Category: Uncategorized

Update on Greece

by  Tyler Cowen in

… the Greek government has imposed a moratorium on all outlays other than salaries and pensions, according to Greek newspaper Kathimerini. This means that primary spending, the public investment programme and the settlement of arrears have been halted.

…If the troika does not grant the Greek government any concessions on its bailout programme, it is highly likely that the two junior parties—the Democratic Left and Pasok—will drop out of government. This would precipitate fresh elections, the third for this year alone.

If you are Greek, when is actually the optimal time to simply stop paying your bills?

That is from Megan Greene, there is more at the link.

The benefits of learning a second language

by  Tyler Cowen in

Bryan has had a few recent posts criticizing the notion of multilingualism for (most) Americans.  As a general advocate of learning foreign languages, I have a few points in response:

1. There is a sizable literature on the cognitive benefits of bilingualism.  I get nervous when I see the topic discussed without reference to the main claimed benefits.

2. I believe that good fluency in a second or third language significantly expands one’s ability to see and understand and also articulate other points of view.  And most of the very great thinkers of the past were fluent or semi-fluent in multiple languages.  By teaching other languages at an early age, we can make our most productive thinkers deeper and more productive.

3. Ideally foreign languages can be taught to individuals when they are young, well before high school, thus very much lowering the opportunity cost of such instruction.  Just toss out some of the other material, making sure to keep mathematics and English literacy.  Most of Western Europe does this quite well, and I hardly think of those children as miserable.  I don’t see why this has to cost anything at all.

4. I am reasonably sympathetic to the “we’re so uncommitted to this notion we’ll never see it through so let’s not bother trying” response to my attitude.  (In particular it is harder for Americans to get within-culture reinforcement for language learning in the way that Europeans so often do, either from American popular culture or from crossing a nearby border.)  Yet that’s a far cry from believing it would actually be a mistake to invest resources in that direction, if indeed we would see it through.

Here is one stimulating discussion of the topic, in English of course.

What is the most underrated innovation of the last one hundred years?

by  Tyler Cowen in

That was another question I was asked.

I find it difficult to compare the “ratings” of early 20th century innovations to the ratings of innovations today, since it is often different audiences doing the admiring, or lack thereof.

For the most underrated innovations of the last one hundred years I might pick the insights of Alan Turing, various developments in electrical engineering including better transformers, or the nitrogen-fertilizer connection, noting that in some quarters there is already plenty of recognition for each of these, Turing in particular.  But still not enough!

As for contemporary innovations, I see an underrated one as Amazon’s warehousing and shipping practices.  It will mean the death of much of retail and transform our suburban physical spaces into something quite…????.   Into something, in any case.  I am a social networking optimist, and think it has largely beneficial effects on social mores, but I also see it as having peaked at a near-saturation point.

Here is a good video on “Amazon yesterday shipping.”

Sin: The Price is Not Right

by  Alex Tabarrok

Here is an excellent New York Times story on payments to firms that destroy HFC-23, a by product from the creation of air conditioning coolant. The gas is 11,700 times worse for climate change than C02 so the UN set a price for destroying the gas 11,700 times higher than for eliminating C02. N.B. In a real market prices are based on supply and demand not just demand! Hi jinx ensue:

…since 2005 the 19 plants receiving the waste gas payments have profited handsomely from an unlikely business: churning out more harmful coolant gas so they can be paid to destroy its waste byproduct. The high output keeps the prices of the coolant gas irresistibly low, discouraging air-conditioning companies from switching to less-damaging alternative gases.

…The production of coolants was so driven by the lure of carbon credits for waste gas that in the first few years more than half of the plants operated only until they had produced the maximum amount of gas eligible for the carbon credit subsidy, then shut down until the next year, United Nations reports said. The plants also used inefficient manufacturing processes to generate as much waste gas as possible…

The invisible hand is subtle and difficult to duplicate with manufactured markets. The UN is trying to stop the payment program but, as usual, the rents attracted rent seekers who are now using their profits to lobby to keep the system in place.

In other offset news, Ted Frank’s chicken offset will let you eat at Chick-fil-A and still keep your liberal conscience clean.

H/t: Carl Danner.

*The New New Deal*

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the new book about ARRA and fiscal stimulus, by Michael Grunwald, available here with the subtitle The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era.  Excerpt:

…it was an astonishingly big bill,  In constant dollars, it was more than 50 percent bigger than the entire New Deal, twice as big as the Louisiana Purchase and Marshall Plan combined.  As multibillion-dollar items were being erased and inserted with casual keystrokes, Obama aides who had served under President Bill Clinton occasionally paused to recall their futile push for a mere $19 billion stimulus that seemed impossibly huge in 1993, or their vicious internal battles over a few million bucks for beloved programs that suddenly seemed too trivial to discuss.

Critics of ARRA will not agree with everything in this book, but putting mood affiliation aside for a moment, the writing, research, and conception of the work are all excellent.