Great Link: A Podcast on the Morality of Gun Control

(New favorite image lifted from the web for my blog.) 
 

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It is clearly wrong to take someone's gun away as they are about to be murdered?  You are violating that person's right to self defense? Essentially you are complicit in that person's murder?  Correct?

Jeff McMahan (on the Philosophy Bites Podcast) argues that "self defense" is not a fundamental right, rather, "personal security" is a fundamental right and private gun ownership violates this right. 
http://philosophybites.com/2013/02/jeff-mcmahan-on-gun-control.html

Just look at the statistics people!
The U.S., with 4.5 percent of the world population, accounts for about 40 percent of the planet's civilian firearms, said Dr. Garen Wintemute, of the University of California, Davis, Medical Center.

I have not been writing lately (a lot of grading at the end of the spring semester this year), but as I ramp up my own writing I wanted to start posting again.  So I am starting slow, with a link, but a good one! 


*** To my valued readers: I have not been writing lately (a lot of grading at the end of the spring semester this year), but as I ramp up my own writing I wanted to start posting again.  So I am starting slow, with a link, but a very good one! The following is about a great episode from this past February of one of my favorite online shows. 

Philosophy Bites is a great podcast! Simple and short (usually about 15 minutes) on topics from current cultural processes all the way to philosophy's biggest questions.  I highly recommend a listen to a couple episodes.  I have found that the episodes often stimulate new lines of thought / perspectives in my own thinking.   The debt I feel from the free stimulation I have received leads me to link to them today.

Congratulations to Fellow UMass Economist(s)

Thomas Herndon is getting a lot of attention for his critical replication paper, that attacks the data / methods of a paper by Harvard's Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. 

 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html

Those of us (and this includes most of my readers I imagine) who find policy implications based on econometric analysis in single papers are not terribly surprised to find errors in papers such as Reinhart and Rogoff's.  That said, it is rare that the mainstream is forced to listen to our critiques. That coupled with the fact that Thomas' work has significant implications for austerity programs and governments the world over, this is a major achievement!
Well done and congrats Tom!

A Large Writing Project for This Year. Detroit, Fallen Cities and the US Macro Economy.

I have finally begin to "ink" some ideas that I have for a large writing project this summer.
These preliminary ideas have a long way to go and I would happily receive comments thoughts from my readers.

My work will be threefold.

1. I will need to write a summary of the coinciding economic histories of the city of Detroit (housing patterns, taxes, etc.) and the corporations that dominate the auto industry (mostly GM, but also Ford and Chrysler) as they relate to Wayne county Michigan.  Numbers such as populations, employment numbers, etc. This is essentially to establish statistical correlation between these corporations and the county that houses them.  This will be an important aspect as it will (hopefully) numerically demonstrate how the people involved and the enterprises symbiotically both built and destroyed a major urban area.  Included will be analysis of both the corporations, but also public services etc. offered by local governments to their employees. 

2. I plan to update the Marxian conception of the corporation.  The generation of surplus labor takes place not only within the settings of the corporate environment, but also within a certain geographic area. I hope to contribute to the Marxist corporate literature from this perspective.  Topics such as type of labor available, as well as surplus generating policies of the enterprise need to be updated to discuss the relationship with the communities in which the enterprises are contained.  Surplus is generated by real people and they have to exist within a geographic area, this dynamic is not adequately discussed in Marxian economics or geography.  This section will also include an analysis of labor relations, relative bargaining power of the workers of these companies over time, union actions, etc.  Basically wage/labor relations history stuff, but in the context of these things affecting both the enterprise and the community (something new as far as I know>)

3. Finally, and this is vague still...I want to be able to say something meaningful about municipal policy, certainly as it relates to "fallen" cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Holyoke, etc. and how they should attempt to use the resources/factories that they have to stimulate recovery (with or without the gentrification pattern that is being followed in many American cities), but also, the future of other American urban areas that rely upon manufacturing today, as well as possibly some contributions on positives/negatives to the broader idea of the moving away from "real" production into the service sector that the American macro economy as a whole has experienced.

Comments very welcome!

Finally...have we started to move past the need for sleep?

I have not been writing for a while. 
In an attempt to get (my sleep deprived) brain working again I am starting slow tonight, with a simple link.
This article discusses two new stimulant drugs that in trial seem to allow the brain to function normally without sleep. 
Is it possible that we won't have to waste hours a day in the fight against capitalist exploitation for much longer?
Not addressed are all the health and psychological benefits of a night of slumber. but .....still...steps in the right direction. 

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/jessa-gamble-life-without-sleep/