Economics – Page 142 – artdiamondblog.com

Bicycles Emancipated Women

“A portrait from the 1890s at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Susan B. Anthony said cycling did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D1) . . . , Twain promoted the new sport of cycling with characteristic rhubarb tartness. “Get a bicycle,” he urged readers. “You will not regret it, if you live.”
. . .
The full-bore bicycle fever was brief, and by the early 20th century it had given way to fascination with the automobile. Yet, as a new exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History makes clear, the impact of the bicycle on the nation’s industrial, cultural, emotional and even moral landscape has been deep and long lasting.
In addition to air-filled rubber tires, we can thank the bicycle for essential technologies like ball bearings, originally devised to reduce friction in the bicycle’s axle and steering column; for wire spokes and wire spinning generally; for differential gears that allow connected wheels to spin at different speeds.
And where would our airplanes, tent poles and lawn furniture be without the metal tubing developed to serve as the bicycle frame? “The hollow steel tube is a great form,” said Jim Papadopoulos, an assistant teaching professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. “It’s tremendously structurally efficient, light and strong, and it came into being for the bicycle.”
. . .
(p. D4) Bicycles also gave birth to our national highway system, as cyclists outside major cities grew weary of rutted mud paths and began lobbying for the construction of paved roads. The car connection goes further still: Many of the bicycle repair shops that sprang up to service the wheeling masses were later converted to automobile filling stations, and a number of pioneers in the auto industry, including Henry Ford and Charles Duryea, started out as bicycle mechanics. So, too, did the Wright brothers.
“The pre-story is so important,” said Eric S. Hintz, a historian with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. “You don’t get automobiles unless you first have bikes.”
. . .
By the mid-1890s, some 300 American companies were churning out well over a million bicycles a year, making the safety bike one of the first mass-produced items in history. Among the most exuberant customers were women, who discovered in the bicycle a sense of freedom they had rarely experienced before.
. . .
Bicycles allowed young men and women to tool around the countryside unsupervised, and relationships between the sexes grew more casual and spontaneous. With a bicycle at her disposal, a young woman could also venture forth in search of work.
Small wonder that Susan B. Anthony said of cycling, “I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world.”

For the full story, see:
NATALIE ANGIER. “Basics; A Ride to Freedom.” The New York Times (Tues., JULY 14, 2015): D1 & D4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JULY 13, 2015, and has the title “Basics; The Bicycle and the Ride to Modern America.”)

Analyst Conflict of Interest in Predicting Tesla Stock Price

(p. A1) Just like the Internet stocks of yore, Tesla has its own Wall Street cheerleader: Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s auto analyst. Jonas could not be less interested in mundane factors like earnings per share; indeed, he has had to lower his 2015 earnings estimates several times; he now predicts the company will lose $2.70 a share. But never mind: In the future that he envisions, Tesla will be the most important car company on earth.
Just a few weeks ago, in fact, Jonas raised his share price target for Tesla from $280 to $465, which would make Tesla more valuable than General Motors or Ford. Had anything fundamental changed for Tesla? Of course not!
Jonas based his new target on something he labeled Tesla Mobility, which he describes as “an app based, on-demand mobility service.” Where did he learn about Tesla Mobility? Who knows? Tesla, a company hardly averse to hype, has never acknowledged its existence.
And that’s not the worst of it. No, the worst is the timing of his call. It came days after Tesla announced that it would be issuing stock to raise yet more money — and that Morgan Stanley was among the underwriters. (The company raised close to $800 million.)

For the full commentary, see:
Joe Nocera. “The Tesla Cheerleader.” The New York Times (Sat., AUG. 29, 2015): A1 & A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date AUG. 28, 2015.)

Belgian Government Mandates Mayo to Be No Less than 80% Fat

(p. A1) BRUSSELS–Mayonnaise here is a sauce celebre, so important that a 60-year-old royal decree governs what goes in it.
. . .
Belgian mayonnaise must contain at least 80% fat and 7.5% egg yolk. European rivals are permitted to sell mayo with a mere 70% fat and 5% egg yolk.

For the full story, see:
TOM FAIRLESS. “No Yolk, Belgian Food Producers Fed Up with Mayonnaise Rules; But effort to relax royal recipe doesn’t go down well with chefs; yellow peas.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Sept. 20, 2015): A1 & A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 20, 2015 and the title “In Belgium, Mayonnaise Makers Want a New Recipe; But effort to relax royal recipe doesn’t go down well with chefs; yell;ow peas.”)

Recent Job Losses from City Minimum Wage Hikes

(p. A13) The city councils in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles have already voted to increase their minimum wage to $15 an hour over several years. For large employers in Seattle, the first increase to $11 from $9.47 took effect in April. In San Francisco a hike to $12.25 from $10.74 began in May. Los Angeles rolled out a minimum wage for hotel workers of $15.37 in July.
It’s still early to know how the hikes are affecting the job market, but the preliminary data aren’t good. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, Adam Ozimek of Moody’s Analytics and Stephen Bronars of Edgewood Economics reported last month that the restaurant and hotel industries have lost jobs in all three cities. Mr. Bronars crunched the numbers and discovered that the “first wave of minimum wage increases appears to have led to the loss of over 1,100 food service jobs in the Seattle metro division and over 2,500 restaurant jobs in the San Francisco metro division.” That is a conservative estimate, he notes, as the data include areas outside city limits, where the minimum wage didn’t increase.
This comes as no surprise. In 2014 the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would result in employment falling by 500,000 jobs nationally. By the way, less than 20% of the earning benefits would flow to people living below the poverty line, as University of California-Irvine economist David Neumark has pointed out.

For the full commentary, see:
ANDY PUZDER. “A Post-Labor Day, Minimum-Wage Hangover; The evidence is already coming in: Mandatory increases in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle have cost thousands of jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Sept. 8, 2015): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sept. 7, 2015.)

Evidence Minimum Wage Causes Job Loss

(p. A1) Some economists have reported that there is no longer any evidence that raising wages will cost jobs.
Unfortunately, that last claim is inaccurate. There are in fact many studies on each side of the issue. David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve have done their own studies and point to dozens of others showing significant job losses.
Recently, Michael Wither and Jeffrey Clemens of the University of California, San Diego looked at data from the 2007 federal minimum-wage hike and found that it reduced the national employment-to-population ratio by 0.7 percentage points (which is actually a lot), and led to a six percentage point decrease in the likelihood that a low-wage worker would have a job.
Because low-wage workers get less work experience under a higher minimum-wage regime, they are less likely to transition to higher-wage jobs down the road. Wither and Clemens found that two years later, workers’ chances of making $1,500 a month was reduced by five percentage points.
Many economists have pointed out that as a poverty-fighting measure the minimum wage is horribly targeted. A 2010 study by Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser found that only 11.3 percent of workers who would benefit from raising the wage to $9.50 an hour would come from poor households. An earlier study by Sabia found that single mothers’ employment dropped 6 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage.
A study by Thomas MaCurdy of Stanford built on the fact that there are as many individuals in high-income families making the minimum wage (teenagers) as in low-income families. MaCurdy found that the costs of raising the wage are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Minimum-wage workers often work at places that disproportionately serve people down the income scale. So raising the minimum wage is like a regressive consumption tax paid for by the poor to subsidize the wages of workers who are often middle class.

For the full commentary, see:
David Brooks. “Minimum Wage Muddle.” The New York Times (Fri., JULY 24, 2015): A25.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the title “The Minimum-Wage Muddle.”)

Smart and Energetic Young Adults in France Find Opportunity in England, Australia or the U.S.

(p. A6) The income gap between generations is even more severe in France than in the United States, said Louis Chauvel, a French sociologist who has also worked in America on income inequality and other issues. On top of that, Mr. Chauvel added, the United States economy has been rebounding, while unemployment in France has been rising since 2008 and has hovered around 10 percent for the last two years.

“In the U.S., the young 25-year-olds have lots of opportunities,” he said. “It’s generally much better to be relatively young in the United States than to be aging.

“In France, we face a completely different trend: We have more and more educated young French citizens, and they face economic scarcity, even though they have more education than their parents.”

Young adults in France see their taxes going to finance social benefits for retirees that they believe they will never receive, Mr. Chauvel added. The most energetic and smartest among them do find jobs, he said, but often they can do it only by leaving France for Britain, Australia or the United States.

For the full story, see:

ALISSA J. RUBIN and AURELIEN BREEDEN. “Song for French Charity Strikes Discordant Note.” The New York Times (Weds., MARCH 4, 2015): A6.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 3, 2015, and has the title “‘Toute La Vie,’ Song for French Charity, Strikes Discordant Note.”)

112 Years of Spectacular Progress Started With Wilbur Wright

“New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) LAUREL, Md. — The first close-up image of Pluto has revealed mountains as tall as the Rockies, and an absence of craters — discoveries that, to their delight, baffled scientists working on NASA’s New Horizons mission and provided punctuation for a journey nine and a half years in the making.

Only 112 years after the Wright Brothers were barely able to get their airplane off the ground, a machine from Earth has crossed the solar system to a small, icy world three billion miles away. The flyby on Tuesday, when New Horizons buzzed within 7,800 miles of the former ninth planet, came 50 years to the day after NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft made a similar first pass by Mars.

For the full story, see:
KENNETH CHANG. “Pluto’s Portrait From New Horizons: Ice Mountains and No Craters.” The New York Times (Thurs., JULY 16, 2015): A1 & A17.
(Note: the online version of the article has the date JULY 15, 2015.)

“If You Get Too Cold, I’ll Tax the Heat”

(p. A11) George Harrison knew what he was talking about when he wrote the song “Taxman” for the Beatles: “If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” Had the Internet been around in 1966, they might have added: “If you use the Web, I’ll tax your tweet.”

For the full commentary, see:
OHN THUNE and AJIT PAI. “Taxman, Won’t You Please Spare The Internet?; A moratorium on taxing online access has been an unqualified success. Let’s make it permanent.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 18, 2014): A11.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 17, 2014.)

Venezuelans Irritated by Short Supply of Cerveceria Polar Beer

(p. 5A) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans are facing the prospect of a heat wave without their favorite beer, the latest indignity in a country that has seen shortages of everything from disposable diapers to light bulbs.
Cerveceria Polar, which distributes 80 percent of the beer in the socialist South American country, began shutting down breweries this week because of a lack of barley, hops and other raw materials, and has halted deliveries to Caracas liquor stores.
“This is never-never land,” said Yefferson Ramirez, who navigated a rush of disgruntled customers Thursday behind the counter at a corner store in posh eastern Caracas. The shop has been out of milk and bottled water for months, but the beer shortfall is provoking a new level of irritation.

For the full story, see:
Associated Press. “Venezuela’s top beer scarce amid heat wave.” Omaha World-Heraldl (Sat., Aug. 8, 2015): 5A.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 7, 2015.)

Venezeuelan Socialists Seize Warehouses of Cerveceria Polar Beer

“Polar workers protested the government’s decision to expropriate warehouse land in Caracas on Thursday [July 30, 2015].” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A7) CARACAS, Venezuela–The government ordered major food companies, including units of PepsiCo and Nestlé Inc., to evacuate warehouses in an area where the state plans to expropriate land to build low-cost housing.
. . .
Manuel Larrazábal, a director at Polar, said he hoped the government would reconsider the measure. “We don’t doubt that they need to construct housing, which is so important, but we ask why it has to affect active industrial facilities.”
. . .
Some workers painted messages including “No to expropriation” and “Let us work” onto the walls of the industrial park and on dozens of trucks that lined the streets outside, which were blocked by police and National Guard. Polar said the move would affect some 600 workers, as well as 1,400 employees who transport their goods around Caracas and two neighboring states.
. . .
Polar suspended operations at its facility after getting the order Wednesday night. The expropriation order extends a history of shaky relations between it and the government, which began under the late leader Hugo Chávez and continues under his protégé, Mr. Maduro.
In recent months, the company, which is the largest beer maker in Venezuela, said it had to halt work at several plants and breweries due to labor strife. It has also struggled with difficulties in acquiring raw materials and U.S. dollars to pay overseas suppliers, a process controlled by the government due to complicated currency regulations.

For the full story, see:
KEJAL VYAS . “Venezuela Takeover Order Riles Companies; Maduro’s government wants industrial zone to build housing for poor.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 31, 2015): A7.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 30, 2015.)

More Danger from Existing Artificial Stupidity than from Fictional Artificial Intelligence

(p. B6) In the kind of artificial intelligence, or A.I., that most people seem to worry about, computers decide people are a bad idea, so they kill them. That is undeniably bad for the human race, but it is a potentially smart move by the computers.
But the real worry, specialists in the field say, is a computer program rapidly overdoing a single task, with no context. A machine that makes paper clips proceeds unfettered, one example goes, and becomes so proficient that overnight we are drowning in paper clips.
In other words, something really dumb happens, at a global scale. As for those “Terminator” robots you tend to see on scary news stories about an A.I. apocalypse, forget it.
“What you should fear is a computer that is competent in one very narrow area, to a bad degree,” said Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Future of Life Institute, a group dedicated to limiting the risks from A.I.
In late June, when a worker in Germany was killed by an assembly line robot, Mr. Tegmark said, “it was an example of a machine being stupid, not doing something mean but treating a person like a piece of metal.”
. . .
“These doomsday scenarios confuse the science with remote philosophical problems about the mind and consciousness,” Oren Etzioni, chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a nonprofit that explores artificial intelligence, said. “If more people learned how to write software, they’d see how literal-minded these overgrown pencils we call computers actually are.”
What accounts for the confusion? One big reason is the way computer scientists work. “The term ‘A.I.’ came about in the 1950s, when people thought machines that think were around the corner,” Mr. Etzioni said. “Now we’re stuck with it.”
It is still a hallmark of the business. Google’s advanced A.I. work is at a company it acquired called DeepMind. A pioneering company in the field was called Thinking Machines. Researchers are pursuing something called Deep Learning, another suggestion that we are birthing intelligence.
. . .
DeepMind made a program that mastered simple video games, but it never took the learning from one game into another. The 22 rungs of a neural net it climbs to figure out what is in a picture do not operate much like human image recognition and are still easily defeated.

For the full story, see:
QUENTIN HARDY. “The Real Threat Computers Pose: Artificial Stupidity, Not Intelligence.” The New York Times (Mon., JULY 13, 2015): B6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JULY 11, 2015, and has the title “The Real Threat Posed by Powerful Computers.”)