Newmark's Door

But Bernard Connolly--who sounds as though he as a good claim to know--says it isn't over, not close. 

As usual, the Door brings you the important news. 

Professor Munger advances an interesting hypothesis:

"One of the thing that frustrates me is the centrality of the "job talk" for professional hiring in academics.

"It's an artificial situation, and has almost nothing to do with whether the person will be a success.  Not surprisingly, "good" job talks turn out to have almost no predictive value in judging tenure chances, and "bad" talks don't tell you much, either."  

We need a study.

I don't know if the argument is correct, but it does seem that cable's days of bundling are numbered. (Remember when you liked a song or two from an artist and had to shell out $10 for a whole album?)

. . . are all about how you measure them.

Robert Samuelson, "The true national debt": "You’d think this would be an easy question. Surely we know how much the government owes. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The true national debt could be triple the conventional estimate, anywhere from $11 trillion to $31 trillion by my reckoning. The differences mostly reflect explicit and implicit “off-budget” federal loan guarantees. In another economic downturn, these could result in large losses that would be brought “on budget” and worsen already huge deficits. . . ."

Mike Shedlock, "About That Surprise California Budget "Surplus": There is No Surprise and No Surplus Either": "Today we learn the surprise $5-billion bump in revenue in January is likely an accounting anomaly as a result of tax changes."

Dan Mitchell, "Earth to New York Times: Please Show Us these “Deep Spending Cuts” You Keep Writing About": "I have to read the same nonsense day after day about 'deep spending cuts' even though I keep explaining to journaliststhat a sequester merely means that spending climbs by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion."

 

 

It's simple. Better move quick, though. 

I tried to interest my students in this, but I don't think I got anywhere. It's sponsored by the L. V. Hackley Endowment for the Study of Capitalism and Free Enterprise at Fayetteville State Univesity. (I said to my students: that's in North Carolina; maybe you'd even have some home court advantage! But, apparently, nada.) Professor Stringham has even written a paper which might help students with how to proceed. 

First prize is $2500 for the student(s) and another $500 for a sponsoring faculty member. And worldwide fame, I'm sure. 

Heh.

Americans don't always drink beer. But when they do, they'll enjoy plenty of alternatives without any help from the world's least interesting lawyers who populate the Justice Department Antitrust Division.

Read a bit about the tragic circumstances of the executive editor of the New York Times. 

I think we need a new, large entitlement program for executive editors. 

Boom! In just a few words Professor Peter Gordon eviscerates our increasingly dopey mass media. 

More here: "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way Journalists Blow".