1. Deborah Weiss used to ask me about this.

2. http://supervillainornewt.com

3. Caplan reviews Bauman.

4. The Austro-Chinese business cycle, from Krugman, and from Bloomberg.

5. What has changed in the climate change debate, and Ireland yes but not only.

1. John Gray and many others try to redesign the banknotes, slide through the show.  Some are quite good.  Here is the one from Audrey Niffenegger.

2. More on the euro carry trade, note I am not an optimist on this, I simply note it is a plan of sorts.  Via Interfluidity, here is lots on financial repression, important read.

3. Zizek on Coriolanus, and my 2006 blog post on the individual mandate.

4. “There are even allegations that the Ukrainian justice minister’s official car was illegally appropriated in Germany…A number of years ago, the Ukrainian government decreed that the state could sell confiscated cars that were stolen in other countries or add them to its motor pool. This even applies when the vehicles are on an Interpol list. In other words, Justice Minister Lavrynovych wouldn’t even be violating Ukrainian laws by driving a car that was stolen in Germany.”  Story here.

5. Tumbleweed markets in everything.

If you Google “Peter Temin economics of antiquity,” the book seems to exist (Princeton University Press 2011?), but none of the clickthroughs seem to yield anything.  I call them Google ghost books.  If PUP clears this up, I am happy to pass along the answer.  The mere fact that I would Google this at random suggests there is a strong demand for the book, from me at least.

In the meantime, here is Peter on financial intermediation in the early Roman empire (pdf).

Addendum: I am told that a real, non-ghost book will come out in the Fall of 2012, exciting news.

“In assassinations, there are gradations of respect,” said Gladki. “The lowest is strangling. If you strangle someone, it is a sign of severe disrespect.” Using a pistol, he said, is “50/50” – kind of an OK, but not brilliant way to be killed. “And then there is the Kalashnikov. To be shot by a Kalashnikov assault rifle is the ultimate form of respect. It is a very good death for a Russian.”

From the same FT article, “Who Runs Russia?”, don’t forget this:

Indeed, the basic functions of organised crime – protection rackets, narcotics, extortion and prostitution, have increasingly been assumed by the Russian state.

1. How Neanderthal how are you?

2. How much do top chess players earn?

3. How the “Sarko trade” is bailing out Spain, and Interfluidity on same general topic.

4. The Indian “missed call.”

5. Is big business more innovative these days than small?

Somewhat, it seems.  Plamen Nikolov, a job candidate from Harvard, reports (pdf):

AIDS treatment provides enormous mortality benets to infected individuals but because it immunologically insulates people from more risk-taking, it could, in theory, stir perverse behavioral responses. Therefore, the response of sexual behavior to AIDS treatment in Africa is an important input to predicting the path of the epidemic. Existing estimates from observational studies suggest limited behavioral response, but they fail to take into account possible differences across individuals seeking treatment. Using an encouragement design field experiment conducted in South Africa, I estimate behavioral responses subsequent to AIDS treatment. I find moderate negative responses to treatment for HIV + individuals and mixed results for HIV

Coffee shops around the world have employed loyalty card schemes for many years, but now we’ve come across an interesting twist on the idea. In Singapore, a collaborate scheme aims to benefit eight of the city’s best independent cafés with the Be Disloyal disloyalty card.

The Be Disloyal disloyalty card — created by digital creative agency Antics, blogger Cortadito.sg and eight of Singapore’s independent coffee shops — was designed to encourage consumers to discover different coffee venues while bringing businesses together to grow as a vertical. From September until the end of this month customers can pick up a disloyalty card from one of the eight participating cafés. The card is stamped each time they purchase a coffee from one of the other seven cafés and, once the card is full, they return to the original café to receive their free coffee.

Competing with large chain brands can be difficult for small businesses, but teaming up with similar smaller companies can create stronger competition. Inspiration here for independent businesses in any industry!

The link is here and for the pointer I thank @amelapay, and more from her here.

1. A theory of flattery inflation.

2. Censored Mother Goose.

3. “Sheep can do better,” and dolphin-whale cooperation, and taxi auction markets in everything.

4. Long article on on-line, for-profit education; how much of it is arbitraging public school dollars?

5. There is no great stagnation (with music).

6. A survey of the Target2 debate and its importance.

A suburban Chicago high school fundraising to save a popular arts center is motivating students to donate with an earsplitting incentive: pay up and they’ll stop blasting Justin Bieber’s “Baby” during passing periods.

Evanston Township High School seniors Charlotte Runzel and Jesse Chatz convinced school administrators to let them play the popstar’s biggest hit over the loudspeakers for one week, or until they’d raised $1,000, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Within three days, students had coughed up enough cash to silence the Canadian singer’s repetitive single.

The article is here, and for the pointer I thank the excellent Lawrence Rothfield.

1. Excellent fictional saga of a ZMP worker.

2. Model this, I call it the best and deepest game of hockey ever.  Seriously.

3. Smallest frogs, tinier than a penny, newly discovered.

4. blog.pundittracker.com.

5. Reasons for a poor black kid to get pregnant.

6. Robert Frank should go after Facebook.

1. Amazon rewards shoppers who report on high prices elsewhere; lots of people hate them for this.

2. Noah Millman on health care expenditures.

3. The rise of the NBA black nerd?

4. Daron Acemoglu on inequality, interview by Sophie Roell.

5. Via Chris F. Masse, Emmanuel Todd on Germany (in French), and the real reason France is in trouble (in English).

1. “Sorry, I can’t spread my fingers the way you Vulcans do!”

2. A TGS/cryonics cartoon.

3. Spiral of death, ho hum, drunks, lampposts, etc..

4. Japanese markets in everything, and Irish betting odds on woolly mammoth cloning.

5. What does it mean to discover the Higgs particle?, and further opinions here.

6. More on the Target2 debates and whether European monetary policy, and collateral practices, will collapse.

1. A simple solution to the eurozone crisis?  And how the solution in place is supposed to work.

2. More on whether Hungary will become a fascist state, and some background here, and today Krugman on Hungary.

3. Joseph Stiglitz on the Great Depression, and today, with a bit of PSST.

4. Is this relationship movie-like or idea-like?

5. Can lawyers figure out what is a structural deficit?  And what has been the deficit history so far?  Doesn’t Bengt Holmstrom’s 1982 paper, “Moral Hazard in Teams,” imply there is a problem here?

This concerns state legislatures, and the paper is from Noel Campbell and David Mitchell:

As political power is consolidated in either party, economic freedom increases. This is consistent with a model wherein the median voter has effective agency control with positive monitoring costs and prefers a particular level of so-called economic freedom. These results are inconsistent with Leviathan models of state legislatures.

In other words, in this setting divided government is leading to greater government power rather than limiting it.  Could the same be true at the federal level as well?

Hat tip goes to Kevin Lewis.