the Kindle, so that every morning when you wake up, today’s paper is ready for you to read.

Many Americans who support the use of alternative energy in the United States believe that subsidizing the cost of producing alternative energy will lead to more alternative energy use.  That may be true in the short run, but in the long run, it might not be the case.  Instead, the subsidies on dirty fossil fuels should be eliminated.

Subsidizing alternative energy use, in the short run, will of course lead to increased use of alternative energy.  If it is more profitable for firms to enter the industry, more firms will enter.  Because subsidizing, all else equal, leads to increased profits for a firm, subsidization of alternative energy will lead to more firms entering the energy sector.  Because more alternative energy firms enter the energy sector, competition will cause prices for alternative energy to drop, so consumers will consume more alternative energy.  The caveat here is that perhaps a subsidy is needed to get a particular industry off the ground.  Well, hasn’t that happened already?  Solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power are all supposed to be somewhat competitive cost-wise with coal and oil when you net away the subsidization of coal and oil.

There are plenty of complaints about the fact that O.J. Simpson is all over the news.  Just like when Paris Hilton was all over the news earlier this summer.  Why are these no-good celebrities dominating the TV screen on nightly newscasts and all of the major papers?  Easy Answer: People who run news broadcasts respond to incentives.

Many people who watch the news, or read the newspaper, or who have blogs they update with nonsensical posts once every two weeks claim that this news is unimportant.  They claim the newspapers and newscasts should focus on important information like the war, politics, the environment, and other such topics.

But it’s very expensive to run a newspaper or a newscast.  Bills have to be paid.  The only way to do that is to find enough subscribers or viewers.  And to do that, you’ve got to give the people what they want.  Sure, there are plenty of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals that want the “real” news and none of this celebrity news all over the front page.  But the average American news observer craves this celebrity, human-interest pseudo-news.  So the papers and the news broadcasts are going to keep feeding it to them.

Via Greg Mankiw:

A causal relationship between gasoline prices and obesity is possible through mechanisms of increased exercise and decreased eating in restaurants. I use a fixed effects model to explore whether this theory has empirical support, finding that an additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce obesity in the U.S. by 15% after five years, and that 13% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to falling real gas prices during this period. [link to study]

Always take studies like these with a grain of salt.  However, if it makes sense, there could be some truth here.  The cheaper the gas, the less people walk, and the more they drive to eat out at restaurants.  Thus, the cheaper the gas, the more behavior occurs that could result in increased obesity.

It would be interesting to see some more studies on obesity/gasoline prices.