May 2013
3 posts
4 tags
My problem with the Great Gatsby
Warning: This post contains spoilers from The Great Gatsby. On the other hand, the book is 88-years-old. Perhaps it’s time to get on that.
I can’t go quite as far as Kathryn Schulz. I don’t “despise” the Great Gatsby. I don’t mind Fitzgerald’s moralism. I’m comfortable with the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy being something of a black...
4 tags
“For Gary Bass, a Princeton professor who has written about humanitarian...”
– Dexter Filkins: What Should Obama Do About Syria? : The New Yorker
6 tags
April 2013
4 posts
4 tags
“There is a bias in medicine against talking to people and for cutting, scanning...”
– If this was a pill, you’d do anything to get it
I can’t stop thinking about my meal this morning at Big Star in Chicago. That is all.
Ro Khanna, Silicon Valley's Wannabe Obama →
In 2003, having finished law school and moved to the Bay Area, Khanna, then 26, launched an impromptu challenge to the beloved local congressman, the late Tom Lantos, to protest the then 11-term Democrat’s support for the Iraq War. “It was completely unstrategic and probably the most idealistic thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. Khanna lost the race but acquired a mentor.
Shrugging off Atlas →
Now, I can correct in five minutes the 9.5 percent per year number that Eberstadt headlines down to the 1.2 percent per year number that gives a more accurate, more empirical, and less ideological picture of what is going on. But I know the numbers. Many people, Mitt Romney and his peers at the head of the Republican apparat included, do not. So when they see alarming numbers and charts like...
March 2013
4 posts
1 tag
“You might imagine that an administration preparing for a war of choice would be...”
– The Speechwriter: Inside the Bush Administration During the Iraq War - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
“In “Why Are There So Few Women Top Managers?,” Cristian L. Dezso of the...”
– Do female bosses lead to better treatment for all women?
“In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely...”
– The Good, Racist People - NYTimes.com
“If you eat the salad and it disappoints you,” Mark Canlis told me, “the dressing...”
– Smells Like Green Spirit - NYTimes.com
January 2013
2 posts
Lessig Blog, v2: Prosecutor as bully →
lessig:
(Some will say this is not the time. I disagree. This is the time when every mixed emotion needs to find voice.)
Since his arresting the early morning of January 11, 2011 — two years to the day before Aaron Swartz ended his life — I have known more about the events that began this…
December 2012
3 posts
“Middle-class students get the sense the institution will respond to them,”...”
– Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
3 tags
“Keynesian stimulus used to be uncontroversial in Washington; every 2008...”
– Fiscal Cliff Fictions: Let’s All Agree to Pretend the GOP Isn’t Full of It | TIME.com
“In that sense, Lincoln lets its audience off too easy. It’s comforting to...”
– Slightly Longer Thoughts on ‘Lincoln’ - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
November 2012
8 posts
“If she’s as beautiful as you claim, Marlowe, and if you are the man you...”
– Raymond Chandler’s Private Dick - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
“The power of cognitive capture is that it is fully internalized. Critics,...”
– Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else: Chrystia Freeland: Amazon.com: Kindle Store
“A reader asked me the other day for a Rent Is Too Damn High perspective on what...”
– Minneapolis: Research says you should move to the Twin Cities.
“There is no objective “world around us.” There are only attempts to...”
– First, Fire the Pundits - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
“One Wall Street Democrat, who has held big jobs in Washington and at some of...”
– Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
October 2012
1 post
2 tags
Wise words from Peter Diamond
What do we know about the people who retire at 62? On average, shorter life expectancy and lower earnings than people retiring at later ages. If anyone stood up and said, “Instead of doing uniform across the board cuts, let’s make them a little worse for people who have shorter life expectancies and lower earnings,” they’d be laughed at.
And yet, in DC, these folks aren’t laughed at....
September 2012
4 posts
“In terms of happiness, sex is better than money, and having sex once a week...”
– The moral case for sex before marriage | Jill Filipovic | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
“I think that some public leader, some time, will recognize the technological,...”
– What the Space Program Meant - James Fallows - The Atlantic
“asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is...”
– The House That Hova Built - The New York Times
Guys. This is Zadie Smith profiling Jay-Z! I don’t have enough enough exclamation marks.
June 2012
2 posts
“For another (and this is an astonishing thing), for the first decade of the...”
– Obama’s cyber attacks on Iran were carefully considered, but the nuclear arms race offers important lessons. - Slate Magazine
May 2012
10 posts
1 tag
More filibuster facts
More filibuster facts:
“Between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters. Between 2009 and 2010, there were more than 130.”
“At the time of the country’s founding, seven of the 13 states, representing 27 percent of the population, could command a majority in the Senate. Today, with the filibuster, 21 of the 50 states, representing 11 percent of the population, can muster...
4 tags
The rise of the filibuster in one graph
More here.
Eliot Spitzer on Jamie Dimon
Most folks would be surprised to find out that he sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank—the very organization that is supposed to oversee his bank’s financial practices, the organization that is supposed to issue all sorts of regulations that control what his bank can do, the very organization he has been lobbying to relax the rules about the bets he wants to make.
So here is...
'The fundamental truth' of JP Morgan's screw-up
But the fundamental truth here is the one known since Adam (Smith, that is) and amplified by the great financial economist Hy Minsky: humans underprice risk. Their proclivity to do so increases as the business cycle progresses and confidence takes over (remember, JP’s bet was unwound by the fact that the economy wasn’t as strong as they thought). The advent of a global derivatives market with...
“But at its core, Harvey believes that Burning Man hews closely to the true...”
– The main-street Republican values of … Burning Man? - The Washington Post
“The United States is running out of helium. Yes, helium. Thanks, in part, to a...”
– Congress turns its attention to… America’s helium crisis - The Washington Post
“In other words, JP Morgan Chase, entirely without any help from the government...”
– Barnie Frank piles on. HT Peter Thal Larsen. (via ftalphaville)
April 2012
22 posts
3 tags
Create your own election!
So excited about this: I’ve been working with three political scientists to create an election model you can use to forecast 2012. You predict how the economy will do, and where Obama’s approval rating will be in 2012, and we do the rest. You can also rerun old elections and see how they do in the model. I think you guys will really enjoy it.
“Wiley likes to keep his intentions ambiguous, comparing himself to the two-faced...”
– How to Make It in the Art World - Outsource to China — New York Magazine
“Tom Friedman has been quiet about his desire to see Michael Bloomberg run for...”
– The People of the Acela Demand Bloomberg 4 Prez — Daily Intel
3 tags
“Tetris was invented exactly when and where you would expect — in a Soviet...”
– Angry Birds, Farmville and Other Hyperaddictive ‘Stupid Games’ - NYTimes.com
Wise words from Nate Silver
There have been only 16 presidential elections since World War II. That simply isn’t a lot of data, and overly specific conclusions from them, like “no recent president has been re-elected with an unemployment rate over 8.0 percent” or “no recent incumbent has lost when he did not face a primary challenge,” are often not very meaningful in practice and will generally not carry much predictive...
“The future of the U.S. economy, apparently, is hot sauces and self-tanning...”
– The top 10 fastest-growing U.S. industries (Hint: Think hot sauce) - The Washington Post
A simple model of restaurant decline
Imagine some diners are, by temperament, venturesome while others are regulars. Over the long term, the best business strategy is to appeal to regulars since they offer a stable client base. But when a restaurant is new, it by definition lacks regulars and needs to appeal to venturesome diners both to get an initial wave of customers and also to attract “buzz” and get the...
