ROADS IN LAOS. I have discovered in writing this blog that I am fascinated by roads and how they extend markets and facilitate trade. I have posted several times on roads, including here and here. This article by Thomas Fuller describes how China has been building two-lane highways through the Himalayan foothills in remote parts of Myanmar, Laos and Viet Nam. A final link is being officially inaugurated. The price of an apple in Thailand has dropped from one dollar to twenty cents in ten years. “Overall, even before the completion of the road, trade between China and the upland Southeast Asian countries Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam had risen impressively, to $53 billion in 2007 from just over $1 billion a decade ago.”
Archive for March, 2008
ROADS IN LAOS.
Monday, March 31st, 2008BEING WHO YOU WANT TO BE.
Monday, March 31st, 2008BEING WHO YOU WANT TO BE. I have been posting about Colin McGinn’s contention that personality is “not a given, but a choice, not determined but free.” I was chatting over the weekend with an old friend who lives in another state. He had mentioned to me the last time I saw him that a man who lived near him was a member of a large and well-known American family. This weekend, he told me that it turned out not to be true. There had been a divorce and it emerged that the man was not who he said he was. Nobody knows who he is. He chose to lose everything in the divorce proceedings rather than to reveal his real name.
IS GENDER SIMPLY PLAYING A ROLE?
Sunday, March 30th, 2008IS GENDER SIMPLY PLAYING A ROLE? Colin McGinn extends the idea that for Shakespeare, “our personality (or many personalities) is analogous to the character an actor plays on the stage” to include gender. McGinn treats it as a matter of philosophy: “The philosophical question at issue is….What kind of fact is it to possess a specific psychological gender?” He looks at the facts that boy actors played women in Shakespeare’s plays and that Shakespeare’s female characters often disguise themselves as males. He concludes that “It is the fact that a female character in Shakespeare can play the part of a man so well that shows that we are always acting—that the adoption of a psychological gender is essentially theatrical.” The all-female performances I have seen, including RICHARD II at the Globe, are consistent with these propositions. I suppose it also follows that to play Cassius as a woman is not so big a leap as might first appear.
DO WE CHOOSE OUR PERSONALITIES?
Saturday, March 29th, 2008DO WE CHOOSE OUR PERSONALITIES? The philosopher Colin McGinn, in SHAKESPEARE’S PHILOSOPHY, considers Shakespeare’s view of the self. He contends that Shakespeare was a precursor of the sociologist Erving Goffman, who in THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE argued for the theatrical view of the self. Goffman pioneered dramaturgical theory, which “suggests that a person’s identity is not a stable and independent psychological entity; it is constantly remade as the person interacts with others.” McGinn says that “Shakespeare regards the self as interactive and theatrical”, and suggests that Shakespeare means that “our personality (or many personalities) is analogous to the character an actor plays on the stage.” A further consequence is that “This makes personality not a given but a choice, not determined but free.” We construct our personalities using an actor’s skills.
CAN CASSIUS BE A WOMAN?
Friday, March 28th, 2008CAN CASSIUS BE A WOMAN? Yes, Cassius can be played as a woman. Like the Vermont farmer, I’ve seen it done. My wife Mary Jane has now completed her performances as Cassius in JULIUS CAESAR. She was playing Cassius as a woman, not as a man (which would present different issues). The text provides some support for playing Cassius as a woman in love with Brutus: Cassius is defined by two major scenes—a seduction scene and the Quarrel Scene, which plays like a lover’s quarrel. At the end of the seduction scene, Cassius says, after Brutus leaves, “For who so firm that cannot be seduced.” In the Quarrel Scene, Cassius expresses jealousy of Caesar: “When thou didst hate him worst, thou loved him better than ever thou lovest Cassius.” After Cassius and Brutus have made up, Cassius says, “I cannot drink too much of Brutus’ love.”
THE MAN WHO STOLE 40,000 COAT HANGERS.
Thursday, March 27th, 2008THE MAN WHO STOLE 40,000 COAT HANGERS. This excerpt from a trial transcript is wonderful (link via Instapundit). In fact, it seems too good to be true, It reminds me of the wonderful fictional legal opinions of the law reformer A.P. Herbert. Fardell v. Potts, which examines the contention that “legally at least there IS no reasonable woman”, concludes, “I find that at Common Law, a reasonable woman does not exist.” Rex v. Haddock contains memorable dicta, such as “It cannot be too clearly understood that this is NOT a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is. The citizens of London must realize that there is almost nothing they are allowed to do” and “People must not do things for fun. We are not here for fun. There is no reference to fun in any Act of Parliament.”
BORROWING FOR A DAY AND LENDING FOR YEARS (COMMENT).
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008BORROWING FOR A DAY AND LENDING FOR YEARS (COMMENT). Nick asked me here: “So to sum up, Bernanke is using an old idea, and you agree that it’s the right move?” I had posted last August that Walter Bagehot should be the guide in a liquidity crisis: the Federal Reserve Bank should lend money (cash) as a lender of last resort. Kids, banks are always subject to runs because they borrow for short periods of time and lend for long periods of time. You can draw on your checking account and the bank has to pay on demand. The bank counts on the fact that not everybody withdraws their money at once. If all the depositors “run” to the bank to withdraw their money, the bank can’t satisfy them. In 1907 my father’s parents were wiped out in a bank run. Now, there are other institutions that are not banks, referred to as a “shadow banking system”, who also borrow short and lend long. There was a run on Bear Stearns less than two weeks ago. Paul Krugman has a discussion which I urge you to read.
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WHAT CATS, COURTIERS, BUSINESS EXECUTIVES AND ACTORS HAVE IN COMMON.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008WHAT CATS, COURTIERS, BUSINESS EXECUTIVES AND ACTORS HAVE IN COMMON. Our cats seem to get along just fine when they are not in the same room with us. I want to focus on only two paragraphs in this article by David Mamet, the passage that begins: “Take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.” The reason? The director’s presence “impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority—that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics….” Mamet says that when people don’t have an authority figure, they find a way of working things out. Maureen Dowd makes a similar point about the competition between Al Gore and Hillary Clinton in the Clinton White House “There’s no love between [Gore] and Hillary,” said one former Clintonista. “It was like Mitterrand with his wife and girlfriend. They were always competing for the affection of the big guy.”
ECONOMICS AND THE RULE OF LAW.
Monday, March 24th, 2008ECONOMICS AND THE RULE OF LAW. Dick Weisfelder recommended this article in The Economist about the research that has been done in economics in the last ten years which argues that the rule of law is critical to economic development. Aid agencies have been influenced by the research to spend billions on extensive rule-of-law programs (for example, training judges and reforming prisons). One line of research argues that what is important is law protecting civil liberties; another argues that protecting property rights is the key. Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny argue that the common law (America and England) does a better job of promoting economic performance than does the civil law (France, Germany, Scandinavia). A lot of research poses broad questions which are difficult to test because nature has not performed good enough experiments. Is it the rule of law that matters or the opening of markets? I have been posting about grain markets in Chicago and Ethiopia as evidence that you need both.
GRAIN ELEVATORS.
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008GRAIN ELEVATORS. To find out more about the history of the Chicago grain trade, I went to my library to look at NATURE’S METROPOLIS: CHICAGO AND THE GREAT WEST by William Cronon. Cronon sketches a number of factors which facilitated the Midwestern grain market. Credit for farmers was available, often from the local store. Insurance was available. Because grain was sold in sacks and the farmer or local merchant owned the sacks of grain until they reached New Orleans or New York, insurance was an important business in Chicago by the 1840’s. The major change in the 1840’s was the freight elevator, which used machinery to move grain into and out of the building. The Chicago Board of Trade dealt with the often overlooked tasks of inspection and measurement, which became important for the use of grain elevators. Sacks were eliminated. Grain was commingled by grade and the owner simply received a warehouse receipt, which was then bought and sold. The Board of Trade became in some ways a governmental agency: the Illinois legislature granted it the power to make inspection and grading rules and to decide contract disputes.
