EclectEcon

Twelve Years Ago

I knew that September 11th was coming today. I really did not expect it to affect me as much as it has. 

I was working at home that day. A friend called me to discuss something about the orchestra and mentioned in passing that a plane had flown into one of the buildings of the World Trade Centre. 

So I turned on the tv ... just in time to see the second plane fly into the other tower. It was pretty clear from that and the plane flown into the Pentagon that this was an act of terrorism/war.

Ms. Eclectic was working out of town. I e-mailed her and asked her to call me. She wrote back in a few minutes to ask what was wrong. She hadn't heard yet. An hour later she called to say she was on her way home. We wanted to be together.

As I reflect on that day and the days to follow, it still brings tears to my eyes. 

31 Theatre Briefs: Index

Here is a list (with links) of the Theatre Briefs I've posted over the past couple of months. Thanks again to those who gave me permission to use and repost their material, to those who encouraged me to post this series, to those who offered helpful feedback, and to those who reposted the material on various websites (with permission). 

00. Introduction and Explanation

1. Character Checklist
2. Learning Lines
3. Subtext: Does "no" mean "no"?
4. Using Goals or Objectives
5. Intentions
6. Objectives and Super-Objectives
7. Where are You Coming from?
8. Specific Intentions, Part I
9. Specific Intentions, Part II
10. Don't Get Carried Away
11. Specific Intentions and Dialogue
12. Overcoming Obstacles
13. Writing Your Programme Bio
14. Breaking down the Text
15. Overcoming Obstacles by Changing Intentions
16. Reading the Actor's "Score"
17. Using Expectations and Outcomes
18. Using (and misusing) Emotions
19. A Roadmap of Intentions
20. Beginning at Step 4? Really?
21. Disturbing the Molecules: Choosing active verbs
22. Preparing Emotionally
23. Realizations and Intentions
24. Theatre Etiquette
25. Diction
26. Preparing Your Entrance
27. Things That Are Never Said in the Theatre
28. Some Historical Perspective
29. What NOT To Do
30. Theatre Definitions

 

I REALLY Struggle with "Settled Science"

Peope don't seem to understand that I am a global-warming skeptic, not a denier. I have friends whose knowledge, ability, and integrity I repect on both sides of the questions associated with global warming. And I have friends whose knowledge, ability, and/or integrity I do not respect on both sides of those questions.

Because so many people were yelling at me, haranguing me, that global warming is "settled science" 6 years ago, I hope you can understand my skepticism in light of the failures of so many computer models about climate change.

And when I see articles like this one, I'm not sure what it all means, but it certainly increases my doubts.

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.

The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

... 

Some eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century – a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading.

The disclosure comes 11 months after The Mail on Sunday triggered intense political and scientific debate by revealing that global warming has ‘paused’ since the beginning of 1997 – an event that the computer models used by climate experts failed to predict.

In March, this newspaper further revealed that temperatures are about to drop below the level that the models forecast with ‘90 per cent certainty’.

The pause – which has now been accepted as real by every major climate research centre – is important, because the models’ predictions of ever-increasing global temperatures have made many of the world’s economies divert billions of pounds into ‘green’ measures to counter  climate change.

Those predictions now appear gravely flawed.

 

Theatre Brief 30: Theatre Definitions

Brief #30

THEATRE DEFINITIONS

ETERNITY: The time that passes between a dropped cue and the next line.

PROP: A hand-carried object small enough to be lost by an actor 30 seconds before it is needed on stage.

DIRECTOR: The megalomaniac individual who suffers from the delusion that he or she is responsible for every moment of  brilliance cited by the critic in the local review.

BLOCKING: The art of moving actors on the stage in such a manner as not to collide with the walls, the furniture, the orchestra pit or each other. Similar to playing chess, except that the pawns want to argue with you.

BLOCKING REHEARSAL: A rehearsal taking place early in the production schedule where actors frantically write down movements which will be nowhere in evidence by opening night.

QUALITY THEATER: Any show with which you were directly involved.

TURKEY: Every show with which you were not directly involved.

DRESS REHEARSAL: Rehearsal that becomes a whole new ball game as actors attempt to manoeuvre among the 49 objects that the set designer added at 7:30 that evening.

TECH WEEK: The last week of rehearsal when everything that was supposed to be done weeks before finally comes together at the last minute; reaches its grand climax on dress rehearsal night when costumes rip, a dimmer pack catches fire and the director has a nervous breakdown. Also known as Hellweek.

SET: An obstacle course which, throughout the rehearsal period, defies the laws of physics by growing smaller week by week while continuing to occupy the same amount of space.

MONOLOGUE: That shining moment when all eyes are focused on a single actor who is desperately aware that if he forgets a line, no one can save him.

DARK NIGHT: The night before opening when no rehearsal is scheduled so the actors and crew can go home and get some well-deserved rest, and instead spend the night staring  sleeplessly at the ceiling because they're sure they needed one more rehearsal.

BIT PART: An opportunity for the actor with the smallest role to count everybody else's lines and mention repeatedly that he or she has the smallest part in the show.

GREEN ROOM: Room shared by nervous actors waiting to go on stage and the precocious children whose actor parents couldn't get a baby-sitter that night, a situation which can result in justifiable homicide.

DARK SPOT: An area of the stage which the lighting designer has inexplicably forgotten to light, and which has a magnetic attraction for the first-time actor. A dark spot is never evident before opening night.

HANDS: Appendages at the end of the arms used for manipulating one's environment, except on a stage, where they grow six times their normal size and either dangle uselessly, fidget nervously, or try to hide in your pockets.

STAGE MANAGER: Individual responsible for overseeing the crew, supervising the set changes, baby-sitting the actors and putting the director in a hammerlock to keep him from killing the actor who just decided to turn his walk-on part into a major role by doing magic tricks while he serves the tea.

LIGHTING DIRECTOR: (I)Individual who, from the only vantage point offering a full view of the stage, gives the stage manager a heart attack by announcing a play-by-play of everything that's going wrong.

OR

LIGHTING DESIGNER: (II)One who whines, bitches, throws fits, and says "this is the last show I'm doing here ! I swear to God!" (rinse, repeat).

MAKEUP KIT: (1) among experienced community theater actors, a battered tackle box loaded with at least 10 shades of greasepaint in various stages of desiccation, tubes of lipstick and blush, assorted pencils, bobby pins, braids of crepe hair, liquid latex, old programs, jewelry, break-a-leg greeting cards from past shows, brushes and a handful of half-melted cough drops; (2) for first-time male actors, a helpless look and anything they can borrow.

THE FOREBRAIN: The part of an actors brain which contains lines, blocking and characterization; activated by hot lights.

THE HINDBRAIN: The part of an actors brain that keeps up a running subtext in the background while the forebrain is trying to act; the hindbrain supplies a constant stream of unwanted information, such as who is sitting in the second row tonight, a notation to seriously maim the crew member who thought it would be funny to put real Tabasco sauce in the fake Bloody Marys, or the fact that you need to do laundry on Sunday.

STAGE CREW: Group of individuals who spend their evenings coping with 50-minute stretches of total boredom interspersed with 30-second bursts of mindless panic.

MESSAGE PLAY: Any play which its director describes as "worthwhile," "a challenge to actors and audience alike," or "designed to make the audience think." Critics will be impressed both by the daring material and the roomy accommodations, since they're likely to have the house all to themselves.

BEDROOM FARCE: Any play which requires various states of undress on stage and whose set sports a lot of doors.  The lukewarm reviews, all of which feature the phrase  "typical community theater fare" in the opening paragraph, are followed paradoxically by a frantic attempt to schedule more performances to accommodate the overflow crowds.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Individual willing to undertake special projects that nobody else would take on a bet, such as working one-on-one with the brain-dead director on whom the rest of the cast has threatened to take out a contract.

SET PIECE: Any large piece of furniture which actors will resolutely use as a safety shield between themselves and the audience, in an apparent attempt to both anchor themselves to the floor, thereby avoiding floating off into space, and to keep the audience from seeing that they actually have legs.

STRIKE: The time immediately following the last performance while all cast and crew members are required to stay and dismantle, or watch the two people who own Makita screw drivers dismantle the set.

ACTORS: People who stand between the audience and the set designer's art, blocking the view. That's also the origin of the word "blocking," by the way.

STAGE RIGHT, STAGE LEFT: Two simple directions actors pretend not to understand in order to drive directors crazy.  ("No, no, your OTHER stage right !")

 

Just remember: It's only theatre until it offends someone . . . .

Then it's ART!

Scientific American Supports GMOs

Scientific American has come out with an editorial supporting the use of genetically modified organisms [GMOs] in food and opposing any laws that might require the labeling of foods containing GMOs. See this [via JC]. 

Purported claims about adverse effects of GMOs often center around tumors in rats (anyone who has worked in drug development knows how different rats are from humans) induced by inordinately high amounts of substances administered over unrealistic periods of time. This is also true of many other studies proclaiming the ghastly effects of all kinds of chemical substances, from glyphosate to materials in “toxic couches“. Whenever you come across a study claiming GMOs are toxic, it’s worth asking questions about the nature of the test animals, the dosage and the statistical significance of the results at the very minimum.

I have no qualms about eating foods with GMOs. I'm not so sure I share SA's view on labeling.

GMO labeling can create unnecessary fear and confusion in consumers’ minds and amplify risks at the expense of downplaying benefits. Do we list every potential, vaguely suspected but not proven danger from every single material used in a car while selling it to consumers? And since random bits of foreign DNA are introduced into our food supply anyway, should we once again appeal to the Precautionary Principle and have a label on every single product in the grocery store saying that “This product may contain foreign DNA” just because we don’t really know what that DNA can do? In fact while we are at it, why not label the wheat in every single product on the store aisle? After all, even so-called “non-GMO” wheat has undergone countless deliberate genetic modifications over the last few centuries.

The cited piece makes some strong arguments against requiring labeling, but my hesitation on that front comes from reading the bullying, belligerence of people saying that the worries about global warming are "settled science". I am skeptical whenever I see such strong language. It's not that I'm skeptical about the safety of GMOs; rather, it's that I just react negatively to the attitude of, "Trust us. We're scientists. We know what's best." See this. I'm not convinced that the benefits of protecting the ignorant from themselves outweigh the costs.

A Frightening Thought about Saving for Retirement

Gabriel drew this to my attention. It is a scandalous confiscation in an attempt to relieve sovereign debt constraints.

Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To "Cut" Sovereign Debt Load

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said private funds within the state-guaranteed system would have their bond holdings transferred to a state pension vehicle, but keep their equity holdings.  The funds would effectively be left with only the equities portions of their assets, even this would be depleted, and there will be uncertainty about the number of new savers joining.

But why is Poland engaging in behavior that will ultimately be disastrous to future capital allocation in non-public pension funds (the type that can at least on paper generate some returns as opposed to "public" funds which are guaranteed to lose)? After all, this is a last ditch step which no rational person would engage in unless there were no other option. Simple: there were no other option, and the driver is the same reason the world everywhere else is broke too - too much debt.

By shifting some assets from the private funds into ZUS, the government can book those assets on the state balance sheet to offset public debt, giving it more scope to borrow and spend. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said the changes will reduce public debt by about eight percent of GDP. This in turn, he said, would allow the lowering of two thresholds that deter the government from allowing debt to raise over 50 percent, and then 55 percent, of GDP. Public debt last year stood at 52.7 percent of GDP, according to the government's own calculations.

To summarize:

1. Government has too much debt to issue more debt
2. Government nationalizes private pension funds making their debt holdings an "asset" and commingles with other public assets
3. New confiscated assets net out sovereign debt liability, lowering the debt/GDP ratio
4. Debt/GDP drops below threshold, government can issue more sovereign debt

Ok, so it's Poland, not England or the US or Canada. Nevertheless, it highlights a concern: why save for my retirement if those savings are likely to be taxed at high rates to support pensions for those who don't save? It's like the old fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper.

Overtime Considerations?

There is a major construction project in the street below our building. The street has been blocked off for over a week. It looks as if the city is doing some major renovations of the storm sewer system.

The crews work long hours. But only some long hours.

We noticed that there was nobody working at all during the Labour Day weekend; but they were back at it with long hours as soon as the holiday was over.

By long hours, I mean really long hours. I'm sure the work must have been done in shifts, but there were work crews on site almost 24 hours continuously for several days and nights. 

They still haven't finished the project but today, Saturday, there is nobody there again. 

My surmise is that overtime pay on weekends is more expensive than overtime or night shift pay during the week. It is cheaper to pay night-shift wages at night and regular wages during the day on regular workdays than it would be to pay workers both a night-shift premium and a weekend premium. So they shut down during weekends but work long hours during the week.

Theatre Brief 29: What NOT To Do

Brief #29    THE ACTOR’S LESSONS of DESTRUCTION

1. Compromise your principles early and get it over with.
2. Memorize all of the songs from “Cats.”
3. Wear as much spandex as possible to the auditions.
4. Wear lots of “comedy and tragedy” accessories.
5. Take your art WAY too seriously.
6. Misquote famous passages from Shakespeare.
7. a. If a director doesn’t invite you to callbacks, assume it’s a mistake and go anyway. b. If a director doesn’t cast you, assume it’s a mistake and attend the first rehearsal.
8. When you get to callbacks, ask the director “Will this take long?”
9. No matter how many schedule conflicts you have, reply “none.” Hey, it can all be  worked out in the end.
10. Overemphasize the lines they laugh at.
11. Sigh, loudly, when things aren’t going the way you think they should.
12. Mistreat props. Lose them. Take them home with you. 
13. Tip the director (though this would never have bothered me!)
14. Repeatedly ask techies, “Will this be ready by the opening?”
15. Assume the stage manager and assistant director are there to clean up after you..
16. Stay up late power drinking before early morning calls.
17. Pause for so long in the middle of your longer speeches that no one can tell if you are finished or have just forgotten your lines.
18. Remember, although you can always be replaced, they won’t replace you until you’ve done a LOT of damage.
19. When your character isn’t talking, mug.
20. During breaks, recite other actors’ lines the way they OUGHT to be said.
21. Why be onstage when you can upstage?
22. For a touch of realism, upstage yourself.
23. Give fellow actors advice on how to do their characters.
24. Offer continued constructive suggestions to the director on how to improve the show.
25. If you can’t get a grasp of your character, just do Jack Nicholson.
26. Blocking is for amateurs.
27. Eye contact is for actors afraid to stand on their own.
28. Understudy the lead roles, even if you aren’t asked to do so. In front of the lead, ask the director to stay late to see how you’re doing with the role.
29. It’s not the quality of the role, it’s what you get to wear.
30. Wear all black and hang out in coffee houses.
31. Change your blocking on opening night.
32. Remember: frontal nudity gets you noticed faster.
33.  Use your tongue to make stage kisses look “real.”
34. Break a leg. Literally.

Marie Osmond on Facebook

The combination of ads on Facebook sometimes amuses me. This one in particular caught my eye this afternoon:

 

Downtowns, High Street, and Creative Destruction

For the past 40 - 50 years or so, downtowns have been losing business, losing property value, and losing in general. Initially they lost to the big malls that located on the fringes of cities. And then even the malls struggled, losing to the big-box plazas even farther from the downtown core of the city. The same thing is happening on High Street in the UK [ht MA]:

It simply isn’t good enough to just wring our hands and reminisce about the good old days on the high street,” Mr Grimsey writes in The Sunday Telegraph.

The former DIY executive said he decided to conduct [a separate] review after the Portas Review was released in December 2011. “Amid much fanfare this promised the earth but delivered little,” he claimed.

“It was clear to me that Portas had failed to highlight to Government the dramatic structural changes impacting the retail industry through the convergence of changing consumer behaviour driven by technology and that brought about by the prevailing economic conditions.”

I.e., things have changed.

I used to love the old downtown department stores (and still thoroughly enjoy the classic one surviving in downtown London [Kingsmills] that has an elevator operator and uses pneumatic tubes to send things from pay stations to the office). But for the most part the downtowns, as we remember them from the 50s, 60s, and 70s are gone and will never return. Nostalgia is nice but we need to accept this.

What happened?

The demise of downtown is the result of a number of forces:

• cheap cars and cheap personal transportation. Back when families had only one car, if that, people often rode public transportation to the downtown area to do their shopping. As more people want to drive rather than take public transportation, parking also becomes more of a hassle downtown.
• increased labour force participation rate of females. Often in the 50s - 70s, women were primary homemakers and did the shopping for the family. But the opportunity costs of their time as homemakers grew so much that many, many more women work now and find it easier to stop at a mall or a plaza to do some quick shopping.
• big-box stores and the internet. When customers can look at online product reviews by brand name and see what the prices are like, they (we!) tend to prefer shopping at convenient suburban locations to driving downtown and trying to park. We don't need knowledgeable salesclerks so much anymore; all we need are brand names, reviews, low prices, parking, and convenience.
• weather. In weather that is either too hot or too cold or too wet, it is much nicer to stay protected in your car and drive to a mall or big box plaza, vs. taking a bus downtown and wandering from store to store. Someone recently asked about our memories from downtown London during the Christmas season. Lots of nostalgic folks talked about store windows or the Santa Claus parade; but I wrote about slush, being cold and wet, and scurrying from store to store, just to stay warm.

A little over 20 years ago, I wrote a column "I Love Malls" in which I set out these observations, albeit less-well-thought-out. At that time I hadn't seen the draw that big-box plazas have, where people choose a store and drive right up to it. That phenomenon has probably contributed substantially to the demise of malls, where, once you park, you still have to walk quite a distance inside the mall to get to many of the stores.

One group of beneficiaries of attempts to "save the downtown" are the owners of the downtown land and buildings. Businesses can, and do, move to the malls or the suburban plazas. Employees can, and do, find jobs elsewhere. But the land and buildings are pretty hard to move. 

And so politicians, in concert with the downtown owners, try all sorts of schemes to "save the downtown", including:

1. make sure all the buses go through the downtown via  a spoke and hub pattern rather than a grid pattern.
2. build a pedestrian mall/walkway or two.
3. spruce up the downtown with art and murals.
4. provide more "free" parking downtown.
5. or, as happened in Muskegon, Michigan (where I was raised), tear down some of the buildings to provide parking and enclose the rest to make a huge downtown mall.

These schemes are rarely successful other than for the construction companies and artists who benefit from the projects. Indeed, the downtown mall in Muskegon has since been dynamited, and there is almost nothing left of the original downtown or the mall that replaced it; it is an empty space. All the shopping has moved to suburban malls and plazas. I admit I find that sad, and that as MA wrote to me, it has left both the city and the downtown empty and soulless. 

More typically, what happens in the downtowns is that eventually landlords realize conditions have changed. They lower the rents and other types of business move in: tattoo parlours, head shops, and charity shops of various sorts move in where there had once been fashionable clothing and shoe retailers. Or professional offices and the expanding local gubmnt bureaucracies fill some of the larger buildings. And, of course, during the painful transition, some remain vacant and are easy targets for vandals. 

The sooner local politicians recognize and accept these trends, the better off cities and their taxpayer will be. 

Digression: I have noticed from old photographs of the downtown areas of Muskegon, Michigan (where I was raised) and London, Ontario (where I have lived the bulk of my life) that in the old days, stores had awnings. These awnings provided pedestrians with protection from the rain and sun and kept the stores cooler in the summer. Those are mostly gone now that stores are air conditioned.

Another Tribute to Ronald Coase

From The Economist, with some clear explanations of two of Coase's major contributions. 

About "the Nature of the Firm"

As he watched American car plants in action, he realised that the existence of the firm compensated for a critical flaw in the price-setting mechanism. In the real world it is often costly for buyer and seller to arrive at a final price. “Transaction costs”, like the need to negotiate or draw up contracts, prevent the price mechanism from working smoothly. Firms would exist, he reckoned, when it was cheaper and easier to co-ordinate activity within a centrally planned organisation than to spell out contract details for every step in the production process.

And about "The Problem of Social Cost"

Mr Coase himself recognised life is more complex than theory. Neither private bargaining nor a pollution tax can make a market perfectly efficient given transaction costs like the expense of monitoring a factory’s emissions.

The Population Bomb Revisited

In the late 1960s, I was a pretty rabid environmentalist. I had read Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and was concerned that finally the Malthusian promise of overpopulation was coming to fruition. I was distressed by the imminent destruction of so many natural resources, including things like Lake Erie. And I clearly had a lot to learn about economics.

A couple of years later, The Club of Rome published "The Limits to Growth" in which they used computer-generated extrapolations to show the world was in big trouble. I had known two of the four authors of the book, Dennis and Donna Meadows when we were undergraduates at Carleton College; they were respectively one and two years ahead of me there. I remembered them as brilliant people, and so I was concerned that I couldn't understand and didn't believe their book.

When Robert Solow visited UWO during my first year teaching there, he pointed out a glaring error in "The Limits to Growth": it contained no accounting for prices and responses to prices. Apparently, Carleton College economics professors had failed to drive home an essential thesis of economics: People respond to incentives. Demand curves are downward-sloping and supply curves are upward-sloping.

Julian Simon saw the same problem with Ehrlich's book. Paul Sabin has described what ensued in The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future. Jonathan Last has an excellent review of the book [via Cafe Hayek]. I'm sure I'm quoting too much from that review here, but it is hard to know what to cut:

Mr. Ehrlich, a biologist specializing in butterflies, became famous in the 1970s after publishing "The Population Bomb" (1968), in which he updated the 19th-century projections of Thomas Malthus—people were overbreeding, the supply of food and resources couldn't possibly keep up—and dialed the calamity to 11. Within a few short years, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death as civilization unraveled. Or so predicted Mr. Ehrlich. "The Population Bomb" was reprinted 22 times in the first three years alone, and its author would appear as Johnny Carson's guest on "The Tonight Show" at least 20 times, becoming a national figure and an influential player in Democratic politics. Mr. Ehrlich's ideas attracted a remarkable number of passionate adherents. They also attracted the scornful criticism of a little-known economist named Julian Simon.

...  Mr. Ehrlich believed that the laws of nature that governed insects also applied to humans, that natural constraints created cycles of population booms and busts. Simon believed that man's rational powers—and the economies man constructed—made those laws nearly obsolete.

So in 1980 Simon made Mr. Ehrlich a bet. If Mr. Ehrlich's predictions about overpopulation and the depletion of resources were correct, Simon said, then over the next decade the prices of commodities would rise as they became more scarce. Simon contended that, because markets spur innovation and create efficiencies, commodity prices would fall. He proposed that each party put up $1,000 to purchase a basket of five commodities. If the prices of these went down, Mr. Ehrlich would pay Simon the difference between the 1980 and 1990 prices. If the prices went up, Simon would pay. This meant that Mr. Ehrlich's exposure was limited while Simon's was theoretically infinite.

Simon even allowed Mr. Ehrlich to rig the terms of the bet in his favor: Mr. Ehrlich was allowed to select the five commodities that would be the yardstick. Consulting two colleagues, John Holdren and John Harte, Mr. Ehrlich chose chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten, each of which his team supposed was especially likely to become scarce. ...

... In October 1990, Mr. Ehrlich mailed a check for $576.07 to Simon. Mr. Sabin diplomatically reports that "there was no note." Although world population had increased by 800 million during the term of the wager, the prices for the five metals had decreased by more than 50%. And they did so for precisely the reasons Simon predicted—technological innovation and conservation spurred on by the market.

Mr. Ehrlich was more than a sore loser. In 1995, he told this paper: "If Simon disappeared from the face of the Earth, that would be great for humanity." (Simon would die in 1998.) This comment wasn't out of character. "The Bet" is filled chockablock with Mr. Ehrlich's outbursts—calling those who disagree with him "idiots," "fools," "morons," "clowns" and worse. His righteous zeal is matched by both his viciousness in disagreement and his utter imperviousness to contrary evidence. For example, he has criticized the scientists behind the historic Green Revolution in agriculture—men like Norman Borlaug, who fed poor people the world over through the creation of scientific farming—as "narrow-minded colleagues who are proposing idiotic panaceas to solve the food problem." [Emphasis added]

Mr. Sabin's portrait of Mr. Ehrlich suggests that he is among the more pernicious figures in the last century of American public life. As Mr. Sabin shows, he pushed an authoritarian vision of America, proposing "luxury taxes" on items such as diapers and bottles and refusing to rule out the use of coercive force in order to prevent Americans from having children. ...

At heart, "The Bet" is about not just a conflict of men; it is about a conflict of disciplines, pitting ecologists against economists. Mr. Sabin cautiously posits that neither side has been completely vindicated by the events of the past 40 years. But this may be charity on his part: While not everything Simon predicted has come to pass, in the main he has been vindicated.

Theatre Brief 28: Some Historical Perspective

Brief 28: An interesting perspective, even though it is based on U.S. information:

(From a book called “When My Grandmother Was a Child” by Leigh W. Rutledge, which begins, “In the summer of 1900, when my grandmother was a child...”)

You may never do a show from that era, but if you do, these facts might help you understand the setting. 

• The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.
• Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
• The average wage in the US was twenty-two cents an hour. The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year. [well, the math is sort of close. Twenty-five cents/hour for 40 weeks would be $10/wk or about $500/yr, but you get the idea.]
• A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
• More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”
• Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.
• The five leading causes of death in the US were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
• The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
• Drive-by shootings-in which teenage boys galloped down the street on horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy-were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented.
• There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
• One in ten US adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine’s foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide-which was thought to diminish sexual desire-into the women’s drinking water.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”
• Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine. [well... see Snopes]
• Punch-card data processing had recently been developed, and early predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the government to help compile the 1900 census.
• Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the US annually.

Tecumseh: An Amazing Leader, sold out by the Brits in a mismanaged war

Tecumseh was an inspired and brilliant leader and military expert. He organized and led Indian militias in their continued successes, hoping to create and independent Indian nation in what was then referred to as the Northwest Territories (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin). After the British lost the battle of Lake Erie, their alliance with Tecumseh weakened, and they proceeded to make military blunder after military blunder, eventually losing the Battle of the Thames and sacrificing their Indian allies both on the battlefield and in the postwar negotiations. From Wikipaedia,

Tecumseh grew up in the Ohio Country during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War, where he was constantly exposed to warfare.^[2] With Americans continuing to encroach on Indian territory after the British ceded the Ohio Valley to the new United States in 1783, the Shawnee moved farther northwest. In 1808, they settled Prophetstown in present-day Indiana. With a vision of establishing an independent Native American nation east of the Mississippi under British protection, Tecumseh worked to recruit additional tribes to the confederacy from the southern United States.^[2]

During the War of 1812, Tecumseh's confederacy allied with the British in The Canadas (the collective name for the colonies of Upper Canada andLower Canada), and helped in the capture of Fort Detroit. American forces killed Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames, in October 1813. His confederation fell apart, the British deserted their Indian allies at the peace conference that ended the War of 1812, the dream of an independent Indian state in the Midwest vanished, and American settlers took possession of all the territory south of the Great Lakes, driving the Indians west or into reservations.

Why write about him now? Because of this photo of a corn maze in the London Free Press (ht Butch):

The defeat of the Indians and British in the Northwest Territories contributed to the popular view in the US (most likely correctly, and certainly correctly on this score) that they won the War of 1812. In the negotiations following the war, the US gave up nothing, but the British agreed to no longer provide protection and support for the Indian nations who were fighting to regain their lands.

What a Condo!

You won't believe the condo we live in. From the local news during the past month or so.

Jim Donnelly is the condo board president. From the London Free Press, Sept 3, 2013:

The Aboutown group of companies (which began as a taxi service in 1947), owner James T. Donnelly and several numbered Ontario companies are being sued for $1.6 million in outstanding loans as of March 1, 2013, by the Business Development Bank of Canada, according to a statement of claim filed in court in London.

Aboutown Transportation Inc. also owed Revenue Canada $627,531 as of January, according to a document obtained by The Free Press.

Vaughan Minor is the condo board vice-president. From the London Free Press, July 29, 2013:

A former London politician and his business partner are being sued by more than 800 Alberta investors for $22 million in lost funds and a further $5 million in punitive damages.

Vaughan Minor and Donald Hurst, principals in a landbanking firm known as Edgeworth Group, are identified in a statement of claim as the “faces” of an investment program that raised a total of $55 million that has been lost.

Theatre Brief 27: Things That Are Never Said in the Theatre

Brief #27    THINGS THAT ARE NEVER SAID IN THE THEATRE

(I cannot remember where this came from, but I've seen it various places on the internet. Note that "Good luck" and "Macbeth" are not on this list)

 BY THE PRODUCER:

• ...Of course there's enough money to go around.
• ...We have money left over.
• ...It's all being taken care of. Don't Worry.
• ...No thanks, I don't drink. 

BY THE ACTOR:

•  ...Don't...Let's not talk about me.
•  ...I really think my big scene should be cut.
•  ...This costume is SO comfortable.
•  ...I love my shoes.
•  ...No problem.  I can do that for myself.
•  ...I have a fantastic agent.
•  ...Let me stand over here with my back to the audience.
•  ...I'm sure someone told me there was a wall here, I just forgot.
•  ...Without the crew, the show would never run - let's thank them.
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

 BY THE DIRECTOR:

•  ...Wow, the designers were right on, weren't they?
•  ...No, today is the tech rehearsal, we'll rework that scene later.
•  ...I think the scene changes are too fast.
•  ...Of course I think that we'll be ready in time for opening.
•  ...The crew?  Why they're just wonderful!
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

 BY THE DESIGNERS:

•  ...Of course all my drawings were turned in on time.
•  ...Yes, it is absolutely my fault that the set looks awful.
•  ...You know, you have a point there.
•  ...The director knows best; obviously I wasn't giving him what he wants.
•  ...We have too many gel colours in stock, I can't choose.
•  ...Of course the shop will have the costumes ready.
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

  BY THE TECHNICAL DIRECTOR:

•  ...This is the most complete and informative set of drawings I've ever seen.
•  ...We built it right the first time.
•  ...No problem, I'll deal with that right away.
•  ...I love designers.
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

BY THE STAGE MANAGER:

•  ...It looks as though there will be time for a third dress rehearsal.
•  ...Take your time getting back from break.
•  ...We've been ready for hours.
•  ...No, I called that perfectly the first time.  Let's move on.
•  ...The headsets are working perfectly.
•  ...The cue lights are working perfectly.
•  ...The orchestra has no complaints
•  ...The whole company is standing by whenever you want them.
•  ...That didn't take long.
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

 BY THE STAGE CREW:

•  ...Oh no, that instrument is not in the way.
•  ...There's room for that over here.
•  ...We'll get in early to do it.
•  ...No, no.  I'm sure that is our job.
•  ...Anything I can do to help?
•  ...All the tools are carefully locked away.
•  ...Can we do that scene change again please?
•  ...It's a marvelous show.
•  ...We don't need this many on the crew.
•  ...No thanks, I don't drink.

Ronald Coase

Ronald Coase was another of my heroes in economics. He was a gentleman,  and he was brilliant.

His writing was obtuse and laboured. I first read his two classic articles about 1) the nature of the firm and 2) the problem of social cost when I was in graduate school in the late 1960s, and it was a struggle. 

1. "The Nature of the Firm" was a brilliant piece about why firms exist. One of the answers provide by Coase (in many more words than this and with much more subtlety) was that if transaction costs for making deals in the market are high, then it is more efficient for there to be firms to carry out some economic actions. When I read it, I didn't grasp the importance of the article; I thought it was trivial and silly. The major thrust and importance of the article didn't dawn on me until much later in my career, when I understood the importance of transaction costs a bit better, even though much of my early research had been on a related topic.
2. I absolutely hated "The Problem of Social Costs" when I first read it. I was actually offended that someone might even consider examining the possibility that a pollutee could pay a polluter to stop polluting. And it was SO long and painful to read. Only when I re-read the paper 15 years later did I understand and appreciate the elegance of the paper and its examples. Of course understanding the simple propositions of what has come to be known as "the Coase Theorem" makes reading that article so much easier. 

Some personal notes:

• In the early 1980s, we tried to persuade Professor Coase to visit the law and economics workshop at The University of Western Ontario. When I called to invite him, he declined quite apologetically, saying that he really didn't like to travel anymore.
• The year before he won the Nobel Prize in Economics, for some reason I was sent a card from the prize committee asking for my recommendation. I assume a similar card was sent to everyone in the American Economic Association, but I took it seriously and nominated Ronald Coase, noting his contributions in those two articles. It is silly, I know, but I claim partial credit for his having won the award the next year.
• Some years later, when I was president of the Canadian Law and Economics Association, we were discussing who to invite as our keynote speaker. I recall one member of the executive saying, "We should invite Coase. He isn't getting any younger, you know." That was probably about 20 years ago. 
• I have had arguments with people who minimize the importance of the Coase Theorem, pointing out that it is likely nothing more than a restatement of Adam Smith's invisible hand or maybe even a tautology. My reaction, however, is that Coase pointed out the importance of understanding property rights (and their enforcement) and transaction costs. It is when the basic conditions of the Coase Theorem are NOT met that we understand the brilliance of Coase's work. And that has always been fun.

Others will mention other work by Coase. Others will point out that Simon Rottenberg did a version of the Coase Theorem for professional sports before Coase wrote his article. They will be right on both counts. But that doesn't detract from the amazing impact that Coase had on our understanding of economic issues.

Ronald Coase died today. He was 102.

Palmer United

Nope, it's not a soccer/football team. It is a political party in Australia. Judging from information sent to me by my sister, the party is at the wacko extreme end of Keynesian stuff: cut taxes, spend more, and don't worry about how to fund all that.

Anyway, she sent me the following poster that she adapted, which is pretty amusing:

This is SO me.

Sometimes, anyway.

"Shoot the Jews"? Peace-Lovers in South Africa

The blatant anti-semitism of this crowd at a jazz concert in South Africa is appalling. 

His name is Daniel Zamir and he’s a seriously kick-arse jazz musician and composer.

Daniel tours all over the world.

“Shoot the Jews !“

Last week, Daniel was performing in Johannesburg South Africa and at some point during the show – part of which, without ‘interference’, is above and I sincerely hope you thoroughly enjoy watching – the local typical peace-loving genocidal maniacs and other assorted anti-Semite Totalitarian lunatics were screaming at him and his band:

“Shoot the Jews !”

Anti-Israel students and activists showed their true colors last Wednesday night, Jewish students at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa said.   Moving quickly from anti-Zionism to classic anti-Semitism, a melange of students and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activists began screaming “Shoot the Jews” at a concert featuring religious Jewish jazz saxophonist Daniel Zamir.

At that point, said witnesses, the protesters broke into a sing-song chant of “kill the Jews,” (“Dubula e Juda” in Afrikaans), a take-off on a protest song sung in the 80s against whites.   When questioned, Muhammed Desai, coordinator of the event, said that the protesters did not mean the term “kill the Jews” literally.

Riiiiiiiiiiight.

 

Minimum Wage Laws and Capital-Labour Substitution

Economists generally teach our students that if the minimum wage is increased by law, the effect will be that firms will have an incentive to use more capital and less labour. A colleague in the socionomology department once countered, "How do you use more capital goods and fewer burger flippers?" presumably referring to his own department's graduates. 

He made the mistakes of assuming:

• there is no substitution possible in the use of capital for labour in burger flipping. (i.e., in economics jargon, he assumed that the burger production function has fixed co-efficients)
• there is no substitution possible elsewhere in fast-food burger establishments.
• that if the price of burgers went up, people would not substitute away from burgers.

Capital-Labour Substitution in Burger Production.

Consider what fast-food burger production looked like back in the 1960s vs what it looks like now. We had no microwaves when I worked at one then; rather, burgers were produced on grills and kept warm in bins. We fried burgers in batches of 9, and depending on the expected demand and time of day we would do as many as 54 at a time. Nowadays, burgers are prepared to order with computerized ordering and microwaves to finish them. 

Capital-Labour Substitution Elsewhere in Fast-Food Establishments

This item is what prompted me to write this post [h/t many people on FB, including Kip Esquire]. 

McDonalds recently went on a hiring binge in the U.S., adding 62,000 employees to its roster. The hiring picture doesn't look quite so rosy for Europe, where the fast food chain is drafting 7,000 touch-screen kiosks to handle cashiering duties.

The article also points out that computerized order allows McDonalds to track the orders and collect a lot more data, which they also expect will be valuable. But the point is that this is capital substituting for labour in ways we didn't imagine 20 or 30 years ago. 

Demand Curves for Burgers Are NOT vertical

The implicit assumption behind many incorrect arguments is that when the prices of burgers increase, people will still buy just as many burgers. Not so. 

As the price of burgers rises, some people, some of the time, will substitute away from burgers. The most likely substitutes for burgers are other fast foods, but if wage increases in the fast food industry are generally imposed, then people will substitute away from fast food restaurants to other types of fast food that can be mass-produced with even more capital-labour substitution, e.g. frozen foods from grocery stores: pizzas, pizza pockets, sliders, etc. -- things that can be microwaved quickly at home. The result will be a general substitution away from labour and toward capital in the economy. 

Fortunately, in many North American markets, the legislated minimum wage is near or even below the equilibrium wage rate for York University socionomology graduates unskilled workers, and so these effects are minimal at best. But in other markets the effects are being felt. And in those markets, raising the minimum wage would only make a bad situation worse.

Chicken Wings: Applying Basic Supply and Demand

Update: Nuts. I meant to post this next Tuesday but goofed. 

Have you noticed that the price of chicken wings has risen dramatically over the past year or two? [honestly, me neither, but don't let that spoil a good example; also I live in Canada, and there certainly is not free trade in chicken meat between Canada and the US]. From this site, h/t Jack,

In late 2011, the Georgia dock wholesale price of chicken wings started rising from 90¢ to more than $2 per pound earlier this year, an increase that got passed along at the supermarket. Prices have since fallen to about $1.46 per pound. 

What would make the price of chicken wings rise so much and then ease back a bit? There are two possibilities (or some combination of the two):

1. There was a dramatic reduction in supply, shifting the supply curve to the left and pushing up the price. After a time, as the chicken-wing market adjusts to the shock, the supply curve rotates clockwise a bit and the demand curve rotates counter-clockwise a bit as the market goes from a short-run equilibrium after the shock toward a longer-run equilibrium at a slightly lower price.
2. There was a dramatic increase in demand, shifting the demand curve to the right and driving up the price. After a time, as the chicken-wing market adjusts to the shock, the supply curve rotates clockwise a bit and the demand curve rotates counter-clockwise a bit as the market goes from a short-run equilibrium after the shock toward a longer-run equilibrium at a slightly lower price.

In other words, without more information, it is pretty hard to know what really happened. We could probably sort it out if we had information about what happened to the equilibrium quantity of chicken wings: in the first scenario, the quantity would have dropped; in the second one, it would have increased.

But we have more information. Blame McDonald's.

 From Sept. 9 through November, McDonald’s is expected to sell a grand total of 250 million wings, and some analysts say McD’s wing-buying spree for this promotion last year drove up wholesale prices.

Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan says McDonald’s probably started stockpiling wings about 18 months ago, which diminished supply. 

NO! An increase in demand does not diminish the supply! It may mean that once the source of the increased demand is satisfied, there are fewer wings available for everyone else, but it is an increase in demand [dammit!] that was the initial cause.

Also, I find it interesting that McDonald's began to stockpile wings about 18 months ago. That's a lot of freezing capacity that is required to speculate on the prices of chicken wings. But by beginning their acquisition of wings so early, McDonald's undoubtedly smoothed the impact of their decision a bit over time. Imagine what would happen to chicken wing prices if they tried to buy only fresh wings for their promotion. I expect their head office did imagine this, which is why they began stockpiling wings so long ago (if, in fact they did).

If this story is correct, and if chicken farmers/factories know that McDonald's demand for chicken wings is due to drop off in November, will they reduce their demand for chicks soon? The impact should be showing up soon in those markets.