susan rose-ackerman has an interesting paper on trust in eastern europe that we can use to compare to the US trust questions in my last post.

though the data (PDF) isn't in percents, we can still see categorical differences between the US and eastern europe. trust in individuals is high in both the US and eastern eurpoe, but trust in military scores higher than individuals there, interestingly/ disturbingly. trust in the primary leader and the press are high as well. i would love to see an update; so much has changed since 1998. i also wish they had included the baltic tigers.

another interesting item to note from the data: 88% of ukrainians are either agnostic or distrusting of police. that's 81% in russia. of those who do trust the police only 13% and 17% in ukraine and russia respectively expect fair treatment. the other figures are disturbingly revealing about how opaque and corrupt government still is for our post-soviet friends.

the paper itself is very interesting (though a bit long in the tooth):

Real trouble arises when one trusts public officials to behave like friends or kinsmen in making public decisions. Conversely, if trust in friends is generalized so that people assume the good will of strangers, a society can economize on some of the coercive apparatus of the state.

Labels: political

a survey by the joyce foundation revealed that most midwesterners distrust government. only eight percent "always trusted" the government.
yet a different study reveals that if anything midwesterners are the more trusting bunch. a survey taken earlier this year by zogby interactive noted that only 30% of americans have complete trust in congress. for comparison, the other trust numbers were:

corporate leaders, 7%
the media, 11%
the president, 24%
the courts, 29%
friends & co-workers, 75%

how the media beats corporate leaders for trustworthiness confuses me, but perhaps it's still enron/imclone backlash. or, our bias to view those giving us new information as highly knowledgeable.

so what of the midwesterners' odd trust, if the two US surveys can indeed be linked (which, granted, is a dubious statistical leap because of different samples and different questions)? let's look at a map of economic freedom in the US:

lighter = more free. "midwest" in the survey was MI, OH, MN, WI, IL.

so maybe more unfree=more trusting? if so, which came first? draw your own conclusions, of course. this is only one measure; the midwest probably differs in a countless ways, e.g. friendliness, industries, size/make-up of immigrant populations, culture, caramel apple consumption, etc. and we also don't know what trust levels were in those other dark states.

more on silly map comparisons.

Labels: political

i sometimes break a blogging hiatus with a list of some accumulated links... so here goes.

• nytimes op-ed on the rationality of the belief in santa
• holding hands with your spouse significantly reduces stress. makes you almost want to get married. or, maybe not. either way, i think we're fine.
• amanda puts the smack down on the FCC.
• maternal oxytocin prevents newborn neuronal cell death in labor. now can't we bottle that for stroke victims? well, that may be too easy.
• another new neuro- word: neuroleadership. hm. see others in my previous post.
• one monster you can't shake is brain damage. did nietzsche have frontotemporal dementia?
• books should be geared towards your level of self-esteem
• jake has a cool post on barista wages.
• courtney steals my hipster jokes, which i of course had stolen from someone else.
• newsflash: hungry people conserve resources.
• back by popular demand: Christmas. is that a good thing? probably not.
  
• speaking of, my favorite quote from a friend visiting home for the holidays: "I need some more alcohol, and my crazy uncle hasn't even shown up yet."
• whales have "high level" human brain cells (spindle neurons) and structures, but that's something cap'n kirk already knew way back in 1986.
• clever title from the nytimes: "hotel log hints at illicit desire that dr. freud didn't repress"

Labels: links

that's right. the top US cash crop is marijuana (PDF). notwithstanding my skepticism regarding accuracy figures from an illegal substance (and note the report's source), this is interesting. it makes me wonder why the government doesn't just make it legal and tax the hell out of it. i'm sure that would curb its use a million times more than their prohibition.

some quotes from the ABC article:

"Just because it's a good cash crop doesn't mean you should legalize and tax it." -- DEA

despite massive eradication efforts at the hands of the federal government, "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy."

The study estimates that marijuana production, at a value of $35.8 billion, exceeds the combined value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.5 billion).

if the United States legalized marijuana, the country would save $7.7 billion in law enforcement costs and could generated as much as $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.

perhaps this report will make people wonder: if pot is such a huge industry, and so many people do it, is it really that deleterious?

so why not legalize? here are just a few reasons. we have an entire governmental industry and propaganda machine built to serve the drug war. an entire governmental industry = lots of jobs, and it's hard to muster support for such a huge cut. this propaganda machine funded a lot of scientists and government officials to say lots of crazy things, which brings egos into the equation. and at the risk of sounding like a paranoid nut, many privacy infringements are rationalized by the drug war that would be made less justifiable if it were no more. although, the patriot act may be able to substitute now...

Labels: drugs, political

the APA just asked me a question i ask myself all the time:

Labels: personal