EclectEcon

The Nude Women of Curling: Better than an Insta-lanche?

My recollection of this is fuzzy, but I think the impact of people's searches for the Nude Women of Curling Calendar photos has now surpassed the phenomenal increase in traffic to this blog from when Glenn Reynolds mentioned my posting about "The Cartoonists Strike Back" on Instapundit four years ago. And the traffic at our blog devoted to curling has been more than 50% higher than it has been here for the same reason.

Sex Sells: The Nude Women of Curling Calendar

Once again we have noticed a dramatic increase in traffic to this blog and to Curling, where I co-blog with Alan Adamson. With a few seconds of checking, we discovered that the higher traffic is not to read our brilliant insights, but is from people searching for the "Nude Women of Curling Calendar". Our friend, John Chilton, has sent us several recent links that mention the calendar; I guess the mention of the calendar elsewhere helps explain the sudden spurt of interest in the calendar and the searches that have led people to our sites.

We appreciate the traffic and the interest, and we appreciate the searches that people have made to find this artful work. At the same time, we hope all our visitors will look around and re-visit us for other reasons, too.

as if.

EclectEcon: Profiled on NormBlog This Week

EclectEcon is being profiled in the weekly posting about bloggers on NormBlog. While that profile probably tells more about me than it should, which questions I chose to answer was probably also revealing.

Coincidentally, my fifth anniversary of blogging occurred this week, too (first posting on November 4, 2004).

EclectEcon Named One of Top 100 Blogs for Economics Students and one of top 20 by economics educators

I do not quite understand the selection criteria or the ranking criteria for this listing but I'm pleased to see that EclectEcon is listed 9th among economics blogs by educators, ahead of Robert Reich, Gary Becker-Richard Posner, and Paul Krugman, among others.

Unfortunately there are several important omissions from their list. Among the omissions are:

• Newmark's Door (Craig Newmark, NCSU). The first blog I read each day. Not always explicitly economics content, but always worth checking
• Market Power (Phil Miller, Mankato). Co-author on some sports economics work. Fascinating and enjoyable market man
• SCSU Scholars (King Banaian, St. Cloud). Knowledgeable and informative blog by two people in Minnesota.
• The Emirates Economist (John Chilton, UAE) A former colleague presents an informed perspective on the Middle East in general and the UAE in particular.
• Supply and Demand (in that order), (Casey Mulligan, Chicago) primarily on current macro. Not always mainstream, which makes it an important blog to read.
• Tim Worstall , Daily sensible commentary on economic events, primarily in England
• Bill Polley (Western Illinois), Bright Macro guy who deserves to be better known
• John Lott, Assiduous free market economist who makes everyone think harder. I wish we had hired him at UWO.
• Mike Moffat, (About Economics) a former student who has boundless energy
• and a whole bunch of others, too, listed along the right side of this blog

I don't know which ones should be dropped from the list to make room for these blogs, but I haven't even heard of a bunch of the ones on their list. Suggestions are welcome.

Posner's Other Blog, Wherein He Calls Krugman a Born-Again Keynesian

I don't know how Richard Posner reads and writes as much as he does. But he does so much and does it so well.

Recently, Posner began another blog in addition to his original blog that he co-authors with Gary Becker. His latest blog, sponsored by The Atlantic, is called "A Failure of Capitalism", the same as the title of his book published this past spring by Harvard Press and about the financial crisis and the 2008ff recession in the United States.

In his most recent posting, Posner criticizes Paul Krugman's unabashed support for more gubmnt intervention in the market for health care, referring to Krugman as a "born again Keynesian".  Posner's criticism is that the debate has created considerable uncertainty and that this uncertainty has caused people not only to save but to hoard liquidity, thus prolonging and deepening the recession. Let me add that this criticism applies to much of the Democrat and Obama agenda for increasing involvement of the gubmnt in the economy. Here is the conclusion from this posting:

Initially the concern was with the macroeconomic implications of adding some $100 billion a year to the federal deficit (an underestimate, in my view, because it ignores the increase in demand for medical services by tens of millions of persons who will have health insurance for the first time, which will reduce the marginal cost of medical services to them). The concern became so acute that focus shifted to measures for financing the program so that it would not add to the deficit. But when this happened, businesses and individuals alike began asking: what part of the cost of the new program will I bear? And this question injects a new and very major source of uncertainty into the economic environment. Small businessmen are worrying about the added cost to them if they are required to insure their employees, and individuals are wondering whether their cost of health insurance will rise. Most people do have health insurance and most of those who do are more or less satisfied with it; anyway better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Prudent businessmen and prudent individuals alike have thus been given an additional motive for hoarding cash rather than investing and consuming. No one knows how his financial situation will be affected by health reform, if it is is enacted. There is enormous and I think justified distrust of the government's ability to design and execute so ambitious a program as the Administration and the congressional leadership envisage.

One might think that this would give a born-again Keynesian macroeconomist like Paul Krugman pause. But not only does he say nothing about the effect of the debate over health reform on uncertainty and through it on the economic situation, even though he is pessimistic about the situation; he provides no analysis of the likely costs of health reform, and the incidence of those costs on particular groups in the society. He does nothing to allay the uncertainty that the debate over health reform has engendered.

My only concern about this particular blog is that it seems designed to plug his book. Not that I think his book shouldn't be plugged; in fact, I bought the book as soon as it was advertised.

Back and Ready to Blog Again Soon

After more than a month away from blogging while I traveled and did other things, I'm home now. It will take some time before the blog posts come at a regular pace, but at least they will restart soon. Thanks to everyone for your patience.

Taking a Break

With apologies to all and with thanks to the regular readers who have asked if I'm okay, the answer is that I'm fine. I'm just taking a break from blogging while I'm teaching in England. There is much to blog about, but I'm just not finding the time to do it while I'm here this time.

EclectEcon Named One of theTop 50 Economics Blogs

See this. For what it's worth, that's a higher ranking than the UWO economics department....(see the previous posting, just below this one).

Internet Addiction

Living hand-to-mouse.

EclectEcon: Not Right-Wing Enough?

My friend, Rondi Adamson, has a blog that is listed 7th on a list of the top 15 right-wing blogs in Canada. EclectEcon didn't even make the list.

It's a good list --- check it out here.

It is difficult to be a right-wing blogger when one is a libertarian and vehemently opposes most social conservative policies.

Alan Adamson Profiled on Normblog

Alan Adamson is a fascinating person. It is a joy to know him and to co-blog with him intermittently at Curling. Alan is the blogger profiled this week on Normblog.

Welcome Gabriel Mihalache

After several years of adding his insights in the comments at EclectEcon, and after writing his own blog for quite some time, Gabriel Mihalache has accepted my invitation to post items at EclectEcon.

I am honoured and delighted to be working with a blogger with his knowledge and insight.

Please join me in welcoming him.

Horn-Blowing! EclectEcon in the Top Ten

Once again I am indebted to Craig Newmark for his continued support of this blog from its incipiency right up to this:

http://www.blogs.com/topten/the-really-10-best-economics-blogs/

Temporary Break

As regular readers of the EclectEcon have undoubtedly noticed, I'm taking a temporary break from blogging. I have a photo show to get ready to hang on Friday [Cherryhill Library in London, November 1 - December 2]. Also, after a three-year absence from acting, I am now working diligently to learn and develop the role of David Stafford in the Clinton Community Players' production of My Darling Judith by Norm Foster, November 28 - 30 (review of a performance by a different group here).

There are lots of things I want to write about, but I'm just not finding the time to do everything I want to do these days. I expect this break to last only a few days or so, but I really must concentrate on other things right now.

World's Oldest Blogger

Died today in Australia.

An Australian woman described as the world's oldest Internet blogger has died at the age of 108 after posting a final message about singing "a happy song" in her nursing home.                         

Olive Riley "passed away peacefully on July 12 and will be mourned by thousands of Internet friends and hundreds of descendants and other relatives," a note on her website said.

Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life and her experiences living through the entire 20th century....

Welcome to the New Site for EclectEcon

When I moved the blog from Blogger several years ago, Chris at PowerBlogs was very helpful, and the folks at TypePad were not particularly helpful. The result was that I went to PowerBlogs.

Since then, however, the outages at PowerBlogs, combined with unanswered support questions and an awkward front end, left me pretty dissatisfied.

During the past month, I have experimented with TypePad and with Wordpress. I decided on TypePad because in they end they provided some assistance with moving the blog and because I was familiar with their front end from my blogging at The Western Standard. It has not been a smooth transition, though, and for someone who knows what they're doing, I can readily imagine that using the WordPress front end with a separate hosting service would be good, too.

For the next six months or so, I will be keeping the EclectEcon.com domain name affiliated with my PowerBlog site, in part because it was not possible to migrate the photos and images away from that site. The domain name for this site is

www.EclectEcon.net

There are still some wrinkles to be sorted out here, so I hope you will be patient as I work through them. Meanwhile thanks for reading the blog, and thanks for coming to this site to keep up with it.

Blog Migration to TypePad?

For various reasons, I have been considering moving this blog to a different site. If I do, I will explain more in the future. Meanwhile, I would appreciate feedback on this version of the blog, hosted at TypePad. How does it look? Is it easy to use? Etc.