“We Liberals” Oppose Diversity of Ideas

(p. 11) We liberals are adept at pointing out the hypocrisies of Trump, but we should also address our own hypocrisy in terrain we govern, such as most universities: Too often, we embrace diversity of all kinds except for ideological. Repeated studies have found that about 10 percent of professors in the social sciences or the humanities are Republicans.
We champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think like us.
I fear that liberal outrage at Trump’s presidency will exacerbate the problem of liberal echo chambers, by creating a more hostile environment for conservatives and evangelicals. Already, the lack of ideological diversity on campuses is a disservice to the students and to liberalism itself, with liberalism collapsing on some campuses into self-parody.
. . .
Whatever our politics, inhabiting a bubble makes us more shrill. Cass Sunstein, a Harvard professor, conducted a fascinating study of how groupthink shapes federal judges when they are randomly assigned to three-judge panels.
When liberal judges happened to be temporarily put on a panel with other liberals, they usually swung leftward. Conversely, conservative judges usually moved rightward when randomly grouped with other conservatives.
It’s the judicial equivalent of a mob mentality. And if this happens to judges, imagine what happens to you and me.
Sunstein, a liberal and a Democrat who worked in the Obama administration, concluded that the best judicial decisions arose from divided panels, where judges had to confront counterarguments.
Yet universities are often the equivalent of three-judge liberal panels, and the traditional Democratic dominance has greatly increased since the mid-1990s — apparently because of a combination of discrimination and self-selection. Half of academics in some fields said in a survey that they would discriminate in hiring decisions against an evangelical.
The weakest argument against intellectual diversity is that conservatives or evangelicals have nothing to add to the conversation. “The idea that conservative ideas are dumb is so preposterous that you have to live in an echo chamber to think of it,” Sunstein told me..

For the full commentary, see:
Kristof, Nicholas. “The Dangers of Echo Chambers on Campus.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., DEC. 11, 2016): 11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 10, 2016.)

Cass Sunstein’s research on the effect of political orientation on federal judges’ decisions, mentioned above, was most fully reported in:
Sunstein, Cass R., David Schkade, Lisa M. Ellman, and Andres Sawicki. Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2006.

Warren Buffett: High-Tech Especially Hard to Predict

(p. 1D) Turns out that Warren Buffett spoke out in IBM’s favor, sort of, 37 years ago when the government accused “Big Blue” of illegal
anti-competitive practices.
. . .
But Buffett was one of 87 witnesses who testified on behalf of the International Business Machines Corp. during the federal government’s antitrust trial.
. . .
In his testimony, Buffett said he asked the Price, Waterhouse accounting firm to calculate the debt levels of 104 other computer-oriented companies that, according to federal prosecutors, were harmed by IBM’s low prices and other alleged anti-competitive actions.
Buffett said his hypothesis was that the competing companies had trouble raising money to finance their growth because they had too much debt. The accounting analy-(p. 2D)sis, Buffett said in court, “bore that hypothesis out in a very conclusive manner.”
So why didn’t he buy IBM stock in 1980?
Because, he told the court, with high-tech companies it’s “particularly difficult to have a clear view of a long-term future. … High-technology companies are ones where both the product and the customer’s use of it are (areas in which) I don’t feel I have a full understanding.”

For the full commentary, see:
Steve Jordon. “WARREN WATCH; What Buffett said in court about IBM in 1980.” Omaha World-Herald (Sun., Jan 22, 2017): 1D-2D.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the title “WARREN WATCH; What Warren Buffett said in court about IBM in 1980.”)

Half of Today’s 36-Year-Olds Earn Less Than Their Parents Did at Same Age

FadingAmericanDreamGraph2017-09-08.pngSource of graph: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/

(p. 2) These days, people are arguably more worried about the American dream than at any point since the Depression. But there has been no real measure of it, despite all of the data available. No one has known how many Americans are more affluent than their parents were — and how the number has changed.

The beginnings of a breakthrough came several years ago, when a team of economists led by Raj Chetty received access to millions of tax records that stretched over decades. The records were anonymous and came with strict privacy rules, but nonetheless allowed for the linking of generations.
The resulting research is among the most eye-opening economics work in recent years.
. . .
After the research began appearing, I mentioned to Chetty, a Stanford professor, and his colleagues that I thought they had a chance to do something no one yet had: create an index of the American dream. It took them months of work, using old Census data to estimate long-ago decades, but they have done it. They’ve constructed a data set that shows the percentage of American children who earn more money — and less money — than their parents earned at the same age.
The index is deeply alarming. It’s a portrait of an economy that disappoints a huge number of people who have heard that they live in a country where life gets better, only to experience something quite different.
. . .
About 92 percent of 1940 babies had higher pretax inflation-adjusted household earnings at age 30 than their parents had at the same age.
. . .
For babies born in 1980 — today’s 36-year-olds — the index of the American dream has fallen to 50 percent: Only half of them make as much money as their parents did.

For the full commentary, see:
Leonhardt, David. “The American Dream, Quantified at Last.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., DEC. 11, 2016): 2.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 8, 2016.)

The Chetty co-authored paper mentioned above, is:
Chetty, Raj, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang. “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940.” Science 356, no. 6336 (2017): 398-406.

Venture Capital Stars Invested in Over-Hyped “Symbol of Silicon Valley’s Insular Excess”

(p. B2) MONTEREY, Calif. — From the moment it started, Juicero stood out as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s insular excess.
The company sold a $700 Wi-Fi-enabled juicer, trying to solve a problem that did not exist. It also raised some $120 million, and attracted a mountain of attention.
But on Friday, the company said it was shutting down operations — joining the hordes of other Silicon Valley start-ups that could not deliver business results to match the hype.
Started by a health fanatic with a checkered history as an entrepreneur, Juicero devised an elaborate scheme to deliver small glasses of expensive cold pressed juice to kitchens around the country. The machine scanned codes printed on pouches of chopped produce to help assess the freshness of the contents inside. Doug Evans, the founder, hired engineers, food scientists and fashionable industrial designers to work alongside him.
The company was a particularly bold bid to capitalize on the hype around the so-called internet of things and interest in the juice business. Mr. Evans believed there was a legion of customers who, once they tasted his juice, would find it superior to the many varieties that can be bought at convenience stores, juice bars or even Walmart.
Top venture capital firms including Google’s venture capital spinoff and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as well as big companies like Campbell Soup, invested heavily in the company.

For the full story, see:

DAVID GELLES. “Start-Up That Sold $700 Juicer Shuts Down.” The New York Times (Sat., SEPT. 2, 2017): B2.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date SEPT. 1, 2017, and has the title “Juicero, Start-Up With a $700 Juicer and Top Investors, Shuts Down.” )

“Bankruptcies and Losses Concentrate the Mind on Prudent Behavior”

(p. A18) Allan H. Meltzer, an influential conservative economist who strongly opposed government bailouts and was credited with coining the anti-bailout slogan, “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin,” died on Monday in Pittsburgh. He was 89.
. . .

In books like “Why Capitalism?” (2012), Dr. Meltzer promoted the view that countries and investors should suffer the consequences of their mistakes, whether flawed fiscal measures or bad lending decisions.
In coining the slogan “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin,” he added another maxim: “Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior.”
. . .
In recent years Mr. Meltzer found a new interest in law and regulation. He and other scholars were working on a book, “Regulation and the Rule of Law.”

For the full obituary, see:
ZACH WICHTER. “Allan H. Meltzer, Economist Averse to Bailouts, Dies at 89.” The New York Times (Sat., MAY 13, 2017): A18.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date MAY 12, 2017, and has the title “Allan H. Meltzer, Conservative Economist, Dies at 89.”)

Meltzer’s book on capitalism, mentioned above, is:
Meltzer, Allan H. Why Capitalism? New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Cashless Toll Technology Enables Congestion Pricing in Manhattan

(p. A15) As debate about creating a toll system to limit traffic in the most congested parts of Manhattan heats up, a transformation in technology could make congestion pricing a far more realistic notion than when it was last proposed a decade ago.
By the end of the year, nine crossings around the city will employ an open-road, cashless collection system that does away with tollbooths, toll lanes and toll collectors. Instead, sensors and cameras installed both above the road and in the pavement itself will capture cars and trucks as they zip by at full speed – automatically charging the 90 percent of drivers with E-ZPass transponders, and billing the other 10 percent by mail.
A decade ago, when the Bloomberg administration first proposed congestion pricing, such tolling technology was in its infancy and not widely used. Now, it is in place in some 35 jurisdictions, and its deployment in New York is the most ambitious use of the technology in a complicated urban setting.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had not shown any enthusiasm for congestion pricing, has embraced the idea of late as a way to raise billions of dollars for the city’s ailing subway system. But Mayor Bill de Blasio has been steadfast in his opposition, and has instead pushed a plan to raise transportation funds by increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.
Mr. Cuomo has yet to release a detailed congestion-pricing plan, but most schemes being discussed call for tolling vehicles to enter crowded parts of Manhattan, and doing so in a way that that does not slow the flow of traffic. By making toll-collecting all but invisible, Mr. Cuomo hopes congestion pricing will be more politically viable this time around.

For the full story, see:
MARC SANTORA. “Cashless Toll System Could Pave the Way for Manhattan Congestion Pricing.” The New York Times (Sat., AUG. 26, 2017): A15.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 25, 2017, and has the title “Open-Road Tolls Could Pave the Way for Manhattan Congestion Pricing.”)

More Workers Benefit from Driverless Cars, Than Are Hurt

(p. A2) Self-driving vehicles have the potential to reshape a wide range of occupations held by roughly one in nine American workers, according to a new U.S. government report.
About 3.8 million people drive taxis, trucks, ambulances and other vehicles for a living. An additional 11.7 million workers drive as part of their work, including personal care aides, police officers, real-estate agents and plumbers. In all, that’s roughly 11.3% of total U.S. employment based on 2015 occupational data, according to the analysis by three Commerce Department economists.
If businesses embrace autonomous vehicles on a large scale, workers in the first category are “more likely to be displaced” from their jobs, while workers in the latter group “may be more likely to benefit from greater productivity and better working conditions,” wrote David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram in the report, released Friday.

For the full story, see:
Ben Leubsdorf. “Driverless Cars May Alter 1 in 9 Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Aug 15, 2017): A2.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug 14, 2017, and has the title “Self-Driving Cars Could Transform Jobs Held by 1 in 9 U.S. Workers.”)

The report summarized in the passages quoted above, is:
Beede, David, Regina Powers, and Cassandra Ingram. “The Employment Impact of Autonomous Vehicles.” ESA Issue Brief, #05-17, Aug. 11, 2017.

“Achievement Is a Magnet to Mentors and a Beacon to Backers”

(p. 7) It’s true that networking can help you accomplish great things. But this obscures the opposite truth: Accomplishing great things helps you develop a network.
Look at big breaks in entertainment. For George Lucas, a turning point was when Francis Ford Coppola hired him as a production assistant and went on to mentor him. Mr. Lucas didn’t schmooze his way into the relationship, though. As a film student he’d won first prize at a national festival and a scholarship to be an apprentice on a Warner Bros. film — he picked one of Mr. Coppola’s.
Or take Justin Bieber’s career: Although it took off after Usher signed him, he didn’t network his way into that meeting. Mr. Bieber taught himself to sing and play four instruments, put a handful of videos on YouTube, and a manager ended up clicking on one. Adele was discovered that way, too: She wrote and recorded a three-song demo, a friend posted it on Myspace, and a music exec heard it. Developing talent — and sharing it — catapulted them into those connections.
For entrepreneurs, too, achievement is a magnet to mentors and a beacon to backers. Spanx took off when Oprah Winfrey chose it as one of her favorite things of the year — but not because she was stalked by the company’s founder, Sara Blakely. For two and a half years, Ms. Blakely sold fax machines by day so that she could build her prototype of footless pantyhose by night. She sent one from the first batch to Ms. Winfrey.
Networks help, of course. In a study of internet security start-ups, having a previous connection to an investor increased the odds of getting funded by that investor in the first year. But it was pretty much irrelevant afterward. Accomplishments were the dominant driver of who invested over time.
Similarly, researchers found that in hospitals, the radiologists who ended up with the most desirable networks were the ones with the highest performance nine months earlier. And in banks, star performers attracted bigger networks and were more likely to maintain those ties. Achievements don’t just help us make connections; they also help sustain those connections.
. . .
So stop fretting about networking. Take a page out of the George Lucas and Sara Blakely playbooks: Make an intriguing film, build a useful product.
And don’t feel pressure to go to networking events. No one really mixes at mixers. Although we plan to meet new people, we usually end up hanging out with old friends. The best networking happens when people gather for a purpose other than networking, to learn from one another or help one another.

For the full commentary, see:
Grant, Adam. “Networking Is Overrated.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., AUG. 27, 2017): 7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date AUG. 24, 2017, and has the title “Good News for Young Strivers: Networking Is Overrated.”)

“Many of Our Worst Behaviors Are in Retreat”

(p. A19) Mr. Sapolsky is one of those very few eminent scientists who are also eminent–or even coherent–when writing for the general public.
. . .
The author’s comprehensive approach integrates controlled laboratory investigation with naturalistic observations and study. To his immense credit, he doesn’t omit cultural norms, social learning, the role of peer pressure or historical tradition. He also has a delightfully self-deprecating sense of humor. Introducing a chapter titled “War and Peace,” he summarizes the chapter’s goals as: (a) to demonstrate that “many of our worst behaviors are in retreat, our best ones ascendant”; (b) to examine “ways to improve this further”; (c) to derive “emotional support for this venture” (d) and, “finally, to see if I can actually get away with calling this chapter ‘War and Peace.’ ” Earlier, after an especially abstruse sentence, he adds a footnote: “I have no idea what it is that I just wrote.”
. . .
It’s no exaggeration to say that “Behave” is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. .

For the full review, see:
David P. Barash. “BOOKSHELF; How the Brain Makes Us Do It; Biology can explain but not excuse our worst behavior; Testosterone may drive a vicious warlord, but social triggers shape his actions.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 2, 2017): A19.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 1, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Sapolsky, Robert M. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. New York: Penguin Press 2017.

Natural Gas Tanker Reaches South Korea 30 Percent Faster, Through Arctic

(p. 12) A Russian-owned tanker, built to traverse the frozen waters of the Arctic, completed a journey in record time from Europe to Asia this month, auguring the future of shipping as global warming melts sea ice.
The Christophe de Margerie, a 984-foot tanker built specifically for the journey, became the first ship to complete the so-called Northern Sea Route without the aid of specialized ice-breaking vessels, the ship’s owner, Sovcomflot, said in a statement.
. . .
The ship, transporting liquefied natural gas, completed the trip from Norway to South Korea Thursday of last week, in just 19 days, 30 percent faster than the regular route through the Suez Canal, the company said.
Sailors have for centuries sought a navigable Northwest Passage: a shorter, faster route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that transits the Arctic.

For the full story, see:
RUSSELL GOLDMAN. “No Icebreaker Needed: Thaw Lets Tanker Traverse Arctic.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., AUG. 27, 2017): 12.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 25, 2017, and has the title “Russian Tanker Completes Arctic Passage Without Aid of Icebreakers.”)

3-D Printing Promises Goods Quicker, Cheaper, More Local, and More Customized

(p. B3) With the rise of new technologies like smartphones and 3-D printers, fashion start-ups like Feetz are changing the ways goods are ordered, made and sold.
Like Ms. Beard, several founders of these companies don’t have fashion backgrounds. Instead, they consider technology the answer to off-the rack, mass-produced goods, which are increasingly shunned by millennials. Consumers with hard-to-find sizes — like petite, or big and tall — will find shopping simpler.
Traditionally, manufacturing is the most expensive part of the retail supply chain. Creating goods in small batches is difficult and costly. Most are manufactured overseas, and shipping goods to the United States adds time and cost to the process. So even “fast fashion” can take about six weeks to hit store shelves.
The beauty of instant, customized fashion, experts say, is that goods can be made at a lower cost and more quickly — yet in a personalized style.
. . .
These are still early days for 3-D printing, said Uli Becker, the former chief executive of Reebok and an investor in Feetz. The offerings are not very diversified, and they are limited to basic goods. And fabric cannot yet be printed.
But he sees great potential for 3-D printing. “You can start producing in America, for America,” he said. “Production facilities can be in the same place where you sell products, which creates jobs.”
. . .
“We’re a technology company that creates T-shirts,” said Walker Williams, 27, chief executive of Teespring, who started the company with Evan Stites-Clayton, a friend from Brown University. “The future of fashion is in smaller brands that have relationships with customers.”

For the full story, see:
CONSTANCE GUSTKE. “ENTREPRENEURSHIP; With Analytics and 3-D Printers, a Faster Fashion Just for You.” The New York Times (Thurs., SEPT. 15, 2016): B3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date SEPT. 14, 2016, and has the title “ENTREPRENEURSHIP; Your Next Pair of Shoes Could Come From a 3-D Printer.”)