Month: November 2008

Technology

Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize

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I was trying to explain “The New Trade Theory” and doing a poor job of it. Fortunately, Krugman does a good job simplifying it here.

The new trade theory starts with the observation that while this explains a lot of world trade, it also misses a lot. France and Germany sell lots of stuff to each other, even though they have similar climates and resources; so do the United States and Canada. What’s that about?
The answer is that there are many goods that aren’t like wheat or bananas, but are instead like wide-bodied jet aircraft. There are only a few places in which wide-bodied jets are produced, because of the enormous economies of scale – you only want a couple of factories worldwide. Those factories have to be somewhere, and those countries that get the factories export jets, while everyone else imports them.

There’s more details in the article.

Politics

Email from Obama

petewareLeave a comment

It’s interesting the campaign sent out email before doing anything:

Peter —

I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don’t want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign — every day you knocked
on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors
about why you believe it’s time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this
campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in
touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing…

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack