#500

@econtalker was kind enough to include me (much more than I deserved) in the 500th episode of "Econ Talk."

The link is here.

Got to tell the Unicorn story, which is also a centerpiece of The Thing Itself.

Thanks so much to Russ Roberts, for having created a new thing in the world.

 For many thousands of people, Mondays are now a good day.

A PSA for KPC readers

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Things I'm thankful for: Belated edition

Australian Rock!!

I've finally expanded beyond the Birthday Party and Rowland S. Howard to Eddy Current Suppression Ring and the Twerps!

This is incredible music:

From the personals

MBM ISO 270 electoral votes for a 4 year relationship.

Turnons: electric cars, choo-choos, windmills, peas, taxing the rich

Turnoffs: tea, paperwork, take home pay, ratings agencies

Mom's secret receipe

Start with a group of elderly activist moms who helped end Argentina's dirty war, then toss in some political opportunism and payback. Add in a pinch of patricide.

What do you get?

This.

The renowned "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" somehow have become providers of "an ambitious government funded housing program, known as "Sueños Compartidos," or Shared Dreams."

Really.

After all, nothing signals the ability to run large scale public works projects like wearing white scarves and carrying banners.

And the Main Mother's top advisor is none other than Sergio Schoklender, who did a bit in the Argentine slammer for beating his parents to death with a steel bar!

Really.

Somehow, the money that the Kirchner government is funneling to the Mothers in exchange for their political support was getting funneled by Sergio into his own pocket!

Man, I never would have seen that coming.

I hope my Argentine friends enjoy La Kirchner's second term; it should be a doozy.

Taking care of Thomas

Two incredible take-downs of Thomas Friedman.

One is literary, and here's a sample:

But there are other critical factors integral to an understanding of my bollocks theory on the Middle East. Here they are:

MY MOUSTACHE – Americans have never really appreciated what a radical thing I did in growing a moustache, long the symbol of Arab male virility. I’m convinced that when Arab men catch a glimpse of my moustache as they bring me my breakfast in my hotel they are inspired and say to themselves: “Hmmm. Let’s see. He’s middle-aged. I’m middle-aged. He’s slightly tanned. I’m roughly the same colour. His name is Thomas. My name is Hussein. He is a prick. I sometimes act like a prick. He is not president of the United States. I am not president of the United States.


and one, my friends, is culinary:




both are awesome

Hat tip to BR!

How to live

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A milestone

Last Thursday, Mrs. A & I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. It was a lovely evening:

Markets in everything

Hat tip to Mrs. A!

This is the last straw

As you people know, I've been a big advocate of increased immigration and, yes, of amnesty and a path to citizenship for our "illegals".

But no more!

Not after reading the Fox News Latino report that Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are having an anchor baby.

In what can only be interpreted as a bearish move on the future of their homeland, the couple is planning to give birth in Los Angeles.

Let's just repeal ALL the amendments just to make sure this crap can't happen any more!

FNL in their infinite wisdom, took the story down, but it's cached, people, it's cached.

In defense of Greg Oden?

Over at MR, Tyler asks if we should value economists who are like Ronald Coase or those who are more like Nolan Ryan. (I am not making this up!). This is an instant classic Tyler post containing the sentence "Nobody calls him (Greg Oden) the Ronald Coase of rebounding."

I think he's asking if we should value people with a high "home run" percentage in their output or those with a lot of output.

I think there is an easy way out of this and that is to look at citations, not raw output. After all a rebound is a rebound is a rebound, but not all articles are created equal!

It's possible to have a very long vita without making any discernible impact on the profession and (this should go without saying, but sometimes doesn't) a very short vita is not necessarily a sign of high quality.

So on the citation front, it's no contest. According to Google Scholar, Ronald Coase has over 31,000 cites to his two classic articles. Nolan Ryan only has 9!!

A more serious comparison might be to someone like Alberto Alesina. When I look at the first four pages (40 articles) of his cited articles in Google Scholar, I count roughly 27,000 cites, while his two most cited articles ring up a total of around 4900 cites.

I am somewhat already agreeing with Tyler in that I'm using total citations rather than citations per author here (i.e. not penalizing Alberto for having a lot of co-authored articles).

Who's better?

Hard to say really in this case, but I think total citations are the metric to compare scholars with different vita lengths.

Tagline contest update

People, we've received 10s of entries, many of them excellent. We'll accept entries through the weekend, with a winner announced on Monday. I have designed and ordered a custom Starbucks gift card that goes to the winner.

Thanks again and keep 'em coming!

What do econ bloggers think about government and the economy

Every quarter the Kaufman foundation polls a group of "leading economics bloggers" (which means, not Angus!) on a bunch of questions.

The one I found most interesting was "Is the federal government too involved in the U.S. economy?"

63% said yes! This is on page 5 of the report linked above.

Page 11 of the report reveals that only 9% of the respondents are registered Republicans.

***update*** the above sentence should say only 9% identified themselves as registered Republicans!

The whole report is (still) well worth reading.

Foot in mouth disease, ecclesiastical edition

Regarding AIDS, the head of the Catholic church in Belgium recently said:

"I would not at all think in such terms. I do not see this illness as a punishment, at most a sort of inherent justice, a bit like how we are presented with the bill for what we do to the environment."

Regarding Gentiles/Goyim (aka non-Jews) the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator recently said:

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,”

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.

That is why gentiles were created,”

Thank you gentlemen, for clearing up a few mysteries for us.

What do you call a lawyer wearing a bow tie?

Let's just say it's something that Pablo Picasso was never called (at least not in New York):

Raymond E. Stauffer was shopping at a New Jersey mall when he noticed something peculiar about the bow ties on display at Brooks Brothers: They were labeled with old patent numbers.

Mr. Stauffer, who calls himself a "sharp-dressed man," also happens to be a patent lawyer. He sued Brooks Brothers Inc. in federal court, claiming it broke the law by marking its adjustable bow ties with patents that expired in the 1950s.

And of course we are off to the races:

Marking a tube of toothpaste or paper cup with a patent that is out of date or doesn't exist has been against the law for years. It is considered anticompetitive. Until late last year, the most a violator had to worry about was paying a $500 penalty for misleading the public.

But in December, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that defendants could be held responsible for up to $500 per offense.

Lawyers for product manufacturers now fear clients are liable for up to $500 for every tube of mascara or box of garbage bags marked with an expired patent—an error that turns out to be quite common.

In recent months, would-be plaintiffs have been fanning out across retail stores and the Internet searching for expired patent numbers on everything from toothpaste to toilet plungers.

I have to admit that to me the most baffling part of this story is that there once were patents on bow ties and toilet plungers!

What I've been reading

1. "Chronic City". I am a big fan of J. Lethem and I really enjoyed this book, though there is no plot to speak of, and good editing to make it 10% shorter would make it 24% better. "Motherless Brooklyn" remains my favorite Lethem novel, but I'd recommend CC for sure.

2. "Ilustrado". This is good, people. Ambitious, funny, out of control, absorbing. Some of the themes end up a bit cartoonish, but this is a great debut novel, up there with "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and "The Ecstatic".

3."The Lacuna". It starts so slowly that I almost quit, but patience is rewarded. The parts set in Mexico City are transcendent.

4. "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet". I adored the first part of the book and the unlikely hero DeZoet. The middle, DeZoet free, part dragged for me, too cartoony and lurid. Then Mitchell kind of pulls it together toward the end. What can I say, it's no "Cloud Atlas", but then again what is?

5. "Witz". After 15 minutes I physically deposited this POS into the garbage.

Dang, was Larry Bird really in Boogie Nights?

Apparently so!

James Booker, Henry Byrd, Mac Rebennack

Who ya got, people??

Henry Byrd was better known as Professor Longhair and Mac is Dr. John. I love the Doctor for introducing me to New Orleans piano, and Fess for pioneering it, but James Booker is my favorite.

This post is dedicated to Mark Perry!

there ain't a horse that can't be rode

and people, here (thanks to KPC friend Shawn) is the perfect rider for yesterday's tiger-bike:

Don't forget to click the pic for an even better look at the gbike Mr. Leopard is riding!

G-bike gets pwnd!

I long for the days of Mungowitz in Germany, riding his inimitable, self decorated Gbike.

However, I think I've found a bike that tops it:


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