Category Archives: Economics

PREDICTING DANIEL MURPHY’S BATTING STATISTICS FOR 2016.

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Philip

PREDICTING DANIEL MURPHY’S BATTING PERFORMANCE FOR 2016. I explained my prediction for the World Series performance of Daniel Murphy here. In that post, I tried to apply some of Philip Tetlock’s principles of forecasting. I pointed out that: “It occurs … Continue reading →

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BANK DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY HAS IMPROVED.

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Philip

BANK DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY HAS IMPROVED. All but one of the bank robbers were caught. (The one who got away also seems to have wound up with much of the loot.) I think this may have been because they were primarily … Continue reading →

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DO THE BANK ROBBING TECHNIQUES OF THE 1970’s AND 1980’S STILL WORK?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Philip

D0 THE BANK ROBBING TECHNIQUES OF THE 1970’S AND 1980’S STILL WORK? In April, 2015, there was a theft of millions of dollars of diamonds and other valuables from a vault in Hatton Garden, the London diamond district. This article … Continue reading →

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A COMIC IN WHICH JOHN RAWLS, ROBERT NOZICK AND KARL MARX DISCUSS TIPPING.

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Philip

A COMIC IN WHICH JOHN RAWLS, ROBERT NOZICK AND KARL MARX DISCUSS TIPPING. Kids, when I was in graduate school in the sixties, friends who were graduate students in government were very excited by the new political and philosophical theories … Continue reading →

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CAPITALISM AND TIME ZONES.

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Philip

CAPITALISM AND TIME ZONES. Thomas Meaney cites a “classic article ‘Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalists’” in which E.P. Thompson argued that “changes ‘in the inward notation of time’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, dictated by the needs of capital, … Continue reading →

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SOME WAYS MEN USED TO TELL TIME.

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Philip

SOME WAYS MEN USED TO TELL TIME. Thomas Meaney had a review in the TLS of a book by Vanessa Ogle: THE GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION OF TIME, 1870-1950. Meaney begins with the efforts of E.P. Thompson to document units of time … Continue reading →

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THE MISSING POST—“…IT IS DIFFERENT WHEN IT IS YOUR MOTHER.”

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Philip

THE MISSING POST—“…IT IS DIFFERENT WHEN IT IS YOUR MOTHER.” I have discovered that I did not post on January 11. I try to post every day. After some digging, I found the following draft of what I had intended … Continue reading →

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HOW MUCH IS YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER WORTH?

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Philip

HOW MUCH IS YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER WORTH? We get phone calls from what are apparently computers dialing random numbers. I read recently—I can’t remember where—that if I answer a phone call from one of these computers, my phone number … Continue reading →

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THE SPIKE AND FOOTBALL CONCUSSIONS.

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Philip

THE SPIKE AND FOOTBALL CONCUSSIONS. This article entitled “Football helmets are creating more problems than they solve” by Todd Halslop on the Sporting News website from May of 2015 identifies an important aspect of football’s concussion problem. Halslop begins his … Continue reading →

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UTILITARIANISM BEGAN AS A COMPASSIONATE THEORY.

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Philip

UTILITARIANISM BEGAN AS A COMPASSIONATE THEORY. Utilitarianism now often figures in public discussions as a heartless way of thinking. And Dickens portrayed utilitarianism as heartless in HARD TIMES, only a generation after Jeremy Bentham, its originator, died. Yet it has … Continue reading →

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