A brilliant episode of NPR’s Planet Money podcast, explaining why American (private, non-profit) universities list their astronomical “sticker prices” for tuition, rather than the much lower net prices that many students pay to go there. It’s an excellent and highly relevant example of the Chivas Regal effect, and it adds even more fun evidence to the debate about the signaling model of education.

This is a really good post, summarising the Kaufmann Foundation’s fantastic report on VC fund performance in the US. Illusory gains, hideously misaligned incentives and downright stupidity with money make the VC market in the US look very bad indeed.

As I mentioned earlier this week on Twitter, it’s a good thing that all these “VCs suck” pieces are coming out these days. My employers are thinking of (re)establishing a government-backed VC fund for Trinidad and Tobago, and I feel like it’s my duty to dissuade them from doing stupid shit like that. Articles like this will serve as good ammunition for a start.

“The fact is, there is no clear trade-off between the size of a country’s welfare state and its level of economic freedom.”

Much more wisdom at the link.

This might be one of my favourite (short) blog posts ever.