Davos Newbies

Ed Leamer’s review of Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat, in the Journal of Economic Literature, provides a wonderful review of economic geography and trade theory, while making it clear just how bumpy the world really is. I’ve been largely unsuccessful explaining to a number of friends why Friedman’s latest makes my blood pressure rise, but now I have something wonderful to point to (via Marginal Revolution).

Physically, culturally, and economically the world is not flat. Never has been, never will be. There may be vast flat plains inhabited by indistinguishable hoi polloi doing mundane tasks, but there will also be hills and mountains from which the favored will look down on the masses. Our most important gifts to our offspring are firm footholds on those hills and mountains, far from the flat part of the competitive landscape. Living in the United States helps a lot, and will continue to. Though personal pleasure is our real goal, as a byproduct, we provide our children highly loaded dice to roll at the genetic craps table. Beyond the all-important luck of the draw, it takes the kind of education that releases rather than constrains their natural talent. We send our children to good private schools and then on to UCLA. The rest is up to them.

Leamer’s 55-page review has far more content than Friedman’s easily digested 608 pages. It takes serious concentration to read, but it’s well worth the effort. I wish, however, the editor had blue-pencilled the cutesy opening two pages. One cutesy paragraph, good, two pages, too much.

Phew. There are many, many things I love about Italy, but I’ve put my Italophilia in the closet during the Berlusconi years. Romano Prodi’s narrow victory doesn’t promise the much-needed change, but at least the country’s leader won’t be a constant embarrassment.

Dan Gillmor: “Keller’s statement also reflects one of journalism’s most egregious modern tendencies: uncritical regurgitation of what people say instead of deeper truth-telling. When we get ‘both sides’ of issues where one side is essentially (or wholly) telling the truth and the other is not — and then fail to say so in plain words — we betray our principles and insult our communities.”

Michael Wynne: “Having had a couple hours to ponder it, I can’t help but wonder if part of the defense strategy is to suggest Jeff Skilling is partly delusional. I wasn’t sure as I watched him today why he was still trying to sell the company, referring to ‘powerful’ systems and saying ‘we never looked back,’ claiming at one point he had control programs in place that were ahead of their time and ahead of Sarbanes-Oxley. An interesting attempt to turn the sequence on its head. What we’re seeing is a very aggressive attempt to rewrite history. You want someone to shake him and remind him that Enron was a failure.”

Wynne is part of the team providing a legal commentary blog on the Enron trial for the Houston Chronicle. I’ve read the Enron coverage in all the usual suspects (New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal) and I have to declare: accept no substitutes. The local paper’s blogs put everyone else to shame. It’s clear why Blue Plate Special ranked the Chronicle the number one blogging paper in the US.