MERITOCRACY REDUX: THIS IS NOT WHAT IT MEANS

Short post, again.

Through my good friend Hussein Kanji, I got made aware of an article in the NY Post written by a tutor about admission madness for the kids of the wealthy.

And the point that tutor makes - rich, over-protective parents should learn to sit back, relax and let their kids live a little - is not entirely unimportant but that's not what interested me most in this article.

What I took from this article is that this tough admission process - and the fact that a few kids with "everything" somehow fail to get in one of these elite universities - probably re-enforces wealthy people delusional belief that they deserved their good fortune and position in life - they've always worked hard, after all. They worked hard at school, got the right internships with the right companies, got all the extra-curricular activities one has to have to show 'leadership', got into a top university and managed to get a good diploma, got the right kind of first job...

NOAHPINION'S LATEST ON LOVING INFLATION

This will be a short post in reply to Noah Smith's latest blog-post about loving (moderate) inflation.

The various advantages he enumerates about moderate inflation are well-known and I don't think anyone seriously contest that inflation helps past borrowers, be they private or public.

But I've got to disagree with him on his supposedly debunking the two inflation 'myths' he sees as the political arguments against inflation.

FEDERAL RESERVE: YELLEN versus SUMMERS

I will state up-front that I do not like Larry Summers. 

But, given that I've never met the man in the flesh, you'll have to trust me when I say that that this dislike is not personal and entirely based of what is known of Summers. 

Very recently, Obama, seemingly unhappy with the search for a new Federal Reserve Chairman turning into a rather nasty match between Summers and Yellen supporters (thanks in no small part to Ezra Klein's "Larry Summers is the Front-Runner"), has mentioned a former Fed Vice Chairman, Donald Kohn as a possible, an example of someone he is considering and who was not even on the short-list often mentioned... 

BEST TV SERIES SINCE 2000

This is a blog-post about TV series... and not even about the economics of it (Matt Yglesias did that late last June at the time of James Gandolfini's sad death) but about which series I liked and didn't like and why.

I don't know why exactly but, this past month, I have had this urge to classify and comment on TV series since the Sopranos revolutionised the format (TV series by the way are not TV shows! Frasier, Friends, let alone Jon Stewart's Daily Show, which I've seen included in others' lists are not the subject here) and, without a proper website to do so, I figured this blog was as good a place as any for it.

Minor housekeeping note: I shall probably start using tags for my blog-posts. This one will be the first with a 'Miscellaneous' tag...

Anyhow, on to the good stuff! And, no, despite the banner-head, Game of Thrones is not first!

NB: There's good stuff I have heard about but I haven't seen - The West Wing, Arrested Development, The Walking Dead, The Office etc etc. They're not on the list or commented upon but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like them...

PROFIT versus CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

This is a quick blog-post about two articles from the opposite side of the spectrum that I ended up liking regarding profits and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

During my MBA at the London Business School, we had to take an Ethics class and, while I loved it, I remained convinced that looking for ethical behaviour from companies was nonsense... unless ethical behaviour led to higher profits or, vice-versa, unethical behaviour led to lower profits. To quote Ambrose Bierce, "Piracy is Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it".

SOMALIA: INSTITUTIONS, FREE MARKETS & DEVELOPMENT

“You are a sneaking Puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security...”

Attributed to the pirate Captain Bellamy, 1717

This is going to be my first foray into development economics in this blog.

What with the crisis and stuff, I never got around to write much about this branch of economics and yet I think it stands to be interesting precisely because development economics is forced to deal with the reality of countries trying (and often failing) to grow or catch up and thus it is forced to include the dreaded political and even cultural (gasps) factors into its analysis.

I would like to consider more specifically the case of Somalia because, well, if there is a basket case of a nation, this is it.

IMMIGRATION & TRADE: DISTURBED MACRO-THOUGHTS

This is another one of those blog-post I meant to write a long time ago and never quite got around to doing it. In this case, though, there is more than mere procrastination at play.

Immigration and trade are difficult areas for me - I generally favour positions away from most of the mainstream economists and from what is classically termed 'the liberal elites', a group I would feel I naturally belong to if it wasn't for my lack of an upper class income.

Still, I shall soldier on and hope that, despite contradicting and disagreeing with everyone, I don't end up making a fool of myself. Since we're in the middle of the US Congress attempting to reform its immigration policies, I will first concentrate on the issue of immigration.