Krugman on Climate Change Economics

Great, but long, article from the NY Times Magazine about the economics of dealing with climate change by Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman. It includes a very nice primer on negative externalities, and the idea of putting a price on behavior that negatively effects others. I will be teaching my Micro classes about externalities in a few weeks, and plan to make them read this story, but you can read it now RIGHT HERE.

Why Tribute Bands Suck

The Dark Star Orchestra was at the Boulder Theater over the weekend, giving a bunch of young neo-hippies with ridiculous white-guy dreadlocks the chance to pretend they are at a Grateful Dead concert. My question is, even assuming everyone there was on drugs (a pretty good assumption) it still seems like a crazy idea to pay to see a band play songs exactly as another band used to play them. That's not art, it's theft!

The whole "Tribute Band" idea is a complete scam, that allows musicians without enough imagination to create their own music to make a living doing someone else's. If you had real talent, you'd make your own music.

Somehow, people get away with this lame mimicry in the music business. Can you imagine some other art form where people legally make a good living doing other's material? Name a re-make of a classic film that got any respect....and if it did, the director put a new twist on the film. Even better, think of my hobby of comedy. Rodney Dangerfield was hilarious, but is now unfortunately no longer with us. Can you imagine if I put on a white shirt, skinny tie, got some nervous ticks and started saying "I don't get no respect", calling myself a "Rodney Tribute Comic"? Even if I mimicked Rodney perfectly, would that get me booked in clubs around the country? I think not....in fact, I hope not.

Yet tribute bands have national followings, and I'm sure there isn't a city in the country without at least one group of 4 guys, one of whom plays bass left-handed, who are trying to be the Beatles. And here is the absolute dumbest thing: They sell CD's! That's right, people pay good money to buy a CD of a bunch of hacks trying to copy the work of great artists, when they could buy the CD of the real band instead.

I guess P.T. Barnum was right!

Dumbing Down and scoring!

A couple of thoughts on my mind today.

Stephen Colbert had a bit last night about a new version of Scrabble which will allow proper names. Surprisingly, it will not be called "Scrabble for Idiots, Morons, and People who Drool on Themselves". Players of real Scrabble are outraged, as they should be, as this is another sign of the dumbing-down of modern life. I hope the new game has an electronic way to add up the score for the dolts who will play it, since they will likely be unable to add up the score themselves. I imagine my sister will bring this new game to Mom's next Xmas in an effort to finally beat me at Scrabble. Last year she brought "Super-Scrabble", which turned into a financial disaster for her.

If you are interested in brilliance instead of dumbness, then it is time to acquaint yourself with the amazing Lionel Messi. With the world cup coming up this summer, you will find yourself forced to pay some attention to soccer, which means you should know who the world's best player is. There is no doubt it is the deceptive little Argentinian, who plays his club football for Barcelona, and if you weren't an American you would already know him. Yesterday he put up 4 goals against Arsenal, making one of the world's better clubs look like a bunch of amateurs. If you see that Barca or Argentina are on TV, you've got to see Messi tieing defenders in knots. And, for those of us who have to lie about being tall, the fact that he is only 5 foot 5 makes it even better.

Speaking of scoring, Tiger Woods will tee off tomorrow for the first time since we all found out that he was playing more than 18 holes every day. While clearly Tiger has been naughty, lets remember that he is just a golfer. Tiger never claimed to be a bastion of morals, marital fidelity, or anything other than outstanding golf. It's not like he's a politician who ran on moral values, or a religious leader caught with a harem of young boys. He's just an athlete. His transgressions were against his family. Maybe we think less of him, but at this point we would have to be fools to think that athletes are anything but flawed people, just like the rest of us. As far as we know, he hasn't cheated at golf......unless, the suddenly spoken rumors about Tiger and performance enhancing drugs turn out to be true. I actually began to wonder about this about 2 years ago, when I realized how big his upper body has gotten. Nobody ever mentioned his Barry Bonds-like muscle gain until he got caught cheating on his wife. Now, the media have stopped fawning and seem willing to ask that question. Interesting!

Happy Dyngus Day!!!

Happy what now? If you aren't from Buffalo you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Dyngus Day is the inverse of Mardi Gras. As the President of the Chopin Singing Society in Buffalo once explained to me "Mardi Gras is the last blast before the fast. Dyngus Day is the first blast after the fast". In other words, lent is over and we don't have to behave anymore. When I lived in Buffalo, it was a good excuse to drink!

Anyway, there is baseball today, the Yankees have already lost a game, and the sun is shining here, so its a Happy Dyngus Day.

New links!

Happy Easter. I personally find the existence of the Easter bunny as likely as the story this holiday is based on, but enjoy your ham.

I just wanted to point out a few links I have added to the friends list in the past few weeks.

I already had a link to Claire Walter's Culinary CO site, but she also has a another useful blog now called Mile High On The Cheap. Lots of good deals, especially if you have kids. Go visit and sign up for the daily email.

Mike Vasicek, who you can see nearly getting punched out by me in the murder mystery video below, also has what he calls a "two piece latin jazz orchestra" called Blue Mundo.

My friend Zo has a business arranging "humanitourism" trips...trips that combine good works with adventure travel.

Finally, I added a site to a tall thin auctioneer who will be happy to help your organization raise funds.

Check out all the links.

Now, is there anyone who won't be rooting for Butler tomorrow night?

The wrong way to a good end.

Earlier this week, I was listening to last weeks's "This American Life", a story about a joint project between Toyota and GM called NUMMI that was established in California in 1984 to allow both companies to learn from each other. Toyota wanted to learn about how to deal with American workers, and GM wanted to learn how to build cars better and cheaper. Toyota got what they wanted, but GM managed through arrogance, short-sightedness, stupidity, and inertia, to learn nothing. It is a great story, and you can listen to it HERE.

About the time I was listening, President Obama was announcing higher fleet-wide MPG requirements for auto manufacturers. I have always thought that this is is an ass-backwards way to achieve a good goal, that of reducing our use of petroleum products in this country. It struck me that one of the problems with using fleet-wide MPG ratings is that it causes manufacturers to do things they are not good at. In relation to the NUMMI story above, one of the things GM might have gained from Toyota is to learn how to make small cars. They didn't. In fact, all the US car makers are bad at it, and don't make any money on producing small cars, because the people who buy small cars don't trust them.

GM is good at making big cars, SUV's and trucks. They have never liked small cars, never made a good one, and don't sell any. It would make business sense for them to drop this part of their business and specialize in their strength......hell, that's what they taught us in B-school, and I went to Michigan where the auto industry is just down the road. But they can't do that, because they need to sell some small cars in order to meet the fleet requirements. We don't make Dell make mainframe computers, or make ESPN cover the opera, so why make GM make small cars. No one wants to buy them!

What should we do instead? Easy. Tax the hell out of gasoline, like they do in Europe and Japan. That would move us automatically to more fuel-efficient cars, and force manufacturers to compete on that basis. Simple, easy to understand, easy to enforce.

Of course, this kind of sane policy will never happen, because no politician has the guts to vote for a tax on something everyone needs. So instead, we get a backward tax, as the price of cars goes up to achieve the same goals, and we have a convoluted formula that is difficult to understand. And this way, it looks like those evil car companies are being forced to improve their cars to help out us hard working consumers.

Well, as they say in advertising, perception is reality!

Murder Mystery Video

Occasionally I talk about the murder mysteries I perform in. Many of you will never see them (most of you probably don't want to!). The mysteries are interactive, with the actors like me mingling with the audience, dining with them, and allowing them to solve the murders. Usually, there is not a lot of scripted, set action. But the show we just did at the Hotel Boulderado revolved around a "live" radio broadcast. First we rehearsed it, then perform it later (hint: things change!). So, thanks to Kip, we were able to get some video. Here, in 2 parts, is the opening of the show.