Huvitavat siit ja sealt - II

Arnold Kling pani kirja parimad raamatud, mis seotud majandusteaduse või teadlastega 2007. aastal, koos väikese kommentaariga. Kuna loen EconLog'i regulaarselt, siis kõik raamatud on tuttavad ja neli neist isegi loetud. Artikli lõpus toodud pod- ja videocastidest olen kuulanud kõiki väljaarvatud ühte, milleni alles jõuan, ja osadele isegi Vabalogis viidanud.

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International Hearld Tribune kirjutab, et tööjõupuudus pole probleem mitte ainult Eestis vaid ka Taanis, kus olukorra teevad veel keerulisemaks kõrged maksud:

The problem, employers and economists believe, has a lot to do with the 63 percent marginal tax rate paid by top earners in Denmark - a level that hits anyone making more than 360,000 Danish kroner, or about $70,000. That same tax rate underpins such effective income redistribution that Denmark is the most nearly equal society in the world, in that wealth is more evenly spread than anywhere else.
. . .
"When you are at 63 percent tax, you don't look forward to the evaluation with the boss to get a raise," Sorensen said. "You look for more vacation or a training course in the tropics - something that you get the full benefit of."

Juttu on ka tagajärgedest, tulevikuprognoosidest ja uute erakondade tekkimisest, mis kõik hakkavad tõenäoliselt Taani poliitikat lähimatel aastatel mõjutama.

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Daniel Drezner toimetas koos Henry Farreliga hiljuti sellise akadeemilise väljaande nagu Public Choice erinumbrit, mis keskendus blogidele ja blogijatele:

• The power and politics of blogs - Farrell, Henry; Drezner, Daniel W.
• Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China - MacKinnon, Rebecca
• Meet the bridgebloggers - Zuckerman, Ethan
• Cross-ideological discussions among conservative and liberal bloggers -Hargittai, Eszter; Gallo, Jason; Kane, Matthew
• Neither Hayek nor Habermas - Sunstein, Cass R.
• What do bloggers do: an average day on an average political blog - McKenna, Laura; Pole, Antoinette
• New competencies in democratic communication? Blogs, agenda setting and political participation - Woodly, Deva
• Blogging and political information: truth or truthiness? - Munger, Michael C.

Kui kellelgi on huvi mõne konkreetse artikli vastu, kuid puudub ligipääs andmebaasidele, siis võin üritada aidata - lihtsalt võtke ühendust.

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Brian Appleyar küsib The Times'is "Why don't we love science fiction?":

The big problem with being sniffy about SF is that it’s just too important to ignore. After all, what kind of fool would refuse to be seen reading Borges’s Labyrinths, Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco, Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World or Wells’s War of the Worlds just because they were SF? These are just good books, irrespective of genre. But they are also books that embody the big ideas of the time – both Wells and Lem were obsessed with human insignificance in the face of the immense otherness of the universe, Huxley with technology as a seductive destroyer and Orwell with our capacity for authoritarian evil. Borges, like Lem, suspects we know nothing of ourselves. Interested in these things? Of course you are. Read SF.

Kuna mul on kalduvus just ideedest vaimustuda, siis on ulmekirjandus koos enda suurejooneliste visioonidega suht südamelähedane ja osade inimeste SF põlglikkus minu jaoks paljuski arusaamatu.

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J. Bradford Delong jagab enda mõtteid McCraw Schumpeter'i biograafiast ning võtab päris ülevaatlikult kokku ka Schumpeteri mõned olulisemad seisukohad:

Schumpeter, like his contemporary Karl Polanyi, feared for the long-term survival of capitalism. Bureaucrats and ideologues threatened by creative destruction would resist it. The challenge for the government in managing the market thus becomes not just the Adam Smithian task of securing property rights, enforcing contracts, and providing civil order, but also the tremendously difficult job of managing the creative destruction so that capitalism does not undermine and destroy itself for essentially political reasons. Schumpeter did not think the beast could be managed, because democracy is hostile to great inequalities, and socialism even more so.

Selle postituse alguses oli juttu Klingi 2007. aasta parimate raamatute nimekirjast. Schumpeteri biograafia leiab seal samuti mainimist ja omalt poolt võin kinnitada, et tegu on huvitav teosega, mis annab põhjaliku ülevaate mehest ja tema loomingust. Soovitan.

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