March 2011
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“Fa sempre così con i camerieri. Sa, è un comunista. Gran parte dei giornalisti...”
– Evelyn Waugh, L’inviato speciale
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“Da quando a Milano abbiamo scoperto la ricchezza dei nostri Navigli, in farmacia...”
– Innamorato Fisso del 29 marzo 2011
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The Fall of a Billionaire’s Wife - The Wealth... →
No matter how rich you might be, or how much you think your assets are worth, you are only as smart as your debt.
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“Quando legge, l’accidioso sbadiglia molto, si lascia andare facilmente al sonno,...”
– Evagrio Pontico, Gli otto spiriti della malvagità [via tabaccheria]
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The Sunk Cost Fallacy - You Are Not So Smart →
It is a noble and exclusively human proclivity, the desire to persevere, the will to stay the course – studies show lower animals and children do not commit this fallacy. Wasps and worms, rats and raccoons, toddlers and tikes, they do not care how much they’ve invested or how much goes to waste. They can only see potential future gains. As an adult human being, you have the gift of reflection and...
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Insurance, society and profits - FT Lex →
The insurers’ vision is better for competition; providers strive to reduce prices for clients who are less likely to make claims. More sophisticated analysis (“granular” is the buzz word) also allows poor risks to buy insurance, albeit at a high price. But it is obvious that granularity will now be subject to ever stricter limits, and insurers must adapt to a new way of doing business. Henceforth,...
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The government of Britain
Jim Hacker: "Humphrey, who is it who has the last word about the government of Britain? The British Cabinet or the American President?"
Sir Humphrey: "You know that is a fascinating question. We often discuss it."
Jim Hacker: "And what conclusion have you arrived at?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, I must admit to be a bit of a heretic. I think it is the British Cabinet. But I know I am in the minority.
[Yes Prime Minister - Season 1, Episode 2]
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Rejection letters of the ancient philosophers →
I’m afraid that I cannot recommend the submission ‘Euthyphro, or On piety’ for publication in the Athenian Journal of the Pursuit of Wisdom. I come to this view despite the fact that there are lots of things to like about the submission. For example, there is a neat point here about the possible difficulties in relating ‘what is pious’ to ‘what the gods love’. However, even here at its best the...
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What Somali pirates reveal about the global... →
The booming piracy industry is a neat metaphor for our globalised economy. Just about everything you need to know about how money is made and lost is encapsulated in the daily battles between cargo captains and the pirate skiffs in the Somali basin.
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“The main thing is to be well dressed.”
– George Dumas to Claude Levi-Strauss on the eve of his first voyage to the tropics as an anthropologist [via tristanreed]
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“Il primo furto l’ho fatto in quinta elementare. Ciulai una biro Parker al figlio...”
– Innamorato Fisso del 16 marzo 2011
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“Ma occorre innanzitutto riconoscere qual è il criterio del bene. Questo criterio...”
– Simone Weil, Nota sulla soppressione dei partiti politici [via Paolo Nori]
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"What Economists Know About Open Source Software:... →
For a decade, economists have been fascinated by the phenomenon of open source software (OSS). OSS is marked by free access to the software and its source code. It is developed in a public, collaborative manner by thousands of non-paid volunteers as well as profit seeking firms. Today, OSS is well established in the ICT sector and represents a new intellectual property paradigm. This paper...
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The Morgan Library & Museum - Music Manuscripts... →
The goal of the Music Manuscripts Online project has been to create and to provide online access to high-quality images and descriptions of music manuscripts owned by The Morgan Library & Museum. Since the project began in 2007, more than 900 manuscripts containing approximately 42,000 pages have been digitized and described. These include works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin,...
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Are You Smarter Than an Eighth Grader (From 1895)?... →
The Salina Journal, a daily newspaper in Salina, Kansas, has published a final exam that was given to local eighth-graders in 1895.
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BurgerMap →
Here’s the idea: You have a burger place that you like. You’d like to tell other people who like burgers about this burger place you like. You post it on BurgerMap. When enough people post enough burger joints, no one will ever be more than 10 minutes away from one of the best burgers they’ve ever had, ever again.
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WatchAxel Leijonhufvud Interviews Friedrich von Hayek
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Howard Buffett - Wikipedia →
Howard Buffett is remembered for his highly libertarian stance, having maintained a friendship with Murray Rothbard for a number of years. […] A vocal critic of the Truman Doctrine and the Korean War, […] in addition to non-interventionism overseas, Howard Buffett strongly supported the gold standard because be believed it would limit the ability of government to inflate the money...
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“What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2.00...”
– Paul Samuelson [via David Henderson]
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Bernard: "He's going to say something new and radical in the broadcast."
Sir Humphrey: "What? That silly grand design? Bernard, that was precisely what you had to avoid. How did this come about? I should need a very good explanation."
Bernard: "Well, he's very keen on it."
Sir Humphrey: "What's that got to do with it? Things don't happen just beacuse prime ministers are very keen on them. Neville Chamberlain was very keen on peace."
[Yes Prime Minister - Season 1, Episode 2]
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Amanda Hocking - Some Things That Need to Be Said →
That’s the truth of it. Nobody knows what makes one book a bestseller. Publishers and agents like to pretend they do, but if they did, they would only publish best sellers, and they don’t. I guess what I’m saying is that just because I sell a million books self-publishing, it doesn’t mean everybody will. In fact, more people will sell less than 100 copies of their books...
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26-Year-Old Making Millions Cutting Out... →
She gets to keep 70% of her book sales; and she sells around 100,000 copies per month. Welcome to the new era, the one that scares traditional publishers to death and will make the world better for writers and readers alike. Congratulations to Amazon for making it possible. [via vanz]
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“Subsidy is for art… for culture. It is not to be given to what the people...”
– Sir Humphrey [Yes Minister - Season 3, Episode 7]
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“Toth, lo sventratore di donne, racconta ai nipotini nelle sere d’inverno, vicino...”
– Cesare Zavattini [via Paolo Nori]
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What is Economic Activity? - Arnold Kling -... →
What is economic activity? In standard macroeconomics, economic activity consists of spending. Certainly that is how we measure economic activity, using national income accounts. However, I propose looking at economic activity as patterns of sustainable specialization and trade (PSST).
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The Street Is Their Oyster →
Two photo-bloggers, the Sartorialist and Garance Doré, in a very rewarding ménage à trois—with fashion.
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“Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty,...”
– Robert Barro
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Poverty Enlightenment: Awareness of poverty over... →
For how long have we cared about poverty? Tracing the number of references to the word “poverty” in books published since 1700, this column shows that there was marked increase between 1740 and 1790, culminating in a “Poverty Enlightenment”. Attention then faded through the 19th and 20th centuries, leaving room for the second Poverty Enlightenment in 1960 – and interest in poverty still rising.
