Davos Newbies

Andrew Leonard in Salon (subscription or “daily pass” required) explains exactly why blogs are so important to me:

Thoma and Salmon, like DeLong, are prolific bloggers. Line up enough of these pre-processors in your blog aggregator, as I do, and you get the benefit of a bevy of smart people filtering the critical news of the day — and then deconstructing, critiquing and otherwise adding value to that information. What would once have required taking an article from the Wall Street Journal or New York Times or Financial Times into a graduate level seminar and having it taken apart by a professor and a few other bright students is now available, in infinitely greater scope and detail, for free, on every subject of interest to humanity. For my own project here, striving to better understand globalization, the ongoing assembly of rank upon rank of pre-processors on a network of related subjects — the economy, China, India, energy and the environment, and intellectual property — has become a vital part of my daily explorations. In the age of information overload, tweaking your filters is job No. 1.

Ethan Zuckerman is in Harare, grappling with an inflation rate of 1200%.

To review – signs that your economy is in trouble include:

- You can’t use your own money to purchase essential goods and services.
- Critical goods, like petrol, can be purchased by average citizens only if they’re willing to break the law.
- Prices change so fast it’s not worth printing them.
- Your currency includes an expiration date, and may well be worthless before that date.

And it’s probably not good news if you’re brushing your teeth with beer, either.

I remember when Israel was experiencing hyperinflation, the joke was that it was cheaper to take a taxi than a bus. Why? In a bus, you pay when you get on, but in a taxi you pay when you get out.