I usually like Greenwald and in general agree with his argument here. But I sure as hell don't like the ad-homing of Lamo as a mental patient and convicted felon. Not relevant, Glenn.

I don't know that he's engaging in an ad hominem so much as pointing out that it is unusual for someone who was just released from mental health supervision to be acting as a key witness in a federal prosecution. And Adrian lamo is a convicted felon so that's a factual detail relevant to the story.

The thing that makes this story confusing to many people is that there are multiple overlapping contexts in play here.

1. Glenn Greenwald is attempting to hold Kevin Poulsen accountable as a journalist for holding back information relevant to the story and for failing to disclose his ties to other actors who are directly involved in the story.

2. Greenwald is attempting to establish when Lamo began working for the government in this case, and is using parts of the transcript released so far to show that it was probably much earlier than Lamo claims.

3. He's also attempting to show that it's quite likely that the inhumane treatment being afforded to Pfc. Manning is intended to coerce him into implicating others in his criminal activities whether the facts and the law support that implication or not.

Any interest in remote applicants?

We'll consider, depending on the applicant.

Airlines wouldn't exist in the "free market". Are you arguing that air travel has no net value?

I'm willing to entertain the argument, though I'm not familiar with any arguments that airlines are inherently unprofitable without using force on someone.

Depends on where you are. Airlines wouldn't fly into rural North Dakota because it would simply not be worth their while. That doesn't mean that people supporting energy and agricultural production don't need to fly. If you weren't subsidizing them with your tax dollars, you would be with your airline tickets. This would probably lead to fewer people flying, less tourism dollars, etc. thus requiring the government to come in and subsidize them again :)

If you took the government out of the airline industry now, the country would look very different.

Citation needed, Southwest is quite profitable, can you explain what they are getting in subsidies (I just may be unfamiliar with your argument).

I think he means that it's a property rights and safety issue, not a financial one.

I'd be interested in seeing if there's been any effect on Swedish entrepreneurship resulting from generous family leave.

Obviously I'm not talking about high-powered startups here, but lifestyle businesses, freelancers, that sort of thing. Probably hard to draw out causation, but worth thinking about too.

From what I have seen: the risk of starting a company is very low. No matter what happens, you're not going to starve or be homeless or be ill with no health cover.

But on the other hand: it's difficult to start a company (in the sense that there is a lot of bureacracy to negotiate) and the incentive to succeed is also lower (partly because the risk is lower, and partly because the tax system is punitive of anyone who breaks from the herd).

Cross-subsidy is a part of life in a civilized society.

That's just begging the question.

It's not quite as simple as glibly saying that Americans can just lower their standards of living and walk away from stable employment to take paternity leave.

Also, people don't just make choices out of the ether - people's range of choices are influenced by the policy environment. It holds in Sweden too - Swedes didn't make the choice to stay at home until they were given the choice, at which point they did.

At any rate, even if Americans are violently opposed to taking parental leave, surely a non-zero number of men would take it - what's the harm in guaranteeing that men have more chance to bond with their children?

You are confusing marginal cost and total cost.

Swedish policy reduces the marginal cost of parental leave to the consumer - they are forced to pay for it whether they want it or not, so the marginal cost of leave is $0.0. This implies Swedes find paternity leave to be worth at least $0.01, and so paternity leave has a positive marginal cost/benefit ratio. That does not mean it has a positive cost/benefit ratio.

I'm sure Americans also value paternity leave at something higher than $0.01. However, most Americans seem to feel that 18 months of paternity leave is not worth 18 months of salary.

The harm in forcing Americans to pay for it (regardless of whether they want it) is that they find the money more valuable. Forcing people to trade something of higher value for something of lesser value is harmful. I'd similarly be harmed if you forced me to trade my Thinkpad for a netbook or my Nexus 1 for an iPhone.

I mean, fine, but this is the case with just about any form of social program. I'm not in danger of needing food stamps, so logic dictates I'd rather have the $20 a year or so I contribute to that program. I don't like bombs, but about 5-10% of my income goes to pay for them.

You're forced to pay for all kinds of stuff. Might as well get some social value out of it (like more cohesive families)

In basically all cases I can think of, forcing people to buy private goods (rivalrous and excludible) is harmful to the people who would not otherwise choose to purchase those goods.

Your example of bombs/military spending doesn't fall into that category, since defense is neither rivalrous nor excludible. My enjoyment of Iraqi deaths does not hinder your enjoyment of same, and the military has no way of preventing me from enjoying Iraqi deaths if I don't pay my military bill. Thus everyone has an incentive to freeload and a free market will not allocate enough resources to killing Iraqis.

Eh, the cost is that you only get a maximum of 80% of your salary. It is also capped.

In Norway, which has a similar arrangement, you can choose between

1) 46 weeks with 100% pay

or

2) 56 weeks with 80% pay

This is capped at ~ $70 K, but in practice many employers pay people on leave their normal salary (or 80% if you choose the longer leave period).

In which case, Swedes find it at least as valuable as 20% of their salary.

The relevant question: do they consider paternity leave to be worth more than 100% of their salary? If not, this policy is harmful.

That's only a fair question if your basic needs (food and shelter) are met with 0% of your salary. Otherwise, there is not really a choice.

Thanks to my American salary and Swedish consumption level, my basic needs can be met for many months even if my salary drops to $0. (Not that I actually want paternity leave - it sounds boring.)

Exactly what do you mean by "Swedish consumption level"? Do you think we have 14" TV's and live on ramen here?

I'll post income figures again: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio...

I spend money like a person living on the blue line. I earn money like a person living on the red line.

Or, to make another comparison, I imagine people in Sweden consume similarly to people in Maine or Montana (two of the poorer US states).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S1C7-ttdD0I/AAAAAAAAMe...

(Note that those numbers are PPP adjusted.)

So, I'll assume you're above the crossover point. In Sweden, we tend to think that everybody should be able to be home with their kids, not just the ones with enough income to save up..

The people at the very bottom actually have more time to spend with their kids. 80% of our poor (roughly our bottom 15%) are not in the labor force, for example.

This is exactly what I wanted to say, but was too lazy to type up.

Sounds like your beef isn't with the car, but with policymakers who are too cowardly to put a price on carbon emissions. Incorporating externalities, I think the cost-benefit analysis of the Volt becomes much more balanced.

The writer of the piece is also the writer of The Truth About Cars - a notoriously anti-GM blog.

The Volt definitely has faults, but it's a brand-spanking-new technology - what do people expect?

And how is it not? It's a car that, in normal use, will use no gasoline. That's a big deal now, and an even bigger deal if some sort of cap and trade/carbon tax is put into place.

But, unlike the Leaf, Tesla and other pure electrics, it is capable of driving long distances because of the gas engine.

It's the first electric car without "range anxiety".