Recent Blog Posts
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The Times' Rorshach Geithner Story
Apr 27 20099:04am EDT -
Sinking Animal Spirits
Apr 27 20098:04am EDT -
Counter-cyclical Urban Policy
Apr 26 200910:04am EDT -
Be Your Own Counterfeiter
Apr 26 20099:04am EDT -
Being Tim Geithner
Apr 25 200912:04pm EDT -
Notes From a Press Conference Naif
Apr 25 20099:04am EDT -
What Good is the News?
Apr 25 20098:04am EDT -
Stressful Enough
Apr 24 20092:04pm EDT -
Not Regretting the Pound
Apr 24 20091:04pm EDT -
Introducing the New Ford Squeeze
Apr 24 20099:04am EDT -
Non-Economic Questions of the Day
Apr 24 20099:04am EDT -
The Stress Test Blind Alley
Apr 24 20098:04am EDT -
Happy Hour
Apr 23 20099:04pm EDT -
Recovery Without Rebalancing
Apr 23 20096:04pm EDT -
The Shape of Your Recession
Apr 23 20095:04pm EDT
Links
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The Economist Debates: Bloggers Win!
The Economist has brought its debate series to New York, and the first two debates took place in the magnificent Gotham Hall on Saturday. The first one was on wealth and happiness, and pitched two bloggers (Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson) against two A-list economists (Betsey Stevenson and Jeff Sachs). Without going into too much detail (you can get that from Cowen's commenters or from Will), the bloggers won: many congratulations to them.
The second debate was on religion and politics. Afterwards, the Economist laid on some cocktails, where Stevenson's equally A-list husband, Justin Wolfers, pondered Pascal's Wager. If you believe there's anything at all to religion, he noted (and possibly if you don't), the biggest risk one runs is the risk that you belong to the wrong religion. So how would you go about hedging that? Justin's suggestion: have lots of children, and bring each of them up in a different religion. You might not make it to heaven, but at least you're maximizing your chances that at least one of your children will.
Both debates were successful and enjoyable, which means I think that there will certainly be more of them. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of New Yorkers willing to spend between $20 and $40 to while away a large chunk of their Saturday afternoon listening to debating points. Don't they know they can read as many blogs as they like for free?
