Archive for 22 May 2008
Pensées de l’Alsace
| Randy Westgren |
Sorry to carry no intellectual weight tonight. One day remains of a 14-day whirlwind tour of the EU with 24 students of business, international studies, and agriculture. No student has had as much as 4 hours of sleep any night this week and I am in awe of their willingness to throw themselves into long days of travel and company visits. I am beat. Much of my day was spent translating between English and French, between US weights and measures and EU metrics (including such oddballs as quintals and hectolitres), and between currencies. Luckily, there was beer.
In honor of Peter Klein’s francophilia, I note the following from our second day outside Strasbourg.
(1) Cousin Naomi’s book has been translated as La Stratégie de Choc and sells as a trade paperback for 25 euros. It is not flying off the shelves. Evidently, there aren’t enough intellectuals in Europe’s second capital to make a sale.
(2) Not that polemics aren’t big press here. I bought Le Monde Selon Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin. Evidently (on first read) Monsanto is behind the dioxin poisoning in Belgium, agent orange use, hormones in beef, and lost biodiversity in Mexico. Complete crap, but worthy of two hours on national TV earlier this year. Something for Naomi Klein to aspire to.
(3) We dined at a restaurant in the beautiful village of Obernai tonight. The specialty of the house is choucroutte (sauerkraut) served in a 2 kilo pile topped with 4 kilos of sausages, meatballs, pork chops and belly slices. What sweet revenge on the sour, self-absorbed vegetarian in the group (add emoticon here)! Magnificent food!
Bonne nuit.
New Kauffman Entrepreneurship Blog
| Peter Klein |
The Kauffman Foundation’s Tim Kane and Bob Litan have a new blog, Growthology, focusing on the links between entrepreneurship and economic growth. Early posts focus on Schumpeter and Jane Jacobs, a good sign.
Reflecting on blogs’ advantages over traditional media, Kane notes the critical role of disaggregation. “A better way to think of this is personalized aggregation, something that can be done digitally with ease. . . . What is under siege is the business of mass-market aggregated news. I do not know if it can survive, but I do know that -– as a blogger -– I have its ink on my hands.” Amen to that.
Best Seminar Title You’ll Read Today
| Peter Klein |
It’s “Manure Entrepreneurs: Turning Brown to Green,” the theme for today’s Breimyer Seminar here at the University of Missouri. I promise, it won’t be just the same old . . . you know.
Incidentally, the seminar series is named for Harold F. Breimyer, a prominent agricultural economist of the last century. A friend described him to me this way:
He was an original New Deal agricultural economist who was absolutely and positively convinced of the inability of farmers and ranchers to compete without government because of their “obvious” lack of market power. His main issue was who will “control” agriculture. This conviction was so deep-seated that he could not appreciate or comprehend other perspectives. We corresponded in the late 1970s and it was as if we were from different planets. Promoting free-market agriculture, I was to him either a fool or a tool, or both.
Great Moments in Laziness
| Peter Klein |
Some people are calculator nerds. For the lazy nerd, however, the real action is in remote controls. Did you know the first commercially available TV remote came out in 1950? Check out this history of the remote, and don’t miss the slideshow.
But, really, how much fun is channel surfing with only four channels?
Organizations and Markets 
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