Highly-skilled immigrants as low hanging fruit
Slate has a short piece addressing Cowen's The Great Stagnation, in particular the idea of "low hanging fruit." The author here argues that highly-skilled immigrants may serve as another source of stimulation for the economy while the US tries to figure out how to move forward into the future. As an immigrant myself, my family and I have lived through the naturalization process that this article describes. I think the introduction of working visas and paths to citizenship for entrepreneurs is definitely very interesting and a worthwhile endeavor, although these critiques hold pretty true as well -
The legislation provides a few new paths to permanent residency for entrepreneurs. For instance, a prospective immigrant could win a temporary visa if she raises at least $100,000 from a qualified investor for a new business. Her visa would become permanent if, within two years, her business created five jobs and raised $500,000 in additional investment, or had sales of $500,000. The bill also encourages entrepreneurs on temporary and education visas to stay, and foreign business owners to move and expand operations here.
It is a good idea, but perhaps still too restrictive. For one, the Startup Visa has inflexible rules about sales, capital investment, and job creation. What if a foreign-born computer scientist created the next Google in her garage, but by the end of two years only had a few thousand dollars in investment and one other worker? Second, the bill does not recognize the importance of failure. Most new businesses don't make it off the ground. But many entrepreneurs try again, and some succeed the second or third or 20th time around. Better to keep those aspirational workers on our shores. Third, and most important, the bill does not actually expand the number of available visas, just 9,940 in the relevant program. It just makes them easier for entrepreneurs to get.
I think dis-aggregating the issue of immigration is one of the most difficult tasks in moving this issue forward, especially from a public opinion perspective. Its hard to bring up policy concerns and have fruitful conversations about this topic because its so often mired in debates about illegality, resource draining, racism and so on.
Junot Diaz on becoming a writer
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am.
From the November 2009 issue of Oprah Magazine. And if you don't know, you should know about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
The reality of reality television
One of the biggest differences between today’s reality television and its 1973 antecedent is the genre’s status. Having outgrown PBS, it has inherited the rotten reputation that once attached to the medium itself. In an era of televised precocity—ambitious HBO dramas, cunningly self-aware sitcoms—reality shows still provide a fat target for anyone seeking symptoms or causes of American idiocy; the popularity of unscripted programming has had the unexpected effect of ennobling its scripted counterpart. The same people who brag about having seen every episode of “Friday Night Lights” will brag, too, that they have never laid eyes on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Reality television is the television of television.
[...]
Having logged those thousand hours, Pozner can attest that reality shows have a tendency to blur together into a single orgy of joy and disappointment and recrimination. In her view, this is no coincidence: the shows are constructed to reinforce particular social norms, she argues, and she finds examples from across the reality spectrum.
From this New Yorker piece on reality TV. Its very interesting to think about the scripts of reality TV shows drawing from a pool populated by social norms. Usually art has a creator behind it, who has a purposeful intent in the way he/she is depicting life or a slice of life. I suppose in some ways if we all can draw from the same or similar pool of social norms, then it makes sense that a depiction of that on TV should be quite popular.
Bringing causal models into the mainstream
Andrew Gelman points to John Johnson who has written a short piece about causal modeling in the mainstream. This blurb seems most important to me -
So, that leaves the last point, which may cause some controversy. "Do not try this at home." Causal analysis does not have a SAS proc or simple R routine (perhaps with the exception of two-stage least squares). This is going to have to come at the end of perhaps hours of data exploration, modeling, testing, rejecting, trying something else, and finally accepting. A causal model is not always going to be easy to write into a statistical analysis plan, and primary investigators may not want something so fluid in the plan.
Although Johnson works primarily in the pharmaceutical industry where the processes of randomization and experiment design are quite rigorous, I think this point is quite important for the social sciences as well. Throughout this year I've found that causal analysis is too often the goal of observational studies, when in fact they should perhaps be a lot more careful in making any strong causal inferences from (what is likely to quite flawed) data. I have taken some extra pains to do this in my MA thesis, and I'm happier with it as a result.
Paper Tigers in NY Mag
Wesley Yang has a long-form piece in the NY Mag that cuts and weaves its away across some pretty important issues of gender, power, social-mobility and self-actualization as they manifest themselves for many Asian-Americans. Originally, I thought this piece was kind of a re-hashing of old issues, but after talking to some people and thinking more about it, I think it addresses some concerns that a lot of people don't afford themselves the opportunity to address. Although it winds up talking about the over-discussed Amy Chua controvery, I think its worth the read.
A short excerpt that I liked, maybe because I feel like I'm in this place in my life now -
Throughout my twenties, I proudly turned away from one institution of American life after another (for instance, a steady job), though they had already long since turned away from me. Academe seemed another kind of death—but then again, I had a transcript marred by as many F’s as A’s. I had come from a culture that was the middle path incarnate. And yet for some people, there can be no middle path, only transcendence or descent into the abyss.
I was descending into the abyss.
Hillary Clinton Profile in Vanity Fair
I always considered this as a very important tertiary benefit of Clinton being in Obama's cabinet, but I don't hear about it nearly enough.
She accepted the post, in November of 2008, only after President-Elect Obama—in an inspired move over the objections of many on his campaign staff—twisted not just her arm, she informed friends, but her fingers, toes, and every other bone in her body. The president, for his part, is proud of himself for choosing her. He knows that she represents the United States better than anyone but him and is—to the surprise of many Obama veterans—refreshingly low-maintenance. When budget season arrived this year and the departments all faced drastic cuts, Hillary used a Cabinet meeting to offer tips on how to avoid making cuts that would affect vulnerable people—children, the elderly—and look bad politically. (She recalled that Newt Gingrich’s effort to slash the school-lunch program, which put Gingrich on the defensive, was the real turning point in the 1995 budget debate.) Several second-tier Cabinet members thought it one of the most useful White House meetings they had ever attended.
From a profile of Hillary Clinton in Vanity Fair. Thanks to Nisha Chittal for the pointer.
Kristof on the the war on contraception
Nick Kristof wrote in the NYT on mothers' day about the Republican war on contraception, as it extends past just the domestic context. Its a good reminder, for those who need reminding.
I'm not sure about this claim here, seems dubious to me, but that's just a gut reaction for now -
Yet maybe the simplest way to save her life would have been contraception. If Somali women had half as many pregnancies (they now average six births), there would be only half as many maternal deaths. But modern contraception doesn’t exist in this part of Somaliland.
David Foster Wallace on political writing
DFW: The reason why doing political writing is so hard right now is probably also the reason why more young (am I included in the range of this predicate anymore?) fiction writers ought to be doing it. As of 2003, the rhetoric of the enterprise is fucked. 95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it’s supposed to be about. Meaning it’s become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties.
From this interview in Believer Mag by Dave Eggers of DFW.