Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • BUILDING IT OLD FASHIONED WAY A must-see on the next trip to Germany

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,822375,00.htmlTHE BUILDING IT OLD FASHIONED WAY

    A must-see on the next trip to Germany.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-25 18:49:00 UTC

  • Haidt – liberals and conservatives – their sentimental differences

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.xmlJonathan Haidt – liberals and conservatives – their sentimental differences.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-25 18:05:00 UTC

  • RULE 🙂 “Our study confirms our hypothesis that people with autism have higher p

    http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2012/WTVM054757.htmAPIES RULE 🙂

    “Our study confirms our hypothesis that people with autism have higher perceptual capacity compared to the typical population. This can only be seen once the task becomes more demanding, with more information to process. In the more challenging task conditions, people with autism are able to perceive significantly more information than the typical adult.”

    “The finding may help explain why people with autism spectrum disorders, such as Asperger’s syndrome, may excel in some careers … which can require intense concentration and the ability to process a great deal of information …

    Our study clearly shows that people with autism can do better than typical adults in tasks involving rapid presentations of a lot of information.”

    Aspies, depending upon the severity, are at a disadvantage in some ways, but you can learn empathy if you work at it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-25 18:00:00 UTC

  • PJ Lifestyle » Why Do Ads that Diss Women Get Removed while Ads that Diss Men are Funny?

    Jim Macnamara, author of Media and Male Identity: The Making and Remaking of Men did a PHD Dissertation looking at men and the media and found the following:The study involved collection of all editorial content referring to or portraying men from 650 newspaper editions 450 broadsheets and 200 tabloids, 130 magazines, 125 TV news bulletins, 147 TV current affairs programs, 125 talk show episodes, and 108 TV lifestyle program episodes from 20 of the highest circulation and rating newspapers, magazines and TV programs over a six-month period. Media articles were examined using in-depth quantitative and qualitative content analysis methodology.The research found that, by volume, 69 per cent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavourable compared with just 12 per cent favourable and 19 per cent neutral or balanced. Men were predominately reported or portrayed in mass media as villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers, with more than 75 per cent of all mass media representations of men and male identities showing men in one of these four ways. More than 80 per cent of media mentions of men, in total, were negative, compared with 18.4 per cent of mentions which showed men in a positive role.The overwhelmingly negative reporting and portrayals of men in mass media news, current affairs, talk shows and lifestyle media was mainly in relation to violence and aggression. Violent crime, including murder, assault, armed robberies and attacks such as bashings, accounted for almost 40 per cent of all media reporting of male violence and aggression, followed by sexual abuse 20.5 per cent, general crime 18.6 per cent and domestic violence 7.3 per cent.Some people think the negative portrayal is “no big deal.” But it is a big deal. This portrayal of men is dangerous to society as it causes people to stereotype men and see them as dangerous perverts. Men are reacting to this stereotype by going on strike, avoiding interactions with women and children; they no longer work with kids, volunteer as often or get married as readily for fear of a legal or cultural backlash. Many are “going Galt.” These are not positive developments for society. So, yes, negative portrayals of men are a big deal.

    via PJ Lifestyle » Why Do Ads that Diss Women Get Removed while Ads that Diss Men are Funny?.

  • PJ Lifestyle » Why Do Ads that Diss Women Get Removed while Ads that Diss Men are Funny?

    Jim Macnamara, author of Media and Male Identity: The Making and Remaking of Men did a PHD Dissertation looking at men and the media and found the following:The study involved collection of all editorial content referring to or portraying men from 650 newspaper editions 450 broadsheets and 200 tabloids, 130 magazines, 125 TV news bulletins, 147 TV current affairs programs, 125 talk show episodes, and 108 TV lifestyle program episodes from 20 of the highest circulation and rating newspapers, magazines and TV programs over a six-month period. Media articles were examined using in-depth quantitative and qualitative content analysis methodology.The research found that, by volume, 69 per cent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavourable compared with just 12 per cent favourable and 19 per cent neutral or balanced. Men were predominately reported or portrayed in mass media as villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers, with more than 75 per cent of all mass media representations of men and male identities showing men in one of these four ways. More than 80 per cent of media mentions of men, in total, were negative, compared with 18.4 per cent of mentions which showed men in a positive role.The overwhelmingly negative reporting and portrayals of men in mass media news, current affairs, talk shows and lifestyle media was mainly in relation to violence and aggression. Violent crime, including murder, assault, armed robberies and attacks such as bashings, accounted for almost 40 per cent of all media reporting of male violence and aggression, followed by sexual abuse 20.5 per cent, general crime 18.6 per cent and domestic violence 7.3 per cent.Some people think the negative portrayal is “no big deal.” But it is a big deal. This portrayal of men is dangerous to society as it causes people to stereotype men and see them as dangerous perverts. Men are reacting to this stereotype by going on strike, avoiding interactions with women and children; they no longer work with kids, volunteer as often or get married as readily for fear of a legal or cultural backlash. Many are “going Galt.” These are not positive developments for society. So, yes, negative portrayals of men are a big deal.

    via PJ Lifestyle » Why Do Ads that Diss Women Get Removed while Ads that Diss Men are Funny?.

  • I’m envious

    http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20120202-NEWS-202020396ENVY. I’m envious.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-24 08:42:00 UTC

  • thing. That black markets generally exist to support status signals, not necessa

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/around-the-world-abc-news/world-black-market-booms-044416456.htmlFunny thing. That black markets generally exist to support status signals, not necessary consumption. What does that tell us?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-24 08:41:00 UTC

  • The Real Reasons There Aren’t Many High-Earning Female CEO’s And Business Owners

    The Real Reasons There Aren’t Many High-Earning Female CEO’s And Business Owners http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/03/23/the-real-reasons-there-arent-many-high-earning-female-ceos-and-business-owners/

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-24 02:36:32 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/183381755426897920

  • John Cochrane on Krugman on Friedman: The Austrian Approach Vs The Keynesian

    John Cochrane on Krugman on Friedman: The Austrian Approach Vs The Keynesian http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/03/24/john-cochrane-comments-on-krugman-on-friedman-an-austrian-approach/

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-24 02:32:05 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/183380636298526721

  • John Cochrane on Krugman on Friedman: The Austrian Approach Vs The Keynesian

    John Cocharane argues:

    Paul Krugman, in a most recent post, argues “Backward moves the macroeconomic debate” with “the result that our economic discourse is significantly more primitive now that it was 70 years ago.” Per Krugman, this backward movement is apparent in the use by some opponents of active demand management policy, such as Amity Shlaes, and of the “supposed legacy of Milton Friedman.”

    via Krugman on Friedman: An Austrian Approach | The Circle Bastiat.

    Then he follows up with:

    While Keynes’s verbal analysis in the General Theory continued to emphasis the role of investment, interest, and money in determining output and employment, his abandonment of the natural rate concept masked the intertemporal coordination issues at the heart of fundamental economic problem, made it easier to ignore the important capital theory issues involved in the original Hayek-Keynes debate, and facilitated the morphing of the economics of Keynes into the IS-LM single macroeconomic output aggregate Keynesianism. Relative to most quantity theorists, old or new, and most modern macroeconomics which model the economy with a single aggregate production measure, Keynes, even in the General Theory, continued to stress the importance of the distribution of production and resources between present uses, consumption, and the future oriented uses, investment. The single aggregate approach makes it nearly impossible to even recognize intertemporal coordination problems. Keynes does recognize potential problems. But a major factor differentiating Keynes from the Austrians is Keynes’s lack of any well defined capital theory compared to the Austrian use of structure of production capital theory, a capital structure -based macroeconomics (Cochran and Glahe 1999, pp. 103-118 and Horwitz 2011). Hence, “In the judgment of the Austrians, Keynes disaggregated enough to reveal potential problems in the macro economy but not enough to allow for the identification of the nature and source of the problems and the prescription of suitable remedies” (Garrison 2001, 226).

    To which I replied: John First, Krugman has a political agenda and Keynesian policy supports that agenda. Everything he says and does is in support of that political agenda. It has absolutely nothing to do with any moral assumption of meritocracy or the common good implied by economics as a tool for assisting in policy decisions. Second, he never uses prewar data or historical examples which would expose his ideas to scrutiny. Third, he argues that the good that comes from Keynesian spending compensates investors and entrepreneurs for the costs. Fourth, he ignores the misallocation of human capital and the long term social consequences of that misallocation – again, because it suits his political agenda. Austrians assert that not only are we misallocating capital and human capital, and not only are we creating perverse incentives and moral hazards like confetti at an italian wedding, and not only are we destroying the civic virtues, but that entrepreneurs and investors are not compensated for the impact upon their planning. (Some even make a purely moral argument which I think is specious on all accounts.) The problem is, as far as I can tell, we cannot produce a mathematical model for an argument either way. I’m sure that we intuit that we are kicking the can down the road and creating bubbles of every possible kind. But I’m not sure that we can argue (yet) that the use of aggregates and all the implied redistribution that the use of aggregates entails, is either good or bad. It’s pretty clear that the conservative (aristocratic classical liberal) social model is being affected. it’s pretty clear that entrepreneurs are being prevented from solving many social problems like education. But these are difficult causal relations to prove. And to many they’re desirable outcomes. Freedom is and always has been the desire of the minority. Everyone else just wants ‘aristotle’s relishes’: to consume without consequence. Curt