Monthly Archives: October 2008

NATURE RUNS SOME EXPERIMENTS.

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Philip

NATURE RUNS SOME EXPERIMENTS. I have posted here and here on Professor John Meyer’s warning that “Nature does not run very good experiments.” That is, nature doesn’t make the right kinds of changes in variables to let us make a … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, History | Leave a comment

RECESSION PREDICTIONS.

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Philip

RECESSION PREDICTIONS. I recorded my changing personal subjective probabilities for a recession here. I now have raised the probability of a recession in the United States to 100% because the recession in the United States is here. GDP in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Leave a comment

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (COMMENT).

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Philip

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (COMMENT). Molly in a comment refers to the FiveThirtyEight website which is bringing in the insights from sabermetrics to political statistics. Nate Silver, who is one of the two authors of the site, is a major figure in Baseball … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Politics, Sports | 1 Comment

GETTING HOLD OF THE BEANS BEFORE VALUING THEM.

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Philip

GETTING HOLD OF THE BEANS BEFORE VALUING THEM. It has been observed that some of the mistakes that were made that led to the current crisis were intellectual mistakes made by brilliant people. In fact some of the mistakes occurred … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Shakespeare, Sports, Theater | 4 Comments

THE EXCITING GAME WITHOUT ANY RULES.

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Philip

THE EXCITING GAME WITHOUT ANY RULES. Baseball nearly had a disaster last night. Mark Harris wrote a baseball novel in which the players passed the time in hotel lobbies playing TEGWAR (“The Exciting Game Without Any Rules”). The joke was … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball | 1 Comment

PROBLEM: TWO CANDLE STORES IN A RICHMOND MALL.

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Philip

PROBLEM: TWO CANDLE STORES IN A RICHMOND MALL. Kids, in economics, it’s helpful to start with a problem, as Paul Krugman did. Here is an economic problem that Annalisa raised. There are two stores that sell candles close together in … Continue reading →

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PAUL KRUGMAN’S NOBEL PRIZE.

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Philip

PAUL KRUGMAN’S NOBEL PRIZE. Kids, Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize for Economics, and you can understand some of the ideas for which he won. This article in the Economist has a good introduction to some of his models, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Leave a comment

HOW RARE ARE TWINS?

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Philip

HOW RARE ARE TWINS? As an identical twin, I should have an idea of frequently one encounters twins, but I didn’t. My first reaction on looking at twins who are successful in sports was surprise at how few there were. … Continue reading →

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ARE TWINS BETTER IN SOME SPORTS THAN IN OTHERS?

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Philip

ARE TWINS BETTER IN SOME SPORTS THAN IN OTHERS? The NBA season is starting and the Lopez twins are joining the Collins twins, also identical twins, as NBA players. One of my correspondents suggested to me that twins seem to … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Football, Sports | 1 Comment

LEVERAGE–HOW BIG AN ISLAND WOULD YOU BUY?

Posted on October 26, 2008 by Philip

LEVERAGE–HOW BIG AN ISLAND WOULD YOU BUY? John Lanchester is an award-winning novelist who has written for the London Review of Books two of the best articles about the current financial crisis. In the October 20 issue his article puts … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Literature | 2 Comments