2. The occasion of Heading West: Janet’s grandmother’s 100th birthday party. First time I have ever met anyone who was 100. She looked good. And, it’s still fun to talk to her. (She likes Romney for President, by the way.)
3. Flying is a drag—but you already knew that.
4. Last weekend, I went to see the Met’s production of Siegfried, the third part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. I think it is time to stop even pretending to review these Met productions. Stunning. Simply Stunning. The Ring Cycle ends early next year. I can’t wait to see it.
5. Reviewing the plot of the opera itself is a bit of a challenge in the other way. The story line in Wagner is hardly the point. Siegfried, a young impetuous hero gradually matures, captures the Ring, and rescues the Girl. The Gods decline; Humans rise. Makes for a happy story line if you are a human.
6. This morning, I gave a talk to the South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce—the annual State of the Economy talk. The talk seemed to go well, but quite honestly, I was pretty tired—I got in last night at 11 pm, but since I was on California time, I didn’t get to sleep until close to 1 AM. Giving a breakfast talk at 8AM was a little rough. I have class and my tutorial still later today. And then I have a talk to attend at 7. I suspect I will sleep well tonight.
7. And, at this point, the Patient Reader is begin to wonder if this post will ever wander onto something, you know, interesting. Your Humble Narrator s wondering the same thing.
8. (Speaking of Your Humble Narrator—someone living in Trabuco Canyon, California did a Google search for “humble christmas card letter” and arrived at this blog. Turns out my blog is the #2 hit on Google if you search for that phrase. Now why anyone would search for that phrase is a genuine mystery.)
9. And now for something completely different: A book review. Banerjee and Duflo’s Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty is simultaneously one of the better books on the new economic thinking about poverty and a good illustration of the problems with books of this type. The author’s are at the forefront of the new move to think about economic development on the small scale. No grand projects here—rather, the idea is to figure out how to make things better for people, one family at a time. For example, if you can get a small retail merchant to save just a little bit for a month, then by using that savings to reduce their debt burden bit by bit, the poor person can get a dramatically improved standard of living in a short time. So, why is it so hard to do these things? That is what the authors study—what are all the small scale frictions which stop poor people from doing easily done things which will make a huge difference in their lives. A host of policy ideas and suggestions later, you have this book. So, what’s the limitation? The book, like all this genre, sprawls. Too much detail, too many good ideas mixed with filler ideas. So, if you like reading books about the latest economic work on development, then this book is for you. (The students in my macroeconomic theory class seemed to like it.) But, if you are only moderately interested in the topic, it’s better to wait for the still-to-be-written book which will synthesize all the interesting ideas from books like this into a Grand Narrative. That book is just waiting to be written. It will sell very well. But, I am not sure who will write it. The problem is that all the people who would naturally write it (like Banerjee and Duflo) are (not surprisingly) more interested in writing a book explaining why their own personal ideas on the subject are the most interesting ones.
10. A few weeks back, I got a copy of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. What a great album—I’ve had it on the truck CD player for weeks now. Now, I’ve never really been a big fan of Bowie (his theatricality doesn’t do much for me) but this album has been a very pleasant surprise. (Much better music quality than in the clip, by the way.)
The first time I went into my office this year (I have one, but I share it with two other people and it's basically an old creepy dorm room), I found a copy of Ziggy Stardust on a book shelf with a couple of old-looking CDs. I immediately pocketed it without asking any questions. It's mine now.
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