Kauffman Economics Bloggers Forum Update and a Few Links of Noe

I’m in Kansas City, where the Royals have started the season as one would expect of the current iteration of the team.

Fortunately, I’m not here for the baseball, but rather for the Kauffman Economics Bloggers Forum. There will be presentations tomorrow (agenda here; homepage for live streaming here) in three session. The morning features Tyler Cowen, Ben Wildavsky, Megan McArdle, Bryan Caplan, and Bob Cringely; early afternoon are Lynne Kiesling, Ryan Avent, Arnold Kling, and Felix Salmon; and it closes out with Dean Baker, Steve Waldman, and Virginia Postrel.

All times on the website are Central.

Discoveries so far:

  1. Steve Waldman and Matt Yglesias have the same hairstyle
  2. Felix Salmon agrees with me about individual investors and 401(k)s—indeed, I should say I agree with him, since he’s more vehement about the issue. (He gave me permission to quote him, but this is a family blog.)
  3. For the second year in a row, the “best” barbecue place in Kansas City provided inferior product; Tyler Cowen blames the voters for its loss.
  4. There was much discussion of cricket without mention of Lagaan (which, as I noted last year at this blog, explained to me why the British Empire failed, rather in the same way that Dick is the only movie to make sense of the White House in the early and mid-1970s).

Tune in tomorrow, after the positive but not thrilling Non-Farm Payoll release. Meanwhile:

  1. Buce continues the discussion started by Tim Geithner’s Chief Internet Apologist‘s discussion of Neil Barofsky’s analysis of TARP.
  2. As another two-fer, I’m trying to figure out how Don Marron’s discussion of a letter he signed dovetails with Bruce Bartlett’s analysis of a newly-proposed Constitutional Amendment. Maybe our readers can help?

On a personal note, the only “Asian” food service available at O’Hare Airport was nearly a full kilometer round-trip away from my gate, and I decided that my legs were tired enough. But on the flight from Chicago to Kansas City, I finished reading Sarah Manguso’s marvelous (and short) The Two Kinds [sic] of Decay and thought about feeling ashamed for not taking the walk. Fortunately, the feeling passed, but my regard for and recommendation of the book hasn’t.