Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

1. Peter Norvig: A Concrete Introduction to Probability (using Python)
2. James Gorman: Parrots Think They’re So Smart. Now They’re Bartering Tokens for Food
3. Paul Moses: Tackling the Wrong Problem: "Pope Benedict XVI’s Removal of Bishop William Morris...
4. Weekend Reading: John Maynard Keynes on the "Euthanasia of the Rentier"
5. Rachel Feintzig: Tax Change Helps Executives Afford Pricier Planes: "The recent changes to the tax code are giving business executives a new perk: the opportunity to deduct the entirety of a corporate-jet purchase.... The price of a new or used airplane purchased by a company can be a 100% write-off against its earnings. That is a major change...
6. Robert Farley: The Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships Were Among the Best Ever Built. What If They Never Happened?
7. Erik Berglöf: The Evolution of Globalization: "Around the turn of the century, critics of trade and capital-market liberalization had good reason to worry that emerging and developing economies would fall further behind the developing world. But the opposite happened, and now the world must worry about the trajectory of advanced economies and the fraying of multilateral arrangements...
8. Adair Turner: Japan’s Successful Economic Model by Adair Turner: "Japan’s GDP growth lags most other developed economies, and will likely continue to do so as the population slowly declines. But what matters for human welfare is GDP per capita, and on this front, the country excels...
9. Very, very, very, very smart: Brad Setser: Three Sudden Stops and a Surge: "Fundamentally, the crisis was a crisis of confidence in the health of the balance sheets of the great financial houses of the United States and Europe.... The line between banks and shadow banks was thin, it turned out...
10. Martin Sandbu: Salzburg Changes Nothing: "[May] far from giving up on Chequers, will be prepared to make further concessions on the specifics to gain agreement from the EU27 on the plan’s basic principle.... Britain... will have to sign up to a permanent customs union with the EU in all but name, and accept the full force of European jurisdiction in everything to do with production and trade.... It would be a good deal for the EU for its regulatory authority to be accepted by such a big third country...
11. Tim Duy: Fed Interest-Rate Debate Misses the Bigger Picture: "It’s better to let economic conditions dictate when to pause the monetary tightening process...
12. Olla Cocina: "Downtown San Jose Mexican Restaurant in the historic San Pedro Square...
13. Benjamin Wittes: Brett Kavanaugh Bears the Burden of Proof: "The question isn’t whether he can win confirmation—it’s whether he can defend against the charge he faces in a manner that is both persuasive and honorable...

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