tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62684922008-05-09T07:26:24.578-07:00Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger830125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-80106758476917163102008-05-09T06:42:00.001-07:002008-05-09T07:26:24.609-07:00

When in Europe, go to Switzerland. When in Switzerland, go to Lauterbrunnen. When in Lauterbrunnen, go to Airtime. It is a combination of booking agency (para gliding, bungy jumping, canyoning -- know what that is? -- river rafting, sky diving, hang gliding, canyon jump, horse trekking), internet access place, book shop, coffee shop, souvenir shop, landromat (!), you-name-it. Daniela Michel and/

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-7493663673013430232008-05-06T09:22:00.000-07:002008-05-06T09:35:13.216-07:00

Ed Gramlich died recently, but he left us his book on the subprime mortgage market. I have not read it yet but this summary recently came to my attention. It's a refreshing read. Cycles are natural to the market economy (boom-bust). The boom-side typically involves major innovations and is remarkably productive. The legacy of the full cycle is positive! The current real estate finance cycle

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-68737741227133974882008-05-03T14:40:00.000-07:002008-05-03T14:49:43.574-07:00

My LA Times "Dust-up" with Bart Reed is over and there are many reader comments. Some are savvy and some are not. Quite a few suggest that we look to Europe for transit success and a better way. But Wendell Cox posts research from Paris that shows only 3 percent of new light-rail riders come from autos -- compared to the hypothetical 35 percent that I assumed in my crazy-optimist calculations

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-51303351711180226772008-05-02T11:08:00.000-07:002008-05-02T11:27:24.603-07:00

Baptists and bootleggers, according to Bruce Yandle, cooperated to give us Prohibition. Likewise, Greens and corn growers gave us ethanol and high food prices around the world. This is why "unintended consequences" is such a cop-out. Politics is zero-sum. Plug-in autos are such a pleasant thought. Who looks at their electric meters? This morning's WSJ includes "Utilities, Plug-In Cars: Near

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-77287408618417510692008-04-29T20:13:00.000-07:002008-04-30T07:02:30.696-07:00

Bart Reed of the L.A.s Transit Coalition and I will be going at it all week in this week's LA Times on-line "Dust-up." Readers of this blog will have seen many of the arguments before. Predictable repetition makes one seem like a bore, but silence in the face of the mendacity that we call local politics is not an option. Catch-22.

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-35192829983904056762008-04-27T06:47:00.000-07:002008-04-27T07:01:14.546-07:00

Philip Roth's Exit Ghost is enjoyable for many reasons. Roth even gives us a thumbnail definition of happiness. Nathan Zuckerman had been on self-imposed exile in the Berkeshire's and, on re-entering New York city life, is stunned to discover that George Plimpton had died. George escaped his glamour without losing his glamour, only further enhancing it in autobiographical books seemingly driven

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-7860523616749422992008-04-25T08:50:00.000-07:002008-04-25T10:44:19.418-07:00

A good colleague is writing an op-ed trying to get the candidates to do a better job of addressing domestic and urban issues. I replied that the politicians are better at creating problems than addressing them. Schools, housing, health care, transportation and others suffer from too much political attention. I had left out a discussion of the War on Drugs. The folly and the costs are well known.

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-22981051691637007352008-04-22T02:24:00.000-07:002008-04-22T02:42:07.493-07:00

We try to teach anyone within earshot that property rights beget exchange which begets prices which beget efficient allocations. Absent this, we have prisoners dilemma problems and inefficiencies. There are also the dynamics of remediation, e.g., political interventions (for the starry-eyed) or evolutions based on purposeful decentralized actions that beget wider and deeper markets (for those who

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-66086634079154402012008-04-19T06:38:00.000-07:002008-04-19T06:56:47.785-07:00

U.S. stock market indicators were up yesterday and I know why. I read yesterday's WSJ which included Robert Lee Hotz's Science Journal that noted the latest in behavioral economics. Testosterone May Fuel Stock-Market Success, Or Make Traders Tipsy Every morning for a week, 17 harried securities traders at a London brokerage firm began their business day by spitting for science. After analyzing

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-81767004333107395762008-04-18T14:12:00.000-07:002008-04-18T14:33:51.175-07:00

In political sleight-of-hand, transfers are promoted as wealth creation. Building new highways creates wealth only to the extent that it enahnces economic productivity. It is supply-side, not demand-side. "Creating jobs" in construction or operations is really no such thing, as has been recognnized by economists since at least Bastiat's Negative Railroad (the more stops, the more jobs "created

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-62210528038750138952008-04-13T08:11:00.001-07:002008-04-13T08:28:45.982-07:00

John Dawson counts the pages of the Code of Federal Regulations and finds that they grow every year. Clint Bolick has documented the parallel growth of local government in the U.S. But a new "narrative" is upon us -- that today's credit market problems are the result of excessive government deregulation in recent years. Peter Goodman echoes this one in today's NY Times ("A Fresh Look at the

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-1428136561174498272008-04-11T13:34:00.000-07:002008-04-11T13:38:24.246-07:00

This is from today's WSJ, but slightly too big for a bumper sticker. The Tax Me More Act We recently suggested that if Bill and Hillary Clinton are eager to pay more taxes, they should write a personal check to the U.S. Treasury to compensate for the lower tax rates they so frequently decry. And lo, here comes legislation to make it easier for the former first lady and other pseudo-populists to

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-83523138928473071322008-04-11T12:38:00.000-07:002008-04-11T13:00:04.129-07:00

Nobelist William Vickrey famously wrote about congestion pricing and thought that entry and exit to and from Manhattan would be a good place to try it. Almost 40 years later, a version of the idea for Manhattan was proposed and defeated. The New York State legislature balked. Ken Orski reports that: "What emerged from our conversations with opponents as well as advocates of the plan, including

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-41737731071929063612008-04-09T09:35:00.000-07:002008-04-09T09:39:11.787-07:00

I think that Fred Smith was the first to recognize public transit as collective transportation vs. autos as personal transportation. Guess which is more popular with people and which is more popular with planners. This link was sent to me by a colleague and it fills out the contours. http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-53619691773792290612008-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:002008-04-05T20:25:11.234-07:00

The most frequent questions that I get from reporters concern whether the downtowns are "coming back", whether transit-oriented development (and transit use) are in our future, etc. The hype and the wishful thinking have overcome many. That's just the way it is. Many who should know better also believe that localities can meaningfully confront "climate change", end the "addiction" to fossil fuel

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-38167803550111860692008-04-03T11:03:00.000-07:002008-04-03T11:28:51.433-07:00

In a better world, everyone would have sense of history. Economists would learn economic history along with economic theory. But in our second-best world we do have great books like Angus Maddison's The Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD. The book is full of interesting data and analysis. Maddison's China/world GDP per capita ratio (1990 $) trend goes from 1.06 in 1500 to 0.2 in 1973

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-7144741222228726642008-04-02T18:02:00.000-07:002008-04-02T18:18:10.549-07:00

This morning, a good friend mentioned that he would like to know the date of his death, so that he can plan better. This evening, I read Michael Kinsley's "Mine is Longer than Yours ... The last boomer game ... Extending your life is the most selfish motive imaginable for doing anything. Do it by all means" in the current New Yorker. Both themes are oldies that prompt some of the best thinking

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-77561755218085628902008-03-28T16:02:00.000-07:002008-03-28T16:51:40.653-07:00

Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss is worth reading. Weiner visits The Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India and a few places in the U.S. He is able to reflect on the happiness or unhappiness of the people he meets and muses over the links between wealth, happiness, culture, institutions, frienship, you name it. He proves that weighty themes

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-83462829935809049382008-03-27T08:53:00.000-07:002008-03-27T09:22:16.174-07:00

The traffic congestion that comes with unpriced highway access is many economists' favorite example of a negative externality. The availability of electronic toll collection devices suggests that transactions costs are no longer a barrier -- and we now have a policy failure. And it suggests a market opportunity. The WSJ's Walter Mossberg reports ("Dash's Car Navigator Gives Smart Directions, If

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-47337510976143964012008-03-24T07:26:00.000-07:002008-03-24T07:52:18.357-07:00

The we'll-always-have-Selma-Alabama folks want to have a "discussion about race" because they think that they have the advantage. But as Peggy Orenstein writes in yesterday's NY Times "Mixed Messenger .. What it means to have a biracial candidate running for president", it's time to think before we talk. ... Most Americans watching Barack Obama’s campaign, even those who don’t support him,

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-31777621267778918952008-03-22T11:34:00.000-07:002008-03-22T12:12:23.912-07:00

The Economist of March 15 has a nice essay on Economics and the rule of law ("Order in the jungle: The rule of law has become a big idea in economics. But is has had its difficulties"). Some might say that the "big idea" was never really absent from serious economic discourse. My 1964 copy of Alchian and Allen's Exchange and Production: Theory in Use, for example, mentions (p. 207): "If the

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-88803995296847470102008-03-19T20:05:00.001-07:002008-03-19T20:45:39.031-07:00

Alex Tabarrok has this interesting post on fear at Marginal Revolution -- which elabroates his recent NY Times op-ed. What are assets worth at any moment? How do we assess their future? How do others assess their future? These are the everyday questions. When uncertainties pile up, and volatilities rise, these very tough questions become even more difficult. Fear and panic can kick in.

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-82207520012691763512008-03-14T09:22:00.000-07:002008-03-14T09:32:58.527-07:00

In 2008, many serious politicians (and economists) like to explain why tax increases would be a good thing. They usually cite their belief that devoting more resources to infrastructure and education would be worthwhile. Others might suggest that this is naive (or even ignorant). This is why it is useful to have Christina and David Romer chime in with serious work that shows that tax increases

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-11877171298216952832008-03-11T09:21:00.000-07:002008-03-11T09:25:04.199-07:00

For reasons that make no sense to me, there are none of these in Los Angeles, but I found it in Eureka.

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-70862169693058501592008-03-05T11:08:00.000-08:002008-03-05T13:20:50.685-08:00

This morning's WSJ cited new data on highway safety ("AAA Says Auto Accidents Cost $164.2 Billion a Year"). Scary. Automobile crashes cost the U.S. $164.2 billion annually, or $1,051 per person, according to a report AAA plans to release today. The automobile association says that even though drivers tend to focus more on how traffic congestion hurts productivity and makes travelers miserable,

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.com