Newmark's Door

Larry Lindsey on the Rangel tax bill

James Pethokoukis cites Larry Lindsey to the effect that if you loved Carternomics, you'll love the Rangel tax proposal.

Pethokoukis also quotes the "liberal advocacy group" Common Dreams, reminding us that before there was Bush Derangement Syndrome, there was Reagan Derangement Syndrome:

"When Reagan dropped the top income tax rate from over 70 percent down to under 30 percent, all hell broke loose. With the legal and social restraint to unlimited selfishness removed, 'the good of the nation' was replaced by 'greed is good' as the primary paradigm."

The highlights and lowlights of being the famous author of "The Dog Ate My Disk and Other Tales of Academic Woe".

(Funny essay. I recommend it to my fellow teachers.)

Where some of that money you're spending on gasoline is going: "The 7 Wonders of Ultramodern Dubai".

"The Catastrophist View"

"The Catastrophist View": an argument for deep pessimism about the U.S. economy. Focuses on housing, derivatives, consumers, and the dollar.

There is, of course, another side, a side that for now I choose to believe, but there's food for thought here.

Mark Steyn agrees that Montreal has "a big-city heritage without big-city overcrowding".

But, he continues, in the long run that's not a good thing. (Link via Instapundit.)

Andrew Gelman presents a useful example in support of two conclusions:

1. Statistics is hard, and not many people know how to do it.

2. The people who need statistical analysis don't always know where to look.

Steyn on S-CHIP

Mark Steyn at the top of his form:

On Thursday Nancy Pelosi, as is the fashion, used the phrase “the children” like some twitchy verbal tic, a kind of Democrat Tourette’s syndrome: “This is a discussion about America’s children… We could establish ourselves as the children’s Congress… Come forward on behalf of the children... I tried to do that when I was sworn in as Speaker surrounded by children. It was a spontaneous moment, but it was one that was clear in its message: we are gaveling this House to order on behalf of the children…”

Etc. So what is the best thing America could do “for the children”? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme.

The U.K.'s Guardian declares on 10/21 that  "a perfect Storm is gathering": the Storm worm has the potential to "wreak havoc" on the Net.

PC World, also on 10/21, writes that the Storm worm is now "just a squall" and that its "days may be numbered".

And people knock economists because we "can't agree"?!

A bit on the (non) economics of recycling

Great article about recycling. An economic viewpoint, as always, yields insight.

‘Excess’ packaging may seem unnecessary, but it is essential for a consumerist economy. Packaging allows goods to be sold in bulk and keeps food fresh. In accordance with the cost-cutting motive, manufacturers are likely to reduce packaging over time anyway, one example being the milk carton replacing the heavy glass bottles of 20 years ago (Morris 2003). . . .

It may seem like common sense that government-imposed targets help reduce waste even more. Julian Morris (2003), however, worries that such targets distort or create more waste. ‘The government’s (or regulator’s) knowledge of what use of resources is most efficient is likely in most cases to be less complete than that of the individual manufacturers, who must day after day assess the costs of inputs and prices of outputs’.

Two for the price of one! Video of an entertaining Stephen Colbert interview of the Better Craig Newmark. And the interview plugs a charity I really like and support--sorry, Russell Roberts--DonorsChoose.

Link courtesy of my older daughter.

Postrel draws on Glaeser's work

Virginia Postrel draws on the work of economist Edward Glaeser and discusses the correlation between the cost of "the right to build" and residents' political views.

Glenn Reynolds has a question: "Hurricane Charley in Florida went okay. Katrina response in Mississippi was a lot better than in New Orleans. Now California seems to be dealing with this disaster competently. What could explain these differences?"

Hmmmmmm . . .

Is terror really because of what we did to them? A new book, The Siege of Mecca, analyzes "A Missing Link in Terror's Chain".

Astronomers have found a "second Earth" and it's practically in our backyard, merely 20 light years away.

Interesting article that claims picky eaters are born, not made.

If you haven't seen John Stossel's indictment of K-12 education in the U.S., "Stupid in America", here it is.

A blogger sharply questions Secretary Poulson's scheme to "increase investor confidence". (Link via Instapundit.)

The Wall Street Journal's distinguished columnist, Walter S. Mossberg, is among the latest to slap Microsoft Vista:

. . . Vista has proved to be a disappointment, even though Microsoft says it's selling like hotcakes. Based on my own experience and on reports from readers, it's clear that many Vista PCs start up more slowly than new PCs running its predecessor, Windows XP, or than even well-worn Macs. And there is still a significant compatibility problem: Too many software and hardware products still don't run, or don't run properly, with Vista.

Mr. Mossberg crosses his fingers, though, and concludes:

Buying XP will likely result in fewer frustrations in the short run. But buying Vista may be the better choice for the long run. Over time, more and more products will be released that are tailored to the new system.

Great stuff from Mike Munger

Highlights from some recent Mike Munger posts.

A reader asks Professor Munger, "Scandinavian countries get a great reputation for providing a high standard of living alongside big government programs to redistribute wealth. I am sure they didn't invent a free lunch up there so what part of the story am I missing?"

Part of Munger's answer (read the whole thing):

In short, the Northern European solution involves:
a. Keep out the poor people
b. Send lots of your poor people to the U.S., where by the way they become rich and prosperous.
c. Rely on a cultural ethic of working hard, even if lazy people take advantage of you.

(a) is still working pretty well. (c) is falling apart.

Somebody--it's not clear who--takes Munger to task, using comments posted on RateMyProfessors.com. Part of Munger's reply (again, RTWT):

3. Some students don't like having to think. They prefer to have lectures read to them, instead of thinking. Those students should not take my classes. The idea that "prepared" means having the professor read lecture notes is rather silly.

Finally, Munger reads a post that quotes Science Daily:

Charlotte has a spooky secret: the North Carolina city is home to a robust population of very large barred owls -- a species long-believed by ornithologists to require old growth forest for survival. According to ecologists doing the most extensive field study ever done on the species, the owls see urban life as an upgrade on the old woods, and Charlotteans are not at all creeped out by the big birds that share their yards.

He then comments--and this is just too good:

You mean, in re the barred owls:

1. Species are capable of adaptation in the face of environmental change?
2. That all the crap about having to preserve forests because species CANNOT adapt was just treehugger propaganda?
3. That the folks who tell us that we are losing undiscovered species at an unprecedented rate might just be wrong? 

If you survive several millenia of exile and persecution you're apt to develop a fine sense of humor: "The Yiddishe Parrot".

Via recent birthday-boy John Palmer comes word of the Official Hillary Nutcracker.

No comment needed.

David Bernstein links to and summarizes a lecture detailing where the modern strain of anti-Jewish feeling in Islamic countries originates:

Anti-Semitic visions of powerful Jews being behind the world's problesm, and plotting to control the world, found most prominently in the Hamas charter, entered the Muslim world via the Muslim Brotherhood, who in turn took those ideas from the Nazis, which spent significant effort and money propagating them in the Middle East. This all started well before the creation of the State of Israel, belying the notion that the Israel-Palestinian conflict caused modern Muslim anti-Semitism. 

"The Complete Guide to Music Online (Legal Edition)".

"Essential Music and Audio Websites".

Wachowicz's Web World: "Web Sites for Discerning Finance Students".

One more dissenter

Yikes! Could it be? There seems to be yet another dissenter from the great Global Warming Consensus. Daniel B. Botkin, professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara:

Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

(Go ahead, tell me UC Santa Barbara is full of right-wing nuts. I dare you.)

Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal thinks Google is going the way of Microsoft. He observes:

With founders entrenched in a controlling position, such companies don't see their luck for what it is and channel their winnings to shareholders. Instead they squander their abnormal returns hoping to make lightning strike again, and end up with a collection of low- or no-return businesses to show for their trouble.

In case you missed his comment yesterday, "Ironman" at the fine blog, Political Calculations, has posted a tool so that you can easily compute the "Moby Equation" I linked to.

I doubt he'll convince Porsche and 'Vette owners, but Dan Neil of the LA Times argues that the new Chrysler Town & Country Limited "just might be the sexiest vehicle a man could ever drive".

I borrow "the best sentence I've read today" (TM, Tyler Cowen) and give you James Killus, responding to a comment on a blog:

Hey, cool, notsneaky, you've got a classic straw man argument (and you get double points for the straw man argument being that the other guy is using straw man arguments) followed by a classic ad hominem, with yet another double score for the ad hominem being that your opponent is a rhetorician.

That is really good.

Question of the day

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, Duke University's endowment earned a return of 25.6 percent. Over the last ten years, the endowment has averaged an annual return of 17.1 percent. (The S&P with dividends reinvested earned about 7.3% per year over this period.)

Question of the day: instead of sending many letters asking me and my wife for donations, wouldn't Duke do better to offer to sell us investment advice or money management services?

(Link via my older daughter.)

Paula R. Stern notes that before the upcoming Middle East peace conference the Syrians have presented "preconditions" and the Palestinians have presented "preconditions". She doesn't think they should have all the fun, so she suggests a list of Israel's preconditions.

5. We demand immediate and full restoration of rights and property of the Jews forced from Arab lands in the early years after Israel was created. Since we know that the number of Jews who fled Arab countries is around the same as the number of Arabs who fled the newly created State of Israel, we are willing to do a cancellation of debt on both sides. We want this in writing - no more rights to return for either side. That means all those Yemenite and Iraqi and Syrian Jews living in Israel will simply have to give up their right to leave the democratic state of Israel, but we are sure we can convince them and so our government is authorized to sign this in advance.

Another if-it-weren't-so-sad-it-would-be-funny story about "smart growth" as currently being implemented in the City of Angels:

It was one of those strange, somewhat sleazy situations that seem to plague the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Two weeks ago, 11 of the 13 powerful board members who control the MTA cited personal “conflicts of interest” preventing them from legally voting on an up-to-now obscure, $1 billion, high-rise development project in North Hollywood. Yet a few minutes later, a quorum made up of prominent politicians including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and County Supervisor Gloria Molina voted anyway.

For sort-of equal time and sheer bravura, one blogger's argument that L.A. is the greatest city in America:

L.A. is the apocalypse: it's you and a bunch of parking lots. No one's going to save you; no one's looking out for you. It's the only city I know where that's the explicit premise of living there – that's the deal you make when you move to L.A.

The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.

It says: no one loves you; you're the least important person in the room; get over it.

What matters is what you do there.

The key question of public policy

The key question of public policy is this: at the margin, do we want more allocation by markets or more by governments? Arnold Kling does a fine job of explaining the side I take:

Market failure tends to be self-correcting, because entrepreneurs have incentive to fix things. For government failure to be corrected, somebody needs the insight to know how to correct it and they need to overcome the political opposition to changing the system. In practice, the change does not happen. You cannot get rid of the mohair subsidy.

. . . It is not just that special interests can gum things up. It is that however things get gummed up, they are persistently gummed up in an institution that is insulated from market competition.

Oh, and look, thanks to Todd Zywicki, we just happen to have a wonderful example at hand. Can you name a business that gets an average of $1472 for its product but that has an average cost as low as $99? (Hint: it's not Microsoft software. The margin in this business puts Microsoft to shame.) Whether you can or not, you might want to read how this situation comes about. 

The Moby Equation: an equation "that determines the degree to which artists besmirch their reputations when they lend their music to hawk products or companies." Of the six examples given, the highest value goes to The Clash for selling "London Calling" to Jaguar.

"A Choice List of Productive Free Windows Applications". A useful list.

"The Best Free Computer System Recovery Tools".

Unofficial design for the Lamborghini Embolado, ". . . much more true to Lamborghinis of old where the cars would instill fear both standing still and in motion."

"Five Commonly Misdiagnosed Diseases". With this observation worth remembering:

Dr. Mark Graber, chief of medicine at the Veteran's Administration in Northpoint, New York, says the single most common cause of misdiagnosis is a doctor's failure to consider other possibilities after an initial diagnosis is reached. "It's called premature closing--the minute they come up with a diagnosis, they don't think about a better solution," he says. 

India: markets work magic, again

One of the most heartening public policy stories of the last 25 years is the growth of India's economy.

Score another one for less government, more markets.

You can't make up a headline like this: "Facing criticism, business schools bring in new leaders to review mission, find relevance".

Joel Spolsky comments on the Excel bug.

Interesting discussion of the war in Iraq in the British magazine Prospect. Some excerpts:

By any normal ethical standard, the coalition's current project in Iraq is a just one. Britain, America and Iraq's other allies are there as the guests of an elected government given a huge mandate by Iraqi voters under a legitimate constitution. The UN approved the coalition's role in May 2003, and the mandate has been renewed annually since then, most recently this August. Meanwhile, the other side in this war are among the worst people in global politics: Baathists, the Nazis of the middle east; Sunni fundamentalists, the chief opponents of progress in Islam's struggle with modernity; and the government of Iran. Ethically, causes do not come much clearer than this one. . . .

The great question in deciding whether to keep fighting in Iraq is not about the morality and self-interest of supporting a struggling democracy that is also one of the most important countries in the world. The question is whether the war is winnable and whether we can help the winning of it. The answer is made much easier by the fact that three and a half years after the start of the insurgency, most of the big questions in Iraq have been resolved. Moreover, they have been resolved in ways that are mostly towards the positive end of the range of outcomes imagined at the start of the project. The country is whole. It has embraced the ballot box. It has created a fair and popular constitution. It has avoided all-out civil war. It has not been taken over by Iran. It has put an end to Kurdish and marsh Arab genocide, and anti-Shia apartheid. It has rejected mass revenge against the Sunnis. As shown in the great national votes of 2005 and the noisy celebrations of the Iraq football team's success in July, Iraq survived the Saddam Hussein era with a sense of national unity; even the Kurds—whose reluctant commitment to autonomy rather than full independence is in no danger of changing—celebrated. Iraq's condition has not caused a sectarian apocalypse across the region. The country has ceased to be a threat to the world or its region. The only neighbours threatened by its status today are the leaders in Damascus, Riyadh and Tehran.

I recommend the whole thing.

Thanks to loyal reader Chris M., here's some interesting speculation about just exactly what the Israelis bombed in Syria last month. And here is the much delayed Syrian response of "Bomb? What bomb?"

Consider academic tenure at colleges and universities. The reason for it, according to the received story, is to protect professors' ability to speak and write without fear of political reprisal and to therefore protect controversial research.

I don't believe this. Exactly how many professors and how much research is "controversial"?

Another explanation is that academic knowledge is very specialized. It's necessary, therefore, to involve the faculty in hiring decisions. But to give the faculty an incentive to hire the best people, people who might outperform them, their jobs have to be protected through tenure.

I don't believe this, either. Knowledge about how to manufacture a state-of-the-art CPU, or a state-of-the-art operating system, is also very specialized, but there isn't, at least so far as I know, tenure at Intel or Microsoft.

One of my distinguished professors in grad school, Armen Alchian, has argued that tenure is just a perquisite for the faculty, a perquisite made possible by higher education's non-profit structure. It would disappear if colleges and universities operated for profit, he has claimed.

That I can believe.

This is all by way of introduction to an interesting piece on think tanks by Christopher DeMuth, head of AEI for 21 years. DeMuth writes:

Think tanks aim to produce good research not only for its own sake but to improve the world. We are organized in ways that depart sharply from university organization. Think-tank scholars do not have tenure, make faculty appointments, allocate budgets or offices or sit on administrative committees. These matters are consigned to management, leaving the scholars free to focus on what they do best.

I leave as an exercise for the reader what this might say about the second proffered explanation for academic tenure. Extra credit for what the existence of think tanks might mean for how universities are, or should be, organized and governed.

The young woman who was instructed that beauty tends to depreciate faster than wealth apparently has replied. (She still has the worst of the fight in my opinion, but at least she's trying.)

If your grasp of finance were not a minority partner with your ego, you would realize that the "outflows" associated with my depreciating "assets" are quite certain, and therefore subject to a low discount rate when determining their present value. In addition, though your concept of economics evidentially failed to move past the 1950s, advancement in plastic surgery is not subject to the same limitation. Thus, with some additional capital expenditure, the overall lifetime of "outflows" generated by these assets is greatly increased. Sad that Ashton Kutcher has demonstrated understanding of the female asset class which you, in all of your financial "wisdom", have not.

Top 20 results from searching Google for "economics", domain .edu

What comes up if you search Google for economics and restrict the results to the edu domain? You get

1. MIT courseware.

2. Harvard economics dept.

3. Cal econ dept.

4. MIT econ dept.

5. Univ. of Maryland econ. dept. (!)

6. Columbia econ. dept.

7. Duke econ. dept. (!!)

8. UNC-CH econ. dept. (!!!)

9. U. Mass. Amherst econ. dept. (?)

10. Rutgers econ. dept.

11. UC San Diego econ. dept.

12. George Mason econ. dept.

13. Indiana U. econ. dept.

14. List of economics journals on the Web.

15. U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign econ. dept.

16. U. of Chicago econ. dept.

17. Cornell econ. dept.

18. U. of Iowa econ. dept.

19. U. of New Mexico econ. dept.

20. Southern Illinois Univ. econ. dept.

What's up with Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Stanford? Nobody care about their economics departments?

I would have a difficult time identifying my least favorite ideas of the Left. Even constructing a Top Ten list would take more time than I'm willing to spend.

But surely a contender for such a list would be the growing call to reestablish the Fairness Doctrine. The Left, purported lovers of free speech and diversity, want the government to control and--they surely hope--virtually eliminate conservative talk radio. It's simply disgraceful.

Here's Fred Thompson on the subject.

Here's Captain Ed.

The effort to bring back the Fairness Doctrine is entirely about fear. Durbin and his associates are afraid that they have lost the debate, and they want to shut down the forum rather than acknowledge it. Either that, or Durbin and Barbara Boxer and anyone else who wants the government to dictate the content of political speech think you're too stupid to find differing points of view.

Here's Rich Lowry.

After five years of opposing most assertions of government power to fight terrorism, these liberals are ready to wield it to fight conservative talk radio.

Here's Radley Balko.

This is all thinly-disguised posturing for what's really bothering the senators: They don't like that people are allowed to criticize them on public airwaves. . . .

Now that they have ensured their own job security, have gotten to vote on their own pay raises (regardless of performance) and have stacked the deck against anyone who dares to challenge them, these politicians now want to pass laws exempting them from criticism, as well. They're not only entitled a permanent grip on elected office, they should get to rule without ever having their feelings hurt, too. So no mean attack ads just before an election. If talk radio says hurtful things about you, pass a law ensuring that a friendlier personality comes in the next hour to say nice things about you.

The editor of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary just killed 16,000 hyphens.

I won't miss 'em.

Bill Kristol advises Republicans to cheer up.

Usually good advice.

More evidence that boys are trouble:

Sons are tough on their mothers. Whether it is heavier birth weights, amplified testosterone levels or simple, hair-raising high jinks, boys seem to take an extra toll on the women who gave birth to them. And by poring over Finnish church records from two centuries ago, Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England can prove it: sons reduce a mother’s life span by an average of 34 weeks.

Maybe this explains some of what I'm seeing from my current undergraduates.

Sleep loss debilitates our body’s ability to extract glucose from the bloodstream. Without this stream of basic energy, one part of the brain suffers more than the rest: the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for what’s called “executive function.” Among these executive functions are the orchestration of thoughts to fulfill a goal, the prediction of outcomes, and perceiving consequences of actions. So tired people have difficulty with impulse control, and their abstract goals like studying take a back seat to more entertaining diversions. A tired brain perseverates—it gets stuck on a wrong answer and can’t come up with a more creative solution, repeatedly returning to the same answer it already knows is erroneous.

I understand forgiveness. I understand, and appreciate, loyalty.

But I don't understand why Sandy Berger is allowed to work for Hilliary Clinton. (Unless it's the equivalent of hush money.)

Update: since I wrote this, Kathryn Lopez of National Review has commented.

So perhaps Mrs. Clinton is holding Berger close as a "thank you": Thanks for making sure that some hard-hitting internal analysis of the Clinton administration's poor counterterrorism performance won't become breaking news on the way back to the White House. Or maybe Berger simply knows too much of the kind of information that could hurt an aspiring Clinton running on executive experience. That's surely another reason to keep him on board.

Perhaps candidate Clinton feels the need to prove that she is up for a challenge. How, after all, can she continue using the Democrats' top talking point -- the claim that they are the antidote to a "culture of corruption" in Washington? If Berger's top-secret rampage isn't corrupt, I don't know what corrupt is.

On the O-line for the Boston Patriots it's "All Guts, No Glory".

Another great Friedman quote

A last interview of Milton Friedman. One more sharp insight into the world:

The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can’t do that. Politics exacerbates and magnifies differences.

(Link via PrestoPundit.)

Trying to lose weight? The odds are against you, big time.

But if you're among the two-thirds of adult Americans who are overweight or obese, permanent, substantial weight loss appears to be almost impossible by diet and exercise alone.

Only about 1 to 2 percent of obese people can permanently lose weight through diet and exercise alone, said Dr. Lee Kaplan , director of the weight center at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"Dieting is like holding your breath," he said. "You can do it, but not for long. Your body is stronger than your willpower."

Credit where credit is due. Truer words were never spoken. Rep. Barney Frank:

There is a tendency in American politics for the people who feel most passionately about an issue, particularly ones that focus on a single issue, to be unrealistic in what a democratic political system can deliver, and that can be self-defeating.

"A Guide to Better Password Practices".

Here's something I wonder about, but I don't suppose there's an easy answer to. My employer is changing its password practices, to include ". . . a requirement for faculty, staff, and students to change their passwords on a more regular basis--at least one time per year." This presumes, consistent with advice I've seen elsewhere, that "old" passwords are less safe than frequently changed ones.

But is that really true? Isn't there a significant tradeoff, that the more frequently passwords are changed, the more likely people would be to write them down, thereby increasing the risk of them being stolen that way? Didn't anybody see Matthew Broderick in War Games?

"Winter Camping can be fun, but it's not if you're cold and unhapy with wet feet, hands and a wet bum."

Isn't that the truth?

"How to Build Winter Shelters and Survive".

Nasty, probably very unfair, but interesting, at least to those of us opposed to light rail: "The Greatest Hits of the Houston  Light-Rail MetroSystem".

Yet, still, apparently more bad news for Microsoft. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols asks, "What the Hell is Microsoft Doing With My Computer?"

Strategy Page contends that the Israeli air raid into Syria last month will be bad for Russian arm sales. Gee. Too bad. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks.

Q: Just how big is the universe, anyway?

A: Big. Really, really big.

PC Magazine's "Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites".

You've perhaps heard of "helicopter parents"? Mike Munger's wife has seen the Mother of All Helicopter Parents.

The MeFites discuss finding a place to live that has "consistently comfortable temperatures throughout most of the year".

Simply too good: Gene Weingarten's "Department of Obviousology".

Me: Now, if I may summarize this report, which had impressive spreadsheets and charts and graphs, and employed such things as standard deviations and whatnot: After an exhaustive study involving about 60 young male volunteers, you discovered scientifically that heterosexual men who are listening to an audiotape of a woman talking dirty become more sexually aroused if they've been led to believe that the woman who is talking dirty is really good-looking, as opposed to thinking that she is really ugly.

Mueller: Right.

Me:

Doctors at Duke Medical School have figured out what the appendix is for.

Heinlein on wealth

Glenn Reynolds offers a terrific reply to "populism and protectionism" from the four-time Hugo Award winner and coiner of TANSTAAFL, Robert A. Heinlein.

Waldfogel's book and the Wendy's punchline

While I haven't read Joel Waldfogel's new book, I have read the Slate summary, and I'm reminded of Walter Mondale's famous question--via Wendy's--to Gary Hart: "Where's the beef?" Waldfogel finds that markets aren't perfect; markets don't produce everything that people want.

So what? I don't have to elaborate because Glen Whitman has already produced a fine analysis. I'll add merely one observation: almost continually, technology is increasing the ability of the market to serve small groups of consumers. See any discussion of the "Long Tail". Or see Eric Brynjolfsson's finding of about $1 billion per year in consumer surplus generated from the huge assortment at Amazon.

Question: does any other institution, past or present, exploit technology to this degree to enhance variety and consumer choice?

Joanne Jacobs vigorously disputes the advantages of "economic integration" in the public schools.

Success may require explicit teaching of behaviors and skills that middle-class students don't need to be taught and extra counselors to deal with family problems and reach out to parents. It almost certainly requires a longer school day. What isn't essential is proximity to white or middle-class students.

Real-world business cost numbers are usually interesting. Here are (purportedly) some: "Two Years of the Real Numbers of a Startup".

A "spectacularly beautful" young woman is sharply introduced to an important truth: beauty tends to depreciate faster than wealth. (Yes, this is the Craig's List exchange that's been all over the Net. I apologize if you've seen it before, lots.)

"They're beautiful and they can strip a rifle . . ." Personally, I think it is just fine that the Israeli government is trying to sex up the country's image.

I have tried this one yet--or any one--but one of these days I'm going to get around to using an online backup service.

Gartner, Inc. estimates that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are currently active.

Not the Door. We're two days shy of 5.5 years.

Here yesterday, here today, here tomorrow.

(My wife mutters "kinna hurra". My late mother would have knocked on wood.)

Another small gem from "Overheard in New York", capturing the essence of life in the Big Apple.

This New York Times articles discusses a potentially serious medical problem that my late mother-in-law and her doctors were apparently slow to recognize: "The ‘Poisonous Cocktail’ of Multiple Drugs". 

A tip on how to study undergraduate economics

Somewhere a few years back--2000? 2002?--the vast majority of my undergraduate students stopped taking notes in class. I'm not sure why. At first, I thought it would be inappropriate for me to tell them to do it. (I thought it would be similar to telling them, "Read the book. Brush your teeth. Change your underwear every once in a while.")

Not any longer.

Current and future students of mine: please read, and take seriously, Mike Moffatt's "How to Take Lecture Notes in Your Economics Class". For extra credit, please read &qu