Friday assorted links
1. Yemen facts of the day, the negative projections seem more or less on track.
3. Japan fact of the day: “…the number of foreign workers, though still relatively small, has nearly doubled over the past eight years, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling party is considering policies to speed up arrivals.” Please note the link is noisy.
4. “Professional chefs, who one might think would be an ideal demographic, are not frequent customers. Sven says they have a haughty attitude toward cookbooks.” Link here.
5. What do FDI flows really measure?
6. What is the most relaxing song of them all? (Frankly, it pissed me off.) And this: “But time and social change have been rough on the Beach Boys. Their best-known hits (say, “California Girls,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “I Get Around”) are poems of unenlightened straight-male privilege, white privilege, beach privilege. It is hard to imagine that they helped anyone toward self-determination or achieving their social rights.” I say they’re mostly about melancholy, thank goodness not everything is didactic.