Extreme Inequality is *Generally* Viewed as Unfair
Suppose that before you were born into this world, you had a chance to select the overall level of inequality among the earth’s people but not your own identity. That is, you might be born as Bill Gates, but you might be born as the most wretchedly poor person in rural Ethiopia with equal probability. Rawls calls this uncertainty the “veil of ignorance.” The question is, facing this kind of risk, would you vote for an income distribution that was more equal or less equal than the one you see around you?
This is a bit of a philosophical question. Would your answer change if you knew for certain you would be in one of the richest percentiles?
Okay Self
I have this bad habit about fretting over little things. This is actually super dorky, but it really made me laugh.
Indivisibilities in Human Capital Investment
Markets treat investment in human capital as coming in discrete packages, such as a year of school, if not larger blocks, such as primary, secondary, and tertiary education. … A threshold level of knowledge is necessary before an employer will be willing to pay for it. Further, because education acts as a screen for inherent ability… there is a very large jump in the return to human capital when an individual passes primary school and again when the person obtains a secondary school diploma and so on. This is not because the last course taken conveys so much more knowledge than the ones preceding it but because the degree itself is what enables the individual to prove that an entire regimen of requirements has been met.
So much sadness. :(
It’s like being a little kid. “You can’t get candy until you finish your homework.” Except it’s “you can’t switch labs until you finish your project.”
Which means I will officially now be working my ass off trying to finish my project so I can leave. And that’s a “maybe,” not a definite “you can leave.”
" Estimates suggested that Ecuador lost between 4% and 10% of its GDP due to chronic lateness… The country has launched a national campaña contra la impuntualidad (campaign against lateness), coordinated by Participación Ciudadana (Citizen Participation).
" For example, a dictator such as Mobutu Sese Seko, the former ruler of the Democratic Republic of Congo when it was known as Zaire, may prefer to keep his country in an underdevelopment trap, knowing full well that as the economy developed, he would lose power.
Pet Peeves
Hi H,
I hope this email finds you well. Having visited your website, I am contacting you to see if you would like some fresh content for M. If so, I would love to contribute to your site…Now I work from home as a freelance writer…
I want to believe that your email is sincere and you’re truly interested in what you say. That being said, if you truly checked out our website, you would’ve realized that H’s name is no where to be found. At all. Not on my email signatures, not on the staff list.
I don’t mean to be so nit-picky about this, but this really bothers me. It’s like doing a year of hard labor, but someone else gets all the credit. The least you could do is make sure your email is directed at the right person.
