GARFUNKEL’S LIST. Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker for January 28 has an article about Art Garfunkel’s reading list, which is posted here. Since June, 1968, Garfunkel has been listing the books he has read. He is now up to 1023, an average of 2.16 books a month. I love top 100 lists because they give you ideas for future reading. Paumgarten takes some shots at the list (“The list contains just—just—enough low-or middle-brow work to suggest sincerity.”) and refers to “the temptation to sneer at such ostentation.” But this is a wonderful list.
Archive for January, 2008
GARFUNKEL’S LIST.
Sunday, January 27th, 2008FARRO–GRAIN OF THE LEGIONS.
Saturday, January 26th, 2008FARRO–GRAIN OF THE LEGIONS. I went to an elegant restaurant in New York City recently with a couple who are knowledgeable about fine restaurants. We all had an appetizer which featured farro as an ingredient. We didn’t know what farro is. I looked it up here. It turns out that farro is the “original grain from which all others derive, and fed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations for thousands of years.” In its article on emmer, wikipedia says that domesticated emmer has been dated to 7700 B.C. (Joseph Coleman Carter in METAPONTO notes that the Romans called emmer “far”, from which “farro” evidently derives.) Farro’s cultivation dwindled because of low yields. There has recently been “renewed interest in farro among gastronomes”, which explains why it was found in the elegant restaurant. It has a chewy texture and seems ideal for absorbing sauces. But for me, even better than gastronomic properties, is that this is a food which goes far back in time and was “the standard ration of the Roman Legions “
MESSY ROOMS—CONCLUSIONS.
Friday, January 25th, 2008MESSY ROOMS—CONCLUSIONS. Kids, the conclusions I come to about messy living spaces are: first it is a disadvantage in bargaining to want to change the status quo (and the status quo would be that the neat roommate does the cleaning). Second, as Bryan Caplan points out, there is no way to know how clean a room should be; it’s up to the roommates. Third, as Tyler Cowen points out, there are usually a number of other issues between roommates and spouses which involve allocating time and money. The ultimate conclusion on what will happen is: it depends. And, kids, one more thing, if you comment on the subject, please be careful about the examples you use.
THE MESSY ROOMMATE THEORY OF NATO.
Friday, January 25th, 2008THE MESSY ROOMMATE THEORY OF NATO. The discussion of messy roommates yesterday presupposed an economic theory applying to small groups. In our hypothetical, assume the messy husband would clean the house once a month whether it was needed or not, and the wife can’t stand to let the house go more than a week without a cleaning. Other things being equal, one could expect the wife to be the only one to clean the house. In any event, the husband may be perceived to have a bargaining advantage in negotiating household chores. Richard Zeckhauser and Mancur Olson wrote a pioneering paper back in the sixties on what they called the Messy Roommate Theory of NATO. The article argued that European countries could see that the United States seemed to have a greater interest in defending Europe than did the Europeans themselves and that therefore it was not surprising that the United States bore a disproportionate share of the burdens of NATO. The European countries would therefore be “free riding” to an extent on the United States, just as the messy husband would be “free riding” on the efforts of the neat wife. What Bryan Caplan said to begin the discussions I posted on yesterday was that there is no reason to assume that the neat roommate’s values are correct and the messy roommate is free riding. From the messy husband’s point of view, to clean more than when it is absolutely necessary is a waste of time no matter who does the cleaning.
YOU CAN INVEST IN A PITCHER’S EARNINGS.
Thursday, January 24th, 2008YOU CAN INVEST IN A PITCHER’S EARNINGS. Alex Taborrak, at the Marginal Revolution site, reports on an investment opportunity: “Randy Newsom, relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, is selling 4% of his future major league salary. There are 2,500 shares in the IPO so each share gets you a claim to 0.0016% of his future salary including bonuses. Shares sell for $20 each.” There are over 30 comments, with one of them suggesting that this could be a good way to finance a law school education.
THE ECONOMICS OF MESSY ROOMMATES.
Thursday, January 24th, 2008THE ECONOMICS OF MESSY ROOMMATES. Three of the best sites for economics are debating the issue of messy roommates (hypothetical: assume a messy husband and a neat wife. Who cleans?). The discussion, which now has generated numerous very interesting comments, began here, with Bryan Caplan saying that the man in the hypothetical is unfairly criticized for shirking: “The evidence: Look at the typical bachelor’s apartment. Even when a man pays the full cost of cleanliness and receives the full benefit, he doesn’t do much. Why not? Because the typical man doesn’t care very much about cleanliness. When the bachelor gets married, he almost certainly starts doing more housework than he did when he was single. How can you call that shirking?” Megan McArdle disagreed here, giving several reasons grounded in economics (and generating over 40 interesting comments). Tyler Cowen commented here, at the Marginal Revolution blog (with 20 interesting comments). Notice that Tyler Cowen focuses on possible alternative bargains between the roommates. I am sure that your reaction to all this is to wonder about the economic theory of Messy Roommates.
DISCUSSING RECESSION IN TERMS OF PROBABILITIES.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008DISCUSSING RECESSION IN TERMS OF PROBABILITIES. About a year ago, I argued here that it would be useful to use probabilities to discuss foreign intelligence, just as we have over the last forty years gotten used to using probabilities in discussing the weather. Recession is an unfortunate possibility, but I am pleased that people are using probabilities to talk about it.
ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS FOR 2008.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008MAKE YOUR OWN ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS FOR 2008. Kids, this would be a good time to try your hand at economic predictions. It’s good to take a position because it makes you pay attention to what’s happening—like picking your horse when you watch the Kentucky Derby, only we all have a lot more at stake. Flip a coin and decide whether there is going to be a recession this year. A coin flip will work because economists a little while ago seemed to think there was about a fifty per cent chance of recession. (There was some inconsistency in the predictions because the average predictions by a typical group of economists had GDP growth for the year at about 2% and if they really thought the chance of a recession is fifty per cent, the average prediction for GDP growth should be about zero). Just yesterday the Federal Reserve Bank cut the federal funds rate dramatically by three quarters of per cent. The Fed apparently thinks the risk of a recession has increased dramatically. Perhaps you’d like to follow the Fed rather than flipping the coin?
THE SAFE WAY TO MAKE ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS.
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008THE SAFE WAY TO MAKE ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS. Kids, this is a very unusual time for economic forecasters. Most of the time the best formula to predict what is going to happen in the economy for the next six months is the same formula that works best for predicting what will happen in the upcoming baseball season: predict more of the same. What happened in the last period will happen again. The formula won’t give you give the best forecast, but it is a tough standard to beat. Economists have not had much success in predicting turning points (the end of a boom or the end of a recession), so the safest prediction is not to try to identify a turning point. Now the question can’t be avoided: will there be a recession in the next six months?
DO JOURNALISTS TRY TO DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS?
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008DO JOURNALISTS TRY TO DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS? I have posted here and here about how the primary system has operated to disenfranchise voters who do not live in New Hampshire and Iowa because the winning candidate is chosen before people in other states get to vote. I see that Mickey Kaus (on January 17) and John Ellis (on January 17, Item 4) have argued that journalists have an incentive to eliminate candidates quickly because coverage of each candidate is so expensive and that this is what they have done in the past. Kaus says that “one of the important mechanisms of hounding-out [is] increasingly negative coverage that turns off your funders….”
