Twisted steel & Sachs appeal

When someone I follow re-tweeted Jeff Sachs' message to Jim Kim last week, I was impressed and surprised at its gracious tone:

Jim Kim is a superb nominee for WB. I support him 100%. I thank all who supported me and know they'll be very pleased with today's news

So surprised that I went to Sachs' twitter feed to see what was up. And found these gems, all on March 21:

I've been given no consideration, and won't be. The US Government doesn't seem to care about global poverty. 


Did you know that Larry Summers actually knew BEFOREHAND what Shleifer was doing while HIID did not? 


In 1999 Polish President gave me one of nation's highest medals for my historic contribution. 


You should know that in an emergency room there are "short-term disruptions." Don't blame the doc.

Sadly, the feed has gone quiet since he congratulated Kim.

prophets of the marginal revolution!

"Whatever you say about the euro, it's a great insulator." ~Frank Buckley.

 He should know, he lives Dublin in a house made of over $1 billion of shredded Euro notes.

 Story is here.

 Hat tip to the OPMR.

The culture that is Spain / Another one bites the dust

What the hell is up with Spain? Light bulls' horns on fire and enjoy watching them run around going nuts? To honor some "Saint"?

Well, one bull has done his level best to even up the score:


A flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man early Saturday during a festival in eastern Spain, an official said. Large balls of flaming wax are traditionally affixed to the beasts' heads before they are let loose to rampage through squares and narrow streets in such festivals. 


 the bull charged the man, gored him and then stamped on his head, causing him "irreversible injuries." 


Many towns in east and northeastern Spain celebrate feasts with "toros embolados," or "flaming bulls," which feature the animals racing around and shaking their heads as a reaction to flames or fireworks attached to or close to their horns. At these regional festivals, flaming-horned bulls are taunted and teased by rowdy crowds in bullrings, town squares or down streets.

C'mon bulls, you got a lot of work left to do!

Good Advice for the People of Egypt

From the ever-intrepid Rafael Yglesias:

"You don't want to suffer from premature democracy. You might create the Senate."

More here, here, and here.

Nobel Peace Prize incarceration watch

1. Currently incarcerated:

LIU XIAOBO China 2010

MOHAMED ELBARADEI Egypt 2005

2. Out for now but inevitably will be re-incarcerated soon

AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Burma 1991

3. Should be thrown in the slammer ASAP and the key conveniently misplaced

HENRY A. KISSINGER, USA 1973

A milestone

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

Should the IMF enable Argentina?

Argentina is seeking "technical assistance" from the IMF to help design a new inflation index.

Why?

Well, the past (in more ways than one) and current President have made the inflation numbers a political football, firing statisticians and deliberately underreporting inflation by a large magnitude.

Why?

Well, among other reasons, Argentina had issued a lot of inflation indexed bonds and allowing the real inflation rate to be officially reported would have cost the government a lot of money.

Which is exactly why the IMF should NOT be getting involved here.

Making this into a technical issue of coverage or method and not an issue of systematic fraud and abuse will cover the government's tracks and protect it against potential lawsuits by holders of indexed debt.

The Kirchners have been crapping on the IMF for years. It's hard to imagine that the organization has such low self esteem that they are willing to enable their tormenters just to get their foot back into the door.

It's so EZ to save the country

The NY Times set out a challenge: YOU fix the Budget! So I tried and it was easy. You can see my plan from this link.

I (more than) balanced the budget in 2015 and 2030 with 90% coming from spending cuts and 10% from new revenues.

I left the Bush tax rates in place. I didn't get rid our our current tax breaks for mortgages and health insurance. I didn't put on a national sales tax.

I did put on a carbon tax and some type of estate tax. I raised the social security retirement age one year to 68, and I capped medicare growth at GDP growth +1% point starting in 2013.

The rest was just straight up, old fashioned spending cuts.

I would put the chances of anything within two standard deviations of my proposal getting through our political system at right around 2 or 3 percent tops.

But the bottom line is that we are not in budget trouble because of any fundamental structural economic or demographic problems. We are in trouble because our politics are disfunctional.

"Nudge" and the university

The University of Missouri-KC has an *awesome* idea for getting more candidates for University committee slots: Put everyone on electronic ballots unless they go on line and opt out!

Really!

"According to Daniel P. Hopkins, an associate professor of geosciences and the previous chairman, "The faculty is extremely busy and stressed," and unwilling to spend time on administrative duties like deciding each major's academic requirements and reviewing the college's budget. "The idea that someone should be asked to run for an office that they don't want is, on the face of it, crazy," he says, but it was the only way to fill the posts.

Since 2009, faculty members have been expected to log on to see which positions they were eligible for and, if they chose, to remove their names from consideration. Professors who logged on to the Web site but did not remove their names were assumed to be willing to serve. Those who did not log on at all were also listed, but voters were warned that the candidates' willingness to serve was uncertain."

Well, if it's the only way, then I guess it's OK!

He came, he saw, he conquered!

Mungo ruled the Sooner nation last night. Thanks to SIAS for sponsoring this event and to everyone who came out. It was informative, provocative and entertaining.

one reality, many interpretations?

The progressive drumbeat that the Dems are in trouble because Obama was too conservative continues.

Mark Thoma gives a clear articulation of the view:

"I don't know if the centrist, bipartisan seeking, compromising Obama we have seen to date can actually embrace an encompassing vision. He seems afraid to be a Democrat.."

It's hard for me to understand this sentence coming from a person (i.e. Mark) who I like and respect. From my perspective, Obama is pretty far left and uncompromising.

So let me invoke Robin Hanson and try to list things Obama has done that qualify as evidence for Mark's view.

I would say on economic policy the closest thing to centrist & compromising that he's done is appoint Summers and Geithner.

Can you count not pushing for single payer as bipartisan seeking or compromising?

Then there's Guantanamo, renditions, wiretaps, and the like. I view the continuation of these policies as wrong, but are they being continued as a compromise? Or out of bipartisanship?

Oh and then there are the wars. Do they count?

Oh my, there's also no action on immigration reform and the monstrosity that is DADT.

Holy Crap! Maybe Mark has a point.

I see Obama as the worst possible policy mix. Wrong on economic issues, wrong on foreign policy and wrong on social issues too. A Dem should at least get the social issues right!

That Robin H. sure is a smart fellow.