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Since ­­­. /9 1990, over 10 million courses have been sold. August/September 2012 reason Volume 44, No. 4 Free Minds and Free Markets Departments 44 Resetting Your Biological Clock Briefly Noted (cont.) Egg freezing opens up new 54 Jacob Sullum on the TV show 2 Unthinkable, Predictable frontiers in gender equality. Nurse Jackie Disasters Ronald Bailey 56 Katherine Mangu-Ward on the art The disintegration of the euro, exhibit “Elevator to the Moon” like America’s entitlement 62 How Rail Screws the Poor 58 Peter Suderman on the bomb, is both unfathomable and As Los Angeles spends billions on documentary Last Call at the Oasis inevitable. Matt Welch light rail, transit use declines. Tim Cavanaugh 50 Latter-Day Acceptance 6 Contributors Mitt Romney may inspire anti- Mormon paranoia, but it’s 7 Letters and Reaction Features nothing compared to the fears his Born this way?; fixing the forefathers faced. Jesse Walker unbroken Internet… 24 Generational Warfare Old-age entitlements vs. the 56 Frederick Douglass, Classical 10 Citings safety net. Nick Gillespie and Liberal 100-mile search exemption; Silent Veronique DeRugy A fresh look at the political Spring’s shoddy science; rent evolution of a great American. control reigns; no border crisis; 36 After the Storm Damon W. Root mobile snacking crackdown; How Joplin, Missouri, rebuilt The Political Thought of Frederick cellphone tracking… following a devastating tornado Douglass: In Pursuit of American by circumventing bureaucracy. Liberty, by Nicholas Buccola Tate Watkins Columns 60 1776, All Over Again A 1969 musical about the 8 Obama Says ‘I Do’ to Gay Culture & Reviews Declaration of Independence is Marriage back. Katherine Mangu-Ward The president changes his mind 46 Shenanigans! on gay unions. Again. Jacob Sullum A worm’s-eye view of what it 64 Bin Laden’s Doll House takes to get someone I can stand The Pentagon declassifies 16 Eating Bugs elected president. Peter Bagge a model of the terrorist’s The search for new food frontiers Abbottabad compound. in an era of population growth. Briefly Noted Peter Suderman Greg Beato 50 Ron Bailey on the art exhibit “SPILL” 20 Student Loan Scam 52 Ed Krayewski on the film Cover Illustration: Terry Colon Why are today’s poor subsidizing Coriolanus tomorrow’s rich? Veronique de Rugy reason (ISSN 0048-6906) is published monthly except combined August/September issue by the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034-6064. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2012 by Reason Foundation. All rights reserved. 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Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill ON L4B 4R6. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to reason, P.O. Box 8504, Big Sandy, TX 75755. Publications Mail Sales Agreement No. 1476696. From the Top: Matt Welch Unthinkable, Predictable Disasters The disintegration of the euro, like America’s entitlement bomb, is both unfathomable and inevitable. You’d have to be willfully ignorant to be Yet European Union officials still refused to surprised by Greece’s potential exit from the contemplate the inevitable. In January 2010, common European currency. First the famously Joaquin Almunia, the E.U.’s economic and mon- misgoverned country failed to meet the ini- etary affairs commissioner, insisted that “we tial 1999 fiscal and monetary targets for euro have no Plan B” for Greece. Shockingly, some integration: a budget deficit below 3 percent of eurocrats were still expressing that attitude as gross domestic product, a national debt below recently as late May of this year. Keeping Greece 60 percent of GDP, inflation within 1.5 percent- in the euro zone, European Central Bank (ECB) age points of the lowest euro-member country’s executive board member Jorg Asmussen said at rate, and a stable currency for more than two a conference in Germany, is “Plan A; that’s what years. Then Greek officials were forced to admit we’re working on.” What about the elusive Plan in 2004 that they had lied when they said they B? “There’s already been criticism that there is did meet those targets. none,” Asmussen acknowledged. “But as soon In late 2009 the newly elected Greek gov- as you start talking about ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C,’ ernment let slip that its annual budget deficit then ‘Plan A’ is automatically thrown out of the was coming in at double its predecessor’s window.” previous forecast, which was already double You can’t plan for disasters by refusing to what was technically allowed. The news was talk about them. Yet that was the European hardly startling, given that in its first eight years approach to monetary disintegration until May within the euro zone (2001–08) Greece aver- 6, 2012, when the SYRIZA party won second aged annual budget deficits equal to 5 percent place in Greece’s parliamentary elections after of GDP, compared to the other members’ aver- promising to rip up all post-2009 bailout agree- age of 2 percent; gorged itself on an extravagant ments with Brussels. Only at that late date did 2004 Summer Olympics; and capped off the you begin to hear the first real official war gam- party in October 2009 by voting in the Panhel- ing of what a euro-less Greece, and a Greece- lenic Socialist Movement party, which promised less euro, may look like. Unsurprisingly, the to spend even more money. last-ditch reality check looked grim. This reckless behavior was in keeping with The National Bank of Greece waited until Greece’s checkered modern history, which late May to warn Greeks that exiting the euro includes being the first country to be booted out would result in a 22 percent reduction in GDP, of the euro’s main predecessor, the Latin Mone- 30 percent unemployment, 34 percent inflation, tary Union, back in 1908 and suffering through a 55 percent loss of income, and a 65 percent at least four significant devaluations since devaluation of the new currency.