Interesting Readings for December 29, 2010

Since most of us in India can talk about little else other than corruption, do read this article by Nauro F. Campos and Ralitza Dimova on voxEU which is an interesting meta-analysis about papers which analyze the impact of corruption on growth. I have long heard about meta-analysis, but this one made me sit up and notice.

Anand Giridharadas in the New York Times on Arthur Bunder Road in Bombay.

Roger Bate and Tom Woods, in The American, point to a new dimension in India’s crisis of fake medicines.

II Sc will now use the IIT JEE as their entrance examination for the new Bachelor in Science course. Given that the IIT JEE is a well managed and difficult examination, it would make sense to have more and more schools plugging into it in order to filter their intake. But as you move away from the top .01% of the distribution, the statistical precision of the score on a very difficult exam as a measure of student capability tends to decline. The managers of the IIT JEE will need to shift towards adaptive testing, where the questions are dynamically modified based on student characteristics, in order to retain efficiency across the distribution. Once this is done, the IIT JEE would be useful for sifting through millions of students, and exert a beneficial effect of all of them facing a more demanding high-stakes examination.

Shobhana Subramanian in the Financial Express on C. B. Bhave.

A fascinating article by Nicolai Ourussoff in the New York Times about the attempt to reinvent Saudi Arabia.

Sadness about Europe by Orhan Pamuk in the New York Review of Books, and a tragic perspective on Istanbul by Claire Berlinski in City Journal.

A dystopian future for the world: a story of ageing and depopulation from Amakusa in Japan.

Liu Xiaobo’s beautiful acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Peace. A lot of countries of the world, including India, have much to do in order to achieve freedom.

Philippines?

Tourism in Afghanistan by Damon Tabor.

Steven Johnson in the Financial Times on the future of linking to information sources on the web.

With 75% of world GDP in service, trade liberalisation in agriculture or manufacturing is not that important. The really big story is trade liberalisation in services, and there the picture is quite bad. Read this article on voxEU by Bernard Hoekman and Aaditya  Matoo on how to obtain progress.

Understanding the rise in currency turnover by Michael R. King and Dagfinn Rime on voxEU.

Anders Aslund, on Project Syndicate, on the remarkable story of the global crisis as it played out in East Europe. Also see this
story
in The Economist on the same subject, which is a bit less optimistic. The recovery in East Europe matters for recovery in Europe and elsewhere. It also illuminates our thinking on some of the grand policy questions.

David Alexander points out how Australia is the role model for the world.

Barry Eichengreen, Daniel Gros and Ila Patnaik on the resolution of Europe’s problems.

Devin Friedman in GQ on the strange world of social networking.

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Daily Quips for November 19, 2009

Given the massive volume of ridiculous news stories revealing the travesties occurring in this country on a daily basis, I have decided to start regularly posting my thoughts on selected pieces each day. I will continue of course to produce lengthier more substantive pieces as well.

Without further ado, I present today’s Daily Quips:

As Pamela over at Atlas Shrugs highlights, AG Eric Holder gave his opinion on bringing KSM to justice in Manhattan, the site of his heinous crimes. Holder boldly asserted, “we need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.” In light of the remarks of government officials such as Henry Paulson:It’s a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it,” Barney Frank (on Fannie and Freddie): “I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially” and Barack Obama: “But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere,” all signs indicate that we should be running scared. If a bigwig politician tells you things are safe and sound, things naturally must be in awfully bad shape.

Obama saidif we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.” Thank you captain obvious for the biggest understatement I have ever seen. First off, people are losing confidence in the USD and our economy as reflected in the rallies in foreign currencies and equity markets. Most importantly, the price of gold has been making new nominal highs on a daily basis. You think there might be consequences to quadrupling our deficit in less than a year of being President? You think there might be consequences to the fact that we have unfunded liabilities of over $100 trillion? The One may be the most enlightened President since George W. Bush.

The Press is doing everything they can to bring down Sarah Palin. Regardless of how you feel about her, and honestly I am not close to having fully formed a judgment about the woman, the hypocrisy of the media here is sickening. The double standard that the media employs when it comes to how they treat liberals versus conservatives, and in-particular wholesome middle-American female conservatives is abominable. The MSM has not fact-checked one thing about President Obama, yet they have repeatedly beaten Sarah Palin to death. I don’t care what your political leanings, the behavior of the media towards the former governor has been and continues to be beyond disgraceful.

POTUS Obama is “furious” about the leaks coming from the Afghanistan deliberations. I agree with him, these leaks are harmful to our troops. Almost as harmful as the fact that it is taking him MONTHS of playing with our soldiers’ lives to make a decision! Maybe if he had a firm grasp of the situation and acted accordingly there wouldn’t be time for all of these leaks. I am all for taking the time to make a prudent decision but something tells me Afghanistan is more about politics than national defense for this administration.

Barry Ritholtz over at the Big Picture illustrates why we are doomed for a long and painful Depression. The more you see the policies being enacted by this administration, and compare them to those of Hoover and FDR, the more you get the sense that this isn’t Barack Obama merely being naive, but actually intentionally trying to plunge us into the economic abyss.