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27
Jan

What Is the Most Popular TV Show Among 18 Year Old Californians Today?

I need examples for my Econ 1 class. Dharma and Greg, Buffy, and Star Trek will no longer cut it…

27
Jan

Econ 1: Spring 2012: U.C. Berkeley: Revised Syllabus: Course Topics

27
Jan

Update from the eurozone, the very very latest hottest news you can find

You will find the report here, and I thank John B. Bryant for the pointer.

27
Jan

Update from the eurozone, the very very latest hottest news you can find

You will find the report here, and I thank John B. Bryant for the pointer.

27
Jan

U.S. GDP: not a recession, but still not very encouraging

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today that U.S. real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.8% during the fourth quarter of 2011. That’s better than any of the previous 5 quarters, which tells you more about how disappointing the previous year and a half has been than it does about how great the fourth quarter was. The average historical growth rate for the U.S. economy over the last 60 years has been about 3.2%.



Real GDP growth at an annual rate, 1947:Q2-2011:Q4, with dates of U....
27
Jan

Who Is Teaching in Wheeler This Semester?

Here we all are:

MWF 9: UGBA 10: Robinson
MWF 10: Hist 7b: Einhorn
MW 11: Econ 1: DeLong
MW 12: Psych 1: Gade
F 12: L&S C180U: Reich
MW 2: Nut 10: Faghihnia
M 4-6: PH 116: Potts
W 4-5: PolSci 179: Ross

TTh 8-9:30: Int Bio 132: Brooks
TTh 9:30-11: MCB 61: Presti
TTh 11-12:30: Math 16b: Johnson
TTh 12:30-2: Anthro 1: Deacon

Still kinda surprised that Wheeler is apparently open MW 1-4, and TThF after 2

27
Jan

“How deserving are the poor?”

Next Wednesday night, Bryan Caplan will debate Karl Smith on that topic at GMU.  For background, here is a relevant short essay by Karl.

From the perspective of “common sense morality,” the poor, in wealthy countries at least, are responsible for quite a bit of their difficulties.  I believe Bryan stresses this factor, although I am less sure how he treats common sense morality when he disagrees with it.

Yet other perspectives must be brought to bear.  There is determinism, at diffe...

27
Jan

A Friday flash

Lynne Kiesling

I found a lot of interesting and insightful thoughts in my morning reading today; here’s a synopsis:

27
Jan

Alex Massie Begs the Republicans Not to Choose Gingrich

Alex Massie:

Alex Massie: [W]hat is Gingrich’s campaign actually about? Apart from typically loopy notions such as colonising the moon, nothing more than a declaration of independence from a contemptuous (and contemptible) liberal media and an anti-American elite that’s notionally happy to embrace American decline. It is a brand of politics that bathes in the warm, comforting waters of victimhood but that has nothing useful to say about the actual challenges the United States faces...

27
Jan

Alex Massie Begs the Republicans Not to Choose Gingrich

Alex Massie:

Alex Massie: [W]hat is Gingrich’s campaign actually about? Apart from typically loopy notions such as colonising the moon, nothing more than a declaration of independence from a contemptuous (and contemptible) liberal media and an anti-American elite that’s notionally happy to embrace American decline. It is a brand of politics that bathes in the warm, comforting waters of victimhood but that has nothing useful to say about the actual challenges the United States faces...

27
Jan

On Hester’s bonus

RBS’s award of a £963,000 bonus to Stephen Hester has provoked anger. My chart shows one reason why. In the last 12 months, RBS’s share price has underperformed the market; it has also underperformed two of its three main peers – HSBC and Barclays but not Lloyds. Insofar as Hester’s job is to raise the value of RBS for the tax-payer, he has failed in the last 12 months.

But is the share price the relevant measure of performance? Rbs

In one powerful sense, yes. A share price assesses the over...

27
Jan

The Volcker Disinflation and the Volcker Recovery Were Both Primarily the Work of… Volcker: Macroeconomic History Things That Really Should Not Need to Be Said Department

Paul Krugman corrects the record:

Postmodern Business Cycles: Noah Smith finds John Taylor claiming that the V-shaped recovery from the 1981-2 recession proves that Reagan roolz. Kind of sad, really: I find it hard not to believe that Taylor actually knows better.

But anyway, this gives me an occasion to talk about why the sluggish recovery was predictable — and predicted. This is not an after-the-fact rationalization, I was explaining very early on that this wasn’t going to be like the 1981-2...

27
Jan

Quote of the Day: January 27, 2012

“The most obvious damage is to his prose. Whenever Hobsbawm enters a politically sensitive zone, he retreats into hooded, wooden language, redolent of Party-speak. “The possibility of dictatorship,” he writes in The Age of Extremes, “is implicit in any regime based in a single, irremovable party.” The “possibility”? “Implicit”? As Rosa Luxemburg could have told him, a single irremovable party is a dictatorship. Describing the Comintern’s requirement in 1932 that German Communists fight th...

27
Jan

Liveblogging World War II: January 27, 1942

Gen. DeWitt met with Gov. Culbert L. Olson to gain his support for relocation of the Japanese. Attorney Gen. Warren and L.A. Mayor Fletcher Bowron also demanded the Japanese be moved out.

27
Jan

Liveblogging World War II: January 27, 1942

Gen. DeWitt met with Gov. Culbert L. Olson to gain his support for relocation of the Japanese. Attorney Gen. Warren and L.A. Mayor Fletcher Bowron also demanded the Japanese be moved out.

27
Jan

Support from Anonymous

I don’t know who this blogger is, but his or her first post is called “Mankiw is right. Buffett is wrong.”  And he or she puts the argument well (although I may not be objective here).

27
Jan

A 2.8%/Year Real GDP Growth Rate in the Fourth Quarter: A 1.6%/Year Real GDP Growth Rate in 2011 4Q/4Q

One reason for the drag is a -2.9%/year 4Q/4Q growth rate in government purchases. That took -0.6% off of 2011 growth right there–perhaps 0.9% with the multiplier…

27
Jan

Alexander Hamilton: America as "Grand Experiment"

Ari writes:

The so-called Grand Experiment is a big lie. « The Edge of the American West: Or so it seems. No, I’m not talking about Joe Paterno again [spits]. I’m talking about the description of the United States as a Grand Experiment in democracy or sometimes as a lower-case grand experiment in democracy. I always assumed that one of the founders* said that, that it was a quote in other words. But no, it seems that’s not the case. Unless I’m missing something — which is entirely possible; no...

27
Jan

Alexander Hamilton: America as "Grand Experiment"

Ari writes:

The so-called Grand Experiment is a big lie. « The Edge of the American West: Or so it seems. No, I’m not talking about Joe Paterno again [spits]. I’m talking about the description of the United States as a Grand Experiment in democracy or sometimes as a lower-case grand experiment in democracy. I always assumed that one of the founders* said that, that it was a quote in other words. But no, it seems that’s not the case. Unless I’m missing something — which is entirely possible; no...

27
Jan

Assorted links

1. The Portugal 3-year note is now yielding over 20 percent.

2. Profile of Deirdre McCloskey.

3. Is cap and trade dead in California?

4. The globalization and stagnation debate in the UK.

5. Lego man in space.

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