- A month-old, well done portrait of Ben Bernanke in the NewYorker, on the background of the financial crisis, in both white and black shades, and...in light-tan socks :-).
- Intercontinental flights are also occasions to watch on-the-watch!-list movies you didn't watch yet: in my latest I finally saw Woody Allen's-- already (in)famous -- "Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona" (IMDb, RottenTomatoes). My verdict: the movie is excellent (my favourite from Woody Allen remains however Sweet and Lowdown), with some of the dialogues between the main characters simply brilliant. In particular, I think Javier Bardem should have also gotten (the movie did get one) the Golden Globe (though I have to confess that I have not seen yet 'In Bruges', with the winner at this category, Farrell-- hence this assessment is simply using my biased priors). Bardem's role in this movie, Juan Antonio, is a perfect maximizer of instantaneous utility, has a close-to-infinite temporal discounting factor and, needless to say, I also share with him, though so far with less practical success, the more ex/rotic principles :-).
- Email your future self in T years, where 0.25 less than T less than 29 (constraints as of now/ for now). Check for instance if your current principles are time invariant... or simply wish yourself "Happy Birthday" for when you're likely to be alone and grumpy :-). PS. Make sure the email address you provide will actually survive those T years...
- With the occasion of my San Francisco & surroundings trip, after my ASSA conference, I also gave a seminar at UC Merced, a very new UC university, on my (older) co-authored paper "Returns to tenure or seniority?" (download the latest draft; a new version will be available soon); get also the actual presentation from Merced, for any of you interested. The Econ group at UC Merced is very small still, but I had a great time interacting with each of them, and some really interesting comments. Many thanks to Alex, Katie, Shawn, Todd and Justin-- with very special thanks to Alex for the invitation and organizing everything! My only regret: did not manage to make it this time to Yosemite, despite its being very close to Merced! Next time, there will obviously be a next time...
- A statistician's (short) point of view on program evaluation, with a concrete story and references behind it.
- Hal Varian deconfusing the confused on the right type of necessary economic stimulus.
4 comments:
I didn't see "Vicky Cristina, Barcelona" - but I will - I saw "In Bruges" but I don't really have a strong opinion about the Golden Globe award for the best actor in a comedy. "In Bruges" was absolutely great, time well spent:)
But what about the best actor in a Drama category? I only saw "Milk", "The Wrestler" ans "Frost/Nixon" and Mickey Rourke definitely deserved the prise among these 3. I am just puzzled why Darren Aronofsky wasn't even nominated for the best director spot. I hope he'll get a shot at the Oscars because if Mickey Rourke came out so good in the movie it was in great part because of good directing. "Frost/Nixon" was also very good, but I don't think it will be on the Oscar nominations list, a Golden Globes nomination is a fair reward.
Now that you mention this, there's an interesting contrast between actors who always play well and you know that even if the movie is rather dull their role will be just perfectly played (among the mentioned ones, Bardem falls here; I have 5 names or so on such a list, next to Bardem) and actors that typically play dull even in interesting movies, except for very rare occasions (Rourke falls here), though those rare occasions might be worth Globes or Oscars indeed, plus, from an economics point of view, the Rourke-types should indeed get the Globes/Oscars in those very rare situations since the others will have chances and will be basically nominated, all the time :-) (I would put Farrell somewhere in the middle on that axis, though I think he is clearly improving)
PS. Still have to see most of those movies nominated for the Globes (and potentially Oscar-winners as well). E.g., I will see 'Burn after reading' these days for instance, I procrastinated watching it since I saw just the beginning and found it very very good, so my expectations are so high, that I need to find the perfect timing for me to watch it :-).
OK, I saw "Vicky Cristina, Barcelona". A delightful moment, but I couldn't make out much of it's finale. It may be that there's nothing much to make out of it:) Javier Bardem plays greatly a guy who is a maximiser of instantaneous utility, like you say, but he's such a bad maximiser in the short/medium term and even that doesn't require that much effort in his situation - speaking of the scene when Cristina is leaving him and his ex-wife towards the end, with a simple effort they guy could have completely turned the situation, Cristina was maturing and he didn't even see that coming, which justifies his ex-wife calling him an intellectually infant. Like I said, overall it was a delightful moment, but when comparing it with "In Bruges", Colin Farell stands well on his feet for the Golden Globe he was awarded. Highly recommended, it goes without saying, but not only for Farell's performance (actually it might become rather secondary after getting impregnated with the atmosphere and surrealism of the movie).
Impressive that you hold 'In Bruges' so high, now I am curious :-). RottenTomatoes ranks it very high (81%), but so does with Woody Allen's movie in context, with basically the same grade (82%), so I will get to make the difference then :-).
Now on the other thing: as I said, I don't think the movie is necessary fabulous, though I like it a lot, I said more about the acting. All of the main four, but Juan Antonio and Vicky in particular, are brilliant characters. But that being said, your particular point is not also something I agree with, since I do not believe that was/ought to be in any way the purpose of the/any instantaneous utility maximizer, to think of medium or long-term welfare. Concretely thus, I do not think he needed to do anything about Cristina deciding that was not what she wanted (plus, he does care about her, and her welfare then, you see; there is more than his own utility at play, obviously the guy is not just unscrupulously 'macho', so to speak, which is also why I think his character is brilliant and why not, succesful...).
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