compulsory reading, media

Marcel Reich-Ranicki is pretty cool, indeed.

There was a time, when one of Germany’s most interesting tv shows was one about books. The show was called “The Literary Quartet” (“Das literarische Quartett”) and its impressario was Marcel Reich-Ranicki, allegedly the most important contemporary critic of German literature (wikipedia entry in English).

Yesterday, he attended the the German television awards (“Deutscher Fernsehpreis”), where he was supposed to be honored for his livetime achievements. But then, on stage, he refused to accept the award because of (my translation) all the bollocks we have seen here today.”

The apparently shocked presenter, Thomas Gottschalk, offered Reich-Ranicki a programme in which he could talk to the heads of German broadcasters about the quality of their programmes, which seemed to placate the laureate and apparently led him to later accept the price out of politeness.

Stefan Niggemeier, a media journalist, has more about this (in German) and notices that Reich-Ranicki probably had a point that goes beyond the quality of television programmes – MRR will Fernsehquatschpreis nicht.

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Economics, finance

Yes, Prime Minister?

More Krugman – Moment of Truth – NYTimes.com.

“Let’s talk about where we are right now.

The current crisis started with a burst housing bubble, which led to widespread mortgage defaults, and hence to large losses at many financial institutions. That initial shock was compounded by secondary effects, as lack of capital forced banks to pull back, leading to further declines in the prices of assets, leading to more losses, and so on — a vicious circle of “deleveraging.” Pervasive loss of trust in banks, including on the part of other banks, reinforced the vicious circle.

The downward spiral accelerated post-Lehman. Money markets, already troubled, effectively shut down — one line currently making the rounds is that the only things anyone wants to buy right now are Treasury bills and bottled water.

…

The response to this downward spiral on the part of the world’s two great monetary powers — the United States, on one side, and the 15 nations that use the euro, on the other — has been woefully inadequate.

What should be done? The United States and Europe should just say “Yes, prime minister.” The British plan isn’t perfect, but there’s widespread agreement among economists that it offers by far the best available template for a broader rescue effort.”

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Economics, finance

For every DOWnside, there’s an upside.

With the DJIA falling below 9000 points today, it’s reassuring to know that, right?
Paul Krugman, in his Blog at the NY Times reminds us that

“[o]n a separate note, one good thing is that there haven’t been any reports of people on Wall Street jumping out of windows. That’s because the windows in modern office buildings don’t open.

He’s had a busy day commenting, find the rest here. Including a link to a 38-page pdf-file full of recommendations from economists to policy makers ahead of the upcoming summit season. It’s been published by voxeu, edited by Barry Eichengreen and Richard Baldwin and it’s aptly called “Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis“. Let’s hope some of the people representing out jobs and savings at these talks will actually read it.

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Economics, finance, US Politics, USA

Paul Krugman agrees…

in the NYTimes after the US House of Representatives voted “no” on the Wall Street bailout plan. He’s right of course, that “flip-flopping” on issues like this in the way it happened isn’t exactly a sign of a well functioning representative democracy. On the other hand, it’s also true that this vote is a sign that Congress still matters, even if it needed a figure with 11 zeros to balk at the administration. So, does that make the US a Banana Republic as Krugman argues? I think the decision on that is still out – after all, the bailout plan would/will have distributive consequences that would have/will make made the US income structure even more reminiscent of a classic Banana Republic.


Paul Krugman – OK, we are a banana republic

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oddly enough, US Politics, USA

Sarah Palin is simply scary.

You know, back in 2000, I said that Americans were so confident in their way of doing things that they actually believed they could afford someone like the current President to be in charge. Now, a couple of years later, they may no longer be too confident about the situation they find themselves in, militarily, diplmatically, economically, and politically. But in a move that illustrates to a scary degree the extent of polarisation of the American electorate, John McCain picked his Vice Presidential candidate according to the simple rules of electoral maths, and we’re now facing the possibility of a President Sarah Palin. And that would probably be when we’d all begin to fondly remember the days of President Bush. If there’s anything the choice of Mrs Palin, just as the Congressional hearings regarding the imminent 700bn bank-bailout, indicate, it is that US politics seems to have become completely dysfunctional now.

Here’s Sarah Palin making that point to CBS news anchor Katie Couric. It would funny, if weren’t so sad and scary.

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australia, battleofthesexes, demography

OZmating

Spiegel Online (German) apparently followed up on the “ugly duckling” Mont Isa, Queensland, story I recently wrote about and comes up with some interesting figures regarding the Australian gender balance. When I was told by an Australian friend late last year that “there are hardly any good men in Sydney these days” I did not think she was talking statistics. But it turns out she was. Apparently, the borough of Annandale is the best place for men to meet women in Sydney, as there are 1.48 of them for each male inhabitant. Unfortunately, they did not add age brackets to the raw numbers, which would have added some more interesting information. The problem is only slightly less pronounced in most other parts of Sydney and other coastal areas in Australia.

In general, the article explains, there are more women living in the coastal cities, and more men in the Outback – like in Mount Isa, or in Glenden, where there are apparently 23 men for every woman. It’s a geographic imbalance exacerbated by the economic boom in raw materials (which is driving men to mostly male mining cities in the Outback) that is adding to Australia’s apparent overall lack of about 100,000 men, most of whom are apparently working abroad nowadays.

Given such an imbalance  – 100.000 is significant for a population of only 21m – one has to wonder what keeps driving Australian men abroad and Australian women from rural areas to the Australian coast.

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Datenschutz, privacy

Google Chrome has a unique ID.

Apparently, just as Google Desktop Search, Google’s new browser, “Chrome”, has a unique ID. That basically means that if you are using chrome with any other Google service, like GMail, Google will be able to create a personalised history of browsing. According to Golem.de, Google say they don’t that. But they could. Easily. If you don’t want that, and there are important, very important reasons not to want it, don’t use Google chrome unless Google changes this ID policy. I will only use it locally to ensure cross browser compatibility for my webpages if it gains some non-trivial market-share. Luckily, the layout engine is based on WebKit, so there won’t be too many bad surprises in that respect.

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sex

Ladies, it’s in his arginine-vasopressine.

Looks like Carrie Bradshaw will lose her job pretty soon. If this research (article from Sueddeutsche.de in German) from the Swedish Karolinska Institut is indeed correct, Ms Bradshaw will no longer need to write advice columns about the mysteries of the alleged male unwillingness to couple up. Instead, in the last installment of her column, she will tell her female readership to take their men and have his genome processed to see if there’s a gene that will allow the production of sufficient levels of arginine-vasopressine. If not, then, with all due scepticism, it is suggested by the research, he may not be too big a fan of monogamy. Although, depending on the culture of your choice, he may still be inclined to marry – even 86 times, like this Nigerian man did, who has apparently been ordered to divorce 82 of his wives by a sharia court…

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