Author: Curt Doolittle

http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/2011/11/linda-beale-says-inequality-is-a-fact/

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/03/141971007/cuba-legalizes-purchase-sale-of-private-propertyHell froze over.

http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/2011/11/profit-is-not-a-motivator-its-a-sensation/

The 0.17%. The exact percentage of US Taxpayers that made more than $1M in 2009 income taxes. With 140M taxpayers, that’s 2.4M people who made $1M or more, and 66M people who didn’t pay any income taxes at all.

Nerd Fact Of The Day: how much does an ebook weigh? Using Einstein’s E=mc² formula, which states that energy and mass are directly related, Prof Kubiatowicz calculated that filling a 4GB Kindle to its storage limit would increase its weight by a billionth of a billionth of a gram, or 0.000000000000000001g. — From tyler cowen’s marginal revolution.

Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times writes about her frustration that the ‘Best Dressed Lists’ actually contain the ‘most influential people’, not the best dressed. See Is Kate Middleton best-dressed or best-addressed?

So anyone want to join me in a campaign to change “Best Dressed List” to “Fashion’s Most Influential”? It would unquestionably bring some rationalism to the choices — though then again, rationalism has never exactly been high on the fashion hot list.

Of course. Fashion, cars and houses, as well as manners, posture, body language, and vocabulary are forms of signaling. Pretty is a commodity. Visit any campus. But alpha status is rare, and humans imitate alphas so that they can enhance their own status. The most popular posts I have ever written were on fashion. One declaring tattoos out of fashion in the middle class, the other declaring the northwest hiking ‘look’ out of fashion. I should write a fashion and relationship blog. I’d get far more readers. It would be trivially easy to write (because fashion is signaling – and signaling is economics). So why do I spend my time on Political Economy? I don’t know. Masochism. No other rational reason.

http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/2011/11/fashion-is-signaling-of-course-best-dressed-means-most-influential-not-most-beautiful/Is the Princess The Best Dressed? Of course. Because it’s not the clothes it’s the influence.

There is no increase in inequality. There is a change in the composition of households. Data is data is data. The change is caused by changes in who marries who, women in the workforce, devolution of the family, and immigration. It is what it is. So can we stop this ridiculous conversation now?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/german-shepherd-saved/story?id=14835907

Positive news from Karl:

“Non-residential fixed investment is on fire. Equipment and Software is burning it up at a 17% growth rate. Indeed, non-residential fixed investment contributed almost as much to growth as did consumption. Not grew at the same rate as consumption, but the absolute increase in business investment was almost as great as the absolute increase in consumption.”

“An open question is how long this blistering level of Business Investment can keep going. It’s a little crazy at this point. We are still below normal on capacity utilization. Real retail sales have yet to make new highs.”