Truck and Barter

Home again.

I'm back at Truck and Barter after a very long time. I have been busy with exam horrors that have kept me awake for many nights on end. Now that I'm done, I thought I'd take some time to write a few entries on my trip back to India, and how things have changed over the last year.

I got into Madras last night after an excruciatingly long stopover at Colombo. Luckily, I managed to avoid a 42.5 degree (Celsius of course) heatwave, and landed up on a nice stuffy "almost about to rain" day. See, after spending a year in London, magical numbers like 42.5 have great significance. If there is one thing that I detest the most about London, its the weather. It's just too damn cold. Madras enjoys a warm stuffy climate with sweat drenching you on your first step outside the house. Man, can that be sweet after one year away!

The city has changed in many subtle ways. One thing I noticed was that the culture of "eating out" has become an obsession. Restaurants are packed with people taking time off after a stressful workday. A major contribution to this whole phenomenon of people stepping out of their houses after 10 PM comes from a new influx of young graduates that have arrived over the last year. The unfortunate dampner to this potentially vibrant nightlife is that everything has to close by 11:30. Bars, clubs, you name it, its out at 11:30. At first glance, time restrictions are not new to the world. In London, licensed bars and pubs shut down at 11:30 PM. However what keeps London alive are the clubs which stay open till early the next morning. The police enforcement, which is infamous for its random policy making (it sets the rules, though largely influenced by pressure from the legislature), is alleged never to have taken the effort to clearly spell out exactly what it's night time policy is.

One year after I left, Madras is still struggling to find it's identity. Will it choose to remain a culturally conservative bastion of "old is gold", or will it choose to embrace a city brimming with new citizens that are yearning to get out at night... keep reading this space to find out more :)

Seriously though, keep checking in for regular updates!

ADD

I posted this over at my options trading blog, but I thought I would share this with T&B.

I was diagnosed at the beginning of this year with ADD. It was a total fluke that I discovered the possibility of having it as I had absolutely no idea the symptons described me to a tee. I had read an article on ADD in the workplace that really was freaky. The people described had work experiences very similar to what I had gone through. After reading it, I did a ton research and realized that I did have it.

Nearly everybody experiences the symptoms of it, but most don't to the degree that I do. This applicable to trading as my P&L was always like a mountain. I started trading for somebody, did very well, then lost interest and lost money. That repeated a couple of times along with a lot of conflict with my bosses. The most frustrating thing was always the little errors that drove me nuts. As a traders assistant/clerk, I was quite possibly the worst one in the world. As a trader, those unexercised options alone probably add up to a small fortune. I just simply forget or my mind has just wandered off into its own little world.

Today, we get an article on TheStreet.com questioning the prevalence of the disease. Frankly, medication probably is prescribed to people who don't need it. I definitely do and it has made a huge difference. I may be only taking two classes this semester, but this has been my best one in all of my academic career. I also sleep sane hours, keep my kitchen and bathroom clean(my livingroom is still a mess) and have lost a ton of weight.

What I'm really looking forward to is seeing how this affects my trading. The test won't be this month but what happens a few months down the line. I'm already much more calm through the day. Also, I have learned more about quantitative derivatives in the past few months than I did in ten years doing this. I always meant to, but could never quite get it going. Well, now I can and do.

I don't really have much time for pharmaphobics. There seems to be some sort of idea popular in the media that if a business is selling a drug than there must be some sort of conflict between profit and good medicine. Or, alternatives to medicine, like behavioral therapy should be tried first. That is a crock of shit. Pardon my language, but who the fuck wants to go sit on a couch to work through "issues." Some people may have a preference to go that route and thats fine, but its also fine that somebody corrects a chemical imbalance in the brain through pharmacology. So keep your dang paws off the drugs I take.

I will add one more thing. Even if medication is "overprescribed", these drugs are doing people some good whether or not they have ADD. There should be nothing wrong with a company selling them and nothing wrong with somebody helping themselves.

Ph.D.

Last Friday, these fine people had the audacity to grant me a Ph.D. in Economics.

Celebration has been muted, as is my style.

Wal-Mart: ALP Infringes on Our Trademark

[This is cross-posted on Always Low Prices].

After a year of my blogging about Wal-Mart on ALP, Wal-Mart has had enough. WM has sent its attorneys after me -- to stop me from using their slogan "Always Low Prices", and to scoot me off the alwayslowprices.net domain.

Let me be clear at the outset; there is no scandal here. I am not outraged. This is about business and control of property -- not persecution. Unlike GM, WM did NOT send a goon squad. And though I find many of Wal-Mart's claims spurious, I am not a lawyer, and I will have to consult with my own lawyers before proceeding formally. And though they will tell me to not discuss the matter any further, I think transparency is more important than most lawyers do.

I promise to fight to keep the alwayslowprices.net domain and Always Low Prices name. And I want the blogosphere's help and advice on how to proceed.

Here is a cropped PDF copy of a letter sent to me by email and snail mail by Wal-Mart's attorneys regarding my use of their "logo". (I have removed sensitive contact information).

What is the claim?

The claim is that I am in voliation of the Lanham Act -- §1125(a), §1125(d), and §1114. Basically that I pretend to be allied to Wal-Mart, and that I use Google Ads to profit off of Wal-Mart's trademark.

---

I am sympathetic to Wal-Mart's desire to control its private property, but my use of this domain has in no way taken business away from them. Indeed, as one of Wal-Mart's most ardent defenders, taking this domain away from me is likely to hurt Wal-Mart in the short and long run. Who else regularly faces off against Wal-Mart's opponents, union sympathizers, and the like on the internet?

Why are they after me after a year of blogging?

WM filed for a service mark for "Always Low Prices" (with a few variants) on 2/2/04, for both retail store services and online retail store services. As of today, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office, WM has not had this sloagan registered as a trademark. However, their claim went forward on March 29, 2005, and will likely have little problem under further review (unlike WM's older slogan Always the Lowest Price, which was without a doubt, a bald but understandable lie).

---

As far as Wal-Mart's specific claims go, I will reply honestly:

I admit that I have their logo prominently displayed. But I think it's a fair intellectual use. Low Prices are the primary consumer aim of Wal-Mart, and should be the core of discussion about Wal-Mart. I don't think anybody has ever been confused ALP and WM, walmart.com, walmartstores.com, or walmartfacts.com. Does anybody actually think that Wal-Mart would stick "The Best and the Worst about Wal-Mart" on top of its own website?

The URL, alwayslowprices.net, is the same as the blog nam -- that's the entire point of name recognition. Anybody who comes to ALP will realize immediately that they have not come to Wal-Mart, but to a site that discusses Wal-Mart. If the URL was so critical to Wal-mart's business, why didn't they buy it 10 years ago, when they starting using their slogan?

Of course, I should have had a disclaimer up on the sidebar the entire time; As Kevin Drum once noted, I did at the beginning, but in one of my reformattings, I must have dropped it by accident. So, a new disclaimer is up.

Wal-Mart claims that I pretend to be a part of Wal-Mart by linking to walmartstores.com under the label "WM News". Does anybody find this an even remotely sensible position?

Wal-Mart claims that my use of advertising for services that "might be of interest to Wal-Mart's partners and vendors" concurrent with use of their trademark and name on the blog is against "U.S. law" and my "domain name agreement."

The entire $95.83 I have collected from advertising has not even been enough to pay for the $11 monthly bandwidth charges. Though I'd rather not have to, I have decided to take down the advertising. I know that free speech isn't free, and I'm willing to pony up.

My New Year Resolution

I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and convictions of my own mind. - David Ricardo

(quoted by Thomas Sowell, in his memoirs A Personal Odyssey, p.132)

Hello, World

Thanks to Kevin for his offer of blogging privileges here! I'm Bill Newman, a computer programmer currently working primarily on a program to play the game of Go. On the web I'm probably best known for my work with SBCL, a compiler for the Common Lisp programming language. Back before I was a simple programmer I was a graduate student in theoretical chemistry (mostly a programmer), an undergraduate in biology (partly a programmer), and a high-school part-timer working on embedded systems (by now, you know the drill).

(And belated thanks to Kevin for his remarkable patience in not Siberianizing me yet!)

My formal qualifications in economics are, um, taking an undergrad survey course, and auditing a business school course in pricing derivative securities. But economics (especially that of a reductionist microeconomics flavor, including "economic imperialism" of microeconomic sensibilities applied to organizational behavior and public choice and so forth) has been an interest of mine for a long time, and periodically I feel the urge to write something about it.

Part of my long delay in doing anything with my new account here followed from nearly simultaneously banging an algorithms paper, proudly sending out the preprint, and almost immediately being told of a serious error in the paper. That took the wind out of my sails for a while; I hope that mistakes like that won't become a habit.

I actually do have a fair number of economics-related things I'd like to write about, and I've been fiddling about waiting for the gumption to do it. As I was phlegmatically contemplating the jump, an article in the Jan. 1-7 issue of _The Economist_ pushed me. If all goes well, my first real post, criticizing that article, will appear later this morning.

A Brief Pause in Blogging

Writing about error in economic data has been harder than I predicted, so I regret that I must halt posting at Truck & Barter for at least two weeks, while I crash on my dissertation proposal. I will still be posting to Always Low Prices daily.

As of today, my dissertation is composed over a hundred pages of partially-edited material, formatted into a single discursive screed, rather than the three-essay structure preferred by those facing publish or perish incentives.

However Ian, Bob, and the rest of the T&B contributors will continue to provide the posts you really come here to read. Except for Paul, who sends along his own apologies, as his work duties preclude him from blogging until January.

Advertisement: Come next year, I'll be a Ph.D. Economist with 5 years work experience in top-notch research organizations. More importantly, I'll be looking for employment. So spread the word; I'd love to be hired through a blogging connection...

Daniel's Introduction

Much thanks to Kevin for the invitation to blog.

In brief, here's my story:
I'm finishing up my last semester as an undergraduate economics student at George Mason. Fall 2003 I started up a club here called the Order of Economics to bring together some people who liked sitting around and talking about economics (usually taking place at a pub). We're currently on a break.

Over the summer I decided to jump on the econ blog bandwagon and start my own from the advice of a friend (which has gradually fallen by the wayside--there's just too many blogs out there as it is).

The economics that I am mostly interested in and try to practice is 'Everyday Economics' which typically doesn't involve much (if any) technical machinery, as was initially spurred by Landsburg's book "The Armchair Economist (though there are many more to credit for this genre)."

I hope to hear some feedback and look forward to posting soon.

Daniel

Live from London

This legacy of open invitations just picked up one more person. Thanks Kevin... its weird writing a blog on a site that isn't my own. In all honesty, I feel completely dwarfed by Kevin, Ian and Bob, who have done a great job with the blog so far. I wonder what they're doing giving me the keys!

I am a graduate student at the London School of Economics. Not surprisingly, I am majoring in Economics, and will be finishing up my masters degree this year. I'm in the process of applying to three grad schools in the US. Hopefully, if all goes well, I would have changed the world and convinced a PhD committee that they need to kick me out with a degree (in no particular order of occurance) by the end of the decade.

My primary area of interest (for now) is Monetary Theory and Dynamic Macroeconomics. However, as the days go by, I think I am finding a very comfortable second home in General Equilibrium and other Microeconomic fields like Mechanism Design and Contract Theory. More than anything, I love Economics for the controversy and political hooplah that surrounds it. Its fun to stand back and watch as people fight over whether you need to use a screwdriver or a hammer to put a nail through a wall.

Going by the kind of writing that the others have put up here at Truck and Barter, I will probably be the black sheep. I plan to write a lot about India, my country of origin and first love (you can read more about me here). If you ever want out of the serious talk, you're always free to read my personal writing which I will continue on my own site.

For now... [exeunt - stage right].

Did Moore Show Up?

I previously noted that Michael Moore's speech at GMU on October 28 was cancelled because of objections to his politics. Mr. Moore was quoted as saying that he would go to GMU anyway.

"I'm going to show up in support of free speech and free expression," he said.

My personal view was that he wasn't worth his $35K fee, even if he does claim that the fees are not enough to cover his expenses, and that the difference is coming out of his pocket:

Some reports suggest that he gets about $30,000 an appearance. But Hardesty said Moore is subsidizing the tour from his own pockets because the fees are not enough to cover it.

I've been busy lately, and only recently noticed that nobody followed up to see if he actually went to GMU like he said he would.

Does anybody know?

Always Low Prices

After a not so brief hiatus, I have started posting again to my Wal-Mart blog, Always Low Prices.

In particular, note that WM is refusing to distribute Jon Stewart's new book in stores, although you can get it online.

Bill Gates' "Virtuous Cycle"

I like Bill Gates language on international trade and development:

"China and India are the big change agents for the years ahead," Gates told students at the University of California Berkeley. "We have to go into the risky new areas. That's what's going to allow the United States to stay at the forefront..."

"It's a little scary to me that people are thinking of this as a zero sum game," Gates said, referring to criticism of outsourcing and growing overseas tech markets.

"We're at the start of a process where the whole world is getting into this virtuous cycle," Gates said.

Whoever wrote that Reuters summary picked out excellent quotes. This "virtuous cycle" language is not unique to Gates, of course; but it occurs again and again in Gates' speeches, regardless of topic.

In a White House speech on 4/5/2000, Gates said:

[If] you had to pick who's the big winner in all of this, you'd definitely have to pick consumers. Technology is putting them in the driver's seat. Think about what electronic commerce does if you're trying to buy a product. It lets you go out to the Internet and look at products and services of every kind. Whether you want to look by price, by reputation, you'll be able to find products that never would have been available through traditional distribution channels -- products that are unique to your particular interests. And so it's the consumers who are in charge as price transparency climbs.

Now, that makes businesses innovate in a way that really wasn't necessary before, whether that's innovation in quality, customer service, or simply the price of the product. And it's that virtuous cycle that's allowed capitalism to work better in this era than ever before.

Just a decade ago, people wondered: Would the PC revolution eliminate jobs? Would it make jobs in some ways worse? Today, we know that certainly, on balance, technological advancement has led to lower unemployment that they've gone hand in hand. And so this technology revolution has been one of the greatest job creation engines ever.

In November 2001, Gates uses it in supporting open-source software:

But back to this week's visions. Diplomatically, Bill says free software has a role: "We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together."

It comes up when talking to Bill Moyers in May 2003 about international health and poverty issues :

Absolutely. And that is the most amazing fact that should be widely known. You know essentially Malthus was wrong. If you raised wealth and you improve health, particularly if you educate women, then this virtuous cycle kicks in and a society not only becomes self-sustaining, but it can move up to a fully developed status.

The virtuous cycle shows up when Microsoft reps discuss university-industry relations, and so on and so forth.

No snappy conclusion... I'm just noting how one man's mind works.

What I'm Reading

Sorry for the limited blogging lately.

I've been reading widely, most notably Claude Bernard's Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, Gordon Tullock's The Organization of Inquiry, Lessler and Kalsbeek's Nonsampling Error in Surveys, and the most bizarre book I've ever read, Vining's On Appraising the Performance of an Economic System (which is not as good as the articles he built it on top of).

Reflections on the 1st Year

Ben at Economist to Be reflects (part 1 and part 2) on his first year of the Ph.D. program in economics at U of M.

Completing the first year and passing the prelim gives me a tremendous feeling of accomplishment, much more so than finishing any given year of college or high school. The department throws down the gauntlet and to make it out on the other side, still very much committed to a career in economics, is a great feeling...

Unfortunately, at the same time I still feel woefully unprepared to come up with my own ideas, create rather than regurgitate, invent rather than plug and chug. Sure, I learned some of the basics of thinking like an economist, but I think I will have a lot of “Oh...riiiight” experiences this upcoming year...

Yes, he does.

Saying Goodbye to RAND

Regular readers know that I am overemployed--as a full-time worker, research assistant, dissertation writer, husband, father, and blogger.

Yesterday, I notified RAND that I will be leaving effective July 2 in order to nail down my Ph.D. dissertation. (I will not be selling bagels--search the text for "bagel").

I leave RAND now so that I will have the ambition, opportunity, and energy to attack my thesis from all sides with an obsessive but focused abandon. Finances will be tight, but manageable.

For those new to T&B, I'm leaving a secure, well-paying job at a top-notch policy think-tank in order to write a book that in all likelihood no more than a dozen people will read voluntarily. Yet everyone I've spoken to supports my decision; others find depressing the prospect of room 8307 being quiet, dark, and empty.

I hope to write my dissertation over the next few months. During that time I forecast my T&B posting to be more frequent.

How does all this relate to economics? Note that in the short run, I will not be joining the ranks of the unemployed; I will, in effect, leave the labor force entirely. While I spend my days writing and researching, the BLS will consider me as having been hit by a truck...

In a few months, I will be seeking a position as a nonacademic economist. Note that I'm willing to move anywhere in the U.S. where 1) the summer heat is not unbearable, and 2) excellent schools are available. Hint. Hint.

Intellectuals vs. Capitalism

Steve Antler links to an interesting article by Nozick from the Cato Institute.

It's a long, and decently written look at the (supposedly -- I've never seen numbers) skewed distribution of intellectuals across the political spectrum: they fall disproportionately to the left. Meanwhile, these intellectuals also happen to oppose capitalism.

The argument presented is decent, though at times I think it's more an attempt to sting education in general than to attack left-leaning intellectual distaste for capitalism. However, I'd offer my short take here; I think the reason public intellectuals oppose capitalism is much more simply stated:

Contrarianism.

Let's face it: the work that gets the most attention not only in academia, but also in popular press and discussion, are those things that appear contrary to our suppositions. Why do some people find economics so boring? Could it be because it often looks like a lot of convoluted chatter devoted to explaining the numbingly obvious? When prices go up, people buy less. We need 225+ years of economic debate to tell us that? (No, that isn't my take on economics -- I'm suggesting it's a popular view of the study of economics.)

What gets our attention, garners public notoriety and generates lot of interest from academics are those things that are contrary. In this case, finding fault with a system that, while imperfect, has yet to see any competing system that isn't more flawed by orders of magnitude. It works ok, it mostly does so through the normal activity of the average participant, and it seems pretty promising. How best to get noticed, then, in the field of commentary on the market? Suggest that something about it is not working the way most people think it might be. Suggest that there is something that, with the trained eye of an enlightened mind, can clearly be seen as fundamentally flawed. Suggest that, despite what we may believe, the system isn't working, and that continued misunderstanding of the situation will only make everyone worse off.

Who's going to pay someone to sit and explain how something works, aside from the engineering-minded folks who are driven by their own curiosity? No, it is more lucrative to be on the side that cries foul, that points to what a majority has come to accept and says "it is not so." And certainly, such skepticism has done wonders for the advancement of knowledge. But there are differences between testing the popular belief and suggesting alternatives, and simply pointing the finger at those who believe and by implication calling them fools.

Accepting on faith the popular perception is a dangerous thing, to be sure, but it is this claimed purpose that would seem to drive the "public intellectual" to argue against, in this case, capitalism. The willingess to accept some sort of ability beyond the average intellect that lies behind an appellation like intellectual is frequently extended to an individual in realms beyond that which originally earned them the position: linguists famed for their grasp of foreign policy, or psychologists for the same skill for that matter. Economists, as well, should be included in that group. If the belief is that they see so much further than the rest of us, of what use are proclomations that "yes, this works well -- continue"? It took no great leaps of logic, no complicated computation, and no spectacular skills to make the thing work; the intellectual, in this, is wholly unnecessary. Only through a vocal declaration of differing opinion can the intellectual propose a use for herself, mainly in the enlightenment of the misguided. In fact, contrariness might take on a tone of fervor by the cyclical nature of this: if so many people are going along not believing the intellectual's claim, then there is simply more reason (for believers) to believe that the intellectual has a special, keen insight into the situation beyond even a greater number of people than they earlier supposed. One can easily think of those who seem to make their mark by stamping harder and harder, crying "but don't you see?" when, in fact, the sights they offer are no more certain than the one they decry.

We tend to enjoy, as a group, the Chicken Littles, all those whose shouting gives supporters a reason to think there is finally a sane voice in the world, and gives detractors the sizable targets they've been hoping for. Of course, target size is likely to be a large reason so many intellectuals take aim at capitalism. It's so prevalent, its workings so widespread, that the prize for being the first to find fissures appears proportionate. If someone spouts a contrary opinion about the designated hitter rule in baseball, you'll get as fervent a debate as you could hope for in any setting -- the group of those interested, however, will be far smaller than if an intellectual takes aim at the direction the majority of world exchange is headed.

And in so doing, an audience can be attracted, members of which are persuaded not so much by the strength of the contrarian argument as the existence of the contrariness itself. It might be the selection problem writ large: those who seek notoriety for being at odds with things will naturally seek to be at odds with the highest stake subject possible. Those who attack capitalism might be those for whom the attack is key, rather than the thing being attacked.

Toast to a Freeman

I had just returned from picking up my wife's friend from the airport. The flags at Dulles were at half-staff, and though the sight disturbed me greatly, I had no time to stop and ask... I found out that Ronald Reagan was dead after we returned home.

My wife is Russian, born in Leningrad, once and again called St. Petersburg. Her friend is a Muscovite; she stopped by to see us after attending a G8 planning conference in Indiana. The two women met in the early 90s as participants in a high school exchange program between Russia and the United States.

Neither their original meeting, nor their reunion in the US, would not have been possible under the Soviet system that Mr. Reagan fought to destroy. My wife's generation was the last cohort of children to be fed through the Soviet grinder of dreary national service, but thankfully by the time they could join the Communist Party, it was no longer seen as advantageous to do so.

The downfall and transition of the Soviet polity was and still is chaotic, but out of that chaos has come the Russian flavor of freedom under an autocratic democracy. Russian freedom has many of the small things that make freedom worthwhile--like owning your home or business (though land is trickier), being free to travel abroad, being free to emigrate, and not being required to work when and where you're told.

Indeed my wife's friend insisted that Russians are now no less free than Americans, although she was nervous leaving our apartment without her documents! Still, Russia may not be a democracy, or a "normal country", but its people are incomparably freer--and far less threatening to us--than they were when I was born. And I believe that's Mr. Reagan's doing, although Russians will forever debate how and why their old system fell apart so quickly.

Many Russians hate what American freedoms have brought them--particular their WWII "greatest generation", who no longer have the country they honorably defended. Russians may fear US cultural and economic dominance, may be envious of US wealth and prosperity, may even hate the US--but now their government will never try to obliterate the US.

I believe it undeniable, that all his successes and failures accounted for, Mr. Reagan drove the world towards far greater economic and political freedom. For that, Mr. Reagan, I and my wife owe you more than we could ever repay.

Rest in Peace, Mr. President.

[Note: I understand that the short-term US economic record of Mr. Reagan is hotly debated; I'm concerned with his longer-term impact in the US and elsewhere.]

Update: I have to respond at length to David Matsen's comment below.

Or was Reagan simply leading us down a dangerous road by forever compromising;

http://www.economicbriefing.com/level2/rothbard1.html

In my book, Reagan was a lot more talk than action. Volcker brought the inflation under control and according to people who were there, it was Gorby not the Gipper who did the most to end the Cold War:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040610/COMARTIN10/TPComment/TopStories

David,

Your points about the economy are well taken.

I once read the Rothbard critique, and think that saying Reagan was a compromiser is entirely accurate, saying the economy could have been better is accurate (though I wouldn't have wanted that job), and the government got bigger was accurate. I think the economic path is no more dangerous than it was before... but I have low expectations of economic policy. But that's not really what I'm concerned about here.

RR's economic policies were neither laissez-faire nor even efficient--though the unemployment and inflation rates sure did plummet. I do think he acted on his cold war rhetoric far better than his laissez-faire rhetoric, and that his Cold War stance--summarized as "the ball's in your court, buddy, we'll take care of our own"--was a perfect compliment to Gorby's searching for Communist sustainable development.

Of course, it would be impossible for an American president to be in charge or be primarily responsible for reform in the Soviet Union, so RR must be a back seat driver in the story.

But let's clear one thing up. The evil empire speech was given on June 8, 1982, when the Soviet leader was none other than Brezhnev--not Gorby. So Gorbachev becomes Communist general secretary in 1985--following the unstable sequence of Breznev, Andropov, and Chernenko--after an entire term of Reagan, and hence as a (very) partial response to Reagan.

And, I think the last article you point to misses the point completely, and misunderstands the chronology. It was Yeltsin who had the lead role--not Gorby, and not Reagan. Reagan did not have to do a damn thing to defeat communism except bunker down, build up, and explicitly refuse to give an inch. Gorby responded by sufficiently weakening the Soviet system, and Yeltsin expropriated the entire mafia machine for personal gain. That's my, admittedly novice, view of the historical development of freedom in Russia.

The cold war was not ended by nuclear arms reduction treaties. It was not ended by the pullout from Afghanistan, or the release of some dissidents. It was not ended by sundry conferences and peace initiatives, or Glasnost and perestroika, or the lessening of control over the republics. The Cold War was ended by the defacto eviction of Gorby and the collapse of the Soviet government--after Gorby had done all these things to modify and reform.

Reagan had done little but spend on defense and make crucial speeches. Fine; I'll thank him for those speeches.

Also, I find unlikely the idea Gorby was responding to "sweeping democratic revolution" in Russia, since he could have easily killed those he revolutionaries if he had really wanted to.

Many of those who faced the Russian tanks in 1991 were not Russian! Just ask anybody who was there! Note that the usual treatment is silent on who actually was there:

The crucial reason the coup failed was that during the past six years of glasnost and perestroika the Soviet people had lost their fear of the Communist Party. When tanks moved to break up demonstrations the protestors unarmed started attacking the tanks.

And the notion that the Soviets wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2000! Could they have convinced the Chinese to destroy their nuclear weapons? Come on!

Also, I hated history in high school. If there had been an internet then, I'd know a lot more of it...

Ok, but now what?

I don't mean to take up space here, where we could be "almost posting on economics", but my massive egotism and megalomania* compels me to mention something. The tests are done, the papers turned in, and fines payed. So, in about 24 hours, I'll have successfully snookered another fine institution into letting me do The Walk thing again, this time for the sheepskin indicating I'm a full-fledged MPP. What that means, precisely, I never really did figure out.

It's been a great experience, if for no other reason than it convinced me that I'm not done yet. I know, I'm a glutton for this kind of punishment. But you might as well stick to what you do well (does that make anyone else think of They Might Be Giants? No? My bad then...). In my case, I'm still looking for that, so after a year or two to get cash coming back in, and to figure out an attack plan, I'll be heading back to academia to figure out if there is, in fact, something out there that I do well. Provided that Kevin lets me stay around T&B, I suppose you might well be subjected to some thoughts on the process.

In the meantime, I'm moving out to DC for a good job at a good company. If anyone knows of a decent apartment for a good price...

*I'm always torn on posting personal information. It's largely of no interest to anyone but me. In this case, though, I'm sufficiently proud/surprised that I'm hoping everyone will forgive me for the brief transgression...

Enron Traders and Me

I am glad I was never an Enron energy trader. After listening to these clips from the company's trading desk phone records, my actions and words during that time may not be much different. My hesitation would probably come when the decision to break the law was made; yeah, I do have some ethics. What the conversations capture is an attitude which fairly accurately reflects my own.

"Burn, baby, burn" is something that I muttered a couple of times. For option traders like me, who always have disaster protection or are long volatility, those days, when the world seams to be coming to an end, are the ultimate thrill. Andreline takes over, but it doesn't manifest itself in physical activity, although sometimes it could.

One morning, I was waiting for my boss to get into the office when the phone rang. He was arrested that morning for driving on a suspended license( this was the result of not paying a parking ticket of all things). The reason he was pulled over in the first place was markets overnight were down hard and he ran a stop sign coming into work. The andreline flowing through his blood had fired him up.

Typically, the physical outburst during trading are by those who have the wrong positions. The voices by the Enron traders are those of people confident and in control. Comments like "burn, baby, burn" are just a release of nervous energy and, well, of course you're make jokes and laugh as you make in a day what most people make in a year(some people make multiples more than that, others less, it just depends on how big you are and for whom you trade). The guys sound like assholes and they probably are. The comments horrify many people; how could they be so mean? Maybe they are taking pleasure in other people's pain, I never did even while making plenty of jokes that would make it seam like it.

T&B Bids Farewell to Dragos

Dragos Novac has decided that he will leave T&B to focus his efforts on his own Romanian business blog, argumente.ro.

I Think They Mean Me

I tend to dig through referrer files. Sometimes I do it because I like seeing where people are coming to us from, other times I do it to find other interesting sites I may not have known about.

Today, for instance, I saw that someone came here through this link to T&B on the American Economic Association web site.

Next to the T&B link is a place to click to get more information. If you do so, you go to this page, where you'll find this:

Truck and Barter

This blog is written by a group primarily made up of grad students (some in economics, and some in other fields). Its comments are almost on economics (unlike many other economics blogs).

I think that last sentence is particularly telling.

Wifi @ Panera Bread

Some personal blogging. Today is my day to read voraciously and write my dissertation; however, the local library doesn't open until 1 PM.

So I left wife and child home, and took the increasingly beat-up Hyundai Elantra to Panera Bread a mile down the road; this Panera is huge, smells pleasant, has comfortable chairs, is only 30% full, and plays classical music at a loud enough volume to drown out any silly conversations. For $1.50, I got a hazelnut coffee, a well lit table in a corner, and blazingly fast and free wireless internet access.

I see another laptop user is going for (unauthorized?) free refills on coffee.

I just realized that my laptop has a higher resale value than my automobile, that I should be reading about economic statistics, and that no matter how hard I try, I cannot stop thinking in the economic way.