Month: July 2016

Bourgeois Ideology Caused the Great Enrichment

(p. A13) What accounts for the wealth and prosperity of the developed nations of the world? How did we get so rich, and how might others join the fold?
Deirdre McCloskey, a distinguished economist and historian, has a clarion answer: ideas. It was ideas, she insists–about commerce, innovation and the virtues that support them–that account for the “Great Enrichment” that has transformed much of the world since 1800.
. . .
. . . , this monumental achievement was caused by a change in values, Ms. McCloskey says–the rise of what she calls, in a mocking nod to Marx, a “bourgeois ideology.” It was far from an apology for greed, however. Anglo-Dutch in origin, the new ideology presented a deeply moral vision of the world that vaunted the value of work and innovation, earthly happiness and prosperity, and the liberty, dignity and equality of ordinary people. Preaching tolerance of difference and respect for the individual, it applauded those who sought to improve their lives (and the lives of others) through material betterment, scientific and technological inquiry, self-improvement, and honest work. Suspicious of hierarchy and stasis, proponents of bourgeois values attacked monopoly and privilege and extolled free trade and free lives while setting great store by prudence, enterprise, decency and hope.

For the full review, see:
DARRIN M. MCMAHON. “BOOKSHELF; The Morality of Prosperity; Grinding poverty was the norm for humanity until 1800. It changed with the rise of values like tolerance and respect for individual liberty.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., June 13, 2016): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date June 12, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital, Transformed the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

King Henry I Might “Have Liked Being Buried Under a Car Park”

(p. A4) LONDON — Looking for a dead medieval king? You might want to check under a parking lot.
That theory, at least, is on the minds of archaeologists and historians in Reading, about 40 miles west of London, who this week will begin searching for the high altar of the abbey founded by King Henry I. They believe that the altar — and, they hope, the king’s remains — could be under the parking lot of a local prison, near the abbey ruins. The area around a nearby nursery school will also be searched.
Nearly four years ago, archaeologists discovered King Richard III’s grave under a parking lot in Leicester, about 100 miles northwest of London, on the site of a former monastery.
. . .
John Mullaney, a historian who is part of the team undertaking the search, said that archaeologists knew “within a few yards” where Henry was probably buried. He said the team would use ground-penetrating radar to search the area around the prison, and around a nearby nursery school.
. . .
As to whether a former monarch would roll in his grave at the prospect of spending eternity under a parking lot, Mr. Mullaney was philosophical.
“I’m afraid that England is a nation of car drivers,” he said. “We are a small country and most people travel by cars, so we need lots of car parks. Henry was a reforming king and would have been fascinated by the idea of cars and transport, and may well have liked being buried under a car park.”

For the full story, see:
DAN BILEFSKY. “The Search Is On for King Henry I, Who May Be Buried Under a Parking Lot.” The New York Times (Tues., JUNE 14, 2016): A4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JUNE 13, 2016, and has the title “Search Is On for King Henry I, Who May Be Buried Under a Parking Lot.”)

How Many Government Staff Members Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb in King Tut’s Display Case?

(p. A7) The intense attention paid by experts to Tutankhamen’s tomb has not always been matched by staff members at the run-down Egyptian Museum. In January the government said eight people at the state-run museum were being disciplined for their role in a botched repair job that caused minor but lasting damage to King Tut’s golden burial mask.
The repair job was an attempt to correct the damage caused by workers who had accidentally knocked the beard from the 3,300-year-old artifact in August 2014 as they repaired a light fixture in its display case.

For the full story, see:
DECLAN WALSH. “King Tut’s Blade, and ‘Iron From the Sky’.” The New York Times (Fri., JUNE 3, 2016): A7.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JUNE 2, 2016, and has the title “King Tut’s Dagger Made of ‘Iron From the Sky,’ Researchers Say.”)

“We Can Fight Back When Our Lives Depend on It”

(p. A23) San Jose, Calif. — I’LL never forget the first piece of safety advice I got when I began my transition from the male body in which I was born to the female body I now occupy: Carry a whistle. If I was attacked, I was supposed to blow it in hopes it would alert some do-gooder to dash into a dark alley to break up a brutal hate crime.
The idea was not only preposterous, it was also insulting. The implication was that I, being transgender, wouldn’t be able to save myself. But I didn’t need a whistle; I had a gun.
Since the attack in Orlando, Fla., many L.G.B.T. groups have been calling loudly for laws restricting gun ownership. But if anyone should be concerned about protecting the individual right to bear arms, it’s L.G.B.T. people. We need to stop preaching nonviolence and voting for politicians who don’t protect us.
Violence toward L.G.B.T. people is real. We are victimized at far greater rates than other minority groups. We often face multiple assailants. The attacks are frenzied and quickly escalate from harassment, to fists, to something altogether different. People die.
If you find yourself in a violent encounter, you’re lucky if you get three seconds to react. If you want to save yourself, you have to go on the offensive. And a whistle isn’t going to cut it.
. . .
But every day, Americans use guns to defend themselves, and they don’t even have to pull the trigger. The mere appearance of a firearm can save their life. Just last week, Tom G. Palmer, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote in an op-ed article in The New York Daily News about an episode in his 20s when he flashed his pistol at a group of men who were threatening to kill him because he was gay — and they retreated.
This is a call to L.G.B.T. people to take their own defense seriously, and to question the left-leaning institutions that tell them guns are bad, and should be left to the professionals. Become a professional. You’re allowed. That’s what the Second Amendment is for. We can fight back when our lives depend on it.

For the full commentary, see:

NICKI STALLARD. “The L.G.B.T. Case for Guns.” The New York Times (Weds., JUNE 22, 2016): A23.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Letter to a Crony Capitalist

(p. B4) . . . , an excellent read is “Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism,” by Jeff Gramm, owner and manager of the Bandera Partners hedge fund and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. This book explores the rise of activist investors like Carl C. Icahn and Daniel S. Loeb.
Mr. Gramm has collected a series of deliciously rich letters, many of which were never before published, sent to chief executives by investors by everyone from Warren Buffett to Ross Perot. They are eye-opening, often chilling and include fascinating lessons about business.
My personal favorite is this letter from Mr. Loeb to the chief executive of Star Gas Partners: “It seems that Star Gas can only serve as your personal ‘honey pot’ from which to extract salary for yourself and family members, fees for your cronies and to insulate you from the numerous lawsuits that you personally face due to your prior alleged fabrications, misstatements and broken promises. I have known you personally for many years and thus what I am about to say may seem harsh, but is said with some authority. It is time for you to step down from your role as C.E.O. and director so that you can do what you do best: retreat to your waterfront mansion in the Hamptons where you can play tennis and hobnob with your fellow socialites. The matter of repairing the mess you have created should be left to professional management and those that have an economic stake in the outcome.”

For the full commentary, see:
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “DEALBOOK; Tell-Alls, Strategic Plans and Cautionary Tales.” The New York Times (Tues., JULY 5, 2016): B1 & B4.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JULY 4, 2016, and has the title “DEALBOOK; A Reading List of Tell-Alls, Strategic Plans and Cautionary Tales in Finance.”)

The book praised by Sorkin in the passage quoted above, is:
Gramm, Jeff. Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism. New York: HarperBusiness, 2016.

World Health Organization Praises Coffee, Reversing 1991 Warning

(p. A9) An influential panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization concluded on Wednesday [JUNE 15, 2016] that regularly drinking coffee could protect against at least two types of cancer, a decision that followed decades of research pointing to the beverage’s many health benefits. The panel also said there was a lack of evidence that it might cause other types of cancer.
The announcement marked a rare reversal for the panel, which had previously described coffee as “possibly carcinogenic” in 1991 and linked it to bladder cancer. But since then a large body of research has portrayed coffee as a surprising elixir, finding lower rates of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, neurological disorders and several cancers in those who drink it regularly.

For the full story, see:
ANAHAD O’CONNOR. “Coffee May Protect Against Cancer, W.H.O. Concludes, in Reversal of a 1991 Study.” The New York Times (Thurs., JUNE 16, 2016): A9.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JUNE 15, 2016, and has the title “Coffee May Protect Against Cancer, W.H.O. Concludes.”)

Government Land Use Regulations Increase Income Inequality

(p. A1) . . . a growing body of economic literature suggests that anti-growth sentiment, when multiplied across countless unheralded local development battles, is a major factor in creating a stagnant and less equal American economy.
It has even to some extent changed how Americans of different incomes view opportunity. Unlike past decades, when people of different socioeconomic backgrounds tended to move to similar areas, today, less-skilled workers often go where jobs are scarcer but housing is cheap, instead of heading to places with the most promising job opportunities, according to research by Daniel Shoag, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and Peter Ganong, (p. B2 [sic]) also of Harvard.
. . .
“To most people, zoning and land-use regulations might conjure up little more than images of late-night City Council meetings full of gadflies and minutiae. But these laws go a long way toward determining some fundamental aspects of life: what American neighborhoods look like, who gets to live where and what schools their children attend.
And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound. Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the housing supply in places where demand is greatest.
The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year, according to estimates in a recent paper by the economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti. Regardless of the actual gains in dollars that could be achieved if zoning laws were significantly cut back, the research on land-use restrictions highlights some of the consequences of giving local communities too much control over who is allowed to live there.
“You don’t want rules made entirely for people that have something, at the expense of people who don’t,” said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

For the full story, see:
CONOR DOUGHERTY. “When Cities Spurn Growth, Equality Suffers.” The New York Times (Mon., July 4, 2016): A1 & B2 [sic].
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 3, 2016, and has the title “How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality.”)

The paper mentioned above by Ganong and Shoag, is:
Ganong, Peter, and Daniel Shoag. “Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?” Working Paper, Jan. 2015.

The paper mentioned above by Hsieh and Moretti, is:
Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Enrico Moretti. “Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth.” National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper # 21154, May 2015.

Tesla and Google Bet on Different Paths to Driverless Cars

(p. B1) SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, where companies big and small are at work on self-driving cars, there have been a variety of approaches, and even some false starts.
The most divergent paths may be the ones taken by Tesla, which is already selling cars that have some rudimentary self-driving functions, and Google, which is still very much in experimental mode.
Google’s initial efforts in 2010 focused on cars that would drive themselves, but with a person behind the wheel to take over at the first sign of trouble and a second technician monitoring the navigational computer.
As a general concept, Google was trying to achieve the same goal as Tesla is claiming with the Autopilot feature it has promoted with the Model S, which has hands-free technology that has come under scrutiny after a fatal accident on a Florida highway.
But Google decided to play down the vigilant-human approach after an experiment in 2013, when the company let some of its employees sit behind the wheel of the self-driving cars on their daily commutes.
Engineers using onboard video cameras to remotely monitor the results were alarmed by what (p. B5) they observed — a range of distracted-driving behavior that included falling asleep.
“We saw stuff that made us a little nervous,” Christopher Urmson, a former Carnegie Mellon University roboticist who directs the car project at Google, said at the time.
The experiment convinced the engineers that it might not be possible to have a human driver quickly snap back to “situational awareness,” the reflexive response required for a person to handle a split-second crisis.
So Google engineers chose another route, taking the human driver completely out of the loop. They created a fleet of cars without brake pedals, accelerators or steering wheels, and designed to travel no faster than 25 miles an hour.
For good measure they added a heavy layer of foam to the front of their cars and a plastic windshield, should the car make a mistake. While not suitable for high-speed interstate road trips, such cars might one day be able to function as, say, robotic taxis in stop-and-go urban settings.

For the full story, see:
JOHN MARKOFF. “Tesla and Google Take Two Roads to Driverless Car.” The New York Times (Tues., JULY 5, 2016): B1 & B5.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JULY 4, 2016, and has the title “Tesla and Google Take Different Roads to Self-Driving Car.”)

Most Eventually Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Quickly Quit Their Day Jobs

(p. B4) For people who prefer an introspective read that is both inspiring and has a dash of self-help, Adam Grant’s “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” is truly original. Mr. Grant, the youngest-ever tenured full professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, dives into what it takes to be a shoot-the-moon, Steve-Jobs-like success. Many of his conclusions are counterintuitive and based on deep research.
The biggest surprise for me was that the most successful entrepreneurs didn’t quit their day jobs to pursue their ideas; instead, they stayed at work until they had worked all the kinks out of their plans and gotten them off the ground. The other head-scratcher in this book? Procrastination is a great thing. (This was a terrific revelation.)
Mr. Grant’s research shows that some of the most creative thoughts develop during periods of so-called procrastination.

For the full commentary, see:
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “DEALBOOK; Tell-Alls, Strategic Plans and Cautionary Tales.” The New York Times (Tues., JULY 5, 2016): B1 & B4.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JULY 4, 2016, and has the title “DEALBOOK; A Reading List of Tell-Alls, Strategic Plans and Cautionary Tales in Finance.”)

The book praised by Sorkin in the passage quoted above, is:
Grant, Adam. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World. New York: Viking, 2016.

EU Regulations Frustrate Innovation

(p. A13) The EU is a supranational government run in a fundamentally undemocratic, indeed antidemocratic, way. It has four presidents, none of them elected. Power to initiate legislation rests entirely with an unelected commission. Its court can overrule our Parliament.
. . .
. . . today, Britain–the most outward-facing of the major European economies–will thrive if it leaves. . . .
This is because the EU’s obsession with harmonization (of currency and rules) frustrates innovation. Using as an excuse the precautionary principle or the need to get 28 countries to agree, the EU gets in the way of the new. “Technological progress is often hindered or almost impossible in Europe,” says Markus Beyrer, director general of BusinessEurope, a confederation of industry groups. Consequently, we’ve been left behind in digital technology: There are no digital giants in Europe to rival Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook.
The EU is also against free trade. It says it isn’t, but its actions speak louder. The EU has an external tariff that deters African farmers from exporting their produce to us, helping to perpetuate poverty there, while raising prices in Europe. The EU confiscated Britain’s right to sign trade agreements–though we were the nation that pioneered the idea of unilateral free trade in the 1840s. All the trade agreements that the EU has signed are smaller, as measured by the trading partners’ GDP, than the agreements made by Chile, Singapore or Switzerland. Those the EU has signed usually exclude services, Britain’s strongest sector, and are more about regulations to suit big companies than the dismantling of barriers.
Even worse than in Westminster or Washington, the corridors of Brussels are crawling with lobbyists for big companies, big banks and big environmental pressure groups seeking rules that work as barriers to entry for smaller firms and newer ideas. The Volkswagen emissions scandal came from a big company bullying the EU into rules that suited it and poisoned us. The anti-vaping rules in the latest Tobacco Products Directive, which will slow the decline of smoking, came from lobbying by big pharmaceutical companies trying to defend the market share of their nicotine patches and gums. The de facto ban on genetically modified organisms is at the behest of big green groups, many of which receive huge grants from Brussels.

For the full commentary, see:
MATT RIDLEY. “The Business Case for Brexit; Britain will thrive outside the EU, free from Brussels’ regulation and empowered to cut its own trade deals.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., JUNE 22, 2016): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JUNE 21, 2016.)

Iceland Project Turns 95% of Carbon Dioxide into Calcite Rock

(p. A6) For years, scientists and others concerned about climate change have been talking about the need for carbon capture and sequestration.
. . .
Among the concerns about sequestration is that carbon dioxide in gaseous or liquid form that is pumped underground might escape back to the atmosphere. So storage sites would have to be monitored, potentially for decades or centuries.
But scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and other institutions have come up with a different way to store CO2 that might eliminate that problem. Their approach involves dissolving the gas with water and pumping the resulting mixture — soda water, essentially — down into certain kinds of rocks, where the CO2 reacts with the rock to form a mineral called calcite. By turning the gas into stone, scientists can lock it away permanently.
One key to the approach is to find the right kind of rocks. Volcanic rocks called basalts are excellent for this process, because they are rich in calcium, magnesium and iron, which react with CO2.
Iceland is practically all basalt, so for several years the researchers and an Icelandic utility have been testing the technology on the island. The project, called CarbFix, uses carbon dioxide that bubbles up naturally with the hot magma that powers a geothermal electrical generating plant 15 miles east of the capital, Reykjavik.
. . .
Early signs were encouraging: . . .
. . .
The scientists found that about 95 percent of the carbon dioxide was converted into calcite. And even more important, they wrote, the conversion happened relatively quickly — in less than two years.
“It’s beyond all our expectations,” said Edda Aradottir, who manages the project for the utility, Reykjavik Energy.
. . .
. . . the researchers say that there is enough porous basaltic rock around, including in the ocean floors and along the margins of continents.

For the full story, see:
HENRY FOUNTAIN. “Project in Iceland for Storing Carbon Shows Promise.” The New York Times (Fri., June 10, 2016): A6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JUNE 9, 2016, and has the title “Iceland Carbon Dioxide Storage Project Locks Away Gas, and Fast.”)

The research mentioned above was detailed in an academic paper in Science:
Matter, Juerg M., Martin Stute, Sandra Ó Snæbjörnsdottir, Eric H. Oelkers, Sigurdur R. Gislason, Edda S. Aradottir, Bergur Sigfusson, Ingvi Gunnarsson, Holmfridur Sigurdardottir, Einar Gunnlaugsson, Gudni Axelsson, Helgi A. Alfredsson, Domenik Wolff-Boenisch, Kiflom Mesfin, Diana Fernandez de la Reguera Taya, Jennifer Hall, Knud Dideriksen, and Wallace S. Broecker. “Rapid Carbon Mineralization for Permanent Disposal of Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions.” Science 352, no. 6291 (June 10, 2016): 1312-14.