TYLER COWEN, America’s Hottest Economist. “Cowen is still best known for the blog he shares with Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution. The same survey listed Cowen and Tabarrok’s blog as the second-most popular on economics. Greg Mankiw’s eponymous blog at Harvard just edged it out; both picked up far more votes than Paul Krugman’s New York Times blog Conscience of a Liberal, which ranked third, or Freakonomics, at fifth. That’s among economists.”
Archive for 2011
May 28, 2011
May 27, 2011
FEARING AN INCANDESCENT-BULB PHASE-OUT, Americans are hoarding. I like the way the NYT spins this to blame Bush even as it tries to debunk. But if people are afraid of Bush’s ban, where’s the change now?
Anyway, if the debunking doesn’t calm your worries, it’s not too late to stock up!
UPDATE: Reader Stephen Siegel writes:
I read the NYT piece you linked alleging that the ban on incandescent bulbs is false. Their claim surprised me, so I checked Home Depot’s web site, which reports that they are indeed being phased out.
Then I compared standard 60-watt incandescents with the NYT’s approved substitute, the Philips Ecovantage. First problem is that the substitute isn’t an incandescent; it’s a halogen. The second problem is that it has the same life, produces less than half the lumens (light output), and costs nearly five times as much. It is 28% more efficient, but that won’t even come close to offsetting its higher costs.
Yeah, and I have to say I’m deeply, deeply disappointed with CFL bulbs. I replaced pretty much every regular bulb in the house with CFLs, but they’ve been failing at about the same rate as ordinary long-life bulbs, despite the promises of multi-year service. And I can’t tell any difference in my electric bill. Plus, the Insta-Wife hates the light. I’ve had somewhat better luck with LED bulbs, of which I have a couple, but though the longevity is better, the light is still inferior.
A FRIGHTENING PREDICTION:
I literally experience an emotional connection to my automobile because of the features I mentioned. Someday all of our technology will learn to emotionally manipulate us. Your smartphone is already doing it. Your desktop computer has been doing it for years. As your possessions learn to fill your emotional void, your need for the comfort of other humans will continue to decrease. Eventually we’ll be a society of sociopaths. I’m already halfway there.
That prediction is entirely serious, by the way. I do believe we will transfer our emotional connections from humans to technology, with or without actual robots. It might take a generation or two, but it’s coming. And it probably isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Put that together with the whole President Robama thing, and well . . . it’s scary, all right.
KILLING KHADDAFY with the secret weapon.
THREE CHEERS for Canada.
THE STATE OF THE UNION, ACCORDING TO MATT DRUDGE:
WHAT TO DO if you think you’re getting fired. It helps to be likable.
BLEG: A reader emails: “Hi! I am about to go to a country long ago and far away. Please suggest a good solar charger, portable, that will charge the battery on my HP laptop, and maybe my Kindle.”
STEPHEN GREEN: The Obama Dilemma: “When a President loses control of Congress midstream, typically he turns to foreign policy — where the President’s import can’t be understated — to gin up his numbers. Let’s take a look around the world and see how that’s going for Obama, shall we?”
MEMORIAL DAY SALE: Up to 30% off on HDTVs.
COLLEGES — NOT AS BROKE AS CLAIMED?
Hearing that the University of California system had $2.5 billion in “unrestricted net assets” on hand in 2010 could make anyone question the necessity of the 32 percent tuition hike that has been proposed, or the 11 to 26 furlough days that more than 100,000 employees were forced to take in 2009.
Similar skepticism has been expressed in two other states in the last month, as different groups suggested that state universities were, in their view, hoarding funds while simultaneously demanding more money from students, denying pay increases to faculty and staff members, and fighting against cuts in state funding. In Michigan it was a faculty union in the middle of contract negotiations. In Ohio it was the state senate’s finance committee chairman. The problem with the claim, administrators say, is that unrestricted net assets are not just piles of cash lying around to be used for whatever they want. The accounting term, which they admit is confusing, refers to any money that doesn’t have some specific restriction placed on it by a donor. That includes a whole host of different funds, most of which have been designated for some purpose, they say.
The term could soon prove to be a headache for more state university administrators as lawmakers scour financial statements for any penny they can find to plug state budgets, and groups like students and faculty members are asked to share the sacrifice of budget cuts through tuition increases, cuts to services, pay freezes, and layoffs.
Read the whole thing. I think university financial statements will be scoured in ways they never have before, which could be awkward, but overall will probably be a good thing.
Plus this: “Everybody’s saying ‘Don’t accumulate assets, pay me!'” A metaphor for our times.
A BILL TO KEEP Big Brother’s mitts off your GPS. “A bill they’ve collaborated to draft prevents the government from getting tracking data sent by your smartphone, GPS unit or other device — including any ‘successor device,’ a nod to as-yet-unimagined tech — without a court order. It exempts geolocation collection from the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision.”
EXPERTS SPAR over Gulf methane’s fate.
A VARIATION ON “UNEXPECTEDLY,” ANYWAY: Pending Home Sales Plunge, Reaching Seven-Month Low. “Pending sales of existing U.S. homes dropped far more than expected in April to touch a seven-month low, a trade group said on Friday, dealing a blow to hopes of a recovery in the housing market.”
UPDATE: Consumer spending, income drop as inflation accelerates. Somebody send Obama a copy of Steve Carter’s essay.
THE TWENTY BEST-READ CITIES IN AMERICA: I was disappointed that Knoxville was only #11.
UPDATE: Tom Elia quotes Milton.
XENI JARDIN: About That AutoPen: “I don’t know that I agree with Graves’ fears, but something just seems wrong about automating the process of signing this particular bill into law, given its far-reaching implications for the privacy and liberty of all Americans, and all the secrecy this law entails. Maybe I’m having a Bill Keller moment: maybe the technology doesn’t matter, and the ceremony of a human hand and a pen and a piece of paper is just familiar theater. But in this case, could the president have been any more detached?”
UPDATE: Several readers say this is eerily somehow reminiscent of the mortgage “robosigning” business.
Plus, from the comments at BoingBoing: “It also seems oddly appropriate that a marginally constitutional bill was signed in a marginally constitutional way.”
TEST-DRIVING the 2012 Toyota Prius V.
SUSANNAH BRESLIN: How To Get A Raise. “TIP #1: Ask for one.”
ROBERT WEISSBERG: Another Modest Proposal To Rescue Universities.
PAUL BOUTIN: Setting Browser Tabs To Open At Startup. “Do you find yourself hitting the same group of Web sites every time you sit down at your computer? For me, it’s Facebook, The Times, Instapundit, Techmeme, my bank, and my Google Docs spreadsheet of freelance assignments. . . . You’re working too hard, America. Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome will all let you save a group of tabs so that your browser will open them all whenever it starts.”
UPDATE: Readers warn that having your bank tab open in the same browser with other tabs is a security risk. Personally, I have an old Macbook I use solely for financial stuff, but that degree of paranoia is probably excessive.