Vaccines. Vaccines? Vaccines!

With the recent spike in measles cases, the argument about vaccines has resurrected and, as most things it seems, has now become a political issue for Republican presidential candidates. Jim Geraghty has an interesting piece on the dynamics at work.

One difference compared to previous years is that the presumptive Republican field boasts two medically trained candidate–and they disagree. Rand Paul (R-KY),is an ophthalmologist, and Ben Carson (R-MD) is a renowned neurosurgeon who does things like separate conjoined twins. Paul argues that vaccinations are a matter of liberty, and while they are a positive good, we should allow people to make their own decisions. Carson comes out forcefully opposed to Paul, noting the positive impact of vaccinations, especially as they relate to historically deadly diseases like polio. He thinks it is more a matter of public safety and that people should not be allowed to opt out of vaccinations based on religious or a philosophical objections.

In the end, I agree with Carson. What to do about it is a different matter. Should the government prevent non-vaccinated children from attending school? Should it compel vaccinations and remove children from parents that refuse to cooperate? At least one Supreme Court precedent addresses this (Jacobson v. Massachusetts), and there the Court allowed a forced inoculation against small pox within Massachusetts. To my knowledge, and without doing a bunch of additional digging, this precedent still stands, though it is limited by the nature of the threat of small pox as compared to something like the measles.

The Republican party frequently struggles with how it is perceived in relation to science. Of course, Democrats can be accused of the same thing. Neither party has a monopoly on science, but for each of them their commitments override scientific claims on some issues. For the Democrats, a woman’s right to choose will likely always trump whatever we know about fetal development, while for many Republicans, their religious commitments preclude a strong commitment to evolution. Climate science cuts both ways, I think. To the extent it is settled (and I have no idea if it is), the policy implications and recommendations are highly debatable.

Though this is being spun as a problem for Republicans, my guess is that Democrats have way more supporters who are opposed to vaccines than Republicans do–especially in California, Oregon, and Vermont, which are not exactly red states.

Bookstores Closing Due to Minimum Wage Hikes

San Francisco’s decision to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour will result in some bookstores closing for good. The American Enterprise Institute is all over this story. In many industries, minimum wages can be absorbed, to a degree, by passing costs along to customers. So, if a fast food chain has to pay employees more, customers will pay more for their burgers and burritos, or the chain will simply hire fewer people.

Bookstores, however, have very little pricing flexibility. Given the pressures of online competition, and the retail price for books that is printed directly on most covers, booksellers are in a bind if their employee costs rise. They are faced with either asking consumers to pay more than the cover price (good luck with that), hiring fewer employees, or simply closing operations. Borderlands Books is closing their doors. Expect more stories like this as municipalities continue to push wages upward.

Harper Lee to Publish New Book!

The stories are flooding forth this morning that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, will publish a new novel this summer. Go Set a Watchman is about the adult Scout Finch, the character at the center of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the “new” novel was actually conceived and mostly written prior to Lee’s famous work about southern culture before the civil rights revolution.

Here is my favorite Tweet on the matter:

The person most excited to hear Harper Lee has a new novel is Peter Jackson, who has already inked a 16-film deal.

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) February 3, 2015