Kruse Kronicle

Confederate Monuments Are A Rewrite of History, Not A Remembrance

Confederate monuments were the product of a campaign to rewrite history, not to preserve it.

There were few Confederate monuments in the thirty years after the Civil War ended in 1865. Placement of monuments came in two waves, the first much larger than the second. One wave began at the turn of the last century and the other began about 1956 (See chart).

Source: There are certain moments in US history when Confederate monuments go up

First Wave

The first sustained wave of monument placement began in the late 1890s, peaking in 1911, and then tapering off to lower rate of placement in the 1920s and early 1930s. Why this spike?

By the 1890s, Confederate veterans were dying off and Southern elites feared younger generations would lose the “right” perspective on the history of the Civil War. The “Lost Cause” movement began to take root in the South as a response. The mission was to recast the Confederacy as a heroic and just attempt a preserve Southern way of life while minimizing the experience and impact of slavery.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy was birthed in 1894. Organized by daughters and granddaughters of the Southern elite, they set out to promote the Lost Cause narrative through textbook writing, children’s programs, and the erection of monuments promoting the Lost Cause. Their financial and political clout gave them considerable influence, especially in the formerly Confederate states.

In 1896, the Supreme Court handed down its Plessy vs Ferguson ruling, institutionalizing the Separate but Equal doctrine. By 1914, Less than twenty years later, all Southern states and most Northern cities had enacted laws segregating people.

1925 Klan march in Washington DC

From 1902 to 1907, Tom Dixon wrote a popular trilogy of novels from 1902-1907, targeting the “unfair” treatment of the South in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” fifty years earlier. The middle novel, “The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,” was the inspiration for D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” in 1915, glorifying the Klan and employing deeply racists troupes. It was the first true blockbuster movie. Not coincidentally, 1915 was the birth of the Second Ku Klux Klan. By 1922, the Klan had a million members, possibly as many as five million by 1925, and millions more in sympathy. Lynching was prevalent all through this period as were race massacres like the Red Summer of 1919 and the Tulsa massacre of 1921.

Second Wave

The United Daughters of the Confederacy began to lose steam in the 1920s and from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s monument erection mostly subsided. But another smaller spike in from about 1956-1965. What happened here?

In 1954, in Brown vs the Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy vs Ferguson, effectively delegitimizing segregation. The Civil Rights Movement came into its own at the time. Up went more monuments to persevere the ethos of the Lost Cause and white supremacy, dropping off after 1965 and the passage of civil rights legislation. The financial and political clout to promote these efforts was not as powerful by this date.

Conclusion

The great majority of Confederate monuments were never a product of some high-minded project to help us holistically remember the past. They were the product of concerted effort to rewrite the past with the Lost Cause narrative. They were integral to waves of white supremacy that swept America, attempting to whitewash the past and intimidate people of color. They have no business standing in places of honor in our public spaces. Their removal aids in the remembrance of history, not its neglect.

For a short history of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their role in promoting the Lost Cause and Confederate monument placement, view this video.

The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead - Book Review

The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead  (Quotes are from the e-book version.)

Is economics value-free? Can it be? Economics emerged alongside other social sciences in the nineteenth century, aspiring to apply the scientific method to the study human behavior. Economists draw a distinction between positive and normative economics - positive being descriptive and normative being prescriptive. The latter requires value judgments, making it beyond the realm of science. While an economist may wish to offer his or her perspective on what should be done, economics eschews prescriptive behavior. But is that the way economics works?

In The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead, Dr. Victor Claar, professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Dr. Greg Forster, Director of the Okonomia Network at Trinity International University, argue the story economists tell about themselves does not match reality. Simply reading the book title, one might assume this is another installment in the ongoing battle between Keynesianism economics and other economic theories. It is not. The authors say something transformative happened in the 1930s with the rise of John Maynard Keynes’ economics, misshaping the discipline. Virtually the entire discipline (including the free-market Chicago school and Austrian economics) battles about means to end from within the Keynesian framework. The authors conclude with thoughts on a reforming agenda but first take us on a rich historical journey.

“Economics” Before the Nineteenth Century

Until the nineteenth century, “economics” was part of moral philosophy - political economy more specifically. Philosophers and theologians made normative appeals for economic behavior. Human existence has ultimate purposes. They inseparably connected their normative prescriptions to teleological realities. The authors identify a succession of three ethical paradigms related to economic thought over the millennia.

Nature paradigm – Classical philosophy. “What sets classical thought apart is the idea that nature has purposes, and human excellence consists in fulfilling those purposes.” Wisdom comes from correctly understanding nature and its purposes. From this wisdom, we shape our daily affairs, including economic activity.

God paradigm – Judeo-Christian theology. “It began with the assumption that human beings are created by and under the authority of God, and are placed both within and over nature by God. Their economic needs and behaviors are structured by God’s design in creation and are being restored to that design through the redemption of the world in Christ, so conformity to God and his purposes was their standard for economic thought.”

Reason paradigm – Born in Enlightenment philosophy. “It began with the assumption that human beings are rational, and their economic needs and behaviors can be understood and arranged rationally, so conformity to reason and its purposes (they understood ‘reason’ to include moral reason, including teleology or purposes) was their standard for economic thought.”

Claar and Forster revisit these three historic paradigms throughout the book, demonstrating their normative and teleological components in contrast with Keynes emerging philosophy in the 1930s. The authors identify a fourth paradigm with Keynes, the Consumption paradigm. So how did the Consumption paradigm emerge?

The Beginning of Modern Economics

As scholars labored to establish economics in the late nineteenth century, there was substantial intra-disciplinary conflict about how to proceed; differing on what roles historicism, theory, and science should play. (The book gives some great history.) John Neville Keynes, John Maynard Keynes’ father, assumed the role of peacemaker. He popularized the “positive versus normative” frame and worked to move scholars beyond endless squabbling toward productive research, thereby gaining credibility for the discipline.

Despite these ambitions, economics was not born in a vacuum. From the 1890s up into World War I, societal gatekeepers saw themselves as stewards of a moral and cultural order, envisioning evermore progress and human improvement in keeping with the Reason paradigm. Decades before, John Stuart Mill had introduced homo economicus, human beings as rational, utility calculating machines. Mill and these later economists retained at least a sense of the progress teleology, even as they begin to apply the scientific method to evaluating behavior. Homo economicus was a knowingly simplified anthropology, but with research, one might imagine revision and nuance could be brought to bear over time. A variety of social changes in years prior to and through World War I rocked confidence in the progress narrative, leaving the discipline adrift. Enter John Maynard Keynes.

The Keynesian Revolution

We frequently view John Maynard Keynes as a tedious academic. In reality, Keynes was a core member of the highly influential Bloomsbury Group in London, a collection of intellectuals and artists including Leonard and Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Clive and Vanessa (Woolf) Bell, Duncan Grant and Lytton Strachey. They embraced, in Keynes words, an “immoralist” philosophy devoted to pursuing pleasure. “Though they weren’t sure what the highest forms of pleasure might be, their sense was that they could be found only among their greatest loves—in intimate relationships and in things like the arts, theater, and music—rather than in more pedestrian forms of enjoyment.”

The Bloomsbury Group was disdainful of traditional values. This included values like diligence, frugality, self-control, found in the Reason paradigm. Wealth accumulation and consumerism were dehumanizing influences obstructing pursuit of pleasure. However, they believed only a select few were capable of pursuing pleasure the way they envisioned. A materialistic bourgeois existence was the best for which the rest of humanity could hope. It was the task of the elite to shepherd the masses toward this end as the elite went about their higher pursuit of pleasure. Claar and Forster walk us through how Keynes’ economics reflects this philosophy but I will jump to a couple of takeaways for sake of brevity.

The most revolutionary effect of Keynes’ influence is his reshaping of means and ends. Mill introduced homo economicus as a rudimentary construct to aid in economic inquiry, not a characterization of human essence. Within Mill’s construct was an assumption that we will rationally discern and pursue certain ends. Reason is the means for choosing between various courses of action in achieving those ends. These ends include teleological ends.

Keynes retains the idea of homo economicus but with substantial revision. With Keynes, there is no teleological purpose to guide economic behavior. “Animal spirits” drive human behavior, not reason in pursuit of meaningful action. Reason is how each individual can best satisfy animalistic desire. Consumption to meet these desires takes center stage. For Keynes, homo economicus is not simply a methodological construct. It is an anthropological given. We must base economic policy on this premise.

In the General Theory [Keynes seminal book), economics abandons its nineteenth-century ambition to moral neutrality. It no longer seeks a place alongside chemistry and physics as a detached, disinterested, purely positive observer. It becomes, once again, a practical discipline with a moral vision.

But now the moral vision is radically different. Instead of the virtue, piety, or the progress of humanity, the moral vision of the General Theory is an animalistic homo economicus whose only economic goal is to satisfy his own consumption appetites. …

Another aspect of Keynes’ influence is his introduction of “the economy.” Prior to Keynes, economics was microeconomics. It was focused on how individuals, firms, and other players make decisions. Keynes introduced macroeconomics, with its focus on aggregate economic phenomenon for a nation or other large societal entity - money supply, interest rates, aggregate employment, gross domestic product, and so on. Macroeconomics came to dominate the discipline to the point that when people hear “economics” today they think of macroeconomic concepts.

For Keynes, “The economy” is a machine-like entity employed by elites like himself and members of the Bloomsbury Group in transmuting humanity to an elevated state. Keynes was sympathetic to socialist aims but he writes:

It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the State to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary.

The authors note:

Keynes shares Marx’s goal of giving the state control over our economic lives, which is to say, over all the most intimate and important decisions we make. He just thinks the state can accomplish this control without seizing ownership of assets.

The authors paraphrase Keynes’ view this way:

In an ideal state, we would ‘transmute’ human nature, raising people not to care how much money they end up with after playing the “game” of money-making. However, for now we need to keep the game going. If we stop, we’ll have nothing to eat; the economy runs not on productive work but on satisfying consumer appetites. Thus it is the responsibility of government to keep the game going. Keeping the game going involves all the players being highly motivated and playing to win—“strongly addicted to the money-making passion.” The wise and prudent statesman will therefore “manage” human nature, keeping it in a state of socially beneficial greed , rather than attempt to “transmute” it toward real selflessness, at least so long as we live in the current state and not the ideal state.

Keynes has a vision of where he wants to take feckless humanity. His superior wisdom and that of people like his Bloomsbury peers will lead us there. Pragmatically, it must be done with manipulation. Moreover, some will never be transmuted. Keynes had an answer for that. He was chair of the British Eugenics Society from 1937-1944. He deemed eugenics to be most important branch of sociology.

Keynesianism and Its Rivals

Claar and Forster explain Keynes was not particularly eloquent in expressing his ideas. Articulate acolytes popularized his economic constructs. Paul Samuelson, Nobel economist and author of the leading economics textbook for decades, was probably the most important figure in advancing Keynesian ideas. However, these advocates made substantial qualifications to give us what we know as Keynesianism today.

The Keynesian advocates muted Keynes’ crusading vision and reclaimed the idea of economics as value-free science. However, they continued to embrace the view that people are bundles of appetites driven by animal spirits – Keynes’ version of homo economicus. The goal should be to maximize consumption, enabling people to satisfy their appetites. Economists should guide the economy machine in these pursuits. This was the Consumption paradigm. It effectively institutionalized Keynes homo economicus while eschewing teleological judgments.

The Chicago School (and the older but smaller Austrian School) emerged as the primary competition to Keynesian economics, rejecting Keynesian interventionism in favor of free market systems. They offered resistance to “economics” as purely about large aggregate concepts and called for greater attention to microeconomic decision making. Claar and Forster write:

However, the attention-grabbing conflict between these schools conceals a deeper uniformity. Both counter-revolutions accept most of the key elements of the Consumption paradigm. Most importantly, they accept Keynes’ redefinition of the purpose of economic systems: to maximize consumption possibilities. They also accept Keynes’ redefinition of Mill’s homo economicus, which lay at the heart of the new focus on maximizing consumer satisfaction—they accept the instrumental rather than substantive understanding of rationality, and they accept the reversal of the relationship between gaining wealth and enjoying wealth.

The Keynesian constructs became so dominant that even schools that emerged to challenge aspects of Keynesian economics have internalized core Keynesian concepts.

The Consequences

The consequences extend well beyond an intra-disciplinary dispute. To a degree unparalleled by other social sciences, economics has succeeded in exerting influence over public policy and commerce, which has had ripple effects into other societal institutions. With varying degrees of resistance, homo economicus is largely how we institutionally treat our existence.

The problem, the authors would argue, is that we are not homo economicus. Human beings are meaning makers. We see ourselves inside of teleological narratives. We want not only to experience pleasure but also to participate in activities with lasting significance. We have not only have consumption preferences but also production preferences. The impact of homo economicus is a world with greater prosperity but that is largely vacant of meaning. In an existential sense, “we are all dead.” This lack of meaning has people restless and increasingly impatient with societal institutions. A consequence is the rise in populism ranging from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, amassing power by feeding on palpable anger and frustration.

The empty economy produces polarization, because our daily economic activities no longer convey meaning and purpose (leaving us to seek those things in extreme movements) and because our daily economic activities no longer establish shared, public moral commitments (leaving us convinced we have no common ground with our neighbors). 

A Way Forward

“What would it look like to study economics on the assumption that people really do have higher purposes in life, but that we need not agree about everything concerning those purposes?”

The authors argue that the way forward is to escape the Consumption paradigm with its “animal spirits” anthropology, and revisit teleological and anthropological assumptions. We may not thoroughly agree on every value across nations and cultures, or even within them, but our values have much more in common than we may think. Some things are good whether everyone chooses to do them.

* People have production preferences as well as consumption preferences, including a desire to participate personally in the production of the intrinsically good. A sustainable economic life must account for both types of preferences (production and consumption) at the individual and cultural level.

* Production preferences can also be understood as stewardship preferences, meaning a desire to leave the world with more intrinsic good than it had when we arrived. A sustainable economic life must account in complex ways with the long-term time frames within which people make cost-benefit calculations, at the individual and cultural level.

* People are substantive reasoners who have the right and responsibility to discern the intrinsic good for themselves and participate personally in its production. A sustainable economic life must make this personal process of discernment and participation, not impersonal aggregate metrics, the goal of economic policy and discourse.

To conclude the book the authors write:

In the long run, we are all dead—but life will go on when we are gone. We all know this, and in our economic lives we do not always behave as shallow, short-term consumers who don’t care what we leave behind. If the discipline of economics wants to understand economic behavior as it really is, it must come to terms with the moral reality of human life. To ignore normative and teleological realities is to ignore the human, and to ignore the human is strange way to conduct a scientific study of how humans behave.

If we do not care what kind of world we are leaving, our economic systems will continue to be wracked by moral anxiety and the outrage it produces. Nationalists and socialists have their own reasons for wanting to block any movement toward a moral renewal that would restore confidence in our systems, but the rest of us should be seeking such a renewal with all the energy that the urgency of our situation demands. A return to economic vitality must begin with a restoration of confidence in our economic systems and practices, on the basis of a sustainable moral consensus for a pluralistic society.

We love economics. We love it because it matters—a lot. Tough new questions that overturn old certainties are already being asked in the discipline. We look forward to finding out what comes next.

Assessment

In short: teleology matters. Claar and Forster pack a lot into this book. My summary only scratches the surface. It is well worth the read for both economists and for those who think more broadly about economics and values. While I work to be conversant with economics and the history of economic thought, I am not an expert in either of these fields. People with better bona fides will have to evaluate the veracity of details presented in this book. Yet based on what I do know, the overall argument rings true to me.

The history of how the Consumption paradigm came to dominate economics - with economists simultaneously fixating on consumption and claiming to be value free - is helpful. There is no way to do social science without anthropological models and value assumptions. Economics is no exception. Homo economicus may be useful as a methodological tool for aspects of economic research but it us insufficient as a model for grasping the complexities of human decision-making. I do not think that economics has so much rejected teleology, as it has uncritically embraced a teleology that is inadequate and subhuman.

I sense a discussion has been building on this topic in recent years. As with other social sciences, there seems to be an ongoing clash between those who pursue a grand unified theory and those who prefer more modest research into micro-level behavior from which larger models of human behavior can be derived. Economics, unlike other social sciences, is unique in that “economics” and the concept of “the economy,” a machine that can be directed toward particular ends by skillful elites, has gained considerable credibility in broader society. That likely makes challenges to macroeconomic models more difficult but the importance of economics in policy making also underscores the importance of getting underlying models of humanity right.

I think the most critical point the book makes is that “we are all dead.” Human beings have desire for the transcendent, to be a part of something meaningful, to pass on a legacy. Teleology matters. To use the authors’ words, there is a production preference as well as a consumption preference. The Consumption paradigm is dehumanizing in that it robs people across economic strata of meaning-filled work. Resurrection of meaning in daily life will have to come from moral institutions outside of economics but we cannot realize that ambition of understanding human decisions without economics. If economics is a study of human behavior, can it be said to be to accomplishing its mission if it ignores the production preference aspects of human decision-making?

I appreciate the authors’ advocacy for finding common ground on teleology across human cultures. Maybe a first step is for those of us invested in moral institutions to clarify our own values. As someone who has invested decades of service to Mainline Protestantism, it strikes me that there is profound need for Christian theology to genuinely and respectfully engage economics, and to move away from what all too often is a sophomoric and adversarial posture. Repeatedly I encounter theologians and Christian thought leaders pontificating on economic issues, demonstrating they have not made the most rudimentary attempts to grasp basic economic concepts or to represent those concepts faithfully. That is a conversation for another day. For now, we have this thought provoking tome by Claar and Forster to serve as a point of engagement. It is well worth the read.

 

Were Slaves Immigrants?

Were Slaves Immigrants? Yes. If that answer troubles you, please hear me out.

Ben Carson touched off a firestorm this week when he referred to slaves as immigrants. (Barak Obama has done the same several times.) The uproar has been that equating slavery and immigration minimizes the horrors of slavery. I have engaged in a number of social media discussions on this topic. At the crux of the matter is volition. Are people brought to a place against their will immigrants? Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Immigrant - “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.”

Volition is not part of the definition. As any demographer will tell you, populations grow (or decline) via three factors: births, deaths, and migration. When looking at a particular locale, people who come to that locale are immigrants. People who go from that locale to another are emigrants. Births and immigration grow the population. Deaths and emigration shrink it. It is a closed system. Volition is not part of the equation.

I am in agreement with concerns about minimizing slavery and I worry that statements by Carson and Obama risk doing that. As Jemar Tisby writes, a generous reading of Carson’s characterization is that “African slaves endured unimaginable hardship to carve out a life for themselves and their descendants.” I think that was indeed the intent but it is challenging. Framing slaves as rough equivalents of people who bought a ticket on a boat to come to America in search of a better life minimizes slavery. Both were immigrants but with very very different stories. The desire to present African-Americans as other than simply victims while embracing the horrors of slavery is a tough needle to thread in the space of a few words as both these men were trying to do.

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Minimum Wage, Nativism, and the Illiberal Roots of Progressivism

Virginia Postrel has an interesting article at Bloomberg "Progressive and Racist. Woodrow Wilson Wasn't Alone," a book review Thomas Lenoard's Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Here are a few key quotes:

The progressives believed, first and foremost, in the importance of science and scientific experts in guiding the economy, government, and society. Against the selfishness, disorder, corruption, ignorance, conflict and wastefulness of free markets or mass democracy, they advanced the ideal of disinterested, public-spirited social control by well-educated elites. The progressives were technocrats who, Leonard observes, “agreed that expert public administrators do not merely serve the common good, they also identify the common good.” Schools of public administration, including the one that since 1948 has borne Woodrow Wilson’s name, still enshrine that conviction.

Later, she writes:

Advocates similarly didn’t deny that imposing a minimum wage might throw some people out of work. That wasn’t a bug; it was a feature -- a way to deter undesirable workers and keep them out of the marketplace and ideally out of the country. Progressives feared that, faced with competition from blacks, Jews, Chinese, or other immigrants, native-stock workingmen would try to keep up living standards by having fewer kids and sending their wives to work. Voilà: “race suicide.” Better to let a minimum wage identify inferior workers, who might be shunted into institutions and sterilized, thereby improving the breed in future generations. ...

... Clark’s theory is now a foundation of mainstream labor economics. In his day, however, it was highly unpopular. “A key element of resistance,” writes Leonard, “was that many progressives were reluctant to treat wages as a price,” rather than a right of citizenship and social standing. Informed by their beliefs in scientific racism, most progressives preferred wages to favor some groups over others: men over women, whites over blacks, and most prominently, native stock over immigrants.

Although they generally assumed black inferiority, progressives outside the South didn’t worry much about the “Negro question.” They were instead obsessed with the racial, economic, and social threats posed by immigrants. MIT president Francis Amasa Walker called for “protecting the American rate of wages, the American standard of living, and the quality of American citizenship from degradation through the tumultuous access of vast throngs of ignorant and brutalized peasantry from the countries of eastern and southern Europe," whom he described in Darwinian language as “representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.”

So restricting immigration was as central to the progressive agenda as regulating railroads. Indeed, in his five-volume History of the American People, Wilson lumped together in one long paragraph the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act as “the first fruits of radical economic changes and the rapid developments of trade, industry, and transportation” -- equal harbingers of the modern administrative state. With a literacy test and ban on most other Asian immigrants enacted in 1917 and national quotas established in 1924, the progressives bequeathed to America the concept of illegal immigration.

The first paragraph is preface for what follows. It relates why I eschew the label "progressive" despite having some sympathies for some aspects of what today's progressives espouse. In my estimation, "progressivism," then and now, contains substantial hubris - believing that through dispassionate logic, science, and a superior moral locus, we are justified in moving heaven and earth to bring about a brave new world. Institutions and practices that have emerged through time as practical ways of making the world work be damned! I believe most change should be modest reform, not revolution. It is in this sense that I would claim the term conservative. We want to conserve the good as we seek improvement. We aren't that smart and we aren't that noble, when it comes to redesigning the world.

The minimum wage piece is particularly interesting. While impacts of minimum wage increases art notoriously complex and difficult to summarize with precision, most economists agree that substantial increases in the minimum wage dampen job growth overtime. There are studies that show, just as the early progressives logically surmised, that increased minimum wages have a negative impact on the employment of minorities, particularly young black men.

I am definitely going to read this book!

How GDP shares have shifted across the world since 1000 AD

Business Insider: How GDP shares have shifted across the world since 1000 AD

Interesting graph.

Here's What The Global Economy Looked Like In Year 1

Business Insider: Here's What The Global Economy Looked Like In Year 1

The Hockey Stick of Human Prosperity

From MRUniversity, Everday Economics:

"We are pleased to announce a brand new course at MRUniversity, Everyday Economics. The new course will cover some of the big ideas in economics but applied to everyday questions. The first section, premiering now and rolling out over the next several weeks, features Don Boudreaux on trade. Tyler will appear in a future section on food. You can expect more from me as well. Indeed, you may spot both Tyler and I in some cameos (ala Stan Lee) in some of Don’s videos!

Here’s the first video on trade and the hockey stick of human prosperity."

Why the West Progressed in Ways No One Else Had

I just read Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages by Frances & Joseph Gies. The book focuses on technological development during the 1,000 years from 500-1500 C.E. The Middle Ages were once cast as an age of regression from the golden age of Greece and Rome until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment saved the day. Furthermore, capitalism is often seen as a product of the last two or three centuries. Modern scholarship debunks these characterizations. This book does a great job at showing the cultural and technological ferment of the Middle Ages, as well as showing how many of the key components of the modern economic world (companies, risk management, double-entry bookkeeping, finance, technological innovation, labor specialization, factories, to name a few) were already coming to flower by 1500. Here are two insights from the end of the book:

… “Asian priority in a wide range of [technological] innovations is established. Asia, however, showed little inclination to borrow, and so, after giving much to others, allowed its own technology to wither, as demonstrated in the history of the two epoch-making inventions of printing and firearms. Each originated in China, but each was allowed to languish, while Europe seized them in both hands to make them major instruments of change. An authority [Timo Myllyntaus] on technology transfer in the modern world asserts that the process ‘is not just a matter of moving some piece of hardware from one place to another… A material infrastructure is not enough. There must also be sufficient nonmaterial infrastructure.’ In the ‘nonmaterial infrastructure’ of medieval Europe was a spirit of progress whose ingredients included intellectual curiosity, a love of tinkering, an ambition ‘to serve God’ and also ‘to grow rich as all men desire to do.’

A sense of progress implies a sense of history, something missing among the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. ‘Lacking any objective understanding of the past – that is, lacking history,’ says [D. S. L.] Cardwell, ‘the hierarchical and slave-owning societies of classical antiquity failed to appreciate the great progress that had been achieved by and through technics.’ On the contrary, the ancients were fond of looking back to what they conceived as a vanished ‘golden age,’ a conception the reverse of progress. The Christian Church, whose pioneering monastic orders made many practical and material contributions to medieval technology, also supplied a noncyclical, straight-line view of history that allowed scope for the idea of progress.” (287-288)

The book concludes with this paragraph:

“’Technology,’ says Melvin Kranzberg, founder of the Society for the History of Technology, ‘is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.’ It is what each age and each society make of it. The Middle Ages used it sometimes wisely, sometimes recklessly, often for dubious purposes, seldom with a thought for the future, and with only a dim awareness of the scientific and mathematical laws governing it. But operating on instinct, insight, trial and error, and perseverance, the craftsman and craftswoman, the entrepreneurs, the working monks and the clerical intellectuals, and the artist-engineers all transformed the world, on balance very much to the world’s advantage.” (291)

I've read a number of books on the history of technology. This is one of the best short surveys I have read, reading more like a novel than a history book.

Max Weber Was Wrong (About Capitalism)

Public Discourse: Max Weber Was Wrong - Samuel Greg

... Second, the empirical evidence disproving Weber’s connection between Protestantism and the emergence of capitalism is considerable. Even Catholic critics of modern capitalism have had to concede that “the commercial spirit” preceded the Reformation by at least two hundred years. From the eleventh century onward, the words Deus enim et proficuum (“For God and Profit”) began to appear in the ledgers of Italian and Flemish merchants. This was not a medieval version of some type of prosperity gospel. Rather, it symbolized just how naturally intertwined were the realms of faith and commerce throughout the world of medieval Europe. The pursuit of profit, trade, and commercial success dominated the life of the city-states of medieval and Renaissance Northern Italy and the towns of Flanders, not to mention the Venetian republic that exerted tremendous influence on merchant activity throughout the Mediterranean long before 1517.

Since Weber’s time, much scholarly work has been done to illustrate the advanced state of market-driven economic development in the Middle Ages. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the Belgian scholar Raymond de Roover penned numerous articles illustrating that, during the Middle Ages, financial transactions and banking started to take on the degree of sophistication that is commonplace today. Likewise, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, by the Italian-American historian of medieval European economic history, the late Robert S. Lopez, shattered the historical claims that formed much of the background of Weber’s argument. Lopez demonstrated in great detail the way in which the Middle Ages “created the indispensable material and moral conditions for a thousand years of virtually uninterrupted growth.”

In recent decades, the historians Edwin Hunt and James Murray have illustrated just how much the medieval period was characterized by remarkable innovation in methods of business organization. They also suggest that the advent of modernity actually heralded the expansion of state economic intervention and regulation in an effort to constrain economic freedom. In a similar fashion, the sociologist Rodney Stark has gathered together disparate sources of historical and economic analysis to illustrate the origins of capitalism and major breakthroughs in the theory and practice of wealth creation in the medieval period. Central to Stark’s analysis is his highlighting of the way pre-Reformation Western Christianity saw the world as one in which humans were called upon to use their reason and innate creativity to develop its resources—including economically.

Here one could add that, before Adam Smith, some of the most elaborate thinking about the nature of contracts, free markets, interest, wages, and banking that developed after the Reformation was articulated in the writings of Spanish Catholic scholastic thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria OP, Martín de Azpilcueta, Juan de Mariana SJ, and Tomás de Mercado OP, anticipated many of the claims made by Smith two centuries later.

To be sure, much of this thinking occurred by way of side-effect rather than as a result of the systematic analysis undertaken by Smith. For as commercial relationships expanded throughout Europe in the centuries preceding and following the Reformation, there was a marked increase in the number of penitents asking their confessors for guidance about moral questions with a strong economic dimension. What was the just price? When was a person no longer obliged to adhere to a contract? When was charging interest legitimate? When did it become usurious? As a result, priests looked to theologians for guidance on how to respond to their penitents’ questions. Thus, as Jürg Niehans stressed in his History of Economic Theory:

The scholastics thus found it necessary to descend from theology into the everyday world of economic reality, of early capitalism, foreign trade, monopoly, banking, foreign exchange and public finance. What one knew about these things in the School of Salamanca was hardly less than Adam Smith knew two hundred years later, and more than most students know today.

Even when we consider modern capitalism’s emergence, a direct connection between this event and Protestantism is very open to question. ...

This is a really excellent piece on the history of capitalism.

The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel

The Atlantic: The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel

1. The printing press, 1430s

The printing press was nominated by 10 of our 12 panelists, five of whom ranked it in their top three. Dyson described its invention as the turning point at which “knowledge began freely replicating and quickly assumed a life of its own.”

2. Electricity, late 19th century

And then there was light—and Nos. 4, 9, 16, 24, 28, 44, 45, and most of the rest of modern life.

3. Penicillin, 1928

Accidentally discovered in 1928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War II, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly diseases ...

What was the Great Divergence?

Economist: What was the Great Divergence?

"A FEW centuries ago it would have been difficult to tell Europe apart from the rest of the world—in economic terms, at least. Indeed, half a millenium ago Europe might justly have been considered a laggard. The three inventions which, in the words of Karl Marx, “ushered in bourgeois society” were not invented in Europe. Gunpowder, the compass and the printing press were probably all invented in China.

But by the 19th century, things were rather different. Western Europe and parts of North America had become fabulously wealthy. Almost everywhere else was horribly poor. Economic historians refer to this as the “Great Divergence”. ..."

I'll add that failure to seriously wrestle with what is going on here and incorporating that into theological implications for work, addressing poverty, and general ethics, is one of the biggest reasons the church finds itself unable to address current issues in constructive ways. Ideologies of Western supremacy or Western exploitation as the driving features are insufficient.

Note to Progressives: How Not to Critique Adam Smith

Gavin Kennedy at Adam Smith's Lost Legacy has another excellent post on misconceptions about Adam Smith: Five Errors About Adam Smith and Classical Political Economy. He quotes an article that appeared in the Grand Island Independent by Lee Elliott and then shows five errors the author makes based on widely circulated myths. I don't know the political persuasion of the author, but his case is similar to the case I hear from many progressives as they critique Smith on the way to critiquing capitalism. Here is the pertinent part of the article:

“There has been a fascinating struggle going on within the field of economics since the 1970s.

Historically, economics has been known as the “dismal” science because of its ruthless belief that people are motivated solely by their financial interests. This came from Adam Smith’s notion that if all of us act selfishly, then an “invisible hand” will guide the creation of the best society possible.

There is a flaw. Smith recognized there was a feature of human character that just didn’t fit this idea. That feature is altruism.

He said we do things for others even though we derive nothing from it except for the pleasure of caring for others. It just doesn’t seem to fit classic economic theory. It also was almost impossible to measure. As a result, economists dropped the idea that we’re altruistic.

In fact, there is a second flaw. Classic economics assumes we are consistently rational. We’re not. In fact, it has been demonstrated that, at times, we are quite irrational but we are consistent in our irrationality.”

Kennedy goes into detail but in short A) the "dismal science" label came from Thomas Carlye in 1849, with his opposition to abolition of slavery promoted by economists who saw people as equal and deserving of liberty (read more here), B) Smith wrote positively about the importance of altruism but understood it alone to be insufficient for a sustainable economy, C) Smith used the "invisible hand" metaphor twice in the Wealth of Nations, neither time to refer to markets as a magically directing us to the best possible society, and D) the idea of homo economicus, the human being as nothing more than machines calculating utility, didn't emerge until a century after Smith's work. Read Kennedy's whole article.

My point is that whatever legitimate points Elliott has to make about modern economics (and I think he has valid points) he severely undermines his credibility by butchering the facts about the history of the position he critiques. Like so many others, he takes at face value the appropriation of Adam Smith by some modern conservatives to justify their positions. Critiquing the fiction as fact places the critic in the same camp as his or her targets. Both camps demonstrate that they are not serious about a historically rooted conversation, but rather use fiction to buttress ideological views they arrived at by other than historical analysis. A reliable critic would first unmask the false appropriations of Smith then target what they believe to be erroneous about modern economic conceptions. If critics of modern economics would actually read Smith, I think they would be quite surprised at how much of a neoclassical neoconservative he was not. 

 

Why Some Companies Seem To Last Forever

Business Insider: Why Some Companies Seem To Last Forever

... What explains this longevity? Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Charles O’Reilly calls it "organizational ambidexterity": the ability of a company to manage its current business while simultaneously preparing for changing conditions. "You often see successful organizations failing, and it's not obvious why they should fail," O’Reilly says. The reason, he says, is that a strategy that had been successful within the context of a particular time and place may suddenly be all wrong once the world changes.

Staying competitive, then, means changing what you're doing. But the change can't be an abrupt switch from old to new — from print to digital distribution, say, or from selling products to selling services — if that means abandoning a business that's still profitable. Hence the call for ambidexterity. You can't just choose between exploiting your current opportunities and exploring new ones; you have to do both. And the companies that last for decades are able to do so time and time again. ...

I think there is a message for congregations and denominations as well.

Once More on Adam Smith and Self-Interest

Adam Smith's Lost Legacy (Gavin Kennedy): Once More on Adam Smith and Self-Interest

... Consider what Adam Smith states early in Wealth Of Nations about “self-interest”:

"In civilized society he stands at all times in need of the co–operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is intirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only.6 He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self–love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self–love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages” (WN I.ii.2: 26-27).

Read the above carefully.  To obtain our self-interests of obtaining the ingredients of our dinner (or whatever), we must persuade the “butcher, brewer, and baker” to supply them to us.  Insisting on our self-interest as imagined by the lonesome image of the Hollywood scriptwriter would not secure our dinner  (or anything else) for us.  We must persuade them to supply us; not demand they meet our needs. What about their needs?  What do they do?  Just say in response: “yes, sir, no sir, three bags full sir”?

Indeed, Smith underlines that point by insisting that we must address “their self–love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages”.  In short, we mediate our different self-interests by taking into account the self-interests of others.  This is the exact opposite of Arturo Cuenllas’s presentation.

An egoistic non-cooperator would soon starve. ...

Yogi Berra once said, "I didn't really say all the things I said." Smith has to be the Yogi Berra of economists. Misunderstanding Adam Smith's ideas about "self-interest" can only be second to misunderstanding his two passing references to an "invisible hand" in The Wealth of Nations.

Need for Historical Perspective on Poverty

One of my favorite niche economics blogs is Gavin Kennedys' Adam Smith's Lost Legacy. Many of his posts go after people using Adam Smith's "invisible hand" metaphor. He tirelessly points out that Smith used the metaphor only twice in the Wealth of Nations, and on neither occasion was it used to describe the economics in the way attributed to Smith by economists in the second of half of the Twentieth Century. But his larger concern is rampant illiteracy about Smith, but also about our economic past in general. He recently encountered someone who wants to replace the "invisible hand" with the "invisible heart." Here is part of his response in his post Need for Historical Perspective on Poverty.

... It seems to be another blueprint to save the world from the only phenomenon called ‘capitalism' that has raised millions from poverty to standards of living beyond anything achieved in previous millennia, including the frightful poverty experiences of Soviet-style communism.

Much of the ancient curse of poverty persists in large geographical spaces of the world affecting billions of people, though the total numbers living on $1 a day has diminished at an historical high also by a billion or so since the 1960s.   The poor in the richer countries have lower standards than the very rich, but those poor are incomparably richer than the richest minority living in the millennia before the change from agriculture and primitive commercial markets, including the richest Emperors, Kings, War Lords and Conquerors. I

It would help if those who seek to “tackle the problem of poverty” for the very best of humanitarian reasons, like Terry Hallman and Sir Ronald Cohen, and many others, would get some historical perspectives on the relative scale of human poverty over the last 1,000 years. ...

Amen!

The Hard Truth about Economic Inequality that Both the Left and Right Ignore

PBS Newshour: The Hard Truth about Economic Inequality that Both the Left and Right Ignore

Jerry Muller is one of my favorite economic historians. I think this piece offers an insightful analysis of inequality in advanced market economies. As I read this piece I kept thinking back to Robert Fogel's (another favorite economic historian) The Fourth Great Awkening and the Future of Egalitarianism, where he makes the case that the economic challenge of this century is going to be focused on human capital. I don't think the ideologies of the left or right have come to grips with this yet. Muller begins:

Inequality is increasing almost everywhere in the post-industrial capitalist world. Despite what many think, this is not the result of politics, nor is politics likely to reverse it. The problem is more deeply rooted and intractable than generally recognized.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it -- because some individuals, families, and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that today's capitalism affords. Some of the very successes of western capitalist societies in expanding access and opportunity, combined with recent changes in technology and economics, have contributed to increasing inequality. And at the nexus of economics and society is the family, the changing shape and role of which is an often overlooked factor in the rise of inequality.

Though capitalism has opened up ever more opportunities for the development of human potential, not everyone has been able to take full advantage of those opportunities or to progress very far once they have done so.

Formal or informal barriers to equality of opportunity, for example, have historically blocked various sectors of the population -- such as women, minorities, and poor people -- from benefiting fully from all capitalism offers. But over time, in the advanced capitalist world, those barriers have gradually been lowered or removed, so that now opportunity is more equally available than ever before. The inequality that exists today arguably derives less from the unequal availability of opportunity than it does from the unequal ability to exploit opportunity.

And that unequal ability, in turn, stems from differences in the inherent human potential that individuals begin with and in the ways that families and communities enable and encourage that human potential to flourish. ...

The bolded sentence is my doing. Read the whole thing. Thoughtful stuff.

Saturday Links

1. Scientific American has some interesting thoughts on How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health

... 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. ...

2.Fair Trade 2.0? Coffee’s Economics, Rewritten by Farmers

3. R. J. Moeller qutoes from John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) new book:

“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.”

4. David Henderson with thoughts on economic impact of marriage: "Get Married and Stay Married"

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.

5. With more thoughts on the economic impact of marriage, Glen Reynolds reflects on The other marriage inequality

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.

6. Steven Pearlstein with a thoughtful essay: Is capitalism moral?

... 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.

7. Matt Ridley with an interesting piece on how Obsidian chronicles ancient trade. This conclusion was interesting.

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.

8. Speaking of economic History, Rewriting Biblical history? Agriculture might be 5,000 years older than believed.

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.

9. Americans Just Keep Driving Less And Less

10. The New York Times on New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs. (To LEDs)

11. Science 2.0 on A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?

... “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. ...

12. Maclom Gladwell was half right. Professor Jonah Berger on his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

13. Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible

14. Mashable has great advice with 5 Alternatives to Unfriending Someone on Facebook

15. David Brooks with insight on How Movements Recover

... 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

Saturday Links

1. Christian History magazine has an entire issue devoted to Christians in the New Industrial Economy: The World Changed, the Church Responded. It is a priceless collection of essays on how various religious traditions responded to (or failed to) the challenges of the Industrial Revolution.

Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.

2. Orange County Register says Don't count out mainline Protestants yet.

As flocks shrink, denominations that once defined America fight to stay relevant with new ways of reaching out.

3. The Washington Post reports that Megachurches thriving in tough economic times.

"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new survey shows.

Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years. Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."

4. Harvard Business Review: Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can't Innovate

... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...

... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...

... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...

... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...

5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea

6. The rise of post-industrial China? (Economist)

7. New Geography thinks, U.S. LATE TO THE PARTY ON LATIN AMERICA, AFRICA.

"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.

This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."

8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.

9. A Portrait of U.S. Immigrants

Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey.

10. Marketing Daily says More Latinos See Themselves As Bicultural

With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a Latino market perceived to be homogenous?

11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”

"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about the scarcity of resources.  (If you belong to both of those groups, there is little advice that I can offer.)  However, in between those poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."

12. Being a Republican or a Democrat may all be in your head: Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study

... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...

... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. ...

13. Health Care Without the Doctors Coming to a Walmart Near You

STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.

He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...

... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...

14. Is this a case of marketing going too far? Young Japanese Women Rent Out Their Bare Legs as Advertising Space

15. Nanotechnology Rebuilds the Periodic Table

Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the building blocks for cutting-edge materials.

Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...

16. ExtremeTech says NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane.

17. Atlantic Cities has some great maps showing the impact of railroads on travel time in the early 19th Century, thus shrinking the nation. A Mapped History of Train Travel in the United States

18. A soccer goalie's worst nightmare.

19. You might want to think twice before a game of horse with this cheerleader.

Walter Cronkite in the Living Room of 2001 (1967)

Saturday Links

1. I love maps and charts. Naturally I was drawn to this: 36 Maps That Explain The Entire World. Here is just one example:

2. Roger Pielke, Jr., says It's Time to Bury the Easterlin Paradox.

"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some other metric.

A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."

3. John Danforth thinks We Need Less Religion in our Politics and Less Politics in our Religion.

4. I opined about this in yesterday's post but I'm linking it again. One of the better Salon piece's I've read. When liberals ignore injustice

"Why isn't there more outrage about the president's unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?"

5. Arnold Kling with an interesting piece on the role of Jews in the rise of the modern urbanized economic order. The Unintended Consequences of God

"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."

6. New Geography wants to know Is Urbanism The New Trickle-Down Economics?

"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics, though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."

7. NPR has nice piece on mini-reacters. Are Mini-Reactors The Future Of Nuclear Power?

8. Mark Perry excerpts a quote from green libertarian John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.

“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”

9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:

The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state:  markets where possible; the state where necessary.

10. Climate Change: Key Data Points from Pew Research. Highlights some interesting shifts in the public's priorities.

11. Great piece about yet another way family life is changing. Yes, I’m a Homemaker

I’m a guy. My wife works. We’ve got no kids. I’m a stay-at-home dude.

"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy? Usually I just change the subject. ..."

12. The Atlantic reports that Women Are Often Remarkably Reluctant to Ask for Help Around the House

A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...

... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.

Doing less housework seems to be a popular option. ...

13. Business insider reports on a finding that comes as no shock to me: Men Really Do Have A Harder Time Reading Other People's Emotions.

Psychiatrists have concluded that males take longer to assess facial expressions as their brains have to work twice as hard to work out whether another person looks friendly or intelligent.

14. Daniel Kirk with a thoughtful piece Homosexuality under the Reign of Christ

15. Facebook Unfriending Has Real-Life Consequences

In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.

16. The Future of Librarians in an EBook World

... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.

But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...

17. 3-D Printing just gets more amazing. A 3D Printer That Generates Human Embryonic Stem Cells

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more, but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern.

Saturday Links

Today is the day our advanced technological culture turns to a cute furry rodent in Pennsylvania for a weather forecast. (The only thing a groundhog foretells in my yard is that I'm probably going to need some new landscaping.) Happy Groundhog Day!

1. Strategic Planning and the "Vision Thing" -- Fire, Not Fluff.

"In the course of our strategic planning work with clients, we've identified the things that make the difference between visions that fall flat and those that turn on. Here's a no-nonsense summary of those elements that you can use as a guide when you develop your strategic plan."

2. Some good thoughts on strategies we should all consider in trying to address controversial issues. Five simple lessons from Shane Windmeyer’s friendship with Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy

3. Anticipating a move? Here's Everything You Should Consider Before Moving To A New City

4. Jordan Ballor has some thoughts on subsidiarity at Political Theology. Subsidiarity ‘From Below’

"In this way a conception of subsidiarity “from below” is focused on the location of sovereignty from the “bottom up” rather than on the delegation of authority from the “top down.” We see these variegated approaches to subsidiarity and sovereignty work out in diverse ways in later centuries. It is with these different lenses of subsidiarity “from above” and “from below” that we can better understand the developments of the Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity as such and the neo-Calvinist articulation of “sphere sovereignty” in the late nineteenth century and beyond."

5. Business Insider offers 21 Surprising Facts About Illegal Immigration.

6. Sarah Posner has an interesting piece. ‘New Evangelical’-Progressive Alliance? Not So Fast

"Pally’s essay is framed around the thesis that these evangelicals have “left the right.” But left it for what? What she describes is really another vision of conservatism: church-based charity in lieu of a government safety net; exemptions from government regulation for religious groups; federal funding of religious activities; and persistent sexual puritanism. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say they’ve left the radical right and are in the process of creating a new religious right, stripped of harsh rhetoric but still undergirded by conservative ideology. Which is a movement worth chronicling, but not, as Pally intimates, as the new saviors of civility in our religiously-inflected politics."

7. What has the iPad meant to Apple? A picture says a thousand words. A decade of Apple 'computer' sales

8. Extinction of millions of species 'greatly exaggerated'

"In the past scientists have warned that up to five per cent of species are at risk of dying-out as a result of climate change, deforestation and development.

But a new analysis by the University of New Zealand found that this figure was five times greater than reality because the number of animals living in the wild in the first place had been over estimated."

9. Turns out once culprit in species extinction may be curled up in your lap. Cats Are Ruthless Killers. Should They Be Killed?

10. I've written before that fear is not an effective motivator for long term change. This is particularly true for some climate change and environmental activism. You need to make new behaviors fun and engaging. WWF appears to have taken this strategy to heart. (Hard to go wrong with anthropomorphized critters but maybe they should consider the article immediately above.)

11. The evolutionary plot thickens. Who Was the First Human Ancestor?

From the time of Charles Darwin science has painted a picture of our earliest ancestor in the image of a chimpanzee. Scientific American editor Katherine Harmon explains how new fossil evidence is redrawing the lines of human evolution.

Actually, I think we already know who our first ancestor was.

12. For the most part (with a few exceptions), when it comes to movies, if you can't tell your story in less than two hours, then I think you didn't edit the movie well. Hollywood would apparently beg to differ. Why Movies Today Are Longer Than Ever Before

"The average of the highest-grossing films from 20 years ago is 118.4 minutes compared to this year's 141.6 minutes."

13. More interesting findings early civilization in the Americas. Research Confirms Massive Louisiana Mound Was Built By Archaic Native Americans In Less Than 90 Days.

14. Melissa and I love history and we have always loved old cemeteries. This story makes me sad. Black history dies in neglected Southern cemeteries

15. Okay purists, Rule Change Eliminates a Fake Pickoff. Pitchers will no longer be able to fake a throw to third before throwing to another base. Good idea or bad?

Stop Hyping Big Data and Start Paying Attention to ‘Long Data’

Wired: Stop Hyping Big Data and Start Paying Attention to ‘Long Data’

Our species can’t seem to escape big data. We have more data inputs, storage, and computing resources than ever, so Homo sapiens naturally does what it has always done when given new tools: It goes even bigger, higher, and bolder.

We did it in buildings and now we’re doing it in data. Sure, big data is a powerful lens — some would even argue a liberating one — for looking at our world. Despite its limitations and requirements, crunching big numbers can help us learn a lot about ourselves.

But no matter how big that data is or what insights we glean from it, it is still just a snapshot: a moment in time. That’s why I think we need to stop getting stuck only on big data and start thinking about long data.

By “long” data, I mean datasets that have massive historical sweep — taking you from the dawn of civilization to the present day. The kinds of datasets you see in Michael Kremer’s “Population growth and technological change: one million BC to 1990,” which provides an economic model tied to the world’s population data for a million years; or in Tertius Chandler’s Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, which contains an exhaustive dataset of city populations over millennia. These datasets can humble us and inspire wonder, but they also hold tremendous potential for learning about ourselves.

Because as beautiful as a snapshot is, how much richer is a moving picture, one that allows us to see how processes and interactions unfold over time? ...

... Why does the time dimension matter if we’re only interested in current or future phenomena? Because many of the things that affect us today and will affect us tomorrow have changed slowly over time: sometimes over the course of a single lifetime, and sometimes over generations or even eons.

Datasets of long timescales not only help us understand how the world is changing, but how we, as humans, are changing it — without this awareness, we fall victim to shifting baseline syndrome. This is the tendency to shift our “baseline,” or what is considered “normal” — blinding us to shifts that occur across generations (since the generation we are born into is taken to be the norm). ...

I strongly resonate with this article. Trends and trajectories over extended periods of time are often far more useful than details of the latest twist or turn in societal development. It is so easy to get lost in the challenges of the moment. When you stand back and look at our moment in time from the standpoint of centuries and millennia, we are living in the most astounding age of human flourishing in the history of the planet. We are never without challenges but there is good reason to expect that flourishing will improve in coming generations.

The two groups I find the most insufferable are youth who believe their latest insights are the magic solution that brings utopia and grumpy old curmudgeons who mope about, complaining the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Neither has a sense of the longue durée. We need to spend less time with journalists and more time with historians.

17 Equations That Changed The Course Of Humanity

Business Insider: The 17 Equations That Changed The Course Of Humanity

Mathematician Ian Stewart's recent book "In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World" takes a close look at some of the most important equations of all time.

A great example of the human impact of math is the financial crisis. Black Scholes, number 17 on this list, is a derivative pricing equation that played a role.

"It’s actually a fairly simple equation, mathematically speaking," Professor Stewart told Business Insider. "What caused trouble was the complexity of the system the mathematics was intended to model."

Numbers have power. In this case, people depended on a theoretical equation too seriously and overreached its assumptions.

Without the equations on this list, we wouldn't have GPS, computers, passenger jets, or countless inventions in between.

You can find the book here.

The Pythagorean Theorem

What does it mean: You can multiply numbers by adding related numbers. 

History: Attributed to Pythagoras, it isn't certain that he first proved it. The first clear proof came from Euclid, and it is possible the concept was known 1000 years before Pythoragas by the Babylonians.

Importance: The equation is at the core of geometry, links it with algebra, and is the foundation of trigonometry. Without it, accurate surveying, mapmaking, and navigation would be impossible.

Modern use: Triangulation is used to this day to pinpoint relative location for GPS navigation.

Source: In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

The logarithm and its identities ...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: How well do you know MLK? Take the quiz!

Christian Science Monitor: Martin Luther King Jr. Day: How well do you know MLK? Take the quiz!

Martin Luther King Day honors the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In the 50s and 60s King, a black Southern reverend who advocated nonviolent, peaceful resistance, became the voice of the civil rights movement. King was assassinated in 1968, though his legacy ensured his place in history as an American hero.

In August 2011, the Martin Luther King Memorial opened in Washington D.C. Along with the passage the the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the memorial serves as a permanent reminder of King's work. Test your knowledge of one of America's greatest men in this quiz.

- Laura Edwins, Contributor, Aaron Couch, Contributor

This is a great quiz. I think I got 18 out of 20. See how you do.

Saturday Links

1. Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes

"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network’s most recent surveys. This wave of “church planting” has been highest among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional hierarchies.

“I hear a lot of pastors say, ‘I’m not just trying to be creative and avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,’ ” said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.

Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the “emergent” church movement of the last decade or among “missional” churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.

Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.

..."

2. Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk. ...

3. Yet another reflection on the impact of 3-D printing in Spiegel: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution

4. Some states are no longer requiring that cursive writing be taught. The Wall Street Journal laments The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note

5. Speaking writing, an e-company has come up with a new spin on celebrity autographs: Is This Really the Future of the Autograph?

"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.

The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."

6. Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

7. Huffington Post ponders whether or not Biblical Baby Names Falling In Popularity

8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion across the country. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.

9. Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?

"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."

10. Feeling thirsty? Consider that Bottled Water Is More Dangerous Than Tap Water.

11. Good news for history mystery buffs. Amelia Earhart Plane And Flight 19 Wreckage Could Be Found By New NOAA Technology

12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn’t Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball

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Saturday Links

(Like the Kruse Kronicle at Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.)

I hope you had a great Christmas and are enjoying the holidays.

1. The Huffington Post offers their top religion stories of 2012: 2012 Religion Stories: The Top 10

2. David Gushee reflects on Glen Stassen's A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age: The illnesses of American Christianity

"... The first kind of Christianity avoids reactionary authoritarianism but is often a therapeutic or vanilla mush that fails to ask anything of anybody out of fear of giving offense. The second kind of Christianity offers stern, clear moral directives that attract people seeking the “specific instruction, even confrontation that calls us to grow in discipleship” (p. 6), but disastrously embraces right-wing ideology and baptizes that as the content of Christianity.

Both of these versions of Christianity are so deeply flawed, says Stassen, that both are contributing to the alarming spread of secularism in the U.S. The first version of Christianity is so thin as to lack any particular reason why one would want to get out of bed on Sunday and go to church; the second is so reactionary as to drive thoughtful people into an anti-religious posture if they conclude that religion equals right-wing authoritarianism.

I believe this is a stark but actually quite accurate depiction of the primary problems afflicting the Protestantisms of the left and of the right in the current U.S. setting. ..."

3. When New England Progressives Won't Tolerate Evangelicals. "Once a center of 19th-century evangelism, Northfield, Mass., is unsettled by the prospect of a school with religious aims."

4. Peter Enns with yet another provocative post: What do Turkey, Bethlehem, and Tennessee Have in Common? They Don’t Bode Well for the Conservative Christian Subculture

5. Peter Liethart offers a book review of Peter Brown's new book, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 Ad, at Christianity Today: How the Early Church Made Peace with Prosperity. (And, no, I don't know why everyone seems to be Peter this week ... Enns, Liethart, and Brown.)

6. Why Latin Americans top the happiness rankings

"While not exclusive to Latin America, the culture of family, support, and living a life to spend time with your family, I think, is an important part of Latin American culture that keeps people positive. Being with those close to you and finding other friends and partners that value that way of life is a key part of Latin American culture. That might be the main reason why people remain positive: they are never truly alone. Interestingly, many discussions and documentaries about immigrant groups in the United States show an internal conflict among many who move to the US and who do not wish to lose their support systems in a new culture rooted in individualism. While being motivated and entrepreneurial is valued, a life being with your family, where you are never truly alone, is the basis for many cultures in many parts of the world. Many new Americans frown on the thought that children can detach themselves from their family at 18 years of age. They believe people can only truly thrive as a family."

7. In contrast to Latin American happiness based in family connection is this survey of British children that revealed that A 'dad' is tenth most popular Christmas list request for children.

8. Christian Science Monitor reports on Parental leave global comparison: US still among least generous

9. And in yet another story on familial collections China orders children to visit their elderly parents.

10. Scientific American reports some positive news: Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

11. Men may want to think twice before taking up yoga. It seems men are more prone to serious injury from yoga. Wounded Warrior Pose

12. What are the ten most popular books of all time? The 10 Most Read Books In The World

13. Traditional Books On Decline, Survey Says

"A Pew Internet Research Center survey released Thursday found that the percentage of Americans aged 16 and older who read an e-book grew from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year. Readers of traditional books dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent. Overall, those reading books of any kind dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent, a shift Pew called statistically insignificant."

14. Here are nine interesting findings about state by state data from the Census Bureau: Here Are The States Where People Are Leaving, Moving To, And Having Lots Of Babies

• Puerto Rico, Vermont, and Rhode Island are the only states (and territory) that saw a net decrease in population over the year.
• The fastest growing region was the South (1.06% population growth) followed by the West (1.03% population growth).
• North Dakota and the District of Columbia had the highest population growth, with 2.5% and 2.3% population growth, respectively. Texas, Wyoming, and Utah also saw major growth.
• West Virginia and Maine are the only two states where people are dying faster than they are being born, with 0.93 and 0.99 births for each death.
• Utah (3.44) and Alaska (3.33) had the highest birth to death ratio in 2012. That means 3.44 babies were born for each death in Utah.
• Domestic migration determines the rate that people leave and enter states to and from other states. Per capita, more natives left New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to move somewhere else than any other states.
• On the other hand, people flocked to North Dakota, D.C., Wyoming and South Carolina.
• The states that had the highest rates of international migration — that is, the rate of immigrants coming in — were Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida, New York and D.C.
• Puerto Rico is seeing a massive exodus — 1% of their population left last year.

15. When we think of transportation in the United States, few of us think about river and costal water transportation. Yet a great many goods and commodities are shipped on our rivers. The Midwest drought is having an impact on a major artery of that transportation network. The Mississippi River's Water Levels Are Dropping, And Could Shut Down Trade Next Week

16. Facebook?! Twitter?! Instagram?! We Did That 40 Years Ago. "Three decades before Yelp and Craigslist, there was the Community Memory Terminal. ..."

 

 17. America's Stuff Is Getting Really Old, And That's Bullish

"In other words, Americans are increasingly likely to have to purchase and replace these goods some time soon as they get more and more worn out.  That's bullish for spending, jobs, and the economy as a whole."

18.From right here in my hometown, just a mile or two from where I live: In a Kansas City Neighborhood, Deep Investments and an Uncertain Future. The Atlantic Cities reports on Kansas City's experiments with Green Impact Zones.

19. Why are men, in aggregate, better navigators than women? National Geographic: Of Men, Navigation, and Zits

"... Yet a few differences between the sexes do seem to hold up to scrutiny. One is spatial abilities. If men look at an object, for example, they are slightly faster at guessing what it would look like if it were rotated 180 degrees. There are plenty of women who do better than individual men. But overall there’s a stasticially significant difference in their average performance. This kind of difference carries over from one culture to another. It’s even detectable in babies. ...

... Whenever we reflect on human evolution, it pays to compare our species to other animals. And in the case of spatial abilities, the comparison is fascinating. Almost a century ago, the psychologist Helen Hubbet found that male rats could get through a maze faster than females. The difference can also be found in a number of other species. ...

... Clint and his colleagues propose a different explanation: male spatial ability is not an adaptation so much as a side effect. Males produce testosterone as they develop, and the hormone has a clear benefit in terms of reproduction, increasing male fertility. But testosterone also happens to produce a lot of side effects, including male pattern baldness and an increased chance of developing acne. It would be absurd to say acne was an adaptation favored by natural selection. The same goes for the male edge in spatial ability, Clint and his colleagues argue. They note that when male rats are castrated, they do worse at navigating a maze; when they are given shots of testosterone, they regain their skill. ..."

Family Civil War Letter 150 Years Later

My 2nd Great Grandfather was William Cotton Holmes (1837-1932). He signed up with Union forces in 1862 and served until the end of the war in 1865. Late in 1862 he was stationed in Washington, DC, where he remained for the rest of the war. His brother Hoarce Holmes (1840-1864) (pictured) also served in the Civil War.

Below is a letter written by Horace to William on December 26, 1862, 150 years ago today. It includes a description of being shot and his experience in a hospital. He died less than two years later of smallpox in a DC hospital. I think the orginal is gone but I've transcribed this from a copy my grandmother typed up from the original years ago. Enjoy.

 

Foster’s General Hospital.

Newbern, N.C., Dec. 26, 1862

 

My Dear Brother William:

I think I see you start as you read the heading above. Well I am now in the hospital with a ball through my left shoulder received at the battle of Kinston, an account of which and the march prior to it, I will give briefly. First saying, that I have great cause of thankfulness that my live was spared. The ball struck the top of my shoulder hitting the bone and glancing, came out of my back about 6 inches below. So although you may not think much of a wound in the back, I have one and in the front too. It is luck that the ball went clear through and providential that it did not go nearer my neck, for if it had gone one half inch nearer, it would have shattered my shoulder.

So while you have been sitting in the associations and guarding depots, I have endured long marches, slept on the soft ground at night, waded through swaps, drank stagnant water by the road and called it good, ate hard tack and salt horse with a decided relish. Have seen the time when I would have paid for a hard bread. Have been in the thickest of the fight and felt the sting of a rebel bullet, heard the whistling of 10,000 bullets, the shrieking of shells and the crashing of trees by solid shot, witnessed the inhumanity of shoulder doctors, enjoyed the beauty of jolting in a baggage wagon, with a swearing driver, after being wounded, etc. etc.

Your letters of the 6th and the 18th I am much pleased to acknowledge, and then state that it was about four o’clock in the morning of Thursday December 11, when the drums of the 45th aroused the regiment to prepare for new and untried scenes, securing a cup of coffee so hastily as to burn our tongues, we stood in line in light marching order. You know what that is, after a few miles. The moon was looking kindly down bur soon all nature was warped in a dense fog. The sunrise gun belched forth its grim welcome, just as we reached the City of Newbern, the streets of which were filled with baggage wagons and battery on battery of artillery, showing that the expedition was a big one. We were delayed sometime near Fort Foster and then the word was forward and on we went. The sun had now got up and shown pretty hot. The road led us through swaps and creeks, at one of which we were so long passing that the right of the regiment got far ahead and the left straggled all the forenoon. This was very hard marching, as we had to hurry to try to catch up, and the sun was so hot that it started the sweat. At noon, the regiment halted for an hour, when we all got together and ate our dinner, after which the colonel formed us in sections, with orders to go through everything, and through we went, mud and water, giving our extremities the benefit of a water bath. I liked this marching better than in the morning, as it was more regular. Just after sunset, we caught the first glimpse of the glimmering camp fire of the advanced and it rejoiced our eyes. We soon filed in, stacked arms, and after tearing the fence down for our fires, we prepared to rest. We were tied, I tell you, 20 miles they say. I dried and exchanged my stockings, soaked my feet, spread my blankets and dropped to sleep quick and slept well too. Our cavalry had a skirmish here, taking a few prisoners. In a ravine ahead, the rebels felled large tress to obstruct our passage, and we can now hear the ring of the axes of the pioneers as they remove them. The immense filed looks fine with its numerous fires. The next morning, Friday, at four, we were called up and after breakfast we were soon in line loading and capping our rifles, which the boys thought indicated work. At sunrise we started and soon passed through the swamp where the rebs tried but failed to stop us. There is not scenery here. It is all swap and pines. This morning we passed a few houses bearing the white flag. Nothing like a village through the whole march. The houses are near a mile apart. Towards noon we passed a few rebels prisoners, and further on one dead. They are cadaverous looking fellows in gray. Our cavalry had a skirmish with the rebs ahead routing them. At noon we stopped for dinner, where it occurred, and where lay a dead horse. We had a fine rest here and I turned swapped my socks and greased my feet and then fell in and marched along. Skirmishes are thrown out on either side, and we passed [Page 2] through prisoners and houses. The roads are bad and the artillery gets stuck giving us frequent rests, sometimes stopping us in the middle of a huge mud puddle. But when we march we go fast through the blackest swap. At night we were stopped for an hour in the midst of a huge swap. It was a place where we might have been slaughtered like sheep, but no foe was near and soon we heard the welcome forward and we went at an astonishing pace. It was dark as Eqypt and we splashed along through the mire, tired Oh! It was near ten o’clock when we got to camp, and just as we entered we heard several picket shots and feared we should be disturbed, but no. I was glad to make my bed and sleep.

Saturday stiff and tired, I joined the line (Ah, you imagine me at the rear of the company, do you?) No sir, not an inch have I lost through the whole march. The road was ever wet and muddy. About ten, we were resting, when we were started by the report of the cannon, which brought every man to his feet and we pushed on rapidly. Soon after the orders came "Open right and left", and the heavy artillery of the rear came thundering by. We could still hear the firing. It was splendid to see the rush of the artillery as they dashed along. At last the firing ceased, and about noon, we were file in battle array in a large open filed. My heart jumped as I was certain of a fight. We remained sometime and I got a nap. We were very tired as we had marched rapidly. Soon the order came for us to camp and we were glad. The firing was occasioned by the rebs placing a battery in one corner of the field, and our folks shelled them out, capturing their guns. We rested here all the P.M. and Eve. Our rations were low but soon the quartermaster came up and we here supplied with three days rations of hard tack and coffee and I made a very good pot of the latter and it relished well. We were furnished with 20 extra pounds of ammunition to lighten us, you know. There has been a great deal of straggling in the march, more from the old regiments, however, than the new. Sunday morning found us in line. Sad scenes that sun will look upon and today usually so quite is to be disturbed by the roar of battle. We were soon on the march with roads bas as ever and marched very rapidly. We passed a cannon taken from the rebs and the dead by the road side. It was sad. Along side of the road there was large quantities of brush out as though the Rebs intended to plant batteries, but had no time.

After a rapid and fatiguing march we were resting in a huge puddle of water, when at 10 of 10 we heard the first gun of the battle of Kingston. The boys were speaking and comparing the scenes with that at home. It was a most peaceful morning and all nature seemed in repose. The firing still continued and we were pushed rapidly forward, and were halted about a mile from the battle field near a house which was afterwards used as a hospital and where I spent some weary hours. While here, the firing in the front kept up vigorously and the artillery from the rear came thundering by while squads of prisoners were carried to the side. Soon we were ordered forward and soon we were to see what stuff we were made of. No one flinched but on we went to find the enemy, who were posted in a large house and entrechments in the rear of the thickest of swaps in which they had some troops, but when we drove out, we, the 45th, were filed from the road into the open field where our batteries were posted, then through the wood, thence into the swamp, and such a swamp, so thick with briars, and mud, up to our middle every step. The shot and shell were flying thick around us killing some poor fellows at the first entrance. We marched to the right flank, our company being the third from the left. As soon as we got in, we deployed as well as possible to the left. The bullets now fell like hail, but we could not see a Reb as we were in a hollow in the water. Often we were ordered to lie down in the face of the Rebs’ fire where the woods were not quite so thick. The bullets whistled fearfully above, around and over us every where. I had fired several times and was just raising my rifle for another when I felt a sensation in my shoulder and my rifle and myself [Page 3] went earthward. I fell to the rear in doing which I was a little fearful of a shot in the back. I had one bullet hit the top of my cap, leaving a dent. Hailing one of my comrades, helped me out without any casualty. Our boys fought well and drove the rebels from their position and across the bridge which they tried to burn, but we were too quick and stopped them. The 10th Co. charged upon them and drove them like sheep. We occupied Kinston that night and recrossed the river, burning the bridge and going on to Goldsboro I limped away towards the hospital which I at last reached. It was already quite full with sufferers and a number were constantly arriving. It was painful to hear their groans. After waiting about 2 hours, the doctor came and cutting away my clothes, found that the ball had entered the top of my shoulder and come out of my back about six inches below. It was a very narrow escape and the Dr. assured me that I had just saved my bacon. I have a great cause to be thankful that it is no worse. Wet and weary I waited until night fall, when I was conducted to a bed of corn husks on the floor of the chamber. There were 12 of us in the room, and there was pain there. I was glad to get my wet things off and try to sleep and think of home. The house is owned by an old Reb who is bitter against the use of his home. We stayed there until Friday noon as comfortable as could be expected. The Dr. Mason was very kind and did much for our comfort. Friday noon we were put aboard a baggage wagon and jolted six miles to take the gun boat. Our army had done its work and was returning and the boat was to take the wounded. When we got there, they wouldn’t let us go aboard because we could use our legs. We were told to join the column in the baggage wagon. We were put aboard with a swearing kind of a fellow, who cared not for God or man. This was tough and I was heart sick, but there was no help and on I went. Till far into the eve we drove and not very slow and every rough place going through me. At last we reached camp and no place to sleep. The driver swore that we should not sleep in the wagon, and those that were only sore on foot get out, and I and another with a ball in his arm made special pleading and remained, but it was a hard cold bed with nothing under us and a light quilt over us. Oh, so cold. At four o’clock next morning, we commenced our ride and all day we jolted until 8½ in the evening, when I arrived at Newbern. Arriving I searched for a hospital and lighted on this one, where I was well taken care of. Beds were good that night. This is a very good hospital and I am getting on first rate and can thank God that I have been preserved. In battle I felt no fear. I put my trust in God, and was calm. You will see from accounts what our forces did, being all victories. I shall never spoil for a fight and do not wish to see another one. I am sorry for Mother. How she will worry! I sent a letter by the first mail and one since. Strange rumors reach us from Washington. Is it strange that soldiers are discouraged? But pluck it. I remain your brother, Horace.

P.S.

I have got the bullet. Write soon.

Christmas holiday shopping 1962 vs. 2012

Economist Mark Perry has periodically done posts at his blog that contrasts the relative real prices of items from decades ago to the prices of today. The two graphics below are particularly interesting. (Christmas holiday shopping 1962 vs. 2012: the ‘golden era’ of prosperity for middle- and low-income Americans is today.)

Here is the price of a home entertainment center in 1962. It was $379.95 in 1962 dollars but $2,900 in 2012 dollars.

What could you buy for $2,900 in 2012?

"The End of the World!": A Historical Perspective

If the apocalypse doesn't come today, don't worry. It isn't the end of the world. ;-)  Here are two stories about preditions of the end.

Huffington Post: Apocalypse Predictions: 182 Other Days When The World Was Supposed To End

And this from Business Insider: 25 Doomsday Predictions, Most Of Which Were Wrong

A Historical Perspective on Violence and Murder in the United States

The horrific massacre in Newton, Connecticut, is to sparking debate about guns and violence, as well it should. As the discussion gets underway, I think it is helpful to get a sense of where we stand in the flow of history as it relates to violence in the United States. Here are a few things to consider.

Below is data from the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The annual report compiles reported crimes. It strength is the use of hard data. Its biggest weakness is the absence of unreported crime. The willingness of people to report crime varies by type of crime and their willingness to report may change over time. Also, law enforcement’s diligence with different types of crime may change over time. Tougher enforcement can lead to fewer incidents of actual crime, even as incidents of reported crime rise. Nevertheless, the UCR is an important measure.

Crimes are grouped in two categories:

• Violent - murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
• Property - burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Violent crime is at a forty year low.

A second measure is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Twice a year, surveys ask members of households if they have been victims of particular crimes, reported or not. The strength of the survey is that it captures unreported crime. A weakness may be that some crimes, like domestic violence, are underreported.

The NCVS is also broken into two categories:  

• Violent - rape, robbery, and assault.
• Property - burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.

(A different methodology was used in 2006 that makes it incomparable with other years. Also, 2011 data has been published and shows an uptick in crime. However, the 2002 and 2010 data in the recent report, used as comparison points, do not match earlier publications and I have yet to determine why. I chose not to include it here until I have a better understanding.)

An interesting question: Was there truly less crime fifty years ago or were people simply less likely to report crimes? I doubt there is a definitive answer. Murder is sometimes used as a proxy for overall violence in society. Here is the United States murder rate per 100,000 population:

 

Additionally, there is this estimation of the murder rate over the last 300 years. (Source: The Public Intellectual)

The lowest murder rate ever was 4.6 in 1963. It was 4.7 in 2011.

It can conclusively be said that that violence in American society is not spiraling out of control. We are living in one of the least violent eras in American history.  But this is not the whole story.

Duke sociologist Kiern Healy published this graph a few months ago. (Source: America Is a Violent Country)

(Go to the source linked above for info about individual countries.)

The 4.7 homicide rate for the United States is a near record low but it is still two or three times the rate of other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations. Guns are a big part of this difference. The good news is the precipitous decline in aggravated deaths. The bad news is how much more violence there is in the United States compared to other nations, even at all-time lows.

The final issue is the number of mass shootings. The Associated Press had this article No rise in mass killings, but their impact is huge. The article notes:

… And yet those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer. …

… Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.

Still, he understands the public perception - and extensive media coverage - when mass shootings occur in places like malls and schools. "There is this feeling that could have been me. It makes it so much more frightening." …

Here is a graph showing mass public murders (defined as four or more murders in a 24 hour period) by decade over the past 100 years.  (Source: Opinion: The Rise and Decline of Mass Shootings – Grant Duwe)

 
(I realize that does not seem to square with the statement about mass shootings peaking in 1929. I suspect a typo and "1999" was what was intended.)

This data was reported in March of 2010. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, Deadliest U.S. mass shootings, there have been nine mass shootings in the United States in the first three years of this decade. That projects out to thirty for this decade. But there have been five mass shootings in the last five months. There clearly has been an uptick in mass shootings over the past year.

On a final note, the Sandy Hook massacre involved young children at school. Over the past twenty years, the number of children 5-18 years old murdered at school has ranged from a low of 14 (school years ending in 2000 and in 2001) and a high of 34 (schools years ending 1993 and in 1998.) (Source: Indicators of School Safety: 2011) According to an article in the Guardian, Mass shootings at schools and universities in the US – timeline, over the last fifty years there have been six school mass shootings (including Sandy Hook) that have taken the lives of children 5-18. Three of the mass shootings were at primary schools (Stockton, CA, in 1989; Nickel Mines, PA, 2006; and now Sandy Hook.)

So here are a few observations and comments:

1. The United States has an excessively violent culture.
2. Violence has lessened significantly in recent years. We are not spiraling into chaos.
3. Guns are an important factor in the excessive homicide rates. I don't know why citizens need to own semi-automatic weapons. But there is more than access to these guns that needs to be addressed here.
4. While a case can be made that mass murders have been declining in the long run, the sudden frequency of them in recent months is alarming (five in five months).
5. Nothing that is said above should take away from our outrage at the senseless death of innocent children and their teachers. But Friday’s shooting should not send us into despair that things are spiraling out of control. Friday’s shooting should motivate us to ask anew how we can accelerate our march toward becoming a less violent society.

Update: You may also want to see 6 Timelines That Explain America's Persistent Gun Culture

The Evolution Of English Words And Phrases Since 1520

MIT Technology Review: The Evolution Of English Words And Phrases Since 1520

The digitisation of the world’s books reveals how the popularity of English words and phrases has evolved since the 16th century. And the Top 100 lists for each year are now free to browse online.

The digitisation of the world’s books reveals how the popularity of English words and phrases has evolved since the 16th century. And the database is now freely browsable online.

Last year, the Google Books team released some 4 per cent of all the books ever written as a corpus of digitised text, an event that has triggered something of a revolution in the study of trends in human thought. The corpus consists of 5 million books and over 500 billion words (361 billion in English) dating from the 1500s to the present day.

In a single stroke, this data gives researchers a way to examine a whole range of hitherto inaccessible phenomena. Since then a steady stream of new results has emerged on everything from the evolution of grammar and the adoption of technology to the pursuit of fame and the role of censorship. ...

If you go to Matjaž Perc's Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries, and scroll to the bottom, you can see the top 100 words or phrases by eras. If you go to Google Book Ngram Viewer, then you do some of your own customized searching.

Doc Holiday uses an expression "I'm your Huckleberry," in the movie Tombstone. Basically he was saying, "I'm game." I had never heard that expression befor the movie. I entered that term at the first mention in the books appears to be in 1880. The events depicted in the movie were in 1881.  Interesting!

I expect I may end up wasting too much time at this site. ;-)

Saturday Links

Like the Kruse Kronicle at Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.

Here are this week's Saturday links.

1. To celebrate the Christmas season, Deck the Halls with Macro Follies

2. The Explosion of 15th Century Printing: A Data Visualization

"... Drawing on data from the [Harvard] university's library collections, the animation below maps the number and location of printed works by year. Watch it full screen in HD to see cities light up as the years scroll by in the lower left corner. ..."

3. Drive-through fast-food not convenient enough for you? Burger King delivery: A new front in the fast-food wars?

4. There is a U-shaped happiness curve, consistent across cultures, that shows happiness declines from childhood until about our mid-forties and then begins to improve as me grow old. It appears it may hold true in primates as well. Our ability to discount bad news, even when we shouldn't, follows the same U-shaped curve. Our brains and experience are optimal for discerning bad news in middle-age. Turns out that ignorance (or maybe denial) truly is bliss. Viewpoint: How happiness changes with age. On a related note, it appears that Elderly Brains Have Trouble Recognizing Untrustworthy Faces.

5. The holiday season is in full swing and many people falsely believe this a time of elevated suicide rates. Actually, spring and summer have the highest rates and Nov - Jan have the lowest. In 2010, July was highest and December was lowest. Holiday suicide myth persists, research says

6. French sperm count 'falls by a third' but still within normal range. Researchers don't seem to know why.

7. The Atlantic has interesting article on Why Don't Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore? It includes this graph.

"Michael" was in the top 3 names for boys from 1953-2010. It dropped to sixth last year. Want to know how your name ranks for each year since 1880? Go to the Social Security Online's Popular Baby Names. The Baby Name Wizard is also pretty cool.

8. More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers.

"For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set...."

And this reminds me of last year, or the year before, when cooking sets were becoming big with boys. They've been watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network. "Bam!" New merchandising angle.

9. Instead of indiscriminately sending kids off to college and saddling them with huge debt, maybe a New push for two-year degrees could be smart move for US, report says.

10. Business Insider lists The 12 Most Corrupt Countries In The World.

11. Love them or hate them, the Koch brothers are intriguing. Many political junkies know of them but few others seem to know about them. Forbes has an interesting feature article in the most recent issue on the Koch empire and its influence: Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America

12. Is the two party system fracturing? Coalition Is to Control State Senate as Dissident Democrats Join With Republicans

13. How is this economic recovery different from others? The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever

14. "Data-driven healthcare won't replace physicians entirely, but it will help those receptive to technology perform their jobs better." Technology will replace 80% of what doctors do

15. Another bright idea. New plastic lighting saves energy. Goodbye, fluorescent lights?

"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."

16. Yet another good story about the rise of vertical farming. Salad in the sky: The rise of the vertical farm?

17. The Conservation Law Center has an interesting piece about the potential changes nanotechnology will bring to use of resources and the economy. Nanotechnology: The Potential to Make Every Industry Sustainable

"... Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise of making every one of them sustainable.”

It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology, industry and society.

Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology. There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable manner.

In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and— that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks. Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products exist. Let us not miss this opportunity. ..."

18. The American Enterprise Institute has an interesting summary of a Nielson report about social media usage. 8 fun facts about the incredible rise of social media

19. Death On Facebook Now Common As 'Dead Profiles' Create Vast Virtual Cemetery

"It used be that news of death spread through phone calls, and before that, letters and house calls. The departed were publicly remembered via memorials on street corners, newspaper obituaries and flowers at grave sites. To some degree, this is still the case. But increasingly, the announcements and subsequent mourning occur on social media. Facebook, with 1 billion detailed, self-submitted user profiles, was created to connect the living. But it has become the world's largest site of memorials for the dead."

20. From the "That's just not right!" file. Harvard Economics Department does their version of "Call me maybe."

Saturday Links

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. There a few less links this week. Enjoy!

1. The last typewriter rolls off the assembly line.

2. Abraham Lincoln's spirituality has been a constant topic of debate among historians. The new Lincoln movie has resurfaced the debate. Film revives questions about Abraham Lincoln’s faith, but offers few answers.

3. What impact will computer/internet technology have on our daily lives? Glimpse of your life in 2020 thanks to the Internet of Things.

"What if all objects were interconnected and started to sense their surroundings and communicate with each other? The Internet of Things (IoT) will have that sort of ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity. Since there are estimates that between 50 billion to 500 billion devices will have a mobile connection to the cloud by 2020, here’s a glimpse of our possible future.

Your alarm clock signals the lights to come on in your bedroom; the lights tell the heated tiles in your bathroom to kick on so your feet are not cold when you go to shower. The shower tells your coffee pot to start brewing. Your smartphone checks the weather and tells you to wear your gray suit since RFID tags on your clothes confirm that your favorite black suit is not in your closet but at the dry cleaners. After you pour a cup of java, the mug alerts your medication that you have a drink in-hand and your pill bottle begins to glow and beep as a reminder. Your pill bottle confirms that you took your medicine and wirelessly adds this info to your medical file at the doctor’s office; it will also text the pharmacy for a refill if you are running low.

Your smart TV automatically comes on with your favorite news channel while you eat breakfast and browse your tablet for online news. After you’ve eaten, while you are brushing your teeth, your dishwasher texts your smartphone to fire up your vehicle via the remote start. Because your “smart” car can talk to other cars and the road, it knows what streets to avoid due to early morning traffic jams. Your phone notifies you that your route to work has been changed to save you time. And you no longer need to look for a place to park, since your smartphone reserved one of the RFID parking spaces marked as "open" and available in the cloud. Don’t worry about your smart house because as you exited it, the doors locked, the lights went off, and the temperature was adjusted to save energy and money.

Does it sound too farfetched for 2020? It shouldn’t since a good part of that is in the works now. ..."

4. Speaking of computers, technology lovers will appreciate that the World’s Oldest Computer Gets a Reboot.

5. Should Students Use Wikipedia? Maybe it depends on how they use it and what the objective is.

6. Does the United States essentially have a flat tax? Economist Greg Mankiw thinks maybe do. The U.S. has a flat tax (in effect)

"The Congressional Budget Office has a new study of effective federal marginal tax rates for low and moderate income workers (those below 450 percent of the poverty line).  The study looks at the effects of income taxes, payroll taxes, and SNAP (the program formerly known as Food Stamps).  The bottom line is that the average household now faces an effective marginal tax rate of 30 percent.  In 2014, after various temporary tax provisions have expired and the newly passed health insurance subsidies go into effect, the average effective marginal tax rate will rise to 35 percent.

What struck me is how close these marginal tax rates are to the marginal tax rates at the top of the income distribution.  This means that we could repeal all these taxes and transfer programs, replace them with a flat tax along with a universal lump-sum grant, and achieve approximately the same overall degree of progressivity."

7.  What are the conservative streams and thinkers that are likely to influence the evolving future of conservatism in the United States. David Brooks has some interesting insights into The Conservative Future.

8.  Did you know that You Are Most Likely to Die at 11 a.m.?

9. This would never appeal to me. I like to know exactly what I'm buying. Would drop some coins in this thing?

The BIBLIO-MAT from Craig Small on Vimeo.

10. The High Calling has a review of R. Paul Stevens new book, Work Matters, Lessons from Scripture. I hope to read it next month.

11. Good news on the crime front in Washington, D. C.: D.C. on pace for fewer than 100 homicides in 2012

Communism, Capitalism and the Third Thanksgiving

NPR: Communism, Capitalism and the Third Thanksgiving

Paul Solman: It being Thanksgiving, we give today's post to Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, built by pious Protestant purists backed by profit-seeking investors.

Bradford tells the story of the tough Massachusetts winter of 1623 and how the colony barely survived, unable to raise enough food to sustain themselves. One reason he gave: the rules of the colony, as laid down by the investors, specified that the colonists should till their land in common, as was the case in the England from which they migrated.

But the colony, perhaps desperate, seems to have changed the rules in order to jack up productivity, allowing individual families to tend plots on their own, an early instance of the benefits of pursuing self-interest as opposed to communalism.

I am on record: successful economic grand strategy entails a balance between cooperation and self-interest. Extremes in one direction or the other are unsustainable. According to Governor Bradford, extreme communalism wasn't doing the job in Plymouth, Massachusetts ca. 1623. ...

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Proclamation Declaring Thanksgiving a National Holiday

October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States

A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

(Source: About.com)

Not a bad prayer fot the times we live in. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Long Story of U.S. Debt, From 1790 to 2011, in 1 Little Chart

Atlantic: The Long Story of U.S. Debt, From 1790 to 2011, in 1 Little Chart

Be sure to check out the article. The author breaks down the chart by eras and offers some analysis.

Saturday Links

Here are the links for this week.

1. Ever thought about starting your own blog? Michael Hyatt has some advice: My Advice to Beginning Bloggers

2. Is gender inclusive language taking hold? Good News, You Guys Everyone! English Is Becoming More Inclusive

3. How New Yorkers Adjusted to Sudden Smartphone Withdrawal

4. Paying for What Was Free: Lessons from the New York Times Paywall

Abstract

In a national online longitudinal survey, participants reported their attitudes and behaviors in response to the recently implemented metered paywall by the New York Times. Previously free online content now requires a digital subscription to access beyond a small free monthly allotment. Participants were surveyed shortly after the paywall was announced and again 11 weeks after it was implemented to understand how they would react and adapt to this change. Most readers planned not to pay and ultimately did not. Instead, they devalued the newspaper, visited its Web site less frequently, and used loopholes, particularly those who thought the paywall would lead to inequality. Results of an experimental justification manipulation revealed that framing the paywall in terms of financial necessity moderately increased support and willingness to pay. Framing the paywall in terms of a profit motive proved to be a noncompelling justification, sharply decreasing both support and willingness to pay. Results suggest that people react negatively to paying for previously free content, but change can be facilitated with compelling justifications that emphasize fairness.

5. The world is safer. But no one in Washington can talk about it.

... Beyond the United States, global statistics point undeniably toward progress in achieving greater peace and stability. There are fewer wars now than at any time in decades. The number of people killed as a result of armed violence worldwide is plunging as well — down to about 526,000 in 2011 from about 740,000 in 2008, according to the United Nations. ...

... Most top Pentagon officials say the statistics showing that the world is safer are irrelevant and don’t reflect the magnitude of the risks. The result is what Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has dubbed a “security paradox.” The world may seem safer, Dempsey says, but the potential for global catastrophe has grown as the planet has become more interconnected and potential enemies have greater access to more powerful weapons and technology. ...

6. A 51st state? Is Puerto Rico on Its Way To Becoming the 51st State? Possibly.

7. Mitt Romney joins a long list also-rans. So how does he compare to other presidential also-rans?

8. Speaking of campaigns, Time has an interesting piece about the inner-workings of the Obama data crunching team, Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win. Contrast this with the disaster that was Romney's get-out-the-vote operation. Romney's Get out the Vote Epic Fail.

9. How much difference is there in the coming of age experience between Baby Boomers and Millennials? Mother and daughter team Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig are interviewed about their new book: What’s the Matter With Millennials?

10. McDonald's Sales Fall For First Time In Nearly A Decade

11. Interesting piece on crowd sourcing in Harvard Business Review. Let the Crowd Fix Your Product's Bugs

"The online startup Kaggle assembles a diverse group of people from around the world to work on tough problems submitted by organizations. The company runs data science competitions, where the goal is to arrive at a better prediction than the submitting organization's starting 'baseline' prediction. Results from these contests are striking in a couple ways. For one thing, improvements over the baseline are usually substantial. In one case, Allstate submitted a dataset of vehicle characteristics and asked the Kaggle community to predict which of them would have later personal liability claims filed against them. The contest lasted approximately three months, and drew in more than 100 contestants. The winning prediction was more than 270% better than the insurance company's baseline.

Another interesting fact is that the majority of Kaggle contests are won by people who are marginal to the domain of the challenge — who, for example, made the best prediction about hospital readmission rates despite having no experience in health care — and so would not have been consulted as part of any traditional search for solutions. In many cases, these demonstrably capable and successful data scientists acquired their expertise in new and decidedly digital ways"

12. I can't wait to see this one!

Saturday Links

Here are this week's odds and ends that didn't make it on to the blog. Enjoy the leftovers!

1. MIT Technology Review says Geoengineering Could Be Essential to Reducing the Risk of Climate Change. "Using technology to cool the planet may be the only way to deal with the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, argues scientist David Keith." On a similar topic is this piece by Robert Kurlwich at NPR, Will We 'Fix' The Weather? Yes. Should We Fix The Weather? Hmmm. Kurlwich discusses the possibility that we may one day be able to control the earth's climate and wonders if that is a good thing.

2. Research indicates that Millennial Generation Becoming More Fiscally Conservative.

3. Are E-readers a transitional technology? Analysis: E-readers grapple with a future on the shelf.

4. Inhabitat reports on The World's First Commercial Vertical Farm Opens in Singapore. "The dense metropolis of Singapore is now home to the world’s first commercial vertical farm! Built by Sky Greens Farms, the rising steel structure will help the city grow more food locally, reducing dependence on imported produce. The new farm is able to produce 1 ton of fresh veggies every other day, which are sold in local supermarkets."

5. The New Republic has a very lengthy article The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It offers some interesting insights in to Mormonism's road from communalism to economic individualism, a trajectory followed by many Protestant sectarian movements. Jackson Lears writes:

"Mormons embraced economic individualism and hierarchical communalism; they distrusted government interventions in business life but not in moral life; they used their personal morality to underwrite their monetary success. They celebrated endless progress through Promethean striving. They paid little attention to introspection and much to correct behavior. And their fundamental scripture confirmed that America was God’s New Israel and the Mormons His Chosen People. It would be hard to find an outlook more suited to the political culture of the post–Reagan Republican Party."

6. Annie-Marie Slaughter maintains that the "having it all" debate about work-life balance isn't just about women. Work-Life Balance as a Men's Issue, Too.

"A number of students asked foreign policy questions, and then a young woman asked me about the responses I have received to my Atlantic cover story from this past summer, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." I answered, and several other young women followed up. After ten minutes or so, I saw that the roughly 50 percent guys in the room had gone completely silent. When I commented on the suddenly one-sided nature of the conversation, one young man volunteered that he "had been raised in a strong feminist household" and considered himself to be fully supportive of male-female equality, but he was reluctant to say anything for fear he would be misunderstood. A number of the other guys around the table nodded in agreement."

7. French and Spanish legal documents from colonial Louisiana are being digitized, opening up a new window on colonial history in that part of the world. Colonial La. records shed new light on US history

8. People who know me personally know I tend to use sarcasm and double entendre in spoken communication. One of my biggest blogging challenges is editing most of this out of posts. Emoticons can help but some of the biggest misunderstandings I have had came from people not being able to see my wink or big grin as I write certain things. For that reason, I found this interesting: The Strange Science Of Translating Sarcasm Online

9. Ever wonder why sign language often seems so animated? Why Great Sign Language Interpreters Are So Animated

10. Africa: sociologists cite religion as a key factor in preventing and alleviating AIDS epidemic

"In their new book "Religion and AIDS in Africa" (Oxford University Press), sociologists Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb seek to challenge the widespread view that religious beliefs and communities have unwittingly assisted in the spread of the disease through their resistance to preventative sex education. They also show that not only have religious groups had a largely positive role in AIDS prevention, but also how the epidemic has shaped religious beliefs in unexpected ways."

Saturday Links

Each week I spend considerable time scanning headlines as I look for stories to blog about at the Kruse Kronicle. I clip them into an Evernote Notebook and usually twice a day I select one or two to link and discuss. A number of interesting stories never make it on to the blog.

So this week I'm beginning what I hope will be a regular Saturday feature. Each Saturday I will post links I did not use the previous week. For now I will call it "Saturday Links." Happy clicking!

1. Interesting video intro to Gen IV Nuclear Power at the Catalyst: Next Generation Nuclear Power

2. BBC L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter. Scientists found guilty for bad prediction about an earthquake. That will put a chill in the scientific community.

3. Icon of the American Libertarian movement, Murray Rothbard, once asked, "Why won't the left acknowledge the difference between deserving poor and undeserving poor. Why support the feckless, lazy & irresponsible?" Chris Dillow gives a libertarian response affirming the need to Support the undeserving poor.

4. I love historical restoration. The Atlantic has a great piece, Scientists Recover the Sounds of 19th-Century Music and Laughter From the Oldest Playable American Recording, about how scientists have restored a phonograph recording made in 1878 in St. Louis.

5. Chronicle of Philanthropy says Most Donors Plan to Give as Much or More in 2012, Survey Finds.

6. How did those Easter Island statues get into place? California State University archaeologists think they have the answer. See Easter Island Statues Could Have ‘Walked’ Into Positions in Wired. Here is the YouTube clip:

So where did they get the rope?

7. Think you "bought" a book for your Kindle? Gizmodo says think again: You Don’t Own the Books on Your Kindle.

8. BBC has a report on the stuff people are printing with 3D printers: Bras and guitars: What people today are 3D printing.

But then there is also The Dark Side of 3D Printing.

9. Bryan Caplan explains that the rate of executions per capita in the U. S. has been in monotonic decline over the nation's history: U.S. Executions Per Capita Have Been Falling for 400 Years.

He writes:

"I can easily imagine my graph in a Julian Simon or Steven Pinker chapter on human progress and the decline in violence.  Even though I have no philosophical objection to the death penalty, it's hard not to interpret this 400-year pattern as a strong sign of human betterment."

10. Mark Roberts has a great piece about cross-generational misunderstandings using social media: Living in the Brave New World of Social Media: Posting a Death on Facebook

11. American Association of University Women (AAUW) says pay inequity begins right out of college: Does gender pay gap exist? Right out of college, says new study. But Elizabeth Dwoskin says "not so fast" on attributing this all to discrimination: Why Women Earn Less Than Men a Year Out of School.

12. Wildcat football rising! Kansas State moves up to No. 3  EMAW!

13. Sporting KC finishes first place in East with 2-1 win over Philadelphia Union. Awesome!

Alternative Christianities - Philip Jenkins

Real Clear Religion: Alternative Christianities

On average, the Biblical world sees a startling new discovery of allegedly cosmic significance every four or five years. Most recently, we had Jesus's Wife, with the Gospel of Judas not long before that, and no great powers of prophecy are needed to tell that other similar finds will shortly be upon us.

In themselves, the finds are usually interesting (if they happen to be authentic), but where the media always go wrong in reporting them is in vastly exaggerating just how novel and ground-breaking they are.

So powerful are such claims, and so consistent, that it sometimes seems as if nobody before the 1970s (say) could have known about the multiple alternative Christianities that flourished in the first centuries of Christianity. Surely, we think, earlier generations could never have imagined the world revealed by such ancient texts as the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gnostic documents that turned up at Nag Hammadi. Lacking such evidence, how could older scholars have dreamed what we know to be true today: the vision of Jesus as a Zen-like mystic teacher, or perhaps a Buddhist-style enlightener, who expounded secret doctrines to leading female disciples, and who may even have been sexually involved with one or more of them? Today, for the first time, we hear the heretics speaking in their own voices!

But here's the problem. Virtually nothing in that model would have surprised a reasonably well-informed reader in 1930, or even in 1900, never mind in later years. In order to make their finds more appealing, more marketable, scholars and journalists have to work systematically to obscure that earlier knowledge, to pretend that it never existed. In order to create the maximum impact, the media depend on a constructed amnesia, a wholly fictitious picture of the supposed ignorance of earlier decades. ...

... People being what they are, I know that situation won't change any time soon. But can I at least make a minimum demand? If you are going to claim a new gospel fragment as a revolutionary scholarly breakthrough, can you at least demonstrate that it significantly advances the state of knowledge beyond what existed in the era of Herbert Hoover?

Is that too much to ask?

MRU Development Economics: Guns, Germs, and Steel

This is the next installment in the MRU Development Economics class. Cowen and Tabarrok give an overview of Jared Diamonds influential book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, which explores the influence of geography on human development over the millennia.

Do Presidential Debates Matter?

Election 2012 Face-off: Domestic Policy Debate

Current Recession vs Double Dip Recession in the Early 1980s

Conversable Economist: The Potential GDP Perspective on Business Cycles

A few themes jump out from looking at the data in this way:

1) If the Great Recession is measured according to  how far the economy had fallen below potential GDP, it is actually quite similar to the effects of the double-dip recession in the early 1980s.

2) If the Great Recession is measured by the size of the drop, relative to potential GDP, it is about 9 percentage points of GDP (from an actual GDP 1 percent above potential GDP to an actual GDP that is 8 percent below potential GDP). The total size of this drop isn't all that different--although the timing is different--from the years around the double-dip recession of the 1980s, the years around the recession of 1973-75, and the recession of 1969-1970.

3) The recovery from the early 1980s recessions was V-shaped, while the recovery from the Great Recession is more gradual. But this change isn't new. The recoveries from all the recessions before the early 1980s were reasonably V-shapes, and the recoveries after the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions were more U-shaped, as well.

Here is the Graph he references:

U.S. Income Inequality: It's Worse Today Than It Was in 1774

Atlantic: U.S. Income Inequality: It's Worse Today Than It Was in 1774

Here's a finding that would have made for great occupy sign last year: American income inequality may be more severe today than it was way back in 1774 -- even if you factor in slavery.

That stat's not actually as crazy (or demoralizing) as it sounds, but it might upend some of the old wisdom about our country's economic heritage. The conclusion comes to us from an newly updated study by professors Peter Lindert of the University of California - Davis and Jeffrey Williamson of Harvard. Scraping together data from an array of historical resources, the duo have written a fascinating exploration of early American incomes, arguing that, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, wealth was distributed more evenly across the 13 colonies than anywhere else in the world that we have record of. 

Suffice to say, times have changed. ...

... We are much richer nation, and much better off today, than 240 years ago. In the 1770s, America was a heavily agrarian country of yeoman farmers, merchants, and tradesmen, with an economy that accounted to just a few billion dollars in present values. Like India or Russia today, both of which technically enjoy more income equality than the United States, early Americans were relatively poor compared to us. They were just relatively poor together. The first wave of industrialization in the 19th century increased living standards, but also offered bigger rewards to factory owners than their workers. That pattern neatly fits our classic understanding of what's supposed to happen when economies move from farming to manufacturing. And by now, we've gone through several epic rounds of economic upheaval that have left us with a vast gulf between the rich and the rest, as well as a welfare state that tries to mitigate some of the side effects of that difference. 

So, awful as it might sound, the fact that the United States is less economically egalitarian than during its rural, slave-society ancestors is not inherently a reason to fret. ...

They offer this chart (among others):

 

 

Gavin Kennedy on Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"

Adam Smith's Lost Legacy: False Prospectus for "An Invisible Hand"

Gavin Kennedy offers observations in response to a piece by Peter Foster in the Financial Times about Smith's two famous uses of the "invisible hand" metaphor, once in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and in the Wealth of Nations. Read Kennedy's whole post for more context.

... In Moral Sentiments, Smith was not glibly crediting “the rich” with “spread[ing] the wealth despite themselves”.  The plain fact was that the “proud and unfeeling landlords” had absolutely no choice but to share their crops with the landless labourers as their sole source of basic subsistence because without food neither the labourers  nor their families would survive a week – they had no other source of sustenance – and without food the labourers could not work and their families would not grow up to replace them, and the landlords would also starve. It was this dependence on their labourers which “led” them to order that they be fed, metaphorically expressed as the landlords being led by an invisible hand”. Moreover, given that agriculture, upon which societies depended and had done so since it was introduced 11,000 years ago as humans left the forests, their distributions of food, which had continued through many regimes, mostly tyrannical, were managed by the landlords’ overseers, not noted for their humanity.  Of the accumulated wealth of the rich – basic conveniences and dressage of their castles – next to nothing was shared with the poor.

In Wealth Of Nations, the blanket term, “businessmen” also hides an important point made by Smith, namely the fact that he was referring to the specific case of some, but not all merchants, who were characterised by their felt insecurity for the fate of their capital if they sent it abroad.  Instead, this sub-set of all businessmen, were “led” by that insecurity, metaphorically expressed as “an invisible hand” – insecurity in the man’s head could not be seen, i.e., it was “invisible” – to do what they chose to do out of their fears.  By so doing, unintentionally they were led to add to the arithmetical size of national “revenue and employment”, which was a public good.

In both cases, the immediate cause of their doing a public good (the propagation of the species and an addition to the arithmetical total of “revenue and employment”) was metaphorically described by Smith as them being “led by an invisible hand”.  He made no claims to nosense that there was an actual “invisible hand” present and working miraculously in “markets”, through “supply and demand”, the “price system”, “general equilibrium”, or any of the other nonsense wromgly in his name. ...

... Smith also taught how self-interested individuals could act in disregard of the consequences of their actions, for which he gives over 80 examples in Wealth Of Nations, which did not add to the public good.  Self-interest also led merchants to favour tariffs, prohibitions, and ‘jealousy of trade’ ...

Are free markets the secret to Sweden's success?

Christian Science Monitor: Are free markets the secret to Sweden's success?

Nima Sanandaji has written an interesting paper about Sweden. It largely points to the same historical facts that I have mentioned in my previous writings, namely that Sweden during its most free market oriented era, from 1870 to 1950, had the highest rate of per capita economic growth in the world. After massive tax and spending increases during the 1950s and 1960s, Sweden stopped outperforming other countries, and after a dramatic leftist shift in economic policies implemented by Socialist Olof Palme after he became prime minister in 1969, Sweden started to seriously lagg other countries. However, free market reforms implemented in the 1990s, and in recent years, have enabled Sweden to once again outperform other Western countries in growth.

He also discusses possible cultural factors, and also points out that Sweden in 1920 had a relatively low level of economic inequality, despite the fact that government spending and taxation at that time was only 10% of GDP.

Here is the conclusion from the Sanandaji report, The surprising ingredients of Swedish success – free markets and social cohesion:

Conclusion:

Scandinavian societies have developed a unique culture with a strong work ethic and strong ethical attitudes regarding the claiming of welfare benefits. There are also high levels of trust and social cohesion. This social capital, which was built up before the advent of the modern welfare state, has played an important role in the success of Scandinavian countries.

For many decades, this pre-existing culture, allowed countries such as Sweden to have extensive welfare systems without the social difficulties, rise in worklessness and other effects that many would have predicted. Scandinavian countries have also reaped the rewards of relatively free market policies in some areas of economic life to reach impressive levels of wealth creation.

To characterise the Swedish model either as a social democratic utopia or a failed socialist experiment is a mistake. Sweden is a successful country in terms of having a low poverty rate and long life expectancy. However, these factors have much to do with non-government facets of Swedish society that pre-existed the welfare state.

As Milton Friedman has previously noted, the millions of US residents of Swedish descent also display low rates of poverty. They combine this with a living standard that is significantly better compared with Swedes living in Sweden. The transformation of Sweden from an impoverished agrarian society to a modern industrialised nation is a rarely mentioned, but quite significant, example of the role of free markets in lifting a country out of poverty and into prosperity. Low levels of inequality and low levels of government spending characterised this period of economic transformation. The golden age of Swedish entrepreneurship - when one successful firm after another was founded in this small country and gained international renown – occurred at a time when taxes and the scope of government were quite limited.

Sweden shifted to radical social democratic policies in the 1960s and 1970s, with a gradual reversal beginning in the mid 1980s. The social democratic period was not successful, as it led to much lower entrepreneurship, the crowding out of private sector job production and an erosion of previously strong work and benefit norms. The move towards high taxes, relatively generous government benefits and a regulated labour market preceded a situation in which Swedish society has had difficulty integrating even highly-educated immigrants, and where a fifth of the population of working age are supported by various forms of government welfare payments.

It is also important to remember that Sweden, like other Scandinavian nations, has compensated for policies of high taxes and welfare benefits by improving economic liberty in other fields. Some reforms, such as the partial privatisation of the mandatory pensions system and voucher systems in schools and healthcare surpass reforms in most developed nations. Since these reforms, and the reduction in taxes from the very-high levels of the 1970s to mid 1980s, Swedish relative economic performance has improved.

Swedish society is not necessarily moving away from the idea of a welfare state, but continual reforms are being implemented that increase economic liberty and incentives for work within the scope of the welfare system. Such trends are also visible in Finland and Denmark, with only oil-rich Norway being an exception.

Recession: Why We're So Gloomy

Time (via Carpe Diem): Recession: Why We're So Gloomy

Well, why are Americans so gloomy, fearful and even panicked about the current economic slump? U.S. consumers seem suddenly disillusioned with the American Dream of rising prosperity. Hard times are forcing some people to turn their back on the American Dream. 

"Whining" hardly captures the extent of the gloom Americans feel as the current downturn. The slump is the longest, if not the deepest, since the Great Depression. Traumatized by layoffs that have cost million of jobs during the slump, U.S. consumers have fallen into their deepest funk in years. 

While some economists have described the current slump as a near depression, that phrase overstates the case if it is taken as a comparison with the period 1929-33, when the U.S. economy contracted by nearly a third. The D word becomes more valid, especially with a small d, when it is used to compare the growth rate of the 1930s, which averaged 0.5% a year, with the expected sluggishness of the next decade, which some economists predict will see an average growth rate of 2%. 

"I'm worried if my kids can earn a decent living and buy a house," says Tony Lentini, vice president of Mitchell Energy in Houston. "I wonder if this will be the first generation that didn't do better than their parents. There's a genuine feeling that the country has gotten way off track, and neither political party has any answers. Americans don't see any solutions." 

The deeper tremors emanate from the kind of change that occurs only once every few decades. America is going through a historic transition from a heedless borrow-and-spend society to one that stresses savings and investment. When this recession is over, America will not simply go back to business as usual. 

The underlying change in the way American consumers and business leaders think about saving and spending will make the recovery one of the slowest in history and the next decade one of lowered expectations. Many economists agree that the U.S. will face at least several years of very modest growth as consumers and companies work off the vast debt they assumed in the last decade.  ...

By the way, the date of this article? January 13, 1992! ;-)

Welcome to 1940s New York City

Welcome to 1940s New York

This website is soooo cool! Here is a description of their work.

In 1943, four local newspapers published a New York City Market Analysis. Largely forgotten in the 70 years since, the document provides an amazing window into New York's neighborhoods of that era.

The 250-page Market Analysis provides hundreds of photos & color-coded maps, statistics, and short narratives about neighborhoods across the city. The statistics and maps are based on the 1940 Census, providing a rich complement to the individual 1940 Census records that are available online.

The Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center is making the 1943 profiles available to provide context for the 1940 Census records and to offer a research aid to historians and anyone else interested in learning more about New York from the 1940s. Read our announcement for more info.

Our Welcome to 1940s New York website displays a map of New York divided into the 116 neighborhoods that are covered in the 1943 Market Analysis. You can:

•  
  • move your mouse over the map to highlight the 1940 neighborhood names compared with current areas;
  • click on the map to display a high-resolution scanned version of each neighborhood profile;
  • select any of the scanned pages from the 1943 document (including city- and boro-wide maps) listed in the left-hand panel; and
  • zoom in on the photos and color-coded neighborhood map to see the images in great detail.

We have also analyzed some of the demographic changes in New York City between 1940 and 2010. Please visit CUR's website for more info.

Please let us know what you think.

Welcome to 1940s New York City

Welcome to 1940s New York

This website is soooo cool! Here is a description of their work.

In 1943, four local newspapers published a New York City Market Analysis. Largely forgotten in the 70 years since, the document provides an amazing window into New York's neighborhoods of that era.

The 250-page Market Analysis provides hundreds of photos & color-coded maps, statistics, and short narratives about neighborhoods across the city. The statistics and maps are based on the 1940 Census, providing a rich complement to the individual 1940 Census records that are available online.

The Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center is making the 1943 profiles available to provide context for the 1940 Census records and to offer a research aid to historians and anyone else interested in learning more about New York from the 1940s. Read our announcement for more info.

Our Welcome to 1940s New York website displays a map of New York divided into the 116 neighborhoods that are covered in the 1943 Market Analysis. You can:

•  
  • move your mouse over the map to highlight the 1940 neighborhood names compared with current areas;
  • click on the map to display a high-resolution scanned version of each neighborhood profile;
  • select any of the scanned pages from the 1943 document (including city- and boro-wide maps) listed in the left-hand panel; and
  • zoom in on the photos and color-coded neighborhood map to see the images in great detail.

We have also analyzed some of the demographic changes in New York City between 1940 and 2010. Please visit CUR's website for more info.

Please let us know what you think.

Top 25 Failed Products

Daily Finance: Top 25 Biggest Product Flops of All Time

Here is their top 10. Any nominations?

1.  New Coke

2.  Ford Edesl

3.  Sony Betamax

4.  McDonald’s Arch Deluxe

5.  R J Reynolds Smokeless Cigarettes

6.  Maxwell House Ready to Drink Coffee

7.  Ben-Gay Aspirin

8.  Harley-Davidson Perfume

9.  Corfam Fake Leather

10.  Bic Underwear