Newmark's Door

A piece by noted economist John Cochrane that will ruin your week: maybe the slower growth of the last few decades is due to regulation. Even worse the market doesn't seem to be correcting it.

If all this adds up, though, it asks the question just why "policy-making" technocratic elite, who have been so wrong about so much for so long remain able to impose such things on the rest of us. Why are they so immune from competition? 

By Malcolm Kendrick, Scottish doctor. Argues that a part of the imperfect COVID response is simply terminological confusion.

Why are these figures so all over the place? It is because we are using horribly inaccurate terminology. We are comparing apples with pomegranates to tell us how many bananas we have. Our experts are, essentially, talking gibberish, and the mainstream media is lapping it up. They are defining asymptomatic swabs as cases, and no-one is calling them out on it. Why?

See also this summary of an discussion with one Harvard and two Stanford professors.

Read if you want to know what sounds like a secret of academic--or at least, economics--publishing.

Great question: "So just what is a promise in business—and in politics too? Where do we draw the line between hyperbole and fraud?"

Get back to me ASAP with the answer.

Impressive, but if they are really the best of Pele, or close to his best, I'm sorry, but Leo is better.

That's a heckuva forecast.

Well, I had no idea.

Series at The Athletic. Gated, but if you have access, some excellent pieces. My favorites: "Willis Reed--NBA Finals, Game 7," "1986 World Series," and, of course, "28-3: told from both sides of the fence".

I recently discovered that I can watch Johnny Carson, free, around the clock. Sure, he had a some slow spots, but on average, his show was better than almost everything that's on now.

This is part of Shout Factory TV where you can also watch old Carol Burnett shows--not my taste, but lots of people loved her--the Marx Brothers TV collection, the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, and much more.

They weren't all winners--Cyndi Lauper, ugh; Milli Vanilli, double ugh. But there were an awful lot of really good times then as this 4.5 minute nicely done video makes clear.