Sunday was an easy day

We didn't do much on Sunday. We slept in and then met some of Chris's colleagues for a tour of some grappa distilleries. Grappa, if you didn't know is what they make from the leftovers from the squeezing when they make wine. Grappa is essentially distilled wine leavings. It can be anywhere from 80 to 120 proof. I found it not to my taste, but it was an interesting tour.

We ate dinner at a local seafood restaurant right on a lake. The food was excellent, as was the company.

A few pictures.










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Road Trip

On Friday and Saturday, the five of us went north to Bolzano and Cortina d'Ampezzo. These two cities are in the ethnic German part of northern Italy. The countryside starts getting rough south of Trento and gets really mountainous by the time you reach Bolzano. We took the funivia (cable car) up the mountain and I was tricked into a four mile death march through the woods. We had dinner at a nice restaurant by a lake. We descended to Bolzano and stayed at a really nice hotel overlooking the city. We took another walk (this time mercifully downhill) down to the city for dinner.

The drive back to Trento was magnificent. The mountains are called the Dolomites and are different from any mountains I have seen before. I'll let you judge from the pictures.






















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Made it (finally) to Trento

We made it to Chris and Tim's on the intended day, only four hours after we planned. Our flight to Frankfurt was forced to circle for about 20 minutes before we were allowed to land. As a result, we missed our flight to Verona--which may not have mattered because United had not advised Lufthansa of our flight change.

We were pretty ragged by the time we got off the plan. To make matters worse, I've picked up a bug that's causing me to cough all the time. It's a real nuisance--for me and everyone else.

Thursday we just knocked around Trento with Chris and Tim. Trento is a very nice mid-sized city and like most places in Italy, a very long history. The university here (where Chris is visiting) is one of the best in Europe. The city is mostly famous for the Council of Trent, a gathering of the Catholic hierarchy in response to the Reformation.

Here are some pictures.



































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Cogitamus: Weekend Open Thread

Cogitamus: Weekend Open Thread

What Is the Administration Thinking?

I've been reading the commentary about the disconnect between what President Obama's political advisors want him to do--avoid a fight over additional stimulus and focus on reducing the deficit--and what the preponderance of economists believe is necessary--address the unemployment problem. Unfortunately, following the advice of his advisors is a dangerous trap for the president. Absent additional stimulus, the economy is unlikely to get better before the 2012 elections and this would be a significant problem for a president trying to get re-elected. Addressing the deficit now is a double whammy for for the president. First of all the Republicans have shown zero inclination to cooperate on producing a deficit reduction plan that can pass Congress. Even if they did, a reduction in spending now is exactly the opposite of what the economy needs.

The only sensible policy is to deal with unemployment now (if it's not already too late) and the deficit later--reducing it is going to be a challenge of the first order. The current deficit reduction plans actually will have little impact on the long run deficit but a potentially disastrous effect on the economy in the short run. If the Republicans understand this, they don't care, because it plays right into their 2012 election strategy. I don't know what the problem is with the Obama administration.

Textbook Keynesianism

An update on the economic stimulus plan:

We've Been Here Before

Ronald Dworkin in the New York Times Review of Books.

Worrying About the Wrong Thing

One hopes that the perpetrators of current economic policy will be be called to answer for their idiocy. Did no one pay attention in Econ 101? Mark Thoma comments.

Happy Fourth of July--the USA Is not a Simple Concept

Today no one seems to want to wrestle with the complex organism that is the United States of America. On the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War some people want to believe the fiction that secession was not about slavery, when a simple reading of the articles of secession published by every southern state say that it was almost entirely about slavery. Likewise some of the simple-minded politicians want to pretend that the Constitution was the highest statement of what the USA is (even while they want to pass amendments regarding things as mundane as a balanced budget because our politicians can't do their jobs).

It's often hilarious to listen to uneducated politicians, some of whom seek the highest office in the land, fracture American history. From Paul Revere's ride to the most recent offering on the Constitution and slavery. Every school child should know that the Constitution defined Negro slaves as property--property equal to three fifths of a white citizen for the purposes of measuring population for elections. Slaves as property were a sort of quasi-human in a way that other property was not. It took another eighty-nine years for the USA to live up to the Declaration of Independence and make the slave population people equal (in theory) to the white population.

Here's Mark Byrnes take on the latest historical faux pas by a ignorant presidential candidate. This would be funny if Michelle Bachmann wasn't actually considered a viable candidate for president.

New Music on the Left

A Canadian group I'd never heard before.