The economics blogosphere, as listed in several lists of “top blogs” is remarkably monochromatic, and male.
If one types in the words “top economics blogs” into Google, one gets several lists:
I would’ve liked to do a tabulation and present a formal breakdown. However, the day job prevents me from devoting too much time; nonetheless, a cursory examination/count yields the following (unsurprising) insights: (1) minorities are under-represented in the typical list, and (2) females are under-represented — in both cases relative to the general population. I suspect also relative to the population of economists (defined as those who have an economics/public policy degree, or publish on the subject). (A count is hard to do partly because some blogs have many contributors, so my characterizations focus on blogs with 5 or fewer main contributors).
If I look at the Intelligent Economist list, of the 25 blogs in macro+micro, there’s only one woman, and only 1/2 asians (well, 1/2 minorities, total) — and that’s me! Now, academic and policy macro (ex.-open economy macro) has historically been pretty male/white, but this ratio seems (even taking into account small sample issues) a little out of whack.
My rough count for Focus Economics’ list of all 101 blogs (general, macro, financial, etc.) is something on the order of 5 minorities and 4.5 females (I’m dropping Bruegel, OECD, etc., which are many-authored portals).
For me, the interesting question is not why this under-representation occurs (although that surely is of interest, and I have theories), but rather how the composition of bloggers tends to affect the types of debates that occur, and the assumptions that are made and taken for granted as appropriate.
For instance, are minorities and women less sanguine about the ability of prices to clear markets ridden by asymmetric information? Do immigrants view domestic labor and migrant labor more as complements than substitutes?
Some things to ponder as you read through your go-to blogs.
Menzie,
Interesting, and I do not know why. This is certainly not a matter of anybody preventing women and minorities from doing it, in contrast to some other places and situations where women and minorities are underrepresented. I am saying this a white male blogger on Econospeak, which is (or was) on at least one of those lists. I think you are right that there are fewer posts about issues relating to women and minorities in the econoblogosphere than might otherwise be the case if the econobloggers were not so heavily white males. It does not mitigate this much, but in the last week I have posted quite a bit about the racial hullabaloo in Virginia, but then I live there, and it is a pretty big and messy hullabaloo, now also involving sexism as well.
OTOH, beyond the lower discussion of certain topics, I think that if one looks at methodologies and ideologies and even fields aside from issues specifically relating to women and minorities, one sees a pretty broad representation among economics blogs. A wide range of approaches and views are represented, which is a good thing, I guess.
As for what to do about the paucity of women and minority econobloggers, I have no idea what to do about that. Congratulations, Menzie, for being one of the few.
I’d be interested in Deirdre McCloskey’s thoughts on this.
It’s also remarkable that one of the few female econ bloggers (Jodi Beggs) takes a…how shall I put this…decidedly male friendly approach to her website:
http://www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com/
The title of Jodi’s blog is the same as what Dani Rodrik has on his coffee mug – “Economists Do It with Model”. Clever but in the real world actual models date athletes like Tom Brady or billionaires. Short nerdy white guys like me have no chance!
You’re forgetting some economists work for large commercial banks and trade their own accounts. I’m sure some of them do quite well with the ladies. [edited MDC]
I do think this is a worthy topic. And I will be honest and say I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I will say this though. Having a blog, with some rare exceptions for those who can turn it into a monetary operation, takes a hell of a lot of personal initiative. That is if you wanna contribute, say something new, or even produce something that may not be “revolutionary” but is original content it takes some drive. You’re doing a lot of work that doesn’t get paid, you’re going to take criticism from everyone under the sun (including if you do it long enough, even people who generally like you, or your “fans”). At one time I was pretty well steeped in blogs. Some of them I have lost track of at the end of blogging’s “golden years” (which I view as roughly 2007—to the time when things like Instagram became popular) but I would say a lot I still have in my RSS feed, a good 75%. with probably, a good HALF of those economics and finance blogs. I showed one that Tracy Alloway runs for example very recently. She’s a good writer and knows her topic pretty well—mainly the bond market I think. But she posts literally 1 post over a period of multiple months. Why?? I don’t think it’s rocket science she gets paid to write, why is Miss Alloway going to sit around and write for free for schmucks like me wandering around for free content?? She’s going to write for the people who have Bloomberg terminals or get the premium FT subscription, because she is getting PAID for the work and the journalistic credentials bring her deeper access. Many women who would be OUTSTANDING bloggers (yes in economics/finance) are just that—-paid journalists (WSJ, Bloomberg etc). In fact FTAlphaville has some of the better female “bloggers” if you consider being part of “FTAlphaville” “running a blog” Why is that?? It feeds into my theory—women don’t like doing this type thing unless they are being PAID.
Men generally have innate interest in some topics and activities, women generally have innate interest in certain topics and activities. I don’t know why this is so incredibly hard for people to accept in the year 2019. Accepting what is largely a patent fact of life has now become like handing someone a crumpled aluminum can and asking them to eat it. I’m not saying Menzie is wrong to ask the question or ponder it, and I have asked the same question in my head and pondered it myself many times. That being said….. I don’t sit around wondering why more men haven’t written manifestos on how to do crochet doilies. I assume there are some people who want to do it, and some who don’t want to do it (as there are little/low “entrance fees” involved, “abusive bosses” in the hobby, “different prices/wages” for male produced crochet doilies vs female produced crochet doilies or other bullshit excuses to turn something into a sociological argument and melodrama) and move on. Why aren’t more 5 year old girls in Madison Wisconsin and other affluent suburbs signing up for Jiujitsu classes or MMA?? I have no F’ing idea, and just to add an even worse egregious sin to my resume, I really don’t F’ing care. Many American Moms are extremely eager to get their daughters into Olympic gymnastics, and the attention derived therefrom, so there’s always that…… and those mothers are very active and involved in their children’s safety. For example, having their daughter get medical attention from a doctor they have personally vetted and not “contracted out” and assigned by an institution in a money gaming scam. That’s pretty obvious right?? Any mother would do that, as women are better at empathizing than men are—or some people say…… For example, I am a very “cold-hearted” and “sexist” male, and if I was a father with a daughter in gymnastics (which she would be in, due to her own innate personal interest and not me shoving her into it) i would INSIST on a female gynecologist with the proper credentials, along with ALL her doctors being female and that any male gynecologist would be a concrete vehement/emphatic “no go”. As in—-pulling my daughter out of events and if need be, out of the Olympic program. But hey, that’s the kind of “sicko” I am.
I will put a list (if I can remember them all, which I surely won’t) of some of the better female bloggers that I still have in my RSS and maybe a couple random searches. I can think of one right now, she was an Asian lady who was quite good at writing about governmental budgets. But as I remember she quit because she got some paying job. CBO or something, In fairness, she may have wanted to continue blogging but quit for fear of how her new employer would react. And I have seen a fair amount quit (male and female) over worries about how their blog content would be digested by their new employer.
Oh yikes, Moses, I just read your first paragraph in detail. It is full of various wacked out unpleasant nonsense. You really are pretty messed up on these gender issues. Probably just as welll you do not have a daughter apparently.
And just for the record, Madison, Wisxonsin is not a “suburb,” although it is reasonably affluent compared to most other cities. It would be appropriate if you could avoid butchring the language, please, even if you cannot avoid making bizarrely sxist remarks.
https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/frances-woolley/
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com (Yves Smith, a little bit of a bully in her comments section, and extremely opinionated. She has some people help her with the dirty work on her blog, not sure if her blog assistants are female or she chose men to help her. Not tolerant of opposing views in her comments section. That’s her right, it’s still a fact)
http://www.nomiprins.com (very inactive blog, mostly focuses her time on book writing)
https://www.annpettifor.com/2017/04/money-for-nothing/
https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/FooheyAuthor.html
https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/GelpernAuthor.html
(Some of you blathering idiots may not have known, at one time Elizabeth Warren blogged on Credit Slips. Oh to think a “sexist” jerk like me knew that and you didn’t. Oh the anguish!!! The torment and gnashing of teeth!!! Well if he can’t tell the difference between data that is uniformly distributed and a “skewed” distribution, I’m sure BarkleyJunior can find something to get his adult diapers in a bind about with righteous indignation before sunset today. I’m confident of that)
https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/WarrenAuthor.html
Diane Lim was the female Asian blogger I couldn’t remember her name. She’s getting remarried soon so she has dropped her former married name of “Rogers”. Maybe you can find her old posts in “The Wayback Machine”?? https://archive.org/web/ or google cache?? Not sure. It’s a shame her site is now down because she had some great posts and a base of regular readers. This is her Twitter now:
https://twitter.com/economistmom?lang=en
Here’s another example of a girl who used to blog, and now in essence gets paid for it, her current home after her now inactive blog:
https://macromomblog.com
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/claudia-r-sahm.htm
Izabella Kaminska is possibly my favorite female blogger, if you consider writing on FTAlphaville to be “blogging” (a lot of it is salesmanship for FT subscriptions, but it’s still good content)
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/author/Izabella%20Kaminska
Alexandra Skaggs was OK, but sometimes again, some flimsy posts aimed at clicks:
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/author/Alexandra%20Scaggs
Colby Smith:
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/author/Colby%20Smith
They aren’t bloggers, but while I’m thinking about it, I want to mention Janet Currie and Esther Duflo are two female economists I have read and like the writing.
i’m not a Carmen Reinhart fan as they made a large mistake in her co-authored book which “coincidentally” pushed the agenda her and her co-author had, and I viewed it as an intentional mistake to push their political agenda. So, if someone does that in their work I can’t really forgive that. If you consider “Project Syndicate” a blog, she posts about once per month, or maybe less.
When a person just has a site (at least partly for book promotion) and rarely adds their own content to the site and it’s very inactive, it’s really hard to call them a “blogger” and really the term doesn’t apply. However, I am a big Jennifer Taub fan, she has a razor sharp mind and also you can read her research papers, which are probably more regular than her blog posts. Hey, she has a website with her name in the web address, that counts right??? Kinda…??
https://www.jennifertaub.com/perpetualcrisis/blog/
Tracy Alloway again: http://www.tracy-alloway.com
This girl, Annie Lowrey, used to have a blog where she wrote about real estate and home mortgages a lot and I think she writes for “The Atlantic” magazine now
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/annie-lowrey/
There was an East Indian girl (or Persian?? I can’t swear to it either way, but I think East Indian) that used to write about credit derivatives and regulations like FINRA related a lot for Bloomberg, and had a small blog. “Banker”/”dealer” type stuff and rules on counter-parties and derivatives clearinghouses. I been racking my brain for 20 minutes to remember it, but I just can’t recall it, it was a very short name. She was quite good which is why it’s annoying the hell out of me I can’t remember it.
Well folks, this is shorter than I was hoping, but tracking down links isn’t exactly a bowl of cherries and I’m mentally tired today, but I know there’s others that are escaping my mind right now. When I think of them, I will add them to the thread. Some of them were in my Twitter which I don’t use anymore, so that hurts my little search for female bloggers as well. Sorry I came up short today, but I will add more later in this thread.
If anyone thinks they might know that East Indian girl’s name (or Persian, or whatever, there can’t be that many of them that fit that detailed a description I gave above) would you please put it in this thread or even a guess?? She worked at Bloomberg’s website must have been 2008–2009, maybe longer, but I know she was there in that timespan. That’s going to drive me nuts for the next 2 weeks until I can think of it. And I know she had a blog. Just consider it your small contribution to the mental health of America, It was a short name, something like only 2-3 syllables in total.
I FINALLY found it!!!! She doesn’t appear to be active on social media anymore. Her last tweet is about April of 2018. Her name is Nina Mehta, which I’m pretty sure is an Indian name. Her blog site is still up though, but she hasn’t posted in forever. I always thought her writing was really good, so I don’t know what happened:
https://muckrack.com/ninamehta212
https://mehtafiscal.wordpress.com
https://twitter.com/ninamehta212?lang=en
…I will say Cambridge Economist Victoria Bateman has some terrific “contributions” and arguments to make on this Brexit debate. …
It’s the most convincing argument yet that I’ve seen that Brexit is going to leave England doomed. She still hasn’t convinced me. However, under the circumstances, I’m willing to listen to all the arguments Dr. Bateman has to present. Now the question is, for the sake of gender equity and all that is virtuous, upright, (very upright) and just in this world, can we convince Dr. Bateman to do a regular Vlog?? [edited by MDC]
A comment by a fellow mother at a school function captured part of what’s probably going on. She said: “Men have the opportunity to pursue their passions. We don’t.” What she meant was that women providing the physical and emotional labor of keeping the household going means that women typically don’t devote their spare time to extracurricular activities. Socially, they are often expected to create the time for their spouses to do so.
In short, social expectations are probably still having a big effect. (And I speak as a woman who does blog and pursue her passions. Thanks to a supportive husband. But not without costs.)
dsisoko: Thanks for the insight. I think that is at least part of the answer. I have wondered if part of the explanation is also that males are granted extra leeway to be what I call “blowhards”, inclining them to blog more (as opposed to keeping to purely academic discourse). After all, Cliff Clavin was a male character. None of the foregoing explains the under-representation of minorities.
As a fully vetted, enshrined, and dues paid member of the Cliff Claven tribe, I completely resent that remark. I actually prefer the George Costanza analogy. Do you guys need another George??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc_f-0DCGI0
BTW, for those of you who were wondering, “the opposite” strategy really DOES work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_6fZGSOQI
I think as far as minority bloggers are concerned, it’s the same issue Hollywood has at putting black males as the lead, generally it doesn’t sell movie tickets. “Black Panther” is the exception, not the rule. And I can give a good example. Idris Elba. Idris Elba is as good an actor as you will find, he is also (as much as my heterosexual male eyes can decipher it) and extremely handsome guy. So why does he keep getting parts in 2nd tier films and not getting James Bond etc?? It gets down to the fact he’s not going to sell tickets as the lead. I’m not saying that is “right” or “wrong”. I’m speaking/typing that out as a pragmatic hard reality. And if you were investing your dollars in films and choosing stars to cast you would be placing your wagers the same way. Same with Samuel L Jackson. Superb actor. He gets “Leading roles”, but rarely gets the lead alone. You can look at a film like “Black Snake Moan”. A blog generally is not a money making concern, but anyone will want the feeling someone or a “decent audience” is reading the blog.
I’m not sure it’s as bad as you imagine either—I believe most people would put you and james Kwak’s blog somewhere in the top 20 of Economic/Finance blogs—certainly during the 2008 crisis and 5+ years out. Arguably that’s 2 out of the top 20, you got 10%, all you need is one more and I think that actually put over the percent in the population (certainly for Asian, not sure what the % would be inclusive of all minorities).
Quiet, no dissenting or contradicting voices: Cliff Claven has spoken https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKwpkUNNrA
Hm, no it is not, Mose. You are just completely out to lunch onthis one, not for the first time.
The difference is that bloggers are not being selected by some higher authority the way who is the lead in a movie is, much less any such nonexistent selection by others being based on some sort of marketability. Bloggers are self-selecting with how they do or not do really having nothing whatsoever to do with their ethnic or gender background, aside from how they make it a major factor in their posts.
So the argument that women are busy worrying about families, or whatever, and that males tend to be bigger blowhards, are all possible reaons whywe see more males being econobloggers than women. As Menzie notes, these factors do not explain why we have fewer ethnic minorities doing so.
BTW, while I am poking you here, you did a good job presenting list of female econobloggers.
Perhaps it has something to do with the choices women (and minorities?) make: http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/UMenrola.png. We must decide for them!
But I think Menzie’s rumination that …
“For me, the interesting question is not why this under-representation occurs (although that surely is of interest, and I have theories), but rather how the composition of bloggers tends to affect the types of debates that occur, and the assumptions that are made and taken for granted as appropriate.
For instance, are minorities and women less sanguine about the ability of prices to clear markets ridden by asymmetric information? Do immigrants view domestic labor and migrant labor more as complements than substitutes?” is worthy of examination.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/02/17/men-and-women-in-economics-have-different-opinions
Now, the bigger question is given the same data is available to all economists, why such significant differences? Is this a matter of mathematics or opinion?
“Do immigrants view domestic labor and migrant labor more as complements than substitutes?”
Too many unskilled workers are substitutes. Here’s what Paul Krugman says:
“The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.
…modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should — and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.
…we’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/north-of-the-border.html
My comment: We need more high-skilled immigrants and fewer low-skilled immigrants to “absorb” the low-skilled immigrants already here.
I wonder if there are more liberal/socialist bloggers waiting for more tax revenue from working Republicans 🙂
And your remarks are completely irrelevant to this thread, quite aside from being seriously misguided. Are you trying to compete with Moses Herzog, PT, posting stuff irrelevant to threads?
Barkley, your remarks are “completely irrelevant” and “seriously misguided,” which is not surprising for leftists, particularly those left of a San Francisco House Speaker.
What happened to the Democrat party? – Where did it go?
Can it get any crazier?
Crazy? Looks like socialist Californians will be sending close to a half trillion in tax revenue this year to Washington. Over $11K per capita. Whatever happened to freedom?
Where did the “Democrat Party” go, PT? There is no such thing and never has been, so the answer is nowhere.
There is and has been for a long time something called the “Democratic Party” for nearly two centuries now, whose positions on various things has changed over time, such as how to deal with racism in the US, something you have had trouble recognizing here. As it is, PT, it is a sign of somebody being a Republicn Party hack who watches too much Fox News when somebody starts talking about “the Democrst Party,” including Donald J. Trump during his fairly nauseating SOTU.
Grow up, if you can, please. Your ongoing ignorance is reallly quite annoying.
Where did all the thoughtful and rational Democrats go, like JFK, Moynihan, Nunn, Koch, Lieberman, even Bill Clinton, etc..
Jim Webb didn’t have a chance in the last Democrat primary, and the party can’t give Howard Schultz – the Starbucks Democrat – a chance, since the party is dominated by way left wackos.
Not many women, blacks, and Hispanics complete graduate degrees in economics. And, it’s a balanced field with roughly an equal number of people on the left and the right. However, Democrats are politically more active. So, there may be more leftists blogs.
PeakTrader: My observation of PhD programs (as one who’s had opportunity to see three) is plenty of women now attend. Surely plenty of East Asians. I suspect your definition of right and left don’t match with mine; there are very few students in economics departments that believe that we are on the right side of the Laffer curve, for instance. Most would I suspect qualify as leftist in your view.
In other words, you have no idea what you are writing about.
We know that PeakFailure could not even get into a Ph.D. program in economics so his comment is just his usual uninformed nonsense.
When I was going to college (and this was like a zillion years ago) I obviously took a lot of classes in the business administration building on the campus. Even at that time it was thick with Asian students. I do not know but I strongly suspect many of them at least went on to attain their Masters, there or moving up to a better college. I was taking a class with, at that time, the toughest Professor in the Mathematics Dept. It shouldn’t have been that tough a class, but he was the Dean of the Dept and more interested in research studies and other things. I suspect he loathed classroom teaching, and he was a very sharp guy, but a horrendous teacher. This wasn’t that tough a class it was basically prerequisite math for Business majors. Now, let me say I am not sharing this because I am proud, I am sharing this because I am grateful and I owe a debt of gratitude to this person. I never would have gotten out of that class if it wasn’t for a very sharp kid, with a thick accent who worked afternoons as a tutor at that university. He struck me as slightly feminine, and had a super long pinky finger nail (I never asked). He was Vietnamese and he went by the name “Kai” (the vowel part pronounced similar to “pie”). He was an extremely kind person and generous with his time with me. When I wasn’t pestering Kai to help me (nearly continually), he was studying a book with very thick equations in it related to being an insurance actuary and the thick equations involved there. In other words I was continually interrupting him as he was trying to do his own studies. Kai NEVER got short with me, or abrupt, he put the book down and thoroughly (in thick Vietnamese accent, but very kindly answered every question I had). I never would have passed my calculus classes without him. And that’s no exaggeration. I should have ripped off a piece of my Finance degree and sent it to him and written “here’s the part you gave me”. Later on, I found out Kai was an Associate Professor at North Texas University (football fans know them as the “Mean Green”). After that I lost track of Kai, maybe he is still at North Texas. Kai, if you’re out there, wherever, THANKS.
P.S. Kai, I didn’t vote for donald trump.
Awwww, Mose, what a nice story about Kai. Just for the record, there is no such thing as a “Dean of the dept.” nor was there even a zillioin years ago. Deans lead Colleges or Schools. The people who lead departments are either Chairs (“Chairmen” a zillion years ago) or Heads.
And on Madison, WI, it is the central city of its metro area, with Fittchburg and Middleton its immediate suburbs, along with the wealth villages of Shorewood Hills and Maple Bluff, the latter where the governor’s mansion is located and where Oscar Mayer, Jr. used to lieve.
Many of us have a theory about Peaky – he’s a Russian bot pre-programmed to interrupt rational discussions with this kind of irrelevant garbage.
There will be a lot of waiting. Compare the northern and central congressional districts represented by Republicans LaMalfa, McClintock, Nunes and McCarthy with those represented by any socialist in the Bay Area or north coast.
It isn’t pretty. Or even close. And if not for Placer and El Dorado—two wealthy red counties east of Sacramento—the comparison would be downright ugly.
You should compare a Republican city, like Huntington Beach, to Oakland or how run down San Francisco is today.
You’ll discover the true meaning of “ugly.”
Compare Huntington Beach to Oakland? Sure, they’ve always been so much alike. How about comparing Santa Barbara to Bakersfield? Monterry to San Bernardino? Chico to Barstow?
Or, simply compare the congressional districts I mentioned to those represented by socialists. Then get back to me on all that tax revenue that the socialists are envying.
Or just continue being clueless. Like always.
It seems both you and noneconomist have gotten off onto complete irrelevancies here again, PT. Exactly what does the physical appearance of different cities have to do with the question of why there seem to be fewer women and minorities engaging in econoblogging than white men? As it is, poorer areas tend not to be as good looking as richer areas. Huntington Beach’s per capita income is much higher than that in SF or Oakland, so it is not surprising that this beach resort town may look nicer overall, but the better off areas of SF and Oakland easily match those in HB, especially those in spectacularly beautiful San Francisco.
I also suspect that you are out of date on the situation in Oakland. It is gentrifying with incomes rising and many areas getting a lot spiffier looking than they used to be.
As a nonproductive California liberal/socialist/communist I will eagerly —though irrelevantly—wait for more tax revenue from working Republicans.
I used to live in Emeryville sandwiched between Berkeley and Oakland. My place was at the end of a peninsula overlooking the water with the best view of San Francisco ever. Yes – Peaky has no clue what he is talking about in this regard. Maybe it is because they will not him leave his place in Compton!
I lived in San Francisco. You have never even been there. No – it is far from rundown.. It seems that each and everyone of your comments today is nothing but lies. Par for the course I guess.
Of course, Democrats want to make Republican cities more like Democrat cities:
https://www.lbbusinessjournal.com/with-huntington-beach-lawsuit-governor-newsom-signals-aggressive-housing-strategy/
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed the state to sue the City of Huntington Beach for failing to comply with its affordable housing goals.”
I get your latest rage. You got some old lady in Huntington Beach to let your lazy worthless self to sleep on her couch. And she hates it that her town may have to pull its weight helping others have affordable housing. Sort of reminds me of Albany, California. It is a dinky little town but quite Republican. It also takes its homeless and ships them down to Berkeley.
Hey Peaky – you’d love this dump of a city. All white stingy Republicans like you.
“While cities and counties in California are required to zone for housing that meets estimates for future population and income levels, they are not obligated to build those units, ”
For someone who constantly complains about the cost of housing in California, one would think you would support the Governor’s efforts. But I guess you are indeed a complete hypocrite after all.
This town is not only violating California law but it is also making it next to impossible for the local school teachers or the local law enforcement officers able to live there. Then again PeakHypocrite is all for lawlessness and all against education.
Why turn great Republican California cities into run down Democrat cities?
Residents of Republican California cities (like Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Niguel, San Clemente, Oceanside, Yorba Linda, etc.) find open spaces, wildlife, less traffic, little crime, no trash on the streets, etc. valuable.
And, if a schoolteacher can’t afford a condo in Huntington Beach, he or she can live a few miles inland, e.g. in Westminster or Garden Grove.
It’s unnecessary to replace open spaces with low income housing in Huntington Beach.
Some people work long hours to avoid living in a high crime dump. You should try that.
I cvan think of three I read.
Carola Binder although she does not write a lot, Nor does Frances Woolley from your north. Dianne Sawyer writes more regualrly
Palestinians and North American Aboriginals are also missing from the list.
You could make an argument that Palestinians are basically Arabs, although yes, from a particular region/ nation state. Nassim Taleb I believe is of Lebanese origin, and Mohamed El-Erian is of Egyptian origin, and he has a regular column on Bloomberg.
Does El-Erian’s column qualify as a true blog?? I would say NO, it does not. However it’s about as near as you can get and not meet the technical definition.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ABsGWFJr5sA/mohamed-a-elerian
Taleb has a blog on Medium, which used to be free to everyone and now you have to register I think:
https://medium.com/@nntaleb
El-Erian is pretty vanilla in his comments that I can ever tell, not one to stick his neck out, but he is well respected, speaks intelligently, and communicates very well to laymen (i.e. the general public)
Taleb is much more opinionated and contentious, will stick his neck out on market conditions sometimes, and is VERY good at mathematics. So much so he even mocks others research papers and math. I think Taleb takes it too far and is snobbish and too “put-downish” (i.e insulting) to others. However that is his business how blunt he wants to be, and sometimes being a little rude hammers down home the point better than being polite. He can come across as scornful sometimes, but again I think that’s his personal business. I pray Taleb doesn’t treat his classroom students that way, as I feel that level of bluntness takes it too far inside a classroom—on his own personal time he can be as blunt as he enjoys.
I wager there is a Native American economist out there somewhere who blogs. I am pretty much a blog addict and I don’t know of them. But I found 2-3 bloggers in the last 2 days I had no idea about that have some regard. So….. I think they are out there somewhere, I will make a semi-effort to find a Native American economics/finance blogger and if I find them I will put them in this thread later.
Friends, we have committed a grand sin. I knew there was some big ones we were forgetting. Diane Coyle. Amazed no one caught that yet.
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/
Moses Herzog: Diane Coyle is on the top two of the three lists I provided.
My mistake.
OMG, I just noticed Megan McArdle is on the Librarians’ list. Is this by web hits or quality writing?? Do me a huge favor Menzie, don’t bring her up or “get me started” on Megan McArdle. You’ll think I’ve been too kind to Pelosi by comparison. I try not to think about McArdle as much as I can as steam starts bursting out of my ears.
It is kinda wild, in the past I found these blog lists so useless as I knew them all and then usually knew about 15 that weren’t even on the list. Honestly I didn’t even look at first and then when you mentioned Coyle was there I skimmed it. This time I actually saw 2-3 I didn’t know about and some I think I had visited before but wandered off my radar. The East Indian girl got my attention. Honestly I pay more attention to East Indians and East Asian names as they tend to be more math focused. And another group tends to get my attention, but if you payed even half attention to my comments you can guess without me saying. She seems to get very few comments on her blog. I only looked at one post but I have a feeling I am going to rectify her no comments problem. Menzie, how will it take me to piss off 7/8 of her readers and maybe her in the process?? Menzie, you got any over/under Vegas probabilities on that??
ReakRacist seems to be stuck on having every place being like Huntington Beach for some reason. Does he know anything about the actual politics of this town?
Construction of any kind on the beach is prohibited without a vote of the people, allowing Huntington Beach to retain its natural connection to the ocean rather than having the view obstructed by residential and commercial developments.
Oh gee – that sounds a lot like socialist San Francisco to me. So why would Peaky think this town was so much better? Oh wait – its ethnic makeup has very few blacks or Asians. God think Granny let Peaky move in with her!
Of course with no action on climate change, this town will be under water in a few decades and Stockton will be a beach community!
For some reason, he never mentions the ultimate California Republican City: Bakersfield. Or how it compares with “Democratic “ City Santa Barbara about two hours to the West.
Other than having a larger population (it’s also more populated than either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati), it doesn’t. But metro Bakersfield? Heavily Republican and, no, it doesn’t compare either…..
OK, now there’s Yuba City……
So?
You still find Democrats dominate the worst parts of at least the vast majority of cities.
Maybe, they need mayors like Clint Eastwood or Sonny Bono.
Try to stay current. Both Carmel and Palm Springs were Clinton cities. Clint was mayor a couple of decades ago. Sonny’s been dead for a quarter century. The wife was ousted from Congress 10 years ago by a Democrat. You need to get out more.
Interesting also to look at some other prominent cities that have turned “Democrat”: Del Mar, Laguna Beach, Half Moon Bay, Pismo Beach, Walnut Creek, Concord, Moraga (most of the prosperous East Bay), San Luis Obispo, Santa Rosa, Goleta, La Jolla, Irvine. It’s a long, impressive list.
Don’t fret. You still have Bakersfield, Barstow, Needles, and Blythe.
BTW, Trump’s “My Kevin” would certainly dispute your view of his wonderful hometown. Why the hurt for a red haven? Next, you’ll be running down Coalinga, Red Bluff, and Alturas.
Noneconomist, so, you just ignore great California Republican cities, and throw out some former great Republican cities that now have a slim Democrat lead in voter registration, like Irvine and Laguna Beach.
Pathetic.
San Diego also has become slightly Democrat, although I suspect the better cities in Northern San Diego are still Republican.
Of course, California has become more Democrat. That doesn’t mean the many poverty stricken Democrats are better off. There’s just more of them. You still dominate the slums. So, don’t “fret.”
Ignoring reality again, I see. You brought up Carmel and Palm Springs. And, you embarrassed yourself again by being unaware that Sonny Bono is dead or that Clint hasn’nt been mayor of Carmel since the 80’s.
Obviously, your life has changed greatly since the Birch Society’s power in Orange County eroded. But keep trying and you may yet impeach Earl Warren.
Never too late to go all in on Making Orange County White Again either.
BTW, what have you got against My Kevin and the Republicans ‘ crown jewel California City?
Now you’re down to northern Sam Diego County and some coastal cities in Orange County? What’s your problem with La Jolla? Encinitas? Del Mar? Carlsbad? Still lots of white people there. And, there’s a large red swath you’re completely ignoring.
Are you a little queasy admitting that Kern and Tulare counties are Trump bases? Is it the farming and ranching that scare you, or is it the high unemployment rates that are primarily quite red?
There’s another 800 miles of coast beyond Orange County. As our self anointed expert in all things California, staying afloat—on the good coast, no less—is becoming very difficult for you.
Pgl, you believe minorities need additional help, because they’re minorities, and the help you support makes and keeps them poor. You need to get over your racism and look at people as individuals.
Ad far as politics, Santa Ana, in Orange County, is 10 to 1 Democrat. Maybe, that helps explain why it’s such a dump. The surrounding cities have much higher ratios of Republicans and they’re much nicer cities. Heavily Democrat cities have much higher crime rates too.
I’ve been to San Francisco many times. You pay a lot to live in a nice part of the city. Most of it is crumbling and not worth living there. Of course, there’s natural beauty. It’s not Kansas. San Francisco City Hall is much more impressive than the State Capital in Sacramento!
Quite entertaining reading Ellen Pao’s book. We’re supposed to keep an open mind and hear both sides yeah?? She spends seemingly half the book discussing an office relationship with a married Indian man, and baby-sitting her boss’s children. But…. “poor” Ellen was “heartbroken” when a co-worker told her he was still interacting with his wife quite normally. Well, at least Pao had Ajit’s wife’s feelings and Ajit’s wife’s children’s feelings in consideration, being the Saint Pao is.
Then Pao discusses a man named Wen Hseih, who she was directly competing with for career advancement at Kleiner she claims she was “mentoring”. In one sentence she says Wen was spending lots of time building his network relationships in China, then not 2 sentences later saying Wen “took a lot of her time” and she “had to help him often”. Then Pao seems to claim it was bad that Wen was giving Chinese businesspeople expensive gifts. REALLY!?!?!?!? Like has she spent like over 2 minutes in China and know how business gets done and “sealed” there?? HINT: You don’t just ask them how the kiddies are doing. I had that experience in a University environment, so you can just imagine how much mainland Chinese expect gifts on business interactions.
On the same page (114) in the book Pao says, “Let’s just say if he (John, her boss) had asked Wen to babysit his daughter, I’m pretty sure Wen would have said yes and then…… ”
Does anyone know how Kleiner Perkins has “continued on” without Pao?? Reading this book seems to make it a vast mystery how Kleiner has managed to stay, as equities traders and accountants sometimes call it, “a going concern”.
An overwhelming percentage of commenters on this site are male also. Maybe females don’t like blogging. I think it’s documented that women like cooperation, while men like competition. Blogs like this are not light on confrontation. Also women don’t like to hear the word “no” it’s very strange to them : )
I’ve fallen flat again. The closest thing I can find to a Native American economist who also blogs is Winona LaDuke.
https://www.winonaladuke.com/winonas-blog/
She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Harvard, specializing in rural economic development. She also has some Jewish ancestry from her mother’s side of the family. She has been working to make hemp a commodity that economically benefits Native American tribes over a long-term horizon.
Her father is connected to the Ojibwe Tribe.
So, Mose, her dad is “connected to the Ojibwe tribe.” Really? How do we know? Did the chief of the tribe recognize him as a member? If not, well, then this Winona’s claim to being a Native American Indian is not all that much stronger than Elizabeth Warren’s. Maybe she should issue a public apology for all this stuff she is posting about Native Americans. How dare she?