While it would be costly to reorganize as a one time expense, to the extent that it eliminates redundancy in government, it may lead to a long term improvement in efficiency. Princeton Borough and Princeton Township just voted to consolidate. This will be a one time cost of ~$10 million as reorganization happens, and then save $3 million a year in redundant bureaucracy. Within 4 years it will be worth the investment.

Let’s say you’re Perry, and you believe that some of these things can be eliminated, and many can be scaled down. At that point, having a department with all the bureaucracy that implies, may be extremely inefficient. Folding those remaining sub-departments into other departments could save money in the long run. I don’t know the budgets well enough to know if the calculations work out, but it isn’t necessarily as wasteful as it appears on the surface.

The wording implies that Paterno actively chose to keep the allegations inside the school instead of going to the police. That said, the wording isn’t clear. Has anyone read any more clear reporting on this?

From your post ““I really can’t be 100%, but it looked like I saw Coach Sandusky naked in the shower with a boy.”

So, you’re a coach and you get this report. What do you do? You pass it on to people who can investigate. And then, you assume that those people have investigated. Because it’s their job to do so, and its the ethical and moral thing to do so, and because they have the resources to do so in a way that you don’t.

And when nothing happens, it’s only natural to think “false alarm”. After all, the “I’m not 100% certain…” preface means that there’s room for doubt.

In hindsight, knowing what happened, its easy to condemn Paterno. But with the information he had at the time, what he did may have been much more reasonable.

I’ve heard faculty argue that we need to make our pre-reqs for various majors more stringent because ‘too many weak students are joining the major’. That type of attitude tends to be more prevalent in the sciences than the humanities or social sciences. In at least two departments, I’ve observed faculty debate whether to add computationally intensive courses that aren’t particularly relevant to the major to try and discourage certain students from pursuing the major.

That said, I still need persuading that it is a problem that 40% of math/science students decide to pursue a different major. I’m all for a push to make sure all college graduates are scientifically literate and numerate. But that doesn’t mean majoring in math or science – it can be covered with the right distribution requirements. Why are we obsessed with increasing the number of science majors in the first place?

If that is the case, then we need to start generating a list of things that fit under the “only government” category. You note national defense. But that can’t be the only thing on that list. The number two thing on that list would be roads – at least that’s my intuition.

But the highway system is roads. Which means, that framing the highway system as military shouldn’t make a difference according to this model. Which suggests that it isn’t so much “things in government’s purview” as “military stuff” that conservatives like. I think this is an important clarification for two reasons:

1) It more clearly specifies the prescriptive recommendations.

2) It raises the interesting question of what it is about military spending that leads to acceptable government spending, when other public goods are not.

One final thought. As a libertarian myself, the thing I find MOST wasteful of government spending is the military. If I had my druthers I’d drastically cut military spending – well before cutting other things like welfare (although I’d cut those too – if I get druthers, I’m gonna use them!).

So, I wonder to what extent that the acceptability of military spending is being driven by neo-cons rather than the conservative movement as a whole…

More on point, whenever the economy is bad, divisiveness increases. Historically it’s been along racial or ethnic lines. E.g. You can look at the number of lynchings in the south during Jim Crow, and that’s strongly correlated with a down economy.

So, I agree with you that we will ride this out – just as we’ve ridden it out so many times before. It may be awhile before the economy improves though.

2) Personally, I think they raised prices too high when they could have done other things. In particular, I believe that theaters could be making a lot more money in concession sales and other amenities. How?

A) Demand that directors and studios bring back intermissions for long (2.5 hour plus) movies. Give audiences a chance to refill their beverages and popcorn.

B) Sell candy and bottled soda inside the theaters themselves immediately before and after movies (and also during said intermission).

C) Diversify concession sales. Rent space to fast food chains in the lobbies (not unlike what you see at ballgames). Theaters that show exclusively “independent” or “arts” cinema (and tailor to an older clientele) could even have bars selling wine and appetizers to patrons, not unlike you see at the opera or ballet. One could even set aside significant lobby space for a coffee shop or cafe on site, as places to hang out before their movie starts.

D) Provide supervised play areas for children (not unlike one sees at Ikea). Allow mom and dad to go see that rated “R” film while their kids play right outside in the lobby.

E) Sell movie paraphernalia on site. Make the parents who just took his kid to Cars 2 have to walk past a store selling Cars 2 merchandise to exit the theater. I guarantee they will sell a few things.