Marginal Revolution

Question and answer

What happened to Bear Stearns?

It ran out of money.

Here is much more, via Felix Salmon, and at least you can say that the Sitzkrieg is over and the plot is starting to unfold.  And here's a picture.

Addendum: "...Bear Stearns, which has a leverage ratio of over 30 to 1, meaning it borrows more than 30 times the value of its $11 billion equity base."  Here is the link.

Assorted links

1. What makes people give?, by David Leonardt

2. Richard Sandor's Climate Exchange

3. Will there be a big intervention to support the dollar?

4. Watch old Star Treks on-line

The culture that is German, a continuing series

Economic protectionism, linguistic protectionism, status protectionism, or all three?:

Americans with PhDs beware: Telling people in Germany that you're a doctor could land you in jail.  At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title "Dr." on their business cards, Web sites and resumes. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home...Violators can face a year behind bars.

Here is the full story.  And get this: "A male faculty member with two PhDs can fully expect to be called "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt," for example."

Update: They just changed the law.  I guess I should have titled this post "The earthquake that is Germany," etc.  Sadly there is no medium for telling The Washington Post that their front page story this morning is wrong but of course we have a very keen reader willing to leave comments.

Good books on trade policies

Jason, a loyal MR reader, asks me in an email:

What is a good economic history of commerce and trade?  I'm looking for a book, preferably recent, with lots of historical examples of what trade policies can do.  It would be a bonus if it integrated theory in with the examples, but that isn't necessary.  I'd also prefer a book written by an economist rather than a historian, since historians tend to get their theory wrong.  Rosenberg's How the West Grew Rich comes to mind, but I wonder about other examples.

I say "Ask and ye shall receive."  You could try William J. Bernstein's new A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World.  Readers, do you have other suggestions?

Markets in everything

The Philosopher’s Hotel features a series of rooms that are perhaps less overtly amazing but equally compelling for the right clientele: each room revolves around the life, work and philosophy of a particular philosopher. The above rooms, for example, respectively play off Georges Bataille’s concepts of sexuality and eroticism, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophies of language, ethics and mysticism and Henry David Thoreau’s obsession with time, age and nature. Other rooms revolve around famous thinkers such as Nihilist Friedrich Nietzsche...

I hear that in the Parmenides room the mini-bar does not open and the Heraclitus room has a water bed.  The hotel is in the Netherlands, so where is the Bernard Mandeville room ("Private Vices, Publick Benefits")?  Here are many more unusual hotel rooms, both the texts and photos are interesting.  And here are (supposedly) the smallest hotels and hotel rooms in the world.