The Financial Times
is one of the great pleasures of journalism. Well written, entertaining, informative, it
is the exact opposite of anything put out in print or broadcast media by Fox
News or its parent, the News Corporation.
A great feature is its Saturday lunch interview with a notable person.
Recently the subject
is Tyler Cowens (who?). Well here is who
he is.
Cowen, 50, is an
economist. He teaches at George
Mason University
(GMU), a few miles away. His research spans monetary policy, the economics of
culture and political philosophy. But he is no stuffy prof. Marginal
Revolution, the blog he writes with colleague Alex Tabarrok, receives about
200,000 views per post. It is replete with pithy observations on German
morality, high-frequency trading, college basketball, Congolese music, Beijing food, Indonesian
traffic jockeys, and so on; so long as there is a market at work.
AAGHH!!
200,000 views per post. This forum on a good day gets about 500
views. As to why Mr. Cowens get a lot of
viewers, here is his views on politics, which incredibly makes a fair amount of
sense. And the conclusion, the "empty set" is dead on.
What does he look for
in a candidate? “What I would like to vote for is a candidate that is socially
liberal, a fiscal conservative, broadly libertarian with a small ‘l’ but
sensible and pragmatic and with a chance of winning. That’s more or less the
empty set.”
But this being The Dismal Political Economist Forum
we must have one serious complaint with Mr. Cowens, who is actually far more
conservative than the above passage would indicate. He prides himself on spending money wisely,
but there is this.
You’re
not susceptible to a $30,000 watch, I say. “This watch cost about $60 and works
just fine. Part of the thing about being an infovore is spending your money
more effectively.”
$60.00 for a watch, you have got to be kidding. A reliable watch can be had for less than
$15.00. No real economists who purports
to spend money wisely spends $60.00 on a watch.
Get with the program Tyler .
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