Real Estate Prices and the Problem of Averaging

Paul Krugman in No Bubble Trouble? writes on housing prices and the recent study that said, on average, Americans still spend a lower percentage of income on housing than at times in the past:

"Last summer I suggested that when discussing housing, we should think of America as two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone.

In Flatland [most of the country], there's plenty of room to build houses, so house prices mainly reflect the cost of construction. As a result, Flatland is pretty much immune to housing bubbles. And in Flatland, houses have, if anything, become easier to afford since 2000 because of falling interest rates.

In the Zoned Zone [Northeast coast, West Coast, etc.] , by contrast, buildable lots are scarce, and house prices mainly reflect the price of these lots rather than the cost of construction. As a result, house prices in the Zoned Zone are much less tied down by economic fundamentals than prices in Flatland."

His point is that discussion of averages misleads. It's a reminder useful not only in discussing housing, but in other areas of national debate.

Pursuit of Happiness, the Puritans, and Pragmatists

I posted earlier on two NYTimes oped columns which shared themes: happiness does not result from self-analysis, but from acting and being concerned with outside goals; and cited philosophers. I think there's a parallel there with the Puritans. Certainly they were concerned with analyzing the state of their soul to determine whether God had decided they were saints. But regardless of their belief in predestination, they acted and believed in action. Someone who was able to act as if he or she were saved was a better bet than someone who was palsied with indecision or who acted perversely. This whole analysis also fits William James, the philosopher of pragmatism.

Symmetrical Opponents and Freedom of Speech

I've run across the observation that opponents often become symmetrical. For example, in the NBA if your main opponent adds a good big man, you'll feel compelled to follow suit. In football, if the Giants get a tight end like Shockey(sp?), the Redskins need a big athletic safety to cover him. The same applies in the economy. In the 50's the big 3 automakers each felt compelled to have complete lines of cars--whatever GM did Ford and Chrysler were bound to follow. The same dynamic operates in international politics, as witness this quote taken from today's Post:

Justice Dept. Investigating Leak of NSA Wiretapping: "But Duffy reiterated earlier statements by Bush, who had sharply condemned the disclosure of the NSA program and argued that it seriously damaged national security.

'The fact is that al Qaeda's playbook is not printed on Page One, and when America's is, it has serious ramifications,' Duffy said, reading from prepared remarks. 'You don't need to be Sun Tzu to understand that,' he added, referring to the ancient Chinese general who wrote 'The Art of War.'

The argument is valid--see the examples from sports. But it's also invalid, because it logically leads to our becoming like al Qaeda. It's also too tempting to decide based on tightly limited considerations. Take the long view--which is more attractive: a society committed to violence and nurtured in secrecy or a society committed to open government and ambivalent about using violence? It's like saying the Detroit Pistons can't win the NBA because their center is undersized.

Why No Ethnic Restaurants in Israel?

David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy today observes in a parenthesis:

"[Right now there are NO Ethiopian restaurants in the entire country, except a derelict takeout place for foreign workers, despite the presence of over 100,000 Ethiopian Jews Oddly, in Israel 'ethnic food' is considered something one eats at home, while to go out Israelis tend to favor routine Israeli food: humus/falefal/schwarma, dairy, shipudim ('skewers'), and schnitzel, plus hamburgers and pasta. What a crime that in a country with immigrants from over 100 countries that so few nations' cuisines are represented on the restaurant scene, especially since the Jewish cuisines of those countries were often unique! Someone send (ethnic food maven and occasional VC contributor) Tyler Cowen over there to straighten things out."

Given that in the U.S. one of the first areas for advancement of immigrants is the opening of a restaurant, this indeed seems mysterious. (Even in Britain, based on the Brit TV I watch it seems that immigrants focus on restaurant.) Does this difference result from different attitudes towards food in the mainstream culture in each country (Bernstein's implication), from the economy (does Israel have fewer restaurants per capita because per person income is lower), from religion (presumably religious Jews can't eat out on the Sabbath--reducing potential clientele-days, or am I showing ignorance), from security (restaurants get bombed) or what?

The Pursuit of Happiness, via NYTimes

Two of today's NYTimes opeds (not NYTimes Select) deal with happiness, and lean on old philosophers for their answers:

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right: "What can we do to improve ourselves and feel happier? Numerous social psychological studies have confirmed Aristotle's observation that 'We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.' If we are dissatisfied with some aspect of our lives, one of the best approaches is to act more like the person we want to be, rather than sitting around analyzing ourselves."
In Pursuit of Unhappiness: "'Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so,' Mill concluded after recovering from a serious bout of depression. Rather than resign himself to gloom, however, Mill vowed instead to look for happiness in another way.

'Those only are happy,' he came to believe, 'who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.' For our own culture, steeped as it is in the relentless pursuit of personal pleasure and endless cheer, that message is worth heeding."

Definition of a Bureaucrat

MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: "Some of the common signs of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder include:

* Perfectionism
* Inflexibility
* Preoccupation with details, rules, and lists
* Reluctance to allow others to do things
* Excessive devotion to work
* Restricted expression of affection
* Lack of generosity
* Inability to throw things away, even if there is no value in the object"

Girls Get Guts from Globalization III

My third instance of a similar theme is from a post by Major Bateman on Alter's blog on MSNBC.com, Baghdad Holidays III - Altercation - MSNBC.com. The major is in Iraq:

"As you know, we have been supplying a boy’s and a girl’s Elementary School, as well as a Boy’s High School. After the delivery last week we found the High School for the girls. I faced a decision at that point: Expand the program and initiate supply delivery to the girls’ High School… or face rebellion and possible execution at the hands of the female officers and NCOs from this command.

These women are armed, and appeared quite serious. Discretion, as they say, is oft the better part of valor."

The interesting bit is the interplay between the major's female soldiers and the females at the girls' school. It's two cultures meeting. (It's also, to someone who was in the Army 65-7, amazing.)

Girls Get Guts from Globalization II

The second example, Muslim Women in Europe Claim Rights and Keep Faith , isn't as neat, but the NY Times finds:

"a quiet revolution spreading among young European Muslim women, a generation that claims the same rights as its Western counterparts, without renouncing Islamic values.

For many, the key difference is education, an option often denied their poor, immigrant mothers and grandmothers. These young women are studying law, medicine and anthropology, and now form a majority in many Islamic studies courses, traditionally the world of men. They are getting jobs in social work, business and media, and are more prone to use their new independence to divorce."

There's a description of efforts by such women to reinterpret Muslim teachings to be more friendly to women and the modern world

Girls Get Guts from Globalization I

Ran across three items with similar themes: women being freed by contact with the bigger world. The first is in a Wash Post article--Facing Servitude, Ethiopian Girls Run for a Better Life:

"Professional running in Ethiopia was long dominated by men, and the country has produced some of the world's best male distance runners. The legendary Haile Gebrselassie, 33, has broken 17 world records and won two Olympic gold medals. But in the last decade, determined female runners like Meseret Defar, 22, have also begun winning Olympic medals, world championship races and marathons. Today, according to an Ethiopian sports magazine, seven of the 10 top-earning athletes in Ethiopia are women.

Inspired by these new national heroines, Tesdale and thousands of other girls have left their villages and come to the capital, living with relatives in hardscrabble neighborhoods, training on their own and dreaming of being able to compete."

Ethiopia is a male chauvinist society, with the women doing the heavy lifting of water and wood. Even the women who don't find money from running get a measure of hope.

Anarchy and Rules

The NY Times has an article, When Scholarship and Politics Collided at Yale ,on an anarchist professor at Yale, who's involved in a controversy over tenure. One sentence struck a nerve:

"He was by many accounts a prolific writer and popular teacher. Although he sometimes came late, his classes were crowded."

Lateness for meetings drives me nuts. It's disrespectful to others; particularly for the leader of a meeting it's saying that your time is more important than those to whom you're talking. If your audience feels that way, it gets you off on the wrong foot. All in all, it's no way to make railroads run on time. Perhaps in this case the professor justified his lateness to himself by saying he was asserting the power of the individual over that of the institution (that's the way it might have been said in the 60's). And so it would be a symbol of his anarchism, the belief that people can come together without having coordinating authority.

The other thing that drove me nuts was setting a meeting for 8 and having people trickle in late or holding conversations in the back (in the case of large meetings). So I set a "Harshaw rule"--the meeting would start on time and I would start talking at 8. The rule worked. First it put me on record so I made sure to start on time. Second, it made the attendees settle in more promptly.

The lesson for anarchists is that some rules are necessary. Historically, standard timekeeping rode into town on the cowcatcher of the locomotives of the railroads--you can't run a railroad without having a standard time. You can't run a large university without scheduled classes--the professor can't start late and run over without making students late for other classes. Even if you believe in "mobbing", you can't coordinate a demonstration without giving a location and and a time.

The recurring mystery is how you reconcile the need for rules and the need for freedom.