Month: January 2013
If we could preserve only one sentence…
Ian Leslie writes to me:
John Lanchester in the LRB:
“Richard Feynman was once asked what he would pass on if the whole edifice of modern scientific knowledge had been lost, and all he could give to posterity was a single sentence. What axiom would convey the maximum amount of scientific information in the fewest possible words? His candidate was ‘all things are made of atoms.’ In a similar spirit, if the whole ramshackle structure of contemporary macroeconomics vanished into thin air and the field had to be reconstructed from scratch, the sentence which packs as much of the discipline into the fewest possible words might be ‘governments are not households.’ “
At the very least I would ask for “In the short run, governments are not households.” I might even consider “Today is a long run from some time back.” And I have a suspicion what Scott Sumner would say.
Throughout keep in mind that 99% of all historic cycles have been “real business cycles,” and that sovereign bankruptcy is a historical norm, even though today many major sovereigns are quite creditworthy.
What teens say about the tech world
I enjoyed this piece, full of fresh (to me) perspectives. Here is one excerpt:
She had almost nothing to say about Twitter because she didn’t know anyone in high school that used it. “Nobody uses it. I know you love it but I don’t get it. I mean, I guess a a few kids use it but they’re all the ones who won’t shut up in class, who always think they have something important to say.”
The follow-up to that is good too.
For the pointer I thank Elan Bachor.
In which countries is crude libertarianism most and least true?
For least true, I nominate South Korea. Other than comparing it to North Korea, how much do you hear libertarians claiming South Korean policies as their own? It seems the government there did a lot and mostly it paid off. The best the libertarian can manage is something like “their economy would have grown rapidly in any case,” and that may not even be true.
For “most true” you might say North Korea, but that is too easy a pick. How about India? Government there has done lots but most of it has worked out quite badly, whereas their deregulations generally have gone well (see our India unit on MRUniversity.com). Further deregulation of the economy would likely be a good idea.
Singapore can be claimed for either category.
In which country is Marxism most true (“least untrue?”)? Least true? How about other ideologies?
The new tell-all Fed
That is the new NYT piece by my long-time friend and associate Randall Kroszner, excerpt:
Under Mr. Bernanke, lips have loosened rapidly with quarterly news conferences, forecasts by F.O.M.C. members of key economic indicators, countless testimonies before Congress and, now, the explicit adoption of a 2 percent inflation goal.
The advantage of such glasnost is that it can give the Fed greater bang for its buck. Buying more government bonds may bring down interest rates today, but getting people to believe that the Fed will continue such “accommodative” policies adds to the potency of its actions in two ways: expectations of future borrowing costs stay low, and uncertainty about future monetary policy (and hence, future borrowing costs) declines. Such knowledge lets firms be more confident about investing and hiring, and gives homeowners and potential home buyers more faith that mortgages will stay affordable, providing support for the housing market.
Assorted links
1. Jackson Lears reviews Jared Diamond (some parts of the review are quite good, other parts quite bad).
2. Great Stagnation, iPhone edition.
3. Some weird parts of the fiscal cliff bill.
4. Why don’t more pitchers learn the knuckleball?
5. Michael Blowhard defends the U.S. Constitution.
6. A social club for dogs (“toy aggression” is supposedly a deal breaker).
Hard Rock Hotel
Until I checked in, I thought the name of the place was an affectation, but it is actually attached to a Hard Rock Cafe, in San Diego. They play bad and overly loud rock music in the lobby. The front desk is usually unmanned. The concierge looks and dresses like a 1970s hippie Deadhead. There are guitars on the wall. The bed is extremely comfortable.
Job candidates: you need a room key to work the elevator, so if you are coming here for an interview tomorrow a) I am leaving your name at the front desk, hoping it will be manned and they will help you, b) you can try to find someone else taking an elevator up, and c) you can call up and/or email. In any case please give yourself a little extra time, our apologies. I promise not to ask if you have brought your demo tape to the interview, even though I will be tempted to do so.
Addendum: It’s funny how many people are tweeting and emailing me that I don’t like San Diego. Nothing could be further from the truth. I like it fine and I have come here repeatedly over the years. The area where I have chosen to live and work — northern Virginia — also could be described as lacking in cultural importance for the broader United States and indeed the world. And yet I chose it and prefer to stay there. The whole point of public goods is that they spread far and wide! Most generally, “reporting a fact or opinion which lowers the perceived relative status of X” does not translate into “source does not like X.” This is closely related to the fallacy of mood affiliation. One can have multiple moods about both San Diego and northern Virginia, namely something like “wonderful amenities and lifestyle, but culturally not nearly as impressive as the historical record of Kansas City.” But when choosing whether or not to visit or live in Indiana, that Cole Porter was from there is really not much of a factor. That all said, I’ll belatedly give San Diego credit for Roger Reynolds.
MRU on iTunes
We are excited to announce that our Development Economics course is now available on iTunes as an audio podcast. You can grab the audio for any of the 232 videos we’ve released so far! For those who use a different program to manage your podcasts, the direct link for the podcast xml feed is here.
And by the way, on the main site this week’s videos on “Education” and “Politics, democracy, and war” are now live. Take a look at whether China is likely to democratize soon, and why some of the Middle Eastern and nearby states have such a difficult time democratizing. Here is Alex’s video on testing for educational cream skimming in private schools, in India. There is much more on the site.
The Prison Population is Down
After more than thirty years of constant increase, prison populations have leveled off and in the last few years have begun to decline (pdf). It’s a momentous change and Keith Humphreys argues that the story has been under-reported because few people want to play up the good news
(1) Most of the state, local and federal officials who have helped reduce incarceration are scared to publicly take credit for it. In general, reducing incarceration is a good thing, but probability dictates that in particular cases it will be a horrible thing. At least a few of the roughly 100,000 fewer people under correctional supervision in 2011 versus 2010 for example will do something extremely violent and high-profile, and no politician wants to risk being in a story headlined “Convict released by thug-loving governor murders nun”.
Hat tip: Matt Yglesias.
Progress of a sort
The Libyan sweet tooth has embraced American sticky buns at Tripoli’s Cinnabon outlet, where sales are three times higher than the chain’s global average.
Randy Mercer, regional vice president of international operations for Focus Brands, which owns Cinnabon, told Libya Herald: “Sales have continued to perform at three times the average unit volume of Cinnabon.” He added that the investors were pleased with the returns they were seeing on their capital.
Cinnabon’s Tripoli store was the first American franchise in Libya after the revolution, opened in July by brothers Arief and Ahmed Swaidek. More than two years in the planning, the bakery-cafe chain that specialises in sugary baked goods and cream-laden drinks was clearly a good business choice.
Paywalls for blogs?
Andrew Sullivan will give it a try, as you probably have heard by now. I wish him well with it, but I also hope no one else tries too hard. (Note by the way that Sullivan will allow a free RSS feed, with complete posts, and free links from other blogs, so this is hardly a full gate.) In the limiting case, imagine a blogosphere where everything is gated for some price. What could we at MR link to? There would be every day “What I’ve been Reading,” with links to Amazon (they’re not going to gate), rather than every few weeks. More from Wikipedia, and more travel notes. More abstract requests from readers (“what should I do with my life?”, and “does she really love me?”). More government statistics and more BBC.
I’ve long thought that the last ten years have been a golden age for the blogosphere, and that soon the financial constraints are really going to start biting on MSM. Many of you already get upset at FT links, which have a fairly strict gate, and perhaps the few remaining newspapers will all work that way within two or three years’ time.
What do you all think? Here are comments from Felix Salmon.
Assorted links
What has San Diego contributed to American culture?
In honor of the AEA meetings I was going to do “My Favorite Things San Diego” but frankly I came up with what is more or less a total blank. Eddie Vedder? I like Tom Waits. Lots of athletes. What else?
San Diego, by population, is the eighth largest city in the United States. Yet it seems to have had hardly any cultural influence. What gives?
Movie, set in: Almost Famous, or perhaps A Day Without a Mexican.
End of story, unless you can tell me more. I’m sure to enjoy the weather, though I’ll look longingly at Tijuana just across the border.
Ice Cream Buybacks
NYTines: Mayor Blomberg announced today a new program to help reduce obesity and heart disease, ice cream buybacks. Any ice cream that citizens wish to turn in will be bought for up to $5 a pint. No questions asked. “Heart disease is the number one killer in the nation,” said Mayor Blomberg, “and we must do everything we can to get Ben and Jerry and these other killers off our streets.”
Critics argue that consumers are likely to reach into the back of their freezer to sell ice cream that is half-eaten, iced-over, and past its sell-by date, with little effect on heart disease. In previous buybacks, enterprising individuals have even bought cheap ice cream at Walmart and sold it back to the city at a profit. Economists have pointed out that local ice cream buybacks don’t make a lot of sense when ice cream remains widely available for sale. The National Academy of Sciences reported that the theory underling “buyback programs is badly flawed and the empirical evidence demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these programs.” Nevertheless, ice cream buybacks remain popular with voters.
More here, here and here on similar programs and here is my earlier op op-ed on a closely related topic.
Picture from Story Draw.
*The World Until Yesterday*
The author is Jared Diamond and the subtitle is What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies?
This is a difficult book to review. It is well written and intelligent, yet I struggle to find the novel propositions or the traction. Much of the book is description of the author’s earlier work in Papua New Guinea. These sections I enjoyed, though I did not find them revelatory or even mildly gripping. They also did not much incorporate more recent research on these communities. Other parts of the book repeat probably correct but tired points about privacy, obesity, the role of the elderly, and the like, comparing the modern world to earlier times. The discussions of the Pygmies — the hunter-gatherer community I know most about — seemed fine but not insightful. Beneath the surface is the question of how much different “hunter-gatherer” societies are alike or can be subject to generalization. Diamond never makes objectionable claims in this regard but ultimately the very premise of the book seems to require some objectionable claims, even if they are never put on paper.
If I had to place this book into the “good book” pile or “bad book” pile, I wouldn’t hesitate before putting it into the former. But I could not describe it as essential reading either. Perhaps I would have liked it more if I had expected less. In any case, I would have preferred a “more wrong” book that made me think more.
Here is a Chicago Tribune review of the book.
Kevin Kelly on why Robert Gordon is wrong
This is a very good piece. Here is the closing bit:
In his paper Robert Gordon talks about the huge value gained from “one-time” events, such as the one-time (first and last) move of a large proportion of women into the workforce. This new gain happens only once (assuming they remain). In this computer-internet economy we are experiencing a one-time gain from a huge one-time event. This is the first and only time a planet will get wired up into a global network. We are alive at this critical moment in history, and we are just at the beginning of the beginning of the many developments that will erupt because of this shift.
Cory Doctorow has interesting comments.