One of my heroes, Milton Friedman, has died at 94. He was a great social scientist, a brilliant popularizer and polemicist, and a mensch. His intellectual influence, on both scholarly economics and the revival of classical liberalism, can hardly be overstated. And, more than any other single person, we can thank him for ending the scourges of the 1970s: inflation and the draft.
Remarkably respectful NYT obit here. (They probably lifted the Bernanke quote from this column of mine.) Detailed Financial Times obit here.
UPDATE: In a special Economic Scene column, Austan Goolsbee recounts the reaction to Friedman's death, and life, at the University of Chicago: "What struck me as I talked with my colleagues yesterday was how Mr. Friedman's legacy among economists is in some ways similar but in some ways quite different from the public view. His manner of research, his personality, even the topics he studied spawned a great deal of the economics we know today — even among economists whose politics differ greatly from his. A striking number of topics he worked on, for example, ultimately developed into other people's Nobel awards"
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 16, 2006 • Comments
"There's something painfully ironic about Trent Lott being named 'minority whip,'" says Robert A. George. "Brain dead bastards!" says a commenter.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 15, 2006 • Comments
Certified Democrat Jacob Weisberg explains.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 09, 2006 • Comments
In an interestingly timed Texas Monthly feature, Paul Burka profiles Robert Gates's tenure as president of Texas A&M.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 09, 2006 • Comments
This LAT feature on the newly prominent aesthetics of roofs is even more timely In light of Microsoft's Virtual Earth--a direct attack on Google Earth and indirect attack on Mac users.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 08, 2006 • Comments
How about a loophole-closing, rate-flattening 1986-style tax reform from the new Congress? It would be a lobbyist nightmare, and a repudiation of the Clinton administration's zillions of tax credits for good behavior (extended by the Bushies). But if I squint really hard I can see it happening. Charles Schumer is talking the right way: "I don't think we want taxes to move higher at all; the kinds of things we're talking about easily funded about rearranging federal priorities making sure that some of the shelters are closed -- the offshore shelters and things like that. But the Democrats are against increasing taxes. We want to become more fiscally responsible." Not that I actually think this is anything other than Election Day spin.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 08, 2006 • Comments
Victoria Murphy Barret of Forbes writes about why startups these days are picking names with missing vowels (e.g. Pluggd, Flickr)--a fad that will give the survivors a nice vintage feel in five or 10 years. Next up: why so many startups with Zen-inspired z-names (Zubio, Zafu, etc.).
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 08, 2006 • Comments
Glenn Reynolds is praising the Pajamas Media election coverage: "In particular, I thought the marriage of cheap digital cameras that shoot good video -- all the PJ video, except for my clip, was done with this inexpensive Canon Powershot -- with lots of people having access to YouTube really worked out well."
I'm sure he's right, for people who can't get enough talking heads. Personally, I hated the PJM election coverage, because I don't want to have to watch video online. I want to read, and PJM offered way too little written material. But with the right technology, video is much easier to provide--especially if you don't care about shaky-cam production.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 08, 2006 • Comments
Party labels matter most when voters know little to nothing about the candidates as individuals--not in hot Senate races like Webb versus Allen but in obscure judicial elections where only lawyers and their friends really know anything about the candidates. I don't vote in judicial elections, but a lot of people do. And in Dallas County, where an R used to guarantee a judgeship, the Democrats swept the judicial races and picked up the district attorney's post and county executive.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 08, 2006 • Comments
Seen in the London Underground. It's hard to tell in this small version (click here for a larger picture), but the red one is an ordinary pocket knife--not something anyone but airport security usually considers a weapon. A schoolboy won an award for designing the campaign poster.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2006 • Comments
