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Assorted links
1, ABC entrevista con Taylor Cowen.
2. Why libertarians are often closer to conservatives; don't forget the villains also.
3. Richard Posner replies to Alan Greenspan.
4. The 25 best pizzas in the USA?
5. Is it too late for a two-state solution?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 24, 2009 at 04:33 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I would say, that there is a growing misunderstanding between what is really at stake in evacuating settlements. No Israeli will support Palestinian army/police/militias next to his or her house in Kfar Sava. No Israeli will support giving up concrete assets (territory, security) for a piece of paper signed by Palestinians.
What are Israelis to get? Kassams on Raanana?
If Obama is serious, he needs to make concrete offers: NATO membership? EU membership? US forces in the west bank?
Posted by: Israeli john doe. at May 24, 2009 5:42:01 PM
No comment on the arc of LeBron's game winner? Very high shot, with an enormous arc. What can we infer about the future of the MJ versus LBJ debate from this fact?
Posted by: Andy at May 24, 2009 5:56:08 PM
From the #2 link: "Self-made men are mostly not made in the bedroom; their glory shows more in their income than in their subgroup identity.
Reminds me of my old liberal professor's quip: The first rule of Finance is to marry the CEO's daughter.
Posted by: indiana jim at May 24, 2009 5:58:09 PM
Totonno's in Brooklyn overcooks its pizza, charges too much, has poor service, and is in a dingy area. Somehow people love it. Or is it that they simply pretend to love it? That they've been told it's famous and good, thus they are hesitant to say anything counter? In any case, their pizza, like it or not, is so different from the pizza usually served in NY/NJ that it can hardly be compared.
Posted by: Pizza Fan at May 24, 2009 10:17:06 PM
You haven't had pizza until you have had New Haven pizza. It is the signature local cuisine.
Posted by: The Dirty Mac at May 24, 2009 10:25:31 PM
Re conservatives and libertarians: it's an artifact of the U.S. federal system. At the federal level, conservative positions will sometimes align with libertarian ones, because implementation of the libertarian position at the federal level creates more space for the implementation of a conservation position at the state/local level.
Posted by: Cyrus at May 24, 2009 10:28:38 PM
Nice to see that Detroit style pizza is acknowledged as a bona fide contender to Chicago/New York/whatever style pizza. Uncle Andy's edges out Buddy's though.
Posted by: John Voorheis at May 24, 2009 11:13:36 PM
That pizza article is very well written. Can't speak to its accuracy though
Posted by: Leif at May 25, 2009 12:21:28 AM
That pizza article is very well written. Can't speak to its accuracy though
Posted by: Leif at May 25, 2009 12:22:13 AM
That pizza article is very well written. Can't speak to its accuracy though
Posted by: Leif at May 25, 2009 12:22:32 AM
I hear that the pizza article is well written. I just wish I knew if it was accurate....
Posted by: kevin at May 25, 2009 12:26:40 AM
Leif,
Why are you such a toolbox?
Yeah, on pizza, New Haven rules; NYC a close second.
Posted by: ravit at May 25, 2009 1:52:23 AM
Libertarians generally want to smoke pot and don't want to pay taxes. But it's easy to smoke pot in your garage, and hard to dodge taxes. So in practical politics, they generally line up with conservatives.
Moreover, people on the left who don't like government tend to call themselves anarchists or Marxists (remember the state will wither away after the revolution) rather than libertarians. Their dream is that after government is removed society will be composed of cosy carbon-neutral cooperatives; the libertarian dream is that it will be composed of homesteading families and independent small businesses.
Seems to me more likely that large corporations, the mafia, large gangs, religious cults etc would expand into the power vacuum; but they're all very confident that won't happen.
Posted by: TheophileEscargot at May 25, 2009 2:06:58 AM
...the libertarian dream is that it will be composed of homesteading families and independent small businesses.
Not at all -- libertarians don't have any particular commitment to small vs large businesses. And libertarians don't dream of a world of independent loners out on their homesteads. Libertarians love free trade, with an emphasis on both 'free' and 'trade'. Libertarians also like voluntary organizations with -- again -- no commitment that these be small voluntary organizations. But libertarians oppose big government because they see that it is so frequently used by powerful, organized interests to coerce and to rip off other citizens and enrich themselves.
As a libertarian, I choose live among liberals in a university town because, culturally speaking, I have a lot more in common with them and am more comfortable around them than with conservatives. For example, most conservatives are religious themselves and believe religion is essential for a moral, decent life -- and they regard unbelievers as suspicious and even defective. Only 29 percent of conservatives would be willing to vote for a well-qualified atheist for president from their own party. Who wants to live around people who think of you that way? I don't.
Posted by: Slocum at May 25, 2009 8:29:14 AM
Seems to me more likely that large corporations, the mafia, large gangs, religious cults etc would expand into the power vacuum
So a libertarian society would be pretty much like society right now then (where large corporations, the mafia, large gangs, religious cults run things), except without the drug war or the taxation? Here is a piece of advice, if you want to paint libertarian ideology as foolish, don't paint a worst case scenario that is slightly more pleasant than our current situation!
Posted by: Rex Rhino at May 25, 2009 9:08:43 AM
4. If you're in minneapolis, go for Pizza Punch.
Posted by: andrea at May 25, 2009 9:45:48 AM
Libertarians are often closer to conservatives because the American use of "liberal" is daft.
Posted by: dearieme at May 25, 2009 10:06:06 AM
Since you clearly read Overcoming Bias, I'd love to see your comment on the Hanson/Moldbug fracas over Futarchy. I understand that you probably can't give it for various reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd love to hear it.
Also, neither Sally's nor Pepe's is even the best pie in New Haven. That honor goes to Modern Pizza. I suspect too that he didn't try the mashed potato pizza at Bar, which should certainly be in his top 25.
Posted by: Bill Mill at May 25, 2009 11:06:20 AM
1967 borders? How many USA $$$ can Obama promise Isreal to get this? What USA party will push this price tag ? The future is a diaspora of liberal/secular Israelis to Europe/USA .I find that this group understands the situation and most Americans never hear their voice. Isreal does not have an end game because of their early and midgame boxed them . I believe a test of Congresspersons (voters get what they deserve ) on their knowledge of the middle east would tell us what we already know about their understanding of the area. If we look at resources such as water , the area will not support the population anyway and Jordanian aquifers are a time bomb that will spread.
Posted by: Lowrie Glasgow M.D. at May 25, 2009 11:28:54 AM
Seems to me more likely that large corporations, the mafia, large gangs, religious cults etc would expand into the power vacuum
One of the things that those on the left fundamentally can't grasp -- despite seeing the evidence over and over and over -- is that big government doesn't restrain the power of powerful interests (including corporations), it amplifies that power.
So, consider Archer Daniels Midland. How does it make big bucks? It makes big bucks in large part because it is so effective in co-opting government power to fleece all of us:
Corn processing encompasses two main business lines for ADM: high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol. Neither would make a penny for the company without a huge boost from that old company benefactor, Uncle Sam. Both lines registered tremendous gains: corn syrup profits leapt 150 percent, and ethanol profits rose 40 percent.As Richard Manning shows in his Against the Grain, high-fructose corn syrup owes its ubiquity to the U.S. government's sugar quotas. According to Manning, ADM financed the lobbying effort that led to the blatantly protectionist sugar-quota system that went into effect in 1982 and has held sway ever since. (Signed into law by one zealously pro-free trade president, Reagan, it now has the full support of another, GW Bush. Clinton, too, paraded his free-trade credentials while accepting the sugar quotas.)
What does the sugar quota have to do with HFCS? The world price of processed sugar typically hovers well below the production cost of HFCS, meaning industrial users such as soft-drink bottlers have no real reason to buy it. The sugar quota props up the price of sugar in the U.S. to twice the world level. With the sugar price artifiically inflated, ADM gained a ready market for its HFCS.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080101170400/http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/2/52324/18981
Lefties keep imagining that this dynamic will change once they get the 'right' people in office. It's the triumph of hope over experience again and again. And how's that hope working out now? Google Obama's relationship to corn ethanol and ADM as a senator from Illinois and Iowa caucus campaigner.
Posted by: Slocum at May 25, 2009 12:10:02 PM
reply to slocum:
So your argument is if we have smaller government and larger corporations we will be freer and the corporations will have less power?
Or is it if we have smaller government then corporations will be smaller as well and we'll be freer?
Or is it the problem with the power of huge corporations is that they're so powerful that they can coopt government and therefore we should have less government?
Ho Hum.
So what exactly is your argument?
Posted by: lxm at May 25, 2009 3:05:03 PM
no difara's in brooklyn?
lucali is a perfectly good pie, but if it is in the country's top 25 list, we should give up now.
Posted by: babar at May 25, 2009 3:26:14 PM
Best pizza I ever had was at a Greek place in Detroit. Don't remember if it was Niki's. Worst pizza? A pizza I had in Italy that tasted like Chef Boyardee on Bisquick; really nice staff, though. Close to worst: every slice I have ever eaten in New York City. Guys, there's this red stuff everyone else puts on pizza which contains some of the flavor. It shouldn't be just crackers and cheese. I think NYC pizza is highly rated by the same people who think culture stops at the Hudson (because that's all they know because why would you ever leave?).
Posted by: Eric H at May 25, 2009 3:56:07 PM
This "Tayler Cowen" guy looks like Ben Bernanke with some hair left, :-).
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 25, 2009 4:57:41 PM
on great pizza:
Caserta's Providence RI
http://www.casertapizzeria.com/
and
Italian bakery pizza
Posted by: floccina at May 25, 2009 5:45:58 PM
