Charities in everything

by  Tyler Cowen in

Have you ever wondered what percent of charities involve actual positive externalities?

Susan spent months in front of her computer on MyFreeImplants.com,
a Web site where women who want breast augmentation can connect with
“benefactors” willing to contribute to the cause, sometimes a dollar at
a time. In May she was one of two Las Vegas women who went under the
knife on donations alone.

Do they also offer naming opportunities?  Here is the story.  The thanks go to a loyal MR reader, who by the way is now blogging again.

The renegade guru

by  Tyler Cowen in

For some non-obvious reason I thought of Bryan Caplan when I was reading this article:

As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped as by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.

Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.

Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. "I never felt like that boy," he said.

The story is here.  Successive photos are here.  And:

At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere's cabin.

He is still revered by the Buddhist community although here is a bit more on the embarrassed responses.  I wonder how many gurus come to such realizations but do not speak up.  Does living in Spain have an effect?

Why aren’t more theatrical plays on DVD?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Many plays, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, are made into movies and they end up on DVD in this manner.  But why don't they just film Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (recommended, by the way; it's playing at the Folger and it's one of the classic plays of our time).  A look at Amazon doesn't yield much.  Nor does a search on "Edward Albee."

I can think of a few possible factors:

1. It wouldn't be very good.  (This doesn't stop most of what is put out on DVD.  Furthermore the highly complex genre of opera on DVD works just fine and has become the industry standard.)

2. There wouldn't be much of an audience.  Yet you could sell memento copies to people who saw the plays, a few plays on DVD might hit it big, and in any case they wouldn't cost much to produce.  There are plenty of niche products on Netflix.

3. It would squash the demand for live performance.  Really?  Most people don't go to the theater anyway.  Those who do, in this age of 3-D cinema and TiVo, presumably enjoy live performance in a manner which is robust.  It is more likely that DVD viewing would stimulate demand for the live product.  Besides, they put these plays out in book form and no one thinks that is a big problem.

None of these answers seem to work.  So, to repeat the question, why don't they put more theatrical plays out on DVD?

Addendum: Could it be they are holding out for the sale of movie rights and that profit is maximized by restricting alternative viewing options?

Eduardo Barreiros and the Recovery of Spain

by  Tyler Cowen in

That's the new and interesting Hugh Thomas book about the leading Spanish businessman of the 20th century, Eduardo Barreiros.  Barreiros entered into car manufacturing, but with the Cuban government as his business partner:

Luis Morente, more subtly, thought that the Cuban government wanted to use Eduardo to see whether Communism could collaborate with capitalism as it has done in recent years in China.  Businesses that were half-private, half-state-controlled (empresas mixtas) followed.  But there were innumerable difficulties: first, the government would select personnel to work with Eduardo according to their political position; second, the "second-rank executives" often found themselves being analysed by their subordinates; absenteeism was not denounced and indeed not considered as such; in Pinar del Rio, workers had to be allowed off to work in the tobacco harvest; incentives and productivity played no part.  The party, the Bank of Cuba, the unions, the provincial government were always intervening; energy supplies were irregular; parts were delivered very slowly; no one cared if supplies deteriorated before delivery; and in 1988, after a hurricane, the factory was flooded.  All these things needed Eduardo's continual attention.

It should be noted that, relative to the standards of the Cuban economy, the venture was a success.

“A movie lover’s movie…”

by  Tyler Cowen in

When I see this phrase in an ad, as I did for the new film Bloom Brothers, I respond negatively (although I still will see it).  But exactly why?  After all, I am a movie lover by virtually any objective standard.  Shouldn't I read this description and jump for joy?

But no.

1. Perhaps this description signals pretension and, ultimately, stupidity.  Truly good restaurants don't advertise that they appeal to "gourmets"; rather the relevance of that quality is taken for granted.  See my discussion of counter-signaling in Discover Your Inner Economist.

2. Perhaps it is a sign they have nothing better to say about the movie.

3. Perhaps it is a sign that the movie is full of insider jokes about the movie business.  Movies of that kind do not generally excite me.

4. They are using the phrase because they think it will appeal to relatively large numbers of people.  Perhaps I am slightly insulted, as I feel that my love for movies deserves a more exclusive designation.

Update: I was conned.  The datum provides evidence for #1.

Betting markets in everything

by  Tyler Cowen in

A Buckinghamshire man diagnosed with terminal
cancer is to collect a second winning payout of £5,000 after betting he
would stay alive.

Jon Matthews, 59, from Milton Keynes, was
diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos, in 2006 and
told he had months to live.

He placed two bets, each with a £100 stake at odds of 50/1, that he would be alive in June 2008 and in June 2009.

A third wager will earn him a further £10,000 if he lives until 1 June 2010.

The widower will collect his second lot of £5,000 winnings on Monday.

The full story is here and I thank Leonard Monasterio for the pointer.  Of course you are implicitly betting on your life each time you make an investment or a long-range plan.

Ask Marilyn: IQ vs. the economists

by  Tyler Cowen in

Marilyn vos Savant has (supposedly, read the link) the world's highest recorded IQ at 228.  She is now fielding questions on economics.  Here is one example:

Question: Why has the income disparity
grown so much in developed countries? – Matthew Cencich, Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada

Answer: I think the disparity is
a normal result of overall economic growth. The bottom incomes (zero)
can’t go lower, but the top incomes can go up and up. And so they do,
of course.

Here is another:

Question: Do you think that government
actively encouraging people to borrow money (and spend it) is the right
way to resolve the recession? – Caroline Kelly, Hendon, London

Answer:
No. I think that more consumer activity could be modestly helpful to
the economy in the short term. And in better times, it would even
masquerade as growth. But in the current climate, increasing the family
debt would cause added personal financial problems. So I doubt that
it’s useful for government to advocate shopping as a form of national
service unless elected officials are perhaps a tad more interested in
shifting a little of the burden away from themselves than they are in a
lasting solution.

She also explains the financial crisis. ("First, an economy based on growth is bound to falter now and then. A
whole sector could collapse. It’s a house of cards. Eventually, it must
morph into a system that functions on stability, or it will fail –
meaning a fall large enough to cause an unstoppable breakdown and
widespread hardship.")

Question: on these problems, does she do better or worse than leading economists?

Addendum: Here is Marilyn on YouTube.  Oddly (look just past the 4:00 mark), she can't define IQ properly. 

How to learn about everything?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Eric Drexler offers some tips:

  1. Read and skim journals and textbooks that (at the moment) you only half understand. . Include Science and Nature.
  2. Seldom stop to study a single subject with a student’s intensity, as if you had to pass a test on it.
  3. Don’t drop a subject because you know you’d fail a test – instead,
    read other half-understandable journals and textbooks to accumulate
    vocabulary, perspective, and context.
  4. Notice that concepts make more sense when you revisit a topic, and note which topics provide keys to many others.
  5. Continue until almost everything you encounter in Science and Nature makes sense as a contribution to a field you know something about.

The three-word version of that is "Get context first."

Vernon Smith’s autobiography

by  Tyler Cowen in

It's called Discovery — A Memoir and I enjoyed it very much.  If you, like me, wish that more books were just a bit wilder, weirder (I mean that in the good sense), and real, you will like this one.  Here's one brief bit:

…I will grow up to be a loner, protecting myself from distractions, but thereby projecting an image of aloofness that was never part of what I felt inside.

It's a hard book to summarize.  It offers a discussion of whether soda tastes different from the can as opposed to the bottle, a detailed recipe for perfect hamburger, an even more detailed recipe for perfect chili, how and why Vernon used to refer to himself in the third person ("Dingy"), the economic history of Kansas before WWII, Vernon and his mother working for CORE in the 1940s, what it was like to get an economics Ph.d. at Harvard back then, Vernon's lifelong pacifist and anti-war stance, how he almost gave up professional economics and ended up setting rail rates in 1957, a splendid history of thought of economics at Purdue University, an excellent memorial to Jonathan Hughes (and a discussion of Hughes as an ex-Mormon), why experimental economics is important, talk of Vernon's abilities and disabilities when it comes to focus and "attention-shifting," why it is rational to believe in God, and a thought on Kahlil Gibran.

The style eschews silky narration and expects that you can keep up with the flow of information.  Not everyone can.

If you think you might be interested, you probably are,  One Amazon reviewer writes:

'Discovery' is an unfiltered, entertaining read. There is no spin, no
self-serving revisionism here. A most original and influential
economist tells the reader what happened, what he thought, and how he
thinks.