Just before Christmas I received the following from Joe Fullmer, and submit it to readers for their consideration:

“I am a lay economist — I have no formal training, but I read much, and annoy my friends and associates. So, my comments aren’t those of a trained professional economist.

Jeff Bezos, founder of amazon.com, is releasing images and videos of his new private spacecraft. His “Goddard” vehicle recently made a short test flight and is the first step towards achieving commercial exploration of space.

Says Bezos: “We’re working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go; and so that we humans can better continue exploring the Solar System.”

Coming across a mention of 3D printers in the latest Charles Stross novel, the following way of framing some of the controversy surrounding intellectual property occurred to me.

Kodak and Sony End Patent Fight.

NEW YORK - Eastman Kodak Co. on Wednesday said it signed a licensing pact with Sony Corp. that settles a dispute over digital camera and imaging technology patents, and grants each company access to the other’s patents.

Wow—they cross-licensed each others’ patents to each others, after millions spent acquiring the patents and suing each other! What a boon for the economy! (Where “economy” means “lawyers,” of course.)

I thought bashing great chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders went out of style about ten years ago, yet here is the New York Times today with a piece lamenting the not-very-newsworthy death of a 26-year-old independent bookstore, Micawber Books in Princeton, New Jersey.

Daniel Kahneman (the psychologist who won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2002) and Jonathan Renshon try to explain why those who are more willing to favor military action and coercive force succeed in tipping the scales in international affairs:

The founders of social movements and schools of thought often try to distance themselves from their followers. (Or their later interpreters do this for them). Thus one can ask if Freud was a Freudian, Ricardo a Ricardian, Walras a Walrasian, Keynes a Keynesian (chapter 5 Keynesian? chapter 12 Keynesian?), and so on.

Web junkies have become accustom to the idea that anything Google does is glorious, so it has come as something of a shock to realize that the its takeover of Blogger has been, well, not going well. In fact, for many people, the conversion has been a calamity.