Performance enhancing substances

Yesterday came out a report to the Comissioner of Baseball on drug taking in the Major League. It claims that the use of steroids is widespread and the major stars are involved. That is sad news but at least we know for sure they're doped, unlike in other sports where we can just extrapolate.

Anyway, the point is that if drugs enhance your performance, you are cheating by taking them since you are artificially making yourself a better player. And then I thought about musicians. They take a lot of drugs: pot, cocaine, crystal meth, heroine etc... Does this make them any better? I mean, could Bob Marley ever have had so much emotions in his voice without being so damn high? Could Brad Nowell (Sublime) ever have written Pool Shark without taking heroine? What about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin or Kurt Kobain? Would have Eminem ever created the Slim Shady without the Detroit shit?

So are these artists cheating by taking drugs? I mean, it certainly enhances their performance and inspiration.

We're better off with good music, why couldn't we better off with better sports?

Some links

Here is a New York Times view on Italy

Here amazing 3-dimensional audio experiences...be sure you have your headphones with you!

The Wealth of Nations

In Geneva, bus ticket machines don’t give change back. People having to buy a 3 CHF ticket have to put in a 5 CHF and therefore lose 2 CHF if they don’t want to risk a 100 CHF fine.
However, the city transport agency also sells debit cards with 11 tickets for the price of ten. Most people don’t bother. Others saw an opportunity to make money.

They wait by the machine with cards and a bag of change. When you arrive short of change, they sell you the ticket at its regular price (3 CHF) and give you change. They make 3 CHF per 11 tickets sold (and even more when they cumulate fidelity points and other free tickets).

It surprises me that some people do not see it as a win-win situation. While we get change, they make money. This is what Adam Smith had in mind when he said that, “by pursuing his own interest [a merchant …] promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it". It’s the principle of commerce. Furthermore, this process generates value: the surplus earned by the entrepreneurs would not exist if not for this business. Also, we avoid to redistribute money to the transport agency. This is how entrepreneurs make countries richer.

Who is Carbon Competitive?

This is the kind of question we will probably listen more and more in the future, according to Juan Delgado, researcher at Bruegel. In his latest Policy Brief, Why Europe is not Carbon Competitive, he analyzes the Carbon Content of EU's export basket (the content of CO2 per unit of export) to find that Europe is relatively more specialized in sectors with a medium to high level of emissions, compared to US and China.
Where does this result come from? Europe has a lower share of export in services and research intensive goods, compared to what happens in the US and Japan. Within Europe we find of course a quite diversified picture: UK, Norway and Ireland, for example, specialize more in technology goods, while Finland (paper), France (chemicals), Germany (metal products) export more carbon intensive products.
On average though, the performance is quite biased, and only India and Russia (among the big players worldwide) are less carbon competitive than Europe.
If Europe wants to still to lead the fight for Climate Change, now has a major global goal to achieve: ensure that all the key players (the US especially) of the world participate symmetrically into a global scheme to reduce CO2 emissions. Let's see what kind of deal comes out of Bali at the end of this week.

If Ricardo had been a rapper...

Everyone in society can benefit from trade
#5 is a reminder that we shouldn’t let hope fade
Just use what you’ve got to produce your best
The money that you make will buy the rest

This is just one part of some nice rhymes I found on the freakonomics blog. They even rhyme about the Philips curve! I posted it below:

And by the way, freakonomics is gonna be made a documentary.

If Ricardo had been a rapper - the song

How to learn economics!

Note: easyJet boarding

Actually, group B is now the last group to board easyJet flights. When I wrote on Nov 29th that you could be group C or D, I was refering to a now defunct policy. The new boarding system is no better, though. Cheerio.

One million Zimbabwe dollar beer in Harare

Obama

Looking for inspiration on how to achieve global prosperity, I was surfing on the Center for Global Development website. I came upon this note explaining Obama’s strategy and commitment to international development. I agree with all his ideas: double U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion; invest in agriculture and infrastructure; establish a $2 billion global education fund; launch a global energy and environment initiative; lead reform of the IMF and World Bank; and coordinate U.S. foreign assistance, including the MCA and PEPFAR, in a restructured U.S. Agency for International Development. Ok, these are idealistic and seem impossible to achieve but still, he believes in an interconnected world where poor countries need to grow and he seems like he wants to take action. He does not appear as a rotten opportunistic politician as Hillary is.
Anyway, she will be the next American President and world leader, and the fact that she is a woman will have great impacts. So the best thing that could happen is that she selects Obama as the Secretary of State.

Mathematics

What is more crap? Crap times infinity or crap to the power of infinity?

Muslim immigrants

Esther Duflo wrote on Vox that Muslims immigrants were assimilating (identify themselves as British) as much as other immigrants in England and that they had the same core values (freedom of speech, freedom of thoughts, freedom of religion, right to be treated fairly and equally, right to free education etc…).
So if religion does not explain neither assimilation nor core values, Huntington is wrong about the clash of civilisation, claiming that Muslims’ values are not compatible with Westerns ones.
It is Western society’s racist reactions that cause the fuss, not the values of Muslims immigrants.