Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Rick Perry for President?
If he runs, he'll be exposed as the governor without any clothes. Here's a summary from the New Republic. The "economic miracle" that is Texas relies on stimulus money and a set of intrusive regulations that prevented a housing bubble. Plus lucky geography--all that oil and gas.
What's the Real Gain from Pain?
From an article by Paul Krugman in Slate, January 15, 1999. Krugman was way out in front of most commentators, mainly because he understands economic theory and economic history.
In short, in Japan today--and perhaps in the United States tomorrow--behind many of the arguments about why we can't monetize our way out of a recession lies the belief that pain is good, that it builds a stronger economy. Well, let Keynes have the last word: "It is a grave criticism of our way of managing our economic affairs, that this should seem to anyone like a reasonable proposal."
In short, in Japan today--and perhaps in the United States tomorrow--behind many of the arguments about why we can't monetize our way out of a recession lies the belief that pain is good, that it builds a stronger economy. Well, let Keynes have the last word: "It is a grave criticism of our way of managing our economic affairs, that this should seem to anyone like a reasonable proposal."
Krugman's Record on Economic Predictions
The key things here--for me at least--is that Paul Krugman has not only been right about these important issues, but that he has a theory that explains why he's been right. The other side has tried to use proof by assertion and denial of the facts to support their case. Theory allows us to explain why things happened the way they did and helps us predict the outcomes for various policies. If you don't have a workable theory, you are just making assertions (emphatic guesses).
Where Is the Line in the Sand?
Will the approaching election year create the need for action in the Obama White House? Or do the same spineless advisors still have his ear? If you look at the issues that caused the Republicans to walk out of deficit reduction talks, you can clearly see whose side they're on--and it's not ours. Here's Krugman's take. Republicans deserve to be pilloried for the way they are handling the deficit/debt limit talks.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Five Books
I particularly like the quote: "“There’s an age when boys read one of two books. Either they read Ayn Rand or they read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. One of these books leaves you with no grasp on reality and a deeply warped sense of fantasy in place of real life. The other one is about hobbits and orcs.” More from Krugman.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Pecora Hearings
Oh how I wish for the second coming of Ferdinand Pecora, although it's not likely with Richard Shelby on the Senate Banking Committee. Some historical review.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Empathy--Something Sadly Lacking in our Leaders
I couldn't help but post this from Sir Charles at Cogitamus. It seems so like Congressional Republicans, who dare to claim that their Medicare proposal would give recipients "the same access to healthcare that Congress has."
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Health Care
I heard on NPR this morning that the court cases against the Affordable Health Care Act are proceeding. I also heard that new polls show that Romney's Massachusetts health care plan is still increasing in popularity as time passes and people get more used to its provisions. One thing that may startle many people is that in Massachusetts even a majority of self-identified Republicans now favor their state's health care system.
The facts are so overwhelmingly in favor of a single payer system across the world that it's hard to believe that there is so much negative writing about the Affordable Health Care Act. We have a great example of a working single payer system right next door in Canada. However, there is so much misinformation (I'll use that term rather than lying) about Canada's experience that a review of the facts is in order. Here's an article that addresses most of the criticisms of Canada's plan.
The facts are so overwhelmingly in favor of a single payer system across the world that it's hard to believe that there is so much negative writing about the Affordable Health Care Act. We have a great example of a working single payer system right next door in Canada. However, there is so much misinformation (I'll use that term rather than lying) about Canada's experience that a review of the facts is in order. Here's an article that addresses most of the criticisms of Canada's plan.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
My iPad
Just returned from our trip. Gone three weeks. It was the first test of using my iPad as my personal computer for any extended time. My conclusion: this is the best tech purchase I have ever made. It provided all the functionality that I needed (I had loaded up QuickOffice before I left, but it turned out I didn't really need it, although I had some travel documents stored there). Mainly I used the (three) ebook readers, the browser and the mail client.
I love it.
I love it.
More Evidence that Krugman and Theory Beats the Views of Market Players
On the internet bubble.
On the housing bubble.
Ignore theory and theory-based predictions at your peril.
On the housing bubble.
Ignore theory and theory-based predictions at your peril.
Money on the Table versus Economic Theory
One of my correspondents has been roundly criticizing Paul Krugman and lauding the views of people with "money on the table." Here's a nearly year old comparison of Krugman's views with the views of John Paulson, a well known hedge fund manager with "money (lots of it) on the table."
Tell me who you think got it right predicting the next twelve months. I wonder if Paulson actually had the courage of his convictions and went long housing. For an illustration here's a look at the Case Schiller index. Paulson and others also predicted an improvement in the corporate bond market. Here's what happened.
Looks to me like Krugman's theory has done a better job predicting what was going to happen in late 2010 and early 2011 than Paulson's intuition.
Tell me who you think got it right predicting the next twelve months. I wonder if Paulson actually had the courage of his convictions and went long housing. For an illustration here's a look at the Case Schiller index. Paulson and others also predicted an improvement in the corporate bond market. Here's what happened.
Looks to me like Krugman's theory has done a better job predicting what was going to happen in late 2010 and early 2011 than Paulson's intuition.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Stockholm
Today we took a short tour of Stockholm. We were bused around the city to see the major sights and had a visit to the Vasa Museum, which is built around an ill-fated warship.
Stockholm was not what I expected. My view was colored by the way it was depicted in the Millennium Trilogy--gritty and 60s looking glass and steel. But it's not like that at all, except in a few places where the city fathers purposely tore down historical buildings and put up exceedingly ugly high rises. The town at large is made up of pastel neoclassical buildings of four to six stories, very similar to St. Petersburg. The oldest section has narrow streets and is very picturesque. There aren't as many churches as in St. Petersburg or Helsinki, but like both of them the whole city is on the water. It's a place I'd like to come back to some day.
The Vasa museum: they built the museum around a ship that was raised from the Stockholm harbor in 1961. The ship sank in 1628, minutes after it was launched. The king at the time, one of many Gustavs, had repeatedly changed the original plans until the ship was not seaworthy. The builders told him it would be unstable at sea, but he wanted a second gun deck and enormous carvings around the top of the ship. A slight breeze caused the ship to tip on its side and water poured in through the gun deck and it sank in minutes, before it could reach the Baltic (where there was some real weather). The king was trying to impress his enemies (the Polish) with a really big and powerful ship. Instead it was a powerful embarrassment.
Here are some pictures:
Street scenes.
The national museum.
A shot of the Vasa (a little blurry because it is kept in very low light).
A model of what the Vasa looked like from the back when it sailed.
Two weary travelers.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Stockholm was not what I expected. My view was colored by the way it was depicted in the Millennium Trilogy--gritty and 60s looking glass and steel. But it's not like that at all, except in a few places where the city fathers purposely tore down historical buildings and put up exceedingly ugly high rises. The town at large is made up of pastel neoclassical buildings of four to six stories, very similar to St. Petersburg. The oldest section has narrow streets and is very picturesque. There aren't as many churches as in St. Petersburg or Helsinki, but like both of them the whole city is on the water. It's a place I'd like to come back to some day.
The Vasa museum: they built the museum around a ship that was raised from the Stockholm harbor in 1961. The ship sank in 1628, minutes after it was launched. The king at the time, one of many Gustavs, had repeatedly changed the original plans until the ship was not seaworthy. The builders told him it would be unstable at sea, but he wanted a second gun deck and enormous carvings around the top of the ship. A slight breeze caused the ship to tip on its side and water poured in through the gun deck and it sank in minutes, before it could reach the Baltic (where there was some real weather). The king was trying to impress his enemies (the Polish) with a really big and powerful ship. Instead it was a powerful embarrassment.
Here are some pictures:
Street scenes.
The national museum.
A shot of the Vasa (a little blurry because it is kept in very low light).
A model of what the Vasa looked like from the back when it sailed.
Two weary travelers.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Helsinki by Sea and Land
Today we were in Helsinki. It is a pretty town and we got to see it first from the sea and then through a tour around town. Helsinki is on the mainland, but it is surrounded by islands. Some of them are connected by bridges and causeways, but some are reachable only by ferries. Traffic is horrendous, just like many of the cites we have visited. Tallinn was probably the only one that doesn't have significant traffic issues. Helsinki reminded me a lot of Milan--a very busy downtown shopping center with high end shops and a lot of overhead wires (for the trolleys--in Milan they're for the buses). A real oddity is that we searched for a half hour in the downtown area for an ATM and didn't find one. We haven't had that problem anywhere else.
Here are some pictures.
Some harbor scenes.
Big Lutheran church.
A Russian Orthodox church.
Helsinki city scene.
Jan Sibelius monument.
An attractive Helsinki building.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Here are some pictures.
Some harbor scenes.
Big Lutheran church.
A Russian Orthodox church.
Helsinki city scene.
Jan Sibelius monument.
An attractive Helsinki building.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
St. Petersburg--Split Itineraries
Today we decided on different tours, so you'll get two blogs for the price of one.
Craig:
I went to the Hermitage Museum today--a trip for "connoisseurs." The Hermitage Museum is essentially the czars' winter palace plus some attached buildings. The czars started late, but became prodigious art collectors over the 18th and 19th centuries. They have an enormous collection of art and artifacts. They like to brag about the extensive nature of the collection, but it seemed to me that while they had a few important works, the collection is full of lesser works by great artists. The impressionist collection to my mind is much inferior to the one at the Chicago Art Institute, not to mention the Louvre. They have some special exhibits, because no museum can ever show all its holdings at one time, but one I was particularly interested in was not on the tour--19th and early 20th century French artists. That was one of the problems for me. When you are on a tour, you are at the mercy of what the tour guide is set up to show you. Russian guides trend towards an emphasis on beautiful rooms and gold. We were in one of the greatest art museums in the world and the emphasis was not on art and artists. Russians, even today, have an overwhelming fixation on wealth and ostentatious display.
As an aside, we thought the guides yesterday were so bad that we complained to the cruise line. We discovered that is a common complaint and they've found it impossible to do anything about it. My guides today were a little better, but not much. They rushed us out of the museum to take us to a souvenir shop, where I figure they get a kickback.
Some pictures.
Some pictures from the Winter Palace. An ornate column.
A urn.
More columns.
A shot of the parquet floor.
Wow!
Ceiling decorations.
A Renoir. Yes, they let us take photos (for $4).
A Cezanne.
Susan:
I visited Catherine's Palace (located in Pushkin) during the morning. It was as ornate as Peterhof Palace we saw yesterday. The gardens were also beautiful. The Dutch Delft item is actually a wood burning stove. There was at least one in every room (even though this was a summer palace) and there was a hole in the wall from the back that connected to a chimney.
I spent the afternoon at the Hermitage but did not take any pictures. It was extremely crowded so most art work had to be viewed over or between people.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Craig:
I went to the Hermitage Museum today--a trip for "connoisseurs." The Hermitage Museum is essentially the czars' winter palace plus some attached buildings. The czars started late, but became prodigious art collectors over the 18th and 19th centuries. They have an enormous collection of art and artifacts. They like to brag about the extensive nature of the collection, but it seemed to me that while they had a few important works, the collection is full of lesser works by great artists. The impressionist collection to my mind is much inferior to the one at the Chicago Art Institute, not to mention the Louvre. They have some special exhibits, because no museum can ever show all its holdings at one time, but one I was particularly interested in was not on the tour--19th and early 20th century French artists. That was one of the problems for me. When you are on a tour, you are at the mercy of what the tour guide is set up to show you. Russian guides trend towards an emphasis on beautiful rooms and gold. We were in one of the greatest art museums in the world and the emphasis was not on art and artists. Russians, even today, have an overwhelming fixation on wealth and ostentatious display.
As an aside, we thought the guides yesterday were so bad that we complained to the cruise line. We discovered that is a common complaint and they've found it impossible to do anything about it. My guides today were a little better, but not much. They rushed us out of the museum to take us to a souvenir shop, where I figure they get a kickback.
Some pictures.
Some pictures from the Winter Palace. An ornate column.
A urn.
More columns.
A shot of the parquet floor.
Wow!
Ceiling decorations.
A Renoir. Yes, they let us take photos (for $4).
A Cezanne.
Susan:
I visited Catherine's Palace (located in Pushkin) during the morning. It was as ornate as Peterhof Palace we saw yesterday. The gardens were also beautiful. The Dutch Delft item is actually a wood burning stove. There was at least one in every room (even though this was a summer palace) and there was a hole in the wall from the back that connected to a chimney.
I spent the afternoon at the Hermitage but did not take any pictures. It was extremely crowded so most art work had to be viewed over or between people.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
St. Petersburg--Peterhof and the City
Today we toured a little bit of St. Petersburg and visited Peterhof Palace, the summer home of the czars. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the palace, so I can't show you the gold leaf and the parquet floors. I can tell you that it reminded me of what I saw in the Armoury in Moscow. All the gold and expensive furnishings, stories of the czarina's 15,000 dresses....it's pretty easy to understand why the peasants would rise up in rebellion. There's an odd nostalgia for the czars--at least the "good" ones--as if those were the good old days.
After the Peterhof, we took a hydrofoil back to the city. For some reason we had to sit on the river breathing diesel fumes for 15 minutes before we could dock. Then we went to lunch--at the Radisson. Pretty disappointing.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the St. Peter and Paul Fortress and St. Isaacs Cathedral. The fortress was kind of weird. It is on an island that
was a main defensive position for early St. Petersburg. It contains the mint, a prison (closed) and a beautiful church. The church is where all the Russian czars are buried. There are some pictures from inside the church. From there we went to St. Isaacs Cathedral, the fourth largest church in the world. Only outside views there.
Here are some pictures.
One end of the Peterhof Palace.
The Grand Cascade. Then statues are bronze covered in gold leaf.
Peterhof gardens (the tulips were in bloom).
Peter the Great.
More tulips (the reddest I have ever seen).
The old stock exchange.
St. Peter and Paul Church.
A ceiling shot from inside.
Ornamentation.
A column.
St. Isaacs Cathedral.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After the Peterhof, we took a hydrofoil back to the city. For some reason we had to sit on the river breathing diesel fumes for 15 minutes before we could dock. Then we went to lunch--at the Radisson. Pretty disappointing.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the St. Peter and Paul Fortress and St. Isaacs Cathedral. The fortress was kind of weird. It is on an island that
was a main defensive position for early St. Petersburg. It contains the mint, a prison (closed) and a beautiful church. The church is where all the Russian czars are buried. There are some pictures from inside the church. From there we went to St. Isaacs Cathedral, the fourth largest church in the world. Only outside views there.
Here are some pictures.
One end of the Peterhof Palace.
The Grand Cascade. Then statues are bronze covered in gold leaf.
Peterhof gardens (the tulips were in bloom).
Peter the Great.
More tulips (the reddest I have ever seen).
The old stock exchange.
St. Peter and Paul Church.
A ceiling shot from inside.
Ornamentation.
A column.
St. Isaacs Cathedral.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tallinn, Estonia
Today we stopped in Tallinn, Estonia. It's just across the straight from Helsinki. We were told by some friends that is was a really neat place and we agree. The town is over 800 years old and has a very checkered history. Estonians (like our guide) like to brag that Tallinn has never been conquered. That turns out to be true, but only because they surrendered to almost every army that approached their gates. First the Danes, who got tired of constant rebellion and sold the place to the Teutonic Knights, then the Swedes, then the Russians.... The place wasn't really independent until 1918. The benefit of all this easy capitulation is that the medieval portion of Tallinn is very well preserved. There is an upper town and a lower town (separated by a wall--the two parts didn't get along too well). Lots of churches and a nice town square with a town hall that is about 500 years old.
Here are a few pictures.
We also visited a demonstration site that showed how Estonians have lived over the centuries. They found typical buildings all over Estonia, took them apart and reconstructed them in a park outside Tallinn. Here's one of the houses. The thatched roof was remarkable.
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Here are a few pictures.
We also visited a demonstration site that showed how Estonians have lived over the centuries. They found typical buildings all over Estonia, took them apart and reconstructed them in a park outside Tallinn. Here's one of the houses. The thatched roof was remarkable.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Berlin and Potsdam
Long day yesterday. Three hour train trip to Berlin and then three hours back. We were on the tour bus most of the day in Berlin, but we got see a lot of stuff. Berlin was among the places we've never been and it was interesting, given all the history. It's different from the other European cities we've visited. Area-wise it's very large and it doesn't have the same feeling of age as Paris or London or any of the Italian cities. I imagine that's because it was a relatively late arrival among large major cities of Europe. You can also still see the remnants of the cold war in the differences between the former East Berlin and the rest of the city. The architecture in the former Russian zone is very Soviet--blocky concrete buildings. Also, it's a very ill-kept city. For example none of the medians in the boulevards were mown. It wasn't very clean, either. Maybe it's the economy, but it sure didn't fit the picture of squeaky clean German efficiency.
Here's a selection of photos from our trip.
Remnant of the Berlin Wall.
Bridge between East and West
Checkpoint Charlie.
The Brandenburg Gate.
Hohenzollern palace where the Potsdam Treaty was signed.
Frederick the Great's Sans Souci palace.
Number 3.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Here's a selection of photos from our trip.
Remnant of the Berlin Wall.
Bridge between East and West
Checkpoint Charlie.
The Brandenburg Gate.
Hohenzollern palace where the Potsdam Treaty was signed.
Frederick the Great's Sans Souci palace.
Number 3.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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