Attention Economy


Sunday, April 30, 2023

The EV Gold Rush Has a Downside

On frontier of new ‘gold rush,’ quest for coveted EV metals yields misery
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/ev-battery-bauxite-guinea/ 

Politics in America - Rise of the Lunatic Fringe

In San Francisco, a Troubled Year at a Whole Foods Market Reflects a City’s Woes
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/san-francisco-whole-foods-crime-economy.html
Tech workers have stayed home, and ongoing social problems downtown are forcing civic and business leaders to confront harsh realities about the city’s pandemic recovery.
 
San Francisco Can’t Do the Math
https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-eighth-grade-algebra-sf-guardians-public-schools-21533309
A battle over equity, achievement—and eighth-grade algebra.
 
Disney v. DeSantis: How Strong Is the Company’s Lawsuit?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/opinion/disney-desantis-florida-lawsuit.html 

Dubai/UAE Gain Prominence

‘In London I had two cars stolen – here crime is non-existent’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/30/dubai-uk-professionals-high-tax-britain/
Dubai has became a magnet for young professionals fleeing high-tax Britain

A.I., Brain Scans and Cameras: The Spread of Police Surveillance Tech
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/technology/police-surveillance-tech-dubai.html
In the Middle East, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies have become part of everyday policing. 


Buildup resumed at suspected Chinese military site in UAE, leak says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/26/chinese-military-base-uae/

White House Correspondents' Dinner

 

The International Value of an American Degree

The Value of U.S. College Education in Global Labor Markets: Experimental Evidence from China
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4745
Abstract
One million international students study in the United States each year, and the majority of them compete in global labor markets after graduation. I conducted a large-scale field experiment and a companion employer survey to study how employers in China value U.S. college education. I sent more than 27,000 fictitious online applications to business and computer science jobs in China, randomizing the country of college education. I find that U.S.-educated applicants are on average 18% less likely to receive a callback than applicants educated in China, with applicants from very selective U.S. institutions underperforming those from the least selective Chinese institutions. The United States-China callback gap is smaller at high-wage jobs, consistent with employers fearing U.S.-educated applicants have better outside options and would be harder to hire and retain. The gap is also smaller at foreign-owned firms, consistent with Chinese-owned firms knowing less about American education. Controlling for high school quality, test scores, or U.S. work experiences does not attenuate the gap, suggesting that the gap is not driven by employer perceptions of negative selection. A survey of 507 hiring managers at college career fairs finds consistent and additional supporting evidence for the experimental findings. 

Related:
Foreign students flock to Global South for jobs, low fees
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Foreign-students-flock-to-Global-South-for-jobs-low-fees
Overseas applicants rise sharply at universities in Argentina, Turkey, India

Absurd CEO Compensation Packages

CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978
https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/
CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021
 
Moderna’s billionaire CEO reaped nearly $400 million last year. He also got a raise.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/29/modernas-billionaire-ceo-reaped-nearly-400-million-last-year-he-also-got-raise/
 
Eye-popping executive pay rewards luck, not managerial wizardry
https://www.ft.com/content/c8fd0f43-866c-45c5-871d-516470bad5d6

The Rise of Scalia Law School

How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/supreme-court-scalia-law-school.html
The school cultivated ties to justices, with generous pay and unusual perks. In turn, it gained prestige, donations and influence. 

Saturday, April 29, 2023

The Wise Brain

Scientists study the wise brain
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/04/27/wisdom-science-brain/
Some researchers say that wisdom is a trait that can be genetically inherited, though environment also plays a major role  

The Power of Nostalgia

In Defense of Nostalgia
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/opinion/in-defense-of-nostalgia.html
“…the redirection of nostalgia for past greatness toward a vision of the future, is an essential part of human civilization-building.” 

Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days

Standardized Tests and the Meritocracy Debate

The confusing future of standardized testing, explained.
https://www.vox.com/23700778/sat-act-standardized-tests-college-high-school

Can the Meritocracy Survive Without the SAT?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/sat-college.html
“… it seems pretty clear that many schools are really ditching the SAT in response to the following sequence of events: Asian American SAT scores rose to the point where elite colleges were accused of discriminating against Asian American applicants to maintain the racial balance they desired, this led to lawsuits, and those lawsuits seem poised to yield a Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. So universities are pre-emptively abandoning a metric that might be used against them in future litigation, not for the sake of widening opportunity but just in the hopes of sustaining the admissions status quo”. 

Payoff-based College Admissions by Frederick M. Hess
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/63a/3c2/deb/63a3c2deb56fc934667451.pdf
Elite universities present themselves as bastions of meritocracy. But they routinely offer the children and grandchildren of major donors an easy path to admission, even when those students wouldn't otherwise qualify. Worse yet, the donations that open these doors are tax-deductible, and therefore heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Some questions surrounding college-admissions policies are complex and profound, but this one is painfully simple: We should press college officials to mean what they say about opportunity and equity, and to spend less time strong-arming wealthy donors. But at a bare minimum, we should get taxpayers out of the business of subsidizing campus shakedown artists.


Friday, April 28, 2023

Low Wage Labor in the US

America Pays a High Price for Low Wages
https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-pays-a-high-price-for-low-wages-d706894d
For decades the U.S. has used wage subsidies to support the country’s lowest-paid workers—a welfare system that keeps the poor down, primarily benefits the wealthy and undermines technological innovation. 

Interest Rate Uncertainty

The Federal Reserve and the art of navigating a soft landing … when economic data sends mixed signals
https://theconversation.com/the-federal-reserve-and-the-art-of-navigating-a-soft-landing-when-economic-data-sends-mixed-signals-204707


India's Economic Potential

Can India unlock the potential of its youth?
https://ig.ft.com/india-population/
The world’s most populous country could seize its demographic dividend — or squander it 

The India Stack: opening the digital marketplace to the masses
https://www.ft.com/content/cf75a136-c6c7-49d0-8c1c-89e046b8a170 

India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Shifting the World’s ‘Center of Gravity’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-china-population-economy-9dd7bf27
The new global order reflects deep changes in both countries, with economic and geopolitical consequences


Related:

The Economics of Sports Gambling

Thursday, April 27, 2023

US Commercial Real Estate Downturn

Fire Sale: $300 Million San Francisco Office Tower, Mostly Empty. Open to Offers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-commercial-real-estate-office-buildings-471742ea 

US Economy - Stagflation Lite

U.S. economy grew at 1.1% in early 2023, points to ‘significant slowing’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/27/gdp-2023-q1-economy/
 
U.S. Economy Continues to Grow, but More Slowly
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/business/economy/gdp-q1-economy.html
 
Inflation Is Still High. What’s Driving It Has Changed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/business/economy/what-causes-inflation.html
Two years ago, high inflation was about supply shortages and pricier goods. Then it was about war in Ukraine and energy. These days, services are key.
 
Related:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-gdp-economic-growth-first-quarter-2023-2ff4348c 

Anxious Foresight

The New Age of Tragedy
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/04/new-age-tragedy-china-food-europe-energy-robert-kaplan-helen-thompson-john-gray
The post-Cold War moment, a 30-year period when globalization and free trade were orchestrated under the aegis of American supremacy, is ending. As the historian Anders Stephanson has written, “One could not deny that geopolitics reduced to a set of mopping-up operations was a historic achievement of US power.” Today, great-power rivalry, war and the competition for diminishing resources are old realities reborn, revenants of history that now define a present of increasing peril and uncertainty.
In The Tragic Mind (2023), the American correspondent, author and foreign policy adviser Robert D Kaplan argues that we must learn to think tragically to avoid tragedy. We need what he calls anxious foresight. The wisest among us fear disorder and anarchy as much as tyranny.



 
My take:
https://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/TBESpring2023_Final.pdf
Rising geopolitical risks and ongoing climate change imply that the lengthy period of good luck may have run its course. We may no longer have the good fortune of experiencing shocks that are small and infrequent. Naturally, this raises the likelihood that both output growth and infation will become much more volatile and a return to the Great Moderation-type dynamic may not be on the cards for the foreseeable future.

AI and Jobs

 Occupational Heterogeneity in Exposure to Generative AI
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4414065
Abstract
Recent dramatic increases in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), including language modeling and image generation, has led to many questions about the effect of these technologies on the economy. We use a recently developed methodology to systematically assess which occupations are most exposed to advances in AI language modeling and image generation capabilities. We then characterize the profile of occupations that are more or less exposed based on characteristics of the occupation, suggesting that highly-educated, highly-paid, white-collar occupations may be most exposed to generative AI, and consider demographic variation in who will be most exposed to advances in generative AI. The range of occupations exposed to advances in generative AI, the rapidity with its spread, and the variation in which populations will be most exposed to such advances, suggest that government can play an important role in helping people adapt to how generative AI changes work.

History Lesson: The Chola Dynasty

The Greatest Movie Epic You’ve Never Heard of
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/11/ponniyinselvan-cinema-india/
A classic of Tamil literature has become a stunning pair of films.

Epic movie rekindles interest in ancient south Indian empire
https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Epic-movie-rekindles-interest-in-ancient-south-Indian-empire2
On the bank of the Cauvery River in southern India stands the majestic Brihadeeswara Temple. It was built from granite quarried 48 kilometers away and hauled to the site by a thousand captive elephants before deposing the heavy stones with the help of ramps.
The temple, located in Tamil Nadu state's Thanjavur, displays images of gods and goddesses, ancient inscriptions, carvings and frescoes. It was constructed in the 11th century by one of the longest reigning Indian dynasties, the Cholas, which existed for more than 1,500 years and reached its peak between the 9th and 13th centuries, one of the three most powerful kingdoms of the region.
 
Chola Dynasty (9th-13th Century)
https://asia.si.edu/learn/india-shiva-nataraja-lord-of-the-dance/chola-dynasty/ 

Chasing Net Zero

Housing Market Correction in Europe

Where High Interest Rates Have Sent Home Prices Sliding
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/business/sweden-housing-prices-interest-rates.html
In Sweden, the central bank’s fight against inflation is crimping economic growth and has contributed to a 15 percent drop in home prices.
Related:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-faces-recession-housing-market-troubles-take-toll-economy-2023-03-15
 
UK house prices fall at fastest annual rate since 2009
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/31/uk-house-prices-fall-at-fastest-annual-rate-since-2009
Related:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-homes-taking-almost-twice-230100558.html
 
Short European Real Estate? Beware. So Is Everyone Else
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/27/short-european-real-estate-beware-so-is-everyone-else/e69631ac-e4b2-11ed-9696-8e874fd710b8_story.html 

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Banking Crisis is Not Over

Banking crises rooted in a system that rewards excessive risk-taking – as First Republic’s precarious situation shows
https://theconversation.com/banking-crises-rooted-in-a-system-that-rewards-excessive-risk-taking-as-first-republics-precarious-situation-shows-204255

First Republic Bank Is a Problem with No Easy Solution
https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-is-a-problem-with-no-easy-solution-9c2525b6
 
Banking Problems May Be Tip of Debt Iceberg
https://www.wsj.com/articles/banking-problems-may-be-tip-of-debt-iceberg-262b6d0e
‘Shadow banks’ have grown rapidly and, like banks, are exposed to risk from higher interest rates 

Why the Banking Mess Isn’t Over
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-banking-mess-isnt-over-eb075a2f
 
Smaller U.S. Banks Say the Crisis Is Contained, but Fears Persist
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/regional-banks-crisis.html
 
First Republic Bank Lost $102 Billion in Customer Deposits
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/economy/first-republic-earnings.html
 
US banks on alert over falling commercial real estate valuations
https://www.ft.com/content/705df695-c81c-4ddf-8d56-a0a6e9cd7500
 
Commercial Real-Estate Woes Run Deeper Than in Past Downturns
https://www.wsj.com/articles/commercial-real-estate-woes-run-deeper-than-in-past-downturns-e0c1f2b3 

De-Dollarization - This Time is Different

Update: Wonking Out: De-Dollarization Debunked
Asia's growing dollar wariness is hardening up gold
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Asia-s-growing-dollar-wariness-is-hardening-up-gold
Seizure of central bank reserves, U.S. debt worries drive search for alternatives

Move over, U.S. dollar. China wants to make the yuan the global currency.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/16/china-yuan-renminbi-us-dollar-currency-trade/

Why China and its trading allies are well placed to topple the dollar

China Takes the Yuan Global in Bid to Repel a Weaponized Dollar
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-03/world-s-top-currency-china-takes-yuan-global-in-bid-to-repel-us-dollar-usd
A string of new deals promote the Chinese currency as geopolitical risk spills into international finance


The Need for More Vocational Training

The Great Electrician Shortage
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dept-of-energy/the-great-electrician-shortage
Going green will depend on blue-collar workers. Can we train enough of them before time runs out? 

How I sailed away from the college-at-all-costs track–and found my dream career
https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/how-i-sailed-away-from-the-college-at-all-costs-trackand-found-my-dream-career/

My Take from Feb 2021:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/540133-the-economic-trends-that-will-create-post-pandemic-policy-challenges
Long-term labor market challenges cannot be addressed by temporarily overheating the economy. We need to rethink our basic approach to worker training and provide direct support to those willing to undertake skill retraining/upgrading (there is currently a large-scale shortage of skilled tradespeople in the U.S. that is not being addressed). Policies aimed at encouraging every high school graduate to attend four-year colleges, regardless of their personal preferences/interests or academic preparedness, will prove to be counterproductive and lead to both grade and degree inflation. Creating German-style apprenticeship programs may offer a valuable alternative track for high school graduates.

US Treasuries - A Fail-Safe Investment?

Redesigning US Foreign Aid

The bipartisan Fostering Innovation in Global Development Act would promote foreign aid programs with a rigorous evidence base.
https://www.vox.com/2023/4/25/23692700/usaid-foreign-aid-joaquin-castro-young-kim 

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Will BRICS Drive the De-Dollarization Trend?

Reality of Driverless Vehicles

San Francisco is a postcard from a driverless car future. Here’s what it’s like.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/24/driverless-cars-san-francisco/
 

Property Rights in America

She’s at risk of losing her Florida home over a violation she didn’t know existed
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article274552871.html
Adair’s retirement plan was put in jeopardy, however, after the city filed suit against her last August to foreclose on the house over unpaid code enforcement fines.
The fines stemmed from a 2014 code violation for “dirt, mold and mildew” and “chalking, chipped and peeling paint” on the exterior walls of her house, which Adair said was the result of algae from banyan trees in the front of her house and paint that was stripped when she removed a vine growing on the house…
The lawsuit came as a shock.
It was filed by a private attorney named Matt Weidner, who signed a contract with the city in 2020 to file foreclosure lawsuits against properties with unpaid code fines. Under the terms of the agreement, Weidner gets a portion of whatever the city recovers by foreclosing on homes and selling them at auction or reaching settlements with owners like Adair to pay some or all of what they owe.
 
Related:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/she-risk-losing-her-florida-120000617.html 

Is the US Economy Cooling?

US Housing Market - Regional Variations and Price Volatility

Home Buyers Are Eager but Sellers Are Scarce, Creating ‘Real Gridlock’
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/business/spring-housing-market.html
Homeowners with low-rate mortgages are delaying the decision to sell until market conditions change.

A divided housing market: Zillow says these 294 markets to see home price gains while these 102 markets tick lower

The Western housing market recession hit so hard and fast that a Fortune 500 firm that was riding high at $34 per share has crashed to $1


Miami’s Luxury Rent Surge Means Your Money Goes Half as Far
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/miami-luxury-rentals-how-much-space-can-i-get-for-2-000-a-week
A $2,000-a-week budget yields 50% less space than it did three years ago in the Florida hotspot.

Profit Margins Are Sliding for Americans Who Sell Their Homes
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-27/profit-margins-are-sliding-for-americans-who-sell-their-homes
With the benefit of hindsight, millions of US homeowners inclined to sell would have been better off doing it last spring.
The average profit margin on the sale of median-priced single-family homes and condos fell to 44% last quarter, from a peak of 56% in the second quarter of 2022, according to data published Thursday by Attom, a real estate analytics firm. The numbers cover homes in metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more.

Economics of Club Football

A series of financial scandals have rocked Italy’s most glamorous club. But is the trouble at Juventus symptomatic of a deeper rot in world football?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/apr/25/inside-the-crisis-at-juventus-andrea-agnelli-fabio-paratici-plusvalenze
“The biggest problem in football finances,” says Roger Mitchell, founding CEO of the Scottish Professional Football League and now a sports-brand consultant based in Italy, “isn’t the top line, it’s the cost line, the player-wages line. And 92% is at least 20% higher than where it should be.”
With revenues bound to fluctuate according to results and qualification for lucrative competitions like the Champions League, such a high wage bill was an obvious hostage to fortune. And when the pandemic arrived, Juventus was especially vulnerable. 

Global Supply Chains Evolve

Here’s How Supply Chains Are Being Reshaped for a New Era of Global Trade
https://www.wsj.com/articles/supply-chains-have-changed-forever-819d9afd
Nearshoring. Automation. Supplier diversification. Sustainability. Companies are adapting their operations to changing market pressures and geopolitics. 

Vietnam, Taiwan boost share of shipments to U.S. as China loses out
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Vietnam-Taiwan-boost-share-of-shipments-to-U.S.-as-China-loses-out
India, Cambodia also grow as 'low-cost' exporters, eroding Chinese dominance

Monday, April 24, 2023

How to Innovate

If There Are No New Ideas, How Do We Keep Innovating?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/opinion/sheena-iyengar-innovation.html
Now comes a book by Sheena Iyengar, who is herself blind, that I’m tempted to call original, except that she (like Twain) would undoubtedly insist that there’s nothing new under the sun. In “Think Bigger: How to Innovate,” Iyengar writes that thinking bigger is about assembling old ideas in a new way. Sounding much like Twain in 1903, she writes that all successful innovators are “strategic copiers,” who “learned from examples of success, extracted the parts that worked well, imagined new ways of using those pieces, and combined them to create something new and meaningful.” 


Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability

MY TAKE: America’s long-term fiscal sustainability challenge
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3965613-americas-long-term-fiscal-sustainability-challenge/ 



The Downside of Remote Work

What Young Workers Miss Without the ‘Power of Proximity’
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/remote-work-feedback.html
One of the first major studies on remote work shows a hidden penalty of flexibility: less supervision. 

Labor Issues

The True Cost of a $12 T-Shirt
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/opinion/fast-fashion-apparel-worker-conditions-rana-plaza.html
The apparel industry suffers from what economists call an “agency problem.” Brands rely on auditors to uncover violations in factories — then often require the factories to pay for their own audits. Unsurprisingly, the typical audit is short, untrustworthy and, as Transparentem found at most audited factories we investigated, easily gamed. Suppliers, already operating on razor-thin margins, cannot afford to lose customers. Nor can the auditors, who often show little interest in scrutinizing their clients to the point of discomfort.
 
The movement to strip child labor law protections can be traced to one group
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/23/child-labor-lobbying-fga/
The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank and lobbying group, drafted state legislation to strip child workplace protections, emails show. 

Crypto - Scams and Confidence Tricksters


 Why America Should Ban Crypto
The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html
Bitcoin mines cash in on electricity — by devouring it, selling it, even turning it off — and they cause immense pollution. In many cases, the public pays a price.

The Crypto Collapse and the End of Magical Thinking That Infected Capitalism
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/opinion/the-crypto-collapse-magical-thinking-capitalism.html
Harvard’s Mihir Desai notes:
I have come to view cryptocurrencies not simply as exotic assets but as a manifestation of a magical thinking that had come to infect part of the generation who grew up in the aftermath of the Great Recession — and American capitalism, more broadly.
For these purposes, magical thinking is the assumption that favored conditions will continue on forever without regard for history. It is the minimizing of constraints and trade-offs in favor of techno-utopianism and the exclusive emphasis on positive outcomes and novelty. It is the conflation of virtue with commerce. 

Beware the ‘sensible’ crypto crowd — they’re worse than the fanatics
https://www.ft.com/content/29605ca8-494a-4762-bedc-43e3671226ab
The strait-laced, earnest types threaten to legitimise a high-risk, opaque and ill-understood industry

Crypto Is Mostly Over. Its Carbon Emissions Are Not.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/crypto-bitcoin-mining-carbon-emissions-climate-change-impact/673468/
And it is America’s problem now. After China clamped down on crypto mining in 2021, such computing work increased in the United States. Miners set up shop in communities with low energy prices. And owners of unprofitable power-generation infrastructure, such as waste-coal-burning power plants, opened up crypto-mining operations to create another revenue stream. These companies have put a lot of money into their hardware and their physical space, and they will continue mining until they are actively losing money.

Nothing Redeems Crypto
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nothing-redeems-cryptocurrency-ftx-sec-regulation-carbon-mining-hardware-gambling-tokens-exchange-dee0c358
Part chlorofluorocarbon, part cocaine, part bearer bond. We need policies that will eliminate it. 

Sunday, April 23, 2023

The Downside of Thinking Like an Economist

Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/capitalisnt-has-thinking-like-economist-distorted-our-politics 

Related:

History Lesson: The Collapse of Sudan

Urban Housing and Luxury Condos - An Example of a Market Failure?

College Admissions - The Truth About Selectivity

Why Those Super Low College Admissions Rates Can Be Misleading
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/opinion/college-admissions.html
Since applying is easier (or at least involves fewer postage stamps than it did back in the day), does this mean more students who have relatively little chance of getting into these selective institutions, based on their grades and résumés, are applying? Connie Livingston — who was an admissions officer at Brown for 14 years and is now the head of college counselors at Empowerly, a private counseling company — told me that before the pandemic, qualified applicants made up around 75 to 85 percent of the applicant pool.
Now she thinks there are some students who are “throwing their hat in the game just to see what happens” and that “the number’s probably down to about 60 percent, 65 percent of applicants,” who meet the recommended standardized test scores and grades of the schools they apply to. Livingston cited the common app as a reason for the influx of applications, but she also noted that the loosening of standardized testing requirements played a potential role as well.
 
The College-Admissions Process Is Completely Broken
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/change-college-acceptance-application-process/627581/
"Although the average four-year college in the U.S. accepts nearly 60 percent of applicants, many schools indicate they are more selective than they are by telling prospective students that they practice “holistic” admissions, considering factors beyond grades and test scores. This approach, which attempts to measure qualities that aren’t quantifiable and are usually gleaned from an applicant’s extracurricular activities, essays, and recommendations, is loved and hated in equal measure by parents and students. Both favor a method that focuses on the “whole student” until they discover that applicants who had lower GPAs or test scores were accepted.
Holistic admissions may sound great, but many admissions offices at less-selective colleges make the bulk of their decisions by assessing the rigor of an applicant’s high-school courses and grades". 
 
A majority of U.S. colleges admit most students who apply
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/04/09/a-majority-of-u-s-colleges-admit-most-students-who-apply/
The extremely competitive schools amounted to 3.4% of all the colleges and universities in this analysis, and they accounted for just 4.1% of total student enrollment. By contrast, more than half of the schools in our sample (53.3%) admitted two-thirds or more of their applicants in 2017, including such well-known names as St. John’s University in New York (67.7%), Virginia Tech (70.1%), Quinnipiac University (73.9%), the University of Missouri at Columbia (78.1%) and George Mason University (81.3%). 

Saturday, April 22, 2023

Life on Earth

The Downside of Success

Americans Escaping Pricey Cities Bring Higher Housing Costs, Inflation with Them
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-escaping-pricey-cities-bring-higher-housing-costs-inflation-with-them-a3118424
Inflation in some warm-weather metro areas such as Tampa, Phoenix and Atlanta is more than 2 percentage points higher than the national rate. 

America versus Switzerland

The average American my age is roughly six times more likely to die in the coming year than his counterpart in Switzerland.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/america-mortality-rate-guns-health/673799/ 

The Magazine Cover Curse

The Economist Cover:

Is the American Economy Awesome?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/opinion/us-economy-gdp.html
 
A somewhat empirical look at The Magazine Cover Indicator
https://medium.com/@mbrentdonnelly/a-somewhat-empirical-look-at-the-magazine-cover-indicator-2d0ca835f7d1
The Magazine Cover Indicator is a belief commonly held by financial market participants that when a financial story or market theme is displayed on the cover of a magazine, that theme or the related trend is near exhaustion. In other words, magazine covers are believed to be reverse indicators.
Two very famous examples are when BusinessWeek’s cover screamed: “The Death of Equities”, at the stock market lows in 1979 and when The Economist proclaimed the world to be: “Drowning in Oil” just as oil bottomed in 1999.
 
Investment Signals in a Magazine Cover
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2014-10-27/investment-signals-in-a-magazine-cover
The magazine cover story for a general news magazine can serve as a contrary investment indicator. 


My personal favorite:

Friday, April 21, 2023

Reconsidering the Legacy of Arthur Burns

Money Markets - Time to Shine

The Fabulous Yields, and Lurking Risks, of Money Market Funds
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/business/money-market-funds.html
 
Rates on C.D.s Are Soaring, but the High Rates May Not Last
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/your-money/cd-bank-interest-rates.html 

London's Red Tape Nightmare

The Future of Interest Rates

The future of interest rates is a riddle
https://www.ft.com/content/c3491bc1-1251-4274-acfd-c7a24a236b5e
 
Low Rates Were Meant to Last. Without Them, Finance Is In for a Rough Ride.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/business/economy/interest-rates-silicon-valley-bank.html
 
Will the ‘Great Moderation’ Give Way to the ‘Great Volatility’? By VIVEKANAND JAYAKUMAR (SPRING 2023)
https://www.ut.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Business/TBESpring2023_Final.pdf 
 
New era of inflation will bedevil central banks and bond markets by VIVEKANAND JAYAKUMAR, The Hill - 07/01/22
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3543857-new-era-of-inflation-will-bedevil-central-banks-and-bond-markets/ 

AI versus Humans

Dreams of Replacing Humans in Finance May Come True
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/21/dreams-of-ai-replacing-humans-in-finance-may-come-true/d00d85a2-e025-11ed-a78e-9a7c2418b00c_story.html
We’re now seeing the first academic research about the use of ChatGPT in finance. Two recent studies make GPT seem like a promising technology both to improve investment decision making and to explain its decisions. Perhaps the long-held dream of replacing humans in finance is coming true.

How to defend against the rise of ChatGPT? Think like a poet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/20/chatgpt-poetry-ai-language/
In the AI age, language — not science, engineering or mathematics — could be the hill humanity dies on. 

America's Democratic Paralysis

We will hold the country hostage until our demands are met — once we know them
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/21/republican-debt-ceiling-standoff-holdup-satire/

Lionel Shriver:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-democrats-want-trump/
A hefty majority of Americans want neither Trump nor Biden to run again (in a November CNBC poll, 61 per cent wanted to be shed of Trump altogether, while an astonishing 70 per cent didn’t want Biden to bid for a second term either, including 57 per cent of Democrats). That would be me: please, please, can we move on from this presidential Groundhog Day? Yet so far, an even more wearying and more geriatric redo of 2020 seems on the cards. Sorry – this is functional democracy? How is this happening? Isn’t the main merit of this system of government meant to be that the majority of us get at least what we sort of want?
 
How ‘I despise, therefore I am’ locks in the political status quo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/12/republican-democrat-poisonous-partisanship/
George Will:
Foresight, it has been said, is a dream from which events awaken us. But until events teach otherwise, expect American politics to continue today’s remarkable condition: boiling but frozen. Polarization has produced stasis. In this century’s presidential elections from 2000 to 2020, 36 states have voted only for one party’s nominee.
 
Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/20/cleta-mitchell-voting-college-students/
 
America’s Redistricting Process Is Breaking Democracy
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/americas-redistricting-process-is-breaking-democracy
 
How gerrymandering makes the US House intensely partisan
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/politics/gerrymandering-us-house-partisan/index.html 

Thursday, April 20, 2023

El Niño and La Niña

El Niño and La Niña cause extreme weather

Large swathes of Asia are sweltering through record breaking temperatures
Related:

People Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones

The best way to strengthen India’s democracy? Leave it to the Indians.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/20/india-democracy-indians-strengthen/
There are many reasons for this. The brutality of the British Empire birthed a reflexive anti-imperial instinct. Indians do not like being reprimanded by the West. Hypocrisy is another trigger. On the very day the State Department spokesman commented on Gandhi’s expulsion, the United States was grappling with a school shooting in Nashville in which seven people, three of them 9-year old children, were killed — including the perpetrator. A viral photo of a congressman from the area and his family posing with rifles in front of their Christmas tree made it even harder for Indians to see the United States as the global arbiter of democratic and civic values.
Since then, there has been a shooting in Louisville and the attack on Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager. Yet 146 mass shootings this year (as of April 10) have not generated gratuitous opprobrium from the Indian government. Indian editorials on the United States are not all about gun violence, entrenched racism and the denial of reproductive autonomy to millions of American women. And if they were, they would hardly create a stir in Washington.
So Indians wonder why we are expected to accept preaching or judgment in reverse. 

Related:
Gun absolutists don’t trust democracy because they know they’re losing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/16/nra-convention-republicans-guns-democracy/
 
Why are Americans being shot for knocking on the wrong door?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/19/why-are-americans-being-shot-for-knocking-on-the-wrong-door
 
Conservatives love judicial activism – as long as the law is moved in their favor
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/17/conservatives-judicial-activism-abortion-mifepristone

Better Ways to Study

There Are Better Ways to Study That Will Last You a Lifetime
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/opinion/studying-learning-students-teachers-school.html
For example, student surveys show that rereading notes or textbooks is the most common way students prepare for a test. Rereading is easy because the mind can skitter along the surface of the material without closely considering its meaning, but that’s exactly why it’s a poor way to learn. If you want to learn the meaning — as most tests require you to — then you must think about meaning when you study...
And so, as students reread their textbooks, the increasing familiarity makes them think they are learning. But because they are not thinking about the meaning of what they read, they aren’t improving the knowledge that actually builds understanding. 

AI and the Creative World

An A.I. Hit of Fake ‘Drake’ and ‘The Weeknd’ Rattles the Music World
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/music/ai-drake-the-weeknd-fake.html
 
‘AI isn’t a threat’ – Boris Eldagsen, whose fake photo duped the Sony judges, hits back
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/18/ai-threat-boris-eldagsen-fake-photo-duped-sony-judges-hits-back 

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Debt Crisis Hits the Developing World (Again)

De-Dollarization Is Happening


My take from March 1, 2022:

Is the Stock Market Ignoring Recession Risks?

US Stock Bulls Ignore 100 Years of Recessions at Their Peril
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/us-stock-bulls-ignore-100-years-of-recessions-at-their-peril
There’s been no US recession without a market slump since 1929 

Shifting Center of Gravity - India and the World Economy

India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Shifting the World’s ‘Center of Gravity’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-china-population-economy-9dd7bf27
The new global order reflects deep changes in both countries, with economic and geopolitical consequences

India Is Passing China in Population. Can Its Economy Ever Do the Same?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/world/asia/india-china-population.html


India is getting an eye-wateringly big transport upgrade
https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/03/13/india-is-getting-an-eye-wateringly-big-transport-upgrade
Long known for its interminable, rattling train journeys, snarled roads and grotty airports, the country is experiencing an infrastructural makeover on a scale unprecedented outside China. It will transform Indians’ ability to travel, by rail, road and air; and thus to intermingle and do business. The government of Narendra Modi hopes it will remove one of the biggest constraints on the rapid economic growth that India desperately needs in order to meet the aspirations of its young, fast-growing population. 

As India Shakes Off Shackles, It Emerges as Global Economic Power
https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-india-shakes-off-its-shackles-it-emerges-as-a-global-economic-power-431811c0
New infrastructure, regulatory reforms and digitization buttress its strength