Nabil Laoudji's Mantle Project puts citizens on stage to tell stories of the experiences that led them to their positions on tough issues. That's how he got members of the Tea Party and Occupy movement to speak on the same stage in a civil – and entertaining – exchange.
British journalist Paul Fauvet came to Mozambique in 1980 just as the country was plunged into a civil war. He has witnessed every key event since. Here he describes the transformation of his adopted country from revolutionary Marxist state to embracing the market and the exploitation of its resource riches.
We all keep hearing that Gen Y’s are the “entrepreneurship generation,” but new research states otherwise. I worked with Monster.com on a new study focused on multi-generational worker attitudes to
uncover the state of entrepreneurship through the eyes of different
generations of workers. The report found that 41% of Gen X employees
(ages 30-49) and 45% of Boomers (ages 50-69) consider themselves to be
more entrepreneurial, compared to only 32% of Gen Y workers (ages 18-29
years). ...
As already discussed, Matthew Lee Anderson’s recent Christianity Todaycover story on “radical Christianity” has been making waves. This week at The High Calling, Marcus Goodyear offers a healthy critique of one of Anderson’s key subjects, David Platt,
aligning quite closely with Anderson’s analysis about the
ultimate challenges such movements face when it comes to long-term
cultural cultivation.
Focusing on Platt’s latest book, Follow Me,
Goodyear notes that, despite Platt’s admirable efforts to get
Christians “off their seats,” he often “emphasizes the great commission
so much, it overshadows all other teachings of the Bible.” ...
What are the odds that your new idea will succeed? If it does, what will the return to you be?
One of the problems that we have in business (and life!) is that we often can’t know the answer to questions like this in advance. And this drives us nuts. Consequently, a lot of people invest a great deal of effort into reducing uncertainty. There are two problems with this approach. The first is that we often don’t understand uncertainty very well, and the second is that profitably opportunities only exist where outcomes are genuinely uncertain. ...
... In my interactions with religious and nonreligious people alike, I
now draw a sharp line, based not on what exactly they believe but on
their level of dogmatism. I consider dogmatism a far greater threat than
religion per se. I am particularly curious why anyone would drop
religion while retaining the blinkers sometimes associated with it. Why
are the “neo-atheists” of today so obsessed with God’s nonexistence that
they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of
belief, or call for a militant atheism? What does atheism have to offer
that’s worth fighting for? As one philosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like “sleeping furiously.” ...
What is wrong with extinction? I realise this question is the conservation equivalent of a landmine - or an elephant trap. And that it is likely to ruffle a lot of fur.
But I ask because I am merely wondering whether we sometimes forget a grim reality of the story of life on Earth - that extinction has always been with us.
... The people who used the digital navigation device demonstrated pretty
good route recognition and rather poor survey knowledge. By comparison,
the paper map users scored better on the survey test and almost perfect
on the route test. What's happening here, Münzer and colleagues argue,
is that pedestrians who use computer navigation fail to envision,
encode, and memorize the cognitive maps they otherwise would have. The
cost of convenience, in other words, is spatial orientation. ...
Someday I'm actually going to finish reading Haidt's book but in the meantime I found this article fascinating. I think it fits well as I try to listen to the narratives and values underlying confrontation over controversial issues.
... I conducted interviews to find out how people feel about harmless taboo violations—for example, a family that eats its pet dog after the dog was killed by a car, or a woman who cuts up her nation’s flag to make rags to clean her toilet. In all cases the actions are performed in private and nobody is harmed; yet the actions feel wrong to many people—they found them disgusting or disrespectful. In my interviews, only one group of research subjects—college students in the United States—fully embraced the principle of harmlessness and said that people have a right to do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. People in Brazil and India, in contrast, had a broader moral domain—they were willing to condemn even actions that they admitted were harmless. Disgust and disrespect were sufficient grounds for moral condemnation.
I had predicted those cross-national differences. What I hadn’t predicted was that differences across social classes within each nation would be larger than differences across nations. In other words, college students at the University of Pennsylvania were more similar to college students in Recife, Brazil, than they were to the working-class adults I interviewed in West Philadelphia, a few blocks from campus. There’s something about the process of becoming comparatively well-off and educated that seems to shrink the moral domain down to its bare minimum—I won’t hurt you, you don’t hurt me, and beyond that, to each her own. ...
... Drawing on the work of many anthropologists (particularly Richard Shweder at the University of Chicago) and many evolutionary biologists and psychologists, my colleagues and I came to the conclusion that there are six best candidates for being the taste buds of the moral mind: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Oppression, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation.
Moral foundations theory helped to explain the differing responses to those harmless taboo violations (the dog-eating and flag-shredding). Those stories always violated the Loyalty, Authority, or Sanctity foundations in ways that were harmless. My educated American subjects (who, in retrospect, I realize were mostly liberal) generally rejected those three foundations and had a moral “cuisine” built entirely on the first three foundations; so if an action doesn’t harm anyone (Care/Harm), cheat anyone (Fairness/Cheating), or violate anyone’s freedom (Liberty/Oppression), then you can’t condemn someone for doing it. But in more traditional societies, the moral domain is broader. Moral “cuisines” are typically based on all six foundations (though often with much less reliance on Liberty), and it is perfectly sensible to condemn people for homosexual behavior among consenting adults, or other behaviors that challenge traditions or question authority.
Everyone values the first three foundations, although liberals value the Care foundation more strongly. For example, they show the strongest agreement with assertions such as “Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue.” But this difference on Care is small compared to the enormous difference on items such as these: “People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong.” “Respect for authority is something all children need to learn.” “People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed.” Those three items come from the scales we use to measure the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations, respectively. You can see how social conservatives, whose morality rests in large part on those foundations, don’t see eye to eye with liberals. Basically, liberals want to loosen things up, especially in ways that they believe will make more room for women, African Americans, gay people, and other oppressed groups to escape from traditional strictures, express themselves, and succeed. Conservatives want to tighten things up, especially in ways that they perceive will help parents to raise more respectful and self-controlled kids, and will assist the police and other authorities in maintaining order. You can see how those disagreements led to battle after battle on issues related to sexuality, drug use, religion, family life, and patriotism. You can see why liberals sometimes say that conservatives are racist, sexist, and otherwise intolerant. You can see why social conservatives sometimes say that liberals are libertine anarchists. ...
Climate change may be happening more slowly than scientists thought. But the world still needs to deal with it.
IT MAY come as a surprise to a walrus wondering where all the Arctic’s summer sea ice has gone. It could be news to a Staten Islander still coming to terms with what he lost to Hurricane Sandy. But some scientists are arguing that man-made climate change is not quite so bad a threat as it appeared to be a few years ago. They point to various reasons for thinking that the planet’s “climate sensitivity”—the amount of warming that can be expected for a doubling in the carbon-dioxide level—may not be as high as was previously thought. The most obvious reason is that, despite a marked warming over the course of the 20th century, temperatures have not really risen over the past ten years.
It is not clear why climate change has “plateaued” (see article). It could be because of greater natural variability in the climate, because clouds dampen warming or because of some other little-understood mechanism in the almost infinitely complex climate system. But whatever the reason, some of the really ghastly scenarios—where the planet heated up by 4°C or more this century—are coming to look mercifully unlikely. Does that mean the world no longer has to worry?
No, for two reasons. ...
Here is a graph from the article:
Here is a another chart from The Mail Online showing actual temps versus the forecasted temps based on computer models. The article is written in the publications typical bombastic style but graph is nevertheless helpful:
I'm glad to see reputable publications like the Economist addressing this
development. It is clear to even the most casual observer that a plateau is
happening. To keep behaving as if it isn't there and that people who are drawing
attention to it are sinister does not help the public discourse. In fact,
embracing anomalies that are particularly problematic for a narrative you want
to communicate is key to making winning broad public support. As I've said
before, I don't question scientific thought that human behavior has an impact
on the environment. I do question our ability, to date, to appreciate the
complexity involved or the sensitivity to human behavior. Prudence is an
important value here.
Researchers have found a way of using microorganisms to turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into energy, Ingram writes, essentially replicating the processes found in plant life. Fuel from carbon dioxide has promise, he adds, but isn't yet developed into something that can work on a large scale.
... Biomass Magazine reports
the researchers have found a way of using microorganisms to turn
atmospheric CO2 into energy--essentially replicating the processes found
in plant life.
During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to transform water and carbon dioxide into sugars that the plants use for energy.
The
same process takes place in a microorganism called Pyrococcus
furiosus--the poetically-named "rushing fireball". Its name stems from
its preferred home--next to super-heated geothermal vents in the oceans.
By
manipulating the rushing fireball's genetic material, the Georgia team
has created an organism that is able to feed at much lower temperatures,
on carbon dioxide.
"We can take carbon dioxide directly from the
atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals
without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants
and extracting sugars from biomass," explains the University of
Georgia's Michael Adams. ...
I've been doing some writing about the common misperception of the economy as a zero-sum game and the fear that we will soon (or ever) run out of nonrenewable resources. This is counterintuitive to so many people that I feel the need to address it some detail. I written a draft of this section for my book I'm working on but I need to massage more before posting it here.
In the meantime, Mark Perry has this interesting chart from his post Bad news for pessimists: Malthus was wrong. If commodities are becoming scarcer, then prices will go up. But as this chart shows, commodity prices over the long-haul, are getting less expensive in real dollars. Other databases I've seen show this to be true as far back as at least the mid-1800s. The trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Why? I'll get to that in coming posts but here is the evidence making my point. Read Perry's post for more details on the data.
In the past three decades, the number of Americans who
are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical
advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new
laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every
month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.
The federal government spends more money each year on cash
payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and
welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often
overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. People on federal
disability do not work. Yet because they are not technically part of the
labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.
In other words, people on disability don't show up in any of
the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the
story of these programs -- who goes on them, and why, and what happens
after that -- is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It's
the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden,
increasingly expensive safety net. ...
... Different languages have different ways of talking about the future.
Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their
speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers
talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as “will” or
“going to.” In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German,
future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about
similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood
from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar
might say “Wo qu ting jiangzuo,” which translates to “I go listen
seminar.” Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers
that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as
Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate
impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. ...
“Capitalism has a purpose beyond just making money. I think the critics of capitalism have got it in this very small box. That it’s all about money. It’s based in being greedy, selfish and exploitative. And yet, I haven’t found it to be that way. Most of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I know and have met did not start their business primarily out of a desire to make money. Not that there’s anything wrong with making money. My body cannot function unless it produces red-blood cells. No red-blood cells and I’m a dead man. But that’s not the purpose of my life.
Similarly, a business cannot exist unless it produces a profit . . . but that’s not the only reason it exists.”
When I was writing a review of Dwight Lee's and Richard McKenzie's excellent book, Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life,
I called Dwight to ask a question and we got talking about Rule #5: Get
Married and Stay Married. Dwight pointed out that if you follow the
other 7 rules but don't get married or stay married, you have a
substantial probability of building a fortune and a satisfying life.
But, he said, if you don't get married and stay married, you tend not to
follow at least some of the other 7 rules.
While the upscale college-educated crowd continues to marry at very high rates, marriage rates are plummeting among those further down on the socioeconomic ladder.
... A useful debate about the morality of capitalism must get beyond libertarian nostrums that greed is good, what’s mine is mine and whatever the market produces is fair. It should also acknowledge that there is no moral imperative to redistribute income and opportunity until everyone has secured a berth in a middle class free from economic worries. If our moral obligation is to provide everyone with a reasonable shot at economic success within a market system that, by its nature, thrives on unequal outcomes, then we ought to ask not just whether government is doing too much or too little, but whether it is doing the right things.
Instead, Dr. Butzer argues that Sargon's conquest itself caused
the collapse of trade by destroying cities and disrupting what had
till then been "an inter-networked world-economy, once extending
from the Aegean to the Indus Valley." In other words, as with the
end of the Roman empire, the collapse of trade caused the collapse
of civilization more than the other way around.
A new find suggests farmers in Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat and barley.
... “Educational systems could be improved by acknowledging that, in general, boys and girls are different,” said University of Missouri biologist David Geary in their statement. “For example, in trying to close the sex gap in math scores, the reading gap was left behind. Now, our study has found that the difference between girls’ and boys’ reading scores was three times larger than the sex difference in math scores. Girls’ higher scores in reading could lead to advantages in admissions to certain university programs, such as marketing, journalism or literature, and subsequently careers in those fields. Boys lower reading scores could correlate to problems in any career, since reading is essential in most jobs.”
Generally, when conditions are good, the math gap increases and the reading gap decreases and when conditions are bad the math gap decreases and the reading gap increases. This pattern remained consistent within nations as well as among them, according to the work by Geary and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Leeds that included testing performance data from 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 75 nations. ...
... Two rival reform movements arose to restore the integrity of
Catholicism. Those in the first movement, the Donatists, believed the
church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity. ...
... In the fourth century, another revival movement arose, embraced by
Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo. The problem with the Donatists,
Augustine argued, is that they are too static. They try to seal off an
ark to ride out the storm, but they end up sealing themselves in. They
cut themselves off from new circumstances and growth.
Augustine, as his magisterial biographer Peter Brown puts it, “was
deeply preoccupied by the idea of the basic unity of the human race.” He
reacted against any effort to divide people between those within the
church and those permanently outside. ....
16. A great piece by someone who considers them unaffiliated with any religion. Every Christian and congregation needs to reflect on the insignificance of the church in this writers life. His tribe is growing: The significant insignificance of religion
... One of the most surprising, and perhaps confounding, facts of charity
in America is that the people who can least afford to give are the ones
who donate the greatest percentage of their income. In 2011, the
wealthiest Americans—those with earnings in the top
20 percent—contributed on average 1.3 percent of their income to
charity. By comparison, Americans at the base of the income
pyramid—those in the bottom 20 percent—donated 3.2 percent of their
income. The relative generosity of lower-income Americans is accentuated
by the fact that, unlike middle-class and wealthy donors, most of them
cannot take advantage of the charitable tax deduction, because they do
not itemize deductions on their income-tax returns.
But why? Lower-income Americans are presumably no more intrinsically
generous (or “prosocial,” as the sociologists say) than anyone else.
However, some experts have speculated that the wealthy may
be less generous—that the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be
inconsistent with the idea of communal support. Last year, Paul Piff, a
psychologist at UC Berkeley, published research that correlated wealth
with an increase in unethical behavior: “While having money doesn’t
necessarily make anybody anything,” Piff later told New York magazine,
“the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests
above the interests of other people.” They are, he continued, “more
likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically
associate with, say, assholes.” Colorful statements aside, Piff’s
research on the giving habits of different social classes—while not
directly refuting the asshole theory—suggests that other, more complex
factors are at work. In a series of controlled experiments, lower-income
people and people who identified themselves as being on a relatively
low social rung were consistently more generous with limited goods than
upper-class participants were. Notably, though, when both groups were
exposed to a sympathy-eliciting video on child poverty, the compassion
of the wealthier group began to rise, and the groups’ willingness to
help others became almost identical.
If Piff’s research suggests that exposure to need drives generous
behavior, could it be that the isolation of wealthy Americans from those
in need is a cause of their relative stinginess? ...
... Wealth affects not only how much money is given but to whom it is given.
The poor tend to give to religious organizations and social-service
charities, while the wealthy prefer to support colleges and
universities, arts organizations, and museums....
... It’s striking that so many economists have praised his [Tyler Cowen] op-ed: usually,
economists (with much reason) point to how their conclusions are
dispassionate, fact-based and (quasi) scientific as evidence for their
validity. You would think that Cowen’s conclusion that most economists
are not just disembodied scientists but that their values also influence
their work would make them uncomfortable. In debates around topics like
free trade, critics argue that economists’ social perspective tars
their recommendation, and economists vigorously deny the existence of an
“economics ideology”. In my view, the fact that so many economists
praise Cowen’s finding which undermines economics’ claim to scientific
knowledge highlights that many of these economists think their value
system is, well, right. Their cri de coeur endorses a view of
economics-as-it-is-practiced as not just a science but also a political
ideology. “We are good”, economists hear this op-ed as telling them, not
“We are biased.” ...
... Let me give you two examples of what I mean, two examples that I think
are revealing (and, not coincidentally, hobby horses of mine).
The college wage premium vs the marriage wage premium.
In contemporary societies, there is a strong college wage premium. That
is to say, people who go to college make more money on average than
people who don’t. While a minority of economists (including Cowen) have
questioned why this premium should exist, the majority of economists
generally take the existence of this college wage premium to mean that
college is good and important, that more people should go to college,
and that public policy has some role to play in promoting and
subsidizing college attendance. I would bet a goodly sum of money that
if you picked at random ten tenured economists from top-20 economics
departments, and asked them to list what an 18-year-old should do to
increase his chances of getting high wages, a majority would say “go to
college.”
There also exists a marriage wage premium, which is roughly as
significant and as consistent as the college wage premium. To say that
the marriage wage premium doesn’t get the same amount of attention is an
understatement. Economists recoil at the idea of praising marriage and
supporting public policies that increase marriage. They are much more
likely to dismiss the marriage wage premium as reflecting selection bias
(it’s not that marriage makes people earn more money, it’s that people
who would have earned more money anyway tend to get married) or intone
that “correlation is not causation”–criticisms that apply equally to
analyses of the college wage premium. I would bet a goodly sum of money
that if you picked at random ten tenured economists from top-20
economics departments, and asked them to list what an 18-year-old should
do to increase his chances of getting high wages, none of them would
say “get married and stay married”–even though the data on the marriage
wage premium supports this conclusion to the same extent as it does
going to college.
The perspective of economists seems as good an explanation for this discrepancy as any. Economics
as a profession, pretty much by definition, self-selects people who on
the whole enjoy higher education. Economists by and large enjoyed
college so much they decided to stay there for the rest of their
professional lives. Encouraging other people to do as they did feels
natural. They “know” that not everyone is like them, that selection bias
advises caution on this issue, etc. but they’re human like everyone
else. When the data can be read as supporting A and non-A, it’s our gut
(whether consciously or not) which tells us which is right. (As I once
put it on Twitter: thank God for confirmation bias, otherwise we’d never
know when correlation is causation.)
Meanwhile, economists’ “cosmopolitan perspective” (as Cowen puts it)
makes them not feel good at the idea of public policy that would
interfere with personal choices (allowing for a second that getting
married is a “personal choice” in a way that going to college isn’t).
Most economists think that government should not interfere or have a
stance one way or another with decisions that feel intimate to people.
That is a complete value judgement. And it’s a completely defensible
one.
But at the level of the economics profession, this leads to bias:
much more ink is spilled on, and thought given to the college wage
premium than the marriage wage premium. One is mostly praised and
interpreted in a certain way, while the other is mostly ignored. And, of
course, the thing that academic economics focuses on has an effect on
elite debate and public policy, especially when the socially liberal,
pro-higher ed biases of economists line up well with those of the rest
of the elite. ...
... To clarify: my point here isn’t “I’m right, economists are wrong” or,
worse, “No need to evaluate economists’ arguments on the merits, because
they’re biased anyway.” And by the way, yes, I am a practicing Catholic
and a social conservative, so my pro-marriage, pro-natality views have
plenty of bias too. My point here is to praise Tyler Cowen for
recognizing that economists have bias, and to note that fellow
economists have cheered him for doing so. It’s a great step for
intellectual honesty. Let’s be even more honest, and let’s have
economists who are willing to look beyond their biases. I’ve suggested
two places to start. I’m sure there are more.
While you're filling out your expertly analyzed bracket, you might want to take a look at how March Madness fandom is spread across the country with this map from Facebook (via Gizmodo).
Michael Bailey of Facebook's Data Science team analyzed the way "likes"
are spread through teams and conferences, across the country—in similar
fashion to this Super Bowl map.
Here, for instance, Facebook looks at the conference divide. Bailey
points out in his analysis how the ACC fan base is spread across the
country, despite pockets of dominance for other conferences....
"... While its portrait is still coming into focus, “Plurals” -- or those born since
1997 -- are highly optimistic, but have been profoundly impacted by recent economic uncertainties.
Also
known as “Generation Z,” “Generation We” and the
“iGeneration,” Plurals have witnessed a culture that celebrated excess,
and has been through a recession and a fledgling recovery. As a result,
this new generation is remarkably realistic
about what is achievable, and feel that they must follow the path that
will make them personally happy, according to Adam Rossow, head of
marketing at iModerate.
“This group is
fascinating for many reasons, but what’s truly impressive is their keen
understanding of the world around them and the valuable lessons they
have learned,” Rossow said. “Happiness
and the individual freedom to pursue it are more important than
financial success.” ...
... “The only world they know is a digital one -- where they can connect
anytime, anywhere, and to anyone,” Forrester analyst Tracy Stokes
explained. “As a
result, they are highly promiscuous when it comes to media consumption.” ...
A United Nations report on human development signals huge progress in reducing poverty. All the reasons for it may add up to a turnaround in attitudes among the poor about their future.
... For much of history, despair often bred despair among the poor. “The
anticipation of future poverty will exacerbate current poverty,” says
economist Esther Duflo of the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and a new appointee to President Obama’s Global
Development Council.
In her field studies, Ms. Duflo often found
the poor rejected help simply out of depression about their future.
Farmers, for example, might refuse new types of fertilizer even if told
it would aid their harvests.
The UN report suggests a possible end to this mental mire, with hope perhaps now breeding on hope.
“Hope operates as a capability,” says Ms. Duflo. “A little bit of hope can allow people to realize their potential.”
The
UN report finds countries that emphasize investments in social policies
– gender equality, health, and education – do better in the traditional
measure of progress, economic growth. And the most successful
developing countries have also been more open to world markets, such as
welcoming foreign investment. Since 1990, the share of global trade by
the so-called “global south” group of developing countries has grown
from a quarter to nearly half. Big countries – China, India, Brazil –
have led the way.
While these steps of progress – from free-trade
pacts to water wells, from roads to new seed varieties – have helped
reduce poverty, the overriding effect seems to be an improvement in the
poor’s image of themselves as able to use the assets made available to
them. ...
1. The Economisthas an interesting graph showing the captialism has led to greater happiness in member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union countries excluding the three baltic countries.)
There are two ways to define economic mobility: 1) absolute mobility, whether each generation is financially better off than the one before; and 2) relative mobility,
whether you can change your income rank vs. your parents. Most
Americans probably think both measures important. We want to be more
prosperous than mom and dad, but also be able to change our
circumstances and make our dreams come true. ...
... A San Francisco Fed study –
using data tracking families since 1968 — looks at both versions of the
American Dream, finding one healthier than the other. Looking
at absolute mobility, researchers Leila Bengali and Mary Daly find the
United States “highly mobile.” Over the sample period, 67% of US adults
had higher family incomes than their parents, including 83% of those in
the lowest birth quintile, or bottom 20% (versus 54% for children born
into the top quintile, or top 20%.) ...
... It’s true that conservatives’
standard proposals for privatizing Social Security and
voucherizing Medicare would shift risk onto beneficiaries -- but
this plainly isn’t a necessary consequence of the basic
principle. I agree with Konczal that adequate insurance against
economic risk, underwritten by the government, is essential. I
also agree that most conservatives aren’t interested in
providing that guarantee. That’s exactly why liberals ought to
take up the ownership society themselves.
Ownership entails risk, it’s true, but insurance can
minimize it. Ownership also provides control, independence and
self-respect -- things it wouldn’t hurt liberals to be more
interested in. And when it comes to inequality and stagnating
middle incomes, ownership can give wage slaves a stake in the
nation’s economic capital.
Done right, an equity component in government-backed saving
for retirement could be the best idea liberals have had since
the earned-income tax credit (oh, sorry, that started out as a
conservative idea as well). ...
FMRI scans of volunteers' media prefrontal cortexes revealed unique brain activity patterns associated with individual characters or personalities as subjects thought about them.
Researchers already knew humans, animals and plants have evolved in
response to Earth's gravity and they are able to sense it. What we are
still discovering is how the processes occurring within the cells of the
human and plant bodies are affected by the more intense gravity, or
hypergravity, that would be found on a large planet, or the microgravity
that resembles the conditions on a space craft.
According to estimations, engineers expect the the store to generate
around 265,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Store operation will only
require 200,000 kWh, so perhaps that extra wattage could be pumped back
into the grid or used to power nearby utilities.
When people can browse potential dates online like items in a catalog, geo-locate hook-ups on an exercise bike just seven feet away, arrange a spontaneous group date with the app Grouper or arrange a bevy of blind dates in succession with Crazy Blind Date, it makes me wonder if all this newfound technological convenience has, in fact, made romance that much more elusive. Now, we may be more concerned with what someone isn't rather than what they are. And as that twenty-something entrepreneur reminded me over coffee, services like OkCupid, and even Facebook, sap a lot of the mystique out of those first few dates. So, sure, it may be easier than ever to score a date, but what kind of date will it really be?
Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little
bits – theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon
bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented
way, we ignore it’s divine author’s intention to shape our lives through
its story. All humanity communities live out some story that provides a
context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and
direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it
is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is
shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it
should. Idolatry has twisted the dominant cultural story of the secular
Western world. If as believers we allow this story (rather than the
Bible) to become the foundation of our thought and action, then our
lives will manifest not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an
idolatrous culture. Hence the unity of Scripture is no minor matter: a
fragmented Bible may actually produce theologically orthodox, morally
upright, warmly pious idol worshippers! (p. 12).
I wish someone had taught me basic leadership skills.
“I was well grounded in theology and Bible exegesis, but seminary did
not prepare me for the real world of real people. It would have been
great to have someone walk alongside me before my first church.”
I needed to know a lot more about personal financial issues.
“No one ever told me about minister’s housing, social security,
automobile reimbursement, and the difference between a package and a
salary. I got burned in my first church.”
I wish I had been given advice on how to deal with power groups and power people in the church.
“I got it all wrong in my first two churches. I was fired outright from
the first one and pressured out in the second one. Someone finally and
courageously pointed out how I was messing things up almost from the
moment I began in a new church. I am so thankful that I am in the ninth
year of a happy pastorate in my third church.” ...
A thought provoking peace about how we think about charity. His characterization of Puritanism is way off but most of his substantive points are important to consider.
Defense mechanisms against emotional ambivalence incline us to fully embrace one side and fully reject the other -- which makes compromise nearly impossible.
... Such rhetoric reflects a black-and-white, us-versus-them approach that
views each debate over taxation, social policy and the role of
government not as a problem in need of a solution but a
battle within an ongoing war. During warfare, our aim is of course to
vanquish the enemy and emerge
victorious; to reach out to your enemy makes you a villainous collaborator,
a traitor to your cause. On the right, anyone with the temerity to
suggest that Obama and the Democrats have some redeeming qualities
is likely to be attacked from within the party. Just ask Chris Christie.
Propaganda during wartime typically dehumanizes the enemy. Our
current political rhetoric likewise relies on two-dimensional
caricatures to de-legitimize
the opposition, encouraging us to hate "them." The process is more
blatantly vocal on the political right, with the radio voices of
conservatism inciting
hatred for cartoon versions of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, members of
the liberal press, etc. Rush Limbaugh has gone so far as to compare Obama to Adolf Hitler,
the epitome of unalloyed
evil. While less obvious, the left has its own set of
two-dimensional villains to hate: greedy and heartless bankers, evil
corporations, gun-toting
religious freaks.
For both sides, the Other often lacks true dimension. In propaganda,
the enemy never has a legitimate point of view that needs to be taken
seriously and
balanced against our own views. Hating an enemy leaves no room for
complex, ambiguous problems without an obvious solution. It eliminates
the uncomfortable
tension that arises from doubt and uncertainty amidst difficult
choices. ...
I'm not convinced that "... process is more
blatantly vocal on the political right ..." but other than that I think he is on to something.
... As the neurologist Robert Burton has noted
, ambiguity or confusion is so difficult for many of us to bear that we instead retreat from it into a feeling of certainty,
believing we know
something without any doubts, even when we actually don't and often
can't know. Those of us who have trouble with such discomfort often
resort to
black-and-white thinking instead. Rather than feeling uncertain or
ambivalent, struggling with areas of gray, we reduce that complexity to
either/or.
We may define one idea or point of view as bad (black) and reject it, aligning ourselves with the good
(white) perspective. Feelings of
anger and self-righteousness often accompany this process,
bolstering our conviction that we are in the right and the other side in
the wrong. Hatred for
the rejected point of view keeps ambiguity and uncomfortable
complexity from re-entering the field.
Black-and-white thinking reflects the psychological process known as splitting. When we feel unable to tolerate the tension aroused by complexity,
we "resolve" that complexity by splitting it into two
simplified and opposing parts, usually aligning ourselves with one of
them and rejecting the
other. As a result, we may feel a sort of comfort in believing we
know something with absolute certainty; at the same time, we've
over-simplified a complex
issue.
On the emotional front, splitting comes into play when we feel
hostile toward the people we love. Holding onto feelings of love in the
presence of anger
and even hatred is a difficult thing for most of us to do. Sometimes
hatred proves so powerful that it overwhelms and eclipses love,
bringing the
relationship to an end. More often we repress awareness of our
hostile feelings; or we might split them off and direct them elsewhere, away from
the people we care about.
In other words, splitting as a psychological defense mechanism
resolves emotional ambivalence -- love and hatred toward the same person
-- by splitting off
one half of those feelings and directing them elsewhere, away from
the loved one. ...
And when you consider that a great many of the challenges we confront are polarities to be managed, not problems to be solved, our battles to be won, all sorts of dysfunction emerges from splitting. By analogy, try splitting inhaling from exhaling and see what happens. I think the same is true for many problems we face in social institutions and in society at large.
In recent months, observers have remarked on the growing number of
Americans who claim no religious affiliation (the “nones”), whose
numbers are highest among the young. We can argue about just what these
numbers mean, but possibly they do mark the beginning of a secularizing
trend, a drift toward European conditions. Surprisingly perhaps, given
our customary assumptions about Latin America, conditions in several
Latin American nations mirror those in the U.S. Increasingly these
countries are developing a European coloring. ...
... Whatever the causes, the European experience indicates that countries
where the fertility rate falls well below replacement (2.1 children per
woman) might be facing rapid secularization.
With that figure in
mind, let’s look at the countries of Latin America, and especially the
most economically developed ones. A few decades ago, all had classic
Third World population profiles and very large families. In the 1960s,
for instance, Brazil’s fertility rate hovered around 6 children per
woman, alarming those who warned of a global population explosion. By
2012, though, Brazil’s figure was 1.82, far below replacement level.
Chile and Uruguay both record similar rates of 1.87. Argentina is still
above replacement, but the rate is falling fast. That’s a social
revolution in progress—as well as a gender revolution.
In
religious terms, these countries present a complex picture, with strong
evidence of a continuing passion for religion. Brazil is home to some
spectacularly successful Pentecostal megachurches, which Catholic clergy
seek to imitate in order to hold on to believers. New evangelical
churches are also booming in the other Latin nations, to the point that
Protestants claim to be living through a new Reformation.
At the
same time, though, signs of secularization appear that would have been
unthinkable not long ago. Nine percent of Brazilians now say they follow
no religion, and the proportion of nones is much higher among those
under 20. Uruguay emerges as the region’s most secular country, with 40
percent having no religious affiliation. ...
Poor nations have the highest proportion of people who identify as religious
The world's poorest nations are also some of its most religious – but does that mean religion can't flourish in a prosperous society?
Gregory Paul doesn't think it can. After constructing a "Successful Societies Scale" that compared 25 socioeconomic indicators against statistics on religious belief and practice in 17 developed nations, the Baltimore-based paleontologist concluded in a 2009 study that "religion is most able to thrive in seriously dysfunctional societies."
Gregory, who is a freelance researcher not affiliated with any institution, compiled data on everything from homicide rates and income inequality to infant mortality and teenage pregnancies and found that the societies that scored the best on socioeconomic indicators were also the most secular.
"The correlation between religiosity and successful societies is somewhere around 0.7. Zero is no correlation and one is a perfect correlation, so it's a really good correlation, and it's not just an accident," he told CBC News. ...
... Sociologists have argued that the social benefits of religion take on
greater importance, the fewer resources and the less control people
have over their own lives.
"Religion becomes less central as people's lives become less
vulnerable to the constant threat of death, disease and misfortune,"
Norris and Inglehart write in their 2004 book, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.
"As lives gradually become more comfortable and secure, people in more
affluent societies usually grow increasingly indifferent to religious
values, more skeptical of supernatural beliefs and less willing to
become actively engaged in religious institutions." ...
... "The United States is one of the wealthier societies, and yet, it's
still quite religious," said Phil Zuckerman, a sociology professor at
Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., who has studied secularization in
Scandinavian countries and wrote a book about it called Society Without God.
"I think it's when you have what we might call 'existential security'
— so, wealth and prosperity are part of that, but by that we [also]
mean the bulk of people in society have access to housing, health care,
jobs. They live in a relatively stable, democratic society without much
in the way of existential threats to their lives or their culture." ...
... "Europe and the United States seem to be going in very different directions," said Marcus Noland,
a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
in Washington, D.C., who has written about religion and economic growth.
"One of the arguments is that the United States has a much livelier
and open market for religion than do, say, countries in Scandinavia,
where you have established churches." [Notably Rodney Stark]
But Zuckerman and other sociologists attribute the U.S.'s outlier status to socioeconomic inequality. ...
... The math of wealth is actually pretty simple: It all boils down to
four things: 1. How much you start with, 2. How much income you make, 3.
How much of your income you save, and 4. How good of a rate of return
you get on your savings.
So one obvious thing we could do to make wealth more equal is - surprise! - redistribution. It turns out that income redistribution and wealth
redistribution have much the same effect on the wealth of the poor and
middle-class. Income redistribution is probably a bit better, for two
reasons. First, people with higher incomes tend to save more, meaning
they build wealth more rapidly. Second, people with higher incomes tend
to have less risk aversion, meaning they are more willing to invest in
assets like stocks (which get high average rates of return, although
they are risky) rather than safe assets like savings accounts and CDs
that get low rates of return.
In other words, giving the poor and middle-class more income will boost the amount they are able to save, the percentage they are willing to save, and the return
they get on those savings. Part of the reason America's wealth
distribution is so unequal in the first place is that our income
distribution is very unequal.
But there are reasons to believe that redistribution can't fix all of
the problem, or even most of it. If you do the math, you discover that
in the long run, income levels and initial wealth (factors 1 and 2 from
above) are not the main determinants of wealth. They are dwarfed by
factors 3 and 4 -- savings rates and rates of return. The most potent
way to get more wealth to the poor and middle-class is to get these
people to save more of their income, and to invest in assets with higher
average rates of return.
As I mentioned, income redistribution helps these things a bit, but
it doesn't account for the whole difference. The rich probably save more
than the poor for many more reasons besides the simple fact that
they're rich. In fact, being willing to save more is probably a big part
of how the rich got rich in the first place. "Cheap" is an insult, but
being cheap is how you get rich. If you consume everything you earn,
your consumption will be higher today, but lower twenty years down the
road; in our consumption-focused society, a lot of people are caught in
this trap. And government can and should help them get out. ...
I heard a lecture by economist Peter Rodriquez of the University of Virginia sometime back. He believes our saving problems of the past generation are partly tied to globalization. As emerging markets grew they had more money to invest than their local economies could profitably absorb. American markets were more stable and reliable so the trend was to invest in the American economy. That meant a flood of capital, keeping borrowing cost low, and rising real estate values as foreigners bought up land for investment, making borrowing to buy real estate seem inordinately attractive. Combine this with weak consumer protection against nefarious lending practices and a poorly overseen financial sector, and the circumstances were ripe for disaster.
The great majority of people who become wealthy without having been born into wealth do so through frugal living and dogged investing. Yes, some get hit with challenges that wipe them out and others get lucky breaks, but the bulk of wealth creation happens through discipline practiced over a lifetime. Somehow we have to recover these values.
A lot has been written recently about the rise of the "Nones," people expressing no religious affiliation. Sociologist Brad Wright offers a fascinating insight by looking at the percentage of people at various stages of life report affliation. Young adults are not suprisingly the group with the highest percentage but Wright offers this chart.
Wright makes this observation:
Once again, the percentage of being unaffiliated increased in each
group, but relatively speaking, it’s increased most among the
middle-aged and the elderly. In both the percentage of the unaffiliated
more than tripled, compared to the 2.5x increase in the young. There is
some lagged effect, as the elderly are catching up the middle-aged in
the past decade, but overall, the rise of the religious nones is
something that spans all age groups. Thus it’s a societal-wide change
more than just an age or generational change.
This data doesn't tell us why there is the rise but I have a theory: Church offers little for discerning significance in life.
A few random thoughts (mostly intuitive perceptions.) For
many older adults who grew up in the church, there is disillusionment with
church life. Young adults have who are interested in the church are out
starting up independent congregations that are narrowly targeted to their
particular age demographic. Older Christians feel rejected. As a traditional
congregation tries to become more appealing to the younger demographic,
long-time congregants experience a loss of rhythms and routines that were
meaningful for them. With those gone, worship no longer seems meaningful. Some
look for other congregations but I sense many see the work of integrating into
a new community faith community as too much work. As the number of
congregations with familiar patterns dwindle and close, they slip out the door
into the ether.
Dr. Eileen Lindner, Deputy General Secretary for Research
and Planning of the National Council of Churches USA, gave a presentation a saw
a couple of years ago. She points out the fifty years ago congregations and
denominations were engaged in a whole range of work that ministered to the
world. Beginning the 1960s and 1970s, para-church organizations began to emerge
to do the things congregations once did ... like Young Life and Habitat for
Humanity. Many of the things churches once did have been replaced by nonprofit organizations
that may not have an explicit faith connection. In one sense, the church is
victim of its own success, having encultured values of service into the broader
culture. But the downside is that it frequently feels like all we are left with
is squabbles about internal politics. Congregations and denominations are
struggling for an identity and purpose in relating to the world.
As I’ve written several times, conservative congregations
typically respond by offering programming directed toward therapeutic healing,
personal piety, or political action to stop the “barbarians at the gates.”
Liberal congregations also offer therapeutic healing and personal piety, but
also frequently include political action they discern is directed toward “social
justice.” To me, much of it appears to a be a “me too” response to broader
movements in the culture, hoping to leach off of the meaning people find in
these movements rather than the church itself generating the meaning for
congregants. Religion (right and left) becomes so captive to the categories and
contours of cultural politics that theological understanding is lost. And if
you want to do political action, there are far more dynamic venues than the
church.
And that brings me back to my overarching theory: Church
offers little for discerning significance in life. Too much of church is about
a narrow personal piety (a niche market) while trying to make ourselves relevant
to the culture with “me too” strategies from the periphery of culture. Until people
see how daily life connects with God’s unending mission, I think the Nones
tribe will continue to grow and prosper.
1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.
... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages,
but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial
Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began
with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power,
and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic
idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of
interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible
inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third
Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile
phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools;
they have been used for moving information, not for making things.
Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for
the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.
The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the
distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture,
in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance
between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an
audience. ...
... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays
off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where
you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century
is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But
it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity
over the longer run.
5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.
6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?
The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been
flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is
mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.
... According to the World Bank, the world's fertility rate is 2.45, slightly above the replacement rate of 2.1. Some demographers believe that by 2020, global fertility will drop below the replacement rate for the first time in history. Why? Because the world is getting richer.
As
people become wealthier, they have fewer kids. When times are good,
instead of reproducing exponentially (like rabbits), people prefer to
spend resources nurturing fewer children, for instance by investing in
education and saving money for the future. This trend toward smaller
families has been observed throughout the developed world, from the
United States to Europe to Asia.
The poorest parts of the world,
most notably sub-Saharan Africa, still have sky-high fertility rates,
but they are declining. The solution is just what it has been elsewhere:
more education, easier access to contraception and economic growth.
Catastrophe avoided.
Consequently, no serious demographer believes
that human population growth resembles cancer or the plague. On the
contrary, the United Nations projects a global population of 9.3 billion
by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. In other words, it will take about 40
years to add 2 billion people, but 50 years to add 1 billion after
that. After world population peaks, it is quite possible that it will
stop growing altogether and might even decline.
Despite all
indications to the contrary, global population cataclysm isn't at hand
and never will be unless the well-established and widely researched
trends reverse themselves. That's not likely.
... The subject-area expert, the substantive specialist, will lose some
of his or her luster compared with the statistician and data analyst,
who are unfettered by the old ways of doing things and let the data
speak. This new cadre will rely on correlations without prejudgments and
prejudice. To be sure, subject-area experts won’t die out, but their
supremacy will ebb. From now on, they must share the podium with the
big-data geeks, just as princely causation must share the limelight with
humble correlation.
This transforms the way we value knowledge, because we tend to think
that people with deep specialization are worth more than generalists —
that fortune favors depth.
Yet expertise is like exactitude: appropriate for a small-data world
where one never has enough information, or the right information, and
thus has to rely on intuition and experience to guide one’s way. In such
a world, experience plays a critical role, since it is the long
accumulation of latent knowledge — knowledge that one can’t transmit
easily or learn from a book, or perhaps even be consciously aware of —
that enables one to make smarter decisions.
But when you are stuffed silly with data, you can tap that instead,
and to greater effect. Thus those who can analyze big data may see past
the superstitions and conventional thinking not because they’re smarter,
but because they have the data. (And being outsiders, they are
impartial about squabbles within the field that may narrow an expert’s
vision to whichever side of a squabble she’s on.) This suggests that
what it takes for an employee to be valuable to a company changes. What
you need to know changes, whom you need to know changes, and so does
what you need to study to prepare for professional life.
Harnessing data is no guarantee of business success but shows what is possible.
The shift to data-driven decisions is profound. Most people base
their decisions on a combination of facts and reflection, plus a heavy
dose of guesswork. “A riot of subjective visions — feelings in the solar
plexus,” in the poet W. H. Auden’s memorable words. Thomas Davenport, a
business professor at Babson College in Massachusetts and the author of
numerous books on analytics, calls it “the golden gut.” Executives are
just sure of themselves from gut instinct, so they go with that. But
this is starting to change as managerial decisions are made or at least
confirmed by predictive modeling and big-data analysis.
As big data transforms our lives — optimizing, improving, making more
efficient, and capturing benefits — what role is left for intuition,
faith, uncertainty, and originality? ...
... Big data is not an ice-cold world of algorithms and automatons. What is
greatest about human beings is precisely what the algorithms and silicon
chips don’t reveal, what they can’t reveal because it can’t be captured
in data. It is not the “what is,” but the “what is not”: the empty
space, the cracks in the sidewalk, the unspoken and the
not-yet-thought. There is an essential role for people, with all our
foibles, misperceptions and mistakes, since these traits walk hand in
hand with human creativity, instinct, and genius. ...
The wealth gap between white and black families is growing — and that's
especially apparent in the housing market. Host Michel Martin talks to
Washington Post correspondent Michael Fletcher about the financial
disparities facing black families. ...
... MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We'd like to talk now about new
research on the wealth gap between white and black families in the U.S.
According to a federal survey, the median black family has five cents
for every dollar of wealth owned by their white counterparts. Now, that
gap is obviously very large, but it is also growing. We wanted to talk
more about this, so we've called Washington Post reporter Michael
Fletcher, who wrote about this recently. And he's with us from The
Washington Post's studios.
Welcome back to the program, Michael. Thanks so much for joining us. ...
This is a very informative interview. You can read the transcript at the link above or listen to the interview by clicking here.
I was recently invited to teach a session of a seminary class called “Pastoral Functions” at an extension of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
In this class, the pastors-in-training had been discussing such topics
as Worship, Disciplemaking, Evangelism, Visitation, Funerals, Weddings,
Pastoral Counseling, Children’s Ministry, etc.—topics we’d expect in a
class like this.
But I was invited to talk about something significantly different and
paradigm-shifting. Pastors need to recalibrate their ministry
philosophy so that the members of their congregations are affirmed,
encouraged, and equipped to serve God through their various vocations. I
challenged the students to help the people of God participate in God’s
mission on earth through their vocations. Thankfully, seminaries are
beginning to understand that they will need to transition their
curriculum beyond the traditional topics if they want to train pastors
to lead missional churches. ...
An excellent piece by Bob Robinson. Spot on! Read the whole thing.
1. Conventional wisdom says wearing the red shirt in Star Trek will get you killed. Not so fast. Statistical analysis in Significance Magazine disagrees. (Keep your redshirt on: a Bayesian exploration)
"... In spite of wearing a redshirt, there is
only an 8.6% chance of a member of the operations or engineering
departments becoming a casualty. These personnel should ensure that
their life insurance plans are based on their departments and not their
uniform color.
Although Enterprise crew members in
redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other
uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold
uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the
entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek.
This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of
blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being
a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of
security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance
that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this
red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining
redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single
population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.
Red uniform shirts are safe, as long as the wearer is not in the security department."
2. Interesting piece on automation in the Economist: Robocolleague
Robots are getting more powerful. That need not be bad news for workers. ...
... Historically, technological advances have been relatively benign for
workers. Labour-market trends through the 19th and 20th centuries show
surprising continuity, according to Lawrence Katz of Harvard University
and Robert Margo of Boston University. In recent decades, for example,
computerisation and automation have displaced “middle-skilled” workers
at the same time as employment among high- and low-skilled workers has
increased. This “hollowing out” is not new, Messrs Katz and Margo note.
Early industrialisation had similar effects. Middle-skilled artisans,
like trained weavers, were put out of work by industrial textile
production, but the fortunes of less-skilled factory workers and
white-collar factory managers steadily improved. Mechanisation’s
insatiable appetite for routine work of all types has yet to create mass
unemployment. Quite the opposite.
The worry is that technology now has its sights set on non-routine
tasks as well as mundane ones. Yet Mr Autor notes that just because a
skilled job can be automated does not mean it will be. The number of
workers used to build Nissan vehicles varies a lot between Japan, where
labour is expensive, and India, where it is abundant and cheap. The
relative cost of different types of workers matters for firms as they
choose how to deploy new technologies. ...
Indie Capitalism has three foundational principles:
• Creativity generates economic value.
Creativity is the source of profit. Yes, efficiency can squeeze more
out of what exists, but creativity gives us originality, which
translates into a market advantage and big margins.
• Creativity drives capitalism.
These past few years we have been victimized by the disastrous results
of “creativity” applied to the financial sector (mortgage-backed
securities, for starters). What we lost sight of is that the scaling of
creativity to actually make things of value sold in the marketplace is
the true heart of our economic system. It is the true generator of net
new jobs, wealth, and tax revenue.
• Creative destruction is crucial to economic growth.
Crony capitalism, which relies on monopoly and political power, is
antithetical to entrepreneurial capitalism. A faster cycle of birth,
growth, and death of companies boosts creativity, economic value, and
growth.
The bottom line: For the first time in decades, several key economic drivers have created a competitive advantage for the U.S. that will encourage corporate strategic decisions on capital allocation and acquisitions for generations to come.
Here's why:
1. Cheap and abundant natural gas. ...
2. Innovation. Despite talk of a brain drain, the U.S. remains the global innovation leader, maintaining a position enjoyed for 50 years. ...
3. Rule of law. Without the means to protect intellectual property, it cannot be exploited for competitive advantage. ...
4. Human capital. The wage gap between the U.S. and China has been shrinking. ...
5. De-complexity. Western multinationals continue to struggle with management of operations in developing countries. ...
6. Public policy and abundance. The federal government appears to be seizing the opportunity to promote job growth at home.
7. Credit, currency and the coming wave of mergers and acquisitions.
"Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo. ..."
Throughout history, war and innovation have gone hand in hand,
whether it’s breakthroughs out of heavily funded R&D programs
or makeshift contraptions thrown together with spare parts. Soldiers are
trained to use the technology on hand to get the job done, one way or
the other.
But how would military operations change if soldiers on the
battlefield could have the best of both worlds: access to expert
engineers able to fabricate custom-designed fixes right on-the-spot and
in very little time? ...
"It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D
printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change
and adapt themselves to the environment. In a recent TED interview, Tibbits compared the process of 4D printing to the process of natural adaptation:
Natural systems obviously have this built in — the
ability to have a desire. Plants, for example, generally have the desire
to grow towards light and they generate energy from the translation of
photosynthesis, carbon dioxide to oxygen, and so on. This is extremely
difficult to build into synthetic systems — the ability to “want” or
need something and know how to change itself in order to acquire it, or
the ability to generate its own energy source. If we combine the
processes that natural systems offer intrinsically (genetic
instructions, energy production, error correction) with those artificial
or synthetic (programmability for design and scaffold, structure,
mechanisms) we can potentially have extremely large-scale
quasi-biological and quasi-synthetic architectural organisms."
The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the
digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year
for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought
recovery might have begun.
The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5
billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at
its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the
record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday
by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide
significant encouragement.
8. Teleworking: The myth of working from home from the BBC. "Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?"
"Reasons for high unemployment among the young include ineffective education systems (the share of early school dropouts is 20% in Italy and 30% in Spain) and dual labour markets with highly protected jobs for older employees. The good performance of Germany is not least a result of the German apprenticeship system, which facilitates labour market access for school leavers by lowering the company’s costs for employing them. The OECD’s latest “Going for Growth” report recommends reforms to strengthen the vocational training systems as one of the most effective ways to fight structural youth unemployment. This would also be a reasonable starting point for the EU’s youth employment programme."
"What’s most revealing about this study is that, like earlier research,
it suggests that students’ preference for printed textbooks is reflects
the real pedagogical advantages they experience in using the format:
fewer distractions, deeper engagement, better comprehension and
retention, and greater flexibility to accommodating idiosyncratic study
habits. Electronic textbooks will certainly get better, and will
certainly have advantages of their own, but they won’t replicate the
particular advantages inherent to the tangible form of the printed book."
The Catholic Church has struggled to bring in young members in the
United States. Less than half of U.S. Hispanics between 18 and 29
identify as Catholic, compared with the 60+ percent of Hispanics older
than 50.
The narrative of decline in the mainline church underestimates the continuing influence of its members, says a religion researcher.
16.Some interesting observations by NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He says we tend to process our social world through three lenses: Social distance, hierarchy, and disgust. Conservatives tend to have a lower threshold of revulsion while liberals, and praticularly libertarians, have a higher threshold.
Incarceration rates for black Americans dropped sharply from 2000 to
2009, especially for women, while the rate of imprisonment for whites
and Hispanics rose over the same decade, according to a report released
Wednesday by a prison research and advocacy group in Washington.
The declining rates for blacks represented a significant shift in the
racial makeup of the United States’ prisons and suggested that the
disparities that have long characterized the prison population may be
starting to diminish.
“It certainly marks a shift from what we’ve seen for several decades now,” said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, whose report was based on data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, part of the Justice Department. “Normally, these things don’t change very dramatically over a one-decade period.”
The decline in incarceration rates was most striking for black women,
dropping 30.7 percent over the ten-year period. In 2000, black women
were imprisoned at six times the rate of white women; by 2009, they were
2.8 times more likely to be in prison. For black men, the rate of
imprisonment decreased by 9.8 percent; in 2000 they were incarcerated at
7.7 times the rate of white men, a rate that fell to 6.4 times that of
white men by 2009.
For white men and women, however, incarceration rates increased over the
same period, rising 47.1 percent for white women and 8.5 percent for
white men. By the end of the decade, Hispanic men were slightly less
likely to be in prison, a drop of 2.2 percent, but Hispanic women were
imprisoned more frequently, an increase of 23.3 percent.
Over all, blacks currently make up about 38 percent of inmates in state
and federal prisons; whites account for about 34 percent....
, transforming business in those countries.
Recent Comments