March 9th, 2010 — Economics and Investing, Reviews
Murder at the Margin by Marshall Jevons (Princeton University Press, 1978)
Can economics and English ever mix? I switched from English to Economics in graduate school for a purely economic reason. The tenured professors in the English Department were so incensed with their graduate students going on strike for higher wages that the profs abolished the only source of financial aid in the department…awards for teaching freshmen English.
At a mixer for new grad students in Economics at UW, I was teased by an upperclassman, “Oh, you mean English majors can add?” In one of my many classes where I was the only woman, my professor whipped out a poem by an author I’d never even heard of, and looking straight at me, read it aloud. He concluded with a smile and the statement, “Even we economists can appreciate great literature.”
So it was with some delight and skepticism I picked up a copy of Marshall Jevons’ book, “Murder at the Margin,” the first known mystery by an economist. Both feelings were richly rewarded.
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March 4th, 2010 — Government
Sales of U.S. Assets
At the end of the post Our Government: A Business Without Assets? I asked, “What next? Will we soon see ads for giant auctions on the lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?”
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February 24th, 2010 — Jobs
Is Your Job Already Outsourced? (part 3 of 3)
(Click here for part 1) (Click here for part 2)
From the start of this century the publishing world has gone in two distinctly different directions.
On the one hand, the number of traditional printed-book publishers has shrunk. American book publishers have been swallowed up by media conglomerates, most of them foreign.
On the other hand, brand-new electronic-book-reader technology from American chain bookstores and computer manufacturers has blossomed. And reminiscent of the “mimeo revolution” of the 60’s and the desktop publishing revolution of the 80’s, downloadable-print-publishing via the Web by self-publishers has exploded too.
Publishing means promotion not production
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