Category Archives: Politics

Figures from Eurobarometer, the EU’s polling organisation, analysed by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a thinktank, show a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries such as Spain, Germany and Italy that are historically very pro-European. … Continue reading →

From FRED, a graph of four big, rich countries.  Notice how Japan and Italy utterly stagnated starting in the early 1990s.  By 2012 GDP was only about 10% higher after twenty years!  By contrast, GDP per capita in the U.S. … Continue reading →

Quatorze morts et quatorze blessés dont un dans un état traumatique, tel est le bilan de l’éboulement d’un site minier survenu dans la nuit du samedi 30 novembre au dimanche 1er décembre 2013, aux environs de 1 heure du matin, … Continue reading →

I don’t follow the issue that closely, but this “open letter” to the president of Notre Dame University seems to me to be very provocative, in a “critical thinking” way… Two highly respected and influential Catholic women, Catherine Kaveny and … Continue reading →

Le roi de la rumba congolaise s’est éteint ce week-end à Bruxelles. Le musicien Tabu Ley Rochereau, né à Bandundu en République démocratique du Congo s’était fait connaître en introduisant la batterie dans la rumba. Le chanteur et compositeur n’a … Continue reading →

Here is what she said about the after-school reading program, supported by Chen Yet-Sen Foundation from Hong Kong. My name is Atanga Matilda I am 12 years. I come from Kunkua, I am in class 6. I want to be … Continue reading →

In macroeconomics we talk a lot about total factor productivity.  Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution points today to two good productivity related articles.  The first is on a pretty expensive infrastructure project whose depreciation may make the NPV negative.  Shenzhen’s  … Continue reading →

Finally, in an online world of gratuitous snark, one courageous editor has displayed the vision to give thumbs down to thumbs down. You read that right: no negative reviews.  “Why waste breath talking smack about something?” the recently hired book … Continue reading →

The retraction part is here. A long-simmering feud between the prominent evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers and a colleague at Rutgers University took a strange turn last month, when Mr. Trivers revealed that he had been banned from the New Brunswick … Continue reading →

L’exemple suédois est particulièrement illustratif : une dette publique élevée (proche de 85 % du PIB), un chômage élevé, et une production en stagnation en 1990 ; ensuite une réforme radicale de l’Etat, avec en particulier les effectifs dans le … Continue reading →

But the original is a parody of sexist music… so is this new video an un-ironic self-important humorless “parody” of a misinterpreted rap? Can you do a parody if you have no sense of humor?  Or maybe it is a  … Continue reading →

In financial markets the mechanism for avoiding moral hazard is a bit different, but the principle is the same. The key is to make sure that those who are making the decisions about how to invest other people’s money face … Continue reading →

Because it is, except you’d have to know that inflation in India is running about 7%… mentioned nowhere in the article… Having become accustomed to unlimited low-cost cash, the shift to market-based funding has led to some volatility as banks … Continue reading →

About once a week, Gary Vaynerchuk posts a Twitter message that reads, “Is there anything I can do for you?” He means it literally. He is inviting his roughly one million followers to send requests for any kind of help … Continue reading →

Just saying, from an ordinary user’s perspective. Dropbox did not fail in a year of use. Even from Burkina Faso to Dropbox server. Google Drive can’t even correctly sync from San Jose to Santa Clara.