What's in a name?

Well according to Thomas Friedman, President O helped kick start the Arab awakening simply by having the middle name Hussein:

“Hmmm, let’s see. He’s young. I’m young. He’s dark-skinned. I’m dark-skinned. His middle name is Hussein. My name is Hussein. His grandfather is a Muslim. My grandfather is a Muslim. He is president of the United States. And I’m an unemployed young Arab with no vote and no voice in my future.”

Journalist, please!

Loaded Questions: The interrogatory culture that is Germany

In an otherwise enlightening interview with Barry Eichengreen, I had to stop a couple times to compose myself after cracking up at the way the Speigel interviewer posed questions.

Here's my favorite:

Is there any desire in US political circles to do something about this problem? Just last December, President Barack Obama extended the Bush administration's tax cuts to 2012, even though tax cuts for the super-rich do nothing to stimulate the economy.

and another good one:

Are people in the US willing to save at all?

One more for the road:

Despite the current crisis, the economic fundamentals in the euro zone are still stronger than those on the other side of the Atlantic. Why are bond traders scrutinizing Europe but not the US?

Where have you been all my life?

Great story about the precariousness of coaching in the NBA:

According to the Boston Herald, Celtics coach Doc Rivers was quite impressed with the debut of former Thunder starting center Nenad Krstic.

When Krstic pulled down two offensive rebounds on the team's first possession, Rivers reportedly turned to assistant coach Lawrence Frank and asked, “Does he do that all the time?”

Frank, who coached Krstic during his early days, replied: “If he did, I'd still be in New Jersey.”

I enjoyed the Nenad Krstic era in the OKC, even though he always seemed slightly bemused/confused on the court.

Paradoxically, getting Perkins and losing Nenad might make Scott Brooks' job LESS secure. Now with a real center (assuming he gets and stays healthy), the Thunder have one less excuse and lack of results now will cause the fickle finger to more likely be pointed at Scotty.

And, make no mistake about it, the Thunder coaching staff are either weak on the Xs and Os or else weak on getting the players to execute the Xs and Os.

The Africa paradox?

While walking Mr. Tooty this morning Mrs. Angus and I were discussing why Americans visiting in Africa so often conclude that Africans are intrinsically more "joyful" and don't care about material things.

She suggested an analogy to the literature showing that people have a very hard time predicting the emotional consequences of being in unfamiliar, unfavorable situations.

For example, healthy people overwhelmingly say they'd be unhappy with their life if they lost a limb or were in a wheelchair, but people actually in those situations often report that they are happy. Here is a recent example regarding people with "locked in" syndrome. There is a term for this phenomenon; the disability paradox.

So maybe, when rich Westerners visit in Africa, they project their expectations of how happy they would be if they lived in the situations they see onto the local people. When these local people demonstrate that they are actually happy, it causes cognitive dissonance and the westerners attribute the paradox to some intrinsic otherness or lack of materialism, rather than recognizing that external circumstances do not determine happiness.

I am NOT saying poverty is a disability, I AM saying that the phenomenon of inaccurately predicting happiness in unfamiliar, adverse situations may apply more broadly than just to cases of physical disabilities.

Sheen-Gadhaffi Quiz

This is actually quite interesting. I got a 4 of ten, worse than random.

The quiz: who said it?

(Nod to Timmy G)

Women Do More Work Around the House...and the Senate!

The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outperform
Congressmen?

Sarah Anzia & Christopher Berry
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming

Abstract: If voters are biased against female candidates, only the most talented,
hardest working female candidates will succeed in the electoral process. Furthermore, if women perceive there to be sex discrimination in the electoral process, or if they underestimate their qualifications for office, then only the most qualified, politically ambitious females will emerge as candidates. We argue that when either or both forms of sex-based selection are present, the women who are elected to office will perform better, on average, than their male counterparts. We test this central implication of our theory by studying the relative success of men and women in delivering federal spending to their districts and in sponsoring legislation. Analyzing changes within districts over time, we find that congresswomen secure roughly 9 percent more spending from federal discretionary programs than congressmen. Women also sponsor and cosponsor significantly more bills than their male colleagues.

*******************************

Who Does More Housework: Rich or Poor? A Comparison of 33 Countries

Jan Paul Heisig
American Sociological Review, February 2011, Pages 74-99

Abstract: This article studies the relationship between household income and housework time across 33 countries. In most countries, low-income individuals do more housework than their high-income counterparts; the differences are even greater for women’s domestic work time. The analysis shows that the difference between rich and poor women’s housework time falls with economic development and rises with overall economic inequality. I use a cross-national reinterpretation of arguments from the historical time-use literature to show that this is attributable to the association between economic development and the diffusion of household technologies and to the association between economic inequality and the prevalence of service consumption among high-income households. Results for a direct measure of technology diffusion provide striking evidence for the first interpretation. The findings question the widespread notion that domestic technologies have had little or no impact on women’s housework time. On a general level, I find that gender inequalities are fundamentally conditioned by economic inequalities. A full understanding of the division of housework requires social scientists to go beyond couple-level dynamics and situate households and individuals within the broader social and economic structure.

(Nod to Kevin Lewis)

Tower of David in Caracas

Tower of David: Amazing.

(Nod to Anonyman)

What I've been reading

Red Plenty by Francis Spuford. At its core, it's a narrative of the rise and fall of linear programming as the salvation of the Soviet system! It is funny, sarcastic, insightful and highly recommended, though I have to say it is a very weird book.

The Impenetrable Forest by Thor Hanson. A peace corp volunteer gets assigned to gorilla habituation in Uganda in the early 1990s. I started it because we are going to Uganda this summer, I finished it because it is a fantastic book!

Werewolves of Montpellier, by Jason. On Will W's recommendation I tried this graphic novella, something I'd never had read on my own. I have since bought 3 more of Jason's "books".

The Big Short, by Michael Lewis. If you only read one book on the crisis, or even if you only read one book all year, this should be the one!

The Washington Monthly loves its readers

It loves them so so much:

"Strange as it may sound, to get a grip on costs, we should in many cases be hiring many more bureaucrats—and paying more to get better ones—not cutting their numbers and freezing their pay. Because in many parts of government, the bureaucracy has already crossed that dangerous threshold beyond which further cuts can only mean greater risk of a breakdown. Indeed, much of the runaway spending we’ve seen over the past decade is the result of our having crossed that line years ago—the last time there was a Democrat in the White House, a divided government, and calls for slashing the federal workforce in the air."

Yes, people, they really said that "much of the runaway spending" is a result of having too few Federal bureaucrats! Talk about pandering to your audience.

This is just so far out there that no one can really take it seriously right?

Wrong!!!!

Everybody Wing Chau tonight!

If you've read Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short" (and if you haven't you are really missing something good), you know that he comes down hard on a particular trader named Wing Chau.

Well hot on the heels of Brat Pitt buying the movie rights to the book, Mr. Chau has decided to sue Lewis for defamation.

His complaint contains some interesting parts, for example:

"Wing Chau and his immediate family are Chinese immigrants. His father, Muk Loong Chau, fled Chairman Mao’s China in 1953 to make a better life for his family in America—to pursue the American dream. Mr. Chau was born in Hong Kong, where the family was waylaid for many year while awaiting a visa. Eventually, the family immigrated to Rhode Island, where his father took various jobs at Chinese restaurants, usually working six days per week."

Michael Lewis! You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

Here is more on the complaint and here is more on the saga of Wing Chau.

And here is something I've not been able to get out of my head since I read the Wing Chau portion of "The Big Short":