Hi everyone,
I've activated my new work blog at http://yetanotherchris.blogspot.com/ where I will comment mostly about economics. This site will mostly be about non-work-related stuff, with some cross-posting.
Please keep calm and carry on.
Sincerely,
-Yet Another Chris
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Green shoots
An economic curmudgeon sez:
There seem to be some green shoots in the most recent economic data. The recovery has a way to go but it seems to be gaining strength.
But, a sack of onions will also grow green shoots if you forget about them for long enough.
Cross-posted from my other blog.
There seem to be some green shoots in the most recent economic data. The recovery has a way to go but it seems to be gaining strength.
Yes, these are for real.But, a sack of onions will also grow green shoots if you forget about them for long enough.
Cross-posted from my other blog.
The stages of acceptance / moving to Germany
Well-made video. The thing with the groceries happened to me the first time I went shopping here, and it actually made me completely break down. I had to walk two miles in the rain with my groceries in my arms, after which I got to a wet doorknob. I dropped my eggs on the ground at that point.
It's the little stuff that gets to you--waiting for the green pedestrian light, rechts vor links, trying to pass people on the sidewalk. You're cruising along, thinking you're doing OK, and then things come to a complete screeching halt.
Think of that dream where your mom is still your mom but you find out she's in a metal band and keeps a snake for a pet. It's like that.
It really took me about two and a half years to work out all of these small things, after which I began to adapt much more quickly. Now I'm a foreigner both here and in America.
P.S. The word for "whipped cream" is "die Schlagsahne".
It's the little stuff that gets to you--waiting for the green pedestrian light, rechts vor links, trying to pass people on the sidewalk. You're cruising along, thinking you're doing OK, and then things come to a complete screeching halt.
Think of that dream where your mom is still your mom but you find out she's in a metal band and keeps a snake for a pet. It's like that.
It really took me about two and a half years to work out all of these small things, after which I began to adapt much more quickly. Now I'm a foreigner both here and in America.
P.S. The word for "whipped cream" is "die Schlagsahne".
Friday, March 30, 2012
How to argue about politics
Everyone interested in convincing others about politics should watch this bloggingheads with Robert Wright and Jonathan Haidt. Haidt's idea is that liberals and conservatives think differently about morality, with conservatives putting weight on additional aspects of morality than liberals--in particular, more emphasis on loyalty, purity, and authority, in addition to liberals' emphasis on caring and equality. I feel an Amazon.com order coming on.
Haidt makes a wonderful point halfway in about how to convince conservatives that gay marriage is a good thing, which is a point that I've been making for a while now. Gays and liberals should say, "Marriage and love are good things, and we want them for us too." Loyalty also plays a big role in the thought process behind this. "I'm loyal to my brother or son or cousin, and I want him (or her) to be happy." Maintaining a proper distinction between the civil aspects of marriage and the religious aspects would help too. If I were to get married, I'd keep the church and the Pope's authority out of it. My 88-year-old grandmother is hung up on the last point. "The Pope and Bible say no, so I'll side with them." This is someone who loves shrimp and wears polyester.
For a non-conservative, Haidt does a great job at understanding the conservative mind. For those who care about freedom and good policy in general, it's necessary to understand how people think. Maybe the strategy should be to make friends, not enemies.
Listen to the whole thing. I'm buying the book.
Haidt makes a wonderful point halfway in about how to convince conservatives that gay marriage is a good thing, which is a point that I've been making for a while now. Gays and liberals should say, "Marriage and love are good things, and we want them for us too." Loyalty also plays a big role in the thought process behind this. "I'm loyal to my brother or son or cousin, and I want him (or her) to be happy." Maintaining a proper distinction between the civil aspects of marriage and the religious aspects would help too. If I were to get married, I'd keep the church and the Pope's authority out of it. My 88-year-old grandmother is hung up on the last point. "The Pope and Bible say no, so I'll side with them." This is someone who loves shrimp and wears polyester.
For a non-conservative, Haidt does a great job at understanding the conservative mind. For those who care about freedom and good policy in general, it's necessary to understand how people think. Maybe the strategy should be to make friends, not enemies.
Listen to the whole thing. I'm buying the book.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wow
I shouldn't be surprised at the old computer hardware that's still out there being used. I first learned how to program on a VAX--maybe I should give up economics and become a defense contractor. From Craig Newmark (not the Craigslist one).
Nobody give the institute any ideas.
Nobody give the institute any ideas.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
St. Matthew's Passion
I just went to a very good performance of St. Matthew's Passion by Bach, with the Opera Guy, who's a really sweet guy who is not one bit interested in me. Wow.
It's totally different when you can actually follow what's going on. The text hangs together very well, unlike many of the Bach cantatas. And the performance itself was top-notch. There wasn't a dry eye in the church during the chorale:
I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, where culture is something that you hide in the back of the sock drawer. (I used to go on long car rides in order to get time to myself to listen to Beethoven.) There's the Chicago of the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera, the Art Institute, a great avant-garde restaurant scene, theatre, and incredible diversity in sexual and gender expression. That was not the Chicago where I grew up. I grew up six miles south of Midway airport. There were decent Italian food and cable TV. That was it. My church (a normal Catholic church) and my high school (an all boys Catholic high school) had no choir except for one guy.
My parents are an open minded sort--in fact they're great people--but this type of stuff just isn't on their radar screen. I dragged them to a Handel concert once and they thought it was agonizing. So the easy availability of culture...people who are not afraid of it and have some serious Sitzfleisch...are something I really like about Germany.
It's totally different when you can actually follow what's going on. The text hangs together very well, unlike many of the Bach cantatas. And the performance itself was top-notch. There wasn't a dry eye in the church during the chorale:
Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden,I just wanted to hug Opera Guy during this chorale. But the easy availability of culture, and of cultured people, is something I really like about Germany. Opera Guy is a particularly cultured guy, but there is more where that came from.
so scheide nicht von mir,
wenn ich den Tod soll leiden,
so tritt du denn herfür!
Wenn mir am allerbängsten
wird um das Herze sein,
so reiß mich aus den Ängsten
kraft deiner Angst und Pein!
I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, where culture is something that you hide in the back of the sock drawer. (I used to go on long car rides in order to get time to myself to listen to Beethoven.) There's the Chicago of the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera, the Art Institute, a great avant-garde restaurant scene, theatre, and incredible diversity in sexual and gender expression. That was not the Chicago where I grew up. I grew up six miles south of Midway airport. There were decent Italian food and cable TV. That was it. My church (a normal Catholic church) and my high school (an all boys Catholic high school) had no choir except for one guy.
My parents are an open minded sort--in fact they're great people--but this type of stuff just isn't on their radar screen. I dragged them to a Handel concert once and they thought it was agonizing. So the easy availability of culture...people who are not afraid of it and have some serious Sitzfleisch...are something I really like about Germany.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Things I like, sunny spring afternoon edition
Sunny spring afternoons.
Tall pretty skinny guys.
Tuesday night Stammtisch.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
Wine older than I am.
Arrested Development.
The Holy Roman Empire.
Dietrich Buxtehude.
Getting lost on bike rides.
Transatlantic business class upgrades.
The flowers by my old apartment complex in San Diego.
Pugs.
Fabulous scarves.
Venetian glass.
Tall pretty skinny guys.
Tuesday night Stammtisch.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
Wine older than I am.
Arrested Development.
The Holy Roman Empire.
Dietrich Buxtehude.
Getting lost on bike rides.
Transatlantic business class upgrades.
The flowers by my old apartment complex in San Diego.
Pugs.
Fabulous scarves.
Venetian glass.
How to become an expat?
The first question that anybody ever asks me is, "How do I join the glamorous expat lifestyle?" Because there is nothing more exciting than waiting in line at the foreigners' office for an Aufenthalts- genehmigungverlängerungmitgesprächstermin or going to the bakery and getting funny looks when you ask how whole the grains in the Vollkornmischbrötchen are (answer: very). Or getting together with other expats trying to string together the longest compound word which could be said in one breath (a former colleague came up with the one which I used here).
It takes hard work really. The way it works in economics is that you go on the job market once you have one and a half finished papers from your PhD dissertation. My dissertation topic on the effect of labor's bargaining power on vacancy creation during the Great Depression has been charitably referred to as "out of the box" by a certain professor who's usually right about everything. But it seemed like a hot topic at the time. Around September or so you meet with your adviser who gives the green light or red light for the upcoming job market endeavor.
Upon receiving the green light, you assemble a packet which consists of the finished paper, a cover letter, a CV, a research statement, and possibly a teaching statement. And then you send out this packet to any remotely possible place who advertises on the American Economic Association's (AEA's) website. At around the end of the November, interview invitations start coming in.
The interviews happen at the AEA meeting right after New Year's. It was in New Orleans my time around. It's like speed dating for economists. The interviews happen for 30 minutes to an hour in hotel rooms scattered around the city. The interviewers ask about past, present and future research, teaching, and the like, and the interviewees get to ask about the departments in turn. These interviews vary greatly; my most successful one was the one that I thought went the worst at the time. In another interview, the interviewer took a time-out to run to the bathroom to throw up. There is a lot of variation in how these things go.
From January to the beginning of March is flyout season, when the places fly out their short-listed candidates to give a seminar talk and to interview with individual people. Then places make their decisions and most people end up with jobs.
That did not work out for me. It was March 2008 and my ideas about the Great Depression did not catch on. Spring and the Great Recession were in the air. Looking back, I probably wasn't ready to go onto the market, and I should have gone with a different research topic.
There is a second round called the "scramble" which kicks off at the end of March or in early April--about now actually. I sent out a few more packets during the scramble, including a packet sent on a whim to the institute in Kiel. A couple of friends of mine had gone to Kiel to study German and they raved about the place (my theory is that they were drunk all of the time). Also, the institute is known abroad for its summer schools in economics. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to apply. I got an email from the institute asking to set up a conference call. They mixed up the time difference because of daylight savings time so I got woken up early by the call in California. Nonetheless, they seemed to like me; they flew me out here; and I got the job.
I moved from San Diego to Germany, turned 30, and watched the U.S. banking sector completely collapse during the same week in mid-September 2008. It was never my dream in life to live in a country where I don't really speak the language, but I figured that it would be an interesting adventure. So that's how I ended up here.
Of the other expats I know, some are here for work; one is here with his long-term boyfriend; some come here for the military; and some come here as students. These reasons are sometimes combined. I can count the number of Americans that I know in Kiel on one hand. Most expats go to Munich or Berlin, which let's face it, are more interesting places. This is the story of an idiosyncratic expat economist whose life has taken him on a journey to a place that he had never imagined.
It takes hard work really. The way it works in economics is that you go on the job market once you have one and a half finished papers from your PhD dissertation. My dissertation topic on the effect of labor's bargaining power on vacancy creation during the Great Depression has been charitably referred to as "out of the box" by a certain professor who's usually right about everything. But it seemed like a hot topic at the time. Around September or so you meet with your adviser who gives the green light or red light for the upcoming job market endeavor.
Upon receiving the green light, you assemble a packet which consists of the finished paper, a cover letter, a CV, a research statement, and possibly a teaching statement. And then you send out this packet to any remotely possible place who advertises on the American Economic Association's (AEA's) website. At around the end of the November, interview invitations start coming in.
The interviews happen at the AEA meeting right after New Year's. It was in New Orleans my time around. It's like speed dating for economists. The interviews happen for 30 minutes to an hour in hotel rooms scattered around the city. The interviewers ask about past, present and future research, teaching, and the like, and the interviewees get to ask about the departments in turn. These interviews vary greatly; my most successful one was the one that I thought went the worst at the time. In another interview, the interviewer took a time-out to run to the bathroom to throw up. There is a lot of variation in how these things go.
From January to the beginning of March is flyout season, when the places fly out their short-listed candidates to give a seminar talk and to interview with individual people. Then places make their decisions and most people end up with jobs.
That did not work out for me. It was March 2008 and my ideas about the Great Depression did not catch on. Spring and the Great Recession were in the air. Looking back, I probably wasn't ready to go onto the market, and I should have gone with a different research topic.
There is a second round called the "scramble" which kicks off at the end of March or in early April--about now actually. I sent out a few more packets during the scramble, including a packet sent on a whim to the institute in Kiel. A couple of friends of mine had gone to Kiel to study German and they raved about the place (my theory is that they were drunk all of the time). Also, the institute is known abroad for its summer schools in economics. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to apply. I got an email from the institute asking to set up a conference call. They mixed up the time difference because of daylight savings time so I got woken up early by the call in California. Nonetheless, they seemed to like me; they flew me out here; and I got the job.
Beautiful downtown KielI moved from San Diego to Germany, turned 30, and watched the U.S. banking sector completely collapse during the same week in mid-September 2008. It was never my dream in life to live in a country where I don't really speak the language, but I figured that it would be an interesting adventure. So that's how I ended up here.
Some parts of expat life are easy to get used to.Of the other expats I know, some are here for work; one is here with his long-term boyfriend; some come here for the military; and some come here as students. These reasons are sometimes combined. I can count the number of Americans that I know in Kiel on one hand. Most expats go to Munich or Berlin, which let's face it, are more interesting places. This is the story of an idiosyncratic expat economist whose life has taken him on a journey to a place that he had never imagined.
Hello world (again)
Hello out there. I'm re-launching this blog under a new name in order to document my (mis)adventures living in Germany. I'm an American expat working in a research institute in Kiel. I've been here for four years now, and my German has progressed to the point where it is 'cute'. 'Cute' is a code-word in this context for 'horribly incompetent'.
So, (clears throat), naja. Pour yourself a nice cup of Kräutertee; put on NDR Eins; and feel at home.
So, (clears throat), naja. Pour yourself a nice cup of Kräutertee; put on NDR Eins; and feel at home.
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