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Hardness versus Importance in Economics

“Akerlof’s new article takes off from Ellison’s theory of two dimensions of economics: hardness, and importance, with too much hardness and too little importance in equilibrium. Akerlof lists three reasons: Reason 1: Place in the Scientific Hierarchy. Economists are proud of being more rigorous than anthropologists. Reason 2: The Evaluation Process. Economists want […]

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C. P. Snow, Good Judgement and Winston Churchill

In his essay “Winston Churchill” in Variety of Men, CP Snow says that political judgement means two things, one good and one bad. The good one is “the ability to think of many matters at once, in their interdependence, their relative importance, and their consequences. ” The bad one is more interesting. It is “the […]

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He Lives Well Who Lays Well Hidden, bene qui latuit bene vixit

“He who writes lays bare his soul.” I’m sure this isn’t entirely original, though since it doesn’t show up in Google, I’ve probably improved it. I think it might be from Nietzsche. Another possible version, with alliteration, is “He who writes lays bare his heart.” I just used the quote in the following colloquy […]

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Best People to Follow on Twitter

The best people to follow on Twitter are those who have good insights or, more likely, good taste in curating articles, and who have few worthless tweets. A good ratio is one in ten tweets that are worth reading, but hardly anybody I follow does that well. As I was just discussing on Twitter, to […]

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Economists and Epidemiologists

This needs study. How did the epidemiologists fail us so badly? Or did they? The CDC turned out to be utterly, amazingly, incompetent and counterproductive. People like the Imperial College adulterer didn’t know what they were talking about, despite having the reputation, we are told, of being at the top of their field. Someone should […]

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How to Get a College Education

My son is starting at Purdue Engineering this week. He will get a very good education, but it will not be a real college education. I teach at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. It, too, gives a good education, famous throughout the entire world, but not really a college education. Why do […]

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Humor

#################################### A tweet from Dan McClaughlin: GREATEST GENERATION: Saved civics. SILENT GENERATION: Learned civics in school. BOOMERS: Learned civics to protest. GEN X: Learned civics from Schoolhouse Rock. MILLENNIALS: Didn’t learn civics. GEN Z: What’s civics? #################################### Babylon Bee: Trump Drives Around Playing Mailbox Baseball In Latest […]

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Pastor Doug Wilson on the Authority of the Church to Require Masks

In response to Brad Littlejohn’s Christ and Caesar: A Response to John MacArthur , Pastor Doug Wilson, August 10, 2020, Littlejohn, MacArthur, and the Binding of Conscience writes At Christ Church, we have taken the posture of respecting individual liberty from the beginning. The civil magistrate requires mask-wearing under certain conditions, but we do not […]

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Opinion, Reasoning, and Fact

A lot of people can’t tell the difference between Opinion, Reasoning, and Fact. Those three things all jumble together in their minds as being the same thing. An opinion is a conclusion, an assertion. “My opinion is that covid-19 is much more dangerous to people who have heart disease than to other people.” “Why […]

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Covid19-August 2020

A lot of people can’t tell the difference between Opinion, Reasoning, and Fact. Those three things all jumble together in their minds as being the same thing. An opinion is a conclusion, an assertion. “My opinion is that covid-19 is much more dangerous to people who have heart disease than to other people.” “Why […]