Monthly Archives: November 2013

Wealth Illusions

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Arnold Kling

From Frederick Taylor’s The Downfall of Money: In the end, no one really got their money, not even the Americans. Germany used the American loans it received under the 1924 Dawes plan to pay reparations to the French and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, links to my essays, PSST and Macro, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 6 Comments

Development, Test, and Production

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Arnold Kling

Here is an interview with Robert N. Charette. I haven’t seen any indication of who’s doing the configuration management. Typically in a large system, you have a master configuration list and a change control board, so people can say, “This … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Healthcare.gov Could Have Been Worse

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Arnold Kling

CNN reports, On the first day, there was a big problem that we hadn’t heard about before. “There was a fix regarding residency for Medicaid and CHIP that was not fixed correctly and is denying … 90% of people based … Continue reading →

Posted in business economics | 1 Comment

What I’m Reading

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Arnold Kling

1. The Nov.-Dec. issue of Technology Review is one of the best in a long time. I liked the article on the fall-off in editorial participation at Wikipedia, the article on the challenges with making driverless cars practical, and especially … Continue reading →

Posted in books and book reviews | 4 Comments

Judging the Education Olympics

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Arnold Kling

Timothy Taylor writes, The OECD has also published its own first tabulation of these results, with much additional discussion, in OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. It note that only three countries have below-average … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, Timothy Taylor is my Favorite Blogger | 3 Comments

The Real Government Balance Sheet

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Arnold Kling

Cullen Roche writes, total fossil fuel resources owned by the Federal government are valued at over $150 trillion alone. Pointer from Mark Thoma. My guess is that land is the largest real asset of the government. So there is a … Continue reading →

Posted in government debt crisis | 8 Comments

Fantasy Despot Syndrome

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Arnold Kling

In this essay, I offer a deeper diagnosis of the problems with healthcare.gov. Cutler’s memo strikes me as shallow and self-serving. He is shocked, shocked to find that when his pet health care reforms are passed through the political process, … Continue reading →

Posted in business economics, Libertarian Thought | 8 Comments

Judging the Health Care Olympics

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Arnold Kling

Avik Roy writes, What’s just as interesting is that Japan, the country that tops the overall life expectancy tables, finished in the middle of the pack on cancer survival. He finds, as have others (John Goodman comes to mind), that … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Health Care, links to my essays | 10 Comments

Social Heterogeneity in Real Wages

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Arnold Kling

From my latest essay. for middle- and upper-income parents, it is a matter of taste if one chooses to spend a substantial sum to send a child to an elite preschool, or to live in a neighborhood with an elite … Continue reading →

Posted in income distribution-wealth-poverty, statistical methods | 1 Comment

The Minogue Litmus Test

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Arnold Kling

My review of The Servile Mind is available. I do not think liberaltarians or bleeding-heart libertarians will be comfortable with Minogue’s swipes at cultural decadence. My conclusion: Overall, I would say that for libertarians Minogue’s book provides a litmus test. … Continue reading →

Posted in books and book reviews, Libertarian Thought, Three-Axes Model | 5 Comments