Nevadans as Hobos

In the comments of a Paul Krugman blogpost, Ireland = Nevada, a Joseph OShaughnessy offers this interesting comparison between Ireland and Nevada.

Ireland

The Irish are a homogeneous, well educated society. They have lived where they live, give or take 100 miles, likely for at least 500 [more like at least 1000-5000 years].

Nevada

The Nevadans are, by and large, uneducated vagabonds. Their medical system is almost non-existent and where it exists, it should be banned. The oldest and most established citizens are themselves transients.

The US Government - As Described By Paul Krugman

The basic picture of the federal government you should have in mind is that it’s essentially a huge insurance company with an army...

Paul Krugman in Fiscal Fantasies
post on his Blog

Zombie Economics and Other Undead Ideas

Zombie Economics is a forthcoming book by John Quiggin. In introducing his book and the concept of the undead ideas, he writes:

Ideas are long-lived. They often outlive their originators, and, even when they have proved themselves wrong and dangerous, they are very hard to kill.

I would like to see other books on zombie ideas infesting politics and philosophy.

I got this link from Paul Krugman. Brains... Brains...

Atheists and Libertarians

Just like there are no atheists in foxholes there are no libertarians in financial crises.

Paul Krugman on Real Time with Bill Maher

Why God Hates US Republicans

Here (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4 and pt5) is series of blog entries built around the concept that god hates Republicans and or the people who vote for them. This showed up on a Paul Krugman blog post about this chart. The consensus was that God may or may not hate US Republicans but US Republicans hate everyone except the rich.

Depressing Malthusian Predictions

There are some American "economic conservatives" who believe the concept of limits, limits to growth, limits to population, limits to economic growth, limits to energy use as some sort of treason to doctrine the growth is always good and possible. It has often pointed out that Malthus was wrong because after his prediction was the industrial revolution the great increase in population and massive increases in standards of living the world over. However the growth of industrial revolution and our growth now has been underwritten by the fossils fuels of coal and oil. This suggests Malthus was mainly right.

Here is blogpost by Paul Krugman and discussion about our Malthusian problem. Here also is a report from an energy newsletter that gives historical figures for oil consumption. Makes unhappy reading.

Intersteller Trade

Here is an examination of the problems of interstellar trade and the related problems of the relativistic effects of going faster than the speed of light. This paper was done by an economist named Paul Krugman.