It is right in front of Mar Chiquita. Ruining the most beautiful place on the island.
On Tuesday in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Zurab Tsereteli’s huge sculpture of Christopher Columbus was inaugurated. At 350ft, Birth of a New World is not the tallest sculpture in existence. For example, Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit, in the London Olympic Park, is 25ft taller. But Tsereteli’s work is enormous, 45ft taller than the Statue of Liberty from pedestal to torch.
They find GDP tends to grow much faster under Democratic presidents (averaging 4.33% per year) than Republican presidents (averaging 2.54% per year)….The authors find two important factors that might be expected to matter but don’t: fiscal policy and monetary policy. The GDP growth gap cannot be simply explained by higher government spending during Democratic presidencies or wiser policy coming from the Fed; if anything, Republican presidents may have gotten slightly more economic growth when they had their preferred fiscal and monetary policies in place.Instead, developments from abroad seemed to do the most to help explain the growth gap: oil price shocks, and war (through its effect on defense spending). Oil prices cooperated during the early years of the period under study, including the Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson presidencies. But rising prices held the economy back during the mid 1970s, early 1990s, and mid 2000s when Republicans were in power.Wartime mobilization may be an even bigger factor in explaining the gap, especially given the differential timing for Democrats and Republicans. Truman and Johnson oversaw increases in defense spending during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, while Eisenhower and Nixon oversaw the drawdowns. The authors show that if they eliminate just the Truman and first Eisenhower terms from the analysis, the GDP gap shrinks by about 20%.Greater productivity growth (possibly reflecting a quicker pace of technological change), more consumer confidence, and faster economic growth in Europe during Democratic terms also contributed to the gap to varying degrees over this period.The authors note that these factors are less obviously related to economic policy levers, but they could still reflect aspects of presidential influence.The price of oil, the global economy, overseas events that lead to wartime mobilization — all could be responding in part to U.S. foreign policy, so some of the GDP gap may be a reflection of how Democratic and Republican presidents have conducted diplomacy abroad. Productivity gains, too, could potentially result from systematically different policy decisions about regulation, innovation, and basic research, although the authors don’t focus on finding specific policy choices that might explain the gap.Furthermore, as much as 45% of the GDP gap isn’t explained by any of the factors listed above, so the authors conclude with an invitation for others to try to deduce other factors that can explain the divergent economic performance of Democratic and Republican presidents.
Source: American Economic Association
Went with Elliot last night. Very enjoyable given the context. I really liked his arrangement of Blowin’ in the Wind. He mostly played current stuff, and some standards.
The Returns to Medical School: Evidence from Admission Lotteries Nadine Ketel Edwin Leuven Hessel Oosterbeek Bas van der Klaauw American Economic Journal: Applied Economics vol. 8, no. 2, April 2016 (pp. 225-54)
Abstract: We exploit admission lotteries to estimate the returns to medical school in the Netherlands. Using data from up to 22 years after the lottery, we find that in every single year after graduation doctors earn at least 20 percent more than people who end up in their next-best occupation. Twenty-two years after the lottery the earnings difference is almost 50 percent. Only a small fraction of this difference can be attributed to differences in working hours and human capital investments. The returns do not vary with gender or ability, and shift the entire earnings distribution.
Source: American Economic Association
The Federal Reserve has abandoned hope of raising interest rates at its next meeting in June, but Fed officials say they are still thinking seriously about raising rates in July or September. Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, who said a few weeks ago that she expected the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate “in the coming months,” omitted those words from a Monday speech, indicating the reported weakness of job growth in May has caused the Fed to rethink its plans. But Ms. Yellen delivered a generally upbeat assessment of economic conditions. While describing the May jobs report as “concerning,” she also emphasized that it was just one piece of data and that other economic indicators, including wage growth, paint a considerably brighter picture.
Source: Janet Yellen Speech Indicates Fed Will Rethink Interest-Rate Plans
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
An intro into the fundamentals of data analysis and visualization using Stata.
Source: Stata Cheatsheets
I saw Crooked Timber recommend the novel so I rushed out and borrowed Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning from interlibrary loan. Yes, I can see the appeal. It is very dense, very intellectual, very imaginative. The big “reveals” are good. The writing is fine. Lot’s of dialogue, in archaic style, so hard to evaluate the writing itself. I didn’t find it particularly transporting.
In the end, though, I found myself wondering all sorts of things about why I was not “liking” the novel. My thoughts coalesced around three reasons.
But I don’t want to be too critical. I read the whole thing, and enjoyed many parts of it, and appreciated the imagination and effort that went into writing something so ambitious. I am sure many readers will come to love the novel.
I do not want to take anything away from Alex Haley. I watched Roots as a child (dubbed in Spanish!) and as a junior in college I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X straight through one summer. I loved both.
But I think it is possible to make up a story about Roots that exaggerates its impact, especially when nothing other than the Nielsen rating is presented as evidence. Why would an academic do that? The tagline should give a hint: “Matthew F. Delmont, a professor of history at Arizona State University, is the author of the forthcoming “Making Roots: A Nation Captivated.”” So… he has a pretty darn big financial and career interest in making it sound like Roots was “revolutionary.” In his words:
[“Roots”] made the slave trade and black history inescapable parts of national popular culture and produced a unique moment when ordinary Americans talked about slavery in workplaces, bars, churches and schools… “Roots” was a hit because no one had ever read or seen anything like it.
To which the Wikipedia entry for Maya Angelou provides a ready riposte:
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on The New York Times paperback bestseller list for two years.
We might also think of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison. And by the way, That Nigger’s Crazy by Richard Pryor won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album for 1974: “You better get your ass back to Mars, you done landed on Mr. Gilmore’s property.” And: “Officer, I am reaching into my pocket for my license.”
My recollection is that Ms. Christakis in some sense escalated by calling such an attempt to social norm a “transfer of power”… by invoking power, perhaps, a battle that did not have to be engaged was engaged. But here I am acting as if people read things carefully and act according to nuances of wording. Silly me.
The couple stirred debate last fall, after Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee wrote a memo warning students against wearing culturally or racially insensitive Halloween costumes. Ms. Christakis responded with a long, searching email of her own, wondering whether Yale students really wanted to cede authority over their Halloween costumes to the administration. “Are we all O.K. with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in young people’s capacity — in your capacity — to exercise self-censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you?” she wrote. She added, “Is there really no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious?”
Source: Yale Professor and Wife, Targets of Protests, Resign as College Heads – The New York Times
I am advising a student who is interested in exploring development issues in Kenya. So here is a top-five list of books to read.
Pavé de bonnes intentions, The Last Face réunit tous les poncifs et horreurs imaginables : l’exhibition de corps ensanglantés, découpés par des machettes, troués par des mitraillettes, des femmes violées jusqu’à la mort. Certes, Penn nous plonge dans un hôpital de fortune en pleine guerre civile, mais est-il vraiment nécessaire de couper une jambe en direct, de pratiquer une césarienne à grand écran avec une bouteille de Whiskey comme seul sédatif, pour enfin rester de spectateurs impuissants, privés de tout contexte.
Source: «The Last Face», l’Afrique mitraillée par les bonnes intentions de Sean Penn – RFI
I came across José Amador’s book Medicine and Nation Building in the Americas, 1890-1940 (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). Nice chapter on Bailey Ashford’s hookworm eradication campaign in Puerto Rico. Amador nicely draws out the public health circuits and networks that enabled these campaigns to succeed. And he does not neglect the racism (literally: back then everyone was thinking “race this, race that”) that pervaded government policy across the Americas and within the elites of the various countries he considers.
I was listening to some of the radio broadcast on NPR for Holocaust remembrance day, Thursday, and one of the survivors mentioned Kielce, as something that happened after liberation. I had never heard of it, so was very surprised to read about how 42 Jews were basically killed in cold blood in Kielce, Poland, in July 1946, a full year after the end of WWII in Europe. They were trying to resettle and restart their lives. Very tragic story.
Rutu Modan’s The Property… I now see it in a new light.
Julia Pirotte was a young Polish-French photographer who had been in the French resistance, and she came upon the scene shortly after the killing had ended. Her photos are in the Yad Vashem archives.
When I was in college I read Zazie dans le métro, and remember quite liking it. Some years ago I picked up Exercises de style, which should be read pretty much by anyone who claims to like literature. So I was predisposed to like Un rude hiver, and the short novel did not disappoint. Not much plot: a widower and slightly wounded veteran wanders through his life in Le Havre in 1916. A creepy Lolita-ish theme (you never know whether Lehameau in the end is marrying the prostitute Madeleine or her teenager sister Annette), is perhaps just an excuse for the playing with language. Did Nabokov read Queneau? Certainly… and possibly he even read Un rude hiver… there is a Masters thesis here waiting for someone. For English-speaking readers, Queneau’s transliteration of Lehameau’s occasional attempts to speak English to Miss Weeds (the WAC officer who speaks perfect French) cannot fail but bring a smile.
A very nice review by Didier Garcia is here.
Over the weekend I read two Niq Mhlongo short novels, Dog Eat Dog and After Tears. They are full of energy and vivid description. Very sexually explicit. Gritty, dirty, occasionally funny, and of course very poignant. The writing is not great (a better editor would be very helpful), and the plotting leaves something to be desired (the denouement of After Tears is just an afterthought). For a nascent South African “hip-hop” literary scene, and an opportunity for young adult readers from townships and other poverty-stricken areas of South Africa to hold up the mirror and see their own lives in literature, the novels probably cannot be beat.
Here is Niq Mhlongo as part of a panel on new South African writing. At 28:57 an interesting exchange referring to Thomas Sankara!
My colleague Kris Mitchener reminded me that back in the 1840s there were state defaults on debt. I had thought that that legal avenue had been closed to states. I am no constitutional lawyer, and of course with all things legal, there is never a clear answer. But I found this short article helpful. (The main issue in Puerto Rico as I understand it is not really about the government itself defaulting on general obligation bonds, but rather other government entities or instrumentalities defaulting.)
“There are two reasons why state governments currently cannot use the federal bankruptcy system to reorganize their debt. First, the federal bankruptcy code does not allow—and has never allowed—state governments to declare bankruptcy. Since 1937, the bankruptcy code has allowed ‘municipalities’ to declare bankruptcy. The term ‘municipality’ is defined in the bankruptcy code as a ‘political subdivision or public agency or instrumentality of a state.’ This definition is broad enough to include cities, counties, townships, school districts and public improvement districts. It also includes revenue-producing bodies that provide services which are paid for by users rather than by general taxes, such as bridge authorities, highway authorities and gas authorities. But it does not include state governments.“
The second reason stems from the U.S. Constitution. The contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits state governments from ‘impairing the obligation of contracts.’ As originally understood and enforced, this clause prohibited state legislatures from passing any laws to relieve either private debt or the state government’s own debt. Beginning in 1934, however, the Supreme Court began to interpret the contracts clause more flexibly and not as an absolute bar to state debt relief laws. Even under the flexible modern approach, however, the Supreme Court in 1977 reiterated that ‘a state cannot refuse to meet its legitimate financial obligations simply because it would prefer to spend the money (on something else.)’ Thus, were Congress to amend the federal bankruptcy code to authorize states to repudiate debt, the Supreme Court would then need to decide the novel constitutional question of whether such debt repudiation would nonetheless violate the contracts clause of Article I, Section 10.”
Elliot Kevane, San Jose tennis: He won two matches in straight sets to complete an undefeated season at No. 1 singles as San Jose won its league championship.
I have been remiss in not regularly posting. Here’s my suggestions for your leisure time.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, that just won the Pulitzer Prize. I read it about a month ago and enjoyed it. I think it has special resonance for someone living in San Jose. Old-timer Vietnamese are walking around every day in my neighborhood downtown. Makes me see them in a new light; I “sympathize.” It is a complex and ambitious novel. I didn’t think it worked at the end, just went on too long and tried to get very metaphysical. Needlessly, I thought. The first two thirds are gripping and a delight to read. It is a clever, self-aware novel, but still profound.
Stephen Jarvis’s Death and Mr. Pickwick did not win the Pulitzer. It should win something else: The Rambling Prize for Catering to Literary-Minded Readers Who Love Literary Ecosystems and Dot-Connecting. Hey, that’s me! This 800 pager is so ambitious, so full of trivia, with so little plot (Robert Seymour becomes England’s premier cartoonist/caricaturist/illustrator, only to have his Mr. Pickwick idea hijacked by the writer of the copy, Charles Dickens, and in despair he commits suicide, and Dickens and publisher then claim all the credit for the surprise success of the “novel”), and so deliberately modeled on a Pickwickian smorgasbord of characters and vignettes, that it can feel overwhelming. The book easily makes you want to stay up all night, finding Seymour’s prints on Wikipedia, on ebay (I can buy one for only $100… hmmm), and learning ever more historical trivia. Gadzooks!
Occupied. Pretty good Netflix drama, produced in Norway. About 10 episodes. The Norwegians try to stop pumping natural gas and oil. The Russians, at the behest of the Europeans, dependent on cheap energy, take over in a kind of protectorate. Great subtle politics ensue, marred by a competing desire to turn the story into an action thriller. Good production values.
Music? How about Kasey Chambers – Oh Grace. This live version is OK, the recorded version much better.
Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)
Michael Kevane 