Reloaded Links

• La belleza del mercado (ahhhh...)
• Borat es Freddie Mercury? WTF!
• Lo que estoy escuchando ahora (Chickenfoot - Soap On A Rope)
• Price of Weed
• Las tentaciones del poder de Calamaro. Ahora solo falta quel Indio la invite a Kristina a cantar Juguetes Perdidos el 13 de Noviembre
• Graciela Alfano bailando Papanamericano

Ensañamiento Gaga

Camille Paglia le da duro a la Lady,

Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna (as in her latest video-Alejandro) that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft? However, the main point is that the young Madonna was on fire. She was indeed the imperious Marlene Dietrich’s true heir. For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture. Alarmingly, Generation Gaga can’t tell the difference. Is it the death of sex? Perhaps the symbolic status that sex had for a century has gone kaput; that blazing trajectory is over…

Gaga is in way over her head with her avant-garde pretensions… She wants to have it both ways – to be hip and avant-garde and yet popular and universal, a practitioner of gung-ho “show biz”. Most of her worshippers seem to have had little or no contact with such powerful performers as Tina Turner or Janis Joplin, with their huge personalities and deep wells of passion.

Y tambien a sus fans, 

Gaga's fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty. Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. Hence, Gaga gratuitously natters on about her vagina…

Update: Si, era de carne de verdad.

Reloaded Links

• The Best Books on American Conservatism (confieso haber leido solo dos de la lista, aunque tengo dos mas en mi to-read-list)
• When Will the First Earth-like Planet Be Discovered?
• Entrevista al conductor de mi programa de radio favorito
• En defensa de la economia (seriedad muchachos)
• Revival 1: batero y fachero (solo he escuchado el tema que da nombre a la vuelta)
• Revival 2: violero y con toca de la nona (solo he escuchado el tema que da nombre a la toca)
• Extremely useful proof techniques (solo para nerds) 

El monstruo crece de nuevo

Del editorial de hace un par de semanas de The Economist, Leviathan Inc,

LISTEN carefully, and you may detect a giant sucking sound across the rich world. [...] Politicians are reviving the notion that intervening in individual industries and companies can drive growth and create jobs.

[...] Yet the overwhelming reason for China’s miracle is that the state released its stifling grip and opened the country to private enterprise and to the world. The likes of Li Shufu, who runs Geely, the car firm that has just bought Volvo, are entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats. India’s wildly successful software and business-process-outsourcing industries blossomed not because of help from the government, but precisely because its Licence Raj did not understand these nascent fields well enough to choke them off. In Brazil, where it is often said that an activist industrial policy helps to explain why the economy has been thriving, a surging state-owned development bank, BNDES, is probably crowding out other sources of finance. The likes of Petrobras (oil), Vale (mining) and Embraer (planes) were indeed created by the government. But they have all flourished because they were privatised, to a degree, and forced to compete with foreign firms in the 1990s. Part-privatisation and competition created in a short time what decades of industrial policy had failed to do.

[...] No bureaucrat could have predicted the success of Nestlé’s Nespresso coffee-capsule system—just as none foresaw that utility vehicles, vacuum cleaners and tufted carpets (to cite examples noted by Charles Schultze, an American opponent of state planning) would have been some of America’s fastest-growing industries in the 1970s. Officials ignore the potential for innovation in consumer products or services and get seduced by the hype of voguish high-tech sectors.

You Make Me Wanna Die

Burlando la ineptitud de los burocratas

Me saco el sombrero nuevamente. Esta vez para saludar a ciertas Universidades de NY. Se de primera fuente que NYU al menos lleva a cabo el ejercicio que se describe abajo.L

Los economistas ya nos hemos cansado de hablar sobre los problemas de los controles de precios sobre los alquileres (hubo incluso quien afirmo que es la 2da mejor forma de destruir una ciudad, luego de un bombardeo) y sobre los impuestos excesivos. Como burlar los retrogrados controles de precio y eludir impuestos a la vez? La brillante respuesta es de ciertas universidades de NY y explicada muy didacticamente aca por Greg Mankiw. Lo que mas me gusto fue el ultimo parrafo donde describe el brillante resultado final,

In the end, the goal of the rent control laws is thwarted (the low rents are enjoyed by well-paid tenured faculty rather than the needy), the income tax laws are thwarted (a sizable part of compensation is untaxed), and all this is done by a nonprofit institution (the university) whose ostensible purpose is to serve the public interest.

Reloaded Links

• El primer restaurante ecologico de Argentina (ironico segun algunos)
• Como hace el pricing Apple
• ATM Graffiti
• Como afectan los viajes al espacio a los astronautas
• Lo equivocadas que pueden estar las creencias populares: education version
• El Rockero Boudou parece no pasarla bien
• Viejo con Arbol: Corto sobre el cuento de Fontanorrosa sobre el futbol y el arte (HT to Ariel de los Amores)

Adios al Panamericano Alejandro

Dicen (digo) que si subis lo suficiente el volumen, siempre hay una cancion sonandote en la cabeza. Sin necesidad de subir mucho el volumen, puedo escuchar ahora la balada de Lennon Because, de mi disco preferido de los Beatles, Abbey Road.

Durante mi reciente estadia en la atemporal MDZ, bares, boliches y otras yerbas frecuentadas hicieron que se me pegaran 2 temas que, a esta altura, ya son casi un clasico en mi cabeza. El primero, Pa Panamericano (si logras no moverte despues que dice Pa Panamericano pasame la receta), un remix electro house sintetizado del original de Renato Carosone. El segundo, Alejandro, un producto de la Lady del momento que tambien supo sonar este año en el festival mas importante de musica americana que, justamente, tiene lugar todos los años en mi ciudad actual.

La clave: Ale ale alejandro, ale ale alejandro... Pa panamericano, Pa panamericano. Despues dicen que no hay que machacar las cosas para que entren en el marulo.

Ahora bien, como me saco esa maldita cancion de la cabeza? Unhear it.

El mago Hanescu

A sacarse el sombrero,

Victor Hanescu Magican Trick US OPEN 2010 - The top video clips of the week are here

Bravo Victor, bravo!

HT to Ficuli del Momento.

Javito's Reloaded!

Lo prometido es deuda: finalmente volvimos a postear como se debe. Y para marcar un claro punto de inflexion, renovamos tambien la apariencia que ya estaba haciendo daño a la vista. No prometo postear todos los dias como hoy pero prometo postear a menudo. Por supuesto que la definicion de a menudo me la reservo, just in case.