Traveling

See my brief post here.
Tomorrow is a much shorter travel day, so may have energy to blog. (If not exhausted by catching up on the hundreds of blog posts in Google Reader.)

Quick Hit on Housing

Joel Achenbach tells the story of a Dale City townhouse, built in 1972, which soared in "value" to $250K, the owner refinanced through Countrywide, and now is in foreclosure, trying to sell for <$100K. Toward the end there's a mention of "thousands" of empty houses as an explanation of why it can't be rented. The surplus of houses means either builders overbuilt as part of the bubble and/or households evaporated as people moved back to their native country [my idee fixe]. Truth is, both probably happened, along with more people living with parents--fewer households being formed. Anyhow, Joel's piece is good, as most of his stuff is.

The Bush We Know and Love: No Academic Economists

Via Politico, a ABC has a quote from the Thursday [corrected] meeting:

"Bush isn't impressed.[by 192 economists opposing the plan] ‘I don't care what somebody on some college campus says,’ Bush says. Instead, he says he trusts Hank Paulson, who, he says, has more than 35 years of experience and access to more information than those academics on Shelby's list."

Advice for Bureaucrats

Nice piece here
I wonder if the bailout meetings have any attendees who read this?

Slower Blogging?

Sometimes one's personal life takes precedence over blogging. Beginning Sunday my cousin and I start a genealogical trip for 2 weeks, so I likely will be blogging less here and perhaps more at Harshaw Family.

Academics Versu Bureaucrats

Technically, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke are bureaucrats. Their concept is getting battered by academic economists. Greg Mankiw has been on both sides, now back at Harvard. His opinion, go with the bureaucrat if they're comfortable.

That's my opinion too, based on no economics knowledge but my history in the bureaucracy. Of course, that's also why I backed the Iraq war initially. Sometimes bureaucrats are right, sometimes they have tunnel vision. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

ON Anger

John Phipps has turned against the Paulson bailout plan. He sees it as doomed because of anger at inequality, the resentment of financiers getting big bucks, then being rescued.

For some reason my thoughts turned to the late 60's, when some inner-city blacks were very angry, angry enough to riot and burn down their neighborhoods.

Treat Your Employees Like Dogs

At the cost of forever blowing any reputation I might have as a boss, let me point to this post on Amazon daily, about 10 rules on dealing with dogs. (After each rule the writer explains and amplifies.) Naturally, I thought of employees:

1. A dog is a dog
2. All dogs think in terms of packs
3. Dogs don't understand English
4. Dogs are not spiteful
5. What makes some dogs aggressive
6. Body language is a dogs primary mode of communication
   
7. You can teach an old dog new tricks
8. Bad behaviors may be natural, but they don't have to be normal
9. What is the right way to discipline a dog
10. Do dogs sense the world differently than humans

Her bottom line is essentially: put yourself in the dog's paws and look at the world through the dog's eyes in order to know how to deal with it. Good advice for people, too. Advice usually ignored by the politicians and the public when they deal with their employees--the bureaucrats, who seem to be less than dogs.

More on Obama's Transparency

Nextgov has a piece on Obama's management proposals focusing on transparency, getting reactions from the consultant/contractor community, mostly cautious and somewhat dubious, although one guy obviously saw the most recent polls.

Funny Stuff from Desperate Partisans

One reliable feature of the political season is that people on both sides will get carried away and say the dumbest things. As a Dem, I'll naturally notice the dumb things on the right. This one particularly stands out:

Via Powerline, Tony Blankley says: "[Obama] lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers" (as part of an argument of sinister, or at least unexplored connections between the two). Both were in NYC, according to wikipedia, Obama as a student at Columbia, Ayers wasn't at Columbia, as one might think, but at the Bank Street College, getting an M.Ed. (Ayers went to Columbia apparently after Obama graduated.)

So there's no institutional link between the two during the time they both lived in NYC. And a simple check of wikipedia reveals that NYC has 27,000 people per square mile. Put Obama at the center of a circle with a radius of .25 miles and he has roughly that many people in his neighborhood.