Saturday, May 6, 2017
Burton Watson, RIP
I'm a novice reader of classical Chinese poetry, so I can't say that the translations I prefer are truer to the original, if that even makes sense. Watson's were spare and direct, but not without some music...
Thinking of East Mountain
It's been so long since I headed for East Mountain –
how many times have the roses bloomed?
White clouds have scattered themselves away –
and this bright moon – whose house is it setting on?
- Li Po
Friday, May 5, 2017
William Baumol, RIP
Baumol probably should have won a Nobel in economics, but it eluded him, and he is now dead at the age of 95.
Baumol was most famous for the notion of "cost disease." The idea is pretty simple, but powerful: Industries that experience more rapid productivity growth will see their relative costs– and therefore relative unit prices– fall. Conversely, industries in which productivity gains are difficult will see their relative prices rise and, assuming demand is relatively inelastic, will take up a growing share of the economy in value terms. This cost disease particularly afflicts high-skill service industries where mechanization and automation cannot readily displace skilled labor. It's one explanation for the growing share of health care in the economy, and for the tendency for education costs to rise more rapidly than inflation.
This post has an excellent discussion of Baumol's work on innovation and market structure. He also did interesting work on money, and on fairness theory. He was a very clear expositor of important economic ideas. For a while I taught using his fine little book, Perfect Markets and Easy Virtue: Business Ethics and the Invisible Hand, with Sue Anne Batey Blackman (1992). This book uses standard arguments from the literature on market imperfections to help the reader understand when markets do a good job steering the pursuit of profit toward the social good, and when they do not. It is an excellent antidote to the usual claptrap about socially responsible business and the unalloyed virtues of markets.
He was a prolific writer and a prolific painter. Not nearly as good an economistic painter as Wassily Kandinsky, but no doubt a better painting economist.
Baumol was most famous for the notion of "cost disease." The idea is pretty simple, but powerful: Industries that experience more rapid productivity growth will see their relative costs– and therefore relative unit prices– fall. Conversely, industries in which productivity gains are difficult will see their relative prices rise and, assuming demand is relatively inelastic, will take up a growing share of the economy in value terms. This cost disease particularly afflicts high-skill service industries where mechanization and automation cannot readily displace skilled labor. It's one explanation for the growing share of health care in the economy, and for the tendency for education costs to rise more rapidly than inflation.
This post has an excellent discussion of Baumol's work on innovation and market structure. He also did interesting work on money, and on fairness theory. He was a very clear expositor of important economic ideas. For a while I taught using his fine little book, Perfect Markets and Easy Virtue: Business Ethics and the Invisible Hand, with Sue Anne Batey Blackman (1992). This book uses standard arguments from the literature on market imperfections to help the reader understand when markets do a good job steering the pursuit of profit toward the social good, and when they do not. It is an excellent antidote to the usual claptrap about socially responsible business and the unalloyed virtues of markets.
He was a prolific writer and a prolific painter. Not nearly as good an economistic painter as Wassily Kandinsky, but no doubt a better painting economist.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Henry Coe
It's partly the sheer scale of northern California's largest state park that sets the place apart. From your trailhead at the civilized western edge, your calves burn as you ascend to the closest major ridge– in my case, Willson Peak. The views open up, first westward, then north and south, and finally eastward, where the park extends, rolling ridge beyond rolling ridge, as far as the eye can see. It's little wonder that you encounter more backpackers than day hikers: it's a place to get lost for a few days, especially on a temperate overcast spring weekend, with the deciduous oaks leafing out and wildflowers competing with the emerald European grasses.
Oaks and grass dominate... and what oaks! Blue, black, valley, and live oaks, some of them commingling and presumably hybridizing. Atop Willson Peak, the bluegreen serpentine outcropping is a striking dead zone, surrounded at the margins by the hardy native flowers that have evolved to handle the chemicals. There are also some nice lichens.
Oaks and grass dominate... and what oaks! Blue, black, valley, and live oaks, some of them commingling and presumably hybridizing. Atop Willson Peak, the bluegreen serpentine outcropping is a striking dead zone, surrounded at the margins by the hardy native flowers that have evolved to handle the chemicals. There are also some nice lichens.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Edgewood
You don't have to drive all the way out to Carrizo Plain to find a nice springtime display. Tidy tips, goldfield, and owl's clover. Right here in good ol' Redwood City!
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Carrizo Plain
The dominant color palette is all in shades of yellow and gold. Rust-orange fiddlenecks, pale lemony tidy tips, aptly named goldfields, and glowingly psychedelic yellow coreopsis, in mindboggling meadows. The lovely blue accent is phacelia, and the pinkish-purple a native mustard, with a heavenly scent. I don't expect to see something like this many times in my life. I'm grateful I did.
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