Jan 23, 2009
“The more a shopper spends, the greater the interest in personalized ads."
-- ChoiceStream
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Jan 12, 2009
“Peer review was uncommon until the mid 20th century, relying on editorial
judgement instead. Peer review only became widespread because of increased
academic specialization, increased publication volume, and technologies for
copying paper."
— paraphrasing Michael Nielsen
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Dec 2, 2009
From "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," by Kurt Vonnegut:
I think it's terrible the way people don't share things in this country. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies. There's plenty for everybody in this country, if we'd only share more.
"And just what do you think that would do to incentive?"
You mean fright about not getting enough to eat, about not being able to pay the doctor, about not being able to give your family nice clothes, a safe, cheerful, comfortable place to live, a decent education, and a few good times? You mean shame about not knowing where the Money River is?
"The what?"
The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.
"Slurping lessons?"
From lawyers! From tax consultants! We're born close enough to the river to drown ourselves and the next ten generations in wealth, simply using dippers and buckets. But we still hire the experts to teach us the use of aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, siphons, bucket brigades, and the Archimedes' screw. And our teachers in turn become rich, and their children become buyers of lessons in slurping.
"It's still possible for an American to make a fortune on his own."
Sure—provided somebody tells him when he's young enough that there is a Money River, that there's nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap, and get to where the river is. 'Go where the rich and powerful are,' I'd tell him, 'and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You'll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.'
comments
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Dec 14, 2008
A newbie driver in San Francisco
Open a route in downtown San Francisco and drag the destination around. Watch how convoluted even simple routes get. Destinations half a block apart need entirely different routes.
When I moved to San Francisco, getting into my car often triggered Pavlovian fury for the impending battle with one-ways, no-left-turns, you-screwed-up-now-go-back-and-try-agains. Now rage has gradually simmered down into a cautious wariness, an ambient “what are you going to throw at me now, city?” I know to plan my routes. I know the three places where you can turn left on Market, and I know not to try turning left on 6th. I am no longer a newcomer.
Driving in San Francisco is complex because it isn't geared for newcomers. When habitual users have more pull than newcomers, dramatic changes become hard. Adjustment would be needed. Old habits would have to be broken, replaced with new ones. Much easier if you're a veteran to just apply the duct tape of a new exception. And the exceptions gradually pile up until you're oblivious to even the need for a ‘last left off Market’ sign.
My lesson from all this: If you have an audience, listen for signs that you're ‘inaccessible to newcomers’—it's keeping you from moving to a larger audience. ‘Inaccessible to newcomers’ is a sign of complacency, an opportunity for an upstart to disrupt life as usual for the incumbent.
But there's no opportunity in San Francisco. The last thing a city needs is more drivers.
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Dec 11, 2008
Caroline Baum: Until now, central bankers pretty much cared about asset bubbles only to the extent that asset prices affected their ability to deliver price stability. Otherwise, the operative doctrine was laissez-faire-’til-after-they-burst.
William Whitei: The most calamitous downturns were not preceded by any degree of inflation. There was no inflation in 1873-74, in the 1920s, in the 1980s in Japan and in the 1990s in Southeast Asia.
Edward Harrison: Consumer price inflation and inflation are not the same thing. Inflation comes from increasing the money supply and increased credit.
me: Inflation in an asset affects only those owning it. Consumer price inflation hurts everyone.
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Dec 11, 2008
“Almost exactly 101 years ago, J P Morgan was the lender of last resort in the panic of 1907. He, George Baker, and four others would try and ascertain which companies were hopelessly overextended and should be allowed to fail, and which were essentially healthy and could be saved. Somehow they would find ways to supply liquidity where it would do the most good. They scrutinized the collateral offered by all borrowers. When they could not determine whether Knickerbocker had enough assets to secure a loan, Morgan decided not to intervene. Finally the Trust Company of America came up with good collateral- “boxes and stacks full of certificates” - and Morgan said, “This is the place to stop the trouble.”
That’s what Bernanke and Paulson should be doing—find the boundary line of quality and offer to lend to all those with assets above that line, not below it.
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Dec 11, 2008
“Bailouts are terribly inefficient ways of dealing with companies in distress. Chapter 11 bankruptcies are far better. Chapter 11 could have been used by Lehman Brothers, but Lehman apparently refused to consider it, and chose instead to play a game of “chicken” with the Treasury.
Prior to 1978, a company could seek Chapter 11 protection only if it was insolvent, and Chapter 11 normally meant that a company’s managers would have to relinquish control. In 1978 Congress amended Chapter 11 to delete the insolvency test, and also to allow managers to keep control of a company unless a bankruptcy judge explicitly finds them to be incompetent or untrustworthy.
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Dec 11, 2008
“Did we learn nothing from the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980s? The accounting crises of 2000-01 or the bailout of the airlines in 2004? The current crisis may indeed be worse than any we have seen since the Great Depression, but the narrative is actually fairly common in the recent history of American capitalism.
The last 30 years are littered with examples of two dissonant themes: On the one hand, we have a corporate sector advocating deregulation, singing the praises of a laissez-faire market, and criticizing government interference as fundamentally inefficient. On the other hand, we have corporations—and the population—asking for bailouts when they can’t survive the realities of the free markets they have advocated.
— Doug Guthrie, in the most high-quality, star-studded comment thread on economics ever
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Dec 9, 2008
“In teasing, we learn to use our voices, bodies and faces, and to read those of others — the raw materials of emotional intelligence and the moral imagination. In seeking to protect our children from bullying and aggression, we risk depriving them of a most remarkable form of social exchange.
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