Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.
One thing I've been noticing about responses to today's column is that many people still don't get how strong the forces behind regional divergence are, and how hard to reverse 1/ https://t.co/Ft2aH1NcQt
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018
More from Noah Smith
This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.
My theory is that the jargon creates an artificial barrier to entry. https://t.co/MqLyyppdHl
If one must spend years marinating one's brain in jargon to be perceived as an expert on a topic, it protects the status and earning power of people who study relatively easy topics.
In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://t.co/DBCRRc8Mir
But mathiness and jargon are not quite the same...
Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point.
Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.
has written about this problem:
Imagine for a moment the most obscurantist, jargon-filled, po-mo article the politically correct academy might produce. Pure SJW nonsense. Got it? Chances are you're imagining something like the infamous "Feminist Glaciology" article from a few years back.https://t.co/NRaWNREBvR pic.twitter.com/qtSFBYY80S
— Jeffrey Sachs (@JeffreyASachs) October 13, 2018
My theory is that the jargon creates an artificial barrier to entry. https://t.co/MqLyyppdHl
If one must spend years marinating one's brain in jargon to be perceived as an expert on a topic, it protects the status and earning power of people who study relatively easy topics.
In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://t.co/DBCRRc8Mir
But mathiness and jargon are not quite the same...
Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point.
Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.
has written about this problem:
When Republicans started to believe in racial bloc voting - when they stopped believing that nonwhite people could ever be persuaded to vote Republican - they started to see immigration as an invasion.
This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.
Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.
Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.
But they decided against this, and...here we are.
What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?
Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.
As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.
(end)
This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.
Why did California turn Blue?
— Sen. Eric Brakey (@SenatorBrakey) October 28, 2018
Why is Texas turning Blue?
The left has failed at selling socialism to the American people for decades. We have rejected it.
Their new strategy is mass importation of new voters to transform our political culture.
Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.
Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.
But they decided against this, and...here we are.
What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?
Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.
As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.
(end)
Today's @bopinion post is about how poor countries started catching up to rich ones.
It looks like decolonization just took a few decades to start
Basic econ theory says poor countries should grow faster than rich ones.
But for much of the Industrial Revolution, the opposite happened.
https://t.co/JjjVtWzz5c
Why? Probably because the first countries to discover industrial technologies used them to conquer the others!
But then colonial empires went away. And yet still, for the next 30 years or so, poor countries fell further behind rich ones.
https://t.co/hilDvv0IQV
Why??
Possible reasons:
1. Bad institutions (dictators, communism, autarkic trade regimes)
2. Civil wars
3. Lack of education
But then, starting in the 80s (for China) and the 90s (for India and Indonesia), some of the biggest poor countries got their acts together and started to catch up!
Global inequality began to fall.
It looks like decolonization just took a few decades to start
Basic econ theory says poor countries should grow faster than rich ones.
But for much of the Industrial Revolution, the opposite happened.
https://t.co/JjjVtWzz5c
Why? Probably because the first countries to discover industrial technologies used them to conquer the others!
But then colonial empires went away. And yet still, for the next 30 years or so, poor countries fell further behind rich ones.
https://t.co/hilDvv0IQV
Why??
Possible reasons:
1. Bad institutions (dictators, communism, autarkic trade regimes)
2. Civil wars
3. Lack of education
But then, starting in the 80s (for China) and the 90s (for India and Indonesia), some of the biggest poor countries got their acts together and started to catch up!
Global inequality began to fall.
1/Lots of tech companies and workers are making noises about leaving San Francisco, LA, NYC, and other "superstar" cities.
Some are predicting a shift to remote work and distributed companies.
Let's take a hard look at what that would actually
2/We're all familiar with the trend of tech companies and other knowledge industries (finance, biotech, etc.) piling into a few tech hubs, raising rents and house prices.
Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.
https://t.co/nQVCJrKvrB
3/But escaping the superstar cities is going to be tough.
The forces keeping tech companies in places like SF are so strong that these regions have essentially become prisons for these companies.
4/In order to escape the prison of the superstar cities, tech companies and other knowledge industries will have to overcome the Four Jailers of Industrial Clustering:
1. In-person office productivity
2. Thick market effects
3. Knowledge spillovers
4. City life amenities
5/I'm actually pretty optimistic that companies can find ways to make remote work productive.
Studies show that working from home *some* of the time actually tends to raise
Some are predicting a shift to remote work and distributed companies.
Let's take a hard look at what that would actually
2/We're all familiar with the trend of tech companies and other knowledge industries (finance, biotech, etc.) piling into a few tech hubs, raising rents and house prices.
Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.
https://t.co/nQVCJrKvrB
3/But escaping the superstar cities is going to be tough.
The forces keeping tech companies in places like SF are so strong that these regions have essentially become prisons for these companies.
4/In order to escape the prison of the superstar cities, tech companies and other knowledge industries will have to overcome the Four Jailers of Industrial Clustering:
1. In-person office productivity
2. Thick market effects
3. Knowledge spillovers
4. City life amenities
5/I'm actually pretty optimistic that companies can find ways to make remote work productive.
Studies show that working from home *some* of the time actually tends to raise
More from Society
The UN just voted to condemn Israel 9 times, and the rest of the world 0.
View the resolutions and voting results here:
The resolution titled "The occupied Syrian Golan," which condemns Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, was adopted by a vote of 151 - 2 - 14.
Israel and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/HoO7oz0dwr
The resolution titled "Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people..." was adopted by a vote of 153 - 6 - 9.
Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/1Ntpi7Vqab
The resolution titled "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan" was adopted by a vote of 153 – 5 – 10.
Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/REumYgyRuF
The resolution titled "Applicability of the Geneva Convention... to the
Occupied Palestinian Territory..." was adopted by a vote of 154 - 5 - 8.
Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/xDAeS9K1kW
View the resolutions and voting results here:
The resolution titled "The occupied Syrian Golan," which condemns Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, was adopted by a vote of 151 - 2 - 14.
Israel and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/HoO7oz0dwr
The resolution titled "Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people..." was adopted by a vote of 153 - 6 - 9.
Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/1Ntpi7Vqab
The resolution titled "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan" was adopted by a vote of 153 – 5 – 10.
Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/REumYgyRuF
The resolution titled "Applicability of the Geneva Convention... to the
Occupied Palestinian Territory..." was adopted by a vote of 154 - 5 - 8.
Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/xDAeS9K1kW
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Joshua Hawley, Missouri's Junior Senator, is an autocrat in waiting.
His arrogance and ambition prohibit any allegiance to morality or character.
Thus far, his plan to seize the presidency has fallen into place.
An explanation in photographs.
🧵
Joshua grew up in the next town over from mine, in Lexington, Missouri. A a teenager he wrote a column for the local paper, where he perfected his political condescension.
2/
By the time he reached high-school, however, he attended an elite private high-school 60 miles away in Kansas City.
This is a piece of his history he works to erase as he builds up his counterfeit image as a rural farm boy from a small town who grew up farming.
3/
After graduating from Rockhurst High School, he attended Stanford University where he wrote for the Stanford Review--a libertarian publication founded by Peter Thiel..
4/
(Full Link: https://t.co/zixs1HazLk)
Hawley's writing during his early 20s reveals that he wished for the curriculum at Stanford and other "liberal institutions" to change and to incorporate more conservative moral values.
This led him to create the "Freedom Forum."
5/
His arrogance and ambition prohibit any allegiance to morality or character.
Thus far, his plan to seize the presidency has fallen into place.
An explanation in photographs.
🧵
Joshua grew up in the next town over from mine, in Lexington, Missouri. A a teenager he wrote a column for the local paper, where he perfected his political condescension.
2/
By the time he reached high-school, however, he attended an elite private high-school 60 miles away in Kansas City.
This is a piece of his history he works to erase as he builds up his counterfeit image as a rural farm boy from a small town who grew up farming.
3/
After graduating from Rockhurst High School, he attended Stanford University where he wrote for the Stanford Review--a libertarian publication founded by Peter Thiel..
4/
(Full Link: https://t.co/zixs1HazLk)
Hawley's writing during his early 20s reveals that he wished for the curriculum at Stanford and other "liberal institutions" to change and to incorporate more conservative moral values.
This led him to create the "Freedom Forum."
5/
Trending news of The Rock's daughter Simone Johnson's announcing her new Stage Name is breaking our Versus tool because "Wrestling Name" isn't in our database!
Here's the most useful #Factualist comparison pages #Thread 🧵
What is the difference between “pseudonym” and “stage name?”
Pseudonym means “a fictitious name (more literally, a false name), as those used by writers and movie stars,” while stage name is “the pseudonym of an entertainer.”
https://t.co/hT5XPkTepy #english #wiki #wikidiff
People also found this comparison helpful:
Alias #versus Stage Name: What’s the difference?
Alias means “another name; an assumed name,” while stage name means “the pseudonym of an entertainer.”
https://t.co/Kf7uVKekMd #Etymology #words
Another common #question:
What is the difference between “alias” and “pseudonym?”
As nouns alias means “another name; an assumed name,” while pseudonym means “a fictitious name (more literally, a false name), as those used by writers and movie
Here is a very basic #comparison: "Name versus Stage Name"
As #nouns, the difference is that name means “any nounal word or phrase which indicates a particular person, place, class, or thing,” but stage name means “the pseudonym of an
Here's the most useful #Factualist comparison pages #Thread 🧵
What is the difference between “pseudonym” and “stage name?”
Pseudonym means “a fictitious name (more literally, a false name), as those used by writers and movie stars,” while stage name is “the pseudonym of an entertainer.”
https://t.co/hT5XPkTepy #english #wiki #wikidiff
People also found this comparison helpful:
Alias #versus Stage Name: What’s the difference?
Alias means “another name; an assumed name,” while stage name means “the pseudonym of an entertainer.”
https://t.co/Kf7uVKekMd #Etymology #words
Another common #question:
What is the difference between “alias” and “pseudonym?”
As nouns alias means “another name; an assumed name,” while pseudonym means “a fictitious name (more literally, a false name), as those used by writers and movie
Here is a very basic #comparison: "Name versus Stage Name"
As #nouns, the difference is that name means “any nounal word or phrase which indicates a particular person, place, class, or thing,” but stage name means “the pseudonym of an
