2. How much of the consumption binge was health care?
3. An economic analysis of "hearts and minds."
4. DR newspapers (here and here) have lots of extra and highly detailed Haiti stories, in Spanish, mostly bad news relative to U.S. accounts.
5. How much does Minnesota value the Vikings?
6. Why men visit prostitutes; here is one take: "I am paying for it and it is her job to give me pleasure. If she enjoys it I would feel cheated." It's a scary article.
7. And this time it's legal. The interview is an interesting and indeed Gladwellian perspective on the "talent" of the first legal male prostitute, via Chris F. Masse.
Why does Kling ignore the radically changed political climate and the increased such changes cause for future planning?
From E. Barandiaran’s comment on econlog:
“I believe that as your country is on the road to become a Banana Republic, uncertainty about government policies will slow down the recovery. Please don’t underestimate the impact of the ineptitude and corruption of the Obama administration on the economy.”
You hit this dead on. I always enjoy your comments on this blog, but this one is so right I had to paste it here.
We would have been in recovery long ago if it weren’t for the uncertainty the Obama administration has put into the business world.
Who wants to be a bond holder after the screwing GM’s took? Who wants to do anything until health care is sorted out? Who wants to do anything until we know the cap and trade scam dies?
“Why men visit prostitutes” was indeed scary. On a lighter (though perceptive) note, there is Clark Gable’s response, when caught with one, when asked why of all the men on earth he needed to pay for sex: “I don’t pay them to come over, I pay them to go home.”
The report on prostitution was prepared by anti-prostitution activists who are notorious for producing methodologically dubious research that just happens to support their agenda. Taking it at face value makes as much sense as getting the facts on homosexuality from the Family Research Council.
I’ve been waiting 40 years to go back to a Super Bowl, so tomorrow I’ll watch the Vikings-Cowboys game with hope for a change in fortune.
I’ll watch it at home, in Santiago de Chile. By the time the game is over I’ll also know the result of Chile’s runoff presidential election. The opposition candidate, Sebastián Piñera (Ph.D. Economics, Harvard U.) expects to win and to be a force for change. He may win, although President Bachelet is leaving with an approval rate of over 80% and with Chile on the verge of becoming an OECD member (Tyler wrote about this a few days ago). To understand why Piñera may win, those that can read Spanish may take a look at this column published yesterday in a local newspaper:
http://blogs.elmercurio.com/columnasycartas/2010/01/15/perdimos-el-rumbo-economico.asp
The author is Ricardo Caballero, the same MIT Professor of Economics (he’s also the Chairman of MIT Department of Economics) whose paper on safe assets Tyler called brilliant a few days ago. Ricardo (my student at Universidad Católica de Chile in the early 1980s) argues in his column that despite the great performance of recent ministers of Finance and the high price of copper (actually the average price of copper in 2004-09 was three times higher than the average for 1950-2000), the Chilean economy has performing poorly for several years (to be precise since 1998). The reason for the poor performance is that the ministers of Finance have been busy trying to prevent the politicians to implement terrible policies. In my view, Ricardo makes a good point but fails to point out that this “implicit” confrontation between the ministers and the politicians has first created a new system of crony capitalism (big business associated with big government) and second been a source of uncertainty for those that do not have friends in government. Unfortunately, if Sebastián Piñera wins the runoff election tomorrow, the best we can expect is that Chile slows down its march to crony capitalism.
The more interesting question is why men *don’t* visit prostitutes? Given how libidinous they are, you’d think men would be all in favor of it. I don’t buy the legal deterrents argument as the main prevention. As the article said, most are not caught. Doesn’t prevent people from exceeding the speed limit either.
I think it comes down to Adam Smith’s argument in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that “Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved.” Obtaining sex that we didn’t merit doesn’t fool our sense of worth, and even makes us feel more pathetic for trying to make an end-run around the honest pursuit of pussy.
It’s the same as an affirmative action beneficiary who labors — unsuccessfully — to feel good about themselves for having gotten into a “good school” or a “good company.”
TheophileEscargot, another way of viewing the Bell Labs closure is as Romer’s theory of endogenous technological change in action. Reduce monopoly rents, reduce research done by monopoly. Yet another way of viewing it is as a non-story inflated by cognitive bias. Maybe there isn’t any reduction in basic research, and an economy with more small firms means more small labs, but we pay more attention to big old labs.
#2 is really important if true, but doesn’t show sources.
The recession is a liberal lie; there can be no recession because taxes are 25% lower than a decade earlier so the economy must be growing faster than in 1999 and employment must be much higher because the people have an extra 5% of GDP that the government hasn’t taken and they are spending it much more wisely on sound investments and innovation and creating a half million jobs a month.
But those liberals have taken over government and have cooked the data to make it look like the tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut does not spur economic growth and create millions of jobs.
Wow, I learn something every day. I had no idea Keynes was an Austrian (I knew he was a speculator). But, I don’t feel bad because Krugman and DeLong apparently didn’t know either. It is entirely clear from Mr. E’s analysis that interest rates play an incredibly significant role in the equation by determining the fate of future profitability and thus present value.
It may be unavoidable but taking out loans where the collateral is the thing you are using the credit to buy is probably a bad plan, especially when that thing is a bubble-capable investment and not a highly diversified productive asset such as a specialized plant (not the tulip kind of plant, that is). Not making margin or collateral calls seems like a good idea, and that is why the Obama administration should have dropped healthcare yesteryear and focused like a laser beam on mortgage renegotiations.
E. Barandiaran’s point also seems under-appreciated to me. It has been pooh-poohed in these comments but investors are a skittish bunch and any number of government policies I think can justify terror. We don’t know how lucky we are that every other country is just as screwed up as ours. Sometimes foreigners have a better perspective on the frying pan than us frogs in the water.
THE SOURCE OF NEW JOBS!
Jobs come from pebble droppers, entrepreneurs making waves, wakes, to start business ventures. The political environment must nurture them, not discourage them. Pebble droppers should be admired for the service they provide. Instead, they are envied by the few, taxed and punished by government. SAVE PEBBLE DROPPERS & PROSPERITY, on claysamerica.com, describes pebble droppers and an environment best to encourage their success. Democrats are tearing down the American ideal of prosperity and freedom. Their change makes community interests superior to individual interests. Few stand up for the importance of the individual, which is why America differs from the rest of the world. Should we give up that which sets us apart from the Old World? Claysamerica.com
TheophileEscargot, another way of viewing the Bell Labs closure is as Romer’s theory of endogenous technological change in action. Reduce monopoly rents, reduce research done by monopoly. Yet another way of viewing it is as a non-story inflated by cognitive bias. Maybe there isn’t any reduction in basic research, and an economy with more small firms means more small labs, but we pay more attention to big old labs.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is a rock album by Derek and the Dominos, released in December 1970. It is often regarded as Eric Clapton’s greatest musical achievement. The group which created Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs grew out of Clapton’s frustration with the hype associated with the supergroups Cream and the short-lived Blind Faith. After their dissolution, he joined Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, whom he had come to know while they were the opening act for Blind Faith on a British tour.
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