John Kay on climate change
In the Financial Times today or on John’s website.
US President George W. Bush made four assertions: there are large uncertainties about the science and the economics; the Kyoto agreement would involve large costs and negligible benefits for the US; proposals to deal with greenhouse gas emissions that exclude developing countries are ineffective; and that research and development on new technologies should take priority over expenditure for meeting emissions reduction targets. It pains me to say it but on all points Mr Bush is right.
If we accept that the risk of a greenhouse effect is large enough to demand action, the question is: what sort of action?
Greenhouse gas emissions are cumulative; it seems likely that more good will come of stopping the flow entirely later than slightly slowing it now. If only the faddish short-term fixes (such as offshore wind farms) were likely to lead to longer-term solutions (such as nuclear fusion, or solar after three more decades of Moore’s Law-type progress) – we wouldn’t have to make difficult choices today.
My favorite things Peruvian
My list will not be so informed as one of Tyler’s but I was pleasantly surprised to find that with a little thought I could come up with some credible items.
Literature: Mario Vargas Llosa – an easy pick. The War of the End of the World is his masterpiece – an epic in the style of Hugo and Tolstoy, filled with religion, fanaticism, obsession and violence. If Vargas Llosa were a leftist he would have won the Nobel by now but he is a classical liberal. For lighter reading try Aunt Julia and the ScriptWriter or his tale of running for the Peruvian presidency, A Fish in the Water.
Movie: Motorcycle Diaries has some great shots of Machu Picchu and is not without interest but even if it didn’t romanticize an authoritarian it is too slow and unsophisticated to be a great film. Thus, I am going to cheat a little and go with Touching the Void which takes place in the Peruvian Andes. As I wrote earlier it is "a harrowing, awe-inspiring, true-story of two climbers made into a great movie/documentary. Aside from the sheer entertainment value, very sheer in this case, the move has a lot to say about the diversity of preferences, the will to survive and believe it or not, how to achieve goals."
Music: Susana Baca, the best of black Peruvian music. Once nearly lost, this music is now popular in Peru and is earnings worldwide recognition, in part due to the promotional efforts of David Byrne and his LuAka Bop label.
Art: I confess to liking the amazing sex pots (nsfw) of the Moche. Produced some 1500 years ago by the Moche civilization these erotic ceramics depict all manner of sexual act including oral sex, anal sex, threesomes, homosexuality and more – a real sextravaganza. Many were destroyed when the Spanish inquisition came to Peru. Others were hidden away in the basement of museums as objects not fit to be shown or even acknowledged.
Alfred Kinsey introduced the sex pots to the West in 1954 writing that the Moche artifacts were "the most frank and detailed document of sexual customs ever left by an ancient people.” Hilariously, quite a few archaeologists at the time argued that the pots were symbolic warnings about what not to do!
Aside from prurient interest, I think the pottery is a fascinating demonstration of how variable are society’s sexual conventions yet how immutable is human nature – tell me, for example, that this guy ain’t proud!
Caption headlines from The Straits Times
"Is Hitler Cool? Not if you know of the atrocities the Nazi leader (above [reference to photo]) committed during World War II."
That is p.2 from the 26 July edition.
Virginia Postrel on economic sociology
Most sociology departments now offer courses in economic sociology, which were nearly unheard of 10 or 15 years ago. Business schools are snapping up Ph.D.s, offering salaries twice those of sociology departments.
Here is the link to the full story.
Why are there airline delays?
Austin Goolsbee writes in Slate.com:
Mayer and Sinai’s study also identified the real culprit: the deliberate overscheduling of flights at peak periods by major airlines trying to increase the amount of connecting traffic at their hub airports. Major airlines like United, Delta, and American use a hub-and-spoke model as a way to offer consumers more flight choices and to save money by centralizing operations. Most of the traffic they send through a hub is on the way to somewhere else. (Low-cost carriers, on the other hand, typically carry passengers from one point to another without offering many connections.) Overscheduling at the hubs can’t explain all delays–weather and maintenance problems also contribute. But nationally, about 75 percent of flights go in or out of hub airports, making overscheduling the most important factor…
To cut down on delays, all Continental and American need to do at Newark and O’Hare respectively is to spread flights throughout the day. Continental does just that at O’Hare, because that airport isn’t its hub. Without many connecting passengers to worry about, the airline studiously avoids the congested departure periods. But the hub carriers would lose passengers and money if they did this. Spreading out flights would leave some connecting passengers with long layovers, and everyone in the travel business knows that people won’t pay as much for those tickets. Most people have a hard time figuring out which flights are leaving at overscheduled times, so they tend to avoid tickets that already have long delays built into them.
How can you avoid getting stuck on a late-leaving flight out of O’Hare? You’ve got three alternatives. If you are flying on a dominant carrier out of its hub, you can try to fly at a quiet time of day. To figure out when that is, you can download the airline’s timetable from its Web site to check when flights to other cities are scheduled to leave. You could also fly on an airline that doesn’t use O’Hare as a hub or on a low-cost carrier, both of which tend to avoid the crowded periods. Your last option is to take a deep breath and thank your airline for having so many connecting flights for you. If you’re delayed, you’re just paying the price of access to all those convenient choices.
Here is the full analysis.
Should Londoners abandon public transport?
Collectively, of course not. But for the selfish individual is it worthwhile? It turns out that the quarterly road deaths in London last year averaged 54. 52 people were murdered in the July 7th attacks (and four times more people travel by tube or bus than drive, cycle or walk). Leaving public transport is only going to be safer if the terrorists strike much more often in future.
How likely is that? Since we were all told that attacks were inevitable in the end, the horrible fact that they finally happened shouldn’t really change our estimate of the chance that they will happen again. Experiences in New York and Madrid suggest that a sustained campaign is hard. Let’s hope so.
Aside: Gary Becker and Yona Rubinstein have a paper on the response to the fear of attacks. It seems that defying terrorists is a fixed cost, willingly paid by frequent users of planes, buses or cafes but declined by casual users. That accords with my experience: I have no worries about returning to live in London permanently, but am pleased that my baby daughter will be travelling in a car on our imminent visit.
Kierkegaard and Dubai
One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one’s native land and goes abroad; one is europemuede [weary of Europe] and goes to America etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star. Or there is another direction, but still extensive. One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold; one burns down half of Rome in order to visualize the Trojan conflagration. This method cancels itself and is the spurious infinity…
The method I propose…consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops. Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes. A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement.
Two points: a) mid-19th century Denmark cannot have been so much fun, and b) it is time to move on to Singapore…
By the way, that quotation is from "Rotation of Crops," in Either/Or.
Scholars versus Activists
Scholars seek the truth, activists already know the truth. Activists don’t like questioning, debate or independent research. Consider how Dennis Durbin and Flaura Winston, two activists at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who have published research on child car seats, react to Steve Levitt’s work:
Their [Levitt and Dubner] conclusions stand in stark contrast to the existing body of
scientific data that support current child restraint recommendations,
and are, in our opinion, irresponsible and dangerous….We hope that this misleading article does not cost a child his life.
This is not science this is a threat – anyone who questions us or our research is putting children in danger. Back off or we will tar you as monsters.
Contrast this approach with that of a scholar interested in truth:
What is more puzzling to me is why my results and Heaton’s both suggest
very little injury benefit of car seats, but the medical literature
often finds 70% (!!) reductions of injuries with car seats relative to
seat belts. We find reductions that are an order of magnitude smaller.
They use very different methods — surveying people in the weeks after
crashes for instance — but still it is really a puzzle. Which is why,
when you read my paper, I am extremely cautious in interpreting the
injury findings.I hope that the medical researchers, Heaton,
and I can all work together to try to make some sense of the
conflicting results being generated by these different methodologies to
resolve this important question.
Of course Steve doesn’t need my help, as always the data is his best defense.
Medicare Incentives
A superb article on Medicare from the WashPost nailed a key problem:
In Medicare’s upside-down reimbursement system, hospitals and doctors
who order unnecessary tests, provide poor care or even injure patients
often receive higher payments than those who provide efficient,
high-quality medicine.
Read the whole thing, data, graphs, and good analysis, here.
Will Dubai become a major tourist center?
Chris Masse posed me this question. Here are some reasons why not:
1. The city is unwalkable.
2. The temperature can hit 120 in summer, with humidity of up to 90 percent.
3. Much of the place resembles Las Vegas but without casinos. You can’t even access www.tradesports.com.
4. Most of the modern buildings are ugly or at best mediocre.
5. Most items are no cheaper here than in the United States.
6. Few people are interested in studying economically fertile but politically dystopian Blade Runner-like scenarios.
7. It is more fun for men than for women.
On the other side:
1. Many of the visitors and potential visitors hold a different aesthetic than do North Americans. They admire the city’s aspirational qualities for its own sake and care less about traditional beauty in the sense of European high culture. Some would call them "tacky." Others would say that observing an Arab success is worthy on its own terms.
2. Retail space per capita is four times that of the United States.
3. I am told it is only a ninety minute flight from Karachi.
The bottom line: Yes, Dubai will become a major tourist center.
Markets in everything: Virtual sweatshops
We’ve known for some time that online games have spawned markets where virtual assets go for real dollars. What’s the implication? Profit opportunities for anyone willing to put together high-tech capital and low-cost labor from places such as China, Indonesia and Romania:
Rich Thurman earned $100,000 by farming 9 billion gold in Ultima
Online… Thurman says he had "up to
30 PCs running at once, automatically collecting gold for me."
That is the first step. It isn’t too difficult from there to make the
leap into creating your own sweatshop. All you need is the ability to
write game macros or the money to purchase them. That’s right, if you
know where to look, they are on the open market. A macro that uses a
teleportation exploit in WOW is currently going for $3,000. Then just
hire cheap labor to monitor the bots.
The full story is at the gaming site 1UP, and worth browsing. The tip from Edward Castronova at Terra Nova. Castronova studies the economics and sociology of virtual worlds – read his most famous paper.
Guest Blogger: Tim Harford
As I search for enlightenment in Peru, Tim Harford will be enlightening readers of Marginal Revolution. Tim writes the Dear Economist column for the Financial Times. He is also an economist with the International Finance Corporation, co-author of the excellent primer on foreign aid, The Market for Aid, and author of the forthcoming The Undercover Economist. I am looking forward to reading the Undercover Economist of which Steve Levitt says:
The Undercover Economist is a rare specimen: a book on economics that
will enthrall its readers. Beautifully written and argued, it brings
the power of economics to life. This book should be required reading
for every elected official, business leader, and university student.
MR readers are in for a treat this week!
Mike Davis on Dubai
Yes, he is the one who visits Los Angeles and thinks of labor unions. Here is his take on Dubai. Consider this bit:
The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel’s famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft…
After Shanghai (current population: 15 million), Dubai (current population: 1.5 million) is the world’s biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what locals dub "supreme lifestyles."
Dozens of outlandish mega-projects — including "The World" (an artificial archipelago), Burj Dubai (the Earth’s tallest building), the Hydropolis (that underwater luxury hotel, the Restless Planet theme park, a domed ski resort perpetually maintained in 40C heat, and The Mall of Arabia, a hyper-mall — are actually under construction or will soon leave the drawing boards.
OK, that is 2010 he is writing about, but it will happen and soon. Funny thing is, Davis doesn’t even seem to like the place. Thanks to Boing Boing for the pointer.
Bestseller lists in UAE
Fiction:
1. The da Vinci Code (in English)
2-9. All in English, four more Dan Brown titles plus Paulo Coelho, etc.
10. The da Vinci Code (in Arabic)
Non-fiction:
1. Easiest Way to Learn Arabic
The bottom line: English is the number one language here, and the natives truly are a minority.
Sundry observations about Dubai
1. My very chatty and friendly Pakistani barber, while holding a razor to my throat, asked me to pledge that we would continue an email correspondence for the rest of our lives. Every sentence he referrered to me as "Very Great Boss," and repeatedly expressed his satisfaction that I was not one of those "two-assed men" who are otherwise so common. Imagine Borat with Eric Idle-like intonations. But you know, I still am not sure if he was weird.
2. If they promise you a "surprise desert tour," be warned it will involve scaling (and descending) a fifty-foot high sand dune with a four-wheel drive at full speed. No matter what they tell you, this is not fun. Afterwards the driver spoke: "We have accidents (pause)…but not so many casualities [sic]. The vehicles roll over, but the sand is soft."
3. If you want to find heavily veiled women (not hard to do), the easiest way is to visit the fancy shopping malls and head directly for the make-up counter.
4. I am told that the dowry for the average (native) Dubai woman is now running about $150,000. Many Dubai men are substituting into foreign women.
5. The "traditional" belly dance was done by a Russian woman; Dubai women are no longer allowed to do such things in public.