Slate - Dismal Scientist - March 20, 1997

Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all.

Marginal Revolution: The macroeconomics of Superman

Let’s say we had an altruistic and incorruptible Superman, how
should he allocate his efforts to improve the macroeconomy?  He is
really strong, he can fly very fast, leap tall buildings at a single
bound, has incredible vision, and somehow he is immune from Einstein’s
theory of relativity and time dilation at near-light speeds (his most impressive achievement, if you ask me).

Yes he should save the world from evil madmen, but fighting ordinary
crime hardly appears worth his trouble.  Criminals seek pure
transfers, and Superman’s policing doesn’t lower our (inefficient)
investments in locks enough to make a difference in the growth
rate.  It’s about as silly as having Superman sub in for FedEx
when the skies get crowded over Memphis.

The Oil We Eat (Harpers.org)

The journalist’s rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We’ll follow the energy.

Critical Section - People over 30 should be dead

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, or even maybe the early 70’s probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)

charles hugh smith-The New Road to Serfdom: A Negative-Equity Mortgage

he current issue of Harper’s features a lead article entitled “An Illustrated Guide to the Coming Real Estate Collapse” by Michael Hudson. Here is a precis of the piece.

BBC NEWS | Business | Mortgage debt nears £1 trillion

Mortgage debt has almost reached £1 trillion, according to figures from the Bank of England.

ScienceCareers.org | Scientific Success: What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Levine: 26 May 2006

Several years ago, Satoshi Kanazawa, then a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, analyzed a biographical database of 280 great scientists–mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and biologists. When he calculated the age of each scientist at the peak of his career–the sample was predominantly male–Kanazawa noted an interesting trend. After a crest during the third decade of life, scientific productivity–as evidenced by major discoveries and publications–fell off dramatically with age. When he looked at the marital history of the sample, he found that the decline in productivity was less severe among men who had never been married. As a group, unmarried scientists continued to achieve well into their late 50s, and their rates of decline were slower.

What Ph.D. students really have to fear. By Joel Waldfogel

Graduate students tend to be paranoid about aspects of their careers that are largely under their control: Will I ever finish my studies? Will I sufficiently impress my adviser? But if new research for academic economists holds up, students should also be freaked out by a factor they can do nothing about: the strength of the job market at the precise time they enter it.

Why Your Boss Is Overpaid - Forbes.com

t is a typical “Dilbert” strip. The boss announces, “Our CEO has voluntarily slashed his pay from $6 million per year to $4 million. In a written statement, he said he wants to ’share the pain.’ Do you feel better now?” A downtrodden intern replies, “I make my underpants from sandwich bags.”

But that’s office life, is it not? Bosses make obscene sums of money, while downtrodden cubicle slaves toil almost without reward. It might seem insane, but economists have a surprise for us: The insanity reflects nothing more than cool economic logic. There is method in the madness.

Disturbing finding from LSE study - social mobility in Britain lower than other advanced countries and declining - News archive - News and events - Press and Information Office - LSE

* In a comparison of eight European and North American countries, Britain and the United States have the lowest social mobility
* Social mobility in Britain has declined whereas in the US it is stable
* Part of the reason for Britain’s decline has been that the better off have benefited disproportionately from increased educational opportunity

NPR : Baseball Teams Woo Christian Fans to Games

Faith Night has long been a popular promotion for minor league baseball parks — particularly in the South. Looking to capitalize on local church-going fans, more than 40 teams in minor league baseball and football have added Christian rock concerts and bobble-head dolls of biblical characters to their game-time entertainment.

NPR : ‘The Color of Wealth’: A Racial Money Divide

Farai Chideya talks to Rose Brewer, co-author of the book The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide. The book examines how government policies have affected wealth building in minority communities. Brewer is a professor of women’s studies at the University of Minnesota.

Achieve-IT!: 10 Steps You Can Take To Guarantee Failure

In the hustle and bustle of this technologically packed world you may decide you really don’t want to achieve any lasting success in your lifetime. Sure, you can find a lot of strategies and tips here that can help you increase your success rate. But what about the people who are perfectly happy not achieving anything? Is it fair that I keep pushing and prodding if someone is content leaving behind a legacy of debt and mediocrity? hmmm…maybe not. So this is for all the people who want to have goals but not achieve them.

Use a spreadsheet to keep a monthly budget

A monthly budget is an essential tool for personal financial success. Before one can know where to invest his money, he has to have a clear picture of where it’s coming from and where it needs to go. By using a spreadsheet to compose your monthly budget, you can make quick modifications at any time and stay confident that all of your totals are mathematically correct and absolutely up-to-date.

BBC News | In pictures | Three Gorges Dam | Introduction

China’s controversial Three Gorges Dam project hits a significant milestone on Saturday, when it is expected to reach its final height of 185m (607 feet).

TheAgitator.com: American Gulag: Comments

According to new data
from the U.S. Department of Justice, one in 136 Americans is behind
bars today, including an astounding 12 percent of all black men between
the ages of 25 and 29. The United States represents 4.6 percent of the
world’s population, but houses nearly 23 percent of humanity’s prison
population.

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | With Turkey in the club, Europe can forge a fresh engagement with Islam

The state of Pakistan Irfan Husain - openDemocracy

Pakistan’s classification as a “failed state” reflects the collapse of Pervez Musharraf’s authority, says Irfan Husain.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Emirates changes days of weekend

The United Arab Emirates says it will move its official weekend - a decision aimed at helping to improve business contacts with Western states.

Marginal Revolution: Open Letter on Immigration

I have written an open letter on immigration reflecting the consensus opinion of economists on the major issues. In cooperation with the Independent Institute I am looking for as many signatures as possible from economists and other social scientists. Brad DeLong, Greg Mankiw, Vernon Smith, Tyler Cowen and many others from both the left and the right have already signed on.

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Chávez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent society

Venezuela’s president is using oil revenues to liberate the poor - no wonder his enemies want to overthrow him

Does a Growing Worker Shortage Threaten China’s Low-Cost Advantage?

China’s hold on the title of low-wage manufacturing giant may be in jeopardy. This year, a job program designed to entice migrant farmer-laborers into Chinese cities fell short of expectations, as many workers chose local rural employment.

A List Apart: Articles: The Four-Day Week Challenge

The more you work, the more you get done, right? Well, I’d like to encourage you to take the “Four-Day Challenge.”

USNews.com: Why no one has much chance of toppling Congress’s incumbents

Why no one has much chance of toppling Congress’s incumbents

Globalisation Institute - How globalisation came in a box

Which technological innovation did the most to make possible the current wave of globalisation? The jet engine? The microchip? The communications satellite? The internet?

How about The Box? The Box is the title of a book by Marc Levinson, with the subtitle: “How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger”.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Washington diary: Culture of giving

It is easy for stingy foreigners, myself included, to underestimate the culture of philanthropy and fundraising in the United States.

Comment is free: I’m lovin’ it - halal style

The multinationals are slugging it out for every last piece of a global pie worth hundreds of billions of dollars, writes Fareena Alam

The Cost of Cutting in Line : HBS Working Knowledge

No one likes to waste time standing in line. So why don’t more people try to bribe their way to the front? Should companies allow some customers to move to the front of the line for a hefty fee? Is there a market for time?

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Europe’s answer to China?

The country that would like to join the EU has its sights set on becoming a big player in the global economy, says David Gow

University Channel - The Human Cost of Trade and Economic Liberalization

Economists Jagdish Bhagwati, Robert Solow and Paul Krugman discuss the forces of globalization that have affected immigration trends by allowing goods, technology and people to move more easily across national borders.

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Tough on crime, to hell with the causes of crime if they make money

Research shows a direct link between junk food and violent behaviour. But governments are in cahoots with the industry

Influential Economist Galbraith Dies at 97: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith, the renowned economist whose influence stretched from presidents, as adviser and diplomat, to Main Street, as a prolific best-selling author and TV host, has died at age 97.

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copenhagen interpretation: a minor on tradition and modernity

The question of tradition and its place in this “modern world” is one that vexes a minor number of Muslims in a major way. Not only in the West. But it is here, in the West, that the battle seems to rage at its fiercest. Especially since each of us is taught to believe that all tradition is evil, backward, oppressive: that success lies in ditching the “dead weight” of tradition whether by means of Protestant reform, Marxist revision, or fundamentalist recreation. Merely coming to grips with tradition and applying it seems far too dull. It is as if staircases, built pretty much the same old way for ages, have become an object of undergraduate philosophical debate.

In iTunes War, France Has Met the Enemy. Perhaps It Is France. - New York Times

THE French take pride in their revolutions, which are
usually hard to miss — mass uprisings, heads rolling and such.
So, with the scent of tear gas in the air this past month from the
giant protests against a youth labor law, it was easy to overlook the
French National Assembly’s approval of a bill that would require Apple Computer to crack open the software codes of its iTunes music store and let the files work on players other than the iPod.
While seemingly minor, the move is actually rather startling and has
left many experts wondering (as ever): What has possessed the French?

Shaking Spain Out of Its Siesta

Law seeks to put nation on same schedule as the rest of the EU

German Efficiency? Street Sweeping for Neurotics - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

If you thought clearing a street of a handful of leaves was a simple proposition, think again. Germany has mastered the art of overkill.

War profiteering—harder than it looks. By Daniel Gross

Two years ago, Moneybox marveled at how Halliburton
unit KBR was failing miserably in its attempts to profiteer on the Iraq
war, an adventure spurred on in large part by former Halliburton CEO
and current U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

TIME.com: How Germany Keeps Kids From Dropping Out — Apr. 17, 2006 — Page 1

The country’s thriving vocational education system gets students to stay in school - and prepares them for a solid career

One Dollar, One Vote

Income inequality is undermining democracy in America.

NPR : The Multitude of Jobs Immigrants Do

Commentator Richard Rodriguez details the many, many industries where immigrants work.

Telegraph | Money | If everything is killing us, why do we live so long?

Flick through the daily papers’ news pages and it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that everything is killing us. But then turn to the personal finance sections and it seems that our pension funds are skint because nobody is dying.

The Marketplace of Perceptions

Behavioral economics explains why we procrastinate, buy, borrow, and grab chocolate on the spur of the moment.

Law and disorder in France Patrice de Beer - openDemocracy

The mass protests in France against reform of the labour market reflect a political system choked by regulation, says Patrice de Beer.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington’s grip

The US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of independence in the global south

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Invisible city

Chongqing is the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet. Its population is already bigger than that of Peru or Iraq, with half a million more arriving every year in search of a better life. And yet so frequently is this story repeated in China, that outside the country its name barely registers. Jonathan Watts spends 24 hours in the megalopolis you’ve never heard of

BBC NEWS | Business | Ports saga ‘could hurt US firms’

A senior US government official has warned of serious economic consequences if the US sends the wrong signals about foreign investment in the country.

Big Picture | Prabhu Guptara

Professor Prabhu Guptara is Executive Director, Organisation Development, of Wolfsberg - the Platform for Executive and Business Development (a wholly-owned subsidiary of UBS), in Switzerland.

Prabhu Guptara talks about how the charging of interest exacerbates the difference between the rich and poor. The technical term for this is usury – usually understood to mean the charging of excessive rates of interest by loan sharks. Traditionally, however, the term meant the lending of money at any rate of interest, high or low. The practice was forbidden by most major religions and by many societies and cultures throughout history and with good reason, Guptara says. It widens the wealth gap, encourages growth without regard for environmental consequences and creates a culture of short term investor commitment.

Postcard from Beijing: “Our Social System Is Inadequate” - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Economist and reformist Chi Fulin of China discusses the political mistakes of the Beijing government and the reforms that will be needed to close the growing gap between rich and poor in the world’s most-populous country.

Bombay Shining - Sepia Mutiny

According to the latest Forbes ranking, the global center of desi wealth is Bombay, not Silicon Valley (thanks, WGGIA).
India is the only South Asian country with billionaire private citizens
(though a Sri Lankan Tamil émigré to Malaysia made the
list), and Bombay has the most.

Chron.com | Arab Firms Reassessing U.S. Holdings

Gulf investors, feeling scorched by what they see as an anti-Arab backlash in the U.S. Congress, will likely be wary of high-profile investments in the United States after the ports controversy with a Dubai firm.

Analysts said Friday, however, that with Gulf nations awash in cash from oil profits, the United States remains a tempting market to invest. So instead of retreating, over the longer term, Arab investors and governments may campaign to shore up their image among Americans to ensure their money is welcome.

President Bush said Friday he was worried over the message the fallout of the ports controversy will send to the Arab world. On Thursday, Dubai Ports announced that it would give up management of six U.S. ports after an outcry in Congress over security.