Ecocomics

And Now An Update

2012-01-16T10:01:00.002-05:00

Hi All!

I have started a webcomic with two other people: And Now An Update. Fans of XKCD, PBF, SMBC and other acronyms should check it out. Comics are all done in MsPaint and in 10 minutes or less. It updates every MWF.

Here's one to get your feet wet (they look bigger over there): The Grandfather Paradox

We also have a twitter and a facebook page.

Enjoy! Let us know what you think!

Can Wolverine Build a School?

2011-11-17T09:30:00.001-05:00

Wolverine #17 by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney

Marvel Comics, 2011

Where does Wolverine get his money from? If he has managed to save up enough to start a new school for mutants in Westchester, he must certainly have exercised several lifetimes of prudent money management. Here is what we had to say about this before:

Throughout his long, long life Wolverine has shown very little interest in matters of an economic nature. He's spent most of his time living in cabins, hovels, and sleeping in the beds and houses of others. His worldly possessions seldom exceed the clothes on his back (usually a jumpsuit made of spandex or leather), a cache of cheap cigars, a motorcycle, and a six-pack of beer. This is the sum of the worldly possessions he has accrued in over 100 years of life. Granted, a large part of this life was spent being mind controlled and experimented on, but in the years since he's escaped from Weapon X, Wolverine has made a series of life decisions which placed him in financial jeopardy.

We know Wolverine likes to live a life of modesty. Previously, I thought this was due to the fact that, despite living the equivalent of several lifetimes, he never took a job that was lucrative enough for him to splurge on things like mansions and jets.

Evidently, this is incorrect. Turns out that Wolverine has been slowly saving for years and has now accrued enough funds to open a school.

I haven't the fainted idea of what it costs to open a school. I doubt that the Xavier Institute was a charter school or received any sort of public funding. In today's Marvel Universe, mutants are still highly stigmatized so it is unlikely that Wolverine will be able to receive any sort of grant or government assistance, unless through nefarious means (snikt snikt). I do, however, know that it is extremely expensive, probably requiring initial funding of upwards of $500,000 to one million dollars. Westchester County, New York, also seems like it would be particularly costly.

Is it possible that Wolverine managed to save up this much money? Actually, it doesn't seem that crazy. Let's assume all assets that he had saved up prior to his kidnapping by the Weapon X program had been wiped (it is unlikely that the sinister Canadian organization let him keep his money). Then, once Logan escapes the program (well after World War II), he had to start with nothing.

He then met Charlies Xavier and joined up with the X-Men in the 1970s. I think it's safe to assume that he started his savings at this point. Assuming that he had been paid a salary for his service (something of which I am not sure, though I imagine he needed some form of income to, you know, eat) and that he served continuously through the present (a stretch, but it would be difficult to account for all the gaps in his time with the X-Men), it is certainly feasible that Wolverine had saved the amount required to at the very least put forth the initial funds. He had been actively working for four decades (longer if you count the time between Weapon X and the X-Men, where he was employed with Department K and probably earned some sweet government pay) and his expenses were minimal (for a while, he took up free residence at the X-Mansion and, as mentioned above, spends very little on material things).

Therefore, it would appear as though Wolverine's modest lifestyle is evidence of prudence and thrift, rather than of having little assets.

Hell, Logan might even be part of the 1%.

Disproportionate Response Man

2011-10-20T12:37:00.004-04:00

A great entry from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Arkham City Part I

2011-09-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

Batman: Arkham City #2 by Paul Dini and Carlos D'Anda

DC Comics (2011)

What a bizarre concept this is. So, the Joker and his pack of ruffians take over Arkham Asylum, riots ensue, and then Batman has to save the day. There were many casualties. So now, Mayor Sharp decides to let these prisoners loose from Arkham Asylum and have their own, heavily policed section of Gotham City, where they can run around and, apparently, rehabilitate.

The benefits of this plan are...let's say dubious. Yes, Mayor Sharp is being controlled by larger forces (which I will not reveal for fear of spoiling), but he still had to convince the City Council--and Gotham citizens--that this plan is not only economically feasible, but that it has any benefits at all.

First of all, how many inmates does Arkham Asylum actually have? A quick count of notable (and other) inmates on Wikipedia suggests about 60 inmates. And these guys aren't ever in Arkham all at once. But still, let's be a little liberal with our estimate, and say that we have about 75 inmates at Arkham at any given time. If anyone knows of a better estimate, feel free to let me know.

Why exactly do these 75 people need half of Gotham City--one of the largest cities in the DC universe--all to themselves? It seems like an excessive waste of resources and space on 75 people. Couldn't he have just walled off a neighborhood? The equivalent of, say, the east village in NYC? And even that's being generous!

While we're talking about space issues, I'm also a bit confused as to how the government acquired this space. If half of Gotham is being declared a war zone and sectioned off exclusively for Arkham prisoners, then what happens to the citizens formerly living in these areas? What about the businesses formerly operating in them? Well, they can't possibly still be there once Arkham opens, right? No one would willingly choose to reside in neighborhoods where the most dangerous villains in the world are free to roam. And, unless your business is selling death rays, no one would choose to continue to go to work in Arkham City.

This means that, most likely, every citizen and business formerly operating in the now Arkham City has to pack up and move to another location. This has major economic implications. First of all, it is very likely that the government needs to subsidize the cost of moving for these guys. So that's an area of half of Gotham City that the city needs to finance. I suppose, alternatively, that Gotham could subsidize people for staying in Arkham City and willingly exposing themselves to danger. But then that would be more or less equivalent to just setting the prisoners free in society.

Here's another thing: moving people from one half of Gotham into another would almost surely cause major congestion and overpopulation problems. Not only that, but I imagine that many citizens and businesses will simply be lost in the transition. Small businesses might close if not fully subsidized and individuals might simply move outside the city limits. Gotham is losing a chunk of its tax base by creating Arkham City.

And that's nothing to say of the enormous amounts of money being spent to maintain this large prison. For one thing, Gotham needs to commission task forces and experts in order to determine the appropriate plans, and estimate the appropriate subsidies. Moreover, the wall needs to be constructed. The private military securing Arkham City's borders need to be paid.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget that the Mayor is also providing health care and essential social services to these former inmates.

It has been clear for many years that politicians and citizens of Gotham City have been prone to panic and mass hysteria. They have been portrayed as corrupt, fickle, and ignorant. But even in the grand scale of Gotham's historical blunders, Arkham City almost surely nears the top. Maybe top five.

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

Zatanna and Behavioral Economics

2011-02-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Zatanna #8 by Paul Dini and Cliff Chiang, DC Comics (2010)

In a recent issue of Zatanna, we learn that our hero has been struggling with a paralyzing fear. A fear of puppets. This is due, for the most part, to childhood trauma with puppets (plus, they really are scary as all hell. See the classic Goosebumps story on the subject).

Zee has been largely unsuccessful in dealing with her fear throughout her adult life. However, as she points out, in situations where the stakes were high enough, she has been able to temporarily overcome her fear in order to realize greater social benefits. A specific example includes a recent adventure alongside Batman, wherein she helped the caped crusader defeat the second Ventriloquist and a revamped Scarface.

This beautifully illustrates how certain incentives and rewards can motivate individual behavior towards outcomes that our socially optimal, even when those outcomes come at their own expense. The right incentives can even cause Zatanna to overcome a crippling fear.

Guiding behavior through incentives is a big topic in behavioral economics. Most of these occur to minimize behaviors that pose a significant negative externality on society. We see it all the time. For example, "sin taxes" on cigarettes are designed to curb a habit which has plenty of external consequences, including second-hand smoke, higher utilization of medical services, increases in medical care and insurance costs, etc.

However, even mechanisms like sin taxes raise the stakes in terms of costs for the individual committing the behavior (not the social cost). The government, to my knowledge, doesn't generally come in and say, "Hey you better stop smoking or else 30 people will die tomorrow from second-hand smoke." Where Zatanna's situation differs is that the stakes in her situation actually refer to these social costs. She's motivated by the potential death of a large number of people that would result from her inaction to stop a bunch of puppets.

This gets us into the notion of altruism. Is Zatanna behaving altruistically here by having her behavior be so amenable to social stakes? I would argue that this is not the case and that she actually reaps many hidden benefits that lay beneath the surface (though, no doubt, she is aware of).

For one thing, if Zatanna had bailed on Batman because of her inability to face a puppet, she would have likely been ostracized from the superhero community. Well, probably not actually, since her and Batman have a kinda-sorta love thing. But she would have certainly been embarrassed enough to think this would be a potential consequence.

Second, and on a related note, she is aiding one of the top superheroes of the DC Universe. There are definitely benefits to helping Batman. He is more likely to return the favor in the future and recommend Zatanna for future missions with the Justice League. So, her being able to shape up and spring to action regardless of the circumstance has professional implications.

Third, she is saving herself the guilt of living with the knowledge that innocents may have died as a result of her hesitation.

So, selfless superhero or not, it would appear there are plenty of personal benefits for Zatanna here. In fact, if one of her reasons is indeed reciprocity from Batman and the Justice League, there is a related concept in behavioral economics and evolutionary biology known as "reciprocal altruism" that deals with this idea. Reciprocal altruism basically refers to an act of selflessness towards another with the anticipation that the recipient of the benefit will one day return the favor.

This can be thought of in the context of the famous Prisoner's Dilemma. Recall that the basic lesson of this exercise is that the rational choice for the players was to defect, even though the pareto optimal strategy for each was to cooperate. There is, however, an alternative version of the prisoner's dilemma that is repeated infinitely, rather than played only once. In a repeated game, the Nash Equilibrium would still be to defect every round. However, in actual experiments, it has been shown that if players remember the actions of past rounds, cooperation fared as a potentially good strategy. The reason? Players would punish each other in subsequent rounds for defecting. In order to avoid this punishment, people would cooperate.

Thinking back to Zatanna's situation, she might be doing something similar. The knowledge that her actions would determine future treatment towards her could be guiding her incentive to help Batman, and thereby face her fear of puppets.

Of course, this isn't easy to hear. Sure the stakes of having innocents die on her watch is a big motivator. But it's not entirely altruistic. I'm betting that if Batman suddenly declared that she would be severely punished for inaction, while she would be handsomely rewarded for puppetry, Zatanna might become a great ventriloquist. Great strategy for dealing with fear.

Externalities: Invincible Iron Man 33 Edition

2011-02-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

The Invincible Iron Man #33 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca

Marvel Comics (2011)

The Comics Professor

2011-02-02T12:01:00.003-05:00

Here's a blog written by one of the editors of Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series (including books such as Batman and Philosophy, Watchmen and Philosophy, and others). It features news, commentary, and reviews of current superhero comics, as well as insightful philosophical analyses. I've personally read the Batman and Philosophy book and learned a great deal about his deontological and utilitarian bents.

Here's a snip from a recent post about whether superheroes should take political positions

Why did this concern me so? Contrary to what Mr. Rucka says, I don't think defining a superhero as liberal or conservative would imply that he or she would help some people and not others in an emergency (though examples do exist, such as Ollie early in O'Neil's run), but making a hero's politics explicit does reduce the appeal of that character to a significant portion of the fanbase.

Furthermore, it contributes to the perception that our political affiliations define us. If Superhero A is conservative and Superhero B is liberal, many people will take those facts to determine much more about their characters than seems appropriate. There's a lot of room for widely different types of liberals and conservatives in this world (not to mention all the people who reject both labels). And I like to believe that most liberals and conservatives (excluding the ones on the extreme fringe of each group) have more in common than not.

More at the blog.

More Wasted Tax Dollars

2011-02-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

"Another Door" in Amazing Spider-Man #647 by Fred Van Lente

and Max Fiumara, Marvel Comics 2010

I've been saying for years that the United States government should stop funding the Smithsonian. It poses an extreme risk to the taxpayers.

Also, when did the Spidey mobile get in there?

Innovation

2011-02-01T09:00:00.002-05:00

Irredeemable #19 by Mark Waid and Peter Krause, Boom! Studios 2010

Another example of technology that's being kept from the general public. Innovation economists would accuse Qubit here, who seems aware that this technology existed and still hasn't shared this information, of hindering economic growth.

Aliens get all the cool weaponized teleportation devices, while we here on Earth still have to make due with nothing but fancy toilets.

Superheroes and Law

2010-12-13T09:00:00.003-05:00

Via BoingBoing, here is a blog that looks at comic books and the law. One of my favorite posts is about real estate:

Every supervillain or supervillain organization worth its salt needs a secret lair, and a location outside the jurisdiction of any government would be ideal. The legal benefits are numerous: no pesky employment laws or civil rights for henchmen, no local police, no taxes. But in the age of air travel and GPS is there anywhere left for a supervillain to set up shop? Here we consider three possibilities: unclaimed land, the high seas, and outer space.

Go check it out!

Externalities: Week of 11/8/10

2010-11-09T09:02:00.001-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Eventually, these will be more current, but since I'm still catching up with a stack of comics from months ago, some of these will be a bit old.

As always, feel free to send in some of your favorites of the week and we'll post them with credit to your name. ecocomics dot blog at gmail dot com.

Amazing Spider-Man #643 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

Marvel Comics, 2010

Zatanna #4 by Paul Dini and Chad Hardin

DC Comics, 2010

Do Superheroes Act in Socially Optimal Ways?

2010-11-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Microeconomic theory tells us that individual agents, be they consumers, firms, or even superheroes, act rationally. Basically, this means that any individual has a set of stable preferences--which generate a certain level of utility--and that this individual will always behave in a way such that his or her (or its) utility level is maximized.

In other words, economists believe that people try to make themselves as happy as possible. Simple.

Where things become a bit more complicated is when individual demands are aggregated. That is, how do we take the preferences of the individuals in society and design policies that are welfare-maximizing and "socially optimal?"

Consider, for example, the health care market. Obviously, it would be great if every individual could have free, comprehensive coverage. Not only would it ensure lengthier lives, but more people receiving better health care would mean less external costs for society (such as taxpayer dollars going towards treatment of indigent care, lost productivity due to people with illnesses taking sick days, etc.).

Why doesn't everyone have comprehensive health coverage then? Well, resources--including health care--are scarce! Comprehensive coverage for everyone would cost a considerable amount, not just in terms of monetary expenditures, but in time, provider supply, hospital beds, etc. This means that when health care policy is crafted, legislators and other stakeholders need to make hard choices to determine which course of action would benefit society the most.

There are, of course, arguments about welfare enhancing policy. Is health insurance going to be primarily market-based or is there going to be a role for government? If we're going to offer subsidies for individuals to obtain certain services, which services do we offer the subsidies for? If there is a government insurance package, what are the minimum benefits covered by the package? Do we attempt to judge which individuals are more deserving of health care? If so, how do we judge? Severity of the condition? Do we make it first-come-first-serve? How do we perform the cost-benefit analyses to get these answers?

Superheroes face this problem every day. Take Superman, for example. Barring the fact that Superman's duties extend beyond the scope of one major city, let's just limit this analysis to his role as the protector of Metropolis. Each and every day, there are people who need saving. Superman provides a very crucial public service (actually he pretty much has a monopoly on it): fighting crime and saving lives. He has a breadth of unique abilities that allow him to perform this service unlike any other agency, including the police or government.

Yet despite his unique abilities, he is still a limited resource. Superman cannot be everywhere at once and he cannot stop each and every crime in Metropolis. This means that even Superman has to make choices. Each civilian he saves from being thrown off of a building means that a different civilian on the other side of town being threatened with dismemberment by Metallo is not receiving his help. In this sense, Superman can be thought of as a sort of social planner for a good that he just so happens to provide. He implicitly assigns weights to individuals in Metropolis, in effect judging who is deserving enough of his rescue.

How does Superman do this? How does he assign these weights? And is this method socially optimal?

Intuitively, we would think that the most imminent dangers are the ones most worthy of Superman's attention. And indeed, Superman does tackle the gravest of threats to an extent. Should there be a catastrophe that is bound to kill or injure hundreds of citizens, you can bet to see the Man of Steel there. Should Lex Luthor unleash some sort of robot warriors on the city, Superman will try and stop them. Should Darkseid attempt to enslave humanity again, Superman will take him on.

But this system is obviously imperfect. What if Metallo is overturning cars on one side of town and Brainiac is creating robot-zombies on the other? Deciding on which threats are the most dangerous is a difficult task, even for Superman. It is a fact that many of his villains have taken advantage of in the past in order to thrust the Man of Steel into difficult moral situations.

Also, let's not forget that this is only Superman's system to an extent. There isn't always a world-ending event in Metropolis. Most of the time, all you have are muggers, bank robbers, and lets face it, people who just accidentally fall off buildings. How does Superman weigh these people? Well, most of the time, we see him just dash after the criminals that are closest to him. We've seen Clark Kent sitting at his desk at the Daily Planet numerous times, only to hear a scream in a nearby alley. He then finds a phone both, changes, and it's up-up-and-away!

It would seem that most of the time, Superman weighs simply on proximity. That means people within a five mile radius of the Daily Planet should be the safest in Metropolis. Of course, it is also a prime spot for villain activity.

Answering the question of whether this "proximity, unless it's really really dangerous" policy is social welfare maximizing is tricky. We obviously want Superman to assist with the gravest threats, but we also don't want to trivialize run-of-the-mill muggings.

Perhaps it is time for Superman to retire his one-man planner status. Should there be a government task-force delegated with the duty of allocating superhero resources to the citizens of the United States?

Lex Luthor Loves Land- The Great Gotham Swindle and How it Affects Our Lives

2010-09-29T08:05:00.000-04:00

Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor from Superman II, obtained from Wikipedia.org

We all know that Lex Luthor has a great interest in real estate. This was established way back in Richard Donner's first Superman film. In that movie, Luthor's plan was to sink California so the land he had purchased in Nevada and Arizona would be worth a fortune as beach-front property. Superman stopped that plan, but Luthor kept his fixation on land. In Superman Returns, Luthor went the other way in his schemes. He tried to grow an entire continent out of Kryptonian crystal. Planning to rearrange the surface of the Earth and get rich by renting his new continent, Luthor excitedly went along with his plan until Superman tossed his new continent into space.

But the Lex Luthor of the comics also has a fondness for acquiring land. In the year-long Batman crossover "No Man's Land" that ran through the Bat-family books in 1999, Lex Luthor hatched a plan involving seizing control of all of Gotham. Gotham City had just been wracked by a massive earthquake which reduced most of the city to rubble. In the wake of this disaster, the US

government isolated the Gotham disaster zone and prevented anyone from exiting or entering. Inside the city, Batman and Commissioner Gordon tried to maintain control against the gangs and madmen who roamed the streets.

In the midst of this chaos, Luthor identified a way to fill his own personal habit to get that real estate fix he had been needing. Using agents to destroy the original land deed records for Gotham, Luthor tried to gain ownership of the city without paying a cent. He offered to help Gotham's citizens rebuild without telling them that his assistance came with the price of ownership of their land. Eventually Batman foiled his plans, but I'm sure Luthor's desire for real estate has not yet been satiated.

Batman:No Man's Land Volume 1, obtained from Wikipedia.org

Now, you may be asking why I bring this up. I do so because we are in the midst of a world financial crisis. A crisis so enveloping that it affects all of our lives. It almost seems like some criminal mastermind has orchestrated this recession. Someone who values ownership of property above else. Perhaps someone who would be interested in giving mortgages to high risk lendees who would not be able to meet their financial obligations once rates had been raised. Someone who would watch gleefully as he regained control of their repossessed properties while the world markets crumbled.

That's right, LEX LUTHOR engineered the sub-prime lending crisis!!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor from Superman Returns, obtained from Wikipedia.org

I bet, if we look carefully at those mortgage agreements, somewhere on those forms we will see a monogramed "LL."

Damn you Lex Luthor. Damn you!

Competition Is Murder- Supervillains and Industrial Sabotage

2010-09-27T08:52:00.000-04:00

Cover to Iron Man: Legacy #1, art by Salvador Larrocca

While reading Iron Man:Legacy #1, I stumbled upon an interesting topic. The story opens with Stark Industries being attacked by environmental terrorists protesting Stark's arc reactor technology. Though it initially seems that a group of idealists armed with melting ray beams are trying to topple Stark's industrial power, a quick investigation by Tony Stark shows that the environment group is actually funded by an oil conglomerate. What had appeared to be an act of idealistic terrorism was actually good old fashioned industrial sabotage. And this is not a frequent occurance in the comic book world. It seems that the cost of doing business in a comic book is dealing with supervillain industrial sabotage.

Iron Man (and his alter-ego Tony Stark) has been a frequent victim of this. Competitors like Justin Hammer, Roxxon Industries, and Obadiah Stane have often sent hired villains to damage Stark's property. In fact, Iron Man has had to deal with the likes of the Ghost, the Chessmen, the Beetle, Spymaster, and quite a few others who have tried to mess up his stuff.

The Ghost, art by Bob Layton

Bruce Wayne has also suffered industrial sabotage from the likes of Lex Luthor and Black Mask. He overcame these machinations with some quick work as the Batman.

Lex Luthor, art by Ed McGuinness

I'm sure that there are tons of other examples throughout comic history of the cost of doing business.

It just goes to show that you can't build something nice without a competitor hiring a maniac in spandex to blow it up. Or something along those lines...

Everything Has a Cost

2010-09-23T10:26:00.006-04:00

Shield #3 by Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver, Marvel Comics (2010)

Galileo knew it. Newton knew it. But poor Nostradamus apparently doesn't get the idea.

Or he just figures the cost is worth it.

Marvel's Strongest War Economy- The Kree

2010-09-23T08:30:00.001-04:00

The Kree, obtained from http://marvel.com/universe/Kree

In the world of cosmic Marvel, the Kree are a warlike race of aliens who have been very prominent in comic books lately.

In Annihilation, the Kree were the primary adversary of Annihilus and his alien invaders. The massive armies of the Kree held Annihilus' forces at bay until Nova, the Silver Surfer, and Galactus were able to defeat them. This conflict left much of the worlds controlled by the Kree devastated.

Annihilus, obtained from http://marvel.com/universe/Annihilus

Then in Annihilation: Conquest, the Kree tried to resist the Phalanx with military force but were eventually overwhelmed. Even though the battle with the Phalanx ended, the Kree people were ravaged and much of the Kree empire was devastated.

The Kree then joined forces with the Inhumans in order to restore some of their strength. But only days after this union, the Kree went to war with the Shiar. Now, the Kree are part of a multi-race coalition of forces battling invaders from another dimension.

It's hard to imagine the war force that could sustain this level of conflict for so long. But the Kree are that force. In fact, though it seems like they have recently been thrown through a wringer of conflict, the Kree have always been at war. For hundreds of years, the Kree have battled the Skrulls.

They clearly know how to run a war. The level of production and construction shown in the Kree is truly something impressive. Looking at the Kree in a Keynesian perspective would lend us to believe that the state of a permanent wartime economy would increase spending, up product demand, dramatically advance technology, and raise productivity. And the Kree certainly seem strong.

Of course, this has also led the Kree to become a completely militaristic society. They would be unable to function under any other system since their economy is centered entirely around war.

And it's hard to tell whether this is a bad thing. On one hand, the Kree kill a lot and die a lot. On the other hand, the Kree were responsible for holding off forces which could have destroyed the universe. The Kree are unique in their ability to destroy, but their economic and military strength is truly something wonderful to behold.

Respect Your Assets: Two-Face Doesn't...

2010-09-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

Art by Dustin Nguyen from the cover of Streets of Gotham #15, obtained from http://www.dccomics.com/go/?15348

In a recent issue of Batman: Streets of Gotham (issue #15 actually), we see what happens to a crime boss who isn't aware of the resources available to him.

Two-Face has had some trouble maintaining his criminal empire recently. Since Battle for the Cowl, Two-Face has had to face gang wars with both Penguin and Black Mask, as well as the forceful intervention of Batman himself. In Streets of Gotham, Two-Face has also had to deal with the fact that he has an undercover cop in his ranks.

Streets of Gotham #15 shows Two-Face dealing with the ramifications of these events. Most of Two-Faces gang has been murdered or arrested, leaving Two-Face with only two hired thugs supporting him and very little money. This is a dire state of affairs for the crazed crime boss, yet Two-Face refuses to acknowledge the limitations that are placed on him.

When Two-Face continues to expect unreasonable things from his rapidly deteriorating "organization," his last two henchman turn on him. Realizing Two-Face is out of touch with reality, the thugs fill Two-Face with lead rather than continue to risk their own lives for a madman. Naturally, they dump Two-Face into the river and leave him for dead.

Let this be a lesson to all of us. When resources are limited, we need to recognize what we (and the organizations with which we involve ourselves) are capable of. It is important to pay attention to your available assets whether they be property, stock, or murderous henchmen. Don't over-extend yourself (like some recent financial institutions) or you may find yourself floating in a harbor (or bankrupt at the very least).

Food for thought.

Steve Rogers Reinvents The World- National Deficit Soars

2010-09-14T08:09:00.002-04:00

Now we've all heard about the "Heroic Age." Norman Osborn was smacked down, the Sentry was killed, Steve Rogers is back, the Avengers are reinstated and everything is fantasti-awesome in the Marvel Universe.

Steve Rogers art by Mike Deodato and others, Image obtained from http://marvel.com/universe/

Yup, H.A.M.M.E.R. (Norman Osborn's perversion of S.H.I.E.L.D.) has been disbanded and the good guys are back in charge. Everything has been fixed. Only one thing hasn't been accounted for... the goddamn cost of it all.

Lets examine whats been happening in the last few years of the Marvel Universe, shall we? First there was a superhero Civil War, during which S.H.I.E.L.D. was restructured with super powered battle suits (called "cape-killers") to hunt down heroes.

In addition, Tony Stark became the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and started building new devices and heli-carriers left and right (including a red and gold heli-carrier ala his Iron Man armor). I'm sure these changes (both substantive and cosmetic) came with a fairly hefty price. But that was just the beginning.

Then when Norman Osborn took over national security, he dismantled everything Stark had created and replaced it with his own version of hardware and manpower. This includes new soldiers and new weapons (granted they were created using stolen technology). He also reinvented the Avengers and revamped the super hero initiative by training and paying villains as personal hit squad. The massive amount of government funds appropriated for Osborn's "Dark Reign" should have shown up to even the most oblivious of congressional oversight commitees. But somehow, Osborn was allowed to continue employing supervillains and redirecting funds.

Norman Osborn, art by Mike Deodato and others, obtained from http://marvel.com/universe/

But that's all over right? Osborn got his butt kicked. He was removed from his position as head of the nation's defense and has been replaced with Steve Rogers (the man who was formerly Captain America). And with the new heroic morality that Steve Rogers brings to the position, surely fiscal responsibility will follow. Right?

Noooooooooope.

The first thing Steve Rogers does upon taking control of America's superheroic defenses is to dismantle H.A.M.M.E.R. He immediately, arrests the vicious H.A.M.M.E.R. soldiers and disable the institution itself. Rogers then reorganized S.H.I.E.L.D. and reformed 4 teams of Avengers. That's right 4 Avengers. The regular Avengers, the New Avengers, the Secret Avengers, and created an Academy for young Avengers who desperately need training. Rogers also re-did the Thunderbolts program under the guidance of Luke Cage.

Now, a revamp of national security obviously needed to be performed. Norman Osborn had spent a year perverting the nation's defenses into something awful. Steve Rogers had to make some changes. But it's the sheer volume of his changes I can't help but object to. One group of Avengers was enough for most of the history of the Marvel Universe. Then two were around, and they dealt with problems just fine. But here Steve Rogers has created multiple government-funded Avengers teams to protect the world. This on top of disbanding the superhero initiative (and thereby dismantling the very expensive infrastructure underlying the initiative) while trying to replace the gap in protection that initiative teams provided surely could tax the national budget.

Now, being a resident of New York State (where the schools are in desperate need of funding and services are constantly being cut), I've taken issue with Steve Rogers' willy nilly spending party. I think he needs to scale back his changes and take things slowly in light of the massive spending that the two previous men in his position indulged in.

No wonder the economy is tanking. We're all subsidizing a Secret Avengers trip to Mars.

Cover to Secret Avengers#1, art by Marko Djurdjevic, obtained from http://marvel.com/universe/

Ecocomics Week in Review 8/27/2010

2010-08-27T08:29:00.003-04:00

Part of our job at Ecocomics is to inform readers of the latest ecocomics news stories. With that in mind, we present to you, straight from the editor's desk of THE DAILY BOGGLE, the WEEK IN REVIEW, a summary of the week's most important events.

(note: Sorry for the resolution problems on the earlier posting of this. -Mark)

The American Way

2010-07-28T11:17:00.003-04:00

The Amazing Spider-Man #638 by Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Paul Ryan
Marvel Comics, (2010)

Spectacle for profit. The American way.

Iron Man is Impressed With Barter Economies

2010-07-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Invincible Iron Man #28 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, Marvel Comics (2010)

Stark Resilient is officially underway as Tony Stark tries to piece together his life, build a new Iron Man suit, and kickstart his new company, with the goal of creating the first ever electric car powered in full by repulsor technology. First step? The interview process.

Here, Stark interviews a Mr. Macken. He ran an electronics repair shop in Detroit, fixing televisions and such primarily for senior citizens. However, the community he worked in was poverty-stricken and faced as astonishing 88% unemployment rate. This meant that most of his customer base were out of work and could not actually afford to pay for their repairs. So, Mr. Macken decides to fix the televisions anyway in exchange for direct goods and services, such as a nice home-cooked meal and some plumbing in his home. This apparently "created a kind of running barter system in lieu of cash. An underground economy." And it impressed Tony Stark.

First, which community is this that is running an 88% unemployment rate? And how small is this community? I did a quick search and couldn't find anything. Maybe the community is a few blocks populated mostly by senior citizens, who likely would have been retired anyway. Though, that wouldn't even count in the unemployment statistics since unemployment refers to those actively looking for work. The people who Mr. Macken tends to serve seem to be just good, old-fashioned poor.

Second, how big could this barter economy have possibly been? Tony makes it seem like Mr. Macken launched an entire system where everyone in this community just swapped chickens for checkups. That might be, but my guess is that it was really more along the lines of a barter system relegated to television repair. I doubt this would have made a major impact worthy enough to gain Tony Stark's attention.

Plus, I doubt this economy's sustainability. As we all know, there are several problems with barter economies, the least of which is not having a standard by which you measure value. For instance, someone with a particular skill or trait could exhaust it after one use. Take, for instance, the case of the repair man offering to fix Mr. Macken's plumbing in exchange for TV repair. Suppose the gentlemen later needs his radio fixed. He's already fixed the plumbing, so what else does he have to offer?

I don't know about you, but I don't trust this "Mr. Macken" and his crazy get-rich-quick schemes. Not the kind of employee I envision for Stark Resilient.

Beast Gets Statistical Significance Wrong

2010-07-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age by Matt Fraction, Whilce Portacio,
Steve Sanders, and Jamie McKelvie, Marvel Comics (2010)

In the wake of the major "Second Coming" event, the return of Hope, thought to be the mutant messiah, has resulted in the appearance of at least five new individuals with the X-gene across the globe. Or at least that's the theory. After all, correlation is not causation.

Why is this important? Well, there hasn't been a single mutant birth since the "M-Day" event, and for the past several years mutantkind has been living in fear at the prospect of its own extinction. As Molly mentions above, the return of Hope (the first mutant technically born after M-Day) and the appearance of these five new mutants could signal a potential resurgence of the species.

In response to this, Beast tells Molly that, as a scientist, he is skeptical. After all, there were only five mutants. Compared to the mutant birth rate before M-Day, a mere five mutants is inconsequential. He refers to this as being "statistically insignificant."

I'm surprised to see such a renowned scientist fumble the concept of statistical significance. When economists, statisticians, scientists, etc. say that something is "statistically significant," they mean that the results they observe are extremely unlikely to have occurred by mere chance. Even if the results are small, they can still be statistically significant.

In this case, what we're testing is whether the appearance of these five new mutants was just pure coincidence, or whether it was actually caused by some event (i.e. the return of Hope). There is really no way to get a firm answer on this. As readers, we pretty much know that Hope was responsible. But it's a bit harder to prove empirically that it wasn't coincidence.

Nevertheless, this is not what Beast was referring to. He was referring to the number of mutants, which is not what statistical significance actually is.

In actuality, Beast made a common mistake, which is to mix up statistical significance with practical importance. Beast was implying that whether or not Hope actually caused the birth of these five new mutants, it didn't have any real implication yet, since five mutants is a relatively small number compared to the current mutant population and the previous birth rate.

The funny thing is that it's even too soon to tell whether it has any practical significance as well. It's been a matter of days since "Second Coming" ended. It is highly likely that given some more time, the X-Men would find some more mutants on the radar. I know scientists are supposed to be skeptics, but I'm truly shocked to see Beast be so dismissive about this. And I'm stunned to see him blame his empirically-trained mind for the phenomenon.

Maybe Hand McCoy should enroll as a continuing ed. student in the local college and re-take statistics.

Ecocomics Recession Watch: Hellboy Edition

2010-07-22T09:00:00.001-04:00

Hellboy: The Storm #1 by Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo, Dark Horse Comics (2010)

The economic downturn is, by far, the most dangerous evil in all of comics. It can hit in the most surprising of ways. It can hit people and places you never thought possible.

For example, here we see how bad credit has forced Hellboy to travel around with his newly acquired magic sword in nothing more upscale than a crummy rental car. Pretty modest for the King of Britain.

(Hellboy also says he quit drinking to avoid making bad decisions. But we know he just can't afford another bottle).

Externalities: Week of 07/16/10

2010-07-21T15:55:00.008-04:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

--

#1) Amazing Spider-Man #636-- Breaking the Web of Life.

Amazing Spider-Man #636 by Joe Kelly (w/Zeb Wells), Marco Checchetto,
Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano, Marvel Comics (2010)

The "Grim Hunt" continues as the Kravinoffs intensify their extermination of spiders. Unfortunately, according to Madame Web, these spiders play an important role in a delicate ecosystem (or something). By hunting them, the Kravinoffs have accidentally disturbed the balance of nature, forcing a bunch of angry rats, gorillas, birds, lions, and others to respond by killing more humans.

#2) Irredeemable #15 -- Accidental Earthquakes

Irredeemable #15 by Mark Waid and Diego Barreto, Boom! Stuidos (2010)

It's bad enough that the Plutonian destroyed Singapore, along with several other major cities in the world. Now in his fight against him, Cary has impetuously driven the Plutonian into a fault line, causing a 9.8 quake that's spread as far as 221 miles away to Phoenix. Incidentally, in the last issue the Paradigm (former eminent superhero team in this universe) specifically picked the Grand Canyon as the location of the fight to avoid causing damage and externalities such as this. Whoops.

#3) X-Force #28 -- Golden Gate Bridge

X-Force #28 by Craig Kyle, Christ Yost, and Mike Choi, Marvel Comics (2010)

When last we checked in on "Second Coming," the Golden Gate Bridge had been surrounded by a mysterious dome, engulfing the new mutant haven, Utopia, along with a good chunk of San Francisco. We later discovered that the dome was actually a portal, sending "mutant-slaying Nimrod sentinels" back from the future to, well, slaughter mutants. Now it seems the battle is over and the Nimrods are all but destroyed. Except...yeah.

--

Feel free to send us your favorite externalities of the week. We'll throw them up on next week's post and credit your name.

Trade and Barter

2010-06-18T10:56:00.004-04:00

"More than Enough" in Jonah Hex #56 by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Phil Windslade,
DC Comics (2010)

In the old west, people used to barter goods and services all the time. Witness here how Porivo offers Jonah a horse in exchange for one night of his services as a hired gun.

Had Jonah been a doctor instead of a bounty hunter and had Porivo been offering chickens instead of a horse, this would come pretty close to what certain officials want for our current health-care system.

Repulsor Technology for All

2010-06-17T13:58:00.001-04:00

Invincible Iron Man #27 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, Marvel Comics (2010)

After a year of running from Norman Osborn while having his memory banks slowly exterminated, Tony Stark has been "rebooted." Now with Osborn gone and his mind restored, it's to rebuild Stark Industries. Only Tony no longer wants to focus on weapons manufacturing and distribution.

Instead, he is starting a new enterprise, Stark Resilient, which promises a business model focused on fostering international cooperation and ushering in an era of world peace. How does he arrive at this goal? Simple. By providing the world with an alternative energy source, his patented repulsor technology, Tony hopes to one eliminate Earth's dependence on fossil fuels.

A pretty decent plan. After all, as we discussed in an earlier post on alien technology and economic growth, the best way towards economic growth is the free and unfettered dissemination of information and technology. In this sense, Stark was doing a great disservice to the world by keeping this technology for himself. He could have powered more cars, produced more electricity, heated more homes, etc.

And yet we know exactly why he kept it secret, don't we? He was afraid that this technology would fall into the wrong hands, which would ultimately cause more harm than good. Hell, this is the entire premise of Iron Man 2. It's also what caused the Plutonian to go berserk in Mark Waid's Irredeemable.

Now he's come around. Whether this will have the intended consequences remains to be seen. Let's just hope more Russians don't start attacking speed racers.

Markets in Everything: Death Rays

2010-06-16T08:45:00.003-04:00

Ever wonder what the quickest and most inexpensive way to become a supervillain is? Chris Sims over at Comics Alliance has a suggestion: buy a high-powered laser/death ray:

I'm not sure what purpose the Spyder III is meant to serve (other than the obvious fact that lasering is its own reward), but I do know that it's not your average laser pointer. Take a look at the safety warning that accompanies the product description:

Warning: Extremely dangerous is an understatement to the power of 1W of laser power. It will blind permanently and instantly and set fire quickly to skin and other body parts.

Instant blindness. Sets fire to skin. Looks like a lightsaber.

Guys. That is a portable Death Ray. And it costs less than $200. I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that this is going to revolutionize super-villainy.

Chris is absolutely right. The "Wicked Lasers" website cites a laser-powered home theater projector as one possible use for the Spyder III portable blue laser. But who are they kidding?

My only concern (aside from an increase in supervillain activity) is that an open market for villainous weapons like these might start providing too much competition for the real heinous and clandestine weapons manufacturers. This might, in turn, lead to even more violence.

Should this, then, be an externalities post?

Ecocomics Week in Review 06/11/10

2010-06-11T14:37:00.002-04:00

Printed at fodey.com

Markets in Everything: Superpowers Edition

2010-06-10T13:23:00.005-04:00

Incorruptible #2 by Mark Waid and Jean Diaz, BOOM! Studios (2010)

The world of Mark Waid's Irredeemable and Incorruptible is a scary place. The Plutonian, Earth's former greatest superhero, continues to wreak havoc on major cities, killing millions of innocents in the process. The global economy has all but collapsed. Unemployment has hit something close to 30%. Riots flood the streets of the cities. Anyone still alive lives in constant panic that he or she will be hit next. The worst part: there is no escape. The Plutonian is basically Superman-- he can travel quickly through any of the four dimensions. He has super-hearing and x-ray vision. In short: no one is safe.

Well, maybe.

In Incorruptible #2, we learn that David Orjean, a corrupt biochemical engineer, claims to have developed a method to transform ordinary humans being into superhumans, with powers that could apparently rival that of the Plutonian's. What's more is that he's been making these claims for years, even before the Plutonian went rogue.

We know that there's a market for superheroes. Given the opportunity, many people would elect to have a procedure done that would allow them to fly or teleport or whatever. Even in the black market, Orjean would still attract some pretty good business.

One problem: Orjean has no success record. Apparently instead of successfully delivering on his promise of superpowers, he severely cripples his subjects. Oops.

This raises some interesting questions.

First, why do people continue to buy his product when there is a documented failure rate.? Even in dire circumstances like, say, a godlike villain destroying the world, I'd still be skeptical. I understand that desperation causes people to do some silly things. But come on! The probability of successfully procuring superpowers from Orjean is somewhere close to 0. Moreover, the utility of having such powers is uncertain! There are plenty of superpowered people in the world. An entire superhero team, in fact. All of them are in hiding from the Plutonian: the most powerful being on earth. Even with powers, does anyone really think they're going to be safe? Not to mention, Orjean doesn't even tell you what the powers are going to be. Talk about asymmetric information.

The more interesting question is whether we could live in a world with (successful) superpower markets. Clearly, black markets would have many unintended negative consequences. If people could go purchase superpowers from a crazy engineer, then there is a strong potential for abuse. We'd see much more supervillainy!

However, suppose we legalize the buying and selling of superpowers. If heavily regulated (extensive background checks on potential customers, heavy taxation, etc.), what would be the outcome?

Turns out there are books that tangentially deal with this issue. Warren Ellis' No Hero, for instance, tells the tale of a government-sponsored agency with access to technology that gives humans superpowers. These human candidates are screened, prepared, and then trained for a career in superheroics. And they've been policing the world for years.

Of course, this is just a government agency. What if the market for superpowers were privatized? What if there was competition, innovation, and the incentive to produce really terrific superheroes?

Unfortunately, the world of No Hero isn't a bright one and Ellis isn't shy about declaring the dangers of this sort of technology. Superheroes, apparently, shouldn't be created and traded like commodities.

What do you think?

Arguing Against the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics

2010-06-09T14:13:00.004-04:00

I'm extremely late to this, but a friend linked me to this post by Matt Yglesias from all the way back in 2006 on what he called the "Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics." Here is an excerpt:

As you may know, the Green Lantern Corps is a sort of interstellar peacekeeping force set up by the Guardians of Oa to maintain the peace and defend justice. It recruits members from all sorts of different species and equips them with the most powerful weapon in the universe, the power ring.

The ring is a bit goofy. Basically, it lets its bearer generate streams of green energy that can take on all kinds of shapes. The important point is that, when fully charged what the ring can do is limited only by the stipulation that it create green stuff and by the user's combination of will and imagination. Consequently, the main criterion for becoming a Green Lantern is that you need to be a person capable of "overcoming fear" which allows you to unleash the ring's full capacities. It used to be the case that the rings wouldn't function against yellow objects, but this is now understood to be a consequence of the "Parallax fear anomaly" which, along with all the ring's other limits, can be overcome with sufficient willpower.

Suffice it to say that I think all this makes an okay premise for a comic book. But a lot of people seem to think that American military might is like one of these power rings. They seem to think that, roughly speaking, we can accomplish absolutely anything in the world through the application of sufficient military force. The only thing limiting us is a lack of willpower.

I don't take issue the assertion that neoconservatives of the Bush era naively believed that the United States could solve the world's problems by exercising military power. Nor do I disagree that this isn't the best way of approaching international relations.

No, I'm merely surprised that Yglesias is using the Green Lantern as a point of comparison. According to him, the power ring is the American military. It can only be wielded properly by someone with sufficient abilities to overcome fear. Completing the analogy, this would mean that Hal Jordan (or whoever you favorite Green Lantern is) is really George W. Bush, commander of the American military. The Guardians of Oa, then, are basically the people who elected Bush & Co., believing he possessed the requisite skills to command an army.

Sure, the Guardians of Oa award power rings to only those members they consider having surpassed a certain threshold of bravery, fearlessness, and willpower. But having the "guts" to engage in international military conflict isn't exactly what the Guardians had in mind. In my view, the power rings are not awarded to individuals with enough fearlessness to use them, but with enough fearlessness not to.

No one would be afraid of using a power ring haphazardly. It's a power ring. It's awesome. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to shoot things with it and fly around in space? Any fool can put on a ring and blast away to his or her heart's desire. The idea is, however, that when faced with a crisis, the fearful people would be more willing to use the power ring in vastly excessive and inappropriate ways. This would more likely distrub the peace, rather than preserve it.

This is why the Guardians gave the ring to Hal, someone who they thought possessed the ability to use the ring only when absolutely necessary. In this context, "willpower" does not mean overcoming your fear of using power offensively. It means overcoming your fear of abusing the power. It means having restraint.

As evidence of this, consider what happens to Hal after the destruction of Coast City. He attempted to use the power ring solely for personal gain (i.e. to rebuild the city), an action the Guardians condemned. In response to this, he attacks Oa in a forceful, but ultimately futile attempt to gain control of the Central Battery, which eventually allowed him to be taken over by Parallax, a demonic and parasitic fear agent.

What we see here is that Hal's hubris, which was in fact brought on by fear (not courage), weakened him enough to be possessed and subsequently resulted in the death of several of his fellow Green Lantern corp. The lesson is that fear is associated with the abuse of power, whereas true courage and willpower is associated with caution, thoughtfulness and restraint.

To further amplify this, take a look at who the Guardians chose as Hal's replacement: Kyle Rayner. Recall that rather than being a fighter pilot like Jordan, Rayner was actually a struggling graphic artist living in Los Angeles. Not exactly the image one conjures when thinking of a traditionally brave, fearless person, right? Yet, the Guardians were shrewd this time. Though this was never apparent, my guess is they wanted to avoid a repeat of the Hal situation. So, they gave a power ring to someone with a gift for creativity; someone who they viewed would think critically about the most effective ways of using this new found power.

I'd be interested to hear what Yglesias (and of course you guys) thinks about all of this.

Externalities: Week of 06/07/10

2010-06-08T13:27:00.006-04:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

#3) Subways

Wolverine: Weapon X #13 by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney, Marvel Comics (2010)

Logan has a bad habit of driving people's heads into subway cars. Even if they are terminator-like assassins from the future sent to the present day to wipe out all superhero threats.

Perhaps this isn't an exteranlity at all. It might be completely intentional. Maybe Logan just has a thing against subways.

--

#2) The Golden Gate Bridge

X-Force #27 by Craig Kyle, Christ Yost and Mike Choi, Marvel Comics (2010)

With the "Second Coming" story arc/crossover in full swing, the external damage keeps on coming. See that orb in the first panel? That is a spherical portal located at the center of a large, impenetrable dome encapsulating all of San Francisco, including Utopia (the X-Men's new island home). That dome apparently causes lots of damage to the city. Oh yeah, and the Nimrods--super sentinels from the future sent by Bastion to kill the X-Men--are doing their fair share as well.

--

#1) The Grand Canyon

Irredeemable #14 by Mark Waid and Diego Barreto, BOOM! Studios (2010)

Aha! Somewhere in the corners of the universe (apparently, over at BOOM Studios), superheroes are cognizant of the effects that their weekly battles have on innocent bystanders, private and public property, and the environment. Here, we have former members of the Paradigm, Earth's premier superhero squad, preparing for a battle with the renegade Plutonian, who spent the last few months systemically destroying city after city. To prepare for the battle, the team sets up camp at the Grand Canyon, an area with currently no bystanders, cars, buildings, sidewalks, subways, or mailboxes that they might accidentally blow up with plasma lasers.

Smart move, guys.

--

Feel free to send us your favorite externalities of the week. We'll throw them up on next week's post and credit your name.

Unemployment in Irredeemable Land

2010-05-13T11:41:00.004-04:00

Irredeemable #13 by Mark Waid and Diego Barreto, Boom! Comics (2010)

Does that unemployment statistic strike anyone else as being a bit small? To those not reading the series, recall that The Plutonian, Earth's former greatest superhero, has gone rogue and has been systematically destroying city after city. Millions are dead, the world economy has all but collapsed, there are riots on the streets and people are living in a state of panic with absolutely no knowledge of where the Plutonian will strike next.

And yet unemployment just hit 27.8%? Frankly, I'm surprised that 70% of the United States is still going to work at all. In fact, I think it's pretty funny that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is still even counting. In the face of complete and utter disaster, the likes of which the world has never before seen--where anyone can die at any minute--those troopers over at the BLS come in to work to compile the economic indicators.

No one can claim that economists and statisticians aren't tough guys.

Ecocomics Week in Review 5/7/2010

2010-05-07T08:30:00.000-04:00

Sadness=Profit: Comics and the Grief Industry

2010-05-06T08:24:00.001-04:00

When someone dies, it can cause a lot of grief. Everyone who knows the recently deceased individual will likely feel some pang of sadness. But things get more complicated when the person who dies is famous. Rather than family and friends mourning, it's possible that the entire world will grieve.

In American history, the deaths of famous figures like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Princess Diana, and Michael Jackson have all caused national if not worldwide mourning.

But in modern times, it seems that the way people grieve has changed. Grief seems to have taken a more profitable approach. Take Michael Jackson for example. A film biography/concert, "This Is It", released 4 months after the singer's death grossed $71 million according to IMDB. Jackson's death also inspired books and yet another film soon to be released. A lot of people made a lot of money when Michael Jackson died. By catering to a massive audience of grieving fans who appreciated their idol more than ever, keen businessmen were able to make quite a fortune.

It seems that grief is indeed an industry.

And as reality imitates art, we should be seeing the grief industry in comics.

And we do. After the death of Captain America, the comics world showed how the grief industry can act. With Captain America gone, many people tried to capitalize on his absence. Captain America #600 portrayed an individual selling Captain America memorabilia which had quadrupled in value after the hero's death. He profited handsomely from the sale. Movies were made and so were books. Norman Osborn even played off of Cap's death by painting himself red, white and blue and calling himself the Iron Patriot.

Now we comics readers have witnessed another tragic death in X-Force #26.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!

Nightcrawler is DEAD!

Nightcrawler from Giant-Size X-Men #1, art by Dave Cockrum

Kurt Wagner the wonderful German acrobat, priest, demon spawn, X-Man has ceased to be.

Nightcrawler heroically gave his life in X-Force #26 to protect the mutant messiah, Hope, from evil machines bent on destroying all mutantkind. Despite being impaled through the chest, Kurt mustered the strength to teleport Hope across the distance of the U.S. (a feat he has seldom accomplished) and into the hands of his comrades.

In light of the fact that Nightcrawler was much beloved, it seems that its only a matter of time before the industry of grief turns its eye on this departed furry blue mutant. Will we see Nightcrawler commemorative plates? Tickle-Me Nightcrawler? Brimstone scented Nightcrawler cologne?

Or will there we a successful music single, akin to Elton John's reimagining of "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Diana? That song was extremely successful and became one of the most popular singles of all time.

But what tribute songs shall we sing for Nightcrawler?

WARNING, BAD PUNS ENSUE!

How about "You'll be Through My Heart"?

"Save the Last BAMF for Me"?

Cover art to X-Men: Manifest Destiny- Nightcrawler #1, art by Brandon Peterson

Regardless of how we mourn, we'll miss you Kurt. At least for the next five months until someone brings you back to life. Until then, bring on the merchandise!

Ecocomics Recession Watch: Amazing Unemployed Spider-Man Edition

2010-04-29T14:10:00.002-04:00

"Brother, Can You Spare a Crime?" in Amazing Spider-Man #628
by Mark Waid, Tom Peyer and Todd Nauck and Lee Weeks, Marvel Comics (2010)

When we last left Peter Parker, he was fired from his job at city hall. Now, we catch a glimpse of the unemployed life, as Peter experiences difficulty keeping the roof over his head. As he mentions, there was a time when he could just secure a freelance job taking photos for The Daily Bugle. But in the midst of this recession, it seems that such gigs are harder to obtain than usual. Not to mention The DB was recently destroyed!

One minor nitpick here: I don't know where he pulled the "one million other New Yorkers" statistic. As of March 2010, there were about 400,000 unemployed living in NYC. Statewide, the number of unemployed residents was about 831,800. Granted, if Peter was talking about the entire state (which I doubt), then his estimate of one million would have been closer. Even still, rounding up by over 150,000 is a big deal.

The Riddler's Brilliant Crime Fighting Strategy

2010-04-28T12:55:00.001-04:00

Gotham City Sirens #10 by Paul Dini and Andres Guinaldo, DC Comics (2010)

Say what you will about the Riddler's constantly wavering loyalties and his psychological obsession with puzzles. The man still proves himself, time and time again, to be a brilliant strategist.

Whereas once he was one of Batman's greatest foes in the long list of rogues, the Riddler is now one of Gotham's more successful (and legitimate) private investigators. This means that whenever Batman is working a pretty rough case, the Riddler usually wiggles himself into it. It's a wonderful plot source, as this tends to drive a wedge into Batman's own detecting process. Is this a permanent change? Hard to say. However, it has been going on for quite some time and the only signs we have of the Riddler's return to villainy are minor.

It looks like he's in it for the long haul. But we have to ask ourselves the following question: how exactly does the Riddler stay successful?

We need a little bit of background first.

You see, Gotham City law enforcement is organized in a strange way. We actually went over this a little bit in our post on signalling and Batman's crime-fighting strategy, and also here in our post on the effect of superheroes on local law enforcement. Basically, we have a city that is a breeding ground for crime. And not ordinary crime. We're talking about a supervillain haven. Gotham City is polluted not only with ordinary muggers, burglars, robbers, murderers, rapists, mobsters, drug dealers, and thieves, but also with the nutjobs you've come to know and love.

This is why we have law enforcement. Unfortunately, the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) is simply ill-equipped to deal with all of these problems. They could barely handle the widespread criminal activity and systemic corruption before the appearance of any supervillains. Now they are completely overwhelmed and this is all coupled with the fact that the Gotham City budget keeps shorting the department. Less equipment. Less manpower.

This means that the GCPD has to prioritize. Obviously, catching The Joker before he sets off a bomb in Gotham Square is more important than patrolling the narrows to prevent ordinary muggings or drug deals. Yet, even with all police resources focused on supervillain threats, we still don't see results. The crime rate stays up, supervillains are still on the loose, and people are murdered every day.

The police are, simply put, not intelligent enough or equipped enough to handle destruction on such a grand scale.

Batman, of course, has the brains and resources to handle these supergeniuses. After all, he is one himself. And he is almost always the one who rounds up these villains and brings them back to Arkham. The police force--especially Commisioner James Gordon--can help, but it strikes me that this help is usually no more than offering minor clues.

If we were to adhere to the principles of comparative advantage here, then it would be clear that the GCPD should then let Batman handle the supervillains by himself (or with his cohort of Bat-friends), while the force exclusively focus on smaller crimes. However, this does not happen. In fact, the police keep going after the big guys alongside Batman. Inevitably, they get frustrated when he steps in on their game. It makes them look like they are incapable of performing their jobs and so department funding gets pulled all the more.

All of this is explored in Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's wonderful Gotham Central.

Indeed, this is a strange system. One would think if the police department was being constantly overshadowed by Batman and overlooked by city hall, then this would provide more of an incentive to make low-level, easy arrests and build up stats. At the same time, the police department cannot officially support a vigilante doing its high-end work and I suppose it cannot project the appearance that it is weak on supervillainy either.

Where does the Riddler fit in? Well, apparently his success lies in the fact that he mostly takes on smaller cases. The same ones that are beneath Batman's pay grade and the same ones that the police ignore as they attempt to reign in Mr. Freeze.

It's actually a pretty brilliant strategy. It allows the Riddler to simultaneously earn a "fat check" while establishing his reputation in the community as a legitimate problem-solver. Of course, he doesn't want to be stuck with the reputation of being a guy who takes on easy cases. So every so often, he throws in a hard one, wherein he steps on Batman's own detection process. In effect, the Riddler is edging out the GCPD from law enforcement completely (although he claims that his strategy helps him establish credibility--I just don't see it).

Good for the cops? Absolutely not. Good for society? Who knows. Good for the Riddler? Absolutely.

Externalities: Week of 4/26/10

2010-04-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Rather than do a separate "externalities" post for each disaster, I thought I might try sharing all of the best ones from the week in a single post.

Here we go:

Uncanny X-Men #523 by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson, Marvel Comics (2010)

Cable and Hope are on the run from Bastion, a "super-sentinel from the future hellbent on exterminating all mutants." Bastion's goons have tracked the pair of heroes to a little motel and have begun to surround the joint.

The only way out? Heavy destruction of city and personal property, of course.

Wolverine: Weapon X #12 by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney, Marvel Comics (2010)

Hate waiting for the subway? Bet you would hate it even more if the A train was regularly delayed by underground superhuman battles.

Here we have Captain America attempting to escape an army of Deathloks, powerful Terminator-like cyborgs sent back in time from the future to eliminate the superheroes that would one day pose a threat to their reign. The chase leads Cap down into a subway station, where a group of innocent bystanders are trying to get home from work.

Oops.

Ultimate Avengers #6 by Mark Millar and Carlos Pacheco, Marvel Comics (2010)

Ultimate Captain America is not faring much better. Currently, he is using his ship to teleport around the world in search of the evil Red Skull. Too bad his flight skills are getting in the way.

This is, of course, a Mark Millar comic, so there is no shortage of pointless destruction. What's particularly fascinating here is how little Captain America seems to care about this blatant destruction and potential harm of others individuals.

Anything to get the job done, I suppose.

Amazing Spider-Man #628 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks, Marvel Comics (2010)
Click to See More

Ah, a classic maneuver. During an airborne chase/battle, Spider-Man and Captain Universe crash through the window of a health club, damaging not only the window, but some expensive equipment. And they're not even members!

Interestingly enough, Spider-Man actually recognizes that innocent people might be getting hurt during the battle. Following this episode at the health club, he leads Captain Universe to an abandoned field so that the two could continue fighting, while only imposing minimal damage to third parties. It's nice to see that Spider-Man has a sense about these things, as opposed to, say, Ultimate Captain America.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #34 by Brad Meltzer and Georges Jeanty,
Dark Horse Comics (2010)
Click to See More: WARNING: SLAYER/VAMPIRE LOVE-MAKING

I saved the best for last. If you're a Buffy fanatic and have not yet heard the identity of Twilight, then you should turn away from this post immediately because here comes the MASSIVE SPOILER. I'm serious.

OK, it's Angel. Buffy and Angel have been reunited at last. The first thing they do, obviously, is have some sex. Sounds innocent enough. Hell, they've done it before and the only result was an evil Angel.

Here's the problem. Buffy has recently been granted extra superhuman powers, which she was able to harness from recently fallen slayers. Meanwhile, Angel is, um, pretty powerful too. Apparently, when two especially powerful beings like Buffy and Angel get it on, the universe reacts. And not in a good way.

Remember the infamous love scene between Superman and Wonder Woman in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again? This is even worse. To balance out the enormous surge of power, the universe has to kill off a bunch of life or energy or something. Honestly, I'm not exactly clear yet what's going on. But Giles was not subtle in saying that Buffy's happiness is uncontroversially bad for the world. Tidal waves. Volcanic eruptions. The works.

That's right. Buffy and Angel want to be happy. The only cost is on the rest of the world. I'd say that's a pretty big externality.

Ecocomics Week in Review 4/23/10

2010-04-23T08:38:00.002-04:00

The Prisoner's Dilemma

2010-04-20T12:04:00.001-04:00

"The Question: Pipeline" in Detective Comics #863 by Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner, DC Comics (2010)

The Question and the Huntress are kidnapped by a sinister organization of international human traffickers. They are each tortured in separate rooms and urged to reveal their plan to the captors. If each holds firm, the criminals learn nothing (though both might still be held and tortured). If one squeals, she might be released. If both squeal, the captors learn everything (and both will likely get killed).

Sound familiar? Good--it's the Prisoner's Dilemma. If they were both behaving rationally, each would obviously squeal on the other for the chance of release. However, the optimal outcome would be if both say nothing.

See here for more superhero applications of it.

A Somewhat "For Profit" Model: Secret Six

2010-04-19T08:30:00.004-04:00

A while ago, I spoke about the questionable actions of Marvel's Mercenary character, Deadpool, in terms of his actual profession. You see, Deadpool is ostensibly a mercenary who performs contract jobs for profit. But recently he's been fighting monkeys and trying to be like Spider-Man (somewhat unsuccessfully I may add) instead of mercenarying. Yes I just coined that word.

So rather than deal with his somewhat problematic life views, I thought I would discuss a mercenary group that actually does mercenary work for profit. Kind of, sometimes, maybe. The Secret Six.

Cover art from Secret Six #1, art by Cliff Chiang

Secret Six is a group composed of several quasi-villains (at the moment: Catman, Deadshot, Bane, Ragdoll, Black Alice, and a Banshee) who accept all those dirty jobs that pop up in the DC universe and do what they need to. Kind of like the A-Team with less morals and more dismemberment. Anywho, the Secret Six started off pretty well by accepting a paying job to protect (quite literally) a "get out of hell free" card which would save an individual from eternal damnation if they held the card in their possession. This worked out fairly well, until they decided to destroy the card because it was too dangerous to be in the possession of the vile individuals who sought it (including the vile individual who was paying them to get it).

Then the Six were hired to protect an experimental prison, until they eventually felt the prison was immoral and decided to free the captives. One of the few jobs I can remember them actually completing was breaking a murderer out of jail, but only so the father of one of the killer's victims could have personal revenge. The Secret Six start out well when the go on a mercenary mission. They try to actually perform mercenary tasks for profit. And they usually almost complete their assignments. But then, at the final moment, one of the Six usually has a pang of conscience and brings whatever evil plan they are being paid to complete crashing down.

And why do I bring this up you may ask? Well, I bring this up because, like Deadpool, the Secret Six are very poor at doing what they are paid to do. Are they vicious? Yes. Are they organized? Somewhat? Are they entertaining? Assuredly. Do they actually complete any job they set out to? Nope. Morals stand in their way. And this makes the Secret Six a compelling read and makes the characters themselves somewhat sympathetic in an anti-hero sort of way. But this also makes the organization of Secret Six a very poor for-profit model.

If I were a character in the DC universe and I was thinking of employing a mercenary team for a dastardly deed, I'm afraid I would need to look elsewhere for help. In fact, I think I would need to file a grievance with the Better Business Bureau regarding Secret Six.

This is of course assuming that there is a Better Business Bureau in the DC Universe. And assuming that said bureau polices the quality of villainous mercenaries. But you get the idea.

Following Up: Captain America and Unemployment

2010-04-15T09:44:00.002-04:00

Captain America #603 by Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross, Marvel Comics (2010)

Two weeks ago, we did a post concerning Bad Cap's views on Keynesian economics. Recall that Bad Cap thinks that infrastructure and military spending during World War II helped to bring new industry to America, provide people with jobs, and eventually all but extinguish the unemployment rate in America. Our discussion mostly focused on the inconsistencies between these beliefs and those that Bad Cap now possesses. We detailed a few arguments on whether fiscal policy during World War II actually helped to put an end to the Great Depression, or whether it was really other factors (monetary policy, for instance).

But let's go back to Bad Cap's actual question. He asks himself why the United States' current conflicts abroad seemingly have no effect on unemployment today, whereas World War II helped drastically reduce unemployment in the 1940s.

Well, first of all, the U.S. was already involved in the Iraq War and Afghanistan before the Great Recession actually hit. The 1920s was a relatively quiet decade for America with respect to international conflicts. Remember Harding, Coolidge and Hoover? Isolationist foreign policy? Post-WWI "Return to normalcy?" When World War II hit, America had significantly increased its spending to prepare our troops for war.

Second, there is the issue of the draft. There are certainly debates regarding the extent of the impact of conscription on unemployment, but there was indeed an impact. American citizens went to war who would have otherwise been unemployed. There is no draft today, so this effect is smaller.

Third, today's warfare is less labor intensive and the same level of military activity requires fewer personnel.

To see this, let's look at the spending. Indeed, the second world war was expensive--economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated the cost to be approximately $5 trillion in 2007 dollars (adjusted for inflation). Current military operations are expensive too. As Stiglitz writes:

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War.

However, as he put it, WWII saw 16.3 million U.S. troops in a campaign for four years. It required the total mobilization and virtually all of the country's resources fully committed to fighting. Total cost of the war was less than $100,000 per troop in 2007 dollars. The Iraq war, according to his estimates in 2008, have cost around $400,00 per troop.

Where is all of this going? Tough to say. In fact, the defense spending budget in recent years has been pretty confusing. In 2008, for instance, President Bush requested from the Department of Defense $481.4 billion for discretionary military spending, which goes to "ensure a high state of military readiness and ground force strength; to enhance the combat capabilities of the United States Armed Forces; to continue the development of capabilities that will maintain traditional U.S. superiority against potential threats; and to continue the Department’s strong support for service members and their families." However, the actual spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan apparently come through "emergency supplemental requests"--the request being about $193 billion in 2008. And there is more. Nuclear weapons research, intelligence gathering, State Department operations in war zones, and allocations towards the "Global War on Terror" technically do not fall in the DoD budget.

And then, of course, there is Stiglitz's famous three trillion dollar total cost estimate. All this is to say that we are spending a considerable amount of money on defense and military of some sort (if you total all the various sources of expenditures), but we are not seeing the same sort of total mobilization we saw in World War II. As mentioned above, much spending today goes towards development of sophisticated technology, nuclear research, etc. These are sorts of things that aren't likely to reduce unemployment in the same way as it may have during a war of full commitment such as World War II.

I'd be interested (as I'm sure Bad Cap would) if anyone could find a more specific breakdown of current military costs.

Ecocomics Week In Review 04/02/10

2010-04-02T16:00:00.001-04:00

Image created at fodey.com

Externalities: Wolverine and Women Edition

2010-04-02T12:06:00.008-04:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Wolverine: Weapon X #10 by Jason Aaron and C.P. Smith, Marvel Comics (2010)

Ah, the classic superhero externality. Wolverine has chosen a life dedicated to fighting crime and putting himself at danger for the greater good. Unfortunately, this means that every individual who elects to be involved with him on a personal or intimate level is automatically put in danger as well. This is precisely why superheroes wear masks.

You can see here that Wolverine's proposed solution is simply to not get involved. He implicitly values his obligation to fight crime more than his desire for romantic attachments. Mentors and friends have advised--some even ordered--that he always keep an arm's length. The goal is to minimize any externalities on innocent parties not part of the superhero/supervillain game.

Consider the case of smoking. Smoking imposes a cost on society in the form of second-hand smoke risks. As a response, legislation was put into place to prohibit smoking in bars, restaurants, etc. in various cities. This way, smokers are free to smoke their cigarettes, although they pay the cost of having to wait outside in the cold instead of being comfortable in their bar seats.

From Wolverine's point-of-view, he is basically imposing the same sort of legislation on himself. He is forcing himself to stand outside in the cold so as to not poison innocents with his second-hand smoke. Had he not done this, I'm betting Scott Summers, acting as the de facto government, would have ordered it.

But what happens in a situation like in Wolverine: Weapon X #11? In this case, he is not after the girl, but the girl (Melita Garner) is after him. And she won't take no for an answer. What we have here is someone who would rather Wolverine not smoke cigarettes at all (i.e., not fight crime), but would rather be together at all times with him smoking than force him to do it outside.

Bureaucracy in the Afterlife

2010-04-02T11:52:00.006-04:00

The Unwritten #11 by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, Vertigo (2010)

Apparently, they keep pretty tight records even in the afterlife. I mean, look at all the hoops Tommy has to jump through in order to get through the gates. What about when he applies for insurance? Do you think the afterlife has competing plans?

I can't imagine what the DMV must be like.

Hate You Forever

2010-03-31T15:00:00.003-04:00

The National Bureau of Economic Research may say that the Great Recession officially ended in the middle of 2009, but we all know the labor market still has a long way to go. The market for supervillains, in particular, has been insecure for years. Indeed, many up-and-coming individuals just dripping with malice and cruelty, as qualified as they may be, are having trouble securing positions in name-brand villain societies.

Good news for them: Dr. King Oblivion, PhD has written a book dedicated to those considering a career in supervillainy. It's called Hate You Forever: How to Channel Your Rage Into Effective Supervillainy. Here is a description:

Looking for a way out of the rat race? Tired of your ho-hum workaday life? Have an inexplicable love of turning human beings into inanimate objects? Then professional supervillainy, with tips from the experienced veterans at the International Society of Supervillains, might just be for you!

This guide is your personal look inside the tricks of the evil trade, from defining your nefarious goals, acquiring your treacherous credentials and creating your evil persona to building your army of henchmen, selecting your equipment and base of operations and carrying out your dastardly master plans. So get those laughing lungs ready, recruit, and do some bad out there!

The book even contains a section on financial planning--something supervillains definitely need to be aware of if they are to succeed in the current economic climate.

HT: DaveExMachina

Ecocomic Recession Watch: ASM Edition

2010-03-31T13:00:00.002-04:00

Amazing Spider-Man #625 by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara, Marvel Comics (2010)

It's been a while since we took a look at the effects of the economic recession in the Marvel Universe. The latest casualty? Peter Parker. It would appear that Pete has finally lost his job, despite previously surviving The DB's financial hardships (and later its literal destruction at the hands of Electro). Though he was quickly able to obtain new employment at City Hall through the ever-so-generous Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, Pete is finally out of work with not so much as a freelance gig to keep him above the federal poverty line.

OK, so this has very little to do with the recession. In actuality, some of Peter's latest (and quite frankly ethically dubious) actions have prompted Jameson to fire him in an very public manner. Now he joins the ranks of the other 9.7% of Americans forced to suffer through long unemployment lines and persistent insecurity.

And those guys don't have to buy web fluid.

Update: Some loyal readers pointed out that fact that Peter Parker shouldn't even be eligible to collect unemployment benefits, since he was clearly fired for gross misconduct (as opposed to being laid off or let go through no fault of his own). So what I meant to say was that he joins the ranks of the rest of the unemployed--not necessarily those waiting in unemployment lines.

Captain America, War, and the Great Depression

2010-03-31T08:54:00.003-04:00

Captain America #603 by Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross, Marvel Comics (2010)

It's been a wild ride in the Captain America series. Steve Rogers died via magic bullet, traveled through time, faced off against the Red Skull, then finally came back to life with the help of Bucky. Now that all that's over with, the series take a turn and focuses on more pressing matters.

I refer, of course, to evil super-soldier clones and their political agendas.

In Captain America #603, "Bad Cap," created in the 1950s while the original Cap was in suspended animation, travels by bus from New York to Idaho and ponders the state of the economy along the way. He notices rows of empty houses and long unemployment lines and begins recalling the days of the Great Depression.

He then wonders why the Depression ended-- as the war brought "a wave of industry to America"--while current conflicts abroad make little to no difference on unemployment.

This is a strange thought. Though he doesn't explicitly state in his internal monologue that World War II caused the end of the Great Depression, he is strongly implying it. In fact, he is implying that the wartime spending and increased factory production helped reduce the unemployment rate domestically. Indeed, unemployment in the U.S. quickly fell below 10% after the war began and eventually all but faded.

This is in line with the major view shared by Keynesian economists and historians alike. That is, that massive military and infrastructure spending during the war increased the labor force, increased production, helped boost aggregate demand, and pulled the economy back from collapse. Paul Krugman referred to the war as a "large public works project." In this sense, many see the war--and fiscal expansion--as having been the primary cause of the end of the Great Depression

Of course, this is a subject of much debate. Many attribute the reduction in unemployment during WWII more to the draft than war spending. There are also arguments citing other factors (aside from fiscal policy) that accelerated GDP growth and economic recovery. These debates about the effects of war spending on the Depression aren't exactly new--and many have been resurfacing given the parallels with the current Great Recession.

For instance, in a piece written for the Wall Street Journal last year, economist Robert Barro argued that the fiscal multiplier during World War II was actually less than we thought. According to him, the multiplier was something closet to 0.8, meaning that gross domestic product (GDP) rose by less than the increase in government expenditures (whereas if the multiplier was a flat 1.0, each unit of government spending would have led to a unit increase in GDP):

The other way to put this is that the war lowered components of GDP aside from military purchases. The main declines were in private investment, nonmilitary parts of government purchases, and net exports -- personal consumer expenditure changed little. Wartime production siphoned off resources from other economic uses -- there was a dampener, rather than a multiplier.

A notable paper written in 1992 by economic historian, Christina Romer, entitled "What Ended the Great Depression?" argued that fiscal stimulus played a relatively minor role and that recovery mainly stemmed from monetary expansion--that is, gold inflows into the United States during the 1930s led to lower interest rates, which encouraged more investment and eventually increased aggregate demand.

Regarding World War II's effect on the economy, Romer wrote:

That monetary developments were very important, whereas fiscal policy was of little consequence even as late as 1942, suggests an interesting twist on the usual view that World War II caused, or at least accelerated, the recovery from the Great Depression. Since the economy was essentially back to its trend level before the fiscal stimulus started in earnest, it would be difficult to argue that the changes in government spending caused by the war were a major factor in the recovery. [...] Thus, World War II may indeed have helped to end the Great Depression in the United States, but its expansionary benefits worked initially through monetary developments rather than through fiscal policy.

Does all this mean proponents of fiscal expansion are wrong today? Well, no. In fact, according to a speech Romer delivered in March 2009, the idea that monetary expansion played such a large role does not necessarily negate fiscal policy as an effective recession-fighting tool:

I wrote a paper in 1992 that said that fiscal policy was not the key engine of recovery in the Depression. From this, some have concluded that I do not believe fiscal policy can work today or could have worked in the 1930s. Nothing could be farther than the truth. My argument paralleled E. Cary Brown’s famous conclusion that in the Great Depression, fiscal policy failed to generate recovery “not because it does not work, but because it was not tried.”

In response to those "small multiplier" arguments, Krugman likes to point out that there was rationing during the war (i.e. governments tried to curb consumer spending to conserve resources).

I won't say where I personally fall in the debate, though I will say that I'm surprised Bad Cap seems to take the Keynesian position so strongly. You might recall that he has recently grown angry with what he views as a significant departure from America's fundamental values. He refers to current politicians and policy-makers as "hippies" and "commies," presumably for pushing legislation predicated on government spending and taxation. The same sort of spending that he seems to think worked before! Well, at least for unemployment. He even joins the radical right-wing militia group, the Watchdogs, in an attempt to "reclaim" America and uphold the values of "real Americans."

Bad Cap repeats the claim that America's integrity has fallen since the time of his childhood, but he doesn't seem to be sure how. Perhaps he is a strong believer in wartime Keynesianism, but is skeptical of spending government money on social welfare. I wonder what he thinks of the 1960s and Medicare. Had America already lost its values by then?

Either way, he's been through a lot, what with the super-soldiering, being an evil clone, and the mental instability thing. Maybe he just, you know, changed his mind?

Artificial Evolution Achieved, Used to Kill Mutants and Not Cure Cancer

2010-03-12T08:34:00.001-05:00

Dark Reign: The List - Wolverine #1, cover by Esaad Ribic

A recent appearance of "The World" in the Dark Reign- The List: Wolverine reminded me of some misgivings I've had since "The World" was introduced in Grant Morrison's New X-Men run.

To explain, "The World" is a dome structure created by the Weapon Plus Program (the original program Weapon X is derived from) to achieve artificial evolution. Within the confines the The World's dome, Weapon Plus scientists are able to move time forward at an extremely accelerated rate. Based on this, the scientists in Weapon X are able to artificially manipulate the course of evolution and directly change the course of how organisms develop. They can selectively breed individuals to create new strains of DNA as they see fit. These are the kind of things that can be achieved when you are a secret evil organization with no concerns about morality.

Now I just think it's interesting that with all this technology at their disposal, Weapon Plus decided to create a mutant-killing superhero team as their goal. This seems somewhat natural since mutant extinction is the entire goal of the program. Weapon Plus wants to create super-soldiers and murder mutants. But this seems somewhat short-sighted since artificial evolution has billions of uses. They could examine disease resistances, the origin of genetic disorders and traits, and cure every ailment that humanity has ever suffered.

But what does Weapon Plus actually use artificial evolution to do? Why, the decide to make an anti-mutant superhero team which will eventually murder mutants live on a reality TV show. Thank you writer Grant Morrison. At least the fine people at Weapon Plus decide they will use their discovery to make money (the action figure rights alone to a real life superhero team would be incredibly lucrative).

Ultimaton, one of the super-soldiers artificially evolved by Weapon Plus, art by Chris Bachalo

Furthermore, The Dark Reign: The List one-shot seems to suggest that since the X-Men last busted up the plans of Weapon Plus, "The World" has been sitting by unutilized by any forces. That's right, not only has mankind achieved artificial evolution, they forgot they achieved it. Apparently an artificial biosphere has been sitting somewhere in the continental United States for the last 5 years and no-one thought to check up on it. Somewhere there is a scientific discovery with boundless possibilities for the future and it is being treated like a broken refridgerator.

Bravo Weapon Plus. Bravo. Someone needs to manage their assets a wee bit better.

Madison Avenue VILLAINY!

2010-03-08T08:38:00.002-05:00

Cover to the Captain America: Secret Empire Trade Paperback, art by Sal Buscema

While paging through the Captain America: Secret Empire trade paperback, I noticed an interesting plot point.

The main focus of the story involves an underground organization called the Secret Empire trying to discredit Captain America as America's #1 hero and replace him with their candidate, Moonstone.

So how does the Secret Empire go about discrediting Cap? They use a Madison Avenue advertising firm. And they choose correctly. The fictional ad firm belonging to Quentin Harderman frames Cap for murder and theft and makes Moonstone a hero for beating the tar out of Cap. And throughout the book, the Madison Avenue suits are only too happy to assist the Secret Empire in taking over America (and eventually, THE WORLD)! In fact, when the frame is revealed to different characters in the story (namely The Falcon, Professor Xavier, and Nick Fury) no one is surprised that Madison Avenue Ad Executives would stoop so low.

So this has me thinking: what evils does advertising have in store for us in the future? Is the marketing of the iPhone and the Snuggee some sort of harbinger for the doom to come?

Is Madison Avenue working against us right now?

Ecocomics in the Christian Science Monitor

2010-03-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

Dear Ecocomics Fans,

First of all, we wanted to apologize for not posting so much over the past week. This is a busy time for us, but we assure you we will get back to posting on a more frequent basis soon.

Second, posts from this blog will henceforth be featured in the "Money" section of the Christian Science Monitor, along with many other amazing economics blogs. What does this mean for you? Just about nothing. Posts will appear both at this address and over at the Monitor's domain. So if you're already following us here or subscribing to our RSS feed, then you can (and should) keep coming back here.

Anyway, we wanted to thank all of you for reading, especially the lot of you who continue to comment on our posts, both engaging us intellectually and tickling our funny bones.

Finally, in light of the occasion, we thought it would be fun to finally reveal what we look like. I present to you, Shadowbanker and Mark!

Left to Right: Mark, Shadowbanker. Please do not share this with any supervillains.

Superhero Pre-Nups Completely Unnecessary

2010-03-05T08:42:00.003-05:00

Cover to X-Men #30, art by Andy Kubert

In the wake of Valentine's Day, I've been thinking about marriage. And not just how rewarding marriage can be. There's that of course. But there's also the fact that sustaining a marriage is a lot of work. Marriage can be rough. You commit to one individual for the rest of your life. Probably. Well, 50% of you do.

Anyway, there's a lot that goes into marriage. You combine assests, pay the taxes of a married couple and unite yourselves emotionally, physically and economically. But marriage is even more complicated for the superheroic couple. Besides the fact that a superheroic marriage will be tested by unique concerns like alien invasion and the possibilty of having an affair with a demonically possessed spouse, superheroes have unique economic concerns when they are married.

This can be easily seen if a superhero couple contemplates divorce. If they seperate, how will assets be divided? Does one person get to keep the teleporting dog and the other get to keep the mansion on the blue side of the moon? Does the divorced couple get joint custody of the Fantasti-Car? Who gets to keep the Kryptonian crystal Fortress of Solitude?

These are important concerns. Important enough that you would think that a pre-nuptial agreement should be an essential part of any superhero marriage. But you'd be wrong.

That's because very few superhero marriages ever end in divorce. Disintegration yes, divorce no. Think about the average superhero marriage and realize that if you have super powers and a lover, you never need to worry about hiring a lawyer. Think about Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts. Did Pepper need to divorce her hubby to start making out with Tony Stark? Nope. The Spymaster took care of that when he made Happy fall to his death.

Emma Frost, art by Greg Horn

What about Scott Summers and Jean Grey? Did Scott need to go through years of litigation to decide who was going to get the Blackbird jet or deal with alimony payments because of his psychic affair with Emma Frost? Nope, Magneto took care of that for him when he murdered Jean Grey. Now Scott is free to engage in all sorts of debauchery with the White Queen.

So relax heroes. If your marriage is becoming difficult, relax. You won't have to wait long before some villain comes along and kills your annoying spouse. Take your time, start a profile on Match.com and wait for the sweet freedom of superhero singles life. And if your spouse simply refuses to go away, just make a deal with the devil and make her go away. If Spider-Man can do it, so can you.

Cover to Amazing Spider-Man #545

Externalities: Watchdogs Edition

2010-02-23T09:53:00.006-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Captain America #603 by Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross

Here's a riddle: what do you get when you mix an extreme right-wing, armored terrorist group with Captain America and Falcon? The answer: destroyed public property.

In their never-ending quest to restore order to a society that they believe has abandoned traditional American values, the Watchdogs, now led by the evil clone of Captain America, "Bad Cap," are now on a mission to capture Bucky and Falcon.

The only problem with this foolproof plan is that to actually kidnap one of these heroes, it seems the Watchdogs have to fire their sophisticated weapons indiscriminately across the city. The result is that windows get broken, roads surfaces get cracked, and of course, traffic lights get destroyed.

Remember: all of this is to bring us to an era of fiscal responsibility and minimized public costs. In the process, all they have to do is...well, impose more public costs.

Of course, maybe this is all part of the plan.

Comics Characters Occasionally Recognize Limited Resources

2010-02-22T08:55:00.003-05:00

Cover to Uncanny X-Men #520, art by Terry Dodson

An interesting point comes up in Uncanny X-Men #520. During the "Utopia" crossover, Scott Summers and the X-Men created massive engines to lift Asteroid M out of the ocean. This allowed the X-Men to create a floating haven for all the mutants left in the world. The resulting island refuge was dubbed Utopia. And mutantkind would live happily ever after, isolated from people who would look to hurt them...

Unfortunately, the X-Men were very short sighted in their construction of this new home. No-one thought to mention that when you build giant engines to lift an asteroid, you need to power and repair those same engines. Woops.

This is the point brought up by Dr. Nemesis (a member of the mutant science team put together by Beast) in Uncanny #520. In a briefing with Cyclops, Nemesis reveals that the engines keeping Utopia afloat are failing and that the island is sinking. The only solution he can think of is to tap into the wealth of Warren Worthington (the X-Man, Angel) and continuously build replacement engines. But, as Nemesis points out, the consequence of this would be to bankrupt Worthington.

This is important because, finally, in a comic book, a character acknowledges the fact that even a billionaire still has limited financial resources.

Comics history is filled with characters who have seemingly bottomless pockets. Think about it. For years, the Xavier Institute has been sustained by Professor Xavier and Warren Worthington. Somehow, the nebulous assets held by these two men has paid for housing and feeding hundreds of mutants, building countless supersonic jets and periodically rebuilding a massive mansion when Sentinels blow it up.

Batman is able to create an arsenal of weaponry that could conquer a small European nation. He has literally hundreds of cars, jets, boats, explosives, grappling hooks, and bat-shaped shuriken that he created using his personal wealth. And his assets are so great that Bruce Wayne is able to build all of these things without anyone noticing that he is using his money to build ridiculous contraptions. This means that he can buy a Bat-plane without creating enough of a dent to arouse suspicion. That is a LOT of money.

But in Uncanny X-Men # 520, we see that wealth is, in fact, finite and that someone can't keep buying engines for a mutant asteroid indefinitely. It's nice to see someone in this universe who is in touch with reality. Even if that person is an immortal man in a white suit and surgeon's mask who dual wields hypodermic injection pistols.

Dr. Nemesis from Uncanny X-Men #504, Art by Terry Dodson

Ecocomics Week in Review 02/19/10

2010-02-19T09:56:00.001-05:00

Image created at Fodey.com

-Green Lanterns report that they have ended Blackest Night. Angry former Lanterns transformed into living dead were provided with huge bonuses and buyout packages and sent happily on their way. The Dept of Justice investigated whether the buyout packages had excessive numbers of human hearts. Lanterns may be forced to make organ restitution to Treasury Department.

-Wolverine sues Dark Wolverine for trademark infringement. Also sues for lameness and poor hairstyle choice. Dark Wolverine counter-sues for same.

-Norman Osborn reports that all H.A.M.M.E.R. agents will need to have their battle suits recalled. Osborn states that the battlesuits have a defective part that causes them to shoot civilians. Osborn places the blame with a famous auto manufacturer. He states that he is canceling his contract for pumpkins bombs and bat gliders that he signed with the company.

-A photo of J. Jonah Jameson at a conference revealed crib notes on his hand, with phrases: "Tax cuts," "Lift spirits," and "Get Spider-Man"

Why Can't There Be Two Captain Americas?

2010-02-18T10:11:00.016-05:00

Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice & Luke Ross
Click to See More

Natalia, aka The Black Widow, asks a very good question to Bucky in the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? Namely, why can't there be two Captain Americas?

The quick back-story to those unfamiliar is that Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, had been presumed dead for years from Marvel's Civil War. During his absence, his former sidekick, Bucky Barnes, took the mantle of Captain America. Now that Rogers is back, there is the dilemma of who gets to be the hero.

Steve Rogers wants Bucky to continue as Captain America, citing some vague premonition about the dangers of Bucky relinquishing the shield. Bucky feels a sense of guilt over keeping the identity, as it was Steve's to begin with. In fact, he's actually pretty self-deprecating about the whole thing, claiming that Steve was better at the whole superhero thing than he ever was.

First of all, Bucky should know better than to doubt his self-worth. He has proven himself throughout the past few years to not only be a qualified candidate for the position, but for also adopting a style and technique that differs considerably from Steve Rogers'.

For example, Steve Rogers is stronger, faster, better coordinated, more confident, and has better tactical ability for non-lethal means. Bucky is stealthy, subtle, a better shot, and has better tactical ability for lethal and covert means. Clearly, each of them has an absolute advantage over the other in these terms. That is to say, if each devoted all their resources to non-lethal, non-covert operations, Steve would be able to perform better than Bucky. On the other hand, if each devoted all of his resources to a covert operation, Bucky would outperform Steve.

Now, let's assume that Bucky's concerns are true. Namely, lets say that Steve Rogers is better than Bucky at every element of the job. Steve has an absolute advantage over Bucky in being Captain America. Does this mean that Bucky should pack up his gear, assume a new persona, and move to Bludhaven to find a completely different set of criminals to fight?

Not necessarily. You see, Bucky should realize that although Steve can perform better in all of these feats, Bucky nonetheless has a comparative advantage over him.

The gentlemen from Overthinkingit posted before about superheroes and comparative advantage to show why Superman needs the rest of the Justice League at all. We rehash a bit of that next.

Suppose that there are two kinds of criminals that any Captain America would have to face. One type is the class of strong criminals that require pure old, fashioned fist fights to capture. The other is a more cunning and elusive type that requires more stealth/sneakiness to capture. Possessing both of these skills are necessary to being Captain America. Now suppose that if Steve devotes all his energy to fighting, he could stop 24 criminals in a week (of the first type), whereas Bucky could only stop 8. Now suppose that if Steve devoted all his energy to stealth maneuvering, he could stop 12 criminals (of the second type), whereas Bucky could still only stop 8.

Clearly Steve is better at catching both types of criminals than Bucky. However, for Bucky the opportunity cost of fighting 1 criminal is capturing 1 by using stealth techniques. The opportunity cost of fighting 1 criminal for Steve is capturing 1/2 a criminal by sneaking around (lets just say this means getting halfway there). Similarly the opportunity cost for Bucky of capturing 1 criminal through covert means is capturing 1 criminal by fighting. For Steve, however, the opportunity cost of capturing 1 criminal through covert means is capturing 2 criminals by fighting.

What we see here is that Steve has a lower opportunity cost of catching strong criminals by fighting, whereas Bucky has a lower opportunity cost of catching elusive criminals by covert means.

Now let's just say that in a given week, Bucky and Cap split their time evenly between both types. So, the number of criminals they capture in a week looks like this:

	Fighting	Stealth
Bucky	4	4
Rogers	12	6
Total	16	10

Now suppose Bucky decides to "specialize." He spends all his time working on covert tactics, thus sacrificing the criminals he would have had to catch through fighting (4 criminals) to catch those he could by stealth. Rogers then decides to take 4 criminals he would have caught through stealth and devote that same amount of time to fighting. However, we know that Rogers can fight 2 strong criminals in the time that he can catch 1 elusive perp. through stealth. After they specialize, the new chart looks like this:

	Fighting	Stealth
Bucky	0	8
Rogers	20	2
Total	20	10

Lo and behold, we are now better off than we were before. Despite the fact that Steve might be better at catching strong criminals and catching elusive ones, Bucky's concern that he is not needed is simply false.

Natalia obviously realizes this and as such asks a reasonable question: Why can't both continue to be Captain America to fight the different types of Captain America villains?

Well, for one thing there's only one shield. But more importantly, Bucky could simply specialize under a new superhero persona (which it looks like is what he intended to do). He could call himself "Captain Shadow" or something. He and Captain America could team up, each of them specializing in a certain type of criminal, which would increase the overall number of criminals caught.

On the other hand, creating a new identity does have its disadvantages:

1) New costume, new gadgets, new hideout, etc. all have significant start-up costs.
2) Pooling both skills into one identity could have the benefit of making Captain America appear to be invulnerable. This might deter more crime, as opposed to creating a new superhero that no one has ever heard of and that might take a considerable amount of time to develop the same reputation.
3) More superheroes might lead to more supervillains.

Really then, being Captain America all comes down to labels. Whether Bucky becomes Captain Shadow or remains Captain America, the important thing is that he realizes that he has an important role to play by fighting a specific subset of criminals. Once he figures that out, he should be happier.

Externalities: Ultimate Spider-Man Edition

2010-02-17T09:34:00.005-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #7 by Brian Michael Bendis and Takeshi Miyazawa

Click on Image to See More

In this episode, Peter Parker's nextdoor neighbor, Rick Jones, begins to develop mutant abilities. Of course, not everyone who develops powers at the age of maturity can master them as quickly as, say, Superman. For the rest of the metahuman community, there's a considerable learning curve. Good thing there are plenty of other superheroes around (in fact, right next door) that have gone through the same thing and can help ease these newcomers through this profound transition.

Of course, that does not always mean that disconnected third parties don't have to pay for new mutants to learn. A few trees are destroyed here and there. Maybe some nasty chemicals leak into the atmosphere. In this case, Spidey and Rick crash through the window of a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, thereby destroying it along with the owner's "livelihood."

Superheroes explode. People pay. Usual stuff.

Crime Brokers

2010-02-16T08:07:00.006-05:00

Cover to Batman #444 (art by Michael Bair)

Recently, while reading an old issue of Batman I had picked up in a 50 cent bin, I was struck by the story of the Crimesmith. She is a villain who provides other crooks with supposedly "fool-proof" plans to take down scores in exchange for a percentage of the profits from these heists. Unfortunately, fool-proof does not include "Batman-proof" and the Crimesmith's nefarious schemes are thwarted.

Not long ago, I posted a discussion of how many criminals should change careers and use them for more lucrative and less physically injurious means. The Crimesmith is something of an example of that. Rather than place herself in dangerous situations, she merely devises plans and sends them out in exchange for 60% of the loot. This is profitable and reduces the threat to the Crimesmith. Unfortunately, Crimesmith was not discerning in her clientele and sold her plans to some true morons. The morons bumbled the Crimesmith's plans and alerted Batman to her presence. But in general, the Crimesmith's strategies were safe ones. She removed herself directly from criminal activities, dealt only with intermediaries to hide her identity, and in the end got away free (despite the fact her operation was destroyed). In general, the Crimesmith showed that supporting outlandish villainy was more effective than engaging in the villainy itself.

My colleague, the Shadowbanker, wrote about an analogous Batman character, The Broker, who acts as an exotic real-estate agent to all of Gotham's villains. Much like the Crimesmith, rather than being a real villain, the Broker merely supports Gotham's villainous community. This is safer (arguably) and more profitable than being a true Batman rogue.

Art from Batman: Streets of Gotham #4, art by Dustin Nguyen

DC has yet another character, The Calculator, who is the counterpart to the heroic Oracle. Calculator also specializes in information and sells this information to the villain community for large sums. The Calculator's abilities were so valued that they garnered him a place in Lex Luthor's Society of Villains during Infinite Crisis.

Cover to Birds of Prey #126 (art by Stephane Roux)

Clearly these examples show that when it comes to being evil, look to the business world for success. The formula is maximize profit, minimize risk, develop assests, and protect yourself.

Kudos to DC for giving us some villains that we can relate to.

The Globalization of Crime

2010-02-11T09:31:00.001-05:00

"The Question" in Detective Comics #859 by Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner

Renee Montoya, aka The Question, is on a mission to root out a network of human traffickers coming through Gotham City. The problem, as she's starting to see, is that the network is much more complicated than she expected. In fact, the trafficking operations seems to take place all over the world and involve many different agents.

Many refer to this phenomenon as "The Globalization of Crime." Globalization, basically the process by which national economies become integrated into a global economy through various mechanisms--trade, foreign direct investment, spread of technology, etc.--brings about several benefits. Supporters of free trade, for instance, argue that globalization heralds economic prosperity, especially for developing nations. Such economies would realize the benefits of trade, the free and unfettered flow of information, and might even see improvements in civil liberties.

Others argue, however, that the minimization of trade restrictions actually brings about other problems. For example, it might make the transportation of illicit goods across national borders that much easier. According to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, the production and spread of synthetic drugs has been rising rapidly for years and, as of October 2009, income from the drug trade has hit $320 billion.

Here is one author talking about the connection to globalization:

International organized crime has globalized its activities for the same reasons as legitimate multinational corporations. Just as multinational corporations establish branches around the world to take advantage of attractive labor or raw material markets, so do illicit businesses. Furthermore, international businesses, both legitimate and illicit, also establish facilities worldwide for production, marketing, and distribution needs. Illicit enterprises are able to expand geographically to take advantage of these new economic circumstances thanks to the communications and international transportation revolution.

[...]

Globalization is coupled with an ideology of free markets and free trade and a decline in state intervention. According to globalization advocates, reducing international regulations and barriers to trade and investment will increase trade and development. But these very conditions that promote a globalized environment are crucial to the expansion of crime. Crime groups and terrorists have exploited the enormous decline in regulations, the lessened border controls, and the resultant greater freedom, to expand their activities across borders and to new regions of the world. These contacts have become more frequent, and the speed at which they occur has accelerated. Whereas the growth of legal trade is regulated by adherence to border control policies, customs officials, and bureaucratic systems, transnational crime groups freely exploit the loopholes of state-based legal systems to extend their reach.

The ease with which these criminals dodge regulations is actually even mentioned in the comic. See?

So what can be done about this? The article mentions that we need "greater international cooperation, more harmonized legislation and increased sharing of intelligence." The UN argues that we should focus on promoting health, justice and security across the world to mitigate the regional economic conditions that might foster drug and human trafficking.

This all sounds very complicated. Too bad the real world doesn't have a global network of bat-related crime fighters (or Liam Neeson)!

Ecocomics Week in Review 02/05/2010

2010-02-05T10:24:00.001-05:00

Part of our job at Ecocomics is to inform the readers of the latest ecocomics news stories. With that in mind, we present to you, straight from the editor's desk of The DB, the WEEK IN REVIEW, a summary of the week's most important events.

Futures Analysis: Determining Ancient Enemy Resurgence

2010-02-04T09:45:00.002-05:00

Predicting patterns is important. Its very useful to known whether a commodity you're interested in will be worth twice its current value in six months. This kind of analysis drives all of commodities trading.

But what's more important than predicting whether an ancient enemy will return? This is a perfect venue for futures analysis since ancient enemies have a lot of data about their appearance. After all, they are ancient. Granted the information used for any futures analysis would be gleaned from cave drawings rather than bar graphs, but the information is still there.

If I was a Native American mutant inventor, I would like some basic predictions about whether an ancient adversary destined to bring about a "Fall of the Mutants" was going to return in the next quarter. That just seems like helpful information.

If I were a hairy canadian mutant, it would be good to have a heads-up about whether some feral jackass who was apparently manipulating my entire life was gonna bust in and start mucking about with things again.

If I were a billionaire playboy who dresses like a rodent and one of my arch-enemies was going to return in mummified form, I would like to be able to plan for it at least a week in advance.

If Mandrakk the dark monitor is coming from the end of time to eat our universe, it's best to have prior notification.

Obviously since heroes don't seem to know about ancient enemies before they return, ancient enemy futures analysis has not been very popular in comic books. Even those who have tried (Destiny and Blindfold in the X-Men comics) have been pretty damn crappy with it. What we need are futures analysis portfolios providing information about ancient enemy resurgence in a logical and easily understood manner.

Like so:

Hmmm, we need to develop some mutant vampire countermeasures posthaste.

Is Batman's Lifestyle Too Unrealistic?

2010-02-03T09:22:00.015-05:00

Art by Jim Lee

OK, so we all know that certain elements of the Batman mythos are pretty hard to swallow. Imagining that one human being can spend his entire life training for the fulfillment of one, sole purpose is hard enough, but doable. Yet Batman also has to balance spending each and every night patrolling the streets of Gotham City as a caped crusader, while spending his days managing a business, training, research, and maintaining a personal life to keep up the appearance of a dimwitted billionaire playboy. Not to mention that Batman must be the luckiest human in the world considering all the stray bullets that conveniently miss his face. This stuff requires some suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader.

However, yesterday the Escapist Magazine published an article entitled "Batmanalyzed," which pointed out some other oddities and inconsistencies of Batman's lifestyle that people don't seem to talk about too much. The ideas raised in the article are interesting (although I don't agree with all of them) and actually have a fair bit of economics to them. They are also very funny. I do want to highlight my views on some of the author's particular points.

1) Projecting the appearance of the "society airhead" actually may require a bit more work than we imagine:

At these parties, Bruce makes empty-headed gossip until he's convinced everyone he's an idiot. How does he come up with this chatter? Obviously, he has to study it. Though we're never shown this, he must have a clipping service prepare dossiers of pop-culture events, which he skims in the limo as Alfred drives him to the party. The Darknight Detective, as part of his holy war against Gotham's underworld, reads all about society debs and Jay Leno and American Idol. His bat-computer tracks Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Batman, sitting in the Batcave, diligently memorizing this month's Playboy Party Jokes - you don't want to picture that, do you?

This is a great example of opportunity costs. If Batman is going to spend a few hours every night working on his social life, then indeed he does have to be kept abreast of the latest in pop culture news. Not only that, but Bruce does not always hang around fashion models and movie stars. He is a billionaire playboy, sure, but he is also something of a "sophisticate." He sometimes spends his nights with prominent political figures and businessmen. This would suggest that he would also need to read up on the latest political and economic news (at least to a superficial extent--enough to make conversation).

As Varney points out, all of this is more difficult than it seems. Staying on top of this requires at least some time spent each day (maybe as little as half an hour to one hour a day) listening to or reading entertainment news. And this is just the minimum. As we know from our lessons in opportunity cost, this is valuable time that Batman could be spending doing other things, be it actually catching street-level criminals or researching a pending case. This time adds up to many foregone criminals put in jail.

Nevertheless, we know that it's important for Batman to keep up appearances. We just never really think of what it costs.

2) Batman's ability to consistently resist satisfying his sexual urges stretches our ability to suspend our disbelief:

Bruce Wayne's social life is a continual exercise in seduction, arousal and dismissal. He charms a sexy woman into going home with him, hugs and caresses her publicly. She's agog, about to spend the night with a handsome billionaire ... then bam! Out on the sidewalk, see you later. This is Bruce's most common interaction with women. Creepy.

[...]

What's creepy is a healthy, athletic heterosexual man who persuades entire job-lots of Gotham City's most desirable women to fall on their back, then walks away, repeatedly, unconsummated. It explains how he sustains the rage to keep beating up muggers.

This seems to me like a strange argument to make. First, it makes the assumption that Bruce Wayne is an ordinary heterosexual man who has ordinary, heterosexual desires. However, we know that Bruce is very far from ordinary. In fact, there are people who describe themselves as being completely nonsexual or having never in their adult lives been sexually attracted to anyone. One study revealed that this happens in about 1% of adults.

Now, I don't actually think this is the case with Batman. We know that Batman has some sexual attractions. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that he is or has been physically attracted to both Catwoman and Talia al Ghul among others. Hell, he has a son with one of them. What seems to be the case is that Bruce, given what we know about his personality and history, is probably just completely unattracted to the shallow personality types that he hangs with while assuming his invented personality. To me, this is a totally reasonable assumption.

But let's say that Bruce is physically attracted to these socialites he sees every night. Is it really so odd to assume that he would be able to resist them? In fact, Bruce spent the majority of his life training to resist these very urges and to focus his mind on his mission. This is something that priests do all the time. One might of course argue priests are not presented with as much temptation as Bruce is, but then you could also argue that Bruce's training far exceeds that of an ordinary priest.

To doubt that Bruce would be able to resist these urges is then to doubt either the legitimacy of his training or his will and determination, which means his entire mythology falls apart. I think if you're going to suspend your disbelief about some aspects of Bruce's life, then you should easily be able to with this one.

3) Batman's criminal focus may be a bit misguided.

The unthinkable thought, though - the damning observation - is his choice of targets. When he's not foiling some super-villain's plot to turn everyone in Gotham bright blue, Batman fights muggers, hit men, drug gangs - minor-league hoods all - and the occasional crimelord. This is small-scale retail crimefighting, penny-ante stuff. Why no Wall Street derivatives traders? Directors of tobacco companies? Corrupt Treasury officials? Fraudulent researchers for Big Pharma or the chemicals industry? These individuals create misery on a scale the Joker has never imagined.

Two things here. One is that I'm not entirely sure this claim is true. Batman has fought corrupt business types before. Although it may not always be as Batman. For example, the Tim Burton film, Batman Returns, shows Bruce Wayne desperately trying to prevent the tycoon, Max Shreck, from building an additional power plant that Bruce, correctly, suspects would actually drain the city's power and make a huge profit for the Shreck business. In Batman Beyond, an elderly Bruce Wayne fights tooth and nail to stop corrupt businessman Derek Powers from using his company to manufacture and sell weapons. In Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, Batman goes after the organized crime families for sure, but he also makes attempts to deter the corrupt businessmen, police and law officials that take kickbacks and (directly or indirectly) support these families.

Of course, we know that Batman doesn't go after these guys all the time. The Escapist is correct in making the observation that when not fighting violent supervillains, Batman spends a majority of his time taking out street thugs and ordinary criminals. Why does he do this instead of spending more time going after all the aforementioned business-type crooks?

The most obvious reason is that catching crooks on the street requires much smaller operating costs and has a considerably higher probability of success. We all know how easy it is for Batman to catch these guys. He swoops in, neutralizes them, bags them, and drops them for Commissioner Gordon to process and try. Crime stopped, lives saved, case closed. To go after major organizations and complicated operations would require much more preparation, more work, and may not even succeed. Batman first has to discover that there's even been a crime committed, which is much harder to do with a Big Pharma company than it is by simply observing a mugger on the street.

The other reason is that Batman is not exactly a utilitarian. The author argues that these business-type crimes cause much more damage to Gotham City than a low-class hood. True. But I don't think that Batman cares about the magnitude of damage as much as the immediacy of it. He sees crime, he knows it's wrong, and he vows to stop it. This goes back to opportunity costs. If Batman spends time researching these corporate crimes, that means that a bunch of people get mugged or killed on the street while he is conducting that research. Batman's moral code just cannot allow for that to happen. Yes, if Batman got wind of the fact that the Joker was about to blow up the entire city, he would attempt to stop it over stopping a mugger. Yes, if Two-Face just got released from Arkham, he would spend a little time eyeballing him. Similarly, if Batman had reason to suspect that some illicit Wall Street act was about to cause the death of many people, you can bet he'd be on it like annoying on Mxyzptlk. But if Batman were a true utilitarian seeking only the maximal rewards for his city, he would have killed the Joker a long time ago thereby saving the city the cost of thousands of lives.

Batman is a complicated man. And no one understands him but his ~~woman~~ writers.

Externalities: Strange Edition

2010-02-02T09:38:00.005-05:00

Demons like to make deals for souls. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are demon externalities.

Strange #3 by Mark Waid and Emma Rios

Here's a quick, but important lesson in contract law. Keep your contracts. Otherwise, there may be some unintended costs for everyone around you. This is especially the case in Demon Law.

What we have here is a simple transaction between a demon, Virilian, and a mother of a preteen participating in Bibb Country, Georgia Annual Miss Buttermilk Pageant. The terms of the pact are simple: Virilian promises victory to the daughter in exchange for the mother's soul. The catch (as demons always have one) is that Virilian actually made the same bargain with every contestant's mother. Obviously since not every girl can win, Virilian plan seems to be to breach contract with n-1 mothers, yet steal their souls anyway. He figures the worst that would happen is that he would incur a small fine.

I'm not expert in the legal system, but it seems that normally when there's a breach of contract, the victim takes the offender to court. It's a matter between two parties (or any other third parties that might have been direct beneficiaries or or payees in the contract). What Virilian did not anticipate, however, was that demon contract bylaws stipulate that any breach results in the opening of a wormhole and mass destruction on Earth. Or as Casey put it, "Magic's having a stroke."

He is a demon, but Virilian certainly did not intend for his thievery to bring out world destruction. Innocent people bearing the costs of one demon's negligence and several mothers' insecurities? That's externalities: demon-style.

The Effect of Superheroes on Local Law Enforcement

2010-02-01T09:15:00.001-05:00

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #5 by Brian Bendis and David Lafuente

A loyal reader wrote a comment on a recent post about the abundance of certain antiquated professions in comic books:

I really enjoy that, because so many comic book characters are fairly old (in our world, not in their own, because, as we discussed, they don't age while the world does), they work in jobs that are declining in significance. For instance, no offense to fighter pilots, but the increase in drones and decrease in enemies with air forces means that job isn't the daredevil prestige job, but Green Lantern, the Thing, and others had it.

Aside from the fact that many superheroes still have origins in such jobs, I also find it fascinating that there is still a prevalence of jobs declining in significance outside of the superheroes themselves. In reality, the mere existence of superheroes should have significant economic consequences on other jobs. We have discussed some of these here and here. Another important one is the effect of superheroes on law enforcement.

As shown in the Ultimate Spider-Man panels above, superhero teams, especially the government-sponsored Avengers, are putting traditional law enforcement professionals out of work. Another comic that showcases this fact is Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's Gotham Central which depicted among other things the Gotham City's Police Department's struggles in maintaining operations under the shadow of the quicker and more efficient Bat-family. One of the negative externalities of having this network of avengers patrolling Gotham City is that demand for traditional police would likely go down. This is an aspect of superheroes not typically observed in comics.

I think Bendis really hits the nail on the head here. It's a supply and demand issue.

Now, the way it should work is as follows: the Avengers should use their comparative advantage in other-worldly matters to deal primarily with metahuman or extraterrestrial incidents, or just crime on a much larger scale. Local law enforcement, given their manpower, experience, and intimate knowledge of the neighborhoods they patrol, should deal with the smaller crimes. So while police would work cases involving robbery, arson, murders, etc., the Avengers would be free to focus all their energy fighting guys like Norman Osborn and Galactus. This is theoretically the best use of each organization's comparative advantage, which would allow them to perform their respective services at a lower opportunity cost.

Of course we know that this isn't exactly how it works. The Avengers actually don't always have a giant, world-ending crisis on their hands (though it seems that way). When they're not gathered in the Tower, um, avenging things, they patrol their own respective cities and deal with crimes of a more mundane nature. Spider-Man, for instance, splits his time fighting morphing aliens trying to take over the planet and beating up ordinary crooks on the street (and hanging out with Aunt May and Mary Jane and Kitty Pride and taking photographs and...damn how does he have time to do anything?). If Spidey saw a mugger on the street, do you think he'd stop and call the police? He would obviously do something about it. After all, great power comes great responsibility.

The problem for the local police is that these Avengers do an extraordinary job with all sorts of crimes. Even a better job than local police. In fact, the superheroes seem to overshadow law enforcement in every respect. They have more technology, more powers, more smarts, and seemingly the time to handle everything! On top of this, we've seen the population of superheroes increase over the past decade or so. Generally, this had had two consequences:

1) A steady (or maybe even increasing number) of supervillains and
2) A decrease in run-of-the-mill criminals.

Supply of criminals goes down. Demand for police goes down. Funding for police goes down.

In the panels above, the officers are complaining that their money is going towards the Avengers. We know in the Marvel Universe, the federal government levies taxes to fund the extremely sophisticated operations of both SHIELD and the Avengers. I'm not exactly sure how it works with state governments, but I'm pretty sure states pay their fair share too, especially in cases where an Avengers is known to frequently police their territories (i.e. Spider-Man in New York, Iron Man in California, etc.).

So, let me poll you guys. Say you're an ordinary taxpayer in New York City and your government is trying to balance its budget. You see the city is plagued constantly by supervillainy, but less so by average criminals. Would you want your dollars to go towards the Avengers (who also are more efficient at dealing with these regular criminals) or the NYPD?

Immortals and Social Security Part I: A Drain on the Economy?

2010-01-29T09:38:00.001-05:00

See the bottom of this article for a question I pose to the readers!

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

Comic book characters live forever. Sure, Captain America and Batman recently "died," but not really. They were actually just shot through time. The Martian Manhunter was recently killed off in DC's Final Crisis, but does anyone really expect him to stay dead?

Superheroes and villains who don't have an unnatural ability to cheat death also manage to live forever. Perhaps the main reason for this is the notorious retcon, which Mark discusses at greater length here. Despite these elements keeping characters alive, there are actually still some good old-fashioned immortals living in these universes. These are the heroes and villains who naturally age at a much slower pace than the rest of humanity, use magic, have healing factors, and have access to nanotechnology or to Lazarus Pits. Regardless, they all end up living to be hundreds or thousands of years old. These are people like Wolverine, Ra's Al Ghul, Deadpool, Vandal Savage, Nick Fury, Black Widow etc.

Take Superman. Although Superman technically ages and may one day die of natural causes, several comics have established the notion that his life span would extend considerably beyond that of the average human. In most elseworlds tales that depict the future of the DC Universe, Superman is still portrayed as being full of vitality and bearing the appearance of a much younger man than his cohorts in the Justice League. Superman, however, is actually Clark Kent, who works as an investigative journalist for the Daily Planet.

In fact, many of these immortals have day jobs. They earn disposable incomes, buys things, pay taxes, and have retirement accounts. And this is where the problem comes in from an economic standpoint.

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

The problem with having a population of these immortals running around is that they could actually be a drain on the U.S. economy. I'm not talking about the rampant destruction they cause either. Specifically, I'm referring to the expenditures of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Medicare is simple enough. You hit age 65 and you are automatically enrolled in a social insurance programs that provides you with government-sponsored insurance for the rest of your life.

Social security, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. To receive retirement benefits, you need to have worked for at least 10 years. While you work, you pay what's known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax on your earnings (as does your employer), which goes directly towards funding retirees currently collecting on social security benefits. Once you hit retirement age (regular age for people born after 1960 is 67, or you can elect to retire at the early age of 62, but receive a smaller benefit), you become eligible to receive your annuity payment (a payment for the rest of your life). The benefit you receive is dependent income you've earned for the 35 years of work in which you earned the most. If you've worked for less than 35 years, the missing years are just filled in with 0s.

You can begin to see why this is problematic with a society populated by people who don't die for centuries or millennia. So what exactly happens when your life can extend many years beyond that of an ordinary human being or even indefinitely? Would social security and Medicare benefits still apply to you? Would you be allowed to work for 10 years, become a beneficiary at age 65, and then receive steady payments for the rest of your thousand-some-odd-year existence?

In actuality, the proportion of immortals to total citizens receiving social security and Medicare benefits is likely very small. As it stands, they're outliers and probably not really a significant cost for the government. However, it has the potential to become a real problem.

In fact, most of us are aware that social security is experiencing a major fiscal imbalance. According to Jon Gruber's wonderful textbook on public economics, over the next 70-75 years, the present discounted value of the program's obligations exceeds the present discounted value of the taxes it will collect by a considerable amount (something like $4.5 - $5 trillion). According to the 2009 Trustees report, the social security trust fund will be depleted by 2037, at which point payroll taxes will only be able to fund about 76% of expected payoffs to beneficiaries.

OOASDI Income and Cost Rates Under Intermediate Assumptions
(Reprinted from the 2009 Trustees Report)

There are many reasons for this. One is that that baby boomers are retiring. Another is that technology in the 20th century has improved life expectancy rates. Another is that birth rates have declined. Finally, the growth in wages has slowed in recent years. So, what we have is a new generation comprised of fewer workers paying taxes on earnings that have only marginally increased. And this is all to fund a population of elderly citizens that has grown considerably in recent years.

On top of this, consider how the population of mutants, aliens, sorcerers, demigods, and science-experiments-gone-wrong has increased in both the DC and Marvel universes in the past 20-25 years. If these groups continue to expand, then over time they may cease to be outliers and start posing a real cost burden for the United States.

Any government program is bound to run into the problem of moral hazard. Much like on real-Earth, I anticipate major reform social security financing reforms coming into play in comic book worlds. My question to you is: how can governments in DC and Marvel reform social security and Medicare to account for these immortal or long-living populations?

I'd like to hear from some of you and I'll make another post in the near future with some reform proposals!

Priorities, Lois Lane

2010-01-27T11:16:00.010-05:00

Superman: Secret Origin #3 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

Click to See The Rest of the Image

Poor Lois. She thinks that in times of economic trouble, particularly problematic for the newspaper industry, she can just continue to push the boundaries and report actual news stories about real issues. This just in, Lois: no one cares about the public transportation infrastructure or political corruption of frivolous waste of taxpayer money. Did you learn nothing in Econ 101? I think it was Adam Smith who said that the only way the newspaper industry can survive is by resorting to spectacle and sensationalizing stories.

Here are the kind of news stories you should be thinking about:

"Superman's Birth Certificate May Reveal Un-American Origins. Is He Fit to Save Our Country?"

"Experts Debate Whether Lex Luthor is Man or Alien Cyborg."

"Study reveals people are indeed better than fruit."

Priorities, Lois.

Ecocomics Explains: Preferences and Indifference

2010-01-26T22:24:00.003-05:00

Ecocomics Explains is a new feature of this blog. Each episode, we will discuss a different economics concept--ranging from more basic ones to more advanced and mathematically involved ones--and highlight some examples from comic books that reflect the ideas.

In our last lesson, we discussed the concepts of opportunity cost and budget constraints. Namely, we analyzed a situation where our friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man was had choice between spending an hour of free time fighting criminals on the street or attending Aunt May's rehearsal dinner and earning some brownie points with the family. We learned in order to be efficient, Spider-Man should have chosen a combination of fighting criminals and earning brownie points that would have allowed him to spend all 60 minutes of the hour doing one of the two activities.

Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly tell us what combination Spider-Man should or would have picked. It merely gave us the range of possibilities that Spider-Man could pick from. The bundle he actually chooses depends on his preferences and utility. We'll focus on utility in another post, but for now let's talk about Spider-Man's preferences.

The Amazing Spider Man #600 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. (2009)

Recall that the situation we are analyzing, depicted in The Amazing Spider-Man #600, is just one of many examples of the sort of choices Spider-Man has to face as a masked vigilante. Either Spider-Man surrenders to his obligation to fight crime and sacrifice personal time with his family, or works on his family/personal life and runs the risk of keeping some criminals on the street for the time being. Unfortunately, Spider-Man never explicitly states that he has an hour and never discusses just how happy his family will be to see him, so those are numbers we made up for simplicity.

Basically what we're going to do from here on out is build a consumer choice problem for Spider-Man from the ground-up. The first thing we need to realize is that Spider-Man's preference fit certain axioms, or rules.

First, Spider-Man's preferences are complete. Basically this means that Spider-Man can rank his preferences over any goods or combination of goods. Given putting criminals in jail and brownie points, for instance, Spider-Man can say that he'd rather bag one criminal than earn one brownie point, vice versa, or even be indifferent between the two. There is no way that they are noncomprable, however. When given a choice, he cannot just shrug and say "I just don't know!"

Second, his preferences are transitive. Say a third good enters the mix: watching TV. Now say that Spidey would rather spend time with family than fight criminals, but would rather fight criminals than watch TV . Well, then Spidey obviously also prefers spending time with family to watching TV. So if:

brownie > criminal and
criminal > TV
==> brownie>TV.

Finally, there's non-satiation. This means that there is never a maximum amount of a particular good that will fully satisfy Spider-Man. That is, there is never a point where Spider-Man would cease to derive enjoyment from putting criminals in jail. The more criminals he bags, the more enjoyment he sees.

There are a few more axioms and some more mathematically rigorous ways that we can define these three (which we'll go over eventually), but for now this is all we need to know. Consider the following graph:

Suppose Spider-Man is at point A of the graph. That means that he chooses to spend his 48 minutes hunting down 2 criminals and spending enough time with Aunt May to earn 4 brownie points. We know from last time that this combination is in Spidey's feasible set (even though it's not efficient).

Now let's say that Mephisto shows up and decides to offer Spider-Man a deal. He says that in exchange for handing back one of the two criminals he just captured, Mephisto will use his magic to alter the Spider-Man timeline (again) and have it seem as though Peter had been spending time with his family instead. Obviously Spider-Man would not make the deal if he would rather be hunting criminals. So Mephisto says that he'll give Spider-Man just enough brownie ponits to make up for the lost criminal, but no more. Spider-Man tells Mephisto that he'd need 3 brownie points to make him equally satisfied. Deal done (but for some reason no one seems to remember Spider-Man's identity anymore).

Post-deal, Spider-Man is at point B of the graph. He has taken out only one criminal, but earned an incredible 7 brownie points with his family! And he is equally happy. This means that Spider-Man is indifferent between points A and B. He derives the same enjoyment out of both combinations of actions.

Looking at the graph, we can now map out Spider-Man's indifference curve (labeled L2). This curve marks all the points, or combinations of brownie points and criminals, that Spider-Man is indifferent between. As you can see, Spider-Man would get the same satisfaction whether he takes out one criminal and earns 7 brownie points (point A) or whether he takes out 3 criminals and only earns 2 brownie point (point C).

You might be wondering why the curve is not a line, similar to the budget constraint. Well, this is due to a phenomenon known as diminishing marginal rate of substitution. In microeconomics, dMRS is another axiom that defines the convex shape of the indifference curves.

The marginal rate of substitution is basically the slope of the curve at various points. It's tell you what individuals are willing to give up of one good to get another. Note that this is different from an opportunity cost, which tells you how much an individual would HAVE to give up of one good to obtain another. At point B for instance, Spider-Man is willing to give up around 3 brownie points to get 1 more criminal (to get from B to A). That's a slope of 3 so his MRS at point B is about 3. At point C, Spider-Man is willing to give up about 1 brownie point to get one more criminal. That's a slope of 1, so his MRS at point C is 1.

The intuition behind assuming a diminishing marginal rate of substitution is not very difficult to grasp. When Spider-Man is at point A, he has lots and lots of brownie points but very few criminals. Catching another criminal is looking very attractive to him at this point, so he'd be willing to give up a little more to get one. At point C, however, Spider-Man has used up more of his hour to catch more of criminals, but in doing so has sacrificed much needed time with his family and is dangerously close to alienating himself with only 2 brownie points. He would be willing to sacrifice less brownie points at point C for another criminal.

We'll continue with this next time on Ecocomics Explains!

Questions and comments are welcome. Also, if anyone has any suggestions of economics topics they would like covered, please feel free to drop us a comment.

No Government in My Medicare!

2010-01-22T11:46:00.007-05:00

Captain America #602 by Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross

Public opinion on economic policy seems to be the theme of this week's posts. Yesterday, we talked about the idea of offering more bailouts in New York City. In the latest issue of Captain America, we travel all the way out to Idaho only to find more riots and discontent.

The people have spoken! "No government in my Medicare!" None! Divorce all federal interference from our federal programs.

I wonder if there's any way some nasty supervillain came take advantage of this sentiment. Someone like...an evil 1950s Captain America clone-person.

Click on image to see more!

Externalities: Angel Edition

2010-01-21T13:35:00.004-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Angel #29 by Bill Willingham and Brian Denham

Since Los Angeles went to hell and back, Angel has become something of a celebrity. Now everywhere he goes, people are starstruck. Seems pretty simple and non-threatening. As in any transaction, Angel reaps the benefits of being famous (more casework, more money, etc.) but also pays a cost for it (less free time to brood, a sense of disillusion, etc.).

Unfortunately the people he is protecting are paying an unintended cost, as demonstrated when Angel walked into a local coffee shop for a cup and accidentally created a panic that the neighborhood was under attack by a vicious (and equally fictitious) demon. This seemingly innocuous event resulted in multiple injuries and death.

Angel himself goes on to comment on this predicament of unintended consequences:

Lessons Learned from the Bennett Bailout

2010-01-21T09:24:00.009-05:00

Earlier, we posted an in-depth discussion of the Marvel Universe's Bennett Bailout. To refresh your memory: former construction tycoon, current newspaper owner, and just ludicrously wealthy entrepreneur Dexter Bennett had somehow managed to persuade the United States federal government to award The DB, perhaps New York City's most prominent newspaper, a financial bailout.

Now that the bailout debacle is behind us (or so I think), it is important to look back and reflect on the lessons learned.

1) The public is fickle and easily swayed, but largely against bailouts.

Amazing Spider-Man #613 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

Unlike the real world, the economy can be used to spread fear and paranoia in comic books. Not only that--it can be done by a supervillain.

Where's the actual public on this? Well in March 2009, a CBS News poll reported that 53% of the public were against giving more bailout to financial institutions, up from 44% only three months prior. I haven't seen any more recent polls about the bailouts, but it isn't a stretch to assume people have grown more disillusioned over the past year. A reaction such as the one in New York City is sudden, yet not really shocking (pun intended).

However, the overwhelmingly harsh response from NYC is interesting here. For one thing, citizens seem to be confusing Dexter Bennett for a Wall Street guy and seem to be conflating financial institutions and banks with news organizations. It's one thing to be hesitant in providing more money to institutions that individuals believe were the primary source of the recession, but it's quite another to be upset with the The DB. It actually seems like the citizens are rallying not so much against Wall Street, but against all rich people in general.

Of course, it's probably that New Yorkers are upset to see their taxpayer money wasted frivolously on organizations that they don't believe need to be bailed out. But then their problem isn't exactly with Dexter Bennett, but with the Federal Government and its policies.

2) The public is largely uninformed about, well, everything.

It's a sad day when people think that Spider-Man (who incidentally did not reveal his identity and is opposed to the Superhuman Registration Act of 2006) actually cuts a federal salary from the Avengers and pays no taxes on it. First of all, we know that Tony Stark pays a significant amount of taxes. Second, how would that even work? Would the Avengers hand him a check endorsed over to "Spider-Man," which he would then take and deposit into a Spider-Man bank account? And unless people actually think that Spider-Man is some sort of alien with no alter ego, he does pay taxes as Peter Parker.

3) Placing trust in Wall Street will only lead to destruction.

Amazing Spider-Man #614 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

These are important life lessons. How many times have supervillains led the public against its superheroes using the prospect of a bleak political or economic future? I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to fight villainy is to educate citizens, especially in matters of the economy.

Oh yeah, and don't trust Wall Street.

Economics Themed Superheroes

2010-01-20T09:50:00.018-05:00

Two weeks ago, we asked you all to submit your economics-themed superheroes/supervillains. Here are your submissions. Many of them were done using Marvel's Create Your Own Superhero function. Others were done using other software and one was hand-drawn! All of them are spectacular.

First, we have THE TOXIC ASSET, created by Tim. Too big to fail, just big enough to kill.

Next, we have HELICOPTER BEN, created by E. Supplying justice, demanding vengeance...

Next, we have CONFUSED EX-HIPPIE, created by Matt. "Whoa, my portfolio is, like, so diversified."

Next up is GOLDLINE by Baylee. He'll give you a gold rush!

Next we have three characters and descriptions created by Paul Richard Gerome Wojtkiewicz.

The first is GOLD STANDARD, a powerful cyborg who vowed to protect the world from inflation.

The second is TAXING COLOSSUS, a mysterious menace, which seeks funding for the diabolical skills of his master (yet unknown).

The third is CLASSY, who in normal life is just an average billionaire, but when there is trouble, he speaks the phrase, "A Habitats System I Miss" that seems gibberish. Few know, however, that this is a magical anagram for the names of famous economists: Smith, Mises, Say and Bastiat.

Next up, we have HYPER INFLATION, created by Jeremy. The longer he stays in the fight, the more powerful he becomes! He'll burn through your strongest assets given the chance. The only way to bring him down is with 24 karat gold. Shadowbanker beware!

Finally, we have HOMELESS SUPERHERO, created by D. He lost his job, but he is still a superhero!

Again, all of these submissions were absolutely amazing and all deserve much praise. So praise them everyone!

Are Economists and Merchants Cowardly Scum? Annihilation Says So

2010-01-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

This weekend while I was re-reading Keith Giffen's cosmic epic Annihilation, I noticed some interesting social and economic commentary.

Cover to Annihilation #5, art by Gabriele Dell'Otto

For those of you who haven't read it, Annihilation is the story of the Negative Zone tyrant Annihilus and his genocidal campaign to exterminate all life in the universe. Standing in his way is an army composed of the several cosmic heroes and the military might of the Kree, a militaristic race often featured in Marvel comics. Naturally, a grand battle ensues where the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

But there's only one problem. The Kree are controlled by House Fiyero, a clan within the Kree empire composed of merchants and commerce analysts. Traditionally, this clan controls the Kree economy but because of trying times, they control the doings of the entire empire. This includes all military operations and the war against Annihilus.

But the hero of the Kree people, Ronan the Accuser, doubts the ability and the fortitude of House Fiyero's leadership. He believes that people concerned with the economy are not suitable to lead his people, especially in times of war. He thinks the economically focused House Fiyero will lead the Kree people to disaster. Eventually, he's proven right when House Fiyero chooses to ally themselves with Annihilus for personal and economic gain. Ronan then does what he does best (accusing, that is) and promptly sentences the traitorous members of House Fiyero to a crispy death. Ronan then seizes control of the Kree empire for himself and mounts a glorious attack against Annihilus.

Annihilation depicts House Fiyero (the group in Kree society concerned with all things related to economy and commerce) as a clan of traitorous, cowardly, incompetent, and petty individuals. Is that how economists should be portrayed in comics?

I ask you, good readers. What better symbolizes the economist?

This?

Cover to Annihilation: Ronan #1, art by Gabriele Dell'Otto

or this?

This is the Cowardly Lion

Please let me know what you think.

If Hulk Expands his Brand, Shouldn't You?

2010-01-15T08:55:00.003-05:00

Expanding your brand is important. You can't rely on a single idea to carry you through. Coca-Cola needs Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Caffeine Free, and (of course) Caffeine Free Diet Coke in order to cover all their bases.

Thats why the Hulk expands his brand. Why settle for regular green Hulk when you can also get Red Hulk, Grey Hulk, Smart Hulk, Rampaging Hulk, Future Hulk, etc? And then you have She-Hulk, Red She Hulk, Savage She-Hulk, A-Bomb, ad nauseum.

The Hulk knows that once you identified something that consumers like, its important to build off of that preference. Tweak your brand a little here, a little there and you can ram different variations down the consumers' throats for all eternity.

I mean, you can never have too much of a good thing. Right?

Right?

Variant Cover to "Prelude to Deadpool Corps #1" by Ed McGuinness

... I think I smell "Ecocomics X-Treme" on the horizon...

Casinos and Education

2010-01-14T09:04:00.004-05:00

Stumptown #1 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth (2009)

Interesting thing about Native American gambling enterprises: they may decrease demand for education.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the comic that I clipped above, but Stumptown did remind me of a fascinating paper I read by Will Evans about the impact of local labor market conditions on education enrollment:

Using restricted-use data from the 1990 and 2000 Census long-form, we analyze the impact of local labor market conditions on the demand for education using the economic shock produced by the opening of casinos on an Indian reservation as the identifying event. Federal legislation in 1988 allowed Indian tribes to open casinos in many states and since then, nearly 400 casinos have opened. We demonstrate that the opening of a casino increased the employment and wages of low-skilled workers. Young adults responded by dropping out of high school and reducing college enrollment rates, even though many tribes have generous college tuition subsidy programs.

Essentially, it seems that the opening of casinos has the negative unintended consequence of increasing the opportunity cost of education, particularly for low-skilled workers. This seems to outweigh any potential increase in educational attainment due to wealth effects (i.e. casinos increase family incomes, which should increase educational attainment) or due to the generous subsidies for college tuition that these casinos provide for tribe members.

It's an interesting read if you folks are into this sort of thing.

Supervillain Engineers

2010-01-13T08:59:00.007-05:00

Salon points us to this study/ sociological working paper entitled "Engineers of Jihad," which looks at the prevalence of science professionals and engineers among radical Islamist movements. Here is an excerpt from the abstract:

We find that graduates from subjects such as science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements in the Muslim world, though not among the extremist Islamic groups which have emerged in Western countries more recently. We also find that engineers alone are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent groups in both realms. This is all the more puzzling for engineers are virtually absent from left-wing violent extremists and only present rather than over-represented among right-wing extremists. We consider four hypotheses that could explain this pattern. Is the engineers’ prominence among violent Islamists an accident of history amplified through network links, or do their technical skills make them attractive recruits? Do engineers have a ‘mindset’ that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism, or is their vigorous radicalization explained by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries?

Can this logic be applied to supervillains? Indeed, there seems to be something unique about Islamist extremism, as the authors note that engineers were "virtually absent from left-wing violent extremists and only present rather than over-represented among right-wing extremists." However, most supervillains are not motivated by politics, but rather by pathology.

The authors also note that the interaction between the latter two hypotheses proposed (in bold) is a more plausible explanation for the phenomenon. Social conditions is an unlikely explanation in the case of supervillains, since engineers in Western countries who later turn to villainy are likely to experience the same, non-radicalizing conditions as those who don't. But, do engineers (and scientists in this case) have a mindset that would make them a good match for supervillainy?

When you think about it, this seems pretty reasonable. The most successful supervillains, after all, are the ones who wield creative scientific powers and are able to build massive doomsday devices, teleporters, or mind-control machines. There are also plenty of engineer/scientist supervillains in the lot: Dr. Doom, The Leader, The Mad Hatter, The Fixer, The Wizard, and so on. Even guys like the Joker are known to have aptitudes in physics and chemistry; in fact, if your interpretation is the Alan Moore one, then the Joker was formerly an engineer!

Let's take a sample of notable Batman villains, as provided by Wikipedia, and check out their professions. Out of the list, the following were formerly scientists and engineers:

Mark Desmond (Blockbuster)
Preston Payne (Clayface)
Hugo Strange
The Joker (Moore's interpretation)
The Mad Hatter
The Man-Bat
Mr. Freeze
Poison Ivy
The Scarecrow
Ra's al Ghul

This is 10 out of 39 villains, or about 26% who were professional scientists of some kind. This does not include the foes of lesser renown, in which I'm sure there are plenty of engineers/scientists. Of course, most from the list above are not actually engineers and many (Poision Ivy, the Scarecrow, etc.) are trained in biological and social sciences (psychology, neuroscience, etc.), rather than the physical sciences (chemistry, physics). So it actually looks like the presence of engineer-type science professionals, at least in this sample, is smaller than I had initially thought.

I would also like to point out that Ra's al Ghul is a particularly interesting case since he is, in addition to being a supervillain, an international terrorist. Furthermore, although not having roots in the physical sciences (chemistry, physics and engineering), he was a professional physician with a deep passion for conducting scientific research. This training eventually helped him develop his biologically engineered weapons that he would often use in his schemes against the world.

What do you all think? Can you think of any other samples of villains (as specific or broad as you want--specific superhero titles, for instance, or even entire universes) that would likely have more scientists/engineers among their ranks? Can the conclusions drawn from the paper be applied to supervillainy or does the logic fall apart when you stop outside of Islamist extremism?

The Gardner-Kvashennaya International Telescope

2010-01-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

Chew #4 by John Layman and Rob Guillory (2009)

There's some kind of something going on in Chew. Top Russian and American scientists have built an incredibly sophisticated and high-tech telescope--and the governments have apparently sponsored a covert research team to observe the planet Altilis-738 and search for alien life. This is very expensive. It costs the U.S. $34 million a year.

And it is a lot of money. Apparently, the job was only supposed to cost $3 million, but thanks to the machinations of a certain Senator, the funds were bumped up. Suspicious, I'd say.

Yet, I'm not surprised this funding went through. Here's the thing. $34 million per year for a telescope might seem like a lot of money in an absolute sense. But take a look at the US outlays for space flight, research and supporting activities. The total budget allocated for 2009 was $18.1 billion. Of that, about $12 billion was devoted to science, exploration, and NASA-supported activities. About $5.7 billion was assigned to space operations. And about $200 million was given to the NASA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), education programs and "other."

The OIG is responsible for oversight of NASA--preventing crime and abuse, reducing waste, maximizing efficiency, and those kind of things. That combined with education takes $200 million to operate.

Next to this, $34 million (about 0.18% of the total space budget) to fund a team of geniuses gathered together under the guise of finding alien life actually seems kind of modest.

OK, so it turns out the operation was a fraud and the scientists had some...strange habits. And it should have only cost $3 million. But the public doesn't know that, so it's OK.

Externalities: Captain America Edition

2010-01-06T16:00:00.002-05:00

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Captain America Reborn #5 by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice (2009)
Click to See What Happens Next

You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Similarly, The Avengers can't rescue Captain America without breaking some...Lincoln Memorial reflecting pools.

Behold...The Shadowbanker!

2010-01-06T12:01:00.003-05:00

I decided to have some fun with Marvel's "Create Your Own Superhero" feature and crafted a prototype Shadowbanker. What do you think? Pretty menacing, isn't he?

Can anyone make a cool economics-themed character? If so, send to us at ecocomics dot blog at gmail dot com and we'll post them! You can use Marvel's feature, or just draw, doodle, use MS Paint, whatever! Bonus points if you can create a Shadowbanker and Mark superhero (or villain) team!

Spread the word!

A STRANGE Deal with the Devil

2010-01-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

Strange #1 by Mark Waid and Emma Rios (2009)

Here's a piece of advice that might help you in the future: do not, under any circumstances, make deals with the devil. It is always either a trick, an information paradox, or just not worth it. The devil always has something up his sleeve to make sure that the benefits of the transaction are skewed towards his side. That's why he's the devil.

Of course, if you're dealing with one of the devil's lackeys, you might find it beneficial. Such is the case with Strange #1.

The Pitch

In this issue, the Portland Loggers, a crummy baseball team always at the bottom of the League, are offered a chance at success by a demon named Tul'uth:

The terms are as follows: the Loggers are guaranteed to win 66.6% of their home games for the span of 30 years. After this time, all team members must then surrender their souls for all eternity (this part is non-specific, but I think this is what is meant by giving up souls).

Let us now make the following assumptions:

1) Each player is rational. He only cares about his own utility and not that of the others (making him a poor team player!).
2) Without less of generality, we can assume that at any given time the Loggers have a roster of 25 players and that Tul'uth offered 25 years of success instead of 30.
3) Each player values his soul at 10 years of success.*

*Note that we really have no way of knowing how each player equates souls and baseball victories. Yet, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that a soul is worth more than 1 championship. We also know that the value of a soul cannot exceed 30 championships (25 in our modified case), otherwise the team would not have taken the deal.

The interesting thing about this scenario is that Tul'uth is framing the deal in a way that incentivizes the Loggers to accept. What's more is that they would benefit by doing so. But it doesn't have to be this way. Suppose instead he offers an additional year of victory for every soul given to him.

Let's say that he offered this deal only to Player A. In other words, Player A could give up his soul for a division championship that year. Well, since Player A values his soul more than the utility of 1 championship, he would not take the deal. The other players on the team, however, would want Player A to take the deal, since then they would benefit from the victory without sacrificing any of their own souls (free riding). Unfortunately for them, Player A doesn't care about what they want. No deal.

In fact, if all the players were offered the deal in this way, it would pretty much be a standard prisoner's dilemma scenario. If each player took the deal, then the team would win 25 championships. Yet, each player would sacrifice the equivalent of 10 championships (1 soul), netting a total of 15 championships each.

Now let's say that Player A got wise and decided he would rather keep his soul and free ride on the others. If he defected from the group, then the entire team would be docked only 1 championship. However, Player A would get to keep his soul, which we know is worth 10 championships. For him, this would yield a net of 24, which is greater than 15 (the benefit of taking the deal).

So we see that under these assumptions, it is possible that no player takes the deal and the Portland Loggers continue on their losing streak. Tul'uth prepared for this, however, by offering a different deal. In effect, he dissolved this free rider problem by restricting the deal to either 25 years for 25 souls or nothing at all. By forcing each player to pay, he modified the choice to being between 15 championships per player or 0. Clearly, each team member would elect to take the deal.

The Catch

If you're wondering if there's a clever demon catch, there is. The catch is that these ball players have no arithmetic skills. In a baseball season, each team plays 162 regular season games. Half of them are home games. So, in one year, the Loggers would play at minimum 81 home games. If, through Tul'uth's deal, they were guaranteed to win 2/3 of these games, then they would win at least 54.

But this alone is not enough to qualify the Loggers for division championship. They'd need considerably more wins. Doctor Strange mentioned that the Loggers were consistently the worst team in the league. Let's assume that they typically lose around 100 games a year, which translates to 38% winning games. If we assume the Loggers win 66.6% of home games (54 games) and apply the 38% that they would win on their own to the remaining 108 games, then this would guarantee 95 wins. This would surely put the Loggers in good standing for division championship, but it would certainly not be a guarantee.

And this is being generous. It is entirely possible that the Loggers have a worse average annual record than 62-100. Further, this is assuming that we can even apply the 38% to the remaining games, which would not be the case if Tul'uth's 66.6% included some home games that the Loggers would have won on their own anyway.

The Out

At this point, you might say, "Aha! So the Loggers are screwed." But as it turns out, there is another caveat in the contract that makes the deal is more generous than it looks.

What a twist! The Portland Loggers don't even have to give up their own souls. The contract actually stipulates that the beneficiaries are defined as "the home team" and not the individual players who made the deal. Therefore any team, regardless of composition or name, is held accountable to meet it end of the bargain so long as it occupies the old Loggers stadium.

So, what we have here is a situation a demon has given some people the ability to sell other people's souls. They could each, theoretically, play baseball for 24 years, receive 24 championships, move or retire on the 25th year, keep their souls, and let some poor suckers pay the burden for all eternity with none of the reward! How horrible for those suckers, but how unbelievably awesome for the original beneficiaries.

This begs the question of what exactly Tul'uth's intent was here. If he was dead set on securing the souls of the original Portland Loggers (i.e. the team that made the deal), he sure picked a silly way to do it. It's true that this squad was not aware of his contractual nuance, so you might be inclined to think they just got lucky. However, it is very rare for a team to remain intact for 25 years. Even supposing that all of these players would still be playing baseball after 25 years, players get traded all the time beyond their control. Tul'uth HAD to have anticipated that he would not score this original team's souls.

In fact, Tul'uth is the one that got lucky. The Loggers went broke and the stadium shut down for many years. If not for the new team that began using the old stadium, he would have been left soul-less after the contract expired. So why did Tul'uth not simply make the deal for the players' souls?

It could just be that Tul'uth didn't particularly care which souls he got so long as he got some. But then wouldn't it have been simpler to ask the Logger to just, I don't know, pick some other souls?

All in all, an oddly generous deal coming from the "lord high incubus of games and chance." He offered them all the benefits of victory with the ability to void the contract after the fact. AND they didn't even have to know about it!

This is why the devil should do all his deal-making himself and not rely on some hack subordinate. Score one for the home team.

Priorities, Iron Man.

2010-01-04T09:44:00.007-05:00

It's a new year and a new time, especially in the Ultimate Marvel universe. If you think our financial system is in ruin, at least real-New York City did not suffer a cataclysmic wave of mutant destruction ("Ultimatum"). That would really send your stocks down.

In light of recent events, you would think that the heroes and role models of Marvel would learn from past mistakes. They would set their priorities towards rebuilding the social and economic infrastructure and ease up on the frivolous spending that partly contributed to the turmoil in the first place.

Well, you'd be wrong...

Ultimate Armor Wars #2 by Warren Ellis and Steve Kurth (2009)

This is, by the way, right after Stark went on a long rant about how Ultimatum had left him with virtually no assets and how he began seeking alternate means of making money. Millions dead or hospitalized. New York in ruins. Desperate need of resources.

But, dammit, those bonuses need to be paid.

Priorities, Iron Man. Priorities.

Supervillain Career Fair

2009-12-29T08:19:00.020-05:00

Historically villains are not very good at what they do. They usually fail, thankfully. If they were better at their jobs we'd all be robbed blind and walking around with obedience collars on our necks. While some may enjoy that sort of thing, I am vehemently against it.

In general, supervillains are very bad at their jobs. Which leads me to believe that they should change occupations.

Lets talk about Calendar Man. He's a Batman villain who commits crimes on specific days of the year. It's kind of his gimmick. But committing crimes on specific days doesn't make you more successful. It actually hinders you quite a bit, allowing Batman to punch you repeatedly in the face. This is a bad thing. Unfortunately, his gimmick was stolen by the Holiday Killer in Batman: The Long Halloween. That means that Calendar Man is not only ineffective, he's not unique.

Now let's consider an old favorite: Spider-Man's villain, Doctor Octopus. Recently (Amazing Spider-Man #600), it was revealed that years of getting punched in the head by Spider-Man had caused Doc Ock to develop neurological damage. In other words, his head got punched so much his brain began to turn to mush. Doc Ock wrapped himself up like a desicated mummy and tried to get revenge on NY one last time only to (you know where this is going) get punched by Spider-Man. If there is someone who needs to pursue a new line of work more, I do not know him.

Then lets examine some villains who did change occupations. The Riddler went from being an insane criminal quasi-genius to a private detective. This change in occupation netted him more money and respect than he ever received as a criminal. It's also been over a year since he swallowed his own teeth because Batman punched them in. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Norman Osborn went from wearing a form fitting green and purple costume throwing pumpkin-shaped explosives from a bat-glider to becoming America's top ranking national security officer. And that's worked pretty well for him too. He now lives in a beautiful penthouse and gets to desicrate Iron Man's armor on a daily basis. Of course things may change in January during Siege (I do love's me some classic Thor beatdowns).

Regardless, villains who have changed occupation from traditional super-villainy to something else have seen a dramatic increase in prosperity. And that's why we need a supervillain career fair. In fact, if they were smart, superheroes could get together and organize this fair. Batman and Superman should work to get their rogues connected with major companies in order to make everyone's lives easier. Mr. Freeze would be better off working for Frigidaire. Poison Ivy could work for Greenpeace. The Toyman could work for Hasbro. Clock King could improve the design of a Rolex tenfold. I'm actually pretty sure Braniac already works for Apple.

It's so ridiculously obvious, I'm really surprised that no hero has tried it before. But they should.

I mean shouldn't it be every hero's goal to turn this:

...into this?

Life Insurance Now a Moot Point

2009-12-23T08:18:00.001-05:00

In light of the recent trend in comics events (namely Blackest Night and Necrosha) it seems like no comic book character can stay dead. While this has always been true, now more than ever, the dead are suddenly seeming very lively.

Now, we've talked about insurance a lot in the past. Namely here, here, here, and oh yeah here. We like the topic. Mostly because an industry based on risk assessment in a world where aliens invade every Friday is too ludicrous not to talk about. And if there's one thing we like at Ecocomics, its ludicrous stuff.

But life insurance is another interesting point to deal with. Lets use someone as an example who seems like they're going to live a nice stable life. Let's say we use Jean Grey in the early 80s. So Jean has nice responsible parents who love her deeply. They don't want to think that its possible that their daughter could die, but like responsible adults, they need to plan for contingencies. Especially when their daughter is the kind of person who picks fights with the Living Monolith. So the Greys purchase a plan for their daughter. Then when she gets exposed to solar radiation, possessed by an alien life force, and blasted with a laser on the moon, it's time to collect on their policy.

The Greys then use the money from their daughter's life insurance policy to give their daughter a nice respectable funeral where all of her friends (including the blue elf creature, hairy canadian, and russian metal guy) and her laser blasting fiancee can mourn her properly.

And then the Fantastic Four finds Jean in a cocoon at the bottom of the Hudson River. What happens now? Has fraud been committed? Does the insurance company who paid out for Jean's death get their money back? If so, who pays them?

And this is the confusion that results from only one death. What happens when every mutant in Genosha comes back to life? What happens when every dead person in the universe comes back with a black lantern ring? Granted in both of these cases, people in insurance companies are likely too busy trying to keep the reanimated corpses from devouring their hearts to think about the finer points of this debate. But the debate remains. Theres a lot of folks re-animating and a lot of insurance claims which would seem to now be invalid.

The Bennett Bailout

2009-12-22T10:05:00.009-05:00

Amazing Spider-Man #612 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta (2009)

The latest tale in Spider-Man's never-ending struggle demonstrates just how powerful the economy is as both an instigator of public discontent and as a motivation for supervillains. If we think about it, many supervillains form because they are either down on their luck or run into some sort of trouble with their finances. As Ezra Klein noted, the Sandman turned to a life of crime in Spider-Man 3 because he was unable to afford medical treatment for his daughter. Most ordinary thugs you see in comics (and a fairly large amount of brand-name villains too) commit crimes that are financially motivated. Even the Joker, depending on your interpretation has origins stemming from financial peril. A struggling comedian trying to support his family, he pulls a heist at a chemical plant to make some cash and...well, you know the rest.

Obviously the state of the economy is important here. We've discussed before how it's possible that an economic recession could lead to more crime. This applies mostly to your orindary street-thug types (remember this guy?), but if left unchecked we know that these low-tier criminals could escalate to be formidable opponents.

But now to top it off, we have a new way that the economy can affect the state of superheroics: public opinion.

Dexter Bennett, former construction tycoon turned newspaper owner, has just engineered the first official federal government bailout of the newspaper industry (specifically, his own newspaper The DB). If you think that this is ludicrous, recall that back in September President Obama hinted at doing something like this. To be fair, Obama was mainly looking at proposals to give extra tax breaks to struggling newspapers if they agreed to restructure as nonprofits. Waid doesn't go into much detail in Amazing Spider-Man, but it looks like what's happening is that the feds are just throwing money at The DB with no expectation of restructuring, public ownership, or...anything. This sort of makes you think about what the federal government is getting out of keeping The DB alive. Or how exactly Bennett pulled it off in the first place.

However, this is all besides the point. Far more interesting is the unintended result of this "Bennett Bailout." Remember the classic Spidey villain, Electro? The one who can...electro-ize stuff? The one we haven't seen in a while? I wonder how he can the federal government's actions to his advantage:

You see, NYC isn't exactly happy with the Bennett Bailout. Citizens feel that their taxpayers' money is being wasted to support greedy, capitalist fat cats sitting in their mansions as they suck the life out of the middle class. If anyone has read the supervillain instruction manual, they know that praying on the fears of the public is by far the easiest way to attack a superhero. And what do people fear more than anything else in the world right now? It's not a crazy former villain who shoots electricity out of his eyes. It's Wall Street.

Interestingly, this is precisely what J. Jonah Jameson has been trying to accomplish for years. By writing scathing critiques of the webcrawler in the former Daily Bugle, he was trying to instill a permanent sense of fear. He argued that Spider-Man increased crime. He argued that Spider-Man was a danger to society. He tried everything and only marginally impacted the public's perception of Spider-Man.

In one day, Electro managed to change all of that. He managed to completely change his own reputation from being a terrorist to being a servant of the labor force. He also managed to persuade the public that Spider-Man was part of the capitalist conspiracy. AND he did it without any intention of involving Spider-Man at all! Turns out Electro had lost the fortune he had in various investments when the economy went sour. He's out primarily for personal gain.

What's the difference between Electro and Jameson? Jameson never thought to use the great instigator of fear. The...economy!

The lesson here is that if superheroes want to be thorough, they better start getting their PhDs and involving themselves in public policy.

Sorry for the Sporadic Posting

2009-12-14T10:09:00.003-05:00

Irredeemable #7 by Mark Waid and Peter Krause (2009)

Hey guys--sorry for the irregular post schedule recently. The months of November and December are very busy for us as we have lots of deadlines, etc. We should be back to updating on a daily schedule starting next week (though there will definitely be some posts this week too). To wet your appetite, here are some topics you have to look forward to:

Government bailout of the newspaper industry
Someone finally figured out how to use economics against Spider-Man
Indian Casinos
More on strange deals with the Devil

Thanks for reading!

Ecocomics Explains: Opportunity Cost

2009-12-08T09:04:00.020-05:00

Ecocomics Explains is a new recurring feature of this blog. Each week, we will discuss a different economics concept--ranging from more basic ones to more advanced and mathematically involved ones--and highlight some examples from comic books that reflect the ideas. We will also include a rating system in each post to show the difficulty level of the concepts. 1 Greenspan refers to a very basic concept, 2 Greenspans refers to a more intermediate concept and 3 Greenspans refers to an advanced concept.

(1 Greenspan)

Opportunity cost is a fairly basic economics concept. Anyone who has taken any introductory microeconomics course certainly knows about it. It is usually one of the first topics introduced in class. You're probably familiar with a number of classic examples, such as having a choice between hamburgers and pizza or guns and butter. Those of you who have never taken economics before are still likely familiar with the intuition behind it, but maybe not know the terminology.

Opportunity cost stems from the fact that resources are scarce. In fact, the entire field of economics is basically the study of how individuals and societies allocate scarce resources. When a society chooses to place greater emphasis on the production of one good, then production of another good necessarily has to decrease. Similarly, consumers who have a fixed income have to make choices between which goods to buy. Purchasing more of one means purchasing less of another. The opportunity cost of a good, then, is what an individual, firm or society gives up in order to have one particular good. It is the value of the highest valued foregone alternative (this is the definition used in the third edition of Microeconomics Michael L. Katz).

This doesn't just apply to production and consumption of goods, however. It embodies the idea of tradeoffs, which is something that we all experience on a daily basis. And it happens in comic books all the time too!

To see how this works, let's consider the case of Spider-Man. Spidey is a fascinating study because basically the entire point of his ongoing series is to highlight his struggle to maintain a balance between his personal life and his obligations as a superhero. Every day for Spider-Man is an exercise in opportunity costs.

The Amazing Spider Man #600 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. (2009)

See here how Peter Parker is making a choice between earning some more money to support his crime-fighting double life and attending Aunt May's rehearsal dinner (she was recently married to J. Jonah Jameson senior). Let's look at this example in a bit more detail, but spice it up a bit. Suppose that Peter has 60 minutes (1 hour) of free time. In that free time, he can either go out and fight some thugs on the street or he can choose to attend Aunt May's rehearsal dinner and spend time with his family. Also, let's say that it takes Spider-Man 12 minutes to take down an ordinary street thug and that it takes 6 minutes with his family to earn him a "brownie point." This means that Spider-Man has a production equation of the form:

12x + 6y = 60

where x is the number of criminals Spider-Man takes down and y is the number of brownie points he earns at the May residence. Given this equation, if Spidey decides to take down 3 thugs (x=3), then we have:

12(3) + 6y = 60
36 + 6y = 60
6y = 24
y = 4

Thus, if Spider-Man spent his hour taking down 3 thugs, he could have also had the time to earn 4 brownie points.

This can be represented graphically as follows:

Note: Not Drawn to Scale. Not drawn particularly well either. By now you've noticed, I prefer drawing my graphs in MS Paint. Lost art, really.

In the graph above, line "l" represents Spider-Man's "budget constraint." This is just a visual representation of the bundles of goods that our webcrawler can "afford" with his given "income." In this case, income refers to Spider-Man's allotted time schedule, the goods are brownie points and criminals put in jail, and costs refers to time in minutes. Any point on the graph beneath line "l" is in Spider-Man's "feasible set." This is the set of all combinations of criminals and brownie points that Spider-Man can possibly afford in his hour of free time. Any point that is in the pink shaded area of the graph is feasible.

Take our example above. If Spider-Man chooses to fight 3 thugs, which would take 36 minutes, he could then only earn 4 brownie points. This is reflected as point A on the graph. Notice that point A is exactly on the budget line. Hence, Spider-Man is using all of his time towards one of the two goods. This is an efficient use of his time. Suppose instead that Spider-Man decided to fight 2 criminals and earn 3 brownie points (point B of the graph). In minutes, the bundle would cost:

12(2) + 6(3) = 24 + 18 = 42 minutes.

Point B, although being in the feasible set, is not efficient. The reason is that Spider-Man is only using 42 minutes of his time, which means he has 18 minutes left over that are not being devoted to one of the two goods that exists in this universe. With that 18 minutes, he could be fighting more criminals or earning more brownie points. But he isn't.

Now consider point C of the graph. At this point, Spider-Man fights 4 thugs and earns 5 brownie points. In minutes, this bundle would cost:

12(4) + 6(5) = 48 + 30 = 78 minutes.

Obviously, Spider-Man only has 60 minutes and therefore cannot purchase this bundle of goods. Point C is therefore not feasible.

If Spidey chose not to attend Aunt May's dinner at all, but instead to spend the entire hour fighting crime, he would be able to bring down a maximum of 5 street thugs in the 60 minutes. If he chose to sacrifice his hero duties for an hour and spend its entirety with the family, he would be able to earn a maximum of 10 brownie points. These points are the x and y intercepts of the graph and are the endpoints of the budget constraint.

So, where is Spider-Man's opportunity cost in this graph? It's actually the slope of the budget line! Notice that the slope is -2. This represents the opportunity cost of one good in terms of the other. So, the opportunity cost of one criminal is 2 brownie points. To put one more criminal to justice, Spider-Man would have to sacrifice 2 brownie points that he would have otherwise gained by being with his family. Conversely, to gain two more brownie points, Spider-Man would have to sacrifice fighting 1 criminal.

Those are the basics of opportunity cost in a nutshell. I even threw in a little bit of linear budget constraints. Once we discuss utility maximization, we can bring in other factors. For example, we all know that Spider-Man suffers from immense guilt over the death of Uncle Ben and would likely derive more utility from fighting a criminal than maintaining his personal life. We can factor all (or most) of this in to an optimization problem. But this is a post for another time.

Is Class Warfare Inevitable?

2009-12-07T08:24:00.001-05:00

While reading a discount copy of "Strange Killings" featuring the the Warren Ellis creation, Sergeant Major William Gravel, I began to wonder about class differences.

You see, Bill Gravel is a magician. But he's a very particular magician, namely a combat magician. His skills to manipulate reality (including warping the path of bullets, visual illusions, and summoning demonic horses) make him an extremely effective killing machine. This allows him to succeed both as a private mercenary and a soldier in Britain's SAS. His abilities are even strong enough to grant him access to two societies of the most powerful magicians in Great Britain, namely the Minor Seven and the Major Seven. But despite his amazing abilities, William Gravel considers himself a blue-collar man. His main goal is to protect his country, accrue enough money to pay for his drinking habit, and kill a few wankers along the way. Modest goals to say the least.

In the first arc of Warren Ellis's ongoing "Gravel", Bill's meager life goals cause him some trouble. He is thrown out of the Minor Seven by the six other members of the group and replaced by a paranormal archaelogist who has a more aristocratic bent. The main reason for removing Gravel from the Minor Seven is very simple and very elitist: he's a peasant. Gravel uses his magical powers for meager ends and doesn't behave as is expected for one of the most powerful magicians in Britain.

Gravel's response? He kills the bastards, one by one. In fact the first arc of "Gravel" is just the systematic murder of the men and women who consider themselves to be Gravel's betters.

The point of this being that there is class warfare in even such a small bizarre subset of the world. If even the Magicians of Great Britain can be torn asunder by social and economic disparity, is there any hope for the rest of world?