Weekend reading

I read a lot, and I think you may enjoy reading these:

  1. Stuff your agenda, and you will lose time. Leave space to breathe.
  2. The Big Four accounting firms: “too few to fail, but definitely failing investors
  3. The Russian mafia are growing in America, often with help from Trump and his cronies
  4. Some options for privatization in Saudi Arabia [pdf] discusses water, oil, etc.
  5. How to Build a Smart City (an insightful podcast)
  6. Rich kids do better on the marshmallow test because their homes are calmer
  7. I watched “Downsizing,” a Matt Damon movie who’s plot revolves around some subtle discussions of sustainability and community. Recommended.
  8. Tech-culture: Customer feedback is worthless and longing for community 
  9. The decline of the Fourth Estate (reporters too lazy to check sources or find stories)
  10. Logic is hard.
  11. These villagers have kept their hand pumps working, with local rules of use

H/T to ED

The end of the beginning

So I’ve been thinking of changing my blogging style, to be a bit more strident, a bit more aggressive, a bit more useful to people who want it straight.

It’s with this feeling in mind that I bought this URL a few years ago. My original plan was to write a book, one chapter at a time, on this blog. Each chapter was going to deal with a basic topic (taxes, children, etc.) and discuss the obvious and/or important insights that economics has on that topic.

The title of this blog refers to an old story of President Harry Truman demanding to talk with a one-handed economist… because all the other economists kept saying “one the one hand you can do this, on the other, you can do that…” So my goal here is to give you opinions that are strong but useful, insightful (perhaps) but clear.

I thought that I would do 12 chapters in 12 months, with lots of input from you readers, but then I changed my mind about the schedule (not the need for input!) and decided to take the process a little more slowly, first because what’s the hurry, and second because I’m not really sure what the chapters would be, and I’d prefer to get some ideas from you.

I’ve got a lot more to say (this is only the end of the beginning — there’s a long way yet to go!), but that’s where I am at the moment. Oh — one more thing: I am going to really avoid “going social” with this blog, so I won’t be using twitter, etc. to promote it. Instead, I am hoping to make it a destination worthy of your time, something that you “pull” towards yourself rather than have “pushed” into your inbox, feed or stream.

So let’s step out of the stream, come ashore and relax to think a bit.