TGIF Links

Happy Friday. Mubarak being asinine and refusing to step down is pushing up the price of gold, which is costing me a bit of cash right now so I have my work cut out for me today. With that in mind, here are some quick links to cool stuff that I've had starred in Google Reader for awhile:

Picture via (Adventure Journal)

Michael Jordan suits up for practice (ESPN)

Mystery solved: Pat Burrell is Brian Wilson's 'The Machine' (Deadspin)

Mob mentality explored. Careful, its a long one (You Are Not So Smart)

Skiing with Mom (Adventure Journal)

I see your hammock and raise you one Nestrest Portable Shelter (Adventure Journal)

Eddie Bauer is moving into the ski industry hard. Here is their somewhat promo (Outside Mag Blog)

Community Supported Agriculture (Robb Wolf)

Candide Thovex goes off (Adventure Journal)

If Reagan were a GOP candidate today. Awesome. (TBP)

Last week's Weekend Cabin (Adventure Journal)

Speedflying Cable Grind. Ridiculous (AJ)

The World is Actually Getting Safer

The Amateur Thinker has post about the world getting better despite all the forthcoming-apocolypse hyperbole. I tend to fall into the camp that things are getting worse more so than better, but perhaps I'm just eating what is being spoon-fed to me by a sensationalist media? I'd be interested to really peel back the statistics and see how everything is thought through, but not so interested to actually do it. There are ample footnotes for anyone who might be intrigued.

My biggest red flag is that he mentions Stalinist Russia and WWII. I'm not concerned with large-scale events so much as the day-to-day life. If that is truly being included in the calculations, then I think we have an entirely different story. Abortion rates and teenage pregnancy decreasing are certainly good news though.

Read the full article here (via Ritholtz)

The Rise and Fall of America

Read the story here. Here is the intro:

Alexander Tytler (1747-1813) was a Scottish-born English lawyer and historian. Reportedly, Tytler was critical of democracies, pointing to the history of democracies such as Athens and its flaws, cycles, and ultimate failures. Although the authenticity of his following quote is often disputed, the words have eerie relevance today:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by dictatorship

Best thinking on Egypt

I got burned a little overnight on the rally in gold on overheated Egypt fears. I read this piece today from The Big Picture. It is the best thinking I have read so far on the situation in Egypt that both the WSJ and the NYT have missed.

Read the article here

Former CEO of IBM's Op-Ed in the WSJ

Don't miss Louis Gerstner's piece in the WSJ and Barry Ritholtz's follow-up. To me the ideas aren't inherently ground-breaking, they are just summarized and explored more eloquently than I could hope to.

Friday Quick Links

Interesting (if scatter-brained) stuff to click on:

Any Hope for Improving the Fed? - Disappointments with Fed's performance as a macro stabilizer (Macro and Other Market Musings) 

Swiss National Mountain Biking Trail Allows you to just show up and ride - Sounds really cool and the pictures are gorgeous. They do your itinerary, accommodations, even your bike (€20/day for double-boing and disc brakes)! I might need to find two weeks in the summer to do this next year. (Adventure Journal)

Sarah Palin is full of it (again) - She vacillates conveniently between angry woman that understands the economy and simple hockey mom/former governor. At least someone calls her out on it. (The Big Picture) Even if the general public won't notice. Would it be too much to ask for a politician that is intelligent AND doesn't actively try to screw us? Seems like we get one or the other, often neither, never both. 

Having my best week of business yet (predictably high volatility in gold price and GBP/USD helps). I have worn the same pants/boots to work every day and will not change them or wash them until I have a mediocre day. If there is anything baseball taught me: YOU NEVER MESS WITH A WINNING STREAK. At least its not thong underwear

Tony Blair on Muslim Integration

Interesting Opinion piece in the WSJ today by Tony Blair about Muslim integration in the UK. My favorite quote (emphasis mine):

However, some don't integrate. But when we talk about this in general terms, without precision, for fear of "stigmatizing" Muslims, we alienate public opinion and isolate the majority of Muslims who are integrating and want to be as much part of our society as any other group. Then, because we won't identify the problem as it is, a subterranean debate takes the place of an open one, and that debate lumps all Muslims together. So in the interest of "defending" the Muslim community, we actually segregate it by refusing to have an honest debate about what is happening. 


I think the former PM has articulated well a point that causes alot of issues in the US as well: We are so concerned about avoiding culturally sensitive topics that we end up skipping thoughtful discussion altogether and indirectly contributing to xenophobia. I think this is particularly true regarding the Mexican immigrants in the southwest. The lack of authentic consideration results in diametrically opposed groups with guns drawn across lines in the sand, completely unwilling to negotiate. 


Of course, another factor is the sound-byte era where we boil any sort of discussion to either pro- or anti- hot-button issue or a candidate as a referendum on their opponent. The result, in my opinion, are these radical, thoughtless swings in political ideology: Bush sucks, so we elect anti-Bush (=Obama for those of you playing at home). Obama isn't doing enough to save the economy (I have issues with that statement, but that's for another discussion), so we elect a wave of anti-Obama Tea Party candidates, some of whom have terrifyingly little intelligent thought. At some point we have to stop jerking the steering wheel from one side to the other anytime we stray from our chosen lane of travel.


One interesting side effect of being across the pond is that I tend to be even further removed from the political discourse than I was previously. My sound-byte on the subject: We (the U.S.) look stupid.

Voting is Irrational

I have long made this argument, glad to see it in the mainstream media (NYT: Why Vote?). Of course, this violates my incentive to keep those around me voting, but the marginal benefit I get in sharing this information outweighs this cost. Here's an excerpt:

Still, people do continue to vote, in the millions. Why? Here are three possibilities:

1. Perhaps we are just not very bright and therefore wrongly believe that our votes will affect the outcome.

2. Perhaps we vote in the same spirit in which we buy lottery tickets. After all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy.

3. Perhaps we have been socialized into the voting-as-civic-duty idea, believing that it's a good thing for society if people vote, even if it's not particularly good for the individual. And thus we feel guilty for not voting.

But wait a minute, you say. If everyone thought about voting the way economists do, we might have no elections at all. No voter goes to the polls actually believing that her single vote will affect the outcome, does she? And isn't it cruel to even suggest that her vote is not worth casting?

This is indeed a slippery slope - the seemingly meaningless behavior of an individual, which, in aggregate, becomes quite meaningful. 

The People Have Spoken: Congress = bad

Check out this post at the Reformed Broker re: Congressional approval ratings generally, by party and compared to Obama. Not good.

Stadiums and the Sport Economist

If you have never checked out The Sports Economist, do so. Its interesting analysis of economic principles applied to sports. Their big kick has been about the public disaster that is new stadiums (and Olympics, World Cups, etc). The potential economic benefits are always overstated by biased consultants and then the unwitting (or is it witless) public is left with long term debt on an asset that no longer produces enough revenue to fund itself.

Today's example: The Old Giants stadium. According to the NYT:


The old Giants Stadium, demolished to make way for New Meadowlands Stadium, still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident, even though it is now a parking lot.

MacroMan's take on Aussie Politics

As you Yanks may or may not have heard, they have a hung parliament in Oz as of last week's elections (notably different from they have hung parliament). MacroMan's explanation of things and how they may trade off of it:

Article Here

Who Killed the Climate Bill?

Really interesting article from Foreign Policy on "Who Killed the Climate Bill?"

Regardless whether you are relieved or disappointed, almost everyone is surprised in the way that it has fizzled out (after being a campaign priority for Obama) and FP invites 5 experts with varying views to weigh in. They each make interesting points that all seem to have a bit of truth to them. If I did have to choose the two strongest factors:

1. The economy - The Climate Bill is popularly viewed as a tax of some sort regardless of implementation. No one wants to further hamstring an economy and add doubt to growth prospects when we haven't yet seen any encouraging signs of job growth.

2. Obama - Two things happened here: a) Obama decided to throw his political weight behind healthcare reform (so that a supposedly unified house and senate were working on different priorities) and b) The attempted insertion of a climate proposal in last year's spending bill scared alot of people. If climate change is a political priority, why slip it in the back door of an omnibus spending bill?

I think Climategate took alot of wind out of the sails as well in terms of the everyman's confidence in the reality of human-influence on the global climate.

Full article here

 Hat tip Big Picture