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.