EclectEcon

Milton Friedman: Born on this date in 1912

For more about this great economist, see this from Britannica or this from Wikipedia.

How Comparable Is the Current Economic Scene with the Early 1980s?

Spurred on by some correspondence with MA, I have been forced to consider this question. My answer is that they could be pretty comparable if the U.S. Fed makes bad decisions.

The current situation involves a substantial aggregate supply shock, as did the early 1980s. Then it was mostly due to oil shocks (in '73 and '79); now it is due to oil shocks plus the really dumb ethanol programme, which also shifts the aggregate supply curve to the left by requiring US firms to use inefficient products produced at higher-than-necessary cost.

Also, throughout the 1970s, the US economy was slowly inflating; and in the lead-up to this year, the US Fed created/permitted a liquidity expansion that had a similar effect.

So both eras have involved simmering inflationary pressures on the aggregate demand side which, by themselves, could probably have been dealt with fairly easily. And both eras have involved aggregate supply shifts to the left (reductions in aggregate supply to the US economy). I.e., the stage is set for the US to go through another inflation-recession bout similar to that of the early 1980s.

But I think there's perhaps only about a 25% chance they/we will. Here is why:

• In the 1980s, the Fed (and the politicians) tried to fight the aggregate supply shock by pumping up aggregate demand. They did this relentlessly, feeding extreme inflationary expectations and shifting the short-run Phillips curves upward and outward. And the rising inflationary expectations contributed to the problem by shifting the aggregate supply curve to the left, adding to the seriousness of the supply shock.
• In the present era, the Fed has already renewed its lip-service commitment to price stability. This means it will have more of a tendency to let the economy tough its way through the aggregate supply shock, knowing that increasing aggregate demand will only make things worse in a year or two.

The Fed went into expansionary mode last year, and that was to offset the liquidity crunch it was correctly expecting. But then as politicians tried to pump up aggregate demand more with the stimulus package, the Fed began to curtail its wild expansionary policies and has made some reasonably loud noises about price stability, warning that it might have to increase interest rates in the near future.

IF (a big "if") the Fed keeps its eye on price stability, the US economy will indeed suffer from some stagflation over the next year or so: inflation rates, interest rates, and unemployment rates will all rise. But those increases will be much less than they would be if the Fed gives in to political pressure to "do something" and tries to head off the rising unemployment rates and rising interest rates via expansionary monetary policy, which would only multiply the inflationary pressures in the economy.

I give the Fed about 3/4 chance of being successful in fighting off these political pressures. Why as high as 3/4? They have already indicated that (a) they have learned from the experiences of the past 30 years, and (b) they have also indicated they are tending in this direction.

If I am right, look for slower growth over the next year or so, with maybe even a(nother?) negative growth quarter. Also look for unemployment rates to move upward by as much as half a percentage point (possibly more during the transition). Inflation rates will appear to have gotten out of hand, but will mostly be in the 4-5% range at their peak (and if they stay there long, they will cause yet another supply shock by increasing inflationary expectations!). And interest rates will rise by at least a full percentage point.

But just remember: if these things do not happen in the near future, they will be even worse after a year or two.

For a much more pessimistic view, see this, courtesy of MA.

Call the Competition Tribunal!

Has there been collusion between Coke and Pepsi in Clinton, Ontario?

My reaction? Even if they are colluding, it won't affect consumer welfare very much, if at all.

Ten Things You Can (probably) Stop Worrying About

From the NYTimes (reg. req'd.; h/t Ms. Eclectic):

I can’t guarantee you that any of these worries is groundless, because I can’t guarantee you that anything is absolutely safe, including the act of reading a newspaper. With enough money, an enterprising researcher could surely identify a chemical in newsprint or keyboards that is dangerously carcinogenic for any rat that reads a trillion science columns every day.

What I can guarantee is that I wouldn’t spend a nanosecond of my vacation worrying about any of these 10 things:

1. Killer Hot Dogs
2. Your car's planet-destroying A/C
3. Forbidden fruits from afar
4. Carcinogenic cell phones
5. Evil plastic bags
6. Toxic plastic bottles
7. Deadly sharks
8. The Arctic's missing ice
9. The universe's missing mass
10. Unmarked wormholes

The explanations for items 2-8 are especially worth reading.

Terrorism and the Threat to Dams

A couple of weeks ago, the Denver Water Board closed the road over the Dillon Dam. The reason was that there was a plausible concern about terrorism involving the dam. This concern was that strategically placed explosives could loose a flash flood that would likely kill thousands and affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, directly and many more indirectly.

Their concern was not water contamination. Stratfor explains why:

Contaminating 83 billion gallons of water to a meaningful level of toxicity would take a very large amount of agent. To take the contamination level of the water in the reservoir to just 10 parts per million would require 830,000 gallons of contaminant. That would require a fleet of over 55 tanker trucks carrying 15,000 gallons each. Manufacturing, transporting and distributing that quantity of agent would require a tremendous amount of effort.

Secondly, even if one were able to manufacture a substantial quantity of toxic agent and transport it to the reservoir, from an operational standpoint, the road over the dam is simply not an ideal location from which to dump it into the reservoir. Draining a large amount of liquid from a tanker truck takes time, and any large vehicle that stopped on the road over the dam would be quickly noticed by the dam security force.

Furthermore, the placement of the bike path between the road and the water would make it very difficult to ensure that whatever was dumped from the road would make it into the reservoir unless a long hose were used. Tactically, such an attempt would have a much higher chance of success if it were conducted in a more discreet place with less security and better access to the water’s edge. Backing a tanker truck down a boat ramp and dumping the contents of the truck directly into the water would likely be more effective.

Sunday Revelations

Last week, one of the concerts performed by the Goderich Laketown Band was part of a church service in Monmouth. During that church service I was struck by two things:

1. I remembered a lot of the music from the days, nearly 50 years ago, when I sang in a church choir. I knew several verses of the hymns, and all the words and music for "Gloria Patria" and the "Doxology". I enjoy church music. I just ignore the words and sing along. At times, I caught myself thinking, "Maybe this isn't so bad...." but then
2. The jargon, the theology, the prayers, the sermons, the language, etc. I am flabbergasted beyond belief that I ever thought I could become a standard-brand church minister.

Oh well; the horn parts for Ave Maria were great!

And for those in the Goderich, Ontario, area, the band will be performing at Harbour Park tonight at 7pm.

Is It "Racist" to Dislike Spicy Food?

From the Telegraph [h/t to Judith]:

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from   Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and   nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among   youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in   response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist   attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive   to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their   lives".....

The guide goes on to warn that children might also "react negatively to a   culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".

Do you suppose these same people would think it "racist" if some people with strong religious beliefs refuse to eat pork? What if they refuse to drink milk at certain times during or after a meal?

I used to eat very spicy foods, but when I realized that (a) I didn't like my food that spicy, and (b) I no longer had to eat spicy food to assert my masculinity, I stopped. I really don't think this change in my eating habits and my food tastes has a thing to do with racism.

Canada's Investment per Worker Lags

The best way to reduce poverty in the future is to promote economic growth. And the only way an economy can grow (besides going to war and stealing stuff) is via technological change or via saving and investment. It is the last of these -- saving and investment -- which is a cause for some concern in western economies, especially Canada. This point is made quite strongly by a recent C.D. Howe study:

Canada is a laggard compared to other Western countries when it comes to business investment per worker, a bellwether measure of future prosperity for Canadians, according to a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. This underperformance is troubling since providing workers with state-of-the-art tools and equipment helps preserve their competitive edge, raises incomes and reduces environmental stress, says the report, “New Tools for a Richer, Greener Future: Why Canadian Workers Need More Robust Business Investment.”

Authors Robin Banerjee, Policy Analyst, and William B.P. Robson, President and CEO at the Institute, compare Canada’s performance with other members of the G7 and the OECD as well as with the United States. Over the past decade, they write, business-sector capital formation in Canada has been consistently below the average for the G7, and is forecast to underperform the average for other OECD countries over 2008 and 2009.

Even in the face of economic weakness and credit market turmoil in the United States, Canada is not closing the gap with its southern neighbour, they add. Their findings: While the average Canadian worker can expect about $11,100 in new capital investment in 2008, rising to $11,400 in 2009, the average OECD worker will likely get about $11,600, rising to $11,800 in 2009. The average worker in the larger developed countries of the G7 will see $11,800 of capital investment in 2008, rising to $11,900 in 2009.

In the United States, our closest neighbour and trading partner, the average worker should enjoy about $12,500 of investment in both 2008 and 2009. They argue that Canada’s failure to improve its standing against other developed countries, despite a healthy economy and robust saving, underscores the need for tax and regulatory policies that would spur private investment.

Quite clearly there is no necessary production function relationship between investment per worker and the capital/labour ratio. However, continuing low investment per worker ratios will inevitably lead to lower capital/labour ratios and possibly slower future growth rates.

Do Corporate Mis-statements about Global Warming Distort Investment Decisions?

Quite honestly, I doubt if corporate statements about global warming have much, if any, effect on investment decisions, financial or real. Nevertheless, a group [the Free Enterprise Action Fund] is petitioning the SEC,

requesting the SEC to warn publicly-owned companies against making false and misleading statements pertaining to global warming and other environmental issues.

In their request, they note the following instances:

1. Exelon Corp. issued a media release and placed full-page advertisements in major newspapers on July 15, 2008 stating, “The science is overwhelming ─ climate change is happening now and human activity is the primary cause.”
2. Lehman Brothers issued a report on climate change featuring the so-called “hockey stick” graph to support the notion that humans are causing global warming.
3. The General Electric Company issued a “Call for Action” to “slow, stop and even reverse the damage of greenhouse gasses.”
4. Toyota Motor Corp states in a report, “When we drive a vehicle, it consumes fossil fuels and emits CO2, a major contributor to climate change.”
5. Goldman Sachs states in a 2007 report, “By now, the dynamics of global warming are widely known, and we find no reason to dispute the scientific assumptions…”
6. Caterpillar said in a public statement that, “We must take action now [to reduce carbon dioxide emissions] or risk serious harm to our planet.”

The document, asks that the SEC

immediately inform and remind registrants that:
1. False and/or misleading statements on material matters may violate the anti-fraud provision of the federal securities laws.
2. Statements by registrants on global warming and other environmental issues could be considered material.
3. There is considerable ongoing debate about the science of global warming and its impacts and;
4. Statements to the effect that “the science is conclusive,” “the debate is over,” and that “human activities are definitely causing harmful global warming” should be avoided.

 

Tom Lehrer: The Elements

If you have never heard the famous song, "The Elements", by Tom Lehrer, you will likely enjoy this. Here is a video with pictures appropriate for each element as the names roll off Lehrer's tongue.

Be sure to check out the photo associated with silicone as it whizzes by....

More on Pennies

From WaPo, courtesy of KL:

Photos and More about the Monmouth Trip

Rebekah posted some photos of and reflections on our visit at Composite Drawlings.

Ryan, my roomie while staying with Rebekah's parents, and I both were greatly appreciative of their hospitality.

One fun thing that happened was our final number at the Galesburg concert was the music from Disney's movie "Cars", which just happens to be the favourite movie of Bill Polley's son.

Canada's Bank Notes

I recently learned the following:

            Today's bank notes are printed on 100 per cent cotton paper. The paper-making industry has long acknowledged the superior quality of cotton-based paper over woodpulp paper. It is both more durable and more resistant to fading. For these reasons, cotton paper has been used for bank note production for several centuries.       

            The Bank of Canada's first series of bank notes (1935) was printed on paper made from 75 per cent high-grade flax and 25 per cent cotton. During the Second World War, the composition changed to 25 per cent flax and 75 per cent cotton to conserve linen for the production of uniforms.

             The change to 100 per cent cotton came in 1983, to conform with Quebec environmental laws pertaining to the use of flax. [emphasis added]

Can you imagine the U.S. gubmnt printing office changing the composition of the paper it uses for anything because of an environmental law of one state? Me neither.

Small World

Over this past weekend, I met Rebekah's parents. Her father and I have a very important set of things in common:

• We both attended The Chicago Theological Seminary.
• We both dropped out of seminary after two years.
• We both dropped out because we had epiphany-like realizations that we were atheists (or nearly so).

• He is also a photographer, but he has a massive collection of old cameras (I don't)
• Another difference: He went on in physics; me in economics.

The Iraq War and American Sexual Prowess

Several Decades ago, The University of Western Ontario negotiated to buy out the tenure of a journalism professor who found sexual innuendo in nearly every advertisement he saw. His views were probably less nutty than these [h/t to BenS]:

Columbia University has more than its share of intellectual hacks, and high on the list is Joseph Massad. Professor Massad's controversial beliefs invite mockery. He believes the Iraq war stemmed from the sexual prowess of the American male : ("In such a strategy, Iraqis are posited by American super-masculine fighter-bomber pilots as women and feminised men to be penetrated by the missiles and bombs ejected from American warplanes.") [emphasis added]; he condones terrorism against Israel ("This can be done by the continuing resistance of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories to all the civil and military institutions that uphold Jewish supremacy"); and lastly, he attempted to exile a student from his class who had the gall to disagree with him.

Massad's most recent work further supports the idea that Massad belongs on a psychiatrist's couch, not behind a podium. In Desiring Arabs, Massad asserts that the West "produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." But for colonialism, Massad contends, there would be no gay people in the Middle East for the tyrannical governments of Egypt and Iran to persecute. Although Massad says he opposes hanging gay people, he shifts the blame from the hooded executioners to the United States.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia last fall and made a similar claim ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."), students laughed and booed. They recently, however, elected to award Massad the Lionel Trilling Book Award for making the nearly identical claim.

Last year, Marty Peretz reported some good news: Columbia University had declined to give Massad tenure. Apparently, Peretz spoke too soon. After cries from the Middle Eastern Studies Department, the Provost agreed to appoint a second ad hoc committee this year. Will Columbia have the good-sense to banish him once and for all?

Monmouth, Illinois

The Goderich Laketown Band is in Monmouth, Illinois, to perform four concerts in two days. Yes, my French horn was returned to me; and it looks as if I'll be playing the first horn parts. Let's hope my lip holds out.

Rebekah's parents are fascinating hosts; I've truly enjoyed meeting them.

Two of our concerts are scheduled to be outdoors. The forecast calls for rain and/or thunderstorms.

Did Henry James write this novel??

"Imitations of Immorality"....or was it "Intimations of Immortality"?

Last spring, Brian Ferguson and I were discussing something quite important, I'm sure, when the phrase "intimations of immortality" crept into the conversation.

I immediately thought back to my high school days and for some obscure reason remembered that we had studied a poem with that name, written by Wordsworth. I also remembered that we had taken great and sniggering delight in referring to the poem as "Imitations of Immorality".

I feared that even remembering the poem and the poet would be enough for others to commence expulsion proceedings against me from the PLO; however, I swear I remember nothing about the poem. And having looked it up (see here, for example), I can see why. It is utter tripe; impossible to read and understand. It should never have been on any school curriculum.

Louise Arbour: Anti-West and an Embarrassment to Canada

Remember the story about the Taliban-Islamists who killed two Pakistanis (link here; h/t to Jack)? Leave it to Louise Arbour to blame the west and its supporters:

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Friday that she was concerned that the peace deals undermined state authority and left residents vulnerable to a range of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings.

"The government has the responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians," she told reporters in Islamabad.

Minorities and women were particularly in danger of abuses, she said.

Note that she did not blame the terrorist-Islamists for the killings. Rather, she blamed the gubmnt (which supports the west) for not protecting the civilians.

I cannot imagine how she would expect the gubmnt to protect civilians since she opposes nearly every action taken by west-leaning gubmnts.

Has File-Sharing Reduced CD Sales?

As I said in a previous posting, my priors are that with the advent of a zero-price substitute, the demand for CDs would drop. I realize that file sharing might help some lesser-known groups become better known and have a positive effect on the CD sales for those groups, but for well-known groups, I really do not see how file sharing can not have a negative impact on CD sales.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, David Glenn has a good summary of the debate, having interviewed most of the principals.

[E]ven if it was kosher for the journal [The Journal of Political Economy] to use Mr. Strumpf as a referee [for a comment submitted by Liebowitz], there is still the question of whether the journal acted wisely when it rejected Mr. Liebowitz's comment. The second referee report, after all, urged publication, saying that Mr. Liebowitz had correctly pointed out several flaws in the paper.

But here is a major attack on the work by Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf:

The authors' citation is to a report on monthly file-sharing usage prepared by BigChampagne, a company that measures traffic on peer-to-peer networks. Mr. Liebowitz has a copy of the same report, which covers the period from August 2002 through May 2006. It's true that summer file sharing drops by an average of 12 percent (11.7 percent, to be precise) during the three summers—2003, 2004, 2005—covered in that report. But all of that effect comes from a severe drop in the summer of 2003, during a much-publicized wave of industry lawsuits against file sharers. During the summer of 2004, file sharing was flat, and during the summer of 2005, it actually rose slightly. So the test Mr. Oberholzer-Gee and Mr. Strumpf have set up—which is based on the ratio of summer-to-full-year CD sales—tells us nothing, Mr. Liebowitz says.

"If one my undergraduates did that, I would fail him," says Bruce D. McCullough, a professor of decision sciences at Drexel University who became interested in the dispute because he is a proponent of data transparency in economics publishing. "To take one decline, one flat, and one advance, and to suggest that it always goes down in the summer is just wrong." [emphasis added]

Mr. Strumpf concedes that the only true summer decline in the BigChampagne data came in 2003, but he says that the summer-sales test has been "misconstrued." Because the rate of increase in file sharing drops during the summer, he says, we would still expect to see a boost in the summer share of CD sales, if file sharing injured CD sales. The summer share of sales has not risen, and Mr. Strumpf takes that as evidence that file sharing does not affect sales.

But it is still not clear that that is a sensible test for this particular data set. In the 2004 and 2005 BigChampagne data, the relatively flat summer usage levels are just blips in a much larger upward trend in file-sharing activity. (The number of file-sharing users almost doubled between January 2004 and December 2005.) In each of those two years, it is the January-through-March period, not summer, that has by far the lowest average file-sharing levels. So a more logical test here might be whether the winter share of CD sales is rising, relative to the pre-file-sharing era.

Glenn's article also has a lengthy discussion of the fact that Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf do not make their data available for others to use to try to replicate their results. He concludes,

If Mr. Oberholzer-Gee and Mr. Strumpf's paper were submitted today, it is not clear whether it would be accepted by the Journal of Political Economy. In 2006, partly at Mr. McCullough's urging, the journal adopted transparency rules that require authors to post their data and statistical models on the journal's Web site. (The file-sharing paper was grandfathered in because it was submitted before the rule was announced.) ...

As far as Mr. McCullough is concerned, the authors' inability to share the data will forever cast a cloud over the paper. "If they are not making their data and code available, then I have to think that they have something to hide," he says. "There is a lot of nonreplicable research published in economics. We need to change the profession so that readers can expect that there actually does exist data and code that will reproduce the published results. Right now, at many journals, we cannot expect that."

 

Does Thrice Thwarted = Doomed?What about Four or Five Times Thwarted?

I have been a member of the Goderich Laketown Band for nearly a decade (background here). About a year ago, the band received an inquiry from the community band in Monmouth, Illinois, about whether we would like to participate in an exchange, with our band traveling there this summer, and their band visiting Goderich in the summer of 2009.

I thought the idea sounded great. I would be able to meet with Rebekah, probably with Bill Polley, who lives only 20 or 30 miles from Monmouth, and maybe even with Phil (but he can't make it). However, the venture has been a challenge, to say the least, for the past month or so.

1. Last month, Jason, the first horn player in our band, learned that he probably will not be able to make the trip. No worries, though. For years, I was the only horn player in this band as well as the Bayfield Winds and the Blyth Orchestra, and I figured that with extra practice during the ensuing month I could cover adequately as I had for so many years (though Jason really is a much better horn player than I am).
2. So I obtained copies of the first horn parts for all the music we will be playing in Monmouth and took them (and my horn) with me to Houston, TX, where I was nanny-temping. I practiced my horn diligently (with my mute) while 7-week-old Lara either slept or listened, totally unenthralled. But during my return from Houston last night, my French horn was lost by Air Canada. Again, probably no worries: surely we can work out some arrangement for me to borrow a horn from someone somewhere if Air Canada doesn't return it to me before we leave, early Friday (tomorrow) morning.
3. Also yesterday, I learned that billeting had not gone as planned and that there was a seriously non-negligible chance I'd end up sleeping on an air mattress on the floor at the home of Rebekah's parents. All I could say was, "Nope. I'm too old for that ......." Fortunately, Rebekah and her parents were able to make some alternative arrangements.

There have been other problems, too. Ms. Eclectic (who is now in Houston doing her tour of duty as a nanny-temp) thinks these are too many signs that this trip was just not meant to be.

If you happen to live in the vicinity of Monmouth or Galesburg or Bishops Hill, Illinois, though, there's a chance you might be able to see and hear our band this weekend. And there's even a chance I might be there. And there's even a chance I might be playing with the band.

How about this: I'll post something here if I'm/we're not going to be there.

Update: It's here! The horn was just delivered to my home.

Black and White Life Expectancies

Ironman at Political Calculations has a chart showing that for individuals from age 80 onward, the life expectancy of blacks is greater than the life expectancy of whites. Here is one possible explanation for the result:

What if weaker blacks or those blacks less likely to have super long life expectancies are more likely than whites to die at younger ages, leaving only those who are comparatively well-fit and with very long life expectancies still living at age 80.

Alternatively, but related, what if lots of whites reach age 80 in bad shape, physically and/or medically, and what if many of these folks would have died before age 80 but for the intervention of medical care, which is generally thought to be more readily available for whites than for blacks. These weaker whites die earlier than the healthy blacks still alive at age 80.

Jack has an alternative hypothesis that is related to the second one above:

Interesting. But the explanation is clear: since whites have more access to medical care than do blacks, doctors must be hazardous to your health.

Amusing, but I think my hypotheses are more likely to be correct. Anyway, I'm not there yet. ...
yet.

Property Rights and Incentives: The Success of Cuba's Urban Farms

Over the past decade or so, Cuba has allowed people with small plots of land in or near the large urban areas to raise produce and sell it in markets or to their neighbours. The result has been a resounding success [h/t to Brian Ferguson]:

Cuba's urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms... now supply much of Cuba's vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.

From 1989-93, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba's food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day - more than what the U.S. government recommends for American citizens.

"It's a really interesting model looking at what's possible in a nation that's 80 per cent urban," said Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. "It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits."

As it is, productivity is low at Cuba's large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives. Government-supplied rations - mostly imported from the U.S. - provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn't correct for gaps. And since most land is owned by the state, developers are not competing for the vacant lots that can become plots for vegetables.

Unfortunately, the overall tone of the article is that somehow urban farming is something other central planners should emulate. The article misses the major point: when property rights are well-defined and transaction costs are low, people can respond to incentives and resources will tend to move toward their most highly valued uses.

If only people studying economic development could understand this basic result...

Afternoon Tea at the Houston St. Regis

As regular readers of the EclectEcon know, I am in Houston now, nanny-temping our most recent granddaughter. Last Sunday, I took the day off to do some shopping and some geocaching, and to take afternoon tea at the St. Regis Hotel.

Background: Last year was the first time I had ever gone to a posh place for a proper English afternoon tea. Over the course of the 2007 summer, I visited four different places in England and one in Canada. Here are links to my reviews from those outings, in chronological order:

• The Four Seasons, London, England
• The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath
• The Pump Room, Bath
• Claridge's, London, England
• The Boathouse, Guelph, Canada

I phoned the St. Regis a day in advance and was fortunate to be able to obtain a reservation. When I arrived at the St. Regis, being too cheap to pay for valet parking, I drove past it, to the east on San Felipe St., and parked at what looks like a mostly unused plaza, which was completely empty on Sunday afternoon.

When I entered the hotel, I was immediately greeted and, upon my saying I had a reservation for afternoon tea, directed to the tea room.There was a little pre-printed sign on a welcoming table that said the afternoon tea for that day was completely booked up.

The tea room is nicely appointed with several low tables and a few higher tables. When I arrived, Charles (who provided impeccable service) was busy with a larger party, but as soon as he finished, he came to seat me.

Proper attire at the St. Regis is what they term "business casual". Because I came to Houston not expecting to dress up even that much, I was wearing beige cargo pants and a short-sleeved dress shirt. I had a hunch that Charles assumed I was there just to look around rather than for afternoon tea. But after I introduced myself [Dr. Palmer], I was seated next to a window, near the harpist, at what would have been a table for two.

After I was seated, the server came to explain the details of afternoon tea to me, as if I had never experienced one before. He began by suggesting that if I had plans for dinner, I should cancel them because there would be so much food. I then explained to him that I had taken afternoon tea at several different hotels in England and knew what to expect.

Nevertheless, he persisted and explained that even though the desserts would be on the 3-tiered server he would bring out, I should not start them until after he brought the scones, which would be served warm after I finished the tea sandwiches, which occupied the other two tiers.

Before he had a chance to recommend a tea for me, I asked if he had Lapsang Souchong tea, which has become a favourite of mine. The smokiness of the tea reminds me of LaPhroig scotch or perhaps some of the burley pipe tobacco I used to smoke 68 years ago.

When I requested that tea, I thought I detected a noticeable wince from the server, but he graciously acquiesced.

Tea at the St. Regis is served using loose tea and strainers. The tea is in the pot, loose, and the server keeps a close eye on the customer, quickly making sure s/he is there to refill the cup. Before the tea can become bitter, the server brings out a new pot, so leaving the tea loose in the pot works okay (despite what The Tea Party Girl might advise). In fact, they were much more attentive about this at the St. Regis than anywhere else I have been for afternoon tea.

Sandwiches at the St. Regis are quite artfully presented. The open-faced cucumber sandwich on white bread is done with short overlapping thin stripes of cucumbers. The smoked salmon was standard. The chicken salad was well-above average, on wheat bread. The other two sandwiches were quite special. One was alternating stripes of prosciutto and provolone, and the other was a mild gruyere cheese over a mild mustard-and-pimento paste on white bread. The sandwiches looked beautiful and were quite good. I thought that perhaps the bread could have been either more yuppie-healthy or thinner or something. It often seemed a bit too run-of-the-mill.

As soon as I finished the first plateful of sandwiches, Charles was there to whisk away my plate and set the second plate in front of me.

The harpist provided constant background music while I was there. Her repertoire consisted mainly of baroque music rearranged for harp and was pleasantly unobtrusive.

At about this point in the afternoon, Charles came out with some additional Lapsang Souchong tea wrapped in a cloth net. He presented it to me saying that when I fly home, I should ask the flight attendant for just hot water and use this for perhaps as many as five or six cups of tea. He guaranteed it would clear out the row, showing his own distaste for the amazing smoky aromas of Lapsang Souchong tea. My daughter-in-law, however, is quite eagre to try it herself, so I'll be leaving it in Houston for them.

Interestingly, one of the servers referred to the scones as [sk OH ns] and the other called the [sk AH ns] . However pronounced, the scones were served with a choice of strawberry jam, raspberry jam, or marmelade, all in small individual jars. Each one that was served also came with a huge dollop of whipped Devon cream, which is flown in from England five times a week.

The scone portion of the tea was slightly, but only slightly, disappointing. I am not all that keen on currant scones, but to get plain scones, one must request them a day in advance; I wish I had known. Currant scones sometimes create a sensation for me that they were nearly burned on the edges, and these were no exception. Also, the Devon cream was lacking in substance; I have a preference for the clotted cream served at several places in England. Surely if they can fly in Devon cream, they could fly in English clotted cream for those of us who would prefer it. The scones themselves (aside from the currants) were fine. They seemed fresh, and they were served warm, one at a time, which meant I was always being offered a warm scone, a serving style that was much appreciated.

At the beginning, Charles assured me that, "One way or another, you will leave with these desserts." What he meant was that if I was too full to eat them, he would put them in a box for me.

For some reason, I had been served two of each of the three desserts: key-lime-pie tart, a vanilla cream in a small cream puff, and glazed fresh fruit on a lemon chiffon base in a tart. I ate one of each of the desserts, and when I suggested I would take the others home to my son and his wife, Charles insisted that I should have a complete set for each of them and brought me two boxes, each with a set of three desserts in it.

I realize I might sound a bit picky in this review, but let me assure you that taking afternoon tea at the St. Regis was at least as nice as the afternoon tea I had at Claridge's last summer, and probably nicer. They know what they are doing, and they do it well.

If I have it to do again, though, I would eat much more slowly. The service was quite remarkable, but it was also remarkably quick in that the minute I finished a plate, another was placed in front of me. It was as if they needed the table or something, even though I was assured that they didn't. I had a tendency to eat and then want to rest and relax between courses, but in their haste to provide spot-on service, I didn't have that option. Next time I will eat each course slowly, doing my resting and relaxing during the course, or possibly before starting it.

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....

Are Rising Fish Oil Prices the Result of Speculation?

More likely, the rising prices are due to growing demand (and possibly the shift to the left of supply curves). From the WSJ  Health Blog (h/t to Brian Ferguson):

The global commodities boom extends even to the ocean depths: The price of crude fish oil has nearly tripled in the past five years. ...

The price has been rising as Baby Boomers (and others) have been swallowing ever more fish oil. Global fisheries, alas, are already under pressure and can’t keep up with the habit.

And it comes as no surprise that the high price of omega-3 laden fish oil has spurred various innovations. As we tell our intro students, the expectation of profits spurs attempts to enter an industry. People respond to incentives.

Responding to this growing imbalance, some big corporate players are using biotech gene-splicing techniques to create land-based supplies of omega-3s, Dow Jones Newswires reports. DuPont hopes to use genetically modified yeast to crank out omega-3s.

Monsanto is trying soy beans. And Dow AgroSciences and Martek Biosciences are splicing algae genes into canola seeds. The products could come to market within the next few years.

Consumers may initially be wary of nutritional supplements created through gene splicing.

But, as a Monsanto VP told Dow Jones, “There’s just not enough fish in the ocean.”

How Can Anyone NOT Love a Baby with Heart-Shaped Nostrils?

I am totally and hopelessly infatuated with my ward while I am her temp-nanny. Here is only one reason:

X Marks the Spot

Phil Miller has a posting about supply and demand with a link to an "intriguing" example, but he failed to mention that the example involves prostitution.

But who am I to talk? I didn't even blog about it. And Tyler didn't mention the topic AND he turned off the comments in his posting about it.

Update: Phil writes in his defence that he does mention "tricks". Well..... sorta.

Finally, Someone Who Agrees with Me

I never really enjoyed the humour of George Carlin. I thought the "hippy-dippy weatherman" was dumb, and other skits seemed superficial and/or trite. Here's someone who also didn't much care for George Carlin's humour:

The surest way to stumble into a gaffe is to tell a joke. Jokes are risky; they are a game of percentages. That is why jokes are best left to professional jokesters. Certainly they are too dangerous for politicians to play with. Any joke that doesn't offend at least a few people is unlikely to be funny. You have to hope that many more will be amused than are offended. You have to come as close as you can to the line of justifiable, widespread offense without crossing it. This is why I never found George Carlin, who died two weeks ago, terribly funny: He walked up to the line and simply crossed it. Where is the art in that?

I didn't agree with lots of the rest of the article, but that part was spot on.

Prediction: the price of watermelon will rise

More precisely, the prediction should be that the demand for watermelon will rise, and, ceteris paribus, (i.e. barring sizable shifts in supply or other, offsetting, shifts in demand) that increased demand will then drive up the price of watermelons.

And it's not just because prices of fuel and grains are rising.

The other day, my son and I were grocery shopping and the man in line in front of us noticed that we had a watermelon in the cart. He said something like,

You make sure you eat the rind, too. Watermelon rind is just as good as viagra! Check it out. Try it.

So we did check it out ... on the internet ... and here is what we found:

A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra ...

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation's top producers of the seedless variety.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects." ...

More citrulline — about 60 percent — is found in watermelon rind than in the flesh, ....

Citrulline is found in all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types, said Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a USDA researcher in Lane, Okla.

She said Patil's research is valid, but with a caveat: One would need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough citrulline to boost the body's arginine level.

"The problem you have when you eat a lot of watermelon is you tend to run to the bathroom more," Perkins-Veazie said. ...

Citrulline is present in other curcubits, like cucumbers and cantaloupe, at very low levels, and in the milk protein casein. The highest concentrations of citrulline are found in walnut seedlings, Perkins-Veazie said.

"But they're bitter and most people don't want to eat them," she said.

Does this mean the demand for walnuts has increased, too?

How Much Does the US Affect the Canadian Economy?

From the RGE Monitor ($):

• All provinces have lessened their exposure to U.S by diversifying their exports to other international markets like China but none will fully escape US weakness. The hit to exports will disproportionately affect Ontario, which will teeter on the brink of recession, both because of its relatively heavy reliance on U.S. demand for its products as well as the unfavorable composition of those exports - autos and forestry (RBC)

• U.S. export share of GDP by province ranges from 18% in British Columbia to 40% for Ontario (TD) Provinces with a larger energy/refined product share of exports are more cushioned from consumption-led slowdown in U.S.

There is continued concern in Ontario about the loss of manufacturing there. But much of that change has been the result of the appreciation of the Canadian dollar, not a reduction in demand from the US. Yes, the potential drop in demand from the US has manufacturers in Ontario concerned, but this trend in Ontario has been going on much longer than the slow-down in the US.