World Bank on Understanding Climate Uncertainty
08 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
by Judith Curry
The impact of climate change looms large as a deep uncertainty with global consequences. – Khalra et al.
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‘I literally saw a naked baby standing in a pool of water’: Eleven observations from a contract manufacturer in China
03 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
Main reason company puts in expats in poor countries is they can trust them to expose mischief
I know I’m belaboring these now, but I’m learning a lot from all the people writing in to add points and arguments to my Myth of the Ethical Shopper article. Here’s one from Glen, a project manager at a contract manufacturer in Shenzhen:
Awareness is the first step, and this article does an excellent job of pointing out that contract manufacturing will always result in unfair labor practices. The smaller companies are the biggest offenders because their order sizes don’t warrant the attention of “golden factories”. Not that Apple and Wal-Mart are good examples, but their manufacturing is some of the cleanest out there… After working for a contract manufacturer in China for several years, I can give you a quick glimpse of how it looks in China in relation to this article:
1) Wal-Mart gets caught with unfair labor practices > people protest > Policy reform
These reforms are…
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Corbynistas prefer denouncing critics to engaging with criticism – David Hirsh
28 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
This piece by David Hirsh is in the Jerusalem Post and on Jpost.com
Jeremy Corbyn looks like he might win the contest for the leadership of the Labour Party in the UK, making him Labour’s candidate for prime minister at the next general election. Corbyn is very English in manner; softly spoken, self-effacing, a kind of left-wing Hugh Grant but without the charm. Unlike his losing predecessor Ed Miliband, he will never appear “too clever by half” but neither does he have anything of the blue collar about him.
He’s like the guy who assigns allotments for the local council; and he can’t be bought.
His rhetoric centers on opposing what he calls “austerity” and he is surfing a growing wave of radical energy and excitement.
This is in one sense surprising because he seems to be very austere in his personal life.
Nobody suspected Corbyn of over-claiming his expenses…
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Creative destruction in digital cameras
28 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
Kodak's first prototype digital camera, 1975 http://t.co/pcHfjKxZiS—
Classic Pics (@classicepics) August 22, 2015
The Great Fact simply stated
23 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
“The only people much better off than $3 [a day]…"—@DeirdreMcClosk. See how far we've come: buff.ly/1Bbh5N6 http://t.co/H1W0VGbI8D—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) June 12, 2015
The Incredible Shifting Model
23 Aug 2015 1 Comment
Robert Tetlow has published a fascinating research paper in the International Journal of Central Banking on policy robustness with the Fed’s FRB/US model. Perhaps the most important part of the paper is his careful documentation of the enormous shifts in the coefficients and the equations of FRB/US over time. This chart from the paper illustrates these shifts. The solid black line plots changes in the estimated sacrifice ratio of unemployment to changes in inflation implied by the model over 64 vintages.
Given these large shifts in the model it is not surprising that monetary policy rules calculated with the model shift over time. This is why robustness studies are so important.
A typical robustness study looks at different models. It takes policy rules that work well in one model and tries them out in other models. If the rules also work well in other models, then the rules are considered…
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How big is Uber
23 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
CHART: How Big is Uber vs. Legacy Taxis? VERY, VERY BIG nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html… http://t.co/gz0vXPZDip—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 22, 2015
via Summer of Uber: Everything you need to know about the upstart ride-sharing service.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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