~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (25)

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, along with almost thirty minutes of audience questions, filmed in Miami.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it’s a concept we still need today, why Peter’s against Calvinism (and rationalism), whether the Old Testament should […] The post My excellent Conversation with Peter Thiel...

The author is Alex Fernandes, and the subtitle is The Day Portugal’s Dictatorship Fell.  A very good and well-written book, here is one short excerpt: The First Republic is sixteen years of unrelenting chaos, one that sets the scene for the fascist state that follows it. Between 1910 and 1926 Portugal goes through eight presidents […] The post *The Carnation Revolution* appeared first on...

The author is Karthik Muralidharan, and the subtitle is A State-Led Roapmap for Effective Governance.  If you imagine a 600 pp. “state capacity libertarian” take on Indian development this is what you get, admittedly with the libertarian side of the equation downplayed a bit.  Excerpt: A common misconception is that the inefficiencies of the Indian […] The post *Accelerating India’s Development* appeared first on...

By Annie Jacobsen, a very good book.  What would happen if a nuclear weapon actually were launched at the United States?  On the ground?  In the chain of command?  Organizationally and otherwise?  A good book, sadly still of relevance.  Full of drama throughout, and tactically astute.  Excerpt: Ted Postol is blunt.  “Russian early-warning satellites don’t […] The post *Nuclear War: A Scenario* appeared first...

At first people thought that drones favored defense, since Ukraine, in its war against Russia, was defending successfully with drones.  But now Ukraine is using drones to attack Russia, and Russian oil refinery assets and warships.  It is less obvious that drones are defensive assets on net.  Furthermore, Russia is now using more electronic jamming, […] The post Do current trends in drone technology...

Ireland’s effort to remove old-fashioned family values from its constitution suffered a double defeat Saturday as voters rejected the amendments on offer as maddeningly vague and threatening to property rights… In final results announced Saturday night, the amendment to change the constitutional definition of family was rejected by 67.7 percent of voters. The proposed changes […] The post The Irish reject a “Woke” constitutional...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: From both a biomedical and economic point of view, the success of the new class of weight-loss drugs is something to behold. Not only are they a remarkable scientific achievement, but — in the case of Ozempic and Wegovy, both made by […] The post Small countries, big firms appeared first...

This article argues that a society’s level of social trust influences employers’ hiring strategies. Employers can focus either on applicants’ potential and select on foundational skills (e.g., social skills, math skills) or on their readiness and select on more-advanced skills (e.g., pricing a derivative). The higher (lower) the social trust—people’s trust in their fellow members […] The post Hiring on general talent makes more...

BREAKING: Queen Camilla is taking a break from public duties for some "downtime", which means that NONE of the four most senior royals – King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton – are working right now. All is not well with the Royal Family. 💁‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/2sgSrM0Otz — Cillian (@CilComLFC) March 2, 2024 In […] The post Kind of like the NBA All-Star...

Unemployment is low and inflation is falling, but consumer sentiment remains depressed. This has confounded economists, who historically rely on these two variables to gauge how consumers feel about the economy. We propose that borrowing costs, which have grown at rates they had not reached in decades, do much to explain this gap. The cost […] The post Do high interest rates get people...

That sentence starts the abstract, here is the rest of it: Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that issues without clear economic value, such as barren lands, are more likely to be perceived as national interests because they do not benefit any single domestic group. Since who benefits is unclear, politicians have an easier time […] The post What international issues become national interests...

Here is Fareed’s home page, here is Wikipedia: Fareed Rafiq Zakaria…is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time. He was managing editor of Foreign Affairs at age 28, briefly […] The post What should I ask Fareed Zakaria?...

Egypt has agreed to a $35bn deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop the town of Ras el-Hekma town on its northwestern coast, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Friday after weeks of speculations. Madbouly said at a news conference, which was attended by Egyptian and Emirati officials, that Egypt will receive an advance amount of $15bn […] The post Why don’t nations buy and sell...

He titles his post What Tyler and Trump get wrong about NATO, excerpt: I believe that both Trump and Tyler misunderstand the role of Nato. The most important aspect of Nato is not the amount it spends on the military, rather its role is to provide a mutual defense pact so large that no nation […] The post Scott Sumner on Nato appeared first...

I have been following only snippets of the debate over whether Biden should step down as the Democratic nominee, for instance here Josh Marshall responds to Ezra Klein (NYT).  Most of all, I am struck by how little faith some of the commentators have in democratic processes.  Let’s consider a few possible arguments why Biden […] The post Well-functioning democracy for neither me nor...

Correlations between spouses Extraversion: r= .005Neuroticism: .082Height: .227Weight: .154Education: .5Political party: .6 "Mates tend to be positively but weakly concordant on personality and physical traits, but concordance of political attitudes is extremely high" pic.twitter.com/BmdpySfakh — Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) February 10, 2024 The post Correlations between spouses appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to joan. “Women don't change their beliefs or ... by...

No, but they did get him some votes there: We study the economic and political consequences of the 2018-2019 trade war between the United States, China and other US trade partners at the detailed geographic level, exploiting measures of local exposure to US import tariffs, foreign retaliatory tariffs, and US compensation programs. The trade-war has […] The post Did the Trump tariffs help the...

That is the focus of my latest Bloomberg column, 2x the normal length.  I cannot cover all the points, but here is one excerpt: The larger theme is becoming evident: AI will radically disrupt power relations in society. AI may severely limit, for instance, the status and earnings of the so-called “wordcel” class. It will […] The post What are the actual dangers of...

Polarization in the traditional sense is not very important: …this study examined the criminal codes of the six largest deep red states and the six largest deep blue states – states in which a single political party has held the governorship and control of both legislative bodies for at least the past three elections. It […] The post How and why do legal codes...

Let us say you favor policy X, and take steps to see that policy X comes about. Under many conditions, people who favor non-X will take additional countervailing steps to oppose X.  And in that case your actions in favor of X, on average, will lead to nothing.  In the meantime, you and also your […] The post Social improvements that don’t create countervailing...

Adrian Wooldridge has an excellent Bloomberg column on this topic, promoting the relevance of Thomas Mann, and here is one excerpt: In the book [Magic Mountain], Castorp falls in with two intellectuals who live in the village of Davos below his sanitorium: an Italian humanist called Lodovico Settembrini and a Jewish-born cosmopolitan called Leo Naphta […] The post Settembrini and the continuing relevance of...

Take the pig’s ear first. Unveiled in 2008 as a $15bn smart city project, Konza Technopolis was supposed to be the heart of Kenya’s “silicon savannah” that, by 2020, would create 100,000 jobs and add 2% to gdp. Three years and many missed deadlines later, there is still far more evidence of savannah than silicon. By […] The post *The Economist* on Tatu City, Kenya...

Probably not forever, but we are living in strange times: Now the theory needs major revision. Political leaders still wish to manipulate economic variables in their favor, of course. But economies, as well as voters, are not going along — and so the standard mechanisms for political business cycle theory are broken… Under political business […] The post Political business cycle theory has been...

I was wondering if you would consider writing a post about the German debt brake in light of recent developments? Personally, I am not a huge fan of discussions about fiscal policy (or even worse, austerity…), as I feel they are mostly Rorschach test without much deep thinking. But I did find the recent developments […] The post Kamil Kovar on the German debt...