What Would Angus Do?

Have you ever wondered what Angus might sound like if he were a Brit?

Well, I hadn't.  But Angry Alex answers questions no one is asking.  And for t (ehat, we thank him.  Here you go.... (Especially for Tommy the Intemperate Brit)

WWAD?

What would Angus do?

This.  In a heartbeat.

Except he couldn't eat the pies.  But Paco might enjoy one.

With a nod to Angry Alex.  Would also do it, by the way.

Angus Update

Today I am 3 weeks post surgery to repair two torn tendons and shave down two bone spurs in my left shoulder. I was cleared to drive short distances last week. Monday I ate a meal with the fork in my left hand for the first time and yesterday I wrote on the whiteboard in class with my left hand for the first time. My physical therapist says I am ahead of schedule and reduced my visits from 3 a week down to 2 a week. I am off all pain meds and feel more like the old Angus again.

Okie ego trippin'

1.  Can't resist the opportunity to brag that my JME article with Gordon Tullock has hit 1000 citations on Google Scholar.

2. On the either end of my citation list, one of the funnest and least cited papers I've ever written (and the best-titled paper I've ever written), "Arbitrage in a Basketball Economy", was featured in the WAPO Wonkblog this past week. Co-authored with the estimable Bob Tollison.

3. My paper with Aaron Smallwood on exchange rate volatility and trade was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of International Money and Finance.

4. Finally, my student and co-author, Norman Maynard, has accepted a tenure track job at the College of Charleston!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

The 5 most popular Angus KPC posts of 2012

The following were the five most viewed posts of mine this past year.

I am impressed. Two about economics, one about academics, one about sports and only one total goofball post.

Football: Stick a fork in it?

Me and LeBron's "what would the end of football look like?" piece in Grantland lives on as the horrific evidence grows.

The edited volume blues

People, you can't get something for nothing. If you are not yet where you want to be in academia, stay away from edited volumes, special issues of journals, festschrifts, and the like.

When cannons are outlawed....

Anytime I can legitimately post a Breeder's video, it's a good day. I guess I should feel bad about someone actually dying, but being taken out by a "homemade" cannonball cannot go un-mocked in my world.

Eyes wide shut

I am a big proponent of evaluating aid projects, but a bit skeptical of the grand claims sometimes made by the Randomista contingent. This paper about pseudo placebo effects in RCTs really caught my attention.

The Economy & Presidential Elections

"BHO is going to win in November DESPITE the economy, largely because Romney is a terrible candidate who is running an undisciplined, juvenile, brain-damaged campaign.

And that matters."

Thanks for indulging me and Mungo and we will endeavor to bring you even more gonzo-econo-blogging in 2013. We'll be back with more stuff.

Mars Schmarz

Maybe I'm the only one, but I do not give a #^#$% about the latest Mars rover.

Well, actually I do.  I dislike it and wish we'd stop wasting money on crap like this.

People, have we not been getting photos of Mars from rovers since 2004? Is this not old hat? Will we ever find Mars' "good side" and get the photo we've been looking for?

This latest photo shoot cost $2.5 billion (about a billion over budget). Apparently we want to find out if life ever existed there.

Of course life existed on Mars. Has NASA never watched Bugs Bunny?

Why is the JPL the lucky recipient of a seemingly permanent, federally funded, high wage, full employment program? They've been on the gravy train long enough!

And they say that political science research is useless and should be defunded! While that may be true, it's way way way better than the NASA-JPL cabal.

the possibilities are endless

Mrs. Angus and I recently bought a piece of dirt outside Santa Fe and are considering building there.

Originally we were going old school with traditional adobe walls both exterior and interior.

However, a somewhat new to America concept called Passive House, has caught our eye.

The idea is to build in a way that requires very little energy to heat and cool the house (often 80% less than typical new construction).

We are thinking of adding a smallish grid-tied solar system to make the house a net energy generator!

What would YOU do?

Armored truck driving on highway, back door unlatched.

Money spills out, swirling around in the air.

What would YOU do?

A lot of people stopped, dropped, and grabbed.

I would have driven on, but I'm not sure my reason is morally admirable. I would have assumed that the amount of money I might expect to grab was not worth the twin risks of (a) getting hit by a speeding car and (b) getting arrested for stealing cash.

Nod to the LMM.

Tales From Berg I: Martin

So, frequent commenter and KPC BFF Martin and I had spent nearly 4 hours at a table at Berg, eating the chocolates that Der Geist (Scrounger forever) demanded I open and drinking mass biers (Maßkrüge). (By "mass biers" I don't mean many, or Spanish for more, I mean 1 liter bier glasses, which are different from bier goggles).

Anyway, Martin and I were walking back toward town from Berg, along the Haupstrasse, with 10,000 or so other merry folks. The atmosphere is a little charged, a lot inebriated.

Some moron decided he was going to drive. A car. On the Hauptsrasse. Now, it was so crowded, curb to curb, that you really couldn't walk. Drive a car? Really? Goofball in the car, and his passenger, are yelling, revving engine, squealing brakes, and going exactly the same speed as the people walking.

I got out of the way, but Martin (you have to know Martin; he is basically a psychological twin of Angus, if Angus were a German Socialist) not only didn't get out of the way but walked a little slower. Goofball in the car keeps revving/braking, finally actually touches Martin's leg with the car.

More happened then. I was watching Martin, who turned,gave an excellent wind up and released a nice high arching spit onto the car's windshield. I followed the trajectory, like a camera cut, to...pandemonium. The crowd was enraged that one of its own had been touched intentionally by a car. There were 2 or 3 guys with their legs sticking out of both front windows. They had dived (diven?) into the car, turned it off, put it in neutral, and were now beating the crap out of the occupants.

Martin and I walked on. Half a km later, we looked back, and the car was in exactly the same place, though by now the flashers were on. (Nice touch). Martin felt bad about the spitting (which I thought was fully called for). The beating... hard to say.

And der Geist ate all my damned chocolates. Scrounger.

Best. Letter. Ever.

This is a "What Would Angus Do?" moment, from the past.

An exchange of letters.

A most Angus-esque response.

(Nod to Angry Alex)

Does "lossless" REALLY mean lossless?

People, here at Chez Angus we are on a campaign to remove clutter. Target #1 is our CD collection.

I may be late to this party, but it now appears to me that you can finally have a truly high quality music system with a computer as the source.

I have gotten an asynchronous USB DAC, a quiet laptop, and a 1T external drive to store the collection on (yes, I got a LOT a rippin' to do).

But I am torn over what format to store the files. WAV or AIFF are uncompressed so they should be bit perfect copies (you can rip using an error correction package), but they are HUGE and we have a fair amount (>1000) of CDs.

Apple Lossless or FLAC are compressed but allegedly no musical information is lost in the compression. This to me sounds like the free lunch I've been warned against lo these many years.

Any thoughts or suggestions folks?

I guess I will try making a couple copies of some favored CDs in each format and listen to them "blind" letting Mrs. A choose the type of file to play.

You lie like a rug

One of the last things we did in NY was hoof it down to Chelsea and visit one of my favorite galleries of all time, Cavin-Morris.

They had a terrific show of new-wave Berber rugs. Crazy, colorful, and wonderful.

We bought one.

Friday, back at home here at Chez Angus, I get a call from the gallery. The Times did a story on the show and used my rug as their featured photo.

Sweet!

Here is the Times story, and here is a slideshow about the show. Here is the catalog for the show.

And here is our rug. I love how it has the core of a traditional design but is also completely insane. I can't wait til the show is over and we get to have it in our home.

Someone's in the kitchen with China

People, I am so tired of hearing about how China's fixed exchange rate is ruining America. We don't need any help ruining America, we are doing it just fine all by ourselves.

I wouldn't even put China's exchange rate policy in the top 10 list of bad things about China.

Lets see....

1. Their support for regimes like North Korea

2. Their throwing of a spanner into possibly helpful international agreements

3. The massive censorship of information they attempt to impose on their citizens

4. Their incredible pollution problem

5. The fact that their citizens cannot move freely around the country

6. The fact that their citizens cannot freely practice any religion they might choose

7. The degree of command and control that the party imposes on the economy

8. The fact that their citizens cannot freely choose the number of children to have

9. The level of infanticide caused by the previous item

10. Their actions and attitudes toward Tibet and Taiwan

YIKES!!

A good day on "whore island"

Ate dosas here (2nd best dosa I ever had in the USA!).

Saw a movie here ("Where the road ends, the Taliban begins").

In the evening we saw the inimitable Sklar Brothers perform here ("Welcome to Whore Island, do you have your passport?").

BTW, despite recent movements of the Euro, I can tell you people that hordes of europeans are here dropping major cash.

Libertarianism 101: a remedial course

Republicans are not necessarily Libertarians.

In particular, Bush was not a Libertarian.

He spent recklessly, engaged in chicanery to promote useless and costly wars, trampled all over civil liberties, cut protectionist deals with the steel industry and others, and screwed up big time on immigration.

As far as I know, Libertarianism is not primarily defined as a dogmatic belief in total deregulation (at least I hope it is not).

Libertarians tend to believe that victimless crimes are not actually crimes, that national borders should be much more open than they currently are, that foreign military operations are rarely justified, and that people have a right to privacy.

The idea that government screws things up is more an idea from Public Choice than from Libertarianism. Even if the government was awesome at fighting wars, Libertarians would oppose it. I think most Libertarians are *happy* that the government is not particularly good at what it does.

To me, Libertarianism is a philosophical argument against a lot of government interventions, and Public Choice is an instrumental argument against a lot of government interventions.

In case you are wondering what set me off, check here.

here be monsters

It is really freakin' hot here in Angusland. Dry too. Luckily for us, our local newpaper has decided to publish water conservation tips.

Like this one:

"When you give your pet fresh water, don't throw the old water down the drain. Use it to water your trees or shrubs."

People, can I get a WTF?

What kind of pet does the Norman Transcript think I have, a full grown African elephant? A camel?

Would my shrubs really notice the remnants of my dog's quart sized water bowl getting dumped on them at night?

If only I lived in Bridgeport Nebraska....

....then my non-voting might matter!

BRIDGEPORT, Neb. – A deck of cards and a bit of luck helped decide who will likely be the next sheriff of Morrill County.

The nine of hearts Milo Cardenas drew Monday beat Travis Petersen's six of spades, giving Cardenas the Republican nomination for sheriff. Since no Democrats ran for sheriff, Cardenas, the police chief in Bridgeport, is likely to win in November's election.

"I knew it was going to be close, but I didn't expect to be this close," Cardenas said.

The two men agreed to cut a deck of cards after Monday's re-count confirmed that both finished at the top of a four-man race with 379 votes after balloting ended last Tuesday. State law requires tied elections to be settled by a game of chance.

Cardenas said deciding the race with a card game seemed a little crazy but also seemed like the best option.

"I felt more comfortable with the deck of cards. That way you pick your own destiny," Cardenas said.

Brandt shuffled the cards seven times and spread them out on a table before the candidates drew cards simultaneously.

"People wanted to revote and do a lot of things, but unfortunately, Nebraska law is very clear," Morrill County Clerk Kathy Brandt said.

Brandt said none of the candidates who lost in the primary are allowed to run in the general election.

"For all those people that didn't vote, they should realize that one vote does make a difference," Brandt said.

Two points about the Morrill County Clerk, people.

(1) "unfortunately, Nebraska law is very clear"?? WTF? given that people wanted to "do a lot of things", I think it's very fortunate that the law was clear.

(2) Ms. Brandt also seems to have a very low bar for defining "making a difference"! Were these two Republican candidates for Morrill County Sheriff really so different from each other?

There were no bogus rules like this in 1880!

Sophie's Choice

Oh Norman, so sweet, but so cruel.

People, we have a thing in April called the Norman Music Festival. And wonder of wonders, both Dirty Projectors, who made my 2009 album of the year, and Leon Russell who is the absolute nuts are playing. And it's free. And it's an easy walk from my office.

Wow.

So what is my beef?

THEY ARE BOTH PLAYING AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can this be? What kind of cruel joke is this? Do the Dons of Norman think no one could possibly like both the DPs and Leon?

How wrong they are, people, how wrong they are.

I am not making this up. It is a two day festival and there are no other acts nearly this good playing (sorry Evangelicals, you're good but not that good). Yet there it sits in black and white on the event's webpage: Sunday night, Main Stage 9:30 pm Dirty Projectors. Sunday night Jagermeister Stage 9:00 pm Leon Russell.

This is epic FUBAR, people.

Crap like this never would have happened to me if I had lived in the 1880s!

Any advice?

Theory of the second best: health care edition

I am a "small l" libertarian. Live and let live and all that jazz. But now, unless Mrs. Angus divorces me, I am gonna be helping to foot the bill for the extension of heavily subsidized health insurance that does little to actually reform the problems of our crappy health care system.

So I find myself wondering if I should favor some paternalistic policy proposals I've scorned in the past.

Like a sugar tax. Like zoning fast food joints out of walking distance from schools. Like regulating food ads for kids. Like increasing cigarette taxes even more.

Nudge, smudge!

I kind of hate myself for thinking like this, but if I gotta pay for strangers like they was family, I think they should operate under the rules they'd have if they were in my family!

But maybe that's just the snickers bars talking.