Monday, January 21, 2013

Monday's Chile is Full of Links

1.  The worst journalistic lede of all time.  Even I think this is pretty terrible.

2.  Levantacola.  You think it's a Lebanese soft drink?  Nope, jeans that lift and separate.  Also called "Colombian jeans," or "Sweet fancy Moses, did you see that?"  Apparently a trend that's at least three years old, so I'm "behind" the times (see what I did there?).  Since this is KPC, yes, there is a video.  Ms. Jepsen can sing, "Levant my cola maybe."

3.  Policy matters:  China's "little emperors" and the implications for economics

4.  There was a lot of value.  Now there is less.  What happened to all that money?

5.  If you read this and believe the judge is right, it can only be that you don't understand this.  And that's bad, because honestly it's just not that complicated.

7.  Lance Armstrong getting caught may be a good thing for cycling, but it's a bad thing for the larger world.

8.  Interesting interactive housing chart.  Warning:  if you click on this, you will never get back the next 20 minutes.  Because it is very cool.

With nods to Anonyman, Angry Alex, Chug, and Kevin Lewis.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the case of lawyers, it really is that complicated, isn't it? In normal industries, profit is a pretty good metric of a firm's social value, but much litigation is zero-sum (the efforts of opposing lawyers cancel out), or even negative-sum rent-seeking. A law firm can be privately profitable and still be socially destructive.

Zachary said...

Very good set of links.
8: I want to say that I understand the flat-ish line for Japan. But What about Germany and Switzerland?!? It's not like they've had dreary economies. Does anyone have insight on them?

TimmyD said...

One thing the judge completely fails to mention and is probably most responsible for the current problems is the continued expansion of gov. backed low interest student loans. This is like "free-money" that inflates the cost of the education and by allowing pretty much anyone to qualify with no payments until after graduation potential students have no "incentive" to research potential future earnings vs. cost of the degree.

It is also interesting to read about the reaction to his suggestions (wrong as he may be) by current students who are just angry he doesn't propose a "quick fix" for them and so lash out with ad-hominem attacks.

TimmyD said...

I just re-read my comment and realized the horrific lack of punctuation it contains.

Those are sum mighty-fine run-on sentences theerrr!!

Anonymous said...

Moreover, lawyers do not really work in a free market as wealth-creators, because of the intersection of Law, Government, and Enforcement.

It has been said that Govt. has a monopoly on Force and Violence. But Law and Lawyers use the Govt. as their agent, reintroducing Force and Violence into a Free Market. In the context of enforcing well-written, well-read contracts, social and financial, this is a necessary evil. In other contexts, it becomes just evil.

Despite the power of Free Markets, they do not cope well under the influence of Violence. At the most, they profit the violence-brokers rather than the entrepreneur.