Interesting News

Now for some interesting news and/or sites, after the depressing ones from yesterday:

• A photo essay on American children growing up all too fast in Hollywood by Lauren Greenfield. She's published the entire collection in book form entitled Fast Forward. And while it's specifically about Hollywood, I think it's obvious that the rest of the country is not far behind. Recommended.
• A rather bizarre but interesting anecdote on the economics of driving a taxi, as told by a Chinese taxi driver.
• And since economics run the world, a review of Thomas Friedman's bestseller The World is Flat by Edward Leamer. While I haven't read the entire review yet, and I haven't read any of Friedman's book, here's an interesting snippet from the review:

“Is a computer more like a forklift or more like a microphone?” It doesn’t matter much who drives the forklift, but it matters a lot who sings into the microphone. Think about the forklift first. You might be a lot stronger than I, but with a little bit of training, I can operate a forklift and lift just as much as you or any other forklift operator. Thus the forklift is a force for income equality, eliminating your strength advantage over me. That is decidedly not the case for a microphone. We cannot all operate a microphone with anywhere near the same level of proficiency. Indeed, I venture the guess that I would have to pay you to listen to me sing, not the other way round. And I seriously doubt that a lifetime of training would allow me to compete with Springsteen, or Pavarotti.

The effect of the microphone and mass media have been to allow a single talented entertainer to serve a huge customer base and accordingly to command enormous earnings. This creates an earnings distribution with a few extremely highly paid talented and trained individuals and with the vast group of slightly less talented working in LA restaurants, hoping someday to hit it big. Thus, opposite to the forklift, the microphone creates a powerful force for inequality. Think Silicon Valley, with ext raordinary riches accruing to some, but with the manual service workers living in their cars.

I'm really starting to think I should study more economics, since it does seem to run the world. And statistics too. Plus, I like numbers. But for now I must return to my paper writing...