Quantcast
Channel: pseudoerasmus
Viewing all 102 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

大東亞共現代性圏

July 17, 2014, 5:10 am
$
0
0
I just noticed Tyler Cowen had blogged a Boston Globe article about the number of loanwords in various languages (is there something from the press Cowen will not blog ?), and his own take was to ask, which major language has the lowest percentage of foreign … Continue reading →
↧
Search

שׂבולת שׂמית

July 17, 2014, 5:14 am
$
0
0
Stream-of-consciousness thoughts about why we say “Semitic” even though the root is “Shem”. And, yes, I know the Hebrew letters in the title say “semitic sibboleth” and not “shemitic shibboleth”. In my youth I was exposed to many years of … Continue reading →
↧
↧

Links 18 July 2014

July 18, 2014, 11:15 am
$
0
0
I’m not intending to do “weekly links” or anything, but I wanted to highlight a blogpost by Victor Mair : what the Dungan language sounds like from snippets of the movie “Jesus” dubbed in Dungan. This is the language of Chinese Muslims who fled to … Continue reading →
↧

GDP is ageist but not sexist

July 23, 2014, 8:07 am
$
0
0
Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex asked in his blogpost “Invisible Women” why the entry of women into the American labour force doesn’t seem to show up in the time series of GDP. Their introduction should look like a big … Continue reading →
↧

Azar Gat’s Nations

July 24, 2014, 6:08 pm
$
0
0
I saw Razib Khan‘s review of Azar Gat’s Nations : The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. Without intending to make it that long I posted a 1000-word comment there. Then I realised I could have posted it here. I just … Continue reading →
↧
↧

ελαδιοξιδιολατολαχανοκαρυκευμα

July 31, 2014, 5:01 pm
$
0
0
A very brief history of Greek diglossia. Most people know that even after the collapse of the western Roman empire, the Catholic Church continued the Latin tradition. But centuries before Odoacer declared himself King of Italy, spoken Latin had already been … Continue reading →
↧

Der Todd des Euro

July 31, 2014, 5:10 pm
$
0
0
Part 1. The French anthropologist-demographer Emmanuel Todd, who is becoming increasingly fashionable in the Anglosphere, is also a scathing critic of the euro. I examine his “anthropological” views of Germany and the euro, which I also contrast with those of Michael Pettis. (The blogpost is in … Continue reading →
↧

The “Anthropology” of Financial Crises

July 31, 2014, 5:15 pm
$
0
0
This is Part 2, continued from “Der Todd des Euro” (Emmanuel Todd on the euro), which critiqued his “anthropological” perspective on Germany. Here I make some observations on the role of social capital in financial crises, with a focus on Germany. (4) Theoretically, … Continue reading →
↧
Search

“The Great War and Modern Memory”

July 31, 2014, 5:25 pm
$
0
0
I am on holiday-hiatus for August and will return to posting in September. In the meanwhile, a book recommendation. The start of this month also coincides with the centenary of a momentous calamity. There will be commemorated every possible consequence of that event, from … Continue reading →
↧
↧

Plant breeding, not working slaves harder, drove cotton efficiency gains in the US South

September 5, 2014, 10:00 am
$
0
0
Summary : New cultivars of cotton led to an unprecedented rise in the productivity of US southern cotton in the 60 years before the American Civil War. The Economist magazine may have said some stupid things about the subject in its review of Edward Baptist’s book … Continue reading →
↧

Baptism by Blood Cotton

September 12, 2014, 5:21 am
$
0
0
The underlying claim in Edward Baptist’s “oral economic history” of slavery, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, is that slave owners, through the scientific “calibration” of torture, intensified the work of slaves in order to increase labour productivity by … Continue reading →
↧

Econ-Fi

September 28, 2014, 5:45 pm
$
0
0
What if human wants are not infinite ? And/or, what about the sci-fi future where machines can do pretty much everything humans can do, and do it better, and cost less to produce than to hire a human ? But … Continue reading →
↧

Baumol’s Cure in Remission

September 28, 2014, 5:50 pm
$
0
0
In the comments section of a Razib Khan blogpost, one “Realistic Leftist” denies skill-biased technological change has much to do with median wage stagnation in the United States : “…both worker productivity and GDP per capita have increased fairly considerably in the … Continue reading →
↧
↧

Global Income Distribution in 20 Charts

September 28, 2014, 8:00 pm
$
0
0
The global distribution of income in 1970-2006 in 20 charts. Not much text. Posting the charts because I thought they were neat… In the late 1990s I used to follow inequality issues closely, but I’ve now mostly lost interest in the … Continue reading →
↧

The emptiness of life will save us from mass unemployment

September 28, 2014, 9:01 pm
$
0
0
In general, people are too cheery when the economy is booming, and too gloomy about the future during recessions. Right now, pessimism about the consequences of “skill-biased technological change” is fashionable. But such pessimism should be regarded with the same scepticism as … Continue reading →
↧
Search

Ye Olde Inæqualitee Shoppe

September 30, 2014, 5:01 pm
$
0
0
A quick note : Income inequality in pre-industrial societies was, in general, lower than in modern industrial societies, but traditional agrarian economies tended to be closer to their “maximum feasible inequality” than modern ones. In “Russian Inequality on the Eve of … Continue reading →
↧

Piketty & Slave Wealth

September 30, 2014, 5:20 pm
$
0
0
A quick note on Piketty, slave-wealth and US capitalism. Matthew Yglesias had a Vox article thundering “American prosperity was built on slavery and torture” as part of his reaction to Edward Baptist’s book on slavery and American capitalism. Yglesias reproduced a … Continue reading →
↧
↧

Conscientiousness & Technology

October 2, 2014, 10:05 pm
$
0
0
From the plastics industry, a very concrete, real-life example of how conscientiousness matters in the use of a medium-level technology and how high(er)-technology might help. In the past I have argued that technological progress can help developing countries overcome some of … Continue reading →
↧

A horse ! A horse ! My serfdom for a horse !

October 24, 2014, 5:04 am
$
0
0
Part 2, England, of my critique of Nick Szabo’s view of industrialisation. This is continued from Part 1, “Chinese workers were cheaper than English horses“. What do coal, American slave cotton, and the resources of the New World have in common … Continue reading →
↧

Chinese workers were cheaper than English horses

October 24, 2014, 6:10 am
$
0
0
My critique of Nick Szabo’s “horse theory” of the Great Divergence between Western Europe and East Asia. This part is about China in the 18th century. See Part 2 for the general issue of industrialisation and transport costs in England. Week before last in the … Continue reading →
↧
Viewing all 102 articles
Browse latest View live
Search