Newmark's Door

Twenty years after a memorable night comes the happy news that Bo still knows.

"[Three] Stray Questions For: P. J. O'Rourke".

Whatever I end up writing next probably will have to do with children. I’ve researched the subject extensively, if not on purpose. That is, I have three kids ranging in age from 10 to 3 and a half. Since I’ve always specialized in chaos and human folly, it seems a shame to let three wonderful little examples of such go to waste.

The MeFites answer the question, "How can I help students improve their writing via comments on written assignments?"

My answer: use Joseph Williams's Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. (If you want to save a few cents, the earlier editions are as good , or better, as as, or better than, the current ninth edition.) (Thanks to commenter Ken Hirsch for the correction.)

George Will picks on John Edwards, twice: "Peru and Other Menaces" and "Setting the Bar for Corruption".

It's not hard to do.

Saudi prince buys, for his private use, an Airbus A380--nearly 6000 square feet and with a list price, before refitting, of more than $300 million.

No surprise about the economics of the movies

No surprise to economists: consultants find that the money in the movie industry tends to wind up in the hands of the least reproducible inputs.

YesButNoButYes continues its superb public service work by looking at what's happened to the actors who played the Other Seinfeld Characters (you know, Babu, Jackie Chiles, the Soup Nazi . . .).

Good news: researchers may have found a cure for infection by the superbug Clostridium difficile.

Bad news: not since leeches has a potential cure been this gross.

Mid-life crisis? As for most questions, Opus has the answer.

Hassett on the Bush tax cuts

AEI economist Kevin Hassett calls out the Democratic presidential candidates about the Bush tax cuts:

Clinton and her Democratic competitors have a big problem. The facts don't support their negative characterization of the Bush tax cuts. Indeed, everything Bush's opponents said would happen after taxes were reduced didn't happen. 

Ain't it the truth: The Onion reports that "Bullshit is the Most Important Issue for 2008 Voters".

On the off chance that some of my readers may once have used an Atari ST, here's a bit of interesting news: there's now a quite-good ST emulator, called Steem, for Windows and Linux.

The opposite of Atlas Shrugged?

I mentioned last week that next year I will teach a course on the moral foundations of capitalism. One of the pro-capitalism readings will be Atlas Shrugged. So I was interested in this MeFi discussion: "What book is the opposite of Atlas Shrugged?"

Well-reasoned analysis of the consequences of Iran getting the Bomb.

Science stuff:

"Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?"

Point-counterpoint on global warming. ("10 of the arguments most often made against the IPCC consensus, and some of the counter-arguments made by scientists who agree with the IPCC.")

Don't pee in the Amazon.

Impoverished "surfer dude"--albeit one with a Ph.D. in physics from UC San Diego--may have developed the long-sought "Theory of Everything". Sounds like a long-shot to me, but it would be very cool and I'm rooting for him.

 

This has been much discussed on the Web and I agree that it's quite interesting. Marc Andreessen argues that the writers' strike will accelerate Hollywood's change to Silicon Valley's form of business.

Peter Gordon with another well-aimed slam at "smart growth"

Peter Gordon offers another superb post, "Not Smart, Not Sustainable".

Today's "progressives" who do not miss a chance to bemoan "inequality" have helped to create a group of housing "have-nots," who have no prospect of owning their own home. Unless, as Wendell Cox showed, they leave California, Florida, the northeast for the fly-over cities that are not yet in the sustainability planners' cross-hairs. Many have already left.

Many of the pricey cities are becoming gentrified with just enough run-down areas to house the immigrants who will work for the well-to-do. But many young middle class families have gone missing. The result is neither smart nor sustainable.

Gift suggestion

Audio and video of John Lott, Jr. discussing his latest book, Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't.

The holidays are coming. It would make a great gift.

What cars the faculty in Arts and Sciences at Harvard drive.

The survey also found some correlation between departments and choice of car. Of 18 respondents in the economics department, eight said they owned luxury cars—one of the highest percentages. . . .

When it comes to intra-faculty vehicular stereotypes, the economics department is known as the one with the flashiest autos. . . .

“I think the economics department likes fairly expensive cars,” Stilgoe says. “They are interested in things that demonstrate financial value.”

Link via Harvard economist Greg Mankiw.
 

Actor Ron Silver (very good in Billionaire Boys Club, Reversal of Fortune, and Ali):

I count myself firmly in the tradition of Wilson, FDR, Truman and Kennedy…and yes, Reagan and George W. Bush. “Go anywhere, bear any burden,” “try to do our best to make a world safe for democracy.” Our national mission, a worthy and ennobling one, is to expand freedom where we can. These are revolutionary goals very much in keeping with our Founders’ vision. They are hardly conservative, let alone neo-conservative goals. . . .

The President is challenging the world with a new order. There is always passionate opposition to change. Have grievous mistakes been made? Yes. But just as Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan laid the foundations for fighting and prevailing in the Cold War, Bush has responded to 9/11 with a foreign policy revolution of similar magnitude: a reorganization of government institutions and appropriate legislation to meet the emerging threats. Containment and deterrence are ineffective in this brave new world. There is no containment if you can’t see the enemy; there is no deterrence if the enemy desires death.

I believe the President’s critics are profoundly mistaken. I believe they misunderstand how he’s trying to protect us. I believe they misunderstand the nature of the threat. I believe they misunderstand history. If they succeed in dismantling what President Bush has set in motion, the results may well be catastrophic and history will never forgive them.

Jonah Goldberg: "The Rich Aren't Made of Money"

Fine column by Jonah Goldberg:

I don't know what the best tax rates are, for rich or poor.

But I'm pretty sure that it's unhealthy for a democracy when the majority of citizens don't see government as a service they're reluctantly paying for but as an extortionist that cuts them in for a share of the loot.

Free American history audio and video.

"53 essential freeware programs that can take care of the majority of your computing needs".

"Amazing XP Tools to Arm your PC from Hackers".

". . . an interesting way to compare programming languages: to describe each in terms of the problem it fixes."

Good for at least one grin or two.

Several people, including my wife, have reported that Gmail does a wonderful job in screening out spam. I even read somewhere of a person who forwards all his e-mail to a Gmail address and then forwards it again to the e-mail package he wants to use, just because Gmail is so effective at stopping spam.

Here's a graph and short article that claims Gmail is letting less than 1% of spam through.

"The 20 Hottest Women of the 90s". Two points.

It's just so sad. Anyone looking at the list can see how far our culture has deteriorated.

And Ms. Crawford at #17 is clearly--clearly--more deserving of #1 than any of the other women listed.

The holiday shopping season is soon upon us. Two ideas you may not have seen elsewhere:

Seinfeld - The Complete Series (all 9 seasons and then some). $206.

Time Tunnel: all 30 episodes for only $1.99 each or $20 for the DVD. I watched Time Tunnel with my mom as a ten-year-old. Except toward the very end, when they apparently ran out of ideas, they were just great. You got a reasonable dose of history, some good acting (as well as some great camp), and Lee Meriweather in her prime. What more would any red-blooded 10-year-old boy need?

The "Black Friday"--day after Thanksgiving--ads of most of the major retailers. $300 laptops and more.

Arnold Kling is not sure that the death penalty deters murder, but he is favor of trying it against double-parkers.

Scroll your way through Stockholm with these pretty, high resolution photos.

Speaking of Stockholm: a Washington Post reporter asks Aubrey de Grey, "Why is it, when you bring up the idea of living forever -- even if robust and healthy, not drooling on your shoes -- some people just recoil viscerally?" Mr. de Grey answers:

Since the beginning of civilization, we have been aware that aging is ghastly and that aging is utterly inevitable. . . . So we have two choices. Either we spend our lives being preoccupied by this ghastly future or we find some way to get on with our miserably short lives and make the best of it.

If we do that second thing, which is obviously the right thing to do, then it doesn't matter how irrational that rationalization might be. . . . It could be, well, we're all going to go to heaven. Or it could be, we're going to have overpopulation. Or it could be, it will be boring. Or, dictators will live forever.

It doesn't matter what the answers are. It's so important for them to maintain their belief that aging is actually not such a bad thing, that they completely suspend any normal rational sense of proportion.

And I think that another name for this would be Stockholm Syndrome.

Thanks to Door reader Max the Wise for this fine crack. You refer to somebody as having "severe nonlinear cognitive dysfunction".

Someone can't think straight.

(No link for the phrase even on the vastness of Google; way to go, Max!)

Hillary, Obama, and high school

From Robert Novak comes information that "Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it."

["Nah, nah, I know a secret!"]

One of my favorite cracks about Washington is that it's "Hollywood for ugly people." (One-upped by John McCain, who continued, "Hollywood is Washington for the simple-minded.")

But it really reminds me so much of high school. Most of our politicians and their "agents" seem to be the same people I knew who were officers of student council.

Washington is for people who can't let go of high school.

James Pethokoukis's blog is great

If you're not reading James Pethokoukis's blog, Capital Commerce, I strongly recommend it. Mr. Pethokoukis is one of the relatively few individuals writing for a mass media outlet--Mike Mandel at Business Week is another--who understands economics.

Here are some recent posts I've enjoyed:

"Does America Really Need a Recession?"

"The Oracle of Omaha is Blind to the Death Tax's Effects"

"Is the Iraq War Costlier Than Doing Nothing?"

"Time for the White House to Rescue the Dollar?"

"The Super-Risks of Taxing the Superwealthy"

Entry in grocery retailing

About twenty years back there were a bunch of economists who were recommending more antitrust action against U.S. grocery retailers. One of the premises of the recommendation was that there were high entry barriers in grocery retailing. They said it was sooooo costly to enter, few firms could even think of it.

Well. A little firm named Wal-Mart entered and shook the industry to its core. Others, too. Here's a nice little report on the "bevy of new options" in L.A. grocery retailing.

You probably need to have spent time working in what we are pleased to call Higher Education to appreciate it, but if you have, I guarantee--double your money back--that you'll enjoy the Unknown Professor's post, "Faculty Meeting Bingo".

It features "Let me give a little institutional background" guy, the "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" guy, the by-laws guy, and "a spirited discussion . . . about changing ONE word on a document that (at most) two people will ever read".

Simply great.

"What's Behind Wichita's Shortage of Skilled Workers?" The article nominates the public schools.

Also contains this arresting claim:

In the 1950s, 60 percent of the American work force was unskilled labor. Today, it is 15 percent unskilled.

The economics of loud music in restaurants

Mark Steckbeck answers my question, "Why is the music in restaurants so loud?"

(I think I'll help those places with their turnover problem: I just won't go at all.)

For Killer Rock from Outer Space enthusiasts, there's been some interesting news.

The impact crater from the 1908 Tunguska Event may have been found.

The megafaunal die-out and the Younger Dryas cooling of about 13,000 years ago may have been caused by a comet impact.

The Grateful Dead at the height of their formidable powers: a fine rendition of "Jack Straw," Radio City Music Hall, 10/31/80.

Better audio is available here (free), and here (the best, but $).

Two interesting pieces by Tara Parker-Pope of the NY Times:

"Curing Insomnia Without the Pills".

"Cockroaches, Reconsidered". (If they have germs, we probably gave 'em to them.)

Perhaps a couple of years late, Blockbuster gets the message.

So I'm typing merrily along in Microsoft Word the other day when suddenly a huge e-mail toolbar appears on the page.

I don't want it there.

I try various things in "Customize" and "Options", but I can't get rid of the damn thing.

Then I remember that the Net + Google = Wonderfulness. And so it was: "Microsoft Word: Removing the E-Mail Toolbar".

A Note on the Deficit—and a Question for Political Scientists or Sociologists

This is being submitted to the Facing Up Blog Carnival on the $9 trillion debt.

One of the economic issues for which journalistic and public discussion generates the lowest ratio of light to heat—it wouldn’t be easy to pick the winners—is the issue of the federal government’s deficit spending. Even worse, as I’ll try to explain below, deficit spending is almost entirely a phony issue.

I’m reminded of this by a recent report that the Democrats in Congress would like to spend more money than President Bush wants. This follows several years’ worth of the Democrats energetically arguing that deficits and debt are bad. A representative statement from them is, “Instead of policies that help America's working families, he [President Bush] continued to tout the economic policies that have led to record deficits and passed on trillions in debt to our children.”

But both major parties have reversed themselves at least once on this issue. During the 60s and 70s, the Democrats happily accepted deficits. Sometimes they cited Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, who wrote in his best-selling text that—I paraphrase from memory—in a healthy, growing economy, funding worthwhile investments through deficit spending posed no problem at all and could continue without problem indefinitely. Republicans, on the other hand, tended to be horrified—just horrified—by deficits. They were labeled the party of Scrooge and of “green eyeshades”. Once Ronald Reagan was elected, however, the Republican Party did not seem to worry about deficits much, while the Democratic Party began to.

Behind these apparent inconsistencies, there is a simple logic. Broadly speaking, Democrats want to increase spending but don’t want to increase taxes (taxes on the “rich”, on “windfall profits”, and a sin tax or two notwithstanding), and they don’t mind deficits that are created or increased in this manner. Republicans want to cut taxes but don’t want to cut spending (and they are willing to increase spending on “roads to nowhere” and defense) and don’t mind deficits created or increased in that manner. And each party objects to the type of deficit the other party is content with. (And each party pursues a version of “pleasure today, pain tomorrow”, arguably one of the serious defects of our—or any—political system.)

Fodder for my course

Next year, thanks to a grant to NC State from the BB&T Charitable Foundation, I will teach a course on the moral foundations of capitalism. I will, of course, present to the students the arguments of free market critics. "Government Success Stories and Free Market Failures" will, therefore, almost certainly be included in the reading list.

The Free Market Failures list in particular is a cornucopia of outdated information, misinformation, half-truths, and utter falsehoods. Some of the items: the exploding Ford Pinto, global warming, Love Canal, the minimum wage--"the job market does not operate by the usual laws of supply and demand"--monopolies, path dependency, planned obsolescence, recessions and depressions, the Superfund, and Three Mile Island. (Dare I tell the students about the infamous wisecrack, "Ted Kennedy, 1; Three Mile Island, 0"?)

And the Government Success list features this gaudy nugget of economic confusion: "The Federal Reserve System: Using Keynesian policies to expand or contract the money supply, the Fed has completely eliminated the depression from the American economic experience in the last six decades."

I don't know about the students, but I expect to have a good time.

John Samples on "The Fallacy of Campaign Financing Reform":

In other words, campaign finance laws are like a game in which one participant writes the rules and employs the referees (Congress created and oversees the Federal Election Commission). Like the official story, this alternative focuses on interests and corruption. The interests that threaten the public good, however, are those of public officials, not private actors. Elected officials, not businesses or labor unions, threaten democracy. The arrow of corruption runs from the government to civil society.

Beautiful.

Gregg Easterbrook on success, housing, risk, and other stuff

Could it really be this simple? Gregg Easterbrook:

Once, in Silicon Valley, I heard Joe Costello -- a founding light of "electronic design automation" and now CEO of the lowercase think3 -- give a talk about the difference between seeking success and avoiding failure. Studies of crashes during aircraft landings under difficult circumstances, he said, showed that pilots who made bad mistakes when approaching an airfield and crashed, but lived to tell the tale, reported that they had been focused on avoiding obstacles. Pilots who made difficult landings without incident reported they had focused solely on the runway. Business and artistic success, Costello continued, follow the same pattern. Setbacks result from constantly trying to avoid obstacles, worrying about what might go wrong. Achievement results from keeping your eyes glued to the prize and endlessly repeating to yourself, "I can do this." Or, as I once wrote, "Keep your gaze in the distance, and though you will stumble, you will reach your destination."

New discovery in economics

Bill DeCota, aviation director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, breaks new ground in economics:

Airlines say congestion pricing is just another tax on a financially ailing industry that's already heavily taxed. Another problem is that since so many people want flights at peak times, the government may not be able to levy fees high enough to really affect scheduling.

"There is no price that you could put in effect that would impact demand," says Mr. DeCota of the Port Authority.

(Link via my colleague, Wally Thurman.)

Megan McArdle writes a fine, furious reply to the critics of school vouchers.

David Tufte writes that not only was the recent Utah vote on vouchers disappointing, it was really odd.

Doesn't this put a dent in "happiness research"?

According to Eduardo Porter in the NY Times, "Happiness seems fairly cheap to manipulate."

In one experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire about personal satisfaction after Xeroxing a sheet of paper. Those who found a dime lying on the Xerox machine reported substantially higher satisfaction with their lives.

For now, I'll stick with GDP, thanks.

Summary of a recent talk by Justice Scalia on originalism, featuring an argument I had not seen before: a "living" Constitution is not flexible, it's just the opposite.

Movies and music for economics

These two sites have been around for a while but I've just found them:

How to use movies to teach economics.

How to use music to teach economics. (I bet Liz Phair would stimulate class discussion. Cue Beavis and Butthead laugh: heh, heh, heh.)

Gretl

I've also only recently discovered gretl, a free, open-source econometrics software package that has some impressive capabilities. It imports Excel spreadsheets, Stata datasets, and E-Views datasets. It can run OLS, WLS, 2SLS, logit/probit/tobit, nonlinear least squares, MLE, ARMA, GARCH, and GMM. It can do Monte Carlo simulations. The interface is available, in addition to English, in French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, German and Portuguese.

It's not as flashy as the commercial packages, but what do you expect for free?   

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. briefly reviews the journalistic scandals of the last few decades--Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Janet Cooke, et al., and now Scott Thomas Beauchamp--and finds a distinct pattern. Can you guess?

Bill Clinton asserted that the issue that seemed to give Hillary some trouble in a debate last week was "complicated".

My wife cracks, "I think we can come up with a new definition of issues too complicated to tackle in an election debate. Moderators shouldn't ask Hillary any questions where the position that she needs to take to do well in the Democratic primaries is at odds with the position that the majority of Americans have on that issue."

On the blog Back Talk a "registered Democrat, a liberal by some measures, but a radical conservative relative to the large majority of my colleagues" writes as follows:

In any case, if these trends continue, George Bush's troop surge will go down in history as a spectacular success no matter how much the left squeals about the failure of the Iraqi government to pass political benchmarks and such. The left is going to squeal about something no matter what happens on the ground, which is why their take on the subject will be historically irrelevant. On the ground, things in Iraq are improving by the day, and al Qaeda has, apparently, suffered a strategic defeat of momentous proportions. The next poll of the Iraqi people is likely to show that a huge majority prefers life now over the life they had under Saddam Hussein (indeed, they said as much even during the height of violence). And all of this will have occurred during a time in which the American economy has been the envy of the world. That's what history will record. Not bad for the worst president ever.

"World's Wittiest Lonely Hearts Ads". Among my favorites:

"Mature gentleman, 62, aged well, noble grey looks, fit and active, sound mind and unfazed by the fickle demands of modern society seeks . . . damn it, I have to pee again."

"Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite."

"I've divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don't think placing this ad is the biggest comedown I've ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34."

"Best Golf Shot Ever". ("Oh, my goodness!")

Tom Watson's birdie from the deep rough on the 17th at the '82 Open--final round, tied with Nicklaus for the lead--was pretty good, too. But I won't split hairs.

"13 Things That Do Not Make Sense".

(Why only thirteen? I don't think they really tried.)

"25 Skills Every Man Should Know: Your Ultimate DIY Guide". My wife observed, "Good thing they have a few computer-related things on the list or you'd be batting about zero."

I'm married almost 30 years to her. "Take my wife. Please."

"Five commonly misdiagnosed diseases" along with advice for the patient on how to avoid being misdiagnosed. (Including "Be wary when your doctors work in shifts.")

Video of the "Top Ten Things Never Said Before on the Sopranos".

"A Choice List of Productive Free Windows Applications". I've used Audacity and liked it, and a couple of the others look interesting.

The Economist discusses research that finds "Chasing females can take years off life".

IN THE cause of equal rights, feminists have had much to complain about. But one striking piece of inequality has been conveniently overlooked: lifespan. In this area, women have the upper hand. All round the world, they live longer than men. Why they should do so is not immediately obvious. But the same is true in many other species. From lions to antelope and from sea lions to deer, males, for some reason, simply can't go the distance.

One theory is that males must compete for female attention. That means evolution is busy selecting for antlers, aggression and alloy wheels in males, at the expense of longevity. Females are not subject to such pressures. If this theory is correct, the effect will be especially noticeable in those species where males compete for the attention of lots of females. Conversely, it will be reduced or absent where they do not.

New York magazine thinks it has finally cracked the case of the notorious D. B. Cooper.

Just so you know: "the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000." And "100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed."   

"10 Most Bizarre Scientific Papers".

Number one is "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide". (Next they should look at Heavy Metal.)

I don't agree with it all--the parts I've managed to read--but there's a lot of good instruction here, especially for the young: "The Guide to Everything". Samples:

When in doubt, use Google. It knows what you're talking about.

Run a trickle of hot water through your pipes when it's really, really cold out.

Avoid cliches like the plague.

Showing up to class is half the battle in college.

The current odds of British bookmaker Ladbrokes on the U.S. 2008 presidential election.

Writer Rob Long asserts that it makes no sense to live in L.A. But he does.

It makes no rational sense to live in a place so dangerously unstable, just as it makes no rational sense to work in a business where fortunes are made and lost at the whim of a focus group. But for those of us who work here you adjust to each disaster. When the canyons burn, you spend a few nights at Shutters, head back home, and start again. When ABC passes, you call up CBS.

A new simile for "dull" or "lifeless": "After the first three, he reacted to the joyous occasions like a guy straggling into an 8 a.m. econ class."

"Philadelphia is home to the least attractive people in the United States".

When I lived in northeastern Pennsylvania, we knew that really unattractive people lived in Jersey.

In case you missed it . . .

A fine Steven Landsburg column, "Save the Earth in Six Hard Questions: What Al Gore Doesn't Understand About Climate Change".

5. Just how rich are those future generations likely to be? If you expect economic growth to continue at the average annual rate of 2.3 percent, to which we've grown accustomed, then in 400 years, the average American will have an income of more than $1 million per day—and that's in the equivalent of today's dollars (i.e., after correcting for inflation). Does it really make sense for you and me to sacrifice for the benefit of those future gazillionaires?

A response by Joseph Romm is here. The theme: "The realities of catastrophic global warming can render economic analysis largely moot."

Sorry, sir, but economic analysis--properly done--is never "moot".

After Romm' s piece, Landsburg offers a brief but effective rebuttal

Two blogs--one economics-related--to vote on

Voting is open until Thursday in the "world's largest blog competition," the 2007 Weblog Awards. I hope Door readers will consider voting for the following two nominees.

--My wife's blog, Betsy's Page, nominated in the category of "Best of the Top 501-1000 Blogs".

--Russell Roberts's Econtalk, nominated for "Best Podcast". Roberts has hosted a lot of interesting guests, but he has yet to have on my classmate--and his co-author--John Lott. I hope he corrects this surprising omission soon. (Thanks to Mike Munger for this link.)

"25 Unexpectedly Useful Websites for the Uncommonly Curious".

Since that teenager dropped dead in Virginia, the major media have begun to notice: a New York Times report on MRSA.

Two on air travel.

Joe Brancatelli discusses the best and worst times to fly into the U.S.'s busiest airports. He provides some useful details, but the overall conclusion is unsurprising.

If there’s a moral in the numbers, it’s this: Fly early in the day. Airlines run their aircraft into and out of connecting hubs, so when a flight arrives late, it affects that aircraft’s next scheduled departure. Delays subsequently cascade throughout the day. By the evening hours, aircraft are so far off schedule that flights have no chance of running punctually.

Foreign Policy lists the world's five worst airports. (None in the U.S.)

"66 Celebrities That Blog".

The Greatful Dead, May 1984: "Jack Straw".