Via my cousin Ronan, Dublin City Council on how to get to, or not get to, the new Samuel Beckett Bridge.
From the monthly archives:
December 2009
Since we’re in the season….
‘Tis the season, so I have been finishing up a few projects. First, I made book on Squid and Owl. That’s right! it’s perfect for the person on your list who wants a copy of Squid and Owl! But here’s the thing. I haven’t actually seen it yet myself, so if that person on your list is you, you might want to hold off until I give a final quality check. Couple weeks. Otherwise, caveat emptor and your chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
In other news, my Haeckel X-Mas cards went over well last year – post got four whole comments! Lots of folks apparently hadn’t known about Haeckel’s early career, which just goes to show. This year I have done considerably more research – ‘delving’ is the word – and the results are … well, exciting – a bit forbidding; minatory, even. I was invited to publish a notice of my findings here, after being turned down by more ‘reputable’ scholarly outlets. (But I am not bitter.) I’ve assembled the documentary evidence that is the basis for my conclusions here. Judge for yourselves! A lot of people are courageous enough to ask whether Santa really exists, but how many people are willing to ask where he comes from?
I’m pushing hard now to finalise a draft of my book-in-progress,
It’s currently titled Zombie Economics:Undead Ideas that Threaten the World Economy. The title is pretty much locked in, but the subtitle is still open for change if anyone has any suggestions. You can read the first few chapters (not quite an up-to-date draft) at wikidot.
The chapter I’m working on now is Trickle-Down Economics, which seems a fairly soft target after the challenge of presenting a critique of the “micro foundations” approach to macroeconomics. But, there are still plenty of difficulties starting with the point that, of course, no-one espouses Trickle-Down Economics under that name. On the other hand, while the view that pro-rich policies will benefit everyone in the long run is widely held, I don’t know of a good general term that describes it.
Anyway here’s the opening section. As always, comments and criticism much appreciated.
via Blood & Treasure, it has to be said that if you are going to commit the social solecism of an ironic garden gnome, this is the one to go for.
I’m reading Fearghal McGarry’s forthcoming book on the Easter Rising at the moment, and was reminded of an interesting bit of history – the British Conservative party’s advocacy of armed rebellion against the government in 1912 over the prospect of Home Rule for Ireland.
The Tory leader, Andrew Bonar Law – speaking at Blenheim Palace in July 1912 – openly alluded to the threat of civil war, describing the [British] government ‘as a revolutionary government which has seized by fraud upon despotic power’, and declaring his intention to support Ulster’s unionists in using ‘all means in their power, including force’ to prevent Home Rule. Nor was this mere posturing: leading Tories, including Walter Long and possibly even Bonar Law – were closely involved with the financing and running of guns into Ulster for use against their own government. Whether Bonar Law’s militancy was motivated by a desire to consolidate his own leadership and undermine the Liberal government rather than fervent loyalism remains a matter of debate …
It seems to me that this episode – in which Conservatives, who usually conceive of themselves as the law and order party, actively advocated rebellion against their own government and helped smuggle guns – has fallen out of historical memory in the UK. Perhaps I’m wrong, or just not included in the right discussions, but my strong impression is that the British record in Ireland’s War of Independence (the Black and Tans and so on) is reasonably well known, and still sometimes discussed. The run-up to it – and the direct advocacy of armed resistance by one of Britain’s major parties – not so much.
On Monday I went to The Economist’s World in 2010 Festival, on the invitation of erstwhile CT guest-blogger, Matthew Bishop. It was a witty and thought-provoking romp through a range of issues such as the global economic crisis and the prospects for unemployment, global warming and Copenhagen, whether the Republicans will storm next year’s mid-term elections and, of course, who will win the 2010 World Cup. The panels were sprightly with lots of back and forth, and were interspersed by 10-minute talks from all sorts; DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, celebrity chef Joses Andres, the buyer for Politics and Prose, Mark LaFramboise and a fascinating graphic and information designer, Nicholas Fenton, whose work is as beautiful as Edward Tufte’s and who produces his own Personal Annual Report (comparison of prices paid per mile in 2008: airline: $0.05; driving:$0.15; New York subway: $0.93; gym: $5.26. Sightings of Michael J. Fox: 1. My boyfriend helpfully pointed out that a proper bloke’s personal annual report would also include helpful stats such as how much sex was had, solo or otherwise, average time, some quality measures, etc. etc. But I’m sure Felton was far too busy cataloguing belly button lint for that.)
Each speaker had to make a prediction for 2010. Predictions are good ways to extrapolate present trends, but I’ve been wary of their usefulness since I attended a conference in August 2001 and we predicted the biggest threat to the world was tension between India and China.
Lest I be accused of burying the lead, the combined predictions for 2010 were: [click to continue…]
Apparently that’s the inscription at the base of the new “young Barack Obama” statue recently unveiled in Jakarta — on a site that was once an athletic field used by Obama’s elementary school. In what appears to be a deliberate provocation to the American right, the young Obama holds in his left hand a crumpled copy of his Kenyan birth certificate, which according to the laws of Othercountriestan entitles him to Indonesian citizenship.
Rumors that the base of the statue contains hidden “death panels” are as yet unsubstantiated.
“We welcome the statue, which is designed to give Indonesian children the spirit to become President of the United States,” Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni said.
“There is a message through the young Obama statue that any child and anyone from any background can become President of the United States if they fight for it persistently — and make sure to destroy their original birth certificate,” she added.
Brian Lenihan (Ireland’s finance minister) puts the best face he can on the external limits constraining Ireland’s economic decision making in his “budget speech today:”:http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2010/FinancialStatement.aspx
In the recent Lisbon referendum the Irish people reaffirmed our place at the heart of Europe. This was the right decision for our economy, for our future and for our children. The single currency has provided huge protection and support to Ireland in the current crisis. It has prevented speculative attacks on our currency and provided funding to the banking system. But, membership of monetary union also means devaluation is not an option. Therefore the adjustment process must be made by way of reductions in wages, prices, profits and rents.
As a small open economy, Ireland would probably have devalued to help cushion the shock, if it had not been an EMU member with no effective control over its currency. Given EMU membership, devaluation (and exit from the system) would probably have been a “very bad idea”:http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/currency-devaluation-may-look-an-easy-option-but-its-a-trick-on-workers-1653712.html. Ireland is hoping to make the best of a bad job, adding levies, increasing taxes and making swingeing cuts to public sector pay so as to shore up its fiscal position.
The problem is that all the fiscal rectitude in the world cannot protect you from “contagious crises of confidence”:http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2009/12/08/who-blinks-first-ireland-greece-the-ecb-and-the-bank-guarantee/.
One of the “signals” that could instigate a sudden stop in Ireland is a sudden stop somewhere else, particularly somewhere with regional or trade connections. This is why bad news for Greece is bad news for Ireland. If Greece hits a sudden stop, Ireland will wobble, and will be the next in line for a sudden stop in Europe. There is another simultaneous game being played: the ECB and its bailout policies playing a reputation game against member sovereign governments and their fiscal discipline. Again, the Greek situation is bad for Ireland. … Ireland has done everything (so far) that the ECB could reasonably ask of her to impose fiscal discipline and restore competitiveness. If it were only Ireland at risk of a sudden stop, the ECB could be very accommodating about bailout assistance. The ECB would not let a well-behaved minnow like Ireland cause market turmoil. If a sudden stop was brewing and Irish bond yields rocketed up, the ECB could easily mop up any excess of Irish sovereign bonds, killing the run, and later tell some convenient story about why this did not violate EMU no-bailout guidelines. On the other hand, we now know that the Greek government has deliberately and substantially falsified its national accounts over recent years. … no political will to impose any meaningful discipline on tax and spending … adherence to the Growth and Stability Pact is a charade. If the ECB bails out Greece, all semblance of future fiscal discipline throughout the Euro zone is lost. … How can the ECB bail out Ireland if it refuses to bail out Greece?
Greek government bonds “tumbled”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7e219354-e48b-11de-96a2-00144feab49a.html today. It may very possibly be that Ireland is in the worst of both worlds – suffering the unmitigated agonies of fiscal rectitude imposed by the EMU’s straitjacket, but with at best highly uncertain prospects of support in the event of a new crisis of confidence. Brian Lenihan won’t be sleeping well the next couple of weeks.
For various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about schools that beat the odds lately (schools with high need student populations but which get high achievement out of them). My inclination has been to agree with people who think that if we could figure out which schools do beat the odds we might learn something useful from them (the best argument against this was recently put to me by an expert on whole school reform who said that finding out what naturally occurring schools that beat the odds do would not tell us anything about what policymakers could actually make schools do, which is the useful thing we are trying to learn). But are there, in fact, any schools that beat the odds, and if so do we know which ones they are?
It seems that the answer to the second question really is no.
Let’s start with a brief summary of Richard Rothstein’s rather devastating critique, in Class And Schools
“Michael Zimmer”:http://michaelzimmer.org/2009/12/07/if-you-trust-googles-results-you-can-thank-pigeonrank/
Recently, a student in one of my classes gave a presentation on Google, and proceeded to explain how Google ranks search results using an algorithm called…..PigeonRank: ….
PigeonRank’s success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages.
By collecting flocks of pigeons in dense clusters, Google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional search engines, which typically rely on birds of prey, brooding hens or slow-moving waterfowl to do their relevance rankings.
When a search query is submitted to Google, it is routed to a data coop where monitors flash result pages at blazing speeds. [HF – Didn’t Greg Bear write a novel about this once? ] When a relevant result is observed by one of the pigeons in the cluster, it strikes a rubber-coated steel bar with its beak, which assigns the page a PigeonRank value of one. For each peck, the PigeonRank increases. Those pages receiving the most pecks, are returned at the top of the user’s results page with the other results displayed in pecking order.
PigeonRank, of course, is a hoax, part of Google’s 2002 April Fool’s Day joke. But how did my student fall for it in 2009? Simple. He trusted Google. The first result when you search Google for “How does Google work?” is a link and a blurb purported to describe precisely that:
I’m a bit hesitant to link to this (as I’m not an elderly right wing economist, I’m worried I might be accused of “belittling the other”), but it’s super-duper awesome! Charles Rowley, familiar to long time CT readers for his “ruminations”:https://crookedtimber.org/2003/07/20/worldly-philosophers/ on the corruption of the profession of political science (we’re all in hock to the federal government) and his “bizarre attack”:https://crookedtimber.org/2009/07/28/anger-and-greif/ on Avner Greif (see “here”:http://www.springerlink.com/content/e4477g1412453627/ for Greif’s reply), “now has his own blog”:http://charlesrowley.wordpress.com/. It’s everything that one might possibly hope for. My favorite so far is the bit telling us that:
bq. the massive fist of free market ideas once again will smash through the false consciousness of Keynesian dreams, and voters will rush to elect leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan
‘cos it’s a level of rhetorical styling that I haven’t seen since I used to pick up the newsletter of the Maoist International Movement (the title is a bit of a misnomer; the cadres all seem to hang out in Ann Arbor, Michigan) when I was a graduate student in statistics boot camp. But the Obama=Sykes, Larry Summers=Fagin “post”:http://charlesrowley.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/youve-gotta-pick-a-pocket-or-two-boys/ runs a very close second:
bq. The question that remains to be answered is whether the futures of Larry and Barack will mirror those of Fagin and Sykes. Will some fortuitous Oliver chance across the paths of these shady characters before they can fulfill their dreams while destroying the market system that created the wealth that they covet? Will both meet the dreaded drop in 2012, if not before? Or will pocket-picking accelerate to the point at which Atlas Shrugs and the wealth-creators remove themselves from the economy, leaving those who cannot create wealth to share in the economic collapse of a negative-sum game as the United States begins a long decline into economic mediocrity?
This is a man who was surely born to blog. Update your bookmarks.
Update: “The Fun Continues”:http://charlesrowley.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/a-great-deal-of-ruin-in-a-nation/
bq. As private investment is increasingly crowded out by government expenditures, and as entrepreneurship is dashed by national socialist policies – as indeed was the case in the US throughout the the first two administrations of FDR – the once-powerful engine of the US economy will sputter and then die. Unlike in 1945, in 2019 the United States will not bestride a shattered world economy like some hegemonic Colossus. Rather its _state capitalist,_ [HF: emphasis in original] social market economy will struggle just to maintain existing living standards, while newly-emergent, vibrant market economies demonstrate to a former master the awesome power of laissez-faire capitalism.
If Tyler Cowen hadn’t confirmed that this blog was the genuine article, I’d suspect it of being a clever fraud perpetrated by an old-school lefty – the ‘Staatsmonopolistischer Kapitalismus=Nationalsozialismus’ identity has fallen out of fashion since the collapse of the GDR, and it is rather odd to see it being revived as a defense of free markets.
I was at the University of Wisconsin at Madison this week, and was very lucky that Jane Waldfogel was giving “the A. Kahn Memorial lecture”:http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/seminars/series/2009/KahnLect2009.htm on Thursday. She gave a fascinating talk on developments in comparative social policy studies, and also discussed her forthcoming book on Britain’s war on child poverty. I’m sure that when that book is out, somewhere in April 2010, someone more knowledgeable on the UK and the lessons that can be drawn for the US will post a piece here.
I don’t think we’ve discussed her work here on CT before, which is a shame, really, since her book What Children Need
[click to continue…]
How to follow up a sublime and funky thread that has established four new internet traditions and killed at least two performers of Franz Schubert’s tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960)?
By having <a href=”http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/11/20quatro.html”>Catherine and Heathcliff audition for <i>Twilight</i></a>, that’s how.
Matt Matravers emails and asks me to post for CT readers:
bq. Many of you “posted”:https://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/25/remembering-brian-barry/ very kind and moving messages about Brian Barry when he died. If you knew Brian in the last many years, then you knew Brian and Anni. Since I don’t have any way of contacting people individually, I am posting this. I hope readers will forgive the impersonal nature of the contact.
bq. I learnt today (Thursday) that Anni died overnight at home. She had been feeling unwell with what she thought was a ‘chest infection’. The doctors diagnosed pneumonia and pressed her to go into hospital yesterday, but she resisted saying that she, in any case, was feeling a bit better. A neighbour found her this morning.
bq. I do not have any further details, but I’ll do my best to inform people when I do. Anni was a lovely person, a force of nature, and something special.
Very sad news indeed. I remember visiting Anni and Brian at their flat near the British Museum. There was a great atmosphere, fine conversation, and lots of opera.
UPDATE: The following announcement will appear in the Guardian:
bq. Anni Barry (Anni Parker) of Bury Place, London died peacefully in her sleep on 3rd December 2009 after a short illness.
bq. Her funeral will take place at 2pm on Monday 21st December in the West Chapel at Golders Green Crematorium.
bq. Flowers welcome.