Economics GOAT

This is a silly business, but as someone who has taught history of economic thought, I can't help but offer an opinion... or three. 

1. Adam Smith

2. David Ricardo

Tied for 3rd (alphabetically):

Kenneth Arrow

Gary Becker

J.M. Keynes

Frank Ramsey

Frank who? Look him up. As for Friedman and Hayek... oh please... Hayek wrote a very nifty essay that every economist should read; Friedman's inflation expectations stuff is important... the rest is ideology. If you must have a free-market economist on your list, Becker kicks both their asses. 

Malthus?! That proto-Trumpian pastor? Smith had already laid out the population theory and way better, and presumably somebody else preceded Smith.

Listen up, oldsters!

Some wisdom from Iggy Pop and Erik Loomis:

I [Loomis] really appreciated this Iggy Pop discussion about listening to new music when you are old. I am not that old, but this pretty much sums it up:

I keep reading that we decline in our 70s so I try to keep using my brain. Discovering new music opens my mind and the element of surprise keeps me connected. I feel like I’m mining for diamonds – and when you find the diamond, you know. When I heard Chaise Longue by Wet Leg I got really excited: it’s cheeky, with a wicked groove, but it’s the vocals – they’re almost metronomic. You could ask 100 people to sing it and it wouldn’t sound the same.

…

I’m sick of hearing old boys say you shouldn’t use synthetic tools. If you’re rich and have a garage and a car, you could start a rock band. But there’s people using synthesisers to play with guitars, horns, hypnotic breaths, and it’s fantastic. If I hear anyone say: “Things aren’t as good as they used to be,” I tell them to listen to the Moses Boyd remix of Pace by Nubya Garcia. It’s fantastically advanced contemporary music that tugs at the heartstrings. From Sons of Kemet to the Comet Is Coming, there’s so much good stuff about now. At my age, it helps to remain curious.

Not only is that Wet Leg song really great, but the principle is strong. If you have given up on new music, you have given up on life. What is the point of continuing to live if you are not curious about new things? It’s just sad. So put aside the ELP and Rush and fucking Jimmy Buffett albums a bit commenters and listen to some stuff by people under 30. Or even under 40! Just try!!

Stonecrest, FL

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 106

Had never heard of this very fine Chicano blues-crooner until this weekend, when this tune was played on our humble but also very fine local community radio station, KKUP. The Righteous Brothers' rendition is righteous, for sure, but this may be even better, with its slow, powerful, brassy groove.

 

A Tenured Professor

That's the title of JK Galbraith's gently satiric novel, published in 1990. A Harvard economics professor strikes it rich by shorting irrational exuberance. The banksters are not pleased and do what must be done to put an end to this nonsense, and our hero must resign himself to life as a tenured professor and expert on the economics of consumer durables. With the exception of its gentleness and civility, the novel could have been written today. As a novelist, Galbraith was no David Lodge, but he wasn't terrible either.

Galls at Stulsaft Park, Redwood City, CA

I don't think I'd ever walked around Stulsaft Park, a decent-sized city park on both sides of the Arroyo Ojo de Agua creek in suburban Redwood City. It has several varieties of oaks growing together along the steep slopes. This time of year, oaks come with galls in various shapes, colors, and textures. Wonderful life!

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 105

Very funny, very smart, very musical... and she sure rocks. 

Framing

Michael Hiltzik: 

The New Yorker's great press critic, A.J. Liebling, observed during a New York newspaper strike in 1963 that "the employer, in strike stories, always 'offers,' and the union 'demands.'"

The stories never say that the employer "'demands' that the union men agree to work for a two-bit raise; the union never 'offers' to accept more." The reason, Liebling conjectured, is that "'demand,' in English, is an arrogant word; 'offer,' a large, generous one."