NYT Mag

To anyone remotely interested in economics of any sort, this past weekend's NYT Mag was awesome. Adam Davidson's ability to explain econ to lay people is exceptional.

For example, Mitt Romney's business partner is a delusional douchebag. (What a surprise!) Inequality is good because it inspires people to take risks and try to innovate. (Never mind Volcker's spot-on ATM quote, or any of the issues that Davidson raises.)

McDonald's is still horrible.

Couponers. Or, people who eat only processed food-like things and don't understand the monetary value of their time.

Jeff Sachs, Bill Easterly, Andrei Schleifer, and a bunch of other economists have weighed in on how to help other countries develop, so Paul Romer thought he'd join the party. Best of luck.

And unrelated, but cool: NYT held an essay contest to justify why eating meat is ethical. The winner? "Basically, it's not." Because seriously, it's not. Global warming is real, people. Says the guy who's made 16 intercontinental flights in the last 10 months.
[Update: Oops. I'm talking about the landslide popular vote winner, not the judges' mediocre choice.]

What a happy blog post!

Comments

  1. Marcus9:21 PM

    Did you even read the winning essay?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Onion1:35 AM

    Oh, my bad. The winner in my mind was the winner by popular vote when I saw the vote totals last week. The "Basically, it's not" essay (I’m About to Eat Meat for the First Time in 40 Years) won 38% of the vote, and the judge's pick won only 14%. So I think the judges are stupid.
    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/20/magazine/ethics-eating-meat.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S...
Read more

Hardrock 34:42

Image
It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel...
Read more

Should I run UTMB?

That's it, the title is the post. No, of course that's not the post, but I am wondering. My schedule has filled in a bit for the year. I'm now signed up for: Orcas 100 (Feb), Paiute Meadows 50K (May), Scout Mountain 100 (June), TRT 100 (July), and hope to run the fun runs Lupine Loopfest (Feb), Desolate Peaks (August), and Euchre Bar Massacre (October). But the big news is that I got selected in the UTMB lottery. I have until the 29th of January to confirm my registration. For the non-runners: UTMB is a 106-mile loop around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy, starting and ending in Chamonix. By all accounts it is spectacularly beautiful and very difficult, with about 33,000 feet of climbing. For most of my running life I haven't really cared about European races or followed European runners, but I got swept up in the spectacle of it last year. It was the race's 20th year, an American man finally won (Jim), and also finished second (Zack), and Courtney...
Read more