Results for “best book” 1948 found
The ice trade
By the 1830s ice had become a very profitable American export. In 1833 American ice was being shipped as far as Calcutta, when the Tuscany, which had sailed from Boston on May 12, reached the mouth of the Ganges on September 5. Calcutta, one of the hottest and most humid cities on earth, and then the capital of British India, was ninety miles up the Hooghly River, and the population awaited the ice with breathless anticipation. The India Gazette demanded that the ice be admitted duty free and that permission be granted to unload the ice in the cool of the evening. Authorities quickly granted the demands. Frederic Tudor managed to get about a hundred tons of ice to Calcutta, and the British there gratefully bought it all at a profit for the American investors of about $10,000.
By the 1850s American ice was being exported regularly to nearly all tropical ports, including Rio de Janeiro, Bombay, Madras, Hong Kong, and Batavia (now Jakarta). In 1847 about twenty-three thousand tons of ice was shipped out of Boston to foreign ports on ninety-five ships, while nearly fifty-two thousand tons was shipped to southern American ports.
That is from John Steele Gordon’s An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Power. This new book is the best single volume treatment of American economic history I have read, highly recommended. Here is a review, and note that the book’s perspective is Hamiltonian, not Jeffersonian.
And here is more on the ice trade. Here are good photos of the Norwegian ice trade, and yes they were exporters not importers.
Jail Mail
I edited a book, Changing the Guard, on private prisons and crime control. Last week I received an interesting letter from an expert in the field….a prisoner in Tennessee. Frankly, I was expecting a crank but in fact the prisoner, who shall remain anonymous, had a lot of intelligent things to say about how the prison system operates. Here is one observation:
A privately owned and publicly traded company like CCA has no incentive to rehabilitate criminals. It is in the best interests of the company for even more criminals to exist. Unfortunately, the same is true of government run prisons. And contrary to what you may have been told, prisoners are not paroled because they have indicated by their actions or behaviors while inside that they are less likely to reoffend; they are let go because the Parole Boards believe that will commit another crime. This way the prison lobbyists can then "prove" that parole doesn’t work. The Department of Corrections gets less money from paroled prisoners than it does for those kept inside. And also, "good" inmates are less trouble (less labor) than the trouble-makers, and so trouble-makers get released.
Good analysis. I hope, however, that he does not test his theory on how to gain early release.
Rock, paper, scissors — no longer just a game
The rules are simple: Two players count "1…2…3…Go!" and then offer up their hand in one of three ways: rock (clenched fist), paper (open, flat hand), or scissors (forefinger and middle finger form a ‘V’). The winner is decided according to the rules that rock blunts scissors (rock wins), scissors cut paper (scissors win), and paper covers rock (paper wins). If the weapons are the same, then the game is a tie.
Given the intransitive rankings, a player should try to feign randomness; a predictable strategy is beaten. Appearing more random than your opponent is in fact the only dimension of competition. Apparently many find this thrilling or at least humorous:
Rock Paper Scissors is evolving into something else entirely: a genuine, bona fide, almost legitimate sport…
The World Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Society – yep, there’s one of those, too – boasts 2,200 members. The winner of this year’s world championship was honored with a parade at Disney World. Simon & Schuster recently published an official strategy guide.
"I can think of five bars in the Dupont [Circle] area where you can find a money game, $1 to $20," Mr. Simmons says. "It’s the equivalent of pickup basketball."
Tonight [Friday], Fox Sports Net’s "Best Damn Sports Show Period" will feature an extended segment on October’s world championships, held in Toronto. A British-made RPS documentary film is due in January.
Read this account of gambit strategies; here are gambits in more depth, written by the reigning world champion, Master Roshambollah. Here are some faking strategies.
Style often corresponds to personality:
Paper is subtle, the choice of intellectual, passive-aggressive types. Scissors are devious, a tool of controlled malice. Rock is between-the-eyes intimidation, preferred by beginners and players who have been backed into a corner.
"People fall into patterns," Mr. Simmons [also known as Master R] said. "From my personal experience, women tend to open with scissors. There are some other tells I don’t want to go into. But I can see things in the shoulders and the forearm."
Here is the full story. Here is the world championship web site, which offers T-shirts and books, and of course the exact rules. Here is the on-line magazine. Here is an essay on how to coach the game. The game also has applications in evolutionary biology.
The bottom line: The game is interesting precisely because it is so difficult to be (or appear) random in critical moments. And being random universally only brings you to the middle of the pack. On the computational dimension of randomness, read this article.
Me-Too Two
Yesterday I introduced the gold-mine model. Today, I want to look at some solutions but also ask whether the model fits the pharmaceutical market.
Recall, the problem is that I discover a gold-mine, you undermine my profits by digging on nearby land. Society loses because instead of searching for another gold-mine you spend resources trying to exploit what has already been discovered. Applied to me-too drugs the idea is that firm A innovates and earns big profits, firms B,C,D try to imitate and grab some of the profits rather than search for innovations of their own.
In the gold-mine model one solution is to give the miner who first makes the discovery the mining rights on all nearby land. The miner won’t exploit these rights but will prevent others from wasting resources through undermining. How does this apply to me-too drugs? Critics of the pharmaceutical
industry will probably be upset to find that the analogous solution is to grant stronger patent rights. In particular, the problem with me-too drugs is companies investing resources in R&D that will end up producing a drug with similar effects through somewhat different means. If patent rights were broader then the costs of undermining would be higher and the me-too problem reduced.
Thus, me-too policy is patent policy and now we begin to see why the problem is complex. Broader patents, for example, have costs as well as benefits. Selden’s auto patent, for example, was originally held to be so broad that it almost finished Henry Ford. (For more examples see my paper Patent Theory versus Patent Law (email me if you can’t get access) or the new book Innovation and Its Discontents.)
Moreover, we have been assuming that the innovating firm strikes gold and then other firms rush onto nearby land. But that’s not the way most pharmaceutical innovation works. More often, there is some basic research, often done in a university lab, which suggests a possible drug target or mechanism. The research is public knowledge so a number of pharmaceutical firms begin the long slog of trying to turn an idea into a drug. Think of the original research as a prospector shouting "there’s gold in them thar hills," – the firms then rush into the hills to start researching/digging. One of them may strike gold first but the others are close behind.
The key point is that the R&D used to develop the me-too drugs was not spent to undermine the innovator it was spent in an effort to become the innovator. Think about it this way. Ten people are in a race to deliver a letter. Critics of me-too drugs complain that the runner coming in second is wasting society’s
time.
Now it is possible to have too many firms racing to be the innovator – perhaps we should only have 8 firms in the race not 10. But critics of me-too drugs don’t argue that there is too much R&D, which at least would be consistent, they argue that there is too little.
Although it is possible to have too much R&D, I find the argument especially difficult to believe in the pharmaceutical industry. First, even in the best scenario the returns to the innovating firm are less than the social returns so "too much" R&D may simply make up for this defect. Second, there are many positive externalities to drug research. A substantial fraction of the increase in life expectancy over the past thirty years has been due to pharmaceuticals and the value of this reduction in mortality is in the trillions. Third, research indicates that the R&D efforts of different firms is in fact complementary – when you drain your mine of water my costs of mining fall.
Tomorrow I will wrap up with some final comments, Why me-too for you may not be me-too for me.
Prizes for vaccines for the poor
One way to structure a vaccine comitment would be to guarantee a price of, say, $15-20 per person for the first 200-250 million people immunized, in exchange for a commitment from the developer to subsequently drop the price in the poorest countries to a modest markup over manufacturing cost. A commitment of this size would offer firms an opportunity for sales comparable to those available in commercial markets. It would be extremely cost-effective, saving more lives than virtually any imaginable health expenditure.
That is from Strong Medicine, by Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster. The authors have an excellent book and a noteworthy idea, but I have some worries.
Some poor countries, such as Ghana, have quasi-functional government. But other governments won’t allow this to proceed unhindered. Remember when some Nigerian states banned the polio vaccine for (supposedly) spreading sterility and AIDS? That is an extreme example, but how about this?
In Africa, for example, it is estimated that only between 2-15% of children slept under bed-nets in 2001-a simple, effective and proven method to prevent malaria.
If the cure for AIDS were a single glass of clean water, millions of the infected still would die.
This is why economic development is so hard and so resists formulaic treatment. Correcting any single screwed up incentive won’t bring as big a payoff as you might think, given how many other things are screwed up. We have to go one step at a time, but every step brings both short-term costs and political opposition, while not showing much in the way of immediate benefits.
Prizes work best when the prize-giver is aiming at a well-defined end, where success is easy to measure. This fits "inventing a malaria vaccine" better than "distributing a malaria vaccine." I would be willing to try this scheme, given the high upside returns. But it is quite possible we could go ten years or more without seeing much in the way of tangible results, even once something is invented.
The River Ganga
All along the Ganga [Ganges], the major problem of waste disposal has defied the best efforts of the Ganga Action Plan set up in 1986 to solve it. The diversion and treatment of raw sewage in the seven main cities was planned. In Varanasi however, the 17th century sewers, the inadequate capacity of the sewage works, the increased waterflow during the monsoons and the erratic electricity supply (essential for pumping) have all remained problems. In addition, although most Hindus are cremated, an estimated 45,000 uncremated or partially [sic] cremated bodies are put in the Ganga each year. A breed of scavenger turtles which dispose of rotting flesh was introduced down river but the turtles disappeared.
Surprisingly, although the Ganga may be one of the world’s most polluted rivers…scientists had discovered the river’s exceptional property in the last century. The cholera microbe did not survive 3 hrs in Ganga water whereas in distilled water it survived 24 hrs!
That is from the India Handbook, eighth edition, p.249, and here is a photo and some
America’s airlines are beset by higher fuel prices, cut-throat competition and costly labor agreements. The industry’s total profits, since its inception, are probably around zero. Now this: Through the 1990s, the average weight of Americans increased by 10 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The extra weight caused airlines to spend $275 million to burn 350 million more gallons of fuel in 2000 just to carry the additional weight of Americans, the federal agency estimated in a recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (fee req’d). The extra fuel burned also had an environmental impact, as an estimated 3.8 million extra tons of carbon dioxide were released into the air, according to the study. The full story is here. My take: The most persuasive explanation for the fattening of America in the past 25 years (two-thirds of adults are now overweight) is technology, including advances not just in computing but also food preparation. What we’re seeing now is what Edward Tenner would call a classic revenge effect, in which technological solutions create new problems–usually, problems requiring constant vigilance. Ed explores this at length in his marvelous book Why Things Bite Back. Medicare considers obesity an illness, but the costs and benefits haven’t adequately been explored. If obesity has this effect on airline fuel consumption, just think about driving! Look for OPEC to roll out a line of snack foods or soft drinks. My vote for best brand name: "Tank Up." First, full disclosure: Barbara Nitke is my friend. Barbara is an exquisitely sensitive photographer whose self-imposed mission is to record lovers at the precise moments when they exchange power, trust and intimacy. Her work (best exempified in her book Kiss of Fire) is not porn; her photos are tinged with sexuality but they’re rarely overtly sexual. On the other hand, they won’t be easy for everyone to look at. Often they depict dominance, submission and pain. Always they depict love. It’s not the naked bodies that jump out at you; it’s the naked souls. Barbara’s new show, Illuminata: Are You Curious?, opens on Thursday, November 11 at the Art At Large gallery in New York. If the photos aren’t to your taste, you can still go to support Barbara’s courageous lawsuit against John Aschcroft and the Communications Decency Act. Why has mustard in the United States improved so much, but ketchup has stayed largely the same? Why are some sectors more prone to innovation than others? What constrains innovation from the consumer side? Here is Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent account from The New Yorker. Here is an archive of his writings for the magazine; he is also author of the best-selling The Tipping Point. Check out Gladwell’s work if you don’t already know it. Acclaimed author Will Shetterly is auctioning the rights to be a character in his next novel. If you win this auction, you or a character with a name and description of your choosing will make a cameo appearance in The Secret Academy, a novel that will be published by Tor Books. I’m Will Shetterly, award-winning author of novels and short stories. My best-praised book, Dogland, was called “A masterwork (that) deserves the widest possible audience” by Ellen Kushner, host of National Public Radio’s “Sound & Spirit.” Publisher’s Weekly said it was “A deceptively simple story, rich with complex characters and timeless themes.” And Kirkus called it, “Compelling, absorbing, hard-edged work, lit by glimpses of another, more fantastic reality … child-centered but tackling adult themes fearlessly and with great charm.” I can’t promise that this book will be as good as Dogland. If you want to peek at what it looks like so far, I’m posting the current draft in installments at: http://secretacademy.blogspot.com Your role may be brief, but I’ll do my best to make it memorable. The book is set around 1970, so you may have to be modified for the sake of the story. (It was a dangerous time for hair; be warned!) Most likely, you’ll end up being a student or a teacher. I wouldn’t make you an unlikeable character without getting your permission in writing first. (Alas, it’s not a melodrama, so you can’t be a villain, which is the part I would want in someone else’s book. Maybe another writer will provide the opportunity if this auction does well.)
Thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing Blog for the tip. The Louvre Museum yesterday swallowed its pride as it welcomed potential American benefactors for an inaugural official tour of paintings featured in Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller, The Da Vinci Code. It is a telling concession to popular culture that reflects the intense financial pressure facing l’exception culturelle, the idea that France and the French language can hold their own against Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism. Until now, the Louvre’s official position on The Da Vinci Code had been disdainful. “None of our curators will talk about the book. It’s a work of fiction and we don’t see it as our job to discuss it,” a press officer said last week. Like many French museums, the Louvre, which only started seeking sponsorship last year, is running to catch up with its global rivals as it weans itself off state subsidies. Private sponsorship funds just 10-15 per cent of the Louvre’s €150m ($184m, £102m) annual budget. As last year’s crisis in the system that funds France’s subsidised performing artists showed, the days of lavish state funding of the arts are over. The Louvre, on any given day, has to close up to 15 per cent of its display space for lack of staff… Hosting yesterday’s Da Vinci Code tour for the American Friends of the Louvre, a new fund-raising body, Henri Loyrette, the museum’s director, said he wanted to dispel a reputation for “arrogance” and offer a warmer welcome to US tourists. And get this: “The big US museums have been able to build up huge endowments over the years, which allow them to fund virtually all their operating costs from the interest,” says Christophe Monin, head of fund-raising at the Louvre. “We are not so lucky [sic].” Jorge Luis Borges was one of the greatest writers never to win a Nobel Prize (try the early short fiction if you don’t already know his work). Now I know why: The visit to [Pinochet’s] Chile finished off Borges’s chances of ever winning the Nobel Prize. That year, and for the remaining years of his life, his candidacy was opposed by a veteran member of the Nobel Prize committee, the socialist writer Arthur Lundkvist, a long-standing friend of the Chilean Communist poet Pablo Neruda, who had received the Nobel Prize in 1971. Lundkvist would subsequently explain to Volodia Teitelboim, one of Borges’s biographers and a onetime chairman of the Chilean Communist Party, that he would never forgive Borges his public endorsement of General Pinochet’s regime. Borges, it should be noted, did believe in democracy but thought Pinochet the best of the available options at the time. For purposes of contrast, consider the following (slightly overstated) description of Laureate Pablo Neruda: On the eve of his [Neruda’s] death, in 1973, he could still describe Stalin as “that wise, tranquil Georgian”. His feelings were similarly soft for Mao’s China, where he loved to see everyone in those vast landscapes and streetscapes dressed in regulation blue. The former quotation is from p.426 of Edwin Williamson’s excellent Borges: A Life. Having written recently on what is valid in Karl Marx, I am reminded of an ongoing debate I have with my colleague Bryan Caplan. I like to tell Bryan, only half in jest, that thinkers are responsible for the quality of their followers. Surely if a thinker is bright and rich and multi-faceted, that thinker would attract followers of a similar quality. And a rotten thinker ought not to attract many students of a higher quality. This test is not failproof but it is one way of approaching the question of intellectual quality. On the negative side, Marx attracted Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. I’ll go out on a limb and claim that Gramsci, Lukacs, Althusser, and Luxembourg are all vastly overrated, even by many non-Marxists. Who then would I cite as illustrating Marx’s positive intellectual heritage? Here are a few options: 1. Walter Benjamin. His work on mechanical reproduction and aura continues to shape debates over contemporary culture. Plus you can mine his notebooks for incisive nuggets of insight; some of them are no more than a sentence. 2. Michel Foucault. Yes the specialists have poked holes in the histories. And his mechanisms are often murky and insufficiently grounded in methodological individualism. Still his accounts of the dark side of the Enlightenment — as found in prisons and hospitals – remain justly influential. And The Order of Things is an interesting albeit flawed look at the comovement of ideas in many disciplines in early modern times. By the way, he developed a strong interest in Mises and Hayek in the latter years of his life. 3. Juergen Habermas. I find much of his work unreadable; he is the strongest argument extant for the use of mathematical economics (why doesn’t he write down a simple model?). Still the early work on the growth of the public sphere in the eighteenth century is impressive. As a work of intellectual history, it offers enviable clarity, range and depth. 4. Ferdinand Braudel. OK, he didn’t have to be a Marxist to write those wonderful books on the Mediterranean and the rise of modern Europe. Still, the emphases on material forces and the long sweep of history are derived unmistakeably from Marx’s writings. The summary picture is exactly what you would expect. On the whole Marx had a seriously pernicious influence on both the humanities and social sciences. Still, he inspired some significant thinkers and generated important nuggets of insight. OK, now here is a challenge for real men. Can you tell me, standing on one foot, what exactly is both important and valid in the writings of Martin Heidegger? I’ll assume I can use your name unless you tell me otherwise; a blogged answer is best of all. This week James Surowiecki will join Marginal Revolution as a guest blogger! James is one of the few journalists who really “gets economics,” which is why he has been called the “best business journalist in America.” He has written for Slate, Wired, has a regular slot at the New Yorker and is the author of the highly acclaimed new book The Wisdom of Crowds. We are looking forward to his insights! All writers have their role models. To whom should bloggers look? One obvious choice is Samuel Pepys, who kept regular diaries for about ten years. But Adam Sisman’s excellent book, written before the advent of blogging, nonetheless directs our attention to the Scot James Boswell: Boswell’s plain, direct prose was easy to read, and appealed to twentieth-century readers as [Samuel] Johnson’s mannered, classical style never could. Moreover, Boswell’s interest in himself, which seemed so peculiar to his contemporaries, was very much more acceptable two centuries later. Indeed, Boswell seemed to offer a unique combination: a writer who poured the contents of his mind freely into his journal, without either embarrassment or knowingness…Here was a miracle: a pre-Freudian autobiographer who revealed everything in his mind, without restraint, concealment, or distortion. Or so it seemed. Boswell [borrowed] techniques from the novel, the theatre, and the confessional memoir. With meticulous care, with long-practised skill, and with a generous imagination, he crafted a character who lived and breathed [TC: I have long felt that Boswell, not Samuel Johnson, is the real biographical subject of Boswell’s Life of Johnson]. He also set new scholarly standards; his verification of every possible detail, which seemed so eccentric to his contemporaries, would become the norm. In doing what he did, he relied mainly on instinct, his sense of what would serve his purpose best. Hmm…and like many bloggers, Boswell often got in trouble for writing up his private conversations with others.Heavy Going for Airlines
Kiss of Fire
Tale of two condiments
Markets in Everything – Character Development
The Cultural Exception
The politics of Nobel Prizes
Can we judge thinkers by their followers?
Our crowd gets wiser
Literary role models for bloggers