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When talking about the crisis affecting Greece, Spain Portugal and Ireland, I keep hearing about how uncompetitive those countries are, and how their LPCs look terrible. But then, when I talk to people that work there, all I hear is about people making little money after a college education, like the Spanish Mileuristas. Seeing salaries that are 1:3 to 1:4 of the American equivalent is pretty common.
If salaries are low, and the LPC is high, is it due to regulation? Taxation? Dismal company organization?
A favorite catchphrase amongst protesters on the left and right, locally and nationally, is “the need for more transparency.” Why this phrase? Is there a coded meaning here? Valid fears of a corrupted processes? A general disenchantment with representative democracy (whose supporters would be more inclined to advocate “throwing the bums out”. Any insight from you learned political economists?
What drives countries to have single sport specialties? NZ Rugby, or Canada Hockey?
What drives countries to have all around athletics?
Tyler, what is your opinion of the financial structure of the NBA? Can it be fixed or are we for certain staring at a 2011 lockout? If it can be fixed, what needs to be done?
Tell me whether virtue is teachable. Or if not teachable,does it come from practice? Or is it something neither from practice nor from learning, but something that comes to human beings by nature, or some other way?
many people drink coffee because of the caffeine. a (potentially large) subset of the total population of coffee drinkers probably also drinks coffee for the taste. however, decaffeinated coffee is likely to appeal only to those who do not want caffeine, but do enjoy the taste of coffee (i.e., the set of taste-enjoyers, excluding the intersection with caffeine-enjoyers.) doesn’t it seem that the people who drink coffee purely for the taste would prefer more variety in roasts and/or higher quality? if so, then why is the selection of decaf at coffee shops and grocery stores usually limited to one roast, whereas there are many caffeinated options? discuss.
also, you reference other blogs frequently, but rarely talk about podcasts. do you listen to podcasts? any recommendations?
Two commercial real estate issues:
1. How can that building in an amazing location stay empty year after year, even when other stuff nearby or the neighborhood is successful? If it helps, think of an empty building someplace like DuPont Circle or U St?
2. Is there not some economic rationale/solution to the problem of being too successful: I open a restaurant/bar/business, it is successful, therefore my rent goes up so extraordinarily that I have to move locations or go out of business. I see that the landowner wants to capture my success, but do they jack up rates based on poor information, ignorance, or indifference?
For a teacher with a million billion great ideas, it seems to me that you never talk about TEACHING and PEDAGOGY. It’s the only chink in your armor that I can see (besides no observable sense of humor – not necessarily a minus).
how has hdtv changed the world?
The Census Bureau defends its spending of $133 million on advertising by saying that increased awareness of the census results in more returned questionnaires through the mail, obviating expensive labor-intensive interviews. I’d like to see the study(ies) they use to support that statement, and subject it to rigorous analysis.
Somebody needs to run scenarios for USD inflation–could hyperinflation happen here? As much as Keynes has been pilloried for eternal deficits, what did he say about inflation/deflation?
Book and Music publishing – in a world where the publishing function of the distributor is increasingly cut out by the ease of internet publishing, how do we best maintain quality control? As the cost of publishing goes down, the consumer cost of finding good product seemingly goes up – often way up. (I say this as a listener of unsigned music – I know there’s good stuff out there – but the signal to noise is low – and often the signal you hear is more due to hype/buzz effort than actual quality.)
Why don’t more people take public transit, ie the Metro or commuter rail, in the DC area to get to work? When I’m taking the bus to my classes at GW, I see so many cars with a good number of people who probably can access public transport, but still don’t take it. How should we increase the number of people who do the environmentally-friendlier thing?
Why do people use missed connection ads? Do they ever work? Is it a sign of enduring optimism of people? Has anyone reading this ever posted, or responded to, a missed connection ad? How did it work out?
If a more powerful species comes to Earth and wants to eat us ( the way we do to other species) what arguments can we use to convince them not to eat us ?
Will antitrust authorities succeed in preventing cartels? I.e. is todays measures enough to incentivize firms not to form cartels? Releted questions are what the optimal level of cartelization is (zero or higher). Will the films on leniency that some competition authorites post on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r99qzC8aHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5diFAaJdweI&feature=related
increase the breakdown of cartels?
When the results of a Google search are delivered and the first sponsored link and the first ‘normal’ link are the same, which do you click on? The sponsored link could cause prices at the business to go up. Clicking on the sponsored link could also lead to better searches if Google takes its earnings and invests in improved search technology.
Why aren’t there many attempts at cost-benefit evaluating possible world public policies like the Copenhagen Consensus Center tries to do? I even have trouble responses to their studies that try to say: these are not the costs or the benefits of such-and-such policy. Are we driving blind as far as world public policies go?
How, if at all, do you measure the success of this blog? Daily hits? Intelligence of comments? Mentions on other blogs? Have, or would, you change the style of your blogging to improve these measures?
The toughest economic problem in a democracy is political — how to cut government spending.
What are the most likely to work, and/or most likely to be tried ideas you would support?
1) PLEASE COMMMENT ON Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
2a) YOUR OPINION OF BEST BOOK/ANALYSIS OF OVER-ALL CAUSES OF CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS
2B) AND THE WORST BOOK/ANALYSIS?
3A) YOUR OPINION ON BEST BOOK PRESCRIBING ‘CURES” FOR THE CRISIS
3B) AND THE WORST?
3C) AND THE WORST SINGLE IDEA?
4) OPINION OF ESSAYS IN “RESTORING FINANCAIL STABILITY–HOW TO REPAIR A FAILED SYSTEM” EDITED BY STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Why did it take so long for humans to have the Industrial Revolution?
1. post your bookmarks
2. post all of your internet searches for the past week
3. if you were exempt from PC speech codes for 24 hrs what 5 topics would you write about?
4. is it a good/bad idea to have two classes of license plates; a cheap non-expressway one, and more expensive “all-roads” plates?
5. will you expose your daughter to roissy’s blog? if you had a son, would you expose him to roissy’s blog?
6. as more companies automate jobs lower human capital people aren’t needed in the labor force: what’s your advice to a 10 year old with a 90 iq? would the negative consequences of high long-term unemployment (greece, france in 2005, mexico, etc.) ever justify discouraging employers from some labor saving technologies?
7. why hasn’t the length of the avg. 1st world work week fallen really far? is IT overrated?
8. will you ever write about the negative side of mass migration (ie. not from the perspective of a Famous Economist with Important Book Deals and a NYT Column. but from the avg. american’s pov)?
How would you redesign ChatRoulette to make it more usable. I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard it’s a cool concept but pretty much a mess.
I’ve always wanted to know where I could get a replica of the bird chess set in J. F. Sebastian’s apartment in Blade Runner.
I’d like to know what you think about the market for infant and toddler toys. Does the fact that children usually prefer to play with the box or non-toy items (like remote controls) suggest a poorly functioning market? Maybe toys are designed to attract purchasers (parents), rather than children, but wouldn’t a firm benefit even more for developing a reputation for making toys that their customers’ kids will actually like and use?
You mentioned some time back that you read Nick Carr’s forthcoming book, “The Shallows”. (I presume you saw an advance copy.) Was the book interesting? What, if anything, did it change your thinking about? (Any answer to the last question, including “nothing”, would be interest.)
What is your take on ecological economics, as espoused e.g. by Herman Daly? In particular, what are the consequences of counting extraction of non-renewable raw materials as positive in GDP? How could the _sustainability_ of living standards for future generations be realistically considered along with the living standards themselves?
Why is required mutualization of all health insurers never discussed as a fix for health care cost issues? It seems very conflicting to have an entity where their external goal is to protect policyholders by paying for claims but their internal goal is to deny claims to pay shareholders and minimize competition through “most favored nation” clauses.
It seems like mutualization would remove a significant portion of the conflict and also allow policyholders to have a direct stake in whether rates go up or down due to reduced moral hazard.
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