Month: November 2010
Britain fact of the day
In 1960, the British drank 3.6 pints of wine per head per year; by 1971 they drank 7 pints, by 1973 9 pints, by 1975 11 pints and by 1980 almost 20 pints. One obvious reason was that it was cheaper than ever, with the duty having been slashed when Britain joined the EEC; another was that people picked up the taste on holiday; a third was that wines were advertised more successfully, being associated with glamour, luxury, and ambition, and aimed particularly at young women.
That is from Dominic Sandbrook's excellent State of Emergency, The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974.
My impression of the election results, from a great distance
There is an anti-gay backlash in Iowa and I don't see marijuana climbing the legalization hill, if it can't make it through current-day California. We're seeing the high water mark for pot, as aging demographics do not favor the idea. Just 32% of the Tea Party candidates won; admittedly that figure should be adjusted by the rate of incumbency (a lot of Tea Party candidates were challengers). In any case, there was not a Tea Party tidal wave. Sarah Palin as nominee is up a few points on InTrade.com, although I do not see why. Haley Barbour is also up and Chris Christie is down considerably (why?). Given that the Democrats did better than expected in the Senate, Obama's reelection chances look better now than they did a week ago. The Republican strategy is not dominating in broad constituency, MSM-reported, "lots of scrutiny" races, even with an abysmal economy and a not so popular health care bill. My mental model of Obama is that he will cut deals with the Republicans, even on (mostly) their terms, if indeed any deal is on the table. I would be pleased if critics of the Obama presidency would indicate their managerial background and expertise, yet few do. How many of them could manage a team of ten people with any success?
The next step in FinReg?
Mr Bachus told the FT that he would go “page by page†‰ [through Dodd-Frank].†‰.†‰.†‰to identify job-killing provisions or lending-killing provisions”. He highlighted new rules pushing over-the-counter derivatives trading through clearing houses and on to exchanges as a problem for non-financial corporate users.
“The derivatives provisions in Dodd-Frank alone… as they stand now they’re going to take a trillion dollars out of our economy. Think how many jobs that’s going to kill,” he said.
It is difficult to fathom how that last pararaph (article here) can make any sense, other than as fabrication. What is the public choice factor here? Ag producers who trade customized swaps and who wish to keep doing so? Or is it financial institutions, including the trading branches of commodities firms, which earn money trading the spread? How about traders which don't want to deal with the potentially onerous margin requirements at a newly established clearinghouse? All of the above?
Which cities have the cheapest taxi rides?
The ten cheapest are:
$0.90 – $1.58 Delhi, India
$0.97 – $1.28 Mumbai, India
$1.04 – $1.73 Cairo, Egypt
$1.14 – $1.71 La Paz, Bolivia
$1.17 – $1.87 Manila, Philippines
$1.22 – $2.03 Mexico City, Mexico
$1.23 – $2.94 Panama City, Panama
$1.23 – $1.68 Kuta, Bali, Indonesia
$1.24 – $1.86 Fez, Morocco
$1.29 – $1.94 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I am surprised that Panama City and KL make that list, otherwise it fits with the Bela Balassa hypothesis about cheap services in low productivity countries, or at least those with low productivity laborers at the margin, such as Mexico. Panama City has quite a large percentage mark-up for time spent in traffic. The most expensive rides are in Zurich, Switzerland and then Oslo, Norway. I recall seeing a small pizza for sale in the Oslo airport, priced at $35. The full list is here.
Assorted links
1. File under "failed symbolisms."
2. The economics of gated newspaper content.
3. Martin Feldstein is skeptical about QEII.
4. Tanker gas, rule the skies.
6. When are people most and least likely to break up, a study using Facebook data.
The High Cost of Free Parking, continued
A collection of nearly 50 cars that is parked on the streets is revving-up the tempers of neighbors in an unincorporated community of Covina. According to several neighbors and DMV records, the cars belong to 51 year old Mark Shoff who lives in the 16000 block of Kingside Drive.
Shoff keeps five unregistered vehicles in the driveway of his home and at least 43 over vehicles are parked in the neighborhood's surrounding streets.
Here is more and the hat tip goes to the other Duncan Black.
Restoring gender equilibrium in China
The real estate bubble is helping out:
Internet chat groups have sprang up where women exchange advice on how to conceive girls.
Rising property prices are driving the change, which is expected to be confirmed by China’s once-a-decade census that started on Monday, because Chinese families must traditionally buy a flat for a son before he can marry.
“My husband and I don’t earn much and I can’t imagine how we can buy a flat for a son,” says Zhang Aiqin of Pujiang in Zhejiang province.
“And it is not only a flat,” says Zhang Yun, a Shanxi province native who lives in Shanghai, alluding to the cost of educating and marrying off a boy. “Sons bring economic pressure†‰…†‰[but] ‘a daughter is a warm jacket for a mother’ when she is old,” she says, quoting an ancient Chinese idiom to illustrate the fact that many urbanised Chinese think daughters are better caregivers.
Meta-list of *Fanfare* classical music recommendations
I've read through the November/December issue of Fanfare, in particular the Christmas Want Lists, as I do every year. These are the new releases which appear on more than one list:
1. Stephen Hough and Osmo Vanska, playing the Tchaikovsky piano concerti. This was the only item selected by three critics.
2. John Butt, conducting J.S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, Joshua Rifkin style. This is the recording which is supposed to convert the unpersuaded to the minimalist vocal approach.
3. Dennis Russell Davies, conducting Haydn's complete symphonies. Elevated for the sake of completeness, no one is saying it is better than Dorati.
4. Volkmar Andreae, conducting the Bruckner symphonies and Te Deum. Remastered mono from the 1950s, supposed to be perfection.
5. Robert Schumann, Carneval, Kreisleriana, Arabeske, by Vassily Primakov.
I have found Fanfare Christmas lists to be a very reliable source of excellent music.
Portuguese drug decriminalization
Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens have written a new study:
The issue of decriminalizing illicit drugs is hotly debated, but is rarely subject to evidence-based analysis. This paper examines the case of Portugal, a nation that decriminalized the use and possession of all illicit drugs on 1 July 2001. Drawing upon independent evaluations and interviews conducted with 13 key stakeholders in 2007 and 2009, it critically analyses the criminal justice and health impacts against trends from neighbouring Spain and Italy. It concludes that contrary to predictions, the Portuguese decriminalization did not lead to major increases in drug use. Indeed, evidence indicates reductions in problematic use, drug-related harms and criminal justice overcrowding. The article discusses these developments in the context of drug law debates and criminological discussions on late modern governance.
Anything but the election, part II
In The Journal of Cosmology, Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. writes:
Humans are sexual beings and it can be predicted that male and female astronauts will engage in sexual relations during a mission to Mars, leading to conflicts and pregnancies and the first baby born on the Red Planet. Non-human primate and astronaut sexual behavior is reviewed including romantic conflicts involving astronauts who flew aboard the Space Shuttle and in simulated missions to Mars, and men and women team members in the Antarctic. The possibilities of pregnancy and the effects of gravity and radiation on the testes, ovaries, menstruation, and developing fetus, including a child born on Mars, are discussed. What may lead to and how to prevent sexual conflicts, sexual violence, sexual competition, and pregnancy are detailed. Recommendations include the possibility that male and female astronauts on a mission to Mars, should fly in separate space craft.
The piece has numerous flaws, which are some mix of sad, funny, and outrageous, depending on your point of view.
Hat tip goes to The Browser.
Anything but the election
A 15-month-old girl survived a fall from a seventh-floor apartment in Paris almost unscathed after bouncing off a cafe awning and into the arms of a passerby, police said today.
The baby had been playing unsupervised with her four-year-old sister yesterday when she fell out of the window, a police spokesman said.
A young man saw the baby starting to fall and alerted his father, who raced into position, arms outstretched, to catch her after she hit the awning, the daily Le Parisien reported.
…The owner of the cafe, located at the foot of the block of flats in north-east Paris, said it was a stroke of luck he had decided to leave the awning open that afternoon.
"I usually close it to stop it catching fire as people tend to throw their cigarette butts on to it,"…
Here is more. It seems that no adult was at home in the apartment.
Here is Montaigne's short essay on fortune. The word "fortune" appears over 350 times in Montaigne's Essays.
Is Obama a Keynesian?
Hat tip: Stephen Miller.
Very good sentences
But insofar as many people do have nationalist convictions, it’s worth noting that there’s a tradeoff between the nationalist impulse to seal the borders and the nationalist impulse to prolong the period of American hegemony.
In other words, if a country has a small or shrinking number of people it will lose international power and status. That is from Matt Yglesias.
Assorted links
Raising the status of real business cycle theory
Garett Jones's guest post on El Salvador reminded me of a more general point: real business cycle theory explains 98 percent or more of the business cycles in human history, especially before the eighteenth century and the advent of modern financial markets. Some parts of the world still are ruled by real business cycle theory.
And yet somehow the theory has low status or sometimes is considered outside the mainstream. Admittedly, the theory can be misapplied or oversimplified by its proponents. Yet…it explains 98 percent or more of the business cycles in human history. It also helps explain the propagation mechanisms of monetary-based cycles.
I call that an important theory.
If only there were a textbook which taught RBC!