Why do most people stop working for pay somewhere between age 62 and 67? Is this optimal? Would people benefit from arrangements that provide more flexibility, allowing those who want to work longer to do so more easily? We believe they would. Relative to our history as human beings, life has gotten unimaginably long. It is not uncommon to live …
Few would disagree that the period from 1870-2010 saw immense technological advancements that improved our quality of life. But, according to Bradford DeLong, far fewer advances lie ahead, and societies should adapt by “slouching” away from a free-market system. He’s wrong on both counts. There are two kinds of economists: those who labor in the fields trying to understand the …
There are two kinds of economists: those who labor in the fields trying to understand the economy better, and those who propose bold sweeping solutions to universally acknowledged problems. (I oversimplify, but not much.) I usually find the first kind fascinating and the latter kind annoying — except when a lively writer and polemicist like Brad DeLong tries to be …
Joel Kotkin, an urban geographer, demographer, and prolific futurist, argues in a new book that the United States is headed toward “neo-feudalism,” where individuals have a fixed position in the social hierarchy, mostly determined by heredity. But his evidence is unconvincing. Rather than feudalism, we are headed toward hyper-capitalism, where each person is an entrepreneur constantly selling his or her …
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” –Koheleth My favorite of the many brilliant verses in the Wisdom …
Will artificial general intelligence (AGI) transform the experience of being human, opening up possibilities of knowledge, achievement, and prosperity that we can now barely conceive? Or is AGI an existential threat to humanity, something to be feared and restrictively confined? Erik J. Larson, in a fascinating book entitled The Myth of Artificial Intelligence, says “neither.” I agree. AGI, if it …
Recorded July 13th, 2022
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” –Koheleth Super-bubbles in the asset markets, the rise of populism, and inequality are …
Who would want to be tasked with investing their own and other people’s money in companies run by weirdos and jerks? But that turns out to be one of the most important skill sets shared by successful venture capitalists. “Reasonable people,” begins Sebastian Mallaby in his excellent history of venture capital investing, “well-adjusted people…without hubris or naïveté, routinely fail in …
Will artificial general intelligence (AGI) transform the experience of being human, opening up possibilities of knowledge, achievement, and prosperity that we can now barely conceive? Or is AGI an existential threat to humanity, something to be feared and restrictively confined? Erik J. Larson, in a fascinating book entitled The Myth of Artificial Intelligence, says “neither.” I agree. AGI, if it …
Einstein’s theory of relativity advanced Newtonian physics. That did not mean Newton was wrong — only that his theories could be improved upon. In an ambitious new book, the economist Andrew Smithers rejects core “Newtonian” principles of economics, replacing them with radical departures from conventional wisdom. But as I will explain, unlike Einstein, some of Smithers’ theories fail meet the …
with M. Barton Waring Abstract “The trustees of an endowed institution are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present.” –James Tobin, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Economics. Tobin’s thoughtful admonition that endowment trustees should protect the spending power of the endowment for all time can’t be implemented in practice given today’s aggressive investment policies. …
Will the cloud drive massive increases in productivity and wealth — as the internet did before it? That is the central question asked by Mark Mills in his stunning new book, The Cloud Revolution. Little changes sometimes morph into very big ones by stealth: you don’t see the big change coming until it has enveloped you. This is how ARPANET, …
An urban legend has Amos Tversky, the late cofounder (along with Daniel Kahneman) of behavioral economics, asking a computer scientist what he was working on. The computer man responded, “I study artificial intelligence.” Tversky, a notorious smart aleck, responded, “I study natural stupidity.” Steven Pinker has studied natural stupidity more carefully than almost any other living writer. Trained as a …
Einstein’s theory of relativity advanced Newtonian physics. That did not mean Newton was wrong – only that his theories could be improved upon. In an ambitious new book, the economist Andrew Smithers rejects core “Newtonian” principles of economics, replacing them with radical departures from conventional wisdom. But as I will explain, unlike Einstein, some of Smithers’ theories fail meet the …
We shouldn’t read too much into pop sociology, especially when investing other people’s money. William Strauss and Neil Howe built a following by perpetuating a scholarship that embraces substantive differences among generations: Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen-X and so forth. But that view is mistaken, according to Bobby Duffy. Duffy asks whether our lives are largely shaped by when we were …
A Personal Reflection At some level you carry what you learned in school with you for the rest of your life. I went to the University of Chicago out of high school, hoping to study with Milton Friedman, who had published Capitalism and Freedom a decade earlier. I didn’t wind up studying directly with Friedman but I got to know …