Quotes of the day

... for a quarter century before heading up State-L, [Harold] Koh was the leading and most vocal academic critic of presidential unilateralism in war, and a tireless advocate for institutional cooperation between the political branches in war decisions.  I am thus genuinely surprised, as many people are, by his current stance.--Jack Goldsmith

If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.—-George Santayana

As a Princeton University professor, Ben Bernanke castigated the Bank of Japan in 2000 for a “case of self-induced paralysis” that led to a decade of stagnation. Now, the Federal Reserve chairman may be allowing the U.S. central bank to fall into the same trap after its second round of quantitative easing ends this month.  By all but ruling out another cycle of bond purchases, Fed officials have left themselves with little in the way of policy options to respond to slowing growth and rising unemployment. This raises the risk that the U.S. will remain saddled with what Bernanke himself has called a “frustratingly” sluggish recovery that leaves millions of Americans out of work.--Rich Miller

One thing college does do is to keep 25 million students off the unemployment rolls, much like it did for me when I went on my own four year vacation. The world was a different oyster in 1966, however, and it behooves America to recognize the reversal and the necessity for significant changes if it is to compete in the global marketplace of the 21st century.  It is becoming obvious that the 2012 election will be fought on a battlefield of job creation. A 9.1% official unemployment rate, and a number nearly double that when discouraged and part-time workers are included in the rolls, portend an angry and disillusioned electorate, which will include millions of jobless college graduates ill-trained to compete in the global marketplace. Over the past 10 years under both Democratic and Republican administrations, only 1.8 million jobs have been created while the available labor force has grown by over 15 million. It is clear, however, that neither party has an awareness of the why or the wherefores of how to put America back to work again.--Bill Gross

The problem is not the curricula—it’s the expectation that college can make all students above average. Overinvestment in college education is not something that can be repaired by tinkering with what college kids are taught. We’re just sending too many students to college at too great an expense. In the present crisis, college education is not the solution; college education is the problem. We need to get college off our backs.--John Carney

If health care becomes an increasing share of the economy, how will we allocate it, and how will we pay for it? That is, if controlling the cost of health care fails, what is Plan B? That is a question that candidates from both political parties agree on as well: they all seem determined to avoid it.--Greg Mankiw

[Megan Fox] was in a different world, on her BlackBerry. You gotta stay focused. And you know, the Hitler thing. Steven [Spielberg] said, “Fire her right now.”--Michael Bay

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

Banks have two sides to them

Tim Harford's brilliant dialogue:  How to ring-fence a casino marriage.

Ideological Turing Test

Bryan Caplan impresses again:

Put me and five random liberal social science Ph.D.s in a chat room.  Let liberal readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn't really a liberal.  Then put Krugman and five random libertarian social science Ph.D.s in a chat room.  Let libertarian readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn't really a libertarian.  Simple as that.

My challenge: Nail down the logistics, and I'll happily bet money that I fool more voters than Krugman.  Indeed, I'll happily bet that any libertarian with a Ph.D. from a top-10 social science program can fool more voters than Krugman.  We learn his worldview as part of the curriculum.  He learns ours in his spare time - if he chooses to spare it.

Photo link here.

Map of the day: Euro debt increases by country

Source here.

Chart of the day: Libertarians on the rise

Source here.

There is an inherent conflict

Ask a lefty what caused the financial crisis, and the answer will be that there was too little regulation and too much reliance on market discipline, which did not work.

Ask a righty the same question, and the answer will be that there was too much confidence in regulation, so that market discipline was undermined (creditors assumed they had government protection).

That's Arnold Kling.  Photo link here.

Quotes of the day

Farmers have been the wisest investors, especially in the collar counties [of Chicago].  They were smart enough to hang on to their money and reinvest it in the land. It's like any other business. Invest in what you know.--Mark Goodwin

I loathe nothing more than laboring for profane achievements.
Who has ever seen mountains of gold and silver
last through 10,000 generations?--Wang Gonquan

Wife-sale auctions identified “suitors” – men who valued unhappy wives more than their current husbands, who unhappy wives valued more than their current husbands, and who had the property rights required to buy unhappy wives’ right to exit marriage from their husbands. These suitors enabled spouses in inefficient marriages to dissolve their marriages where direct Coasean divorce bargains between them were impossible. Wife sales were an efficiency-enhancing institutional response to the unusual constellation of property rights that Industrial Revolution-era English law created. They made husbands, suitors, and wives better off.--Peter Leeson, Peter Boettke, and Jayme Lemke

The economic structure of the media business is not fundamentally different from that of business in general. The most-prevalent sources of industrial strength are the mutually reinforcing competitive advantages of scale and customer captivity. Content creation simply does not lend itself to either, while aggregation is amenable to both.--Jonathan Knee

... most of [Gary Kasparov's] world-class expertise comes from how he sees and looks at the chess board, not from his calculation ability. The traditional picture of the chess master as a calculating prodigy is bogus.--Sanjoy Mahajan

Try this test: see if you can read [Paul] Krugman's blog and NY Times column for two weeks and not find him, at least once, attributing motives to those economists he disagrees with that you are pretty sure are not their real motives.--David Henderson

So now we have a politician justifying petty corruption by arguing that since every American cop is in fact corrupt, we can’t call it corruption. Fixing tickets isn’t wrong. It’s just a perk that comes with a badge. Unfortunately, this entitlement mindset – the notion that my individual or group interests are special and more deserving than the interests of others – is deeply embedded in our society.  Why do so many homeowners who face foreclosure flip out when losing their homes? They’ve convinced themselves that it’s unjust…that they’re somehow entitled to a home they bought with a 2% or 3% downpayment.  The entitlement mindset is most destructive when it comes to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that are bankrupting our nation.  Unlike fixing traffic tickets, Social Security and Medicare are offered to all Americans of a certain age. And because these entitlement programs are so universal, most Americans think that they must be “fair.”  Of course, they’re not “fair.” As currently configured, Medicare and Social Security are transfer payments from younger and future generations of Americans to their elders.  Worst of all, the economics of these programs simply don’t work.Too little money going in and too much money going out. Even the AARP has finally figured this out.  ... Entitlements corrupt, and Medicare and Social Security corrupt absolutely.--Evan Newmark

Some of the slow-down in the American economy is undoubtedly due to problems in the world economy: the excessive Greece debt and other serious economic problems facing a slowly growing European Community, the nuclear disaster in Japan and the sluggishness of the Japanese economy, and the possible slowing of the rapid growth in both the Chinese and Indian economies. Another part is explained by the policies that slowed the early stages of the recovery, perhaps especially uncertainty about the effects of the financial reform act, and lack of clarity about the cost implications to business of the health care act. I am persuaded that an important third part is due to concerns that the US will be unable to control its fiscal situation. The ratio of federal government spending to GDP grew from about 21% in 2007 to 25% in 2011, a very rapid change compared to the relative stability of this ratio during the prior 25 years. Unfortunately, there is not yet a strong enough will in Congress and by the president to lower this ratio during the coming decade. Indeed, with the looming enormous growth in entitlement spending, especially Medicare, the spending to GDP ratio could well increase sharply in the coming decade, along with the fiscal deficit and the federal debt.--Gary Becker

Nothing in American life today seems as archaic, ubiquitous and immovable as the Republican and Democratic parties. The two 19th-century political groupings divide up the spoils of a combined $6.4 trillion that is extracted each year from taxpayers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels. Though rhetorically and theoretically at odds with one another, the two parties have managed to create a mostly unbroken set of policies and governance structures that benefit well-connected groups at the expense of the individual. Americans have watched, with a growing sense of alarm and alienation, as first a Republican administration and then its Democratic successor have flouted public opinion by bailing out banks, nationalizing the auto industry, expanding war in Central Asia, throwing yet more good money after bad to keep housing prices artificially high, and prosecuting a drug war that no one outside the federal government pretends is comprehensible, let alone winnable.--Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch

If you "screwed up," as in the case of the New York Congressperson Anthony Weiner, you're a dead duck from second one. Nobody but his godfather and mentor Chuck Schumer has ever liked this guy. I'm disappointed to say he is the rep from my old neighborhood, Brighton beach/Coney Island. He is a loudmouth liar who was unable to "hear" the President, Nancy Pelosi, and 433 of his remaining colleagues. He received the support of Charlie Rangel, which, of course, needs to be a vignette in the Tracy Morgan film and tour. Weiner and King James both suffer from ESPN (Extraordinary Sanctimonious Pompous Narcissistic) Syndrome. The halls of Congress are in a way quite similar to an NBA locker room: An outsider can actually feel that everybody else exists to serve the "special people," be they elected or signed via free agency. Once you get there, you ain't leaving so quickly. And, with press people, appointment secretaries, personal assistants, business managers, lawyers, and "Spolestras" to serve your every whim, it's easy to buy into the illusion — there is a monarchy in America.--Dan Klores

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

Quotes of the day

I had always believed in the analytic self; I was rational, calculating, and tried to make smart decisions. Of course real people don’t use math, but I figured that we’re still weighing costs and benefits just as our models say. Or at least that was my understanding of the world. Today, I’m not so sure. ... My feelings toward my daughter Matilda aren’t easily expressed in analytic terms. I struggle to express it, just as I struggle to understand it. I think about my daughter, and I smile. Her laugh is the greatest joy, and it thrills me that she shares it with me. ...There’s something new and strange about all this. Today, I feel the powerful force of biology. It’s visceral; it’s real; it’s hormonal, and it’s not in our economic models. I’m helpless in the face of feelings that overwhelm me.--Justin Wolfers

When my mother showed the cops her plastic bag full of crack vials that we picked up off the sidewalks around Washington Square, the cops looked at the residue and deduced that it couldn’t be cocaine. Addicts would never leave that much behind. Thwarted in their efforts to get police attention, my mother and a neighbor, Diane Whelton, did what came naturally to children of the ’60s: they organized. My mother became the head of Mothers and Children of Washington Square [Park]. ... By the end of 1987, the crack dealers had been driven from the park. The neighborhood got so nice that eventually we were driven out, too. I’m in Brooklyn, and my mom and dad moved to Westchester. That park, however, will always feel like ours.--John Carney

Praying is hard sometimes but it’s nowhere near as difficult as flossing regularly.--Sammy Adebiyi

There's a lot of (justifiable) chest beating over Android at Google these days -- a corporate development VP has called the Android acquisition Google's "best deal ever" -- but in hindsight the overwhelming success of Android is kind of a miracle. Big tech companies screw up many if not most of their acquisitions, letting them wither from corporate neglect or driving out founders and other talent with their inflexible cultures and protocols. (Skype buyer Microsoft (MSFT), are you listening?) Even Google can be guilty of this too (dMarc, Dodgeball), but its management of Android is a textbook example of a deal gone terribly right: Rubin and his team thrived in Google's engineering-driven culture, which encouraged innovation by letting Android release less-than-perfect versions that it would continually upgrade. Google also embraced Rubin's vision of giving the operating system away -- a gambit, enabled by Google's broader ad-based business model, that stoked adoption of the platform. But Android ultimately triumphed thanks in large part to its corporate benefactors: Google co-founders Page and Brin saw the broader potential of Android almost from the outset. For the young entrepreneurs Android was more than just another software acquisition. It was the centerpiece of their grand vision to transform the telecommunications industry and make it more open and accessible -- in short, more like the Internet.--Beth Kowitt

You can still see the contrast between American idealism about companionate marriage and French “sophistication.” In France, we now know thanks to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, men were not only allowed to stray, they earned praise for doing so. As DSK’s wife Anne Sinclair once said, “It’s important to seduce, for a politician.” Male attraction to women, particularly younger women, has been considered both natural and virile, and no one seemed especially troubled by the possible suffering of the cast aside and frequently aging wife. What did Mme. Mitterrand, wife of Francois, think of la Presidente’s mistress and child? No one asked and no one cared. That is not the case in the United States. The public humiliation of Anthony Weiner, like that of his predecessors in sexual malfeasance—John Edwards, Chris Lee, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, and so many others—has the effect of a moral crusade against those who violate both the companionate ideal and his wife’s dignity. We subject him to weeks of derision, we debate his uncertain future, we pick apart the poor man’s psyche, we insist on public penitence, otherwise known as the press conference, and we may, as in the recent case of Chris Lee and now Anthony Weiner, take away the powerful position that he used to lure women.--Kay Hymowitz

We're all trying to appeal to totally different (sometimes conflicting) demographics simultaneously, which is why Katy Perry and Rihanna wear vinyl nurse outfits for audiences of 12-year-old girls.--Molly Lambert

Should we replace machines that produce light bulbs with human glass blowers, to bring back those jobs? Should we replace machines that produce cigarettes with human cigarette rollers to bring back those jobs? Should we go back to the manufacturing processes of the 1950s in steel, automobiles, and durable goods in order to bring back those jobs? I would gladly support a tax-financed program to subsidize manufacturing jobs provided that those jobs were filled by every politician who calls for a return of manufacturing jobs.--Arnold Kling

Under Basel II in December 2009, Greek government bonds, rated A-/A2, had the same 20 percent risk weight as AA/AAA asset-backed securities in the United States. It seemed like easy money, and banks levered it up. As usual, regulations did not alleviate the problem, rather, they encouraged it.--Eric Falkenstein

The oddest aspect of Green Lantern—and I wonder if the filmmakers were even aware of it—is its frankly fascist sci-fi philosophy. The green rings and lanterns are charged with the Power of Will, the various counterpoised yellow thingies with the Power of Fear. At one point, Sinestro (who would trust a guy with a name like that?) says, “Fear is the enemy of Will. Fear is what stops you and makes you weak.” At which point I wondered what kind of movie Leni Riefenstahl might have made from this material. Possibly a more interesting one.--Kurt Loder

Three years ago, Iceland forced its over-leveraged financial sector into a painful debt restructuring instead of bailing out its banks. The government had no other choice: Icelandic banks' assets totalled roughly 1,000% of GDP, and in the world's smallest currency area, no less. The central bank could not take on the role of lender of last resort without igniting a currency crisis. Critics dubbed this response disastrous, and Iceland served as the cautionary tale of an "Icarus economy" whose banks had grown too big to save. Today, though Iceland's banking system defaulted, its government remains solvent, with debt levels close to the European average of between 80% and 90% of GDP. Iceland's luck was that it did not qualify for a bailout. ... There may be no better contrast between restructuring versus bailouts than to compare Iceland to Ireland. Dublin faced the same predicament as Reykjavik in 2008, but it responded with a blanket guarantee that turned Irish taxpayers' money into collateral for Irish bank debts. Rating agencies and so-called experts hailed the move at the time, in part because Dublin had the euro and the mighty German state vouching for its credibility. But Iceland's experience of botched government takeovers and private-capital flight has also played out in Ireland—only much more slowly and, arguably, more painfully. The crucial difference between Iceland and Ireland is that Icelandic taxpayers relinquished responsibility for their banks' bondholders, while their Irish counterparts are on the hook for their banks' crushing debts. Even worse, we may not have seen the full scale of the Irish banking system's losses, given that it remains on government life support. It is becoming clearer by the day that too many of Europe's banking crises were initially misdiagnosed as liquidity, rather than solvency, problems. For some countries, most notably Ireland, the policies prescribed for that misdiagnosis have transformed banking crises into sovereign-debt crises. --ÁSGEIR JóNSSON

Photo links here, here, here, here, here and here.

Republican-led House of Representatives smells a lot like the previously Democrat-led Congress

Alex Tabarrok notes:

... anyone who argues against making school meals healthier because it’s too expensive at the same time as they vote for keeping billions of dollars in farm subsidies is not concerned about expenses. What unites the bill is not ideology but protection of agribusiness.

Journalism majors, always at the forefront

No more weeping, gnashing of teeth, or legislators

... here in Montana ... the state legislature meets for just 3 months every two years and small budget deficits are quickly closed without much ado.--Tim Iacono

For use with funding applications, exhibitions, curriculum vitae, websites

Guess who's coming to dinner ... Artsy Bollocks.

Top paid athletes

as compiled by Sports Illustrated, including endorsement income (in millions):

$62 Tiger Woods
$61 Phil Mickelson
$45 LeBron James
$38 Peyton Manning
$36 Alex Rodriguez

Photo link here.

Chart of the day: Edmonton flushes during 2010 gold medal hockey game

Source here, via Chris Jones. DISCLOSURE: I am guilty of schadenfreude.

Quotes of the day

If your world view depends on believing everyone you disagree with is either corrupt or incompetent, you are not clever.  You are a fool.--Epicurean Dealmaker

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.--Dr. Seuss

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.--C.S. Lewis

[Kanye West] is unsatisfied with Miss Albania even though he's spent his entire career working to a place where he could have sex with Miss Albania. A woman whose only talent is being beautiful bores him because he wants a woman he can talk to and feel comfortable with, the way he felt around his mother. That he channels this into a song that vaguely suggests a desire to have sex with his mom is extremely Portnoy's Complaint of him. And then, of course, he sees himself in his mom's boyfriends. In the various boyfriends who mistreated his mother, men who lied to her when she was obviously smart enough to know when they were lying. And he wonders how he could have hated these men so much as a boy, only to turn out exactly like them.--Molly Lambert

Like Obama, Hoover was the child of a broken home with an unconventional background. He was far more widely traveled than most Americans in his day, and his time overseas made him a globalist in his thinking in many ways. His wife (Lou Henry Hoover) was unusually well educated and assertive — at a time when few women went to college, she graduated from coeducational Stanford with a degree in geology. Hoover was an unconventional candidate who came into office on a tidal wave of support. ... President Hoover brought some convictions with him to office about how the economy worked, how government worked, and what his role as President should be. As the Depression deepened, he did the best he could within those limits, but nothing seems to have made him reconsider the mix of progressive ideas that he brought with him to the White House. As months of failure and disappointment grew into years, he doesn’t seem to have questioned those core ideas or to think about ways in which the economic emergency might require steps that in normal times would not be taken. He not only failed to end the Depression; he failed to give people a sense that he understood what was happening. Over-optimistic forecasts issued in part to build confidence came back to haunt him. To the public he seemed fuddled and doctrinaire, endlessly recycling stale platitudes in the face of radically new economic problems. That’s beginning to sound a little like the current President’s predicament. ... Lincoln, Clinton, Carter, Hoover: that is a trajectory no President should want — nor will the country benefit from 18 more months of Presidential subsidence. One hopes the White House realizes just how much trouble it, and we, are in.--Walter Russell Mead

Krugman writes as if the volatility of stock prices alone disproves market efficiency, and believers in efficient marketers [sic] have just ignored it all these years. This is a canard that Krugman should know better than to pass on, no matter how rhetorically convenient. There is nothing about ‘efficiency’ that promises ‘stability’. Stable price growth would in fact be a major violation of efficiency as it would imply easy profits.--John Cochrane

... we must stop telling foreign entrepreneurs to build their companies in other countries--Michael Bloomberg

Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health and underscoring the rising toll of smoking and record obesity.--Noam Levey

... at the highest level, poker isn't even gambling at all. It's a gunfight, with both sides exactly equal in weaponry and numbers; over time, only strategy, courage, and execution separate winner from loser.--Brian Koppelman

[Meredith] Whitney has become known for exaggerating a bit in her predictions. That’s probably true this time, at least for the moment as localities scramble to balance their budgets and the worst of the debt crisis is still overseas.  But just as her calls for 100 muni defaults may be off the mark, so is the notion that all is well in the state of government debt.--Jeff Cox

Photo links here, here and here.

Some things do get old

and that's ok:

These Canadians are more American than I thought

Yeah, I know. It's hockey.

UPDATE: Demonstrating class, Robert Kraft is also quite expressive.

UPDATE: Bill Simmons is also expressive, but not as classy, but that's a good thing:

How crazy was it that people started calling Luongo "LeBrongo?" If you had tried to explain to me in May 2010 that, within 13 months, LeBron James would be the most hated athlete in sports, and also such a playoff failure that his name was now being used as a derisive nickname for a skittish hockey goalie, I would not have believed you.

Intrade trading suggests that Rep. Anthony Weiner will probably resign

before the end of this September:

Animal Matrix

Scott Adams view at a non-violent, non-shameful, and celibate future:

Long term, I think science will come up with a drug that keeps men chemically castrated for as long as they are on it. It sounds bad, but I suspect that if a man loses his urge for sex, he also doesn’t miss it. Men and women would also need a second drug that increases oxytocin levels in couples who want to bond. Copulation will become extinct. Men who want to reproduce will stop taking the castration drug for a week, fill a few jars with sperm for artificial insemination, and go back on the castration pill.

That might sound to you like a horrible world. But the oxytocin would make us a society of huggers, and no one would be treated as a sex object. You’d have no rape, fewer divorces, stronger friendships, and a lot of other advantages. I think that’s where we’re headed in a few generations.

Photo link here.

The Earth ... is actually headed into a mini Ice Age

... heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity.

UPDATE: The indefatigable Steve McIntyre makes another point (for science):

Returning now to the original lead to the IPCC Press Release on renewables:

Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows.

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

Photo link here.

Surgery may become a thing of the past

but not in the way we'd like.

This was shockingly bad journalism

Methinks the Washington Post is going the way of the New York Times:

1. The most important thing about the ethanol subsidy is that it is bad policy, as the Post editorial page and even previous supporters acknowledge.
2. The next most important thing about the ethanol subsidy is that it is a classic case of rent-seeking. The beneficiaries are relatively few but relatively well organized. It is in the interest of politicians to vote to keep it, even though it is against the interest of most of their constituents.
3. Finally, if you still think that the important issue in the vote concerns what it says about your willingness to raise taxes, then certainly the Democrats are being hypocritical by voting as a bloc to keep the subsidy. Why is it the alleged Republican hypocrisy that gets all of the focus?
4. In explaining the defeat of the Republican attempt to end the subsidy, the article focuses on the actions of Grover Norquist. However, Norquist's influence is presumably on Republicans. But most of those who voted to keep the subsidy were Democrats, and the story offers no insight into how they were persuaded.

Photo link here.

UPDATE:  Steve Landsburg has some good thoughts, too:

Here is Senator John Thune (R-SD), speaking on the floor of the United States Senate:

Ethanol producers have been ripping us off for a long time, and they’ve come to rely on that for a source of income. So it’s only fair to let them rip us off a little longer.

I’m quoting from memory, so I might have the wording slightly off, but that was the gist of it. Oh, wait, here’s the exact quote:

We have a lot of folks who made investments, you have people across the country whose livelihoods depend upon this. I think it makes sense, when we put policy in place and we say it is going to be in place for a certain period of time, that it be honored.

As you can see, my parapharase was accurate.

Senator Thune speaks in the great tradition of his institution. Back in 1848, senators by the score made exactly the same argument for preserving slavery. A lot of folks had invested in slaves, you know. And their livelihoods depended on it.

Chart of the day: Technology traffic

Source here, via Abraham Piper.

Cartoon of the day: teaching our kids to be good little citizens

Source here.

Map of the day: Water is freer than land

Source here.

Good, freer speech

JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF report:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

I can't help think that these will some day be used against the U.S. Government, sort of like some of the weapons we sell abroad. That, too, is generally good.

Chart of the day: The Facebook Factor

Source here, via Tyler Cowen.  Claire Cain Miller reports:

Some question whether the surge in interest is a passing fad fueled by frenzy over iPhone apps and LinkedIn’s soaring initial public offering, just as enrollment in computer science spiked during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

But educators say this time is different.

“What we’re seeing now is a better-motivated upsurge,” said Ed Lazowska, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, “students who understand that they really need to know this material.”

And the movie can’t hurt, he said, because at least it has transformed the image of a programmer. Computer scientists are finally getting the treatment that doctors got with “Grey’s Anatomy” and reporters with “All the President’s Men.”

“We’ve been saying for 15 years, ‘If we could just get a show like the lawyer and doctor shows that make being a software person sexy,’ ” Mr. Lazowska said.

I was foolish enough to stumble through several computer science classes. I'm beginning to suspect now that I was a Manchurian candidate.

Is it me, or is this more Eminem than Vanilla Ice

As Darth Vader might say: the circle is now complete.

Quotes of the day

We have the best government that money can buy.--Mark Twain

... the financial system only gets tested in times of crisis — at which point regulation comes too late.--Andrew Ross Sorkin

Currently there are about 246 drugs that are in short supply, a record high. These shortages are not just a result of accident, error or unusual circumstance, the number of drugs in short supply has risen steadily since 2006. The shortages arise from a combination of systematic factors, among them the policies of the FDA. The FDA has inadvertently caused drugs long-used in the United States to be withdrawn from the market and it’s “Good Manufacturing Practice” rules have gummed up the drug production process and raised costs.--Alex Tabarrok

... how far can disorder extend? We have a tendency to think that the intrinsic state of a protein is a more or less orderly one, which we just refer to (if we do at all) as "folded". (You can divide that into two further classes - "properly folded" when the protein does what we want it to do, and "improperly folded" when it doesn't. There are a number of less polite synonyms for that latter state as well). Are all proteins so well folded, though? It's becoming increasingly clear that the answer is no, they aren't.--Derek Lowe

Mitt Romney and (gulp) Michelle Bachmann gave the strongest performances. That's not a good sign for the GOP, since I don't see a realistic path for either of them in the general election. Romney is going to have a hard time running against "Obomneycare" and Bachmann will frighten off anyone to the left of her tea party supporters, which includes the whole country.--Megan McArdle

I love von Mises [like "Human Action" and "Bureaucracy].  When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises.--Michelle Bachman

Not all government spending is created equal, for Keynesian purposes or otherwise.  There is plenty of spending we could cut without creating a Keynesian disaster, even if you accept the Keynesian framework straight up.--Tyler Cowen

I thought I was looking at a Saturday Night Live script [reading Larry Summers' FT column]. Who was in charge the past two years?--Steven Schwarzman

One Democratic financier invited to this month’s dinner, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to anger the White House, said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as “fat cats” would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195 a person. The donor declined the invitation.--NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

When a lot of hedge fund guys looked at Obama in 2007 and 2008, they saw themselves. He was a guy coming out of nowhere, rising quickly to the top. He was obviously smart. He embodied a promise of bringing America to a place beyond partisanship, beyond the stale politics of race and class. Hope. Change. Fire it up! When Obama seemed to turn against them, he broke this illusion. Suddenly, he was labeling the financial sector as “the other.” This betrayal was taken as a sign that Obama either was never as smart as he seemed—or that he had been corrupted by partisan politics.--John Carney

I've been lucky enough at various times to be associated with the White House and Harvard and all sorts of august institutions, and I always thought: I'm going to find Mozart at one of these places. It turns out, in my career, I've never found a Mozart. The Mozart of economics or of politics or of writing theatrical works. What I find is we've got a lot of Salieris out there trying to pluck out a reasonable tune. And that's probably good enough.--Todd Buchholz

If you were to ask these visitors, they would tell you that they came here only to admire the beauty of the town. And, to be fair, this is a beautiful town. Why shouldn’t it be? It is like a harlot who never soils her hands with useful work, and whose only occupation, outside of harlotry, is to preen and primp—at the expense of her admirers. Washington is, and ought to be, the most beautiful city in the country; it is also the most useless.--Frank Chodorov

Today, according to the statistics people look at, even with California’s bountiful resources, the most equitable climate in the entire continent, and with every blessing that God could bestow upon a land, people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families out in the desolation of the Arizona and Nevada deserts. No conceivable act of God could ever wreak such devastation upon our state. It takes a government to do that. And it has.--Tom McClintock

I realize, now, the enormous special obstacles put in my path by my supposed colleagues, obstacles that over the years made earning a living or a quiet pursuit of my trade so unusually onerous, were not a matter of political difference; they were a declaration of my unworthiness to be one of them. The rejection was not of my ideas, but of my person. ... The next is my immediate community: Until now, the Hollywood culture kept mean-spirited and odious persecution carefully discussed out-of-earshot of we lepers; now, however, there appears to be no problem in openly admitting to cheap and easy prejudice. Few cancers are more lethal to a civil society than ideological bigotry. And no one can spread disease better than our industry.--Lionel Chetwynd

Wolfers has a disconcerting habit of publicly correcting others. If I had an unlimited budget, I'd hire Wolfers to preview everything I write to spare me potential embarrassment. ... If you simply want to predict fertility in a country that's modernizing - experiencing simultaneous increases in income, education, secularization, etc. - Wolfers' evidence is quite relevant. But if you want to predict families' fertility in response to an exogenous income shock - like a sudden inheritance or lottery win - my admittedly simple regressions are more informative. This brings us back to my original disagreement with Betsey Stevenson. My claim: When people discover needlessly laborious and painful forms of parenting, they enjoy an exogenous income shock. Consider a parent who discovers the Ferber method, gaining years of extra sleep. In a sense, he's suddenly richer. But who on earth would see this sharp reduction of sleep deprivation as a reason to have fewer kids?--Bryan Caplan

Maybe you think there is no moral obligation to keep your promises. Try it in the context of your personal life: it's okay for my boss to stiff me out of that raise they promised, because I can always quit. It's okay for my wife to cheat on me, because I can always get a divorce. It's okay for my roommate to neglect to pay her half of the rent on the first of the month, as long as she's willing to move out. It's perfectly fine for my son to default on that car I cosigned, because the lender has the option to sue me for the balance . . . hey, wait a minute! Suddenly it turns out that you think promises create a moral obligation--as long as those promises are made to you.--Megan McArdle

Rosemary Hunt Todd sang the alma mater and the school fight song and was greeted by a standing ovation from four returning reunion classes at Cornell University. And why not. Soon to be 102, Todd represented the Class of 1931 at Cornell's first 80th class reunion on Thursday evening, and she was struck by the adulation.--JOHN KEKIS

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

Odious is the word

Tim Harford has a future in comedy.  I'd pay double the price for a hardback.  For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like my college education is adding value, because I can laugh at Tim's brilliance.

Chart of the day: Cycles

Source here.

Quotes of the day

It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.--Conan O'Brien

There is also smoke when someone puts water on the fire.--Dick Bove

... cash held by foreign banks jumps from $308 billion on November 3, or the official start of QE2, to $940 billion as of June 1: an almost dollar for dollar increase with the increase in Fed reserve balances. In other words, while the Fed did nothing to rescue foreign banks in the aftermath of the first Greek crisis, aside from opening up FX swap lines, one can argue that the whole point of QE2 was not so much to spike equity markets, or the proverbial "third mandate" of Ben Bernanke, but solely to rescue European banks!--Zero Hedge

Confidence. It does not prevent crisis, only delays it.--Eric Falkenstein

While I agree that many meat eaters can be obnoxious, inconsiderate and self-righteous in celebration of their carnivorousness, there is an equally pernicious sentiment among vegetarians that needs to be called out: the false notion that a vegetarian or vegan diet is actually good for you. Like the meat eater who needs to acknowledge the harm they're meting out as a consequence of their dietary choices, the vegetarian needs to acknowledge the fact that their diet is far from ideal.--George Dvorsky

It’s a common and questionable practice pursued by recent presidents, Republican and Democratic: Fly somewhere to raise money, throw in an official event, and have the taxpayers pick up the dime for some of the travel since a portion of the work is government business. Now, it appears, the first lady is and will be and active participant in this seedy practice, at an extra cost to taxpayers. Mrs. Obama will be in California today and tomorrow, visiting Los Angeles, Pasadena, Oakland and San Francisco. She will hold two official “first lady” events and be the star attraction at FOUR fundraisers. Whether she would have attended the official events if she wasn’t going to troll for money is anyone’s guess. But what seems likely is the cost of flying Michelle out to the West Coast so she can soak the legions of wealthy Californian Democrats for cash is being mitigated by having the official appearances on the schedule.--Keith Koffler

The company that owns Chicago's two largest futures exchanges is thinking about moving operations out of state to flee oppressive business taxes. Worried about climate change? How about the business climate?--IBD Editorial Board

Put construction workers back to work. More than two million construction workers don't have work. Every city in America has commercial buildings that can be made more energy efficient. Both the private and public sectors can step up to create good jobs and save energy.--JEFF IMMELT AND KEN CHENAULT

What a waste of time and money. We have a surplus of construction workers today, like we had a surplus of factory workers a generation ago, a surplus of farmers before that, and a surplus of blacksmiths before that. These two financial CEOs do not know much about economics, or else they are playing dumb. But I guess that was a prerequisite to work for the White House.--Cav

Our moment of low long-term rates is a golden opportunity to issue long-term debt, not to buy it back. QE2 was a small step in the wrong direction. Moreover, QE2 distracts us from the real microeconomic, tax, and regulatory barriers to growth. Unemployment isn't high because the maturity structure of U.S. government debt is a bit too long, nor from any lack of “liquidity” in a banking system with $1.5 trillion extra reserves. Mostly, it is dangerous for the Fed to claim immense power, and for us to trust that power, when it is basically helpless. If Bernanke had admitted to Congress, “there’s nothing the Fed can do. You’d better clean this mess up fast,” he might have had a much more salutary effect.--John Cochrane

Even though the Keynesian creed of stagnationism “has petered out with the situation that had made it convincing” – the Great Depression having given way to unprecedented prosperity – most economists had remained so enthralled with Keynesian technique that they seemed “bound to drift into one of those positions of which it is hard to say whether they involve renunciation, reinterpretation, or misunderstanding of the original message.” And in taking this tack, as Schumpeter had said many times before, most economists had lost sight of the heart of the capitalist process, which in its endless dynamism was the opposite of Keynesian stagnationism.--Thomas McCraw

You can see how the types of pro-growth policies in the Pawlenty plan would work toward the goal by reducing spending growth enough to balance the budget without tax increases and thereby remove threats of a debt crisis; by lowering marginal tax rates to spur hiring and job growth; by scaling back unnecessary new regulations which impede private investment and higher productivity, and by restoring sound monetary policy to remove uncertainty about inflation or another financial crisis.--John Taylor

Like most airline passengers, you probably have serious doubts about those pre-flight announcements asking you to turn off your cellphones, blackberries, iPods and anything else electronic. The announcements are flat-out ignored by many frequent fliers, who are skeptical that so-called "personal electronic devices" pose any safety threat to airplane. Some passengers openly rebel, like New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who cursed out one flight attendant who demanded he turn off his cellphone. But a confidential industry study obtained by ABC News indicates there really could be serious safety issues related to cellphones and other PEDs. A report by the International Air Transport Association, a trade group representing more 230 passenger and cargo airlines worldwide, documents 75 separate incidents of possible electronic interference that airline pilots and other crew members believed were linked to mobile phones and other electronic devices. The report covers the years 2003 to 2009 and is based on survey responses from 125 airlines that account for a quarter of the world's air traffic.--Brian Ross

... even if CalPERS problems are a more of a molehill than a mountain, CalPERS still needs to get the molehill out of its eye before it next complains about an alleged mountain in some board of directors' eye.--Steve Bainbridge

The spirit of the First Amendment is being violated every day in Hollywood. Liberal faux-cognoscenti discriminate against conservatives, forcing them into the proverbial closet. They do it socially by refusing to invite them to the parties where business happens; they do it professionally by refusing to work with them; they do it unconsciously by shying away from anyone with a differing opinion, assuming that conservatives are incapable of empathetic writing, producing, or acting. So where are all those liberals who opposed McCarthyism now, when the evidence of such discrimination is out in the open?--Ben Shapiro

If MI6 can break into a Yemeni website run by Anwar al-Awlaki and infect it with home-baking favorites from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, I don’t doubt that the same spooks could easily hack into Anthony Weiner’s computer and tweet his cupcake to that poor college girl in Seattle. But Congressman Weiner then retreated from the sinister hacking line, and protested that all this fuss about a mere “prank” involving a “randy photo” (his words) was an “unfortunate distraction” from real issues like raising the debt ceiling. Like Bill Clinton in the Nineties, Rep Weiner needs to “get back to work for the American people.” It’s the political class doing all this relentless “work for the American people” that’s turned this country into the brokest nation in the history of the planet, killed the American Dream, and left the American people headed for a future poised somewhere between the Weimar Republic and Mad Max. So, if it’s a choice between politicians getting back to work for the American people or tweeting their privates round the planet, I say, tweet on, MacDuff. Tough on our young college ladies. But, as Queen Victoria advised her daughter on her wedding night, lie back and think of England. Download and think of America.  ... Confronted by his Twitpic, one is tempted to channel Mae West: Is that a debt-ceiling increase in your Fruit of the Looms or are you just pleased to see me? Alas for America, it’s both.--Mark Steyn

I'm taking my talents to South Beach.--LeBron James

All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. ... they got to get back to the real world at some point.--LeBron James

Yeah LeBron. I did wake up to my middle class existence, not having a fraction of the wealth as you. Nor do I have to wake up, then spend endless days and nights knowing what a choke I am, and how millions of people, because I am a schmuck, really want to see me fail. I can live with that LeBron. Can you?--whittierte

No one made him predict even one championship, he did it. No one made him move to Miami, he did it. No one made him make fun of Nowitzki, he did it. And so on. Wonder if there is a no-trade clause in that contract.--genmil1

This is a win for team basketball.--Dirk Nowtizki

... LeBron James Appreciation Day: Everyone gets to take off 12 minutes early.--@asigseth

And Lebron James refused to even catch the ball much less take on the moment ... And the Heat faded away ... In a weird way, that fading away kind of tempered my joy. It even made me a little sad. Oh, sure, I'm glad Dallas won. I'm glad Miami lost. I'm glad Dirk Nowitzki won a championship -- he's one of the great players in NBA history. And I'm glad that The Decision Season did not end with LeBron James holding a trophy above his head. That would have been a tough one to take. But, the way it ended made me feel like the whole season of rooting against Miami was kind of pointless. Sure, the Heat came close. Sure, the Heat overwhelmed teams at times. Sure the Heat got to the brink of the most brazen championship in recent memory. But, then it got too hard. After the game, Chris Bosh offered that most cliche of concessions: "They wanted it more than we did." But in this case, those words carried with them a little shock value. Really? They wanted it more? As a friend says: "Then what was the point of any of this?" The way it ended make me feel like this Miami Heat team, with LeBron James playing the lead, wasn't really good enough to be worth my disdain.--Joe Posnanski

WHEREAS, the Dallas Mavericks displayed the loyalty, integrity, and teamwork essential to victory before the entire country, affirming these admirable traits are as crucial as talent and athleticism; and WHEREAS, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Dirk Nowitzki chose to re-sign with the Dallas Mavericks in the summer of 2010, forgoing free agency and keeping his talents in Dallas, thus remaining loyal to the team, city and fans for whom he played his entire career ... NOW, THEREFORE I, John R. Kasich, Governor of the state of Ohio, do hereby name the DALLAS MAVERICKS organization friends, family, and fans as honoray Ohioans ...

I'm a huge classical music fan, but I'm grateful my parents didn't push me to learn an instrument, because I think I'd hate music if they had.--Bryan Caplan

That shows you can't win as a parent, because my husband wishes he had been pushed.--Amy Chua, a.k.a. Tiger Mom

While a lady friend has explained to me that women dress for each other and undress for men (thank you, ladies), we men are at the very least unintended or secondary members of your audience if not, on occasion, your primary intended victims.--Epicurean Dealmaker

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

An economically disastrous example of the capture theory

is provided by the disgraceful regulation of the two mortgages housing behemoths, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, before and leading up to the financial crisis. In their fascinating recent book, Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner explore in great detail how Fannie Mae used political connections and intimidation of anyone who stood in their way to gain a highly dominant position in the residential mortgage market. The authors’ show that various government officials, including congressmen and presidential cabinet members, closed their eyes to what these two government-supported enterprises (GSE) were doing. They allowed them to take on enormous risks, while publicly defending their behavior as not being highly risky.

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as a government enterprise that purchased mortgages from banks that loaned money to homebuyers. It eventually became a private investment company regulated by the government, where investors expected that the government would help out if these companies got into trouble. By the beginning of the crisis in 2008, Fannie and Freddie held or guaranteed about half of the United States’ $12 trillion of assets in the residential mortgage market. In September 2008, both Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the federal government when they became insolvent. The loss to taxpayers is likely to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars because many of the mortgages are subprime and of little value.

Reckless Endangerment shows how the chief executive officers of Fannie Mae furthered the reach and reduced the regulatory control over their company by assiduously courting congressmen, Fed officials, the Congressional Budget Office, high-level officials of the U.S. Treasury, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and major economists. The prominent and well informed congressman, Barney Frank, gets especially sharp criticism for his continual support of Fannie and Freddie while he was initially a member, and later chairman, of the House Financial Services Committee, the powerful committee charged with oversight of the housing and financial sectors. Barney Frank remained an unwavering supporter of Fannie and Freddie until 2010, when he admitted that they should have been more closely regulated. In a bit of irony, he is a principal author of the 2010 Dodd-Frank act that attempts to reform the financial sector mainly by giving even greater discretion to the regulators.

That's Gary Becker.  Read the whole thing.

Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it

Source here.