prior probability

Although most North Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving today, we must never forget that on this day 55 years ago (22 Nov. 1963) President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. What if the presidential motorcade had continued down Main Street (further away from the book depository building where the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was lying in wait) instead of going down Elm Street?

Credit: Donald Roberdeau

During a brief visit to my alma mater UCSB earlier this week (go Gauchos!), my wife Sydjia photographed this bike-path tunnel, which connects the main campus with the seaside college town of Isla Vista. In place of ordinary fluorescent tubes, the tunnel is now lit up by a geometrical pattern of lights.

Imagine interstellar trade occurring at the speed of light (or close to light-speed) across galaxies, such as the various constellations pictured below. The economist Paul Krugman imagines just such a science-fiction scenario in a beautiful paper titled “[A] theory of interstellar trade,” which was published in the journal Economic Inquiry in 2010. (An ungated version of his formal paper is available here.) In the paper, Professor Krugman develops a theory of interstellar trade in goods between planets in the same inertial frame and ends up making a remarkable claim: interstellar competition will equalize interest rates across constellations.

There is just one small problem with Krugman’s theoretical analysis: he neglects the crucial role that interstellar contracts and interstellar law must play before any trade could occur across the universe in the first place. Alas, this type of omission is common among economists, even first-rate ones like Krugman. Many economists like to take the existence of a well-ordered legal system and the enforcement of contracts for granted. But trade cannot occur in a (legal) vacuum. Trade and markets require some set of rules and the enforcement of those rules, and it is precisely these essential things that are lacking at the interstellar level!

It’s that time of year again!, the season when art critics, bloggers, and other assorted public intellectuals and pundits reveal their subjective listings of the best books, best music recordings, best movies, etc. of the year. In place of (or in addition to) such “best of” lists, however, we would prefer to see these same people tell us what they think the worst books, worst movies, or worst whatever of the year were.

What is “street art”? When people talk about street art they are usually referring to large-scale murals painted on walls, but earlier this week, we literally stumbled upon the micro-artwork pictured below, which was painted on a sidewalk on N.W. 26th Street in the whimsical Wynwood Art District in Miami, Florida. (Artist unknown.)

Photo credit: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Today (15 Nov 2018) is the 241st-year anniversary of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. (The complete text of the Articles of Confederation is available here.) This weak confederation, however, did not last long, as it was replaced by a new national government on 21 June 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth State to ratify a replacement constitution. (When our Founding Fathers proposed the first draft of the Constitution on 17 September 1787, they agreed that the new constitution would not become law unless nine of the original thirteen members of the existing confederation ratified it.) But Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation states:

Every state shall abide by the determination of the united states in congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state.

So, wasn’t the original Constitution temporarily unconstitutional, at least until Rhode Island became the thirteenth State to ratify it? More problematically, the new constitution was ratified via single-purpose ratification conventions convened in each one of the states and not by state legislatures as required by Article XIII of the previous Articles of Confederation.

My wife and I will be attending the Miami, Florida stop of the Drake-Migos Tour on 14 November. In honor of these contemporary artists, below the fold are two of our favorite Drake/Migos songs, along with some artful choreography: Continue reading →