Category: Web/Tech
My secret blog
Soon you will hear more about my secret blog. Here is my previous post on secret blogs.
Prospect magazine has a new blog
1. So far it is very interesting.
2. And the very very smart Jason Furman is guest-blogging over at Free Exchange.
3. And Brad DeLong directs us to the invaluable Lingua Franca archives.
The best business blogs
This list is from The (UK) Times. They pick an atypical quotation from MR, but I suppose it will make happy a few aggrieved yet comment-ready readers…
We thank David for the pointer.
Nordic model
A new blog, the topic is obvious, hat tip to New Economist. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. No matter what your politics, contemporary northern Europe represents a high point in human civilization. If you’re not deeply interested in the region, you should be. If you haven’t visited, you must. Go, go, go. Travel is the starting point of learning social science.
Addendum: Elsewhere Meghan O’Rourke notes: "It’s telling, for example, that in Scandinavia, where attitudes toward gender are more egalitarian, both men and women wear engagement rings."
Assorted links
1. Some economic benefits of gay marriage, via Richard Florida
2. Why it is hard to catch diseases through air travel, plus a defense of the TB guy who got on the plane
3. European writings on economics, a new web site
4. Why are there so many dumb blonde jokes? Bob Frank says maybe blondes are smarter but less educated
The private provision of public goods
Here is a bizarre story, especially for traditional public finance economists. Public.Resource.Org takes non-copyrighted documents that the federal government charges the public for and puts them into the public domain. Not much is available now but the service wants to make available for free all of the millions of documents, videos and other material from National Technical Information Service. To build their library Public.Resource.Org are asking people who want a government document to buy it through their service. They will then make the document available to everyone else for free.
Public goods that the government charges for brought to you at P=MC by a private firm. We live in a great world.
Addendum: I was pleased to see that Hal Varian is on the board of directors.
Surface computing
Check out this very cool new computer input device.
Markets in everything — roundup edition
1. $1 million for prostitutes who will out their Congressional customers
2. Getting you through phone links to a real human being
3. Or rent a new credit score
4. Blockbuster movies backed by bonds
5. Insurance against losing your Michelin star
What a day. Hail Gerard Debreu! Hail the MR readers who sent these in! I didn’t even have to pay them…
Assorted links
1. Alan Sandstrom reviews my book on the Mexican amate painters
2. Lynne Kiesling defends cap and trade for CO2 emissions; in favor of carbon taxes see here and here is a "not much difference" point of view.
3. Outsourcing your personal life
4. Our evil spawn: Kevin Grier, last week’s guestblogger, is now blogging (regularly?) over with Mike Munger.
Assorted links
1. The perils of underpaying doctors and dentists
2. Feature creep, by James Surowiecki
4. Book reviews by Herbert Gintis; see #2 in particular on heterodox economics.
These round-up posts are hard to do from Norway, easy to do from home.
Guest Blogger: Bob Hormats
We are very pleased to have Bob Hormats guest blogging at MR this week. Bob is currently vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International). Bob has extensive experience in finance and politics having served in the State
Department as assistant secretary of state for economic and business
affairs, ambassador and deputy U.S. trade representative, and senior deputy assistant secretary for economic and
business affairs, among other positions.
Bob’s latest book is The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars, a superb history of wartime fiscal policy and a warning that entitlement programs and war spending are pushing America towards fiscal catastrophe.
Welcome Bob!
Freedomain
My high school friend, Stefan Molyneux, is the host of a very successful daily podcast, Freedomain Radio! If you are interested in anarchism, atheism, Ayn Rand and mental health [insert joke here], check it out.
George Borjas is blogging
Here goes, the pointer is from Dani Rodrik. Borjas, of course, is the Harvard economist who has estimated the effect of immigration on U.S. wages. Here is Borjas on the new immigration bill.
Where did blogs come from?
Seth Roberts tells us, with some excerpts from my email with him. Julio Cortazar is important because he tried to write a novel — Hopscotch — that could be read in either of two sequences, or more. Similarly, a blog should make sense whether read from start to finish, every day, or finish to start. That imposes both constraints and opportunities…
Levitt Speaks the Truth
Steve Levitt says "forget about Marginal Revolution," he has a new source for insightful commentary. I have to admit, Steve makes a good case.
Addendum: Dubner, however, is still a believer.