Davos Newbies

I figured out why I was so dissatisfied with The Undercover Economist.

Harford treats everything in economics as a solved trivial problem. Trying to incorporate the costs of pollution in a transportation policy? Dealing with externalities will make it simple. Want to prove that free trade is best? It’s obvious. Sweatshops on your conscience? Fuggadaboutit.

Now, I agree with just about all of Harford’s conclusions. But he makes economics seem pretty pallid when there are no debates or ideas left to wrestle with. I’m hoping to find more nuance and engagement with the latest book on my shelf, Thomas Schelling’s Choice and Consequence.

Tom Friedman really needs to check his facts.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s Financial Times:

This month, for instance, the audio version of The World is Flat became the top-selling podcast album on Apple’s iTunes audio downloading site, says the author.

“That got me enormous juice with my teenage daughters. But what’s really interesting is that when I started this book in March 2004, podcasting didn’t exist.

“And what’s even more interesting to me is: who invented podcasting? No­body. It was an application that just emerged from the network.”

Um, no. If Friedman just looks at his often-cited Wikipedia, he’ll find that there are inventors of podcasting. Sadly typical of Tom’s fast and furious approach to things. I like the critique the FT’s own Martin Wolf had of The World is Flat: “A bad, good book.”

Update I wrote a letter to the editor of the FT about this distortion:

Sir,

You quote Tom Friedman saying, “Who invented podcasting? Nobody. It was an application that just emerged from the network.”

If Friedman looked at the Wikipedia, which he admiringly cites in the same interview, he’d see that podcasting does have inventors. Credit should be given to Dave Winer and Adam Curry.

Networks are wonderful things, but inventions don’t just spontaneously emerge.

Dave Winer has also commented: “Analogously, who wrote Tom Friedman’s latest book? No one, it just popped off the printing press.”

One of the many benefits of living in such a hotbed of left-wing politics is that a lot of childhood memories are being jarred.

At my children’s school, they do a lot of singing and this morning my ten-year old was singing the song they just learned this morning. I hope it’s a sufficient antidote to Star Wars Battlefront.