Category: Uncategorized
Wyoming fact of the day
Wyoming—the first US state to grant a charter to a crypto bank—has approved legal status for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the American CryptoFed DAO, according to an announcement on Sunday. The organization, which has a mission to introduce a new monetary system, now becomes the first legally recognized DAO in the U.S.
It comes after Wyoming lawmakers voted in March to pass a bill allowing DAOs to be officially registered in the state. The law affords these entities—which are governed by smart contracts and dispense with the hierarchical control structure seen in traditional companies—the same rights as a limited liability company. The bill came into effect on July 1, 2021.
Just think — limited liability for “a company managed by nobody”! And:
The DAO law also solidifies Wyoming’s reputation as the most crypto-friendly U.S. state. Last year, it was the first in the US to issue a state charter for crypto banks and has already licensed two: Kraken and Avanti.
Here is the full story, via Shaffin Shariff.
Curious Task podcast, food in Canada and revisiting *An Economist Gets Lunch*
About one hour long, from one of Canada’s classical liberal groups, Institute for Liberal Studies, here are some links:
Podbean: Click here
Apple Podcasts: Click Here
Spotify: Click Here
Monday assorted links
1. The license plate culture that is Maine.
2. Some speculations about rising crime rates.
3. Three-minute TikTok? Why isn’t this bigger news?
4. A slightly different diagnosis of “the epistemic crisis.”
A new study of crypto ownership
Employing representative data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Payment Choice, we disprove the hypothesis that cryptocurrency investors are motivated by distrust in fiat currencies or regulated finance. Compared with the general population, investors show no differences in their level of security concerns with either cash or commercial banking services. We find that cryptocurrency investors tend to be educated, young and digital natives. In recent years, a gap in ownership of cryptocurrencies across genders has emerged. We examine how investor characteristics vary across cryptocurrencies and show that owners of cryptocurrencies increasingly tend to hold their investment for longer periods.
And:
Moving from a lower category of education to a higher one increases the probability, on average, of recognising at least one cryptocurrency by around 8.7 to 11.1 percentage points…Being a man in the US increases, on average, the probability of knowing
about at least one cryptocurrency by between 9.6 and 12.1 percentage points.
That is from a recent paper by Raphael Auer and David Tercero-Lucas, via Shaffin Shariff. Data are from 2019.
Facts and uncertainties about ear wax
Our attitude to ear wax is in some ways surprising. A review of impacted ear wax estimates that 2.3 million people a year in the United Kingdom suffer problems with wax needing treatment, with some 4 million ears being syringed annually.2 This makes it possibly the the most common therapeutic procedure carried out on any part of the body. Symptoms of excessive wax or impaction, especially in the elderly, include not only hearing loss but tinnitus, dizziness, infections, social withdrawal, poor work function and mild paranoia. Other problems include general disorientation and loss of an aural sense of direction. With unilateral wax, sounds can appear to be coming from the wrong side, leading to accidents as a driver or especially as a pedestrian. Inappropriate self-treatment (or even treatment by health professionals) can cause perforated eardrums and in very rare cases cochlear damage, leading to nystagmus and sensorineural deafness. In spite of this catalogue of harms, the clinical profile and management of excessive wax are poorly understood. The evidence base is poor and inconsistent, leading to few strong recommendations, even relating to the most commonly used treatments.
Low esteem for ear wax is surprising in other ways too. As a substance, it is unique in the human and mammalian body. This is due to its position in our sole anatomical cul-de-sac. Everywhere else on our body surface, dead and redundant skin cells fall off or are scrubbed away when we wash. In the ear canal – which points forwards and downwards and might otherwise turn into a dermatological garbage dump – ear wax binds these together, along with other assorted detritus that may have entered from the world outside. It is then moved up to the exit by jaw movements and as a result of the skin of the canal slowly moving outwards like an escalator. Wax also prevents multiplication of micro-organisms and infection. It is as essential as sweat and tears, although perhaps not quite as vital as blood. Wax is also fascinating in its own right.
Imagine an ear wax post that is not solely about Q-tips! (Have you ever wondered why they have to be so dangerous? Can’t you just put them in a little way? Or is there some indivisibility here? I have never understood the anguished warnings here. If you are not using Q-tips at all, you only have to put them in a little way to pull out a lot of earwax, right? Solve for the equilibrium!)
Here is more by John Launer, about ear wax throughout, via Michelle Dawson.
Sunday assorted links
1. Culture wars are long wars. And is it the Left that has jacked up the culture wars?
2. More Scott Sumner movie reviews, he is always right.
3. Cleaner air has contributed one-fifth of U.S. maize and soybean yield gains since 1999.
4. Do we enjoy our stereotypes?
5. Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to try to block video.
6. “Demisexual people only feel sexually attracted to someone when they have an emotional bond…“
*The Volga: A History of Russia’s Greatest River*
The author is Janet M. Hartley from LSE, here is one excerpt:
…the religious composition on the Volga is complex. Finno-Ugric settlers originally followed shamanistic beliefs, although many converted, at least nominally, to Orthodoxy after they became subjects of the Russian Empire. The ruler and the elite in Khazaria probably converted to Judaism sometime in the early ninth century. Kalmyks in the south and south-east of the Volga were Buddhists (the only Buddhists in Europe). The Bolgar state, the Golden Horse and the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan were, or became, Muslim. the Russian and Soviet states were conscious of the potential threat of Islam in the Volga region from the time of the conquest of Kazan in 1552. The history of the Volga is, in part, the history of (often forced) conversion to Orthodoxy by the Russian government and the reaction to this of the local inhabitants. In many cases, the conversion process was incomplete or, in the case of Islam, could be reversed. The remoteness of much of the Volga countryside attracted Old Believers — that is, schismatics from the Russian Orthodox Church who did not accept the changes in liturgy and practice in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Saturday assorted links
1. Memos related to the hiring of the “radical” economists at U. Mass Amherst, way back when. And Bobby Fischer video on what went wrong with chess.
2. The history of Earl Slick, sideman guitarist.
3. A Richmond series on how the guardianship process leaves vulnerable people unprotected.
6. Columbus vs. Columbo (what!!??). That’s the TV character, not Sri Lanka.
7. “Farmbake biscuits are smashed into crumbs, combined with milk and thrown in the microwave to create fluffy chocolate “jail cake”.” Not the only thing they make in NZ prison, a new home for yogurt entrepreneurship.
Let’s all have a revisionist Fourth of July
That is the theme of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
Revisionist history serves many useful purposes, and for the most part it should be encouraged — even though many particular revisionist claims turn out to be wrong. The natural human state of affairs is a kind of complacency and acceptance of the status quo. If historians sometimes write a bit too sharply or speculatively to capture the audience’s attention, it is a price worth paying. At any rate, the audience tends not to take them literally or to pay close attention to their more detailed claims.
And:
The problem is that the revisionism isn’t diverse enough. A few issues — most of all those raised by Critical Race Theory — get caught up in the culture wars and are debated above all others. I agree that we should devote more time and attention to America’s disgraceful history of slavery and race relations, and I have incorporated that into my own teaching.
Still, other matters are being neglected. The longer trajectory of U.S. foreign policy is hardly debated, or what that history should mean for current decisions. There is plenty of carping about “the deep state,” but actual history has fallen down a memory hole, including the history of U.S. intelligence agencies.
It gets worse yet. According to one recent survey, 63% of the American public is not aware that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Ten percent had not heard of the Holocaust at all. Or consider the treatment of Native Americans, which was terrible and produced few heroes. Yet American soul-searching on this history seems to be minimal.
America needs revisionism, more of it please, and on timely and controversial topics. But it also needs less politicized and more intellectually diverse interpretations of its history. On this Fourth of July, what America needs is not the promotion of some particular claim of historical hypocrisy, but the elevation of the historical itself.
Recommended, and have a happy Fourth!
U.S. Citizenship exam from 1944
Here is one sample question:
Which of the following states seceded during the Civil War?
The choices are Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Florida.
Or try this one:
What evidence is required for a citizen to be convicted of treason?
The options are:
— It varies by state
— Nothing beyond what is needed to convict an ordinary crime
— The testimony of two eyewitnesses or a open confession in court
— The testimony of two eyewitnesses and an open confession in court
Here is the full Bloomberg piece by David Shipley. There are many more questions — how many would you get?
Friday assorted links
1. “Given these results, we show that it may be optimal to visit restaurants in a zigzag that alternates between high- and low-quality choices.” I am not endorsing that one!
2. Jordan Schneider podcast has Larry Summers on China.
3. Is your “aha!” moment actually the announcement of a meta-cognition prediction error?
4. Long Twitter thread on Maimonides.
5. Immunological dark matter hypothesis is being revived. And what might the Delta wave look like in the U.S.?
6. Louis Andriessen, RIP (NYT): “Mr. Andriessen wrote that in Mr. Greenaway’s films, “I recognize something of my own work, namely the combination of intellectual material and vulgar directness.””
Haiti fact of the day
Democratic governance is eroding in Haiti, but through an unusual mechanism — an ongoing diminution [The Economist] in the number of federally elected officials:
Today there are only 11 nationally-elected officials, including him [Jovenel Moïse].
A parliamentary election had been scheduled for October 2019, but it was never held. The current president refers to himself as “Après Dieu” [second only to God], and also “Banana Man,” as he is a former plantation manager. Solve for the equilibrium.
Market fragmentation can boost liquidity
We model a simple market setting in which fragmentation of trade of the same asset across multiple exchanges improves allocative efficiency. Fragmentation reduces the inhibiting effect of price-impact avoidance on order submission. Although fragmentation reduces market depth on each exchange, it also isolates cross-exchange price impacts, leading to more aggressive overall order submission and better rebalancing of unwanted positions across traders. Fragmentation also has implications for the extent to which prices reveal traders’ private information. While a given exchange price is less informative in more fragmented markets, all exchange prices taken together are more informative.
That is a new American Economic Review piece by Daniel Chen and Darrell Duffie. My slight rewording of their argument is this: with market fragmentation, you can split up your order across exchanges and thus submit more total orders, with less fear of the prices moving against you. Fair enough, but what does this mean for the supposed greater efficiency of a single medium of exchange? Might there be reasons why a multitude of exchange/payment media, including foreign currencies and crypto, could give you further liquidity?
#NewMonetaryEconomics
*Syndromes and a Century* (with spoilers, but the movie is not about suspense)
By Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, this film pushes the idea that modernity is the truly strange phenomenon, not ancient religion or what we like to call pre-modern times. The pre-modern is represented by the two monks in their orange robes, and their direct, down-to-earth manner. The supposedly modern is represented by various doctors in their white suit coats, which look suspiciously like the robes of the monks. Only that the orange is much more pleasant. The monks are repeatedly puzzled by their interactions with the modernized Thai medical establishment, which, as it turns out, has taken ritual to new and unprecedentedly baroque and artificial heights.
The contemporary world is shown in ever stranger terms, from a variety of perspectives, whether the subject be power plants or artificial limbs, monks flying a toy spaceship, or a pipe sucking in steam, shaped suspiciously like an elephant’s trunk, albeit without the dignity. The ritual dance closing the film — held in park with a boom box and people in shorts — seems senseless and without meaning.
And yes, the contemporary world is more rationalistic in a variety of ways, but why not look at the true human fundamentals — life and death — as represented by the world of medicine, to see if that rationalism holds up? Alas.
Is there any director better at making you rethink the modern world and see its fundamental strangeness than Apichatpong Weerasethakul? You need to try Uncle Boonmee too.
I saw this one with Nabeel! And on the big screen (we rented out a theater). And he sent me this interesting review of the movie.
Thursday assorted links
2. New youngest chess grandmaster in history is 12 years old and lives in New Jersey. Father is a software engineer, Indian background.
3. Today’s central bank digital currency status. And Timothy Taylor on CBDC.
5. Forthcoming book: We Have Never Been Woke, looks great, sign up to receive notification of pre-order!
6. Mishnah on the Cowen-Deutsch CWT.
7. ““You’re never going to beat a kid’s adrenaline rush off a riot. You’re not going to stop them,” says Michael Logan, an 18-year-old who works part-time at Townsend Outreach Centre, a youth centre off the loyalist stronghold of the Shankill Road.” (FT link)