Braving the streets amid sniper fire to offer last rites to the dying, the priest, Fr. Luis Padillo encountered a wounded soldier, who pulled himself up by clinging to the priest’s cassock, as bullets chewed up the concrete around them. The last rites are the last prayers and ministrations meant to prepare the dying person’s soul for death.
This photo won the World Press Photo of the Year in 1962 taken by Héctor Rondón Lovera in Venezeula.
After returning from a private mission to North Korea, Eric Schmidt says he sternly warned North Korean officials that their country risks falling further behind economically without a connection to the global internet, but didn’t elaborate much further on the trip. Schmidt’s daughter Sophie was also with the delegation, and in a lengthy Google Sites post titled “It might not get weirder than this,” she describes a trip full of “highly staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments.”
The only thing that stays with you longer than the memories of Catholic School is the overwhelming sense of guilt.
— Jon Stewart, recommending a new slogan for FOX News (via politicalprof)
As I bought the book What’s the Use of Economics? Teaching the Dismal Science after the Crisis. I sent the editor Diane Coyle a note to say it was now in my rucksack.
“I will be interested to know what you think” came the reply. Having now found my way through this book I understand why.
Edited by Diane Coyle, the book is written by an array of esteemed and respected economists. It makes the point in no uncertain terms that economics currently taught and practised is out of step and out of time with the world we live in today — a non-linear world. As David Colander wrote, To understand the economy, an economist must understand how complex nonlinear systems of heterogeneous agents operate so that he is not overly impressed by simple linear dynamic models.
As leaked on Hacker News, someone did a view of the search engine giant’s North Carolina data center on Google Maps and was amazed at what they found: Stormtroopers. (via Google’s Data Center Security Uses Stormtroopers To Protect Droids)
“But it is the responsibility of our President to use America’s greatest power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”
The quote above is from Mitt Romney’s speech on foreign policy—foreign platitudes?—at the Virginia Military Institute yesterday….
Dave Grohl announced today that The Foo Fighters were going on an indefinite hiatus. RIP Foo Fighters! You were the best (the best the best the best).
Too bad. Wish they performed in Manila before going on a hiatus.
The country’s growth strategy focuses on promoting trade and investment, ensuring macroeconomic stability, strengthening institutions, and churning out human resources that meet the demands of public and private employers, with the end goal of ensuring ‘equitable growth.’ We’ve more or less followed this framework regardless of who’s in power or which political party is more popular. The debate merely centers on how big a role the state should play: should we regulate energy, water, media, education and other supposedly ‘vital’ industries, or should we let the private sector police itself? Do government-run corporations have a place in our society? Is it right to take out expensive loans to expand conditional subsidies to the poor? And so on.
There’s nothing completely wrong with this approach. After all, there’s powerful evidence on the role of trade, macroeconomic stability, infrastructure, institutions and social services in growth and prosperity. However, as economic historian Joel Mokyr (2010) suggests:
It is never enough to have clever ideas to liberate an economy from an equilibrium of poverty. But it is equally true that unless technology is changing, alternative sources of growth such as capital accumulation or improved allocations of resources (due, for instance, to improved institutions such as law and order and a more commerce-friendly environment) will ineluctably run into diminishing returns.
History is replete with evidence of the power of innovation: the industrial revolution in the West and the (ongoing) Asian economic miracle easily come to mind. Unfortunately, technical change, or innovation, or S&T (regardless of how you put it) is a key ingredient to growth that the Philippines has not fully explored or maximized. This is awkward considering that our East Asian neighbors have leveraged innovation for growth so effectively. Clearly, the country needs a strategy to promote an innovative, entrepreneurial culture – one that is anchored on science and puts a premium on originality and constant improvement of existing tools and technology.
Technically, the government has an innovation program called Filipinnovation, which was introduced by Gloria Arroyo and adopted by the current president, Benigno Aquino III. However, it is a mere footnote to the main agenda of ‘equitable growth:’ a euphemism for income redistribution. If history is any guide, science, technology and innovation should be the centerpiece, not a footnote, of the country’s growth strategy.
Amando M. Tetangco Jr. isn’t a janitor. Far from it. He’s the highly respected central bank governor of the Philippines and one of Asia’s most-watched policy makers.
Yet spend an hour with Tetangco and it sure does seem like his job is to hold a giant mop. What he’s cleaning up is all the money flooding his way from Washington, Tokyo and Frankfurt. And it’s proving quite a feat not only for Tetangco in Manila, but for his peers throughout Asia.
…The Philippines will receive a disproportionate amount of the largess created by the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan and European Central Bank. At 4 percent, the country’s short-term rates are at an all-time low. Yet they are higher than peers like Malaysia and Thailand. Also, the Philippines is widely expected to be awarded an investment-grade rating in the near future. Investors may see its debt as a great chance to register a quick profit.
(Source: bloomberg.com)
After returning from a private mission to...
This cat understands how I feel about going back to work for the first time in a week.
This will be probably the best 40 minutes of your day. It straight up wrecked me and still does. And it will probably wreck you too.
Space Shuttle Photo of the Day: In case you missed it this weekend, space shuttle Endeavour took a stroll through the streets of...
I spent a Saturday afternoon at a nice, quiet coffee...
