Forty years of op-ed at the NY Times

I grew up with opinions (op-eds) as the norm in newspapers.  But, it wasn't always so.  The NY Times is celebrating 40 years of op-eds:

On Sept. 21, 1970, readers who turned to the last inside page of The Times's main section found something new. The obituaries that normally appeared in that space had been moved, replaced by something called Op-Ed. The vision of John Oakes, the editorial page editor, and Harrison Salisbury, the eminent foreign correspondent, Op-Ed was meant to open the paper to outside voices. It was to be a venue for writers with no institutional affiliation with the paper, people from all walks of life whose views and perspectives would often be at odds with the opinions expressed on the editorial page across the way. (Hence, Op-Ed - Opposite Editorial.)

The multimedia the paper has put together for this occasion is pretty good.  The following is one of those--more here.

For Op-Ed's 40th anniversary, Ali Soufan, a F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005, recounted the events that triggered his Op-Ed in April 2009.

In the op-ed, Soufan wrote:

It is surprising, as the eighth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, that none of Al Qaeda’s top leadership is in our custody. One damaging consequence of the harsh interrogation program was that the expert interrogators whose skills were deemed unnecessary to the new methods were forced out.
Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.
A lack of knowledge perhaps explains why so many false claims have been made about the program’s alleged successes.

 It is a new administration, but I am not sure how much things have changed.  Here is an exhibit on the continuation of some of those practices:

President Barack Obama's administration has invoked the state secret privilege to avoid a lawsuit on behalf of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whose father charges the US government of targeting him for assassination.
Nasser al-Awlaki last month asked two civil rights groups to sue the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency for placing his son on a list of people targeted for killing.
The younger Awlaki is considered a dangerous terrorist by the US government and is currently believed to be hiding in Yemen.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the court action seeking to force the US government to say how it decides to target US citizens for murder far from any armed conflict without due process.

Am waiting for that "change" ....

Understanding what professors mean at meetings ...

A new academic year has begun ... so, the following is worth repeating...
One of the many reasons why I attend very few meetings on campus :)

David Galef writes:

the language in departmental meetings is difficult to read, even for veterans who’ve been teaching at U of All People for decades, and the proceedings really deserve a translation. In return for a modest travel voucher, the psycholinguist Martin Baffle has provided a rough equivalency chart for all future meetings:

Utterance	Implication
Let’s come to order.	This meeting should’ve started 15 minutes ago.
Who’ll take notes?	I’m not doing it two months in a row.
We have five items on the agenda.	We’ll be lucky if we get past two.
You have the documents in front of you.	I see that none of you downloaded what I sent.
With all due respect ...	I’m about to be rude.
I have a question.	I have a comment.
I have issues with --	I can’t tell you how much this pisses me off.
Can you repeat that?	I need to buy some time.
What’s best for our students ...	What works for me ...
I’m a bit puzzled by ...	I hate ...
Do I hear a motion?	Will someone please save me?
Let’s send this back to the committee.	Let’s deep-six this baby.
Can we take this up next time?	I don’t have my minions here right now.
I have to leave early for another meeting.	I’m more important than you.
I’m sorry, but I have to pick up my son.	I have my priorities straight.
Do I see a hand?	Stop interrupting.
As a point of procedure ...	No other way I can stop this.
If I may make a comment ...	Now that everyone else has had a say, I intend to drone on for as long as I like.
Shall we call the question?	Can we for Chrissake get on with this?
Paper ballots, please.	I see we don’t trust each other.
How about just a show of hands?	We’ll smoke ’em out.
Please, this is a private matter.	Back-channel all sniping e-mail.
As I recall, we do have a precedent for that ...	As the longest-standing faculty member in the room, I can make up anything before 1970.
We can decide this next matter in a hurry.	I hope no one’s read beyond page two.
That’s not what I said.	I wish I hadn’t said that.
Correct me if I’m wrong.	I know I’m right on this one.
Here are our recommendations.	Here are our demands.
To speak anecdotally ...	I haven’t a shred of evidence to back this up.
The administration may not agree with us on this one.	The provost wishes we were dead.
I don’t believe Professor Jones has had a chance to speak.	Stop marking papers, Jonesie.
We need to set up a committee.	We don’t want to talk about it now.
I’m just the moderator.	The buck starts here.
Let me remind you ...	I know you know I know you know.
Personally ...	I love talking about myself.
The dean has asked for our opinion.	He wants a rubber-stamp approval.
You have proxies?	But aren’t Professors Winthrop and Leighton dead?
The meeting is now adjourned.	Time for a drinkie.

Student beware: these, too, are some of my favorites

Now, I am ready for the new academic year :)

On Looking Death in the Eye

Keep in mind that Christopher Hitchens looked like this before the treatment for cancer began ...

Nicholas Lemann says that higher education crisis is way overblown

I disagree with Nicholas Lemann, but in the spirit of being "fair and balanced" (yes, Faux Noose!) here are the concluding words from his piece in the New Yorker:

We have a lot of recent experience with breaking apart large, old, unlovely systems in the confidence of gaining great benefits at low cost. We deregulated the banking system. We tried to remake Iraq. In education, we would do well to appreciate what our country has built, and to try to fix what is undeniably wrong without declaring the entire system to be broken. We have a moral obligation to be precise about what the problems in American education are—like subpar schools for poor and minority children—and to resist heroic ideas about what would solve them, if those ideas don’t demonstrably do that. 

The biggest problem I have with his essay is this: in this short piece, Lemann clubs together the K-12 system with the higher education system.  

But, the problems in each have very little in common.  These are the metaphorical apples and oranges ...  I can't figure out why he chose this route for his commentary ...

An OMG photo of the day: Lowari Pass, Pakistan

It is from an essay in the NYRB by Jeremy Bernstein, who writes about his trip from Baltistan to Hindu Kush--back in 1969.

While the trucks in the photo suggest that this was from that trip forty years ago, it is equally possible that those trucks are plying these passes even today, and the roads are as hair-raising even today.  Maybe the photo is contemporary? :)

The geographic area where this photo is from is the Chitral Valley.

Bernstein writes:

The Chitral valley was formed by the Kunar river which veers off into neighboring Afghanistan. Looming over the town of Chitral is Tirich Mir, which at 25,230 feet is the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush range. We went in search of the local ruler Prince Bhirhanudin, to whom we had somehow obtained a letter of introduction. We had been told that he had an extraordinary wine cellar. We found him at the airport trying unsuccessfully to persuade a Pakistan Airlines pilot to ignore the cloud cover and to come to Chitral to pick him up. He was too busy to pay any serious attention to us.

A persistent story about this part of the world is that remnants of Alexander the Great’s army remained and founded a population that is now known as the Kalash Kafirs. They lived, a couple of thousand of them, in three valleys Birit, Rumbur, and Bumboret. The valleys are so well-concealed that even though we knew essentially where they were, we could not see their entrance from across the Kunar river as we drove in. The Kafirs had a bad reputation in Pakistan. They had a totemistic religion that included the drinking of wine which they manufactured from their own grapes. They looked Mediterranean and the women wore remarkable costumes and did special dances.

After reading this piece, I am struck, yet again, by the conflict in the India/Pakistan/Afghanistan areas.  Why couldn't humans simply enjoy the beauty and live peacefully, right?  We are some screwed up life forms! :)

So, where exactly is this valley and the pass?  Chitral is near the center in the map below; zoom and pan and enjoy!

View Larger Map

The ultimate student-athletes. Just awesome!

Sporting News has the 20 smartest athletes around.  One hell of an impressive list.  Makes sports and universities proud.
Scanning the list, I spotted this one:

Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB, Buffalo Bills
• Age: 27
• On-field accomplishments: 2004 Ivy League MVP, first Harvard quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 career yards. In 2005 with the Rams, became the fifth quarterback in NFL history to throw for 300-plus yards in his debut.
• Alma mater, major: Harvard, economics
• SAT score: 1580
• Off-field/intellectual interests: “I’m an Apple technology junkie.”
• If I weren’t a professional athlete, I’d ... “Probably (have) done the Wall Street thing for a few years and then maybe branched out a little bit. But finance is what I’d be involved in.”
• Nerdiest thing about me: “That’s probably a better question for my wife. But I love Scrabble. I’m playing Scrabble on my iPad constantly.”

Read more here: 

ht

The American political hysteria over outsourcing. Pathetic!

Not that American political discussions have been spectacularly impressive the last few years ... the latest one is a wonderful addition to the list of idiotic things our politicians cook up:

senators will consider would impose tax increases on corporations that shift operations overseas, costing U.S. jobs.

So, why this now?

Democrats view the outsourcing issue as a big winner with voters because it speaks to the heavy manufacturing job losses that have devastated communities in Midwest and East Coast industrial states.
"There is no issue more important to the American people than the outsourcing of jobs, and that's why we're focusing on it," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of Senate Democratic leadership.

Ok, let us look at this logic, and the jobs in manufacturing. We want to manufacture for the domestic and external markets, right?  We are happy when we export, say, Caterpillar trucks or Boeing planes, correct?  You with me?

Suppose India imports Boeing planes. And it does.  Does it not mean that India has then "outsourced" to America all those jobs related to the manufacture of planes?  Hasn't pretty much the entire world "outsourced" to America (Microsoft) many of the jobs that then give us the various products from that company?

Global economy means that there is enormous give and take--we give others what we are good at, and take from them what they are good at. If certain manufacturing jobs have been lost, it is simply because there are a number of other countries who have gotten to be much better than us on that widget.  The problem is not that "they" have taken "our" jobs, but is a different one of figuring out what we can do and export to get access to their wallets.

This demagoguery six weeks prior to the election will further chip away the relationship that took years to build, with India in particular:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington and, thanking President George W. Bush for pushing a landmark civilian nuclear deal between the two countries, told him that the “people of India deeply love you.”
Recent months have witnessed something of a cooling in that ardor. A series of events have contributed to the impression that the relationship is going through tough times.
In August, the civilian nuclear deal, a symbol of the two countries’ new closeness, came under strain when the Indian Parliament passed a bill that would increase the potential liability of nuclear plant operators. The United States expressed its concern and asked India to change aspects of the bill.
Also in August, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that hiked fees for the H1-B and L visa categories used by skilled Indian technology workers. Indians were incensed by Senator Charles Schumer’s characterization, during debate over the bill, of Indian businesses as “chop shops.” (He later clarified that he meant to say “body shops.”)
Then, earlier this month, Ohio’s state government announced a ban on the outsourcing of state technology projects to offshore centers.

 In fact, even before this Senate bill, there have been irate responses in the Indian media to Ohio's decision. The diplomat-speak is, of course, polite and tactful, but the emotion underneath is all too visible:

Describing the State of Ohio's ban on offshore outsourcing by government departments as ‘ill-advised', India has ‘firmly' conveyed to the U.S. its displeasure over the move and other protectionist measures such as the hike in visa fees for professionals.
“We have put it firmly in our discussions. I feel that the U.S. has seriously registered India's viewpoint as well as concerns of the Indian IT industry. We do hope there will be timely and appropriate responses,” Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told reporters here on Tuesday ....
Citing the example of the recent Airtel-IBM deal, Mr. Sharma turned the table on the U.S., stating, “Airtel, an Indian company, has placed orders of $3.5 billion on IBM. Isn't that outsourcing? Where would those jobs be created? Where (would) those jobs would be supported?”
The largest orders for Boeing aircraft had also been placed by India. “How many jobs would have been sustained and how many jobs would be created?,” he asked.

If Republicans can be stupid on some issues, then Democrats ensure that they can be equally moronic, and up the ante!  I wish we could outsource the politicians' jobs!!!

A wonderfully ironic backdrop to these Senatorial pontifications?  Yesterday, NBC premiered its sitcom, Outsourced :)



Update: A history professor, writing in the Oregonian, finds fault, not with the Republicans, nor the Democrats, nor the Wall Street speculators, but "globalization":

Unless we have the courage and foresight to examine the significant problems of our national economy, a decade from now we may still be trying to stimulate a sluggish economy. In the 1980s Latin America suffered the "lost decade." It had zero economic growth and widespread social upheaval. If we don't seriously examine our economy and revise the WTO, we may face a similar decade.

Why does he compare the US with Latin American countries?  At least a comparison with Japan's experience the last few years makes sense--comparing two advanced economies, with a reliance on international trade. But, with Latin America?  Come on, we have not become a banana republic, and are far from that.

The High Cost of College

In the quarter system in which our university operates, the academic calendar has just about started ticking.  I wish my students well.  Many of them will be in college because they have often been told that a college degree is the only route for personal economic security, even if this takes them more than the four-years we normally think about (In the Oregon University System, "Just over half (53%) of bachelor’s graduates complete their degree in four years.")

Most students will be in colleges and universities across this country for this simple economic reason, and not with the idea of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I hope to contribute to both these goals, which are often in conflict with each other.  (I might even explore related questions at an academic conference early next year)

But, in any case, all the students will come to know about one thing: the high cost of college. I am not talking about the opportunity costs, but simply the out-of-pocket costs.  At dinner, and later in emails, a friend asked the same question that Megan McArdle takes up in her blog (the title of this post was triggered by McArdle's post of the same title).  First, the question:

costs have gotten out of control. Why have tuition rates gone up so much? How does a six figure student loan burden affect a person's future? How are these costs affecting middle class families? Are middle class kids ending up at the University of Phoenix or the local community college, because they can't afford this nonsense? 

McArdle quotes Glenn Reynolds (better known as the Instapundit):

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we'll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren't causes of middle-class status, they're markers for possessing the kinds of traits -- self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. -- that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn't produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

What does this mean, you ask?  McArdle writes:

In the case of higher education, the form this subsidy took was particularly pernicious:  student loans. 

Ok, so let us see ... government notices that successful middle class existence seems to be neatly correlated with college education. So, why not then facilitate college going in order to help a lot more Americans realize that American Dream?  As with many noble ideas, there are unintended consequences.  Or, as we learnt quite early enough in urban planning, the road to hell is paved with good intentions :(

In the past, college degrees conferred higher incomes on those who earned them.  But almost all of that surplus went to the student rather than the college, because aside from a small number of extremely affluent families, the students were young and did not have that much cash.  If colleges wanted to expand their market, college tuition was constrained to what an average student, or their family, could pay.

Introducing subsidized loans into the picture allowed students to monetize that future income now.  It's hardly surprising that colleges began to claim more and more of the surplus created by their college degree.  Think about it this way:  if colleges create an extra million in lifetime salary, you're theoretically better off if you pay them the discounted present value of $999,999 in order to earn that extra million.

Or, in other words, government subsidies and loans have become a way to transfer monies from taxpayers to colleges--and not to students!  Will this continue for long?  Even in the new world after the Great Recession?

$1 million is close to the lifetime value of a college degree (it's actually about $1.4 million), and colleges are getting better at extracting quite a lot of that value for themselves.  And I expect that trend to continue for a while, until either the political will for the program is overwhelmed by the side effects (the diploma mills add little value, and burden students with high loans), or the middle class simply revolts, and decides the risk and the higher tuition aren't worth the benefit.  The present value of an extra $1.4 million is well over a quarter of a million dollars. 

The ultimate irony is this: most of the employees of colleges and universities--public and private alike--are middle class folks.  So, we are the ones perpetuating this and making lives increasingly difficult even for our own children and grandchildren?  Sounds bizarre, right?

Cleaner cookstoves for the global poor

In one of the columns I wrote in the Register Guard (editor: have you stopped writing for the paper?  Did they find out your work is nothing but "mashed potatoes"? Hahaha!!!) I noted the connection between the high incidence of Acute Respiratory Illness and the usage of wood and charcoal in the tiny kitchens. 

I was, therefore, appreciative of the efforts to design and provide cleaner stoves--particularly the local angle:

It was thus with a gladdened heart and local pride that I read, after returning home, the essay in The New Yorker magazine, which also was referred to in a recent editorial in this newspaper. The article featured the Aprovecho Research Center, right here in Oregon, which has won international recognition for its efforts to design better stoves that also would be inexpensive.

It has been almost a year since then, and I am happy to read in the news that the US government is taking this project to a higher level:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today the formation of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a more than $60 million dollar public-private partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.  

A neat correlation that does not turn into any causation linking my column and this news :)  Anyway, my first thought was this: if 60 million dollars are all that was needed to get this going, we waited this long?  Well, better late than never, I suppose.

So, what is this Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves?  It is:

a new public-private initiative to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s ‘100 by 20’ goal calls for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020, toward a long-term vision of universal adoption of clean and efficient cooking solutions.

How will this be done?

To achieve its ‘100 by 20’ goal, the Alliance will establish industry standards; spur innovative financing mechanisms; champion the cause across the donor and development communities; develop indoor air quality guidelines; address global tax and tariff barriers; field test clean stoves and fuels; and develop research roadmaps across key sectors such as health, climate, technology and fuels.

Sounds great. But, I wonder if this is slightly more than a much narrower focus I would prefer.  I hope that in this process, we will not repeat the same errors that are typified by the classic experience that John Kenneth Galbraith's wife talked about when she lived in India during Galbraith's service there as the US ambassador.  Mrs. Galbraith noticed how much the maids had to bend to sweep and mop the floor. So, to make their lives better, and to improve productivity, she gave them the long-handled brooms and mops that we are so familiar with here in America.

Good idea, right?  Yes, the maids did use them--but, after cutting the handles off first.

It is for those kinds of reasons that I am hoping that the Alliance will also focus on massive education and marketing of both the need and the technology.  It is a similar theme expressed at Aidwatch on what will be needed to make this a true success:

If this new effort is going to avoid the mistakes of its predecessors, it needs to do a few vital things:

• It needs to get as much input as possible from the people who will actually use the stoves. The stoves will need to be as much like existing stoves as possible, to minimize the change in cooking style required to use them. In particular, women need to be able to cook traditional foods that are appealing to their families. Listening to the women who’ll cook on them is the best way to do that.
• It needs to produce affordable stoves and consistently distribute them. Price is a big barrier to use of better cookstoves, since the benefits aren’t immediately obvious. The stoves need to be cheap enough that families can buy them with a minimum of savings or debt. Since they won’t last forever, there needs to be a steady supply of available improved stoves. That means building a structure for production and distribution, not some kind of one-off stove airlift.
• Finally, it will need to market the stoves intensely. Since the benefits to getting a new stove are obvious, and the problems aren’t, they’ll need to really sell these stoves. Women, and their families, will need to be convinced of the benefits. That will require a lot more than a dry brochure or an earnest slogan.  It will need actual ads, with an advertising strategy behind them.

I hope this works out.  I can still clearly recall how much my grandmother's life became easier after gas stoves finally reached her small town.  The kitchen, which was all the way in the back of the house to keep the smoke away--among other reasons--could now be moved into an inner room.  And, no more coughing as the smoke built up.

 

So, do your part to cheer this Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves on.  And, if you have a few dollars to spare, perhaps donate to this venture? 

US falls behind Mexico. And that is the good news!

The Economist, which was the source for this graph, also notes:

Asian OECD countries Japan and South Korea are the leanest. Governments will count the eventual cost: health-care spending on an obese person is 25% more than for someone of average weight. And the problem is not confined to the rich world. In rapidly developing countries such as China, Brazil and India obesity rates, though still low, are growing fast as the dietary habits of the ever-increasing middle classes change.

Obama and his base: a tale of two women

There is something seriously going on with the solid base that energetically and enthusiastically not only elected Obama to the presidency, but also eagerly worked for the "change" they believed in.  Looks like they are slowly checking out ...

Consider two exhibits here .... First, Reshma Saujani (ht), who contested in the NY congressional primary, and narrowly lost to the veteran incumbent.  Saujani has an impressive bio, and enthusiasm ... and nothing like these nutcases ...

After the tough loss in the primary, Reshma Saujani notes:

We live in a difficult American moment.   The economy is struggling.  The future is uncertain.  The political process we were so hopeful about in 2008 has let us down.  But I believe we are bigger than this moment.  I believe we are stronger than our challenges.  I believe we are capable of extraordinary things if we work together. 

When we started this campaign, I truly believed it wasn’t about this election.   It was about the ideas and the leadership that New York and Washington desperately need.  Yesterday was the end of the first chapter of that campaign.  But today, the effort to renew the promise of our city continues.  And I can’t wait to get to started.

I am especially struck with her comment that "The political process we were so hopeful about in 2008 has let us down" ... because ...

... that is the same sentiment that was expressed by Velma Hart, who is my Exhibit 2 here.
Hart made news by telling President Obama on CNBC that she was "exhausted of defending you."  She is exhausted that the "change" hasn't happened over the almost two years now.


What could be going on?  Forget the pundits. Let us check in with Jon Stewart:

On the death of seven elephants :(

Elephants were my favorite animals--now they are second only to dogs.  Anytime there was an elephant on the street, I would rush to watch the pachyderm. There was something special about the way this powerful creature slowly walked as if it owned the world.

In Tanzania, while my group mates were rapidly clicking away at the huge African elephants that were only a few feet away, I sat there in the vehicle almost mesmerized by their presence.

Which is why I am just saddened by this news in The Hindu:

Seven elephants, including three calves, were killed when an Assam-bound goods train from Siliguri rammed the herd near the Moraghat railway crossing at Binnaguri in West Bengal on Wednesday night. Five died instantly while two others succumbed to their injuries on Thursday morning. Among the seven dead elephants, three were babies and three females. The accident occurred at the crossing of Moraghat Tea Estate under Banarhat in the Binaguri police station. 

 How terrible.  As humans expand their activities into the areas where the elephants and other animals roam, more often than not the animals lose big time, as in this case.
I wish life was not like this, but fun times with the baby elephant, as Mancini created so well with this tune ...

Quote of the day on global poverty

[Schools] have a better record of fighting terrorism than missiles do and that wobbly governments can be buttressed not just with helicopter gunships but also with school lunch programs (at 25 cents per kid per day).

International security is where the money is, but fighting poverty is where the success is.

That is from Nicholas Kristof's column in the NY Times today, in the context of the UN's Millennium Development Goals.  The last few columns from Kristof have been of a flavor that is markedly different from many of previous ones.  I like this version of Kristof much better--and way less depressing!

Sometimes, I wonder if the UN is being slowly replaced by other efforts--the politics, and the bureaucracy, at the UN means that things can happen only very slowly, if they happen. Thus, now, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appears to be a better catalyst for global health issues than the WHO.  The Clinton Global Initiative seems to deliver a lot on various fronts ...

It is autumn ...

... says America's Finest News Source :)

Cartoons of the day :)

It is amazing how whenever there appears to be a dull moment in politics, out pops a character that becomes fresh fodder for comedians and cartoonists, forcing to me to yell in pain from all the laughing :)
Here are two takes on the latest, the Senator wannabe, Christine O'Donnell:

Stop, stop ... I need to work!!!

Image, and story, of the day

Got to this image thanks to this article in The Guardian on why humans eat chilies. (ht)

I don't want to be anywhere near this bottle, which has such a potent hot sauce that the liquid is portioned out as drops with the eye-drop-lid!

So, why do humans eat such red hot chili peppers anyway?

Perhaps we seek out the painful experience of snacking on chillies while consciously maintaining awareness that there is no real danger to ourselves. After all, people seem to enjoy – and actively seek out – many other sensations that are otherwise undesirable but are ostensibly safe: the sensation of falling provided by rollercoasters or skydiving, the feelings of fear and anxiety while watching horror movies, the physical pain experienced upon jumping into icy water, or even the feelings of sadness that come while watching a tear-jerker.

The Great Recession and the youth

Every once in a while, when highlighting the rapid economic transformations across the world, I remark to students that it is not longer their grandfathers' world. Not even their mothers' world. And that they ought to be smart about their economic futures. And sometimes I take this to the next step and tell them, "you are screwed!"  And then, of course, give them what I think are the strategies to avoid getting screwed.

I suspect that most of them probably laugh this off because, after all, I too say all these with a big smile. But, a few students get the seriousness that lies underneath the veneer of humor.  To them, I now have one more piece of evidence: the chart below:

This is from Brookings' "The Hamilton Project" whose "most striking finding is that America’s youngest workers have been hit hardest by the Great Recession."

So, why this disproportionate impact?  The explanation makes sense to me:
"During the current recession both job openings and the number of people quitting their job (“quits”) plunged to extremely low levels. Very few older workers have left their jobs and are instead working longer and retiring later—perhaps in response to the recession’s effect on retirement savings and wealth. For younger Americans, such as new high school and college graduates, this has meant fewer opportunities to find work."

And even when openings come up, the experienced-but-now-jobless older person beats out the young.  So, is this temporary?  Now that the NBER has declared that the Great Recession ended last June, will conditions become better for the youth?  Not so fast:

According to one study (Kahn 2010), young people graduating from college during today’s severe recession will earn approximately 17.5 percent less per year than comparable peers graduating in better labor markets. This lower wage effect is highly persistent, fading away only after 17 years of work.

What does this mean in terms of lost income? For the average college graduate this year, this translates into approximately $70,000 (in today’s dollars) in lost earnings over the next decade. For the 2008, 2009, and 2010 classes combined that amounts to over $330 billion in lost earnings over 10 years. The projected losses are even larger for graduates who cannot find a job upon graduation.

There is a huge job-gap that might take a very long time to get filled (or maybe this is the new economic structural reality?)

And thus begins a new academic year :(

Maybe Bobby McFerrin was right with his "Don't worry, be happy"

"Public" minus "l" equals?

So, would you want your kids to attend these "pubic" schools?  Hilarious.
Details here
ht

My growing up experience was the other way around: I read in the biology textbook, back in the 9th grade, I think--that puberty and changes in the body include "public hair" ... it took me a couple of days to realize that I had erred--a Freudian slip? ... It provided yet another reason to walk around with a smile, but could not explain why I was smiling either.  The explanation would have meant admitting to my idiocy.  But, now that I am a confirmed global village idiot, blogging about it does not hurt!

Working stiffed: the union adopts Wal-Mart's practices :)

The Daily Show points out yet another inconvenient and uncomfortable truth:

The UFCW of Nevada pays temporary workers minimum wage to demand fair treatment and wages from Wal-Mart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Working Stiffed
www.thedailyshow.com
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Krugman v. Rajan: I root for the Indian-American :)

I clearly remember when I first heard about Raghuram Rajan, who is an economics professor at the University of Chicago.  It was from reports that he had taken on the then unassailable Fed guru, Alan Greeenspan, and warned about potential disasters.  Rajan did that with a whole lot of formal economic language, most of which I was/am incapable of understanding. And Nouriel Roubini warned about the disaster in theatrical ways, which I could easily understand :)

It was interesting to me that both these had offbeat ethnic names.  Placing the origin of Rajan's name was easy for me--both the first and last names are dead giveaways.  Naturally, I have then been on the alert whenever his name popped up in serious discussions in the publications that I follow (no, not the academic ones!!!)

The latest is a fascinating context.  Rajan and Paul Krugman are duking it out.  It is the wild, wild, west on the worldwide web.  (yet another evidence for how scholarly discussions are rapidly happening in real time and in open channels, as opposed to the time-delayed journal routes.  I love this.)

Rajan is clearly pissed off with Krugman's review of his book. Again, this is awfully close to a live debate: Krugman's review essay is in the latest issue of the NY Review of Books.  I read that on Sunday, when, as is my Sunday routine, I checked in with the NYRB site.  Perhaps it was there even earlier, and perhaps Rajan had access to that review in advance.  It is just awesome that Rajan's response--this essay--is dated September 19th.  How much more of a live debate can I take? :)

Anyway, Rajan writes:

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells caricature my recent book Fault Lines in an article in the New York Review of Books. The article, and their criticism, however, do have a lot to say about Krugman’s policy views (for simplicity, I will say “Krugman” and “he” instead of “Krugman and Wells” and “they”), which I have disagreed with in the past. Rather than focus on the innuendo about my motives and beliefs in the review, let me focus on differences of substance.

And that was the opening shot.  Rajan then goes through his arguments systematically.  As a non-economist, and more so when it comes to finance and monetary issues, I have a tough time then figuring out why Rajan is wrong.  As I have noted even earlier in a few posts, Krugman might have been ideological and a tad too shrill.  Rajan himself notes how there is a lack of consensus, in this case on the role of the fed in the crisis:

I admit that there is much less consensus on whether the Fed helped create the housing bubble and the banking crisis than on whether Fannie and Freddie were involved. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a monetary economist of the highest caliber, denies it, while John Taylor, an equally respected monetary economist, insists on it. Some Fed studies accept responsibility while others deny it. 

As one on the sidelines, I am like many who have a tough time figuring out which expert is correct in the interpretation of apparently the same data that everybody is sifting through.

At the end of the day, I suspect that Krugman is becoming a lot more ideological and sarcastic when he doesn't need to.  Rajan makes this point as well:

Perhaps Krugman believes that by labeling other economists as politically extreme, he can undercut their credibility. In criticizing my argument that politicians pushed easy housing credit in the years leading up to the crisis, he writes, “Although Rajan is careful not to name names and attributes the blame to generic “politicians,” it is clear that Democrats are largely to blame in his worldview.” Yet if he read the book carefully, he would have seen that I do name names, arguing that both President Clinton with his “Affordable Housing Mandate” (see Fault Lines, page 35) as well as President Bush with his attempt to foster an “Ownership Society” (see Fault Lines, page 37) pushed very hard to expand housing credit to the less well-off. Indeed, I do not fault the intent of that policy, only the unintended consequences of its execution. My criticism is bipartisan throughout the book, including on the fiscal policies followed by successive administrations. Errors of this kind by an economist of Krugman’s stature are disappointing.

I am cheering Raghuram Rajan in this fight because his essay is a lot more convincing to me than is Paul Krugman's.  The fact that Rajan is an Indian-American also helps :)  It is also bloody humbling to realize that I am the same age as Rajan is, and what a non-entity I am, and how much the guy has accomplished.  Awesome.

Update: I notice the comment(s) ... but, first, here is more from Rajan--over at FP ... but, the contents look nearly identical to the earlier one.  This FP is dated Sep 20th, but it doesn't refer to the AEI essay ... hmmm....