Tweeting on the Hill

Via @Newshour, a list of members of Congress who use Twitter.

It took a little while to ramp up, but this new communication/social networking medium is totally mainstream now.  Even the RNC chair candidates were arguing over who tweeted more, during their debate the other day.

New Year’s resolutions

I generally fall into the “why wait for January 1st? Start now!” camp when it comes to improving myself and my life, but this time of year is always a good time to reprioritize and redouble my efforts. So here’s my current list:

1. Read the Sunday paper, every Sunday.  I am happiest when I am informed.

2. Do more yoga.  Finally learn to do a headstand.

3. Read more books. (It’s good for my research–not to mention my sanity–to read lots of non-econ stuff, so it is productive.  I need to remember this.)

4. Don’t let grad school hijack my career.  Figure out what I really want out of this experience, get it, and move on before it consumes me.

The fabulous Tina Fey

It’s, like, my dream article: Maureen Dowd profiles Tina Fey in the current issue of Vanity Fair.  It is sprinkled with priceless 30 Rock and Fey-as-Palin quotes, and observations like this:

“It is the most ridiculous, borderline-dangerous thing that the Republican vice-presidential nominee happened to look like the funniest woman working in America,” McKay says. “What if the next Republican presidential nominee looks exactly like Seth Rogen?”

Airport dining

If you find yourself stuck at an airport during this holiday season (and who won’t be, with blizzards everywhere from New Hampshire to Las Vegas?), Matt Gross reviews the dining options at the nation’s most popular travel hubs.

Salt Lake City is not on that list, so let me suggest that you bring a sandwich if you find yourself traveling through the Utah capital.  I was stuck there this past week–along with hundreds and hundreds of others–and there was barely anywhere to sit much less a destination eatery.  (Apparently this is not the priority there, but the line of travelers whose flights had just been cancelled might not have been as angry if they’d just had a good meal.  Just a thought.)

Let Detroit fail

The idea of a Detroit bailout has all the liberal economists I know (including myself) feeling and sounding like Republicans: Let the free market decide!

No, markets aren’t perfect.  But the best way to deal with their failings is to hedge against and/or compensate for them, not attempt to prevent them via direct intervention.  If the major American auto manufacturers have grossly mismanaged their companies over the past couple decades–and I include terrible foresight about consumer demand under “gross mismanagement”–then those companies deserve to fail.  The US government does not know better than the market which firms have a promising future; it should not get (further) into the business of picking winners.

Here’s what it should do instead: Spend money.  Increase and extend unemployment benefits to help workers who are laid off.  Spend massively on education and job training programs to retrain Americans whose industries are in decline.  Increase subsidies for student loans to make college more affordable.  Create a national health care program so that access to medical care is not tied to jobs on the chopping block.  Provide funding for research and development in areas we deem important–particularly, as Obama has already noted, green technology.  (Enough with the ethanol subsidies–how does Uncle Sam know that’s the inevitable winner in an alternative fuel match-up?  We should be supporting ANYTHING that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, and letting the most cost-effective one win.)

Economists revere the power of markets.  Sometimes we take that reverance too far (see: the current financial meltdown), but Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand has infinite widsom to offer that no individual, or Congressional panel, or Presidential commission can match.  Markets are simply really, really good at figuring out what consumers want and how best to produce those things.  What are markets not so good at?  Making sure no individuals are hurt so badly by this creative destruction that they cannot brush themselves off and get back in the game.  That’s where the government can–and should!–play a constructive role.

Would a Green WPA leave women out?

Linda Hirshman considers what Obama’s WPA-like proposal would mean for women:

Mr. Obama compared his infrastructure plan to the Eisenhower-era construction of the Interstate System of highways. It brings back the Eisenhower era in a less appealing way as well: there are almost no women on this road to recovery.

Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace in unprecedented numbers, this would have been more understandable. But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate has actually risen just as fast as men’s. A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work.

The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.

It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well, especially in the alternative energy area. A broad study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative energy firms also employ construction workers and engineers.

Slate V’s Science Series

Another great idea from Slate.  Top stories this week: A slug that’s half-plant, how sleep is like deleting all those random files you downloaded onto your hard drive, and why we can never let robots take over space missions.

Prop 8 – The Musical

It’s remarkable how well this sums up the last couple of months.

more about “Prop 8 – The Musical“, posted with vodpod

No more little plastic bags!

I just read on a Budget Travel blog that TSA plans to lift the liquids ban for air travel by the end of next year.  Hallelujah.

How likely are you to get a divorce?

Economist Betsey Stevenson has created an online divorce risk calculator.

Because of generational/cohort effects, and variation by age and education level, national averages are meaningless.  This calculator takes all those important demographic factors into account.