Re-elect Clinton (Bill) in 2008

These segments are two of the best pieces of television journalism that I have ever seen. In the first clip Clinton absolutely destroys Fox News reporter Chris Wallace

In the second clip Keith Olberman, MSNBC commentator, has a great reaction to the Clinton interview. I almost never watch the news on TV, relying primarily on print media and the Internet, but these two segments have breathed new life into my possible future interest in TV journalism.


Clinton (Bill) 2008!

Microloans for Katrina Victims

A day after learning he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammed Yunus wrote an op-ed piece for the wall street journal explaining why extending micro credit to victims of hurricane katrina would have been far more effective than the action taken by our friends at FEMA. Here is an excerpt from the article.

Microlending has already helped millions reach a better life through their own initiative. It has also given them valuable skills as well as crucial financial back-up in case they ever face a natural disaster like Katrina. So it might be time to think about another type of support for Katrina's victims: the microloan. As our small, flood-battered country has learned, giving someone a hand up doesn't always require a handout. The most important thing is to help people get back to work while letting them hold on to their self-respect. Microloans can do just that.

Even more interesting than Mr. Yunnus's article is the Iqbal Quadir TED talk about GrameenPhone playing on the notion that connectivity is productivity. It is a really cool first hand account about bringing cellphone access to businesses funded by the Grameen Bank.

Show Me What You Got

A song expected to be on Jay's new album, Kingdom Come, was leaked earlier this week. Check it out.

And the winner is......

Cameron T. Morris for his work on estimating the effects that legalizing the coca leaf in Bolivia have on personal and national savings. Well, not yet. But here's the real news. From the FT

The 2006 Nobel prize for economics has been awarded to Professor Edmund Phelps of Columbia University for his work in the late 1960s overturning the conventional wisdom on the trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said it had awarded the economics prize in memory of Alfred Nobel to Prof Phelps “for his analysis of the intertemporal trade-offs in macroeconomic policy”.

Stay tuned. Look for me in 2050, if we haven't all killed ourselves by then.

Sympathetic Hippo

The Origins of the Leisure Class

We're all doing it wrong. I'm going to stop blogging and retreat to the woods.

"Far from scrabbling endlessly and desperately for food, hunter-gatherers are among the best-fed people on earth, and they manage this with only two or three hours a day of what you would call work -- which makes them among the most leisured people on earth as well. In his book on stone age economics, Marshall Sahlins described them as 'the original affluent society'."

-Quinn, Daniel, Ishmael, pg 220

Mr. Clinton

Good article on Bill Clinton. here

Million Dollar Mistake?

Here is an excerpt from an article in the current issue of Fortune Magazine. Can anyone guess what the million dollar mistake Sheryl Sandberg made was?

Take the case of Sheryl Sandberg, a 37-year-old vice president whose fiefdom includes the company's automated advertising system. Sandberg recently committed an error that cost Google several million dollars -- "Bad decision, moved too quickly, no controls in place, wasted some money," is all she'll say about it -- and when she realized the magnitude of her mistake, she walked across the street to inform Larry Page, Google's co-founder and unofficial thought leader. "God, I feel really bad about this," Sandberg told Page, who accepted her apology. But as she turned to leave, Page said something that surprised her. "I'm so glad you made this mistake," he said. "Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don't have any of these mistakes, we're just not taking enough risk."

If you need a hint please read this previous post: Retired and Back.

Steven Levitt, The Saga Continues, Selling Soap

Even if you are not a student of Economics, you are almost surely familiar with Steven Levitt and his book, Freakonomics. Levitt has assumed a pop star status in the Economics community over the last couple years. While he has mass appeal most of his research is controversial and is heavily criticized.

For those of you that enjoyed his book, check out his latest installment in the NY Times. In this column he discusses hospital hygiene, in particular hand washing. It is an interesting narrative starting with the identification of a problem (low hand washing rates amongst doctors) and ending with the implementation of an ingenious incentive to remedy the problem.

What I found most interesting about this article is the limited scope of the research. The research only covers one hospital, which leaves me thinking that if I go to my local hospital there is a high chance that my doctor will have filthy hands and I probably have a higher chance of contracting more germs in the doctors office than getting cured.

*Here's a video of Levitt explaining his research on crack cocaine and gangs

Happy Friday

I don't know what everyone is doing tonight, but I'm going out with this guy.

Materazzi Commercial

Why aren't we good at math?

Interesting:

The countries that outperform the United States in math and science education have some things in common. They set national priorities for what public school children should learn and when. They also spend a lot of energy ensuring that every school has a high-quality curriculum that is harnessed to clearly articulated national goals. This country, by contrast, has a wildly uneven system of standards and tests that varies from place to place. We are also notoriously susceptible to educational fads.

One of the most infamous fads took root in the late 1980’s, when many schools moved away from traditional mathematics instruction, which required drills and problem solving. The new system, sometimes derided as “fuzzy math,’’ allowed children to wander through problems in a random way without ever learning basic multiplication or division. As a result, mastery of high-level math and science was unlikely. The new math curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes, touching on dozens of topics each year.

Many people trace this unfortunate development to a 1989 report by an influential group, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. School districts read its recommendations as a call to reject rote learning. Last week the council reversed itself, laying out new recommendations that will focus on a few basic skills at each grade level.

This explains why I'm having trouble with my multivariate calc, and linear algebra/differential equations classes. I definetly feel like a victim of "fuzzy math" and lack certain basic problem solving skills.

Swedes Might Have to Work

Last night Sweden got a new leader. The Moderate Party defeated the Social Democrats, taking the Social Dems out of power for the first time in 12 years. The Moderats ran on a platform of revising stagnate labor policies which encourage many people to drop out of the workforce. I wanted to hold off on blogging about this issue until doing further research, but the following exerpt from an NY Times article was way too funny.

Magnus Rosander, a 44-year-old computer engineer who said he had a nervous breakdown after losing his job four years ago and had not worked since, said he had voted for the Social Democrats and was worried about what would happen under the Moderates.

“I’m dependent on social welfare,” Mr. Rosander said outside a subway station in central Stockholm. “If Fredrik Reinfeldt wins, we will get less money and he will force me to work even though my doctor says I’m not ready yet.”

God forbid Mr. Rosander might have to work.

IMF reshuffle

Meeting in Singapore this week, the IMF and world finance ministers have approved changes in the fund's voting structure. The stated purpose of the reshuffling is to give developing economies a greater say and more voting power in the fund. The largest benificiaries of this move will be China, South Korea and Turkey.

These changes were met with opposition by a group led by Brazil, Argentina, Egypt and India, who collectively released a statement saying

"The position is clearly unacceptable as it further erodes the credibility and legitimacy of the IMF. The disturbing picture that emerges is that some developing countries will be given increases by reducing shares of some other equally deserving countries."

While creating an equatable voting structure is obviously important for a democratic institution, there remain much greater issues to address. Over the last 5 years the global economy has for the most part been stable, meaning the IMF has been idle. The IMF should seek to renew its mission and develop a plan in which it can play a part in stimulating further growth in developing economies rather than just playing the role of lender of last resort.

Hyphy Movement genius

The hyphy movement has once again proven its genius. Mistah F.A.B (foreva after bread) recently released a single titled "ghostride it" in which he samples the ghostbusters theme song in a descriptive ballad about ghostriding. Mistah F.A.B. is seemingly tapping into our generations nascient memories of the ghostbusters trilogy. Now imagine what Mistah F.A.B would be doing with all this creativity if the Oakland public school system had provided him with a formal education. Listen to the song here.

Keynesian Freedom

5 years after the hole at ground zero was created the federal and New York state governments are taking a keynesian step to help fill it up. From the NY times:

The agreements, which would cover about 1 million of the 2.6 million square feet in the building, are a significant step forward in the development of the tower, which is seen by Gov. George E. Pataki and others as a symbol of the city’s resilience, but regarded by some critics as folly.

My favorite features of the project proposal are a) the name, "Freedom Tower", which sounds like something a ficticious George Bush cartoon character would come up with b) the fact that the tower is being artifically rigged through the installment of an antenna extension to be 1,776 feet tall. This thing is just going to be oozing freedom.

The Invasion of Iran

The Bush administration is showing a bit more prudence in their campaign to thwart Iran's action as an "evil doer". Yesterday U.S. treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, made a statement encouraging top finance officials to limit or completely bar Iranian access to their financial institutions. From the NY Times:

The United States pressed the top finance officials of the worldÂ’s leading industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit activities.

Iran is also accused of transferring funds to Hezbollah and other Islamic militant organizations through regular commercial banks.

Last week, in what administration officials call a major escalation in the effort to squeeze Iran economically, the Treasury Department announced that Bank Saderat, a major bank in Iran, would no longer have even indirect access to the United States financial system.

Hopefully this isn't a pre-emption of a pre-emptive attack on Iran.

Drinking, a good career move

A study concludes that drinking will increase your earnings. Brought to my attention by a faithful Le Monde de C-Ron reader.

People who consume alcohol earn significantly more at their jobs than non-drinkers, according to a US study that highlighted "social capital" gained from drinking.

The study published in the Journal of Labor Research Thursday concluded that drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than teetotalers, and that men who drink socially bring home an additional seven percent in pay.

Don't Be Evil?

With Al Gore on their Board, employee incentives to purchase hybrid vehicles, and shuttle service from Davos, Switzerland to San Francisco provided for San Francisco's rockstar mayor, Gavin Newsom, this move looks like Google's first towards supporting the Republican party. Here's an excerpt from an article in today's SF Chronicle.

Under fire on Capitol Hill, Google Inc. has boosted its political muscle by creating its first political action committee while taking steps to reach out to Republicans.

Google's move is somewhat uncharacteristic given its independent streak, down to its corporate motto, "Don't be evil." But as the company has grown into a major presence in U.S. business it has been thrust into political debates on which ride tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

When will Google stop masquerading behind its "don't be evil", hip corporate image and admit that it is naturally progressing towards becoming just another multi-national with it's own adgenda that often has to make "evil" moves in order to look out for it's best interest?

The Ruler's Back

On the same day I announced my triumphant return to the blogosphere, the king of hip-hop, Jay-z, announced his return to the mic. After forays into politics (the UN) and corporate america (president of Def Jam), it's about time. Here's an excerpt from the Entertainment Weekly article that broke the news.

This fall Jay-Z will release a new CD, Kingdom Come? ''It was the worst retirement, maybe, in history,'' he admits. And then he launches into an impromptu a cappella preview of the title track, which was inspired by a 1996 comic in which Superman comes out of retirement to save the world. The lyrics that effortlessly roll off his tongue may help explain his return: ''Take off the blazer/Loosen up the tie/Step inside the booth/Superman is alive!''