Guy Berger

Aren't these still in print on CD? And the current SoD sounds just fine to my ears (though I am not an audiophile). Perhaps it will sell more copies if it comes out in a Rudy Van Gimmick edition. Guy

I've picked up a bunch of ST albums over the past few months -- Joyride, The Spoiler, That's Where It's At, Hustlin', Never Let Me Go. Despite enjoying his work with Jimmy Smith I guess I overlooked his work as a leader, because these albums range from very good to excellent. I especially like TWIA and Spoiler. "La Fiesta" is awesome. Guy

Anybody else a fan of these guys? I haven't heard the 80s synth pop albums, but Spirit of Eden and especially Laughing Stock are amazing records. Very hard to describe (maybe an updated version of Astral Weeks?) but this may be one case where the overused post-rock label actually fits. Guy

I picked up these two during the summer and have finally gotten around to "meets OP". What a magnificent record. I'll get to Soulville in a few weeks and am looking forward to it! Guy

Yes, not quite at the Marv Albert level but very good. As far as Musburger -- in general, he's terrible, but ever since the "proctology exam" crack he made during the Reggie Evans/Chris Kaman I think he gets to start with a clean slate. Guy

Collins is one of my favorites for basketball, actually. I was not aware that he hated the Lakers but that is a big plus in my book. Bonus points if he hates the Knicks too. As far as the ragging on Bill Walton -- yes, he is generally awful from a content standpoint but anybody that makes so many classic unintentional one-liners can't be truly bad in my book. John Stockton as a "monument to western civilization", enough said. (Myself and Darko 20/20 catalogued them in last year's NBA playoffs thread -- maybe someone can dig it up.) Awful basketball guys -- most of the people on ABC/ESPN. Breen is OK and from a content standpoint Hubie Brown is great (though also "grate" due to his voice). Guy

I was at the NYC Guggenheim for the first time this weekend. The Kandinsky gallery was something else... I've liked his art for a long time, but a bunch of it in the same place was a special treat. The two temporary exhibits were mixed -- a very interesting one on Central European photography in the interwar era, and some very silly work by a guy named Richard Prince. Guy

Here is The Economist's review:

As far as I can tell nobody is barred by law from becoming rich. But in a society where circumstances of birth matter for economic outcomes, laws and policies do make a difference. Change the quantity and quality of education spending and a working class baby's probability of becoming rich (or even middle class) will go up and down. We can all come up with anecdotes -- the Google IPO -- to come up with examples of people who did well despite tough upbringings (though I am willing to be that a substantial chunk of the IPO beneficiaries were not "self made men"). That doesn't change the fact that the child of a millionaire is more likely than the child of a call-center employee to become a millionaire. Guy

What are you talking about? How, exactly, are you attributing these ideas to me? For what it's worth, I don't think this is such a crazy idea -- in some societies with a poor underclass and a rich elite, economic growth tends to be stagnant. Resources are not diverted to productive uses. Historically this is a problem attached to agrarian societies (the #1 argument for intelligent land reform), so I don't know whether there is also a precedent in industrialized economies. Guy

Well, to the degree that large inheritances allow people to inherit money which they didn't earn (in Buffett's words, they won the genetic lottery), it does make a difference. That's how aristocracies are created. For what it's worth (and I was surprised by this), class mobility in the US is actually worse these days than it is in Europe. My personal standpoint -- regardless of what you think government expenditures should be relative to GDP, you're going to have to somehow fund them through taxes now or in the future. I think there is a strong moral argument for shifting some of the weight from taxes on income to taxes on inheritance (and for that reason, I completely agree with the Economist article that the tax should be on how much somebody inherits rather than the overall size of the estate). I am not familiar enough with the economics of taxation to offer a judgment on the relative efficiency of these two options. Guy

David, the more you rest the quicker it will go. But these things vary, sometimes it will takes me up to two weeks before the cold is completely gone. Are you sure you don't have a sinus infection? I would see a doctor if you are not better in another week. Guy

Aggie, 1) I agree with you that cash can be diverted. But so can food aid -- and in fact, food aid is notorious for being diverted to undeserving recipients. 2) Overhead is likely to be worse when moving around sacks of food. 3) Food aid can disrupt agricultural markets by lowering local produce prices. Cash aid is usually superior because it lets the poor figure out what they need most; in many cases, hunger happens not because markets don't exist, but because the poor can't afford to buy food. Food aid is probably superior in extreme emergencies when markets are completely dysfunctional -- that is, even if you gave the hungry money, they will not be able to buy food because there is none to be had (at least in the short run). There are also paternalistic arguments against giving cash, but I am pretty skeptical about them when it comes to developing countries.

I think Laswell's mix of "Rated X" is very worthy and in some respects superior to the original. Guy

I haven't read the whole article, but I agree with the gist of it -- it would be extremely unfortunate if European squeamishness about "genetically modified" food resulted in greater hunger in the poor areas of the world. Guy

Props to the guy that came up with it, and also to the WFP, which does a lot of good, but I wish some of these resources would get diverted to cash aid -- in all but the most dire circumstances it's superior to food aid. Guy

I'm a lot more lukewarm about GUWI than Lon, but get it first. Then if you like it check out Laswell's reimagining of the material. Guy

Porcy... this would require an epic explanation, but to keep it short: subprime doesn't refer to mutual funds, but rather to a class of borrowers who are not prime (whether due to low incomes, poor credit history, etc). In the US, mortgage lending to these kinds of borrowers took off in the past few years; due to a combination of poor understanding of the actual terms of the loans, dishonesty by lenders and dishonesty by borrowers, much higher numbers of these borrowers are defaulting on their mortgages in the past. This is leading to turmoil in financial markets because bonds linked to these mortgages are turning out to be much riskier than previously believed. Guy Thanks, I knew it, more or less, but if traditional credit is based on judgment on solvibility of the borrowers, prime if I understood correctly, lending to subprime and sell the risk to others through bonds is a good deal, as far the lenders minimize their risk sharing it with unaware people who bought the bonds. Well, when lending to riskier borrowers the lender makes up for the greater riskiness of the loan by charging a higher rate of interest. You are 100% that securitization reduces this link by (A) pooling and diversifying the risk from individual loans and (B) by shifting risk to people who are more willing to bear it. My understanding is that, in fact, more Americans did gain access to credit as a result. I don't know how much of it this is due to chicanery (lenders and/or borrowers lying about the quality of the underlying loans). Guy

I think your argument is missing an element -- usually by the time somebody is forced to go to a payday lender they're already in pretty bad shape. Honestly, I don't know the economics of the industry well enough to judge. Are payday lenders much more profitable than mainstream lenders? Maybe, maybe not. If this is an incredibly profitable sector, why aren't mainstream lenders entering it? The reason that these guys advertise the ease of getting cash is because that's exactly the most important thing for their customers. By the way, I completely agree with Dan that it would be interesting and worthwhile to see a study of this industry in the US. Guy

BW, Something in your story doesn't quite wash. If checking accounts at banks really are a perfect alternative to check cashing services... why are people still using check cashing services? I'm guessing it's a combination of poor access to local banking services, perhaps distrusts and/or unawareness of local banking services... For what it's worth, AFAIK I cannot access the full cash amount of a deposited check after depositing it, but only a fraction. For somebody who needs cash NOW that could be a significant constraint. The poor (in the US and elsewhere) are "underbanked". Reducing access to payday lending isn't going to solve this problem.

Porcy... this would require an epic explanation, but to keep it short: subprime doesn't refer to mutual funds, but rather to a class of borrowers who are not prime (whether due to low incomes, poor credit history, etc). In the US, mortgage lending to these kinds of borrowers took off in the past few years; due to a combination of poor understanding of the actual terms of the loans, dishonesty by lenders and dishonesty by borrowers, much higher numbers of these borrowers are defaulting on their mortgages in the past. This is leading to turmoil in financial markets because bonds linked to these mortgages are turning out to be much riskier than previously believed. Guy

Karlan and Zinman had an editorial in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. I think their arguments are fundamentally sound, though this sort of tone may not go over well outside of the ivory tower... edit: actually, after the first paragraph I thought the tone was quite reasonable. (disclosure: I TA'd for Karlan when I was a grad student)