Posted in Uncategorized on July 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Reading this reminded me of Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s “Colonial Origins of Comparative Development” (here).
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The American overseers found it hard to retain employees, who tended to wander off after earning enough to satisfy their immediate wants. Those who stayed died in large numbers, from viper bites, malaria, yellow fever and numerous other [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Keynes was right. When we think we’re are being original, all we have to do is search for the mad scribbler. I thought I came up with this phrase, or something similar. But lo and behold, Paley beat me to it:
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If we would know who is the most degraded and wretched of human beings, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In the second half of his Vox EU piece, Tabellini embraces the view that the current crisis is likely not to be a rupture in economic thinking and history. He discusses potential problems in readjusting monetary policy once demand for liquidity returns to normal levels. The problem will be how to handle fears of inflation, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
William F. Buckley Jr’s papers have been added to Yale’s library system. Click here
This ability to produce is evidenced by the size of Buckley’s collection: It stretches to more than 598 linear feet of material – approximately 43 feet higher than the Washington Monument.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Guido Tabellini began a two-part series of articles investigating the origins and lessons of the current crisis. He lists three kinds of causes: market and regulatory failures and the mistakes in managing the crisis. Financial firms, blinded by innovative products, failed to see mounting risks. Regulatory agencies did not tend to the analysis of risks [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The comparison does not really hold.
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Han Chinese immigrants suffered badly in the race riots that convulsed Xinjiang. But China’s emotional and affronted reaction to the upheavals in Xinjiang is typical of an empire under challenge. With the British in Ireland, the Portuguese in Africa and many others besides, the refrain was always that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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But there will be widespread cynicism over whether such commitments are credible. Every G8 summit – not to mention other international summits – ends with leaders paying lip service to finalising a trade round.
Update: Dan Drezner calls Doha a policy trap.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Wow
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The system, based on Google’s Chrome web browser, is designed for all classes of PCs, “from small netbooks to full-sized desktop systems”, and will be available in machines from “multiple” PC makers in the second half of next year, the company said.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I watched The Fog of War a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend it.
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I was 23 years old at the time, and had no notion of what a war crime was; but it became clear to me later that that was what I had been witnessing, day after day.
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But in [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As a scientist I believe in proof without certainty, while other people tend to believe in certainty without proof. – Ashley Montagu
Lieberman, Leonard, Andrew Lyons, and Harriet Lyons. 1995. An Interview with Ashley Montagu. Current Anthropology 36, no. 5 (December): 835-844. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744029.
