Kruse Kronicle

Men and marriage

Economist: Men and marriage

Women’s higher earnings seem to benefit husbands as much as wives.

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of a large fortune will probably spend most of it on her husband and children. That seems to be the conclusion of a study* by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, of the lives of Americans aged 30-44, those most likely to have young families. Whereas in earlier generations marriage allowed women to achieve economic security, now, it appears, men are more likely to benefit.

The root cause is the spread of women’s higher education. For the first time in American history there are more female than male college graduates among this age group. In contrast, in 1970, almost twice as many men as women in this group, 30-44, had college degrees. The result is that in the half of households where one partner has more education, it is now more likely to be the wife who has more. In 1970, it was usually the husband.

Income tends to rise with education, and women’s earnings have risen relative to men’s at every level of schooling. Men’s income is still, on average, higher, but women have been narrowing the gap and adding more to household earnings. A few wives contributed more than their men: in 1970 only 4% earned more than their husbands; in 2007 22% did.

That represented a rise in social mobility. But with it went an apparent decline in another aspect of mobility: more people seem to be marrying within their education and income bracket, especially at the top. The best educated and highest-earning husbands in 2007 were more likely to have the highest-income wives than was the case in 1970. At the bottom of the education heap, too, men are less likely to have wives who earn a lot. Forty years ago, half of husbands who dropped out of high school had wives who earned more than the average for women; now just 30% do.

That is an exception to the rule that, as the report says, “the economic gains from marriage have accrued more to men than to women.” But there is one other way in which the growing economic clout of women increases their power within marriage. According to Pew, in households where the husband earns more, women are still just as likely to make the final decisions regarding household finances; where the wife earns more, she is more than twice as likely to do so.

Axe the tax if you want to go green

The Australian: Axe the tax if you want to go green

POLITICIANS are trying hard to pretend that the Copenhagen climate summit was not a complete failure. After raising expectations that they would broker a significant, binding treaty on carbon emission reductions, they are now telling us we should view Copenhagen's empty, non-binding agreement as a small but important "first step" on the journey towards solving global warming. We have heard this one before. When politicians from wealthy countries met in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and promised to cut emissions by 2000, the French diplomat chairing the negotiations declared, "It's just a first step."

When leaders met again in Kyoto in 1997 and promised stricter reductions, president Bill Clinton told us that the treaty was a "huge first step" that "opened the way" to further action. Neither of these "first steps" actually took us anywhere: wealthy countries failed to meet their promises and global carbon emissions have continued to climb.

So what now? After 17 years of wasted effort, we can ill afford to squander more precious time continuing on this pointless road to nowhere. Climate change needs addressing smartly. We can only hope that December's failure will be the jolt we need to once and for all drop the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen approach and start tackling this challenge effectively. ...

...All the major climate economic models show that using carbon cuts to achieve the widely discussed goal of keeping temperature rises under 2C would require a global tax on carbon emissions starting at $110 a ton (or about 26ca litre of petrol) and increasing to $4300 a ton (or $10 a litre of petrol) by the end of the century. In all, this would cost a phenomenal $43 trillion a year. And this is an optimistic estimate based on the unlikely assumption that politicians everywhere across the globe would make the most effective choices possible (such as choosing more efficient carbon taxes over emissions-trading schemes). The ultimate price tag could actually be 10 or 100 times higher. What we know for certain is that, according to most mainstream calculations, the cost of this solution would be many, many times greater than the climate damage it seeks to prevent. ...

... Putting a high price on carbon and hoping that alternative technology will catch up is not a sound policy. Quite the contrary. Until the technology is there, carbon taxes will simply bleed the economy, while providing no real benefit to the climate. So if we are serious about reducing fossil fuel use without crippling the world economy, we need to radically ramp up green technologies.

To get the required technological revolution started, we need to act now. Devoting just 0.2 per cent of global gross domestic product - about $100bn a year in global spending - to green energy research and development would produce the kind of game-changing breakthroughs needed to fuel a carbon-free future for the entire planet. Not only would this be a much less expensive and less politically fraught fix than trying to cut carbon emissions, it would also ultimately reduce global warming much more. ...

I get what he is saying but it still begs the question of how much to invest in which alternatives. Moves toward nuclear power would eliminate some carbon from coal plants and switching to natural gas would be an intermediate step toward newer technologies. I still think you would want to keep incrementally raising the tax on the carbon producing fuels. The tax would be earmarked for clean fuel research while simultaneously making it progressively more expensive not to move toward cleaner fuels. But as I say, which green technologies do you invest in and who decides. Market forces need to be brought to play somehow.

How to Speak Christianese

The Lord laid it on my heart to share this with you. :-)

Only 28 percent of global companies have labor and human rights policies

INSIGHTS in Ethics and Leadership

Only 28 percent of global companies – and less than half of those with market capitalizations of more than $10 billion – have labor and human rights policies covering their global supply chains, according to an analysis of 2,500 companies by Harvard Law School's Pensions Project and ASSET4. “Benchmarking Corporate Policies on Labor and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains,” finds that even "fewer have follow up procedures; only 15 percent have issued a detailed LHR code of conduct for their suppliers." About 43 percent of companies based in Europe have labor and human rights policies for suppliers, compared to only 23 percent of US companies and 20 percent of Asian firms. The industries most likely to have such policies are those that have experienced negative publicity about abuses by suppliers.

See Harvard Law School Occasional Paper, Benchmarking Corporate Policies on Labor and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains.

Branstrom sinks shot, with no reward

I suspect by now you've seen this clip of the basketball coach sinking a half court shot blindfolded. This happened at Olathe Northwest High School. I went to high school at Olathe North (then the only high school) and Olathe Northwest is across the street from where my parents worship. (Olathe is a Kansas City suburb.) Kinda cool to see a local event go viral.

Reaping what they sew

Presbyterian News Service: Reaping what they sew

Nicaraguan tee-shirt co-op gives women employment, empowerment.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The Nueva Vida sewing co-op here is bustling with activity. Sewing machines are whirring, scissors are clipping and a light breeze moves through the building’s open windows and doors.

It’s a Friday morning, the last day of the work week. But the end of the week doesn’t mean the end of work for the co-op members, who often stay late to discuss business issues or hold board meetings. Saturdays are spent studying up on business practices.

But all that hard work is worth it for the co-op members, said Julia Yadira Vallejos, a co-op member.

Nueva Vida provides a tranquil, safe, consistent job and environment for its 33 employees, Yadira said.

Those are valuable qualities for the employees of the co-op, which was founded by a group of women in 2001 as a response to 1998’s Hurricane Mitch. Many of the founders and their families lived on the edge of Lake Managua, which flooded after the hurricane. They moved to a new neighborhood after the storm and eventually got help from a U.S. faith-based organization, Jubilee House Community.

The women decided to sell T-shirts after conducting market research and finding that the products seemed to be a sustainable business. ...

...One such client is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which often purchases large quantities of T-shirts from Nueva Vida. The 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium T-shirts were made by Nueva Vida. ...

... To order Nueva Vida T-shirts in any quantity, visit the Presbyterian Distribution Service.

Documentary reveals Auschwitz horror through survivors' memories

Kansas City Star: Documentary reveals Auschwitz horror through survivors' memories

At the end of each workday, the concentration camp prisoners usually stood in a straight line to be counted.

One day, however, they were told to form a square. Guards had captured two girls trying to escape. They were to be hanged.

The prisoners had to watch.

“The girls came out carrying the stools they were to stand on,” Sonia Warshawski recalled recently. “One of them yelled out to us, ‘Never forget.’ ”

For decades, remembering her Holocaust experiences wasn’t the issue for Warshawski, who endured stays at several camps as a teenager during World War II. The challenge came in being able to tell others.

That’s changed now.

Warshawski is one of 12 Kansas City area survivors of the Auschwitz camp complex in Poland to detail her experiences in a new documentary. To observe the 65th anniversary of the camp’s 1945 liberation, the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education will screen the documentary, “Auschwitz,” for its members on Wednesday.

The film’s completion gladdens Warshawski, today one of a small number of area survivors both willing and able to detail her experiences for school and church groups.

“I feel a responsibility to speak for the ones who didn’t make it,” said Warshawski, 84. “The most important thing is not to forget and not to remain silent.”

The new “Auschwitz” film is part of a larger effort to make mid-1990s videotaped testimony of Kansas City area Holocaust survivors, refugees and witnesses more accessible to area students and educators. ...

For a photo log commemorating the 65th anniversary of liberation visit here.

The facts about food and farming

Los Angeles Times: The facts about food and farming

Let's not join one of the armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other.

One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food -- not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced.

The only problem is that so far it hasn't been much of a conversation. Instead, what we have are two armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other (sound familiar?).

 On the one side, the hard-line aggies seem convinced that a bunch of know-nothing urbanites want to send them back to Stone Age farming techniques. On the other side, there's a tendency by agricultural reformers to lump together all farms (or at least those that aren't purely organic, hemp-clad mom-and-pop operations) as thoughtless ravagers of the environment.

Well, at least we're thinking about it, so I suppose that's a start. But the issues we're facing are not going to go away, and they are too important to be left to the ideologues. What I'd like to see happen in the next decade is a more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation.

With that goal in mind, I'd like to propose a few ground rules that might help move us into the next phase -- fundamental principles that both sides should be able to agree on.

* Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is gardening. I use that line a lot when I'm giving talks, and it always gets a laugh. But it's deadly serious. Not only do farmers have expenses to meet just like any other business, but they also need to be rewarded when they do good work. Any plan that places further demands on farmers without an offsetting profit incentive is doomed to fail.

* What's past is past. Over the last 50 years, American farmers performed an agricultural miracle, all but eliminating hunger as a serious health issue in this country. But that battle has been won, and though those gains must be maintained, the demands of today -- developing a system that delivers flavor as well as quantity and does it in an environmentally friendly way -- are different. ...

The MA Election: A Rebellion Against the Leviathan?

It's now been a week since the senatorial election in Massachusetts. I've heard the pundits and their myriad of reasons for why Scott Brown won. What does this election mean for Obama and the Dems as we go into the state of union address this evening? I think my favorite reflection on the significance of the election was actually written as the election was underway. David Brooks wrote a column titled The Pragmatic Leviathan. Brooks writes:

When I was in college, I was assigned “Leviathan,” by Thomas Hobbes. On the cover was an image from the first edition of the book, published in 1651. It shows the British nation as a large man. The people make up the muscles and flesh. Then at the top, there is the king, who is the head and the mind.

When the Pilgrims left Britain to come to America, they left behind that metaphor as well. For these settlers, and the immigrants who have come since, the American nation is not a body with the government as the brain. Instead, America has been defined by its vast landscape and the sprawling energy of its entrepreneurs, scientists and community-builders.

In times of crisis, Americans rally around their government, but most of the time they have treated it as a supporting actor in national life. Americans are an unusual people, with less deference to central authority and an unparalleled faith in themselves. They seem to want a government that is helpful but not imperious, strong but subordinate.

Over the years, American voters have reacted against any party that threatens that basic sense of proportion. They have reacted against a liberalism that sought an enlarged and corrosive government and a conservatism that threatened to dismantle the government’s supportive role.

A year ago, the country rallied behind a new president who promised to end the pendulumlike swings, who seemed likely to restore equilibrium with his moderate temper and pragmatic mind. ...

... But his has become a voracious pragmatism. Driven by circumstances and self-confidence, the president has made himself the star performer in the national drama. He has been ubiquitous, appearing everywhere, trying to overhaul most sectors of national life: finance, health, energy, automobiles and transportation, housing, and education, among others.

He is no ideologue, but over the past year he has come to seem like the sovereign on the cover of “Leviathan” — the brain of the nation to which all the cells in the body and the nervous system must report and defer.

Americans, with their deep, vestigial sense of proportion, have reacted. ...

... Trust in government has fallen. The share of Americans who say the country is on the wrong track has risen. The share who call themselves conservative has risen. The share who believe government is “doing too many things better left to business” has risen. ...

...The American people are not always right, but their basic sense of equilibrium is worthy of the profoundest respect. President Obama has shown himself to be a fine administrator, but he erred in trying to make himself the irreplaceable man in nearly ever sphere of public life. He erred in not sensing that even a pragmatic government could seem imperious and alarming. ...

I go back to a post I wrote October 30, 2008, ... a week before the election ...  in response to a Christian Science Monitor article, Is Obama Really a Socialist? In one sense, I agree with Brooks that Obama is more a pragmatist then an ideologue. He doesn't always tow the line with what have traditionally been liberal positions and strategies. But even pragmatists have some core principle that shapes their governance.

For Obama, I believe Brooks  has nailed it on the "head": Obama sees the government as the head with society as its body. In 2001, Obama publicly said that he believes government has a responsibility nor only for negative rights ... the right to be free from government intrusion as stated in the Bill of Rights ... but positive rights. He called for a Second Bill of Rights: Everyone is supposed to have positive right to a living wage, a home, health care, a good education, and so on. It is governments responsibility to see that all these things are met. Government ceases to be the subordinate referee and aid to the other institutions in society who lead in their respective roles and instead becomes the societal manager ... the head of the Levithan from whom all other institutions of society are merely an extension. There is a quasi-divine aura projected on government. Government is to meet our every need and free us from hardship. The creedo becomes "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country," as  though the national government was a god we come before and offer ourselves in votive service. The real creedo should be "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what how the country may aid us we serve each other in God's name. "

We are essentially talking about the notion of subsidiarity. First articulated by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (1891), it is probably best summed up by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno:

It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. (79)

Now there can be considerable debate about which things constitute arenas where government should be involved but there is a strong identification in the U. S. with the idea that government is not the center of the societal universe.

I doubt most voters who are unhappy would articulate their unease in precisely the way I have here but I do think that for many there is a general sense of unease about moving government to the center of everything ... or functioning as the head of the Leviathan. Many independents wanted solutions that respect the middle ground between too little government and corrosive imperious government and that is what they thought they were getting with Obama's image as a centrist non-polarizing leader. Now there is buyer's remorse.

I think other issues were at work as well. Some just don't like the health care bill. Many are concerned about the fiscal issues. Some may be okay with health care but believe the Dems have neglected the economy and other concerns with and inordinate focus on health care. I don't want to oversell one explanation but I do think the Levithan factor is very significant. It is the prevalence of this Levithan mentality in the minds of so many Democrats ... whose emphases and concerns I sometimes share ... that causes me usually to vote Repbulican ... sometimes with a clothespin to my nose. :-)

The challenge I see is for Obama to recast himself as someone who respects the important but supporting role that government plays in American life. The problem is that I'm not sure he or the current leadership of the Democrats can. I sense there is something approximating a Leviathan mentality permeating their worldview.

Elites and Populism

David Brooks wrote yesterday:

... It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.

Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.

Third, populism is popular with the ruling class. Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power.

So it’s easy to see the seductiveness of populism. Nonetheless, it nearly always fails. The history of populism, going back to William Jennings Bryan, is generally a history of defeat. ...

I especially like number 3. It also explains why I really have a low tolerance for populist campaigns.

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

In India, rich and poor line up for $2,000 Nano

Christian Science Monitor: In India, rich and poor line up for $2,000 Nano

Ten months after India's $2,000 Nano was launched, carmaker Tata has sold more than 200,000 vehicles.

Months after buying the shiny silver car, farmer Satish Kumar still keeps the plastic wrap on the seats. Most days, his Tata Nano – his first car – sits in the front yard, proudly displayed between the brick pillars of a homemade carport. Tucked from sight are a couple of cows and a humble scooter that still is driven a lot more than the four-wheeled wonder.

The Kumars actually don’t much need a car: Mr. Kumar works in the fields around his house; Mrs. Kumar stays at home; and the kids go to school by bus. The car proves useful for those special occasions when the family wants to arrive together – and in style. “I’m mainly concentrating on using it socially – taking my whole family to weddings and other family functions,” he says.

For Tata, the Indian automaker, Kumar belongs to a new class of customer, thanks to the Nano’s price of just $2,000. But while the Nano spurred much chatter about what it allows the middle class to do, Kumar suggests the Indian consumer may be more smitten with what the car allows them to be. “I think the Nano is actually used as a signaling device,” says Sourabh Mishra, chief strategy officer at marketing firm Saatchi & Saatchi India. “It’s signaling, ‘I’m now part of a group who can afford a lifestyle that hitherto was not possible to me.’ ”

Some 10 months after Nano’s launch, Tata has booked sales of 206,703 cars; 17,000 Nanos have been delivered. Some 70 percent of bookings came from nonmetro areas. ...

Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010 (Campaign Contributors)

Source: Open Secrets

I'm showing only the top 26 ... those that gave more than $20 million. Look at all the pretty blue donkeys! :-)

Of the top 100, only Amway at #87, has three elephants beside it.

(BTW: Anyone remember that 1992 movie "Sneakers" with Robert Redford? "Open Secrets" reminded me of CTEC Astronomy... letters rearranged to spell "Too many secrets.")

"The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" - Book Review

One of the defining features of post-industrial economies in the early Twenty-First Century is specialization and an extensive division of labor. Unlike the farmer or the artisan who could immediately observe the impact of his labor on his fellow human beings it is now difficult for us to know either where the materials that support us in our work came from or how our work ultimately impacts anyone. Yet without this division of labor there is no way we could experience the material abundance and the services we experience today.

Alain de Botton, a native of Switzerland who grew up in England, offers us an engaging look into this dilemma in his recent book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. The book is a travelogue through a variety of occupations and industries including cargo ship spotting, warehouse logistics, biscuit (cookie) production, career counseling, rocket science in French Guiana, painting (as in painting art), transmission engineering, accountancy, entrepreneurship, and aviation. Almost every page of text is accompanied with black and white photo on the opposing page relating to the businesses he explored.

The book is an engaging combination of wit and wisdom. De Botton hones in on how people find meaning and purpose in their work, often in the face banal … even absurd … realities they confront in their daily work. He frequently resorts to a delightfully dry sense of humor to make his point but throughout the book he offers incisive philosophical reflection. For instance, concluding the chapter on Biscuit Manufacturing he writes:

… It was in the eighteenth century that economist and political theorists first became aware of the paradoxes and triumphs of commercial societies, which place trade, luxury and private fortunes at their centre whilst paying only lip service to the pursuit of higher goals. From the beginning, observers of these societies have been transfixed by two of their most prominent features: their wealth and their spiritual decadence. Venice in her heyday was one such society, Holland another, eighteen-century Britain a third. Most of the world now follows their example.

Their self-indulgence has consistently appalled a share of their most high-minded and morally ambitious members, who have railed against consumerism and instead honoured beauty and nature, art and fellowship. But the premises of a biscuit company are a fruitful place to recall that there has always been an insurmountable problem facing those countries that ignore the efficient production of chocolate biscuits and sternly dissuade their ablest citizens from spending their lives on the development of innovative marketing promotions: they have been poor, so poor as to be unable to guarantee political stability or take care of their most vulnerable citizens, whom they have lost to famines and epidemics. It is the high-minded countries that have let their members starve, whereas the self-centred and the childish ones have, off the back of their doughnuts and six thousand varieties of ice cream, had the resources to invest in maternity wards and cranial scanning machines. … (100-102)

In the final two paragraphs of the book he writes:

... If we could witness the eventual fate of every one of our projects, we would have no choice but to succumb to immediate paralysis. Would anyone who watched the departure of Xerxes’ army on its way to conquer the Greeks, or Taj Chan Ahk giving orders for the construction of the golden temples of Cancuen, or the British colonial administrators inaugurating the Indian postal system, have had it in their hearts to fill their passionate actors in the eventual fate of their efforts?

Our work will at least have distracted us, it will have provided a perfect bubble in which to invest our hopes for perfection, it will have focused our immeasurable anxieties on a few relatively small-scale and achievable goals, it will have given us sense of mastery, it will have made us respectably tired, it will have put food on the table. It will have kept us out of greater trouble. (326)

In many ways, de Botton reads like a modern day version of the teacher from Ecclesiastes with a British sense of humor. I sense that he has genuine sympathy and respect for the subjects of his research but he does not pretend to have answers. Rather he poignantly reflects back to the reader the world his subjects live in … and the reader lives in as well!

What are the theological responses to de Botton’s work? It astounds me how little the church has to say to these issues that are so central to our consciousness and therefore our mission in the world.

I highly recommend this book!

Below is Alain de Botton's presentation at TED, A kinder, gentler philosophy of success. I don't endorse all his conclusions but this would make a wonderful discussion starter.

Update: Here is a link to the photos by Richard Baker that weren't used in the book. Photos.

Darwin Made Me Do It: Evolution and the Doctrine of Sin

The Pastor's Monthly Roundtable at Princeton well be hosting a free webinar on Feb 8 called:

Darwin Made Me Do It: Evolution and the Doctrine of Sin

"February's "PMR" lecture is titled "Darwin Made Me Do It: Evolution and the Doctrine of Sin" and will ask the question: If we take human evolution seriously, and can no longer appeal to an historical Fall and the accompanying idea of Original Sin, then what is human sin and where does come from?

Kenneth A. Reynhout is a Ph.D. candidate in Theology and Science at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he is working on a dissertation on Paul Ricoeur’s importance for interdisciplinary theology. Mr. Reynhout is a Co-Director of the Science for Ministry Institute."

Pope to priests: Go forth and blog

USA Today: Pope to priests: Go forth and blog

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.

The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.

"The spread of multimedia communications and its rich 'menu of options' might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web," but priests are "challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources," he said.

The message, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and websites. ...

PCUSA Congregation: "The Holy Spirit wants us to grow in diversity"

Find more videos like this on Deep and Wide

Great video. Scott Weimer, the pastor, recently became a part to the board at the Presbyterian Foundation. The General Assembly Mission Council and the Foundation boards have a joint working group that meets to resolve problems and improve communication. Scott and I are reps from our respective boards and we have spent several hours together in meetings. He is a truly awesome guy. (Although, he is a big Jayhawk fan, thus giving evidence that the stain of sin has infected us all ... even Scott.) I understand that this also is the church where Robert Lupton attends. I've quoted him many times over the years here at my blog. If you want to learn more about North Avenue Presbyterian Church you can visit their website or their Facebook page.

Measuring Global Poverty

Aid Watch: Don’t Cite Global Numbers Unless You Know They’re Trustworthy (They Usually Aren’t)

Precisely 1.419 billion live in extreme poverty in our world today. Oh, and it’s equally plausible that precisely 0.874 billion live in extreme poverty. Or maybe it’s 1.7517 billion.

Most development people confidently cite global statistics without knowing what they are based on. Sorry, that’s no longer allowed with today’s greater demands for transparency. Angus Deaton’s AEA Presidential Address just given at the AEA meetings will not let you ever trust the World Bank again on how many people in the world are in extreme poverty.Some nuggets:

1) “India has become poorer because India has become richer!”

The World Bank’s recent 40 percent upward revision of the global poverty number was based on an absurd procedure that led to the paradox in the quote.

To make a long story short, the World Bank decided to boot richer India out of the group of poorest countries used to determine the poverty line, which made the poverty line higher, which made Indian (and global) poverty higher – all because India was richer. This misguided revision of the poverty line, which accounted for virtually all of the upward revision, was not clear to virtually anyone until this new paper by Deaton.

Deaton doesn’t say this, but the World Bank behavior on calculation and publicity around this number was not exactly their finest hour.

2) Adjusting for purchasing power (how cheap the goods are) across countries is complex and probably impossible.

The details are as incredibly boring as they are hugely consequential.

As only one tiny example, the poverty count is sensitive to a mostly-made-up number that is incomparable across countries: the imputed rent to housing.

Then there is the “index number problem,” which only is of great fascination to 2 people, but unfortunately can change the ratio of US/Tajikstan incomes by a factor of 10. The trouble is that rich people and poor people consume very different things. For example, poor people may consume a lot of something that is cheap in the poor country, which is not consumed much and is expensive in the rich country. Similarly, rich people consume a lot of something else that is cheap in the rich country and expensive in the poor country.  If you use rich country prices, you exaggerate poor people’s consumption basket value (they are given a lot of credit for consuming a lot of something very expensive, but it isn’t that expensive in the poor country and if it were, they would consume a lot less of it). Conversely, if you use poor country prices, you exaggerate rich people’s consumption basket value. There are possible intermediate solutions but no complete solutions to this intractable problem.

Deaton muses: “perhaps we are aiming too high when we try to construct a real income scale on which every country in the world can be placed.” ...

The New Hockey Stick Effect

Inflation Adjusted.

I think the graph pinpoints an important driver in the recent political climate change.

(Source)

Europe's conquering heroes? Likely farmers: study

Reuters: Europe's conquering heroes? Likely farmers: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The conquerors who spread their seed across Europe in ancient times were prosperous farmers who imported their skills from the Middle East, researchers reported on Tuesday.

A study of the Y chromosome -- passed down with very little change from father to son -- suggests that the men of Europe are descended from populations that moved into Europe 10,000 years ago from the "Fertile Crescent", which stretches from Egypt across the Middle East into present-day Iraq.

"Maybe, back then, it was just sexier to be a farmer," Dr. Patricia Balaresque of Britain's University of Leicester said in a statement.

The researchers studied the DNA of 2,574 men from across Europe, they report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Biology, available here%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000285.

Because the Y chromosome changes so little from one generation to the next, changes can be registered by measuring random genetic mutations. This "molecular clock" painted a picture of genetic spread across Europe from the Middle East, where farming originated.

"We focused on the commonest Y-chromosome lineage in Europe, carried by about 110 million men," Balaresque said.

"It follows a gradient from southeast to northwest, reaching almost 100 percent frequency in Ireland. We looked at how the lineage is distributed, how diverse it is in different parts of Europe, and how old it is."

More than 80 percent of European Y chromosomes appear to have the Middle Eastern origin.

Separate studies of mitochondrial DNA, passed along almost untouched from mother to daughter, suggest women mostly descend from the hunter-gatherers who dominated southern Europe after the Ice Ages.

A study published in 2003 found that about 1 in 12 men in Asia carry a version of the Y chromosome that originated in Mongolia nearly 1,000 years ago -- and some researchers said it was likely spread by conquering Mongol hordes.

The findings suggest some interesting mixing going on in early Europe and merit more genetic research, Balaresque said.

"To us, this suggests a reproductive advantage for farming males over indigenous hunter-gatherer males during the switch from hunting and gathering, to farming," she said.

China's economy shows strong growth

BBC: China's economy shows strong growth

China says its economy expanded by 8.7% in 2009, exceeding even the government's own initial expectations.

The pace of change increased as the year went on, with growth in the final quarter of 2009 increasing by 10.7% from 2008.

It is a major turnaround for an economy that was hit by the global downturn just a year ago.

China is now on course to overtake Japan and become the world's second-biggest economy.

Japan announces its latest GDP figures next month. Its economy is likely to have contracted by around 6% in 2009. ...

Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left

New York Times: Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left  (HT: John Lunn)

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

Jobs can be typecast in different ways, said Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse, who undertook the study. For instance, less than 6 percent of nurses today are men. Discrimination against male candidates may be a factor, but the primary reason for the disparity is that most people consider nursing to be a woman’s career, Mr. Gross said. That means not many men aspire to become nurses in the first place — a point made in the recent Lee Daniels film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” When John (Lenny Kravitz) asks the 16-year-old Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) and her friends whether they’ve ever seen a male nurse before, all answer no amid giddy laughter.

Nursing is what sociologists call “gender typed.” Mr. Gross said that “professors and a number of other fields are politically typed.” Journalism, art, fashion, social work and therapy are dominated by liberals; while law enforcement, farming, dentistry, medicine and the military attract more conservatives.

“These types of occupational reputations affect people’s career aspirations,” he added in a telephone interview from his office at the University of British Columbia. Mr. Fosse, his co-author, is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard.

The academic profession “has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors,” they write in the paper, “Why Are Professors Liberal?” That is especially true of their own field, sociology, which has become associated with “the study of race, class and gender inequality — a set of concerns especially important to liberals.”

What distinguishes Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse’s research from so much of the hubbub that surrounds this subject is their methodology. Whereas most arguments have primarily relied on anecdotes, this is one of the only studies to use data from the General Social Survey of opinions and social behaviors and compare professors with the rest of Americans. ...

Understanding ‘Generation Jones’ and other mini-generation gaps

Smart Planet: Understanding ‘Generation Jones’ and other mini-generation gaps

They were the Baby Boomers who didn’t make it to Woodstock — because it would have taken them way past their bedtimes.

While much has been made about the heritage of the Baby Boomers, who fomented the hippie counterculture and burned down draft boards, there is actually a larger segment of this cohort — their younger siblings — who more or less missed the 1960s and came of age in the following decade.

And they even have a strange name, these later baby boomers, born between the years 1954 and 1965 — “Generation Jones.” I recently came across a reference to Generation Jones as part of a recent IBM survey on consumer attitudes, and found the differences between them and Baby Boomers compelling.

Jonathan Pontell, who coined the term for this 53 million-member-strong generational segment, describes this generation as stuck “between Woodstock and Lollapalooza.” They didn’t buy into or were too young to understand the Baby Boomer tantrums; yet they were a tad to old to join the Gen-Xers in the mosh pits. Pontell describes their heritage:

So who are we? We are practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part. The name “Generation Jones” derives from a number of sources, including our historical anonymity, the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ competition of our populous birth years, and sensibilities coupling the mainstream with ironic cool. But above all, the name borrows from the slang term ‘jonesin” that we as teens popularized to broadly convey any intense craving.”

President Obama and Michelle Obama are members of Generation Jones. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is also a member. So is Sarah Palin and Simon Cowell. ...

Well, I was born smack-dab in the middle of this generation. Guess you can call me Jonesy now. :-)

For Ailing Health System, a Diagnosis but No Cure

New York Times: For Ailing Health System, a Diagnosis but No Cure

WASHINGTON — Nearly everyone agrees that there is something sick about the American health care system, especially when it comes to the seemingly out-of-control rise in costs.

While Democrats and Republicans continue to fight over the remedy, there is one man who can claim to have rendered a specific diagnosis and — more than 40 years later — he wants lawmakers and President Obama to know that there probably is no cure.

What afflicts the American health care system (and those of other industrialized nations) is called Baumol’s cost disease. It is named for William J. Baumol, an economist at New York University, who turns 88 next month. And it explains why health care costs will almost certainly continue to rise faster than general inflation, and why Democrats might not want to set expectations too high when it comes to their health care bill.

“Let me say first of all that I am a strong supporter of the general notion of the president’s health care proposals,” Dr. Baumol said in an interview. But he warned that policy makers, including Mr. Obama, were in danger of promising too much.

“One mustn’t exaggerate what this program can accomplish,” he said, “because if you claim miracles and then prices keep going up two years from now, you have bought yourself some trouble.”

Dr. Baumol and a colleague, William G. Bowen, described the cost disease in a 1966 book on the economics of the performing arts. Their point was that some sectors of the economy are burdened by an inexorable rise in labor costs because they tend not to benefit from increased efficiency. As an example, they used a Mozart string quintet composed in 1787: 223 years later, it still requires five musicians and the same amount of time to play.

Despite all sorts of technological advances, health care, like the performing arts, suffers from the cost disease. So do other public services like education, police work and garbage collection. While some industries enjoy sharp increases in productivity (cars can be built faster than ever, retail inventory can be managed better), endeavors like health care are as labor-intensive as ever.

And yet, wages in health care grow to match wage increases in the broader economy. (Imagine trying to pay today’s violinist the same as a counterpart in 1787.) ...

Top-ranked Texas Loses at Kansas State

Just 11 days until the evil Jayhawks visit Manhattan. Isaac (my tabby) and I predict a win for the Wild Kitties.

N.T. Wright on Adam and Eve

From Biologos.

If Martin Luther King had been an aid official — the Powerpoint version of I Have a Dream

Aid Watch: If Martin Luther King had been an aid official — the Powerpoint version of I Have a Dream

If only Martin Luther King Jr. had been an aid agency official, he would have been able to use Powerpoint and aid terminology to get his main points across more effectively.

Using advanced econometric methods, we were able to project the Powerpoint slides that would have resulted (open or save here).

Good thing King was a pastor and not an aid agency official. :-)

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Obama's impact on race in America

Christian Science Monitor: Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Obama's impact on race in America

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day a year after the first African-American president took office, Americans appear to have mixed views about the impact of President Obama's election on race relations.

For civil rights activist Si Kahn, the evolution in racial relations in America can be summed up by a visit to Mert’s Restaurant in downtown Charlotte, N.C. A nouvelle soul food place where you can dine to the sound of sweet Southern gut-bucket blues, the restaurant is packed these days with “a wonderful mix" of young people, he says.

“So many shades, shapes, sizes, facial characteristics, languages, accents,” he continues, “Across lines of race and ethnicity, they hold hands, embrace, kiss.”

Though President Obama has been in office for just a year, “a tiny blip in time for an entire culture to evolve, Mr. Kahn sees noticeable changes in American race relations. Racism among young people especially, he says, continues to fade.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a year after the inauguration of America’s first black president, historians and civil rights activists offer mixed assessments about Mr. Obama's impact on race relations in the country. Some like Mr. Kahn are overwhelmingly positive. But others say there’s still a long way to go.

The mixed assessments show up in several surveys and polls. A recent Pew Research survey found a dramatic increase in how black Americans felt about their place in society. Four out of 10 black Americans say they are better off now compared with 2007, when only two in ten felt that way.

But a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday shows a decline in the number of Americans who say Obama’s presidency will help race relations, from 60 percent on the eve of his inauguration last year to about 40 percent today. The fall is highest among African-Americans. Three-quarters of blacks said they expected Obama’s presidency to advance racial equality last January, but only 51 percent of blacks now say he has helped.

“It is pure fantasy to think that the election of the first African-American President is going to change [racial inequality] overnight,” says Yolanda T. Moses, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. ...

Young Adult 'Boomerangers' Head Home in Numbers

Marketing Charts: Young Adult 'Boomerangers' Head Home in Numbers

More than one in 10 US parents with grown children say at least one of their adult sons or daughters has moved back home in the past year after living away, according to research by the Pew Research Center, which found that the recent recession has created a bumper crop of “boomerangers,” particularly between ages 18 and 34.

To measure changes in household arrangements, the survey asked US adults if they lived in their own home or with one or both parents in the parents’ home. The survey further asked all adults if they had moved back in with their parents as a result of the recession. Overall, about 11% of all adults ages 18+ live with their parents in their home and 4% of all adults say they were forced to move back with their parents because of the recession, a proportion that rises to 10% among those ages 18 - 34. ...

Chile, once Latin America's economic model, now overtaken by Brazil

Christian Science Monitor: Chile, once Latin America's economic model, now overtaken by Brazil

Conservative tycoon Sebastian Piñera won the second round of Chile's presidential election on Sunday in part due to voter faith that he can revive the economy. Meanwhile, Brazil's economy is booming.

For two decades, Chile was the “teacher’s pet” of Latin America, the student who always brought home straight A’s.

Economists gushed that the Andean country’s commitment to free-market policies and democratic reform made it a model for the developing world. And as Chileans enjoyed the trappings of a sustained average growth rate of more than 5 percent per year, poverty plummeted from 40 percent to 13.7 percent. But in the past year, Chile’s gold star has gone to its hulking neighbor to the east, Brazil.

The agricultural juggernaut just won its bid to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics; it discovered vast oil deposits that could turn it into a major oil exporter; it was one of the last countries to be pulled into the global economic crisis and one of the first to pull out.

To be sure, the so-called Chilean “miracle” that constructed the most solid economic foundation in Latin America still stands, and some of its slower growth today is merely a result of its own maturation. But Brazil is finally claiming new status in the region, and not just for its size. ...

Smart guys on the future of the mainline

Call and Response Blog: Smart guys on the future of the mainline Jason Byassee

One advantage of my job is getting to meet the smart, dedicated church leaders who attend our Leadership Education events. Recently I got to meet with two: a terrific young UCC conference minister named Mike Denton and the well-known author Brian McLaren. I put the question of the future of the mainline to both of them, and asked especially about the effect of the economic downturn.

Denton, a member of the UCC’s Pacific Northwest Conference staff, lives in culturally liberal Seattle. It’s a region that often called “the None zone,” since so many people check “none” in survey boxes for their religious adherence. The UCC, like other churches, has been hard hit economically out there -- so much so that ministers have been forced to take sabbaticals every year. Many take the summer months off. This has had two surprising benefits. One, the pastors come back refreshed and ready to do ministry. “They read, they think expansively about their ministry, and they come back recharged with ideas and energy and ready to go,” Denton said. Two, lay people are learning that the minister is not the only minister in the congregation. For a quarter of the year, while the pastor is on forced sabbatical, the place is theirs and only theirs. “We’re going to do more lay training,” Denton said. ...

... McLaren is well-known as a leading light of the Emerging Church Movement, though he spends less time these days with his former travelers among evangelicals and more with mainline church leaders. He draped praise on the heads of denominations with whom he was meeting, saying such dedicated churchmen and women give him hope. He pointed to one innovative idea from a mainline denominational executive that will see several thousand seminary graduates next year. The communion only foresees having some 200 openings, and most of those will not go to fresh-faced newbies just out of school. There will be hundreds of young ministers without work. What should they do?

McLaren sees the Anglican movement called “Fresh Expressions” as a source of creative inspiration. Here the Church of England has granted status as recognized ministries to whatever an ordained pastor chooses to bless with her or his time and ministry. So, one priest has chosen to take on a local skating group. Kids were using a church parking lot illicitly, to the consternation of the church, especially for insurance reasons. So this priest said the gathering would now be a “church,” got the Church of England to recognize it as a “Fresh Expression,” and baptized several dozen skaters. ...

New Airport Body Scans Don't Detect All Weapons

NPR: New Airport Body Scans Don't Detect All Weapons (HT: Victor Claar)

The Obama administration's plan to protect air travelers from terrorists is counting on a technology that is powerful but imperfect, experts say.

The plan will place hundreds of full-body scanners in airports around the country. These scanners use a technology called backscatter X-ray to create images that can reveal weapons or explosives hidden beneath a person’s clothing.

But they don't detect everything, and they won't be in every airport.

President Obama announced the wide deployment of these scanners two weeks after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airplane using plastic explosives concealed in his underwear on Christmas Day. ...

...So can any of this X-ray technology really make air travel safer?

"Of course not," says security consultant Bruce Schneier. "It's sort of magical thinking."

Schneier sees a couple of big problems with the government's strategy.

First, he says, every technology has its limits. And he's not reassured by the government's new scanner.

"It doesn't detect low-density explosives," Schneier says. "It doesn't detect explosives that are thin. You know, it's really very limited as to what it detects. It may or may not have detected the underwear bomber. We don't actually know."

Another problem, he says, is that even hundreds of scanners won't be enough to protect every airport.

"The 9/11 terrorists didn't go through security in Boston," he says. "They went through security in places like Maine."

And once a terrorist has made it through security anywhere in the system, they're not screened again, Schneier says.

"So unless these machines are in every airport in the country," he says, "all we're doing is making the terrorists take another flight before they launch their attack."

The government's real problem isn't a lack of technology, Schneier says. It's a tendency to react to what has already happened, not what might happen next time.

"Airports are the last line of defense, and they're not a very good one," Schneier says.

He says taxpayers would get more for their money if the government invested less in hardware and more in investigations of potential terrorists and better intelligence.

I found myself agreeing with Schneier's assessmen but then I became concerned. His take is that we should not buy products from the evil greedy capitalists who want to make a profit by selling the machines while giving the money to employ more government workers. I might have to rethink this one.  :-)

The people's interest: A new battle against usury

Christian Century: The people's interest: A new battle against usury

Walking down Trade Street in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, Melinda Graham spied the Bank of America football stadium a few blocks away. "That's all my money, right there," said Graham, one of hundreds who marched on B of A and Wachovia one day last October to demand a 10 percent cap on credit-card interest rates.

A few minutes later, Graham noticed a pair of brown leather stilettos on a sharply dressed young woman. "Look at her shoes," she urged her 21-year-old daughter. Then she looked at me, who had just asked her about her credit-card debt: "I'm a shoe fanatic," she admitted.

Graham can no longer afford such luxuries. She started cutting her spending after her debt topped $8,000, which is about average for the nearly half of all Americans who carry a credit -card balance. She used to go to the cinema once a week or rent half a dozen movies to watch over the weekend, but not these days. "I can't do the things I like doing, like getting away on the weekend," she said. "I buy only the necessities."

Still, it has taken her four years to pay off $3,000 of her debt; she has $5,000 more to go. After she lost her job at a cardboard factory last April, JPMorgan Chase raised her interest rate from 17 percent to 24 percent—an industry trend that prompted Congress to restrict rate increases last year (it takes effect in 2010). As she attends community college to become a physical therapy assistant, Graham pays $200 a month to Chase, $85 of which goes to interest.

"It's hard to get that payment down when so much of it is going to [the bank]," she said. "You feel helpless because there's nothing you can do. Well, until today," she said, referring to the march. "Hopefully, this makes a difference."

Graham came to Charlotte with members of her church, New Life Worship Center in Lexington, North Carolina, one of more than 500 congregations from the Midwest to the East Coast (along with some in Great Britain) who support limits on interest rates.

While conceding that careless spending is the chief cause of consumer debt and needs to be addressed, the march organizers object to the way credit companies make enticing offers of easy credit and then increase interest rates and impose profitable penalties.

The lead sponsor of the "10 Percent Is Enough" campaign is the Industrial Areas Foundation, a community-organizing network whose local chapters have worked for living-wage laws, affordable housing and school reform. Perhaps best known for training and employing Barack Obama in the 1980s, IAF's history stretches back to the meatpacking labor movement of the 1930s and '40s.

For many Christian leaders, who are the main recruiters for the interest-cap movement, concern for interest rates is rooted in biblical texts and traditional teachings of the church against usury—that is, against charging a fee for the use of money, otherwise known as interest. ...

Lengthy article with an interesting overview of how usury has been dealt with by the church throughout history.

Structural Barriers Discourage Girls From Going Into Math and Science?

Mark Perry takes aim at this article in the Chronicle for Higher Education that says structural barriers in education prevent women from going into math and science. Summarizing from 2009 SAT report from the College Board he writes:

1. The average number of years of math study for boys and girls in high school is almost identical: 3.9 years for boys and 3.8 years for girls.

2. The average number of years of science study for girls (3.5 years) in high school is almost the same as for boys (3.6 years).

3. High school girls had exactly the same math GPA as boys of 3.14, and a slightly higher average GPA for science (3.27) than boys (3.23).

4. More girls take biology and chemistry (55%) in high school than boys (45%), i.e. 122 girls per 100 boys.

5. There are 127 girls taking high school AP/Honors science classes for every 100 boys.

6. For high school students reporting more than four years of math study, the percentages are equal by gender: 50% of boys and 50% of girls take more than four years of math.

7. Both 50% of boys and 50% of girls in high school report that calculus is the highest level of high school mathematics taken.

8. More high school girls than boys took AP Honors math courses, by a ratio of 117 girls for every 100 boys.

Bottom Line: The evidence shows that high school girls are equally prepared, if not more prepared (more AP math and science classes), than high school boys for college programs in math, science and engineering. ...

African Football: Playing away

Economist: African Football: Playing away

Most African footballers play for foreign clubs

The Africa Cup of Nations, which takes place every two years, kicked off in Angola on January 10th. The tournament went ahead without the Togolose team, who withdrew after their bus was attacked by terrorists. Of the 345 players in the 15 squads remaining in the competition, most are employed by foreign clubs: 205 of them ply their trade outside Africa, mainly in Europe. Seven of the squads have three home-based players or fewer; two, Cameroon and Nigeria, have none at all. French clubs are the most popular destination, with 58 on their books, followed by English clubs, with 24. (Togo’s team had just two home-based players and nine from French clubs.) South Africa, host of this year’s World Cup, is the biggest African importer; its own national squad, however, failed to qualify for the event. In all, clubs from 54 countries will be represented, from Azerbaijan to China. None of the participants play in the Americas: Latin America is football-mad too—but is also a big exporter of footballers.

100 Years of Consumer Spending

Source: Visual Economics  (HT: Brad Wright)

We pray for Haiti

(Source: Boston.com. AP Photo/The Day, Abigail Pheiffer)

We pray for Haiti

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As the eyes of the world turn to Haiti, let us join our hearts in prayer:
God of compassion
Please watch over the people of Haiti,
And weave out of these terrible  happenings
wonders of goodness and grace.
Surround those who have been affected by tragedy
With a sense of your present love,
And hold them in faith.
Though they are lost in grief,
May they find you and be comforted;
Guide us as a church
To find ways of providing assistance
that heals wounds and provides hope
Help us to remember that when one of your children suffer
We all suffer
Through Jesus Christ who was dead, but lives
and rules this world with you. Amen.
(Adapted from Book of Common Worship)

— Bruce Reyes-Chow, Gradye Parsons and Linda Valentine

One way to help? Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

Free fall

Economist: Free fall

Political rights and civil liberties around the world suffered for the fourth year on the trot in 2009, according to the latest report published by Freedom House, an American think-tank. This represents the longest continuous period of deterioration in the history of the report. The number of electoral democracies dropped from 119 to 116, the lowest figure since 1995. Six countries were downgraded: Lesotho to partly free and Bahrain, Gabon, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and Yemen dropped into the “not free” category. Around a third of the world’s population live in countries deemed not free, although over half of these live in China. In the Middle East and North Africa 70% of countries are not free. Still, freedom was on the march in 16 countries, notably in the Balkans, where Montenegro is now considered free, and Kosovo is partly free.

The old delusion of protectionism

Boston Globe: The old delusion of protectionism

... It is certainly true that people’s jobs are affected by consumers’ choices. If customers stay away in droves from Chinese hose attachments, it might well mean more work for an American hose and belting manufacturer. But why stop there? In addition to boycotting goods and services made in other countries, let’s avoid spending money on products from other states. Those of us who live in Massachusetts should refuse to buy dryer sheets from California, Ohio lightbulbs, and hoses made in California. My Boston cabbie should be curling his lip at cars made not just by companies headquartered in Japan or Germany, but by those based in Michigan, too.

Crazy? Of course. Refusing to trade across state lines wouldn’t make us economically stronger. It would make us weaker, condemning us to higher prices, less variety, reduced purchasing power, and inferior quality. Granted, such protectionism might work to the advantage of a few local producers. But it would do so only by depriving everyone else of economic opportunity and improved quality of life. To turn state borders into trade barriers would be irrational and self-defeating.

What protectionists never seem to grasp is that it is no less irrational and self-defeating to treat the borders of countries as barriers to trade. Free trade isn’t a battle that countries (or states) win or lose. It is a human right - the liberty to engage in voluntary transactions that leave both participants better off. If John wants to sell something that Mary wants to buy, it should make no difference to the lawfulness of their exchange whether they are residents of different neighborhoods, different states, or different nations. ...

Elderly to Outnumber Children for First Time in 2045, UN Says

Bloomberg: Elderly to Outnumber Children for First Time in 2045, UN Says

 Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The elderly will outnumber children for the first time in 2045, ratcheting demand on nursing homes and increasing the burden on working-age people to support retirees, a United Nations report found.

The proportion of the world’s population older than 60 years will reach 22 percent over the next four decades from 11 percent in 2009 and 8 percent in 1950, the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in the report, titled World Population Ageing 2009.

The ranks of the elderly are expanding 2.6 percent a year, three times faster than humanity as a whole, mostly because people are living longer and having fewer children. The trend will affect economic growth, savings, investment, consumption, labor markets, pensions and taxation, the UN found. It will also influence living arrangements, housing demand, migration trends and the need for health-care services. ...

Fair Trade Coffee: How Much of the Premium Price Gets to the Growers?

Victor Claar's Economics Blog: Fair Trade Coffee: How Much of the Premium Price Gets to the Growers?

I'm currently reading Tim Harford's excellent The Undercover Economist. I particularly enjoyed the second chapter--the one dealing with price discrimination as well as product differentiation.

He begins the chapter with a wonderful anecdote--one that makes you wonder how much of the premium price you might be paying for a cup of Fair Trade coffee is actually getting to the poor coffee grower you hope you are helping. In one case, Mr. Harford estimates that over 90 percent of the Fair Trade premium was mysteriously being "lost" between the retailer and the grower.

Since Mr. Harford writes regularly for the Financial Times, they printed this excerpt: ...

Why Aren’t Americans Happier?

Becker Posner Blog: Why Aren’t Americans Happier?

On December 14, Becker and I blogged about the shortcomings of  GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a welfare measure. A related question is the relation between GDP or other measures of economic prosperity and happiness, or what utilitarians and welfare economists refer to as “utility.” The great utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham defined utility as the excess of pleasure over pain, or equivalently (for he did not confine pleasure and pain to purely physical sensations) happiness.

Most people, including most economists, do not regard per capita income or other measures of economic welfare (such as GDP, which is the market value of all goods and services sold in the United States, whether for consumption or investment, in the course of one year) as an end in itself, but as a contributor to human happiness broadly conceived. They expect the contribution to be positive, however. Most people devote much of their time to trying to increase their income, which suggests that income and welfare are positively correlated. I will question this expectation and this suggestion.

The United States has the highest per capita income of any large country, and so one might expect it to have the highest per capita happiness. But surveys indicate that this is not true; in one well-known study (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index#International_Rankings_2006) (visited Jan. 9, 2010), for example, the United States ranked 23rd out of 178 countries. Denmark was first, Burundi last; nevertheless there was a general though rough correlation between happiness and per capita income: the happiest countries are rich, the unhappiest poor. And generally as countries become richer, their inhabitants become happier. These correlations are confirmed in an important and careful study by the economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, available at http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/happiness.pdf (visited Jan. 10, 2010).

Cross-national comparisons are of limited significance because other things affect happiness besides income, such as health, population density, religious beliefs, quality of public services, internal and external security, family structure, climate, and income equality (given declining marginal utility of income, the more equal incomes are—holding other things constant, an essential qualification, obviously—the higher average utility can be expected to be). Thus the fact that the United States ranks only 23rd in happiness is not terribly meaningful.

However, an important finding in another article by Stevenson and Wolfers, “The Decline of Female Happiness,” available at http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf (visited Jan. 9, 2010), is that in the United States men’s happiness is essentially unchanged since 1970, and women’s happiness has declined significantly, so that average U.S. happiness has declined. In 1970, the average woman was happier than the average man; today the reverse is true. In most other developed countries, average male and female happiness has grown, but male happiness has grown relative to female happiness. ...

... The reason that happiness has not increased even though per capita income has increased may be that in comparing happiness at year t and at year t + 40, one is asking the inhabitants of two very different societies (whether it is the same person asked at both times or different people). The people at year t didn’t know what conditions would be 40 years hence, and so couldn’t feel unhappy because they couldn’t experience those conditions. If happiness is relative to existing opportunities, a change in those opportunities needn’t affect it.

Happiness moreover is a psychological, which is to say a biological, state, and biological states are not as variable as income is. There are people in the world today who earn $1 a day, and people who earn $1 million a day, but it would be inconceivable than the latter was one million times happier than the former, just as no person in any society can run a million times faster than the slowest runner. The human biology may simply be such that the elasticity of happiness to income is very low.

But one should distinguish between happiness and preferences, and hence between maximizing happiness and maximizing preference satisfaction. People have a strong preference for more income over less and thus for a rising standard of living. Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations that people fooled themselves in thinking they would be happier with more money. Maybe so; but as long as people do have this strong preference, economics can explain a great deal of human behavior.

Social Media is Business

Interesting vid I found at Danny Gamache's Blog. Talks about how social media is (or should be) at the core of business, not an adjunct.

Brit Hume's Tiger Woods remarks shine light on true intolerance

Washington Post: Brit Hume's Tiger Woods remarks shine light on true intolerance

After urging Tiger Woods to accept the "forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith" -- and comparing Buddhism unfavorably to that hope -- journalist Brit Hume insisted he was not proselytizing. In this, he is wrong. His words exemplify proselytization.

For this, Hume has been savaged. Post media critic Tom Shales put him in the category of a "sanctimonious busybody" engaged in "telling people what religious beliefs they ought to have." Blogger Andrew Sullivan criticized Hume's "pure sectarianism," which helps abolish "the distinction between secular and religious discourse." MSNBC's David Shuster called Hume's religious advice "truly embarrassing."

The assumption of these criticisms is that proselytization is the antonym of tolerance. Asserting the superiority of one's religious beliefs, in this view, is not merely bad manners; it involves a kind of divisive, offensive judgmentalism.

But the American idea of religious liberty does not forbid proselytization; it presupposes it. Free, autonomous individuals not only have the right to hold whatever beliefs they wish, they also have the right to change those beliefs and to persuade others to change as well. Just as there is no political liberty without the right to change one's convictions and publicly argue for them, there is no religious liberty without the possibility of conversion and persuasion. ...

...The root of the anger against Hume is his religious exclusivity -- the belief, in Shuster's words, that "my faith is the right one." For this reason, according to Shales, Hume has "dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet."

But this supposed defense of other religious traditions betrays an unfamiliarity with religion itself. Religious faiths -- Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian -- generally make claims about the nature of reality that conflict with the claims of other faiths. Attacking Christian religious exclusivity is to attack nearly every vital religious tradition. It is not a scandal to believers that others hold differing beliefs. It is only a scandal to those offended by all belief. Though I am not a Buddhist or a Muslim, I am not "dissed" when a Muslim or a Buddhist advocates his views in public.

Hume's critics hold a strange view of pluralism. For religion to be tolerated, it must be privatized -- not, apparently, just in governmental settings but also on television networks. We must have not only a secular state but also a secular public discourse. And so tolerance, conveniently, is defined as shutting up people with whom secularists disagree. Many commentators have been offering Woods advice in his travails. But religious advice, apparently and uniquely, should be forbidden. In a discussion of sex, morality and betrayed vows, wouldn't religious issues naturally arise? How is our public discourse improved by narrowing it -- removing references to the most essential element in countless lives?

True tolerance consists in engaging deep disagreements respectfully -- through persuasion -- not in banning certain categories of argument and belief from public debate. ...

Deciphered etching sheds new light on Bible's origin

Haaretz: Deciphered etching sheds new light on Bible's origin

Did the writing of the Bible begin as far back as the 10th century B.C.E., during the time of King David? That is four centuries earlier than Biblical scholars currently believe - but an inscription recently deciphered by a scholar at Haifa University indicates that for at least some books of the Bible, the answer may be yes.

The inscription, written in ink on clay, is the earliest yet found in Hebrew. It was discovered about 18 months ago in a dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Emek Ha'ela. While it was quickly dated, its language remained uncertain until Prof. Gershon Galil was able to demonstrate that it was an early form of Hebrew - containing roots commonly found in Hebrew, but which are very rare in other Semitic languages.

The content, Galil said, "which relates to slaves, widows and orphans," is typical of the Biblical text, but reflects ideas virtually unheard of in the surrounding cultures.

Galil said this discovery disproves the current theory, which holds that the Bible could not have been written before the 6th century B.C.E., because Hebrew writing did not exist until then.

Moreover, he added, the inscription was found in what was then a minor, outlying community - so if scribes existed even there, Hebrew writing was probably sufficiently well developed to handle a complex text like the Bible.

Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular

Guardian: Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular

That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside.

According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular reed raft.

The now battered tablet, aged about 3,700 years, was found somewhere in the Middle East by Leonard Simmons, a largely self-educated Londoner who indulged his passion for history while serving in the RAF from 1945 to 1948.

The relic was passed to his son Douglas, who took it to one of the few people in the world who could read it as easily as the back of a cornflakes box; he gave it to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, who translated its 60 lines of neat cuneiform script.

There are dozens of ancient tablets that have been found which describe the flood story but Finkel says this one is the first to describe the vessel's shape.

"In all the images ever made people assumed the ark was, in effect, an ocean-going boat, with a pointed stem and stern for riding the waves – so that is how they portrayed it," said Finkel. "But the ark didn't have to go anywhere, it just had to float, and the instructions are for a type of craft which they knew very well. It's still sometimes used in Iran and Iraq today, a type of round coracle which they would have known exactly how to use to transport animals across a river or floods."

Finkel's research throws light on the familiar Mesopotamian story, which became the account in Genesis, in the Old Testament, of Noah and the ark that saved his menagerie from the waters which drowned every other living thing on earth. ...

The Big Mac index: Taste and see

Economist: The Big Mac index: Taste and see

Burgernomics shows the Chinese yuan is still undervalued.

THE Big Mac index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP)—exchange rates should equalise the price of a basket of goods in different countries. The exchange rate that leaves a Big Mac costing the same in dollars everywhere is our fair-value benchmark. So our light-hearted index shows which countries the foreign-exchange market has blessed with a cheap currency, and which has it burdened with a dear one. The most overvalued currency against the dollar is the Norwegian kroner, which is 96% above its PPP rate. In Oslo you can expect to pay around $7 for a Big Mac. At the other end of the scale is the Chinese yuan, which is undervalued by 49%. The euro comes in at 35% over its PPP rate, a little higher than six months ago.

Is the World Getting Better or Worse

New Scientist

(HT: Brad Wright)

The economics of happiness

Washington Post: The economics of happiness

... For the past 10 years, I have been studying happiness around the world, in countries as different as Afghanistan, Chile and the United States. It has been an amazing foray into the complexity of the human psyche and the simplicity of what makes us happy. What is most remarkable is how similar the forces driving happiness are in various countries, regardless of a nation's level of development.

Wherever I look, some simple patterns hold: A stable marriage, good health and enough (but not too much) income are good for happiness. Unemployment, divorce and economic instability are terrible for it. On average, happier people are also healthier, with the causal arrows probably pointing in both directions. Finally, age and happiness have a consistent U-shaped relationship, with the turning point in the mid- to late-40s, when happiness begins to increase, as long as health and domestic partnerships stay sound.

All of this seems rather logical, suggesting that if a government wants to get into the business of promoting happiness, it can pursue some straightforward policy goals, such as emphasizing health, jobs and economic stability as much as economic growth.

But here's the complicated part. While there are stable patterns in what leads to happiness, there is also a remarkable human capacity to adapt to both prosperity and adversity. Thus people in Afghanistan -- a war-stricken country with poverty like that of sub-Saharan Africa -- are as happy as people in Latin America, where typical social and economic indicators are a good deal stronger. Kenyans, meanwhile, are as satisfied with their health care as Americans are with theirs. Being a victim of crime makes people unhappy, but the impact is smaller if crime is a common occurrence in their society; the same goes for corruption and obesity. Freedom and democracy make people happy, but the effect is greater when they're used to such liberties than when they're not.

The bottom line is that people can adapt to tremendous adversity and retain their cheerfulness, while they can also have virtually everything -- including good health -- and be miserable. ...

...One thing that people have a hard time adapting to, however, is uncertainty. People seem to be much better at dealing with unpleasant certainty than with the uncertainty of how bad a particular health condition or economic downturn will get. My most recent survey research -- with colleagues Soumya Chattopadhyay and Mario Picon -- shows, for example, that average happiness in the United States declined significantly as the Dow dropped with the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. According to our calculations, happiness fell 11 percent compared with its pre-crisis levels, reaching its lowest point in mid-November 2008.

But when the market stopped falling and some stability was restored in March, average happiness recovered much faster than the Dow; by June, it exceeded its pre-crisis level -- even though living standards and reported satisfaction with those standards remained markedly lower than they were before the crisis. Once the uncertainty ended, people seemed to be able to return to previous happiness levels, while making do with less income or wealth.

Yet if people can stay happy with less money, they can also become discontent with more. This is the paradox of unhappy growth. In research with economist Eduardo Lora, we found that, in countries with similar levels of per capita income, respondents experiencing higher economic growth rates are, on average, less happy than those with less growth. One explanation: Rapid economic growth typically brings greater instability and inequality with it, and that makes people unhappy. ...

Fascinating article. Is maximum happiness really the objective of society? If more people are happier by keeping the status quo then what keeps society from simply stagnating? If people simply accepted the status quo 100 years ago, think of the technological, economic, and medical advances that would not have been experienced. Are dystopias like Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World where the objective is to keep the masses content really the answer? 

While economic growth and happiness both have their place but neither of these can be the ultimate standard against which societal health is measured for Christians. Our mission is the pursuit of shalom and the realization of God's Kingdom.

Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians, 2008

The new Presbyterian Panel survey is out. Here are the highlights:

• Three in five pastors (60%) and specialized clergy (60%)—but only two in five members (40%) and elders (42%)—were raised in a Presbyterian congregation (p. 1).
• Seven in eight elders (87%)—but only two-thirds of members (65%)—attend Sunday worship services “every week” or “nearly every week” (p. 1).
• Almost all elders (93%) and three in five members (62%) volunteered time to help lead events for their congregation in the previous month (p. 2).
• A majority of members (57%) have been ordained, about one in five each as both elders and deacons (16%), as elders only (21%), and as deacons only (19%) (p. 2).
• Elders are generally more involved than members in congregational life and hold more orthodox views than members (p. 3).
• Median household giving in 2007 was $2,520 per member household, $3,200 per elder household, $6,000 per pastor household, and $4,000 per specialized clergy household (p. 3).
• At least three in five Presbyterians from each group (members, 59%; elders, 67%; pastors, 82%; specialized clergy, 75%) pray privately daily or almost daily (p. 5).
• At least four in five ministers (pastors, 96%; specialized clergy, 81%)—but only one-third of members (37%) and half of elders (49%)—read the Bible privately at least weekly (p. 5).
• At least four in five Presbyterians from each group believe that the Bible is either “the word of God, to be interpreted in light of its historical and cultural context” or “the word of God, to be interpreted in light of its historical context and the Church’s teachings” (members, 80%; elders, 83%; pastors, 95%; specialized clergy, 96%). One in six laypeople (members, 16%; elders, 16%) believe the Bible should be taken literally, word for word. Only 5% of pastors and 3% of specialized clergy believe this (p. 6).
• Almost half of laypeople (members, 44%; elders, 48%) have had a conversion experience—“a turning point” when they committed themselves to Christ (p. 7).
• At least three in five laypeople have tried to encourage people to believe in Jesus Christ (members, 60%; elders, 71%) or in the prior year have invited people to attend worship at their congregation (members, 60%; elders, 77%) (p. 7).
• Presbyterians are somewhat divided along the theological spectrum. Two in five elders (42%) and one-third of members (34%) describe themselves as very conservative or conservative. Half of specialized clergy (52%) describe themselves as very liberal or liberal. Pastors are more evenly split (p. 7).
• Half of elders (50%) support the 2009 decision by presbyteries to maintain the denomination’s policy of ordaining as ministers of the Word and Sacrament, elders, or deacons only those who are in heterosexual marriages or not sexually active. A majority of specialized clergy (60%) oppose this decision. Members and pastors are more evenly split (p. 8).
• Half of pastors (49%) serve in solo pastorates. Another one-third (35%) are heads of staff in congregations with multiple pastors (p. 9).
• One-third each of specialized clergy are chaplains (32%) or faculty or staff at seminaries or colleges (31%). Others work on PC(USA) national or middle governing body staff (13%) or as professional pastoral counselors (8%) (p. 9).
• Three in five pastors (60%) and specialized clergy (60%)—but only two in five members (40%) and elders (42%)—were raised in a Presbyterian congregation (p. 1).
• Seven in eight elders (87%)—but only two-thirds of members (65%)—attend Sunday worship services “every week” or “nearly every week” (p. 1).
• Almost all elders (93%) and three in five members (62%) volunteered time to help lead events for their congregation in the previous month (p. 2).
• A majority of members (57%) have been ordained, about one in five each as both elders and deacons (16%), as elders only (21%), and as deacons only (19%) (p. 2).
• Elders are generally more involved than members in congregational life and hold more orthodox views than members (p. 3).
• Median household giving in 2007 was $2,520 per member household, $3,200 per elder household, $6,000 per pastor household, and $4,000 per specialized clergy household (p. 3).
• At least three in five Presbyterians from each group (members, 59%; elders, 67%; pastors, 82%; specialized clergy, 75%) pray privately daily or almost daily (p. 5).
• At least four in five ministers (pastors, 96%; specialized clergy, 81%)—but only one-third of members (37%) and half of elders (49%)—read the Bible privately at least weekly (p. 5).
• At least four in five Presbyterians from each group believe that the Bible is either “the word of God, to be interpreted in light of its historical and cultural context” or “the word of God, to be interpreted in light of its historical context and the Church’s teachings” (members, 80%; elders, 83%; pastors, 95%; specialized clergy, 96%). One in six laypeople (members, 16%; elders, 16%) believe the Bible should be taken literally, word for word. Only 5% of pastors and 3% of specialized clergy believe this (p. 6).
• Almost half of laypeople (members, 44%; elders, 48%) have had a conversion experience—“a turning point” when they committed themselves to Christ (p. 7).
• At least three in five laypeople have tried to encourage people to believe in Jesus Christ (members, 60%; elders, 71%) or in the prior year have invited people to attend worship at their congregation (members, 60%; elders, 77%) (p. 7).
• Presbyterians are somewhat divided along the theological spectrum. Two in five elders (42%) and one-third of members (34%) describe themselves as very conservative or conservative. Half of specialized clergy (52%) describe themselves as very liberal or liberal. Pastors are more evenly split (p. 7).
• Half of elders (50%) support the 2009 decision by presbyteries to maintain the denomination’s policy of ordaining as ministers of the Word and Sacrament, elders, or deacons only those who are in heterosexual marriages or not sexually active. A majority of specialized clergy (60%) oppose this decision. Members and pastors are more evenly split (p. 8).
• Half of pastors (49%) serve in solo pastorates. Another one-third (35%) are heads of staff in congregations with multiple pastors (p. 9).
• One-third each of specialized clergy are chaplains (32%) or faculty or staff at seminaries or colleges (31%). Others work on PC(USA) national or middle governing body staff (13%) or as professional pastoral counselors (8%) (p. 9).