The re-integration of the computing value chain. For years in the computer world, the leaders were specialists and most companies focused on one or two pieces of the value chain, outsourcing everything else. But in the mobile world, everyone is following Apple's lead and trying to own the entire value chain, buying up component manufacturers, owning their own retail distribution and the entire software stack.

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The net-price myth for college tuition: we can't count on financial aid volume keeping up with tuition increases, and the increased spending per student on the part of colleges is producing dubious incremental value.

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Why famous and/or important people often come off as inconsiderate and inauthentic: I'm replacing "high-status actor" with "famous and/or important people" to try to improve the readability of this economic paper a bit. I find many very famous people know the causes here and can flip them on their head, reversing expectations and thus coming off as surprisingly humble and considerate, even if they are no more so than the average person.

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Why do people vote if it's so unlikely that their vote will make a difference? To take it even further, why don't we teach our children to be free riders since it's economically beneficial to them to do so? Here's one explanation that makes some sense. There's the germ of something here to form an argument against piracy, I think. I don't always love media company business models, but I am against piracy. Megan McArdle sums up the flaws of the anti-piracy argument quite well here. People come up with all sorts of reasons to justify why they pirate things, but at the end of the day, they work so hard precisely because I think they know, deep down, they're doing something ethically questionable. At least with people who try to justify their efforts I can engage in a debate and try to flip them. It's those who don't even try to justify it at all that are beyond hope.