Two brief thoughts that MLK day inspires about income inequality

(1) Income inequality is still very much a legacy of differences in how government defended the property rights of people from different races.  The US government has been pretty good at defending the property rights of white people for a long time; in the case of other races, not so much.  Even if the government now defended all property rights equally, it would take many generations before differences in wealth across races would disappear.

(2) I have heard business people, to the extent they complain about income inequality, complain about the outrageous incomes earned by athletes and entertainers.  Yet I venture to guess that Lebron James and Beyonce have much higher marginal products than the vast majority business people, including CEOS and investment bankers.  

Hannah Green sends me to Nadeem ul Haque on development in Pakistan

From Radio OpenSource:

Nadeem ul Haque introduced himself with a bit of bluster as Pakistan’s official “growth” strategist, then began blurting out his frustrations. There’s no growth to speak of in Pakistan, he said — less than inflation anyway, and nothing like India’s 8-percent boom. The government he came home to serve in Pakistan is going nowhere. And then the line that spun my head around: “This is the country that can kill the world,” he said. “And your country hasn’t the foggiest idea what you’re doing here. Find a way to educate youth in Pakistan — 90 million under 20 — or don’t sleep at night. You haven’t got enough bullets to kill them… We can do without the Beltway Bandits and even the billions of dollars in what they call aid. What America should be sending Pakistan is C-SPAN and National Public Radio, and then reopen the USIA libraries… What you send is Raymond Davis and Blackwater… Are you out of your …. minds?”

The conversation we recorded a few days later is a slightly tempered version of that first burst at a farewell party in Islamabad for an American aid official. We’re getting Nadeem ul Haque’s heartfelt version of the Post-Colonial Blues. First, fond memories of the British and American cultural centers and mentors in the 1950s and 60s who propelled him to the London School of Economics, the University of Chicago and a career at the World Bank. Second comes the the appalled realization that a new native elite had slipped into the palaces, polo grounds and clubs of the old colonialists with, if anything, less interest in the mass of the population. And third, a rough critique of a distant and disdainful American connection with Pakistan: bullet proof cars for aid workers when they get out of the office at all; “they don’t use our toilet paper,” he says; and nobody, but nobody, knows where the other-than-military money goes.

Making Art

Y'all know that my little guy loves to color, but we've really only painted once (in the backyard with washable paints).  Over the weekend, we headed to Michaels to pick up more supplies (acrylic paints, canvases, and paintbrushes) so we could both get in on the action.  I've never painted before, but I was inspired by Jen of Made by Girl to try to create some of my own art for my office at work.  I have the perfect wall for a large abstract painting above my desk.  I was going to have James make it at first, then I decided to not be scared to try it myself.  "Try it, you'll like it!"- I could also be losing my mind since I'm now hearing Gabba Gabba when I type.

Via Cocoa and Hearts

I doubt Jen's studio looks like ours:)

Yeah, we set up shop in the garage (cold outside!) and worked on the floor.  James stepped on my first piece.  We really need easels.  I started playing around just to get the hang of it a little and when I feel more confident, I'll move on to my big canvas.  I'll be sure to show you when it's finished:)



Have y'all tried painting?  I've seen some great work by Natalie and her son (Designer Bags and Dirty Diapers).  I'd love to see yours if you want to leave me a link in the comments.  Let's have a great week!

Maybe the reason Tim Tebow does option plays...

...is that he is high variance.

My colleague Dowell Myers says, “'Show me your papers' should be replaced with 'Welcome to English class.'”

He has a lovely op-ed in the New York Times:

  

How do we change course and begin treating immigrants as a vast, untapped human resource? The answer goes to the heart of shifting from an immigration policy to an immigrant policy.

For starters, the billions of dollars spent on border enforcement should be gradually redirected to replenishing and boosting the education budget, particularly the Pell grant program for low-income students. Some money could be channeled to nonprofits like ImmigrationWorks and Welcoming America, which are at the forefront of helping migrants assimilate.

Second, the Departments of Labor, Commerce and Education need to play a greater role in immigration policy. Yes, as long as there remains a terrorist threat from abroad, the Department of Homeland Security should have an immigration component. But immigration policy is all about cultivating needed workers. That means helping immigrants and their children graduate from high school and college. It means that no migrant should have to stand in line for an English class. It means assistance in developing migrants’ job skills to better compete in an increasingly information- and knowledge-based economy.

Thanks to our huge foreign-born population (12 percent of the total), America can remain the world’s richest and most powerful nation for decades. Shaping an immigrant policy that focuses on developing the talents of our migrants and their children is the surest way to realize this goal.

New Upholstered Headboard

We'll be having some house guests with us for awhile, and wanted to make them comfortable in our home so we decided to put a king-sized bed in our guest room, as opposed to the uncomfortable old queen bed that's in there now.  Getting a king-sized mattress also called for a new king-sized headboard, so we decided to move our current headboard/footboard into the guest room and get a new one for our master bedroom.  You might recall the styles I had been looking at last year.



I ended up purchasing one through Overstock.com, and it probably won't arrive for a few weeks.  It got great reviews, so I'm really hoping it's nice!

It's the Aisling Cream Fabric King Platform Bed.  I like the nailhead trim detailing and the fact that it's not just the headboard.  

Our current bed (from Z Gallerie) will be heading to the guest room.

I've got lots I'd like to do to transform our bedroom, I'll be sure to show you when the bed arrives!

Chicago: if not back to the city there, then where?

The ASSA meetings were in Chicago this year.  Even though the meetings take place in January, I always look forward to their return there, because I enjoy visiting Chicago more than any other American city.  It helps that my daughter goes to school there, but I also find Chicago's urban landscape to be uniquely appealing.  It is somehow dense without feeling overcrowded, the art and restaurant scenes are remarkable, and the architecture is world renowned.  Few things for me are as life-affirming as a walk down Wacker Drive.

Chicago also has decent transit and, for a beautiful large city, is inexpensive.  The median price of a house in Chicago is around $200,000, and even at the peak, prices remained more or less sane. 

Yet between 2000 and 2010, Chicago shed seven percent of its population.  This was not just because the region in which it sits grew slowly; Cook County outside of Chicago gained slightly, and Lake and Kane Counties grew smartly.  Employment in Cook County has fallen more than 10 percent over the past ten years.

I like cities and I root for them.  Yet even in an era when sprawl has become a pejorative, more people leave some of our most appealing cities than move into them.  I suspect a lot of the problem is school quality, and I give Congress for New Urbanism president John Norquist a lot of credit for recognizing this fact.  But many people like living in detached houses on spacious lots.  In the absence of policy interventions such as higher gasoline prices, I don't see this changing anytime soon.