Farewell to illusions

Clark's book The Farewell to Alms shows that the population of England underwent selection in the last thousand years, as the upper middle class replaced the lumpen that died off. Clark bases his conclusions on the systematic study of family names, a method that seems rather unreliable to me. Ashkenazi Jews had no family names, for example. But the English are different.

Now I am reading that Iceland was settled a thousand years ago by a 50% Norwegian and 50% Irish population. However, the current genetic composition is 75% Norwegian and 25% Irish. There was differential selection, just like Clark discovered.

These results are applicable to every group of humans. Extract your own conclusions. Keep it quiet. 

The tongue is the best

A small cave in Gibraltar called El Sidron was the hiding place of the last surviving family of Neanderthal humans. The bones of the twelve show that they had been surprised by cannibals, cut into pieces, their skulls broken to extract the brain, and their mandibles scratched with flint knives by someone intent in devouring their tongues. Neanderthals had red hair and were heavy, up to 200 kg. We know the identities of the cannibals: they were you and me. Africans are innocent, their alibi is that they were at that time far away in Africa. 

The Persistance of Lead Contamination

My interest in lead contamination started with the "National Emergency" of Flint, Mich. some year ago. The more I learn about the issue, it appears more and more dramatic. Lead persists in the environment forever, and it not only reduces IQ but also fertility. Surprisingly, it is a Catholic religious blog has an excellent article on the subject, while the professional water media almost never deals with it. I always considered Catholicism as the most intellectually satisfying religion, more than Judaism (I am a Jew but not because the intellectual worth of the Talmud but because my ancestors were all Jews and so shall I die too) and incomparably more rational than the Islam.  Why are Catholic padres worried about lead instead of counting the angels dancing on a pin?

Lead pollution provides an entire suite of family planning services—everything from puberty delay to male and female fertility reduction to chemical abortion. Indeed, colonial-era commentators recommended lead as an abortifacient. In Flint, Michigan, lead pollution has increased fetal death by perhaps as much as 50 percent and reduced overall fertility by more than 10 percent. A study of a temporary lead spike in Washington, D.C. showed similar results: huge increases in fetal death rates and substantial declines in birth rates. But most people probably assume that, despite a few crises in a few places, their childbearing plans are safe from lead-related problems.

Most people are wrong. Recently, a working paper titled “Toxic Truth: Lead and Fertility,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, used air-pollution data from the 1970s and 1980s to demonstrate that the presence of lead molecules in the air altered local fertility rates in those decades. Later, the reductions in lead emissions brought about by environmental regulations raised the national birth rate by about 6 percent. 

The comments section is worth reading too. 

Did the Romans' exposure to lead, not only in the water supply, but in pewter drinking vessels, cosmetics and even from wine sweetened with lead acetate affect fertility levels?

There are probably too many variables to say, but it is certainly true that the birth-rate was a matter of concern to Augustus and the other Julian Emperors, as witness the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus and the Lex Papia Poppaeia, which restricted or extinguished the inheritance rights of unmarried (coelebs) or childless (orbi) people and transferring them to the heirs or legatees with children. Again, it is remarkable how, of the 311 Patrician houses mentioned by Livy, only nine survived into the Augustan age.

That there was a fall in population is certain.

Pic.: Spices and herbs and ceremonial powders and alternative medicine remedies imported from South East Asia have very high - dangerous levels of lead. You have been warned. 

Trump the Puppetmaster

Trump sent out a short tweet that suggests that the USA vs China trade war may not turn into WWIII. The world financial markets, depressed for the whole last week, suddenly received an injection of adrenalin and NASDAQ is jumping 1%. The whole world has been hypnotized by Trump and is trying anxiously to read his lips. That's power. Yesterday I commented to my wife that TEVA seems to be bankrupt, closed my eyes and visualized TEVA's worldwide distribution network and asked myself: If that is not a moan, what is a moan? and bought more of the same. Today there were some good news about its former opium pushing business and lifted strong.

I am working hard. Remembering Trotsky's comment that he felt most happy in the prison cell where he was incommunicado while well supplied with paper, ink, journals and books, and he could write all day and night. I have the same temperament.  

HaAretz fishwrap horrorized: Israeli college separates girls from boys !

Today's Front Page news. 

HaAretz discovered a college that against Ministry of Education's orders has separate sitting arrangements for male and female students. Myself attended the all male Mariano Moreno college in Buenos Aires, and the girls went to the mysterious Liceo Numero Tres a few blocks down street.

If all the progress achieved by humanity in the last fifty years is mixed colleges, well, I for one don't see much or any progress. So much ado about nothing, so much fury and fuss over a trifle. 

Tyler Cowen explains negative interest rates

"Some of the negative nominal premium comes from the fact that you need these govt. securities for collateral, REPOs, clearinghouse margin, etc.
That doesn’t explain *the change*, but this point is often overlooked and it makes the puzzle somewhat less mysterious.
In part, negative nominal (and real) rates reflect a scarcity of good opportunities *at the margin*, but of course inframarginal opportunities may be fine.
If you wish to try a further de-weirding of this, it may reflect a truth about agency problems rather than absolute pessimism.
If capital is relatively plentiful, and talent is super-scarce, and you don’t know how to find marginal talent, you may be stuck just storing your money.  But when talent and liquidity are combined — say Mark Zuckerberg — it will earn phenomenal returns, the other side of the coin.
In other words, this may all be a kind of correlate to income inequality and massive returns for founders…
…you have extra money, you really would like to lend it out for a real productive investment, rather than storing it at slightly negative nominal interest. [savings glut, a’la Softbank]
But whom to trust? Who is your local Mark Zuckerberg? You just don’t know. The uncle you might give it to will just rip you off and he is a dope anyway. [tech talent harder to spot because you can’t rely on traditional credentials]
If the agency wedge is larger, because the talented are already occupied for the most part, you might just have to store it.
This implies mega-returns for good talent spotters, which in fact we observe as of late."

J wonders what are "agency problems".

• Agency problem is a conflict of interest inherent in any relationship where one party is expected to act in the best interest of another. Agency problem arises when incentives or motivations present themselves to an agent to not act in the full best interest of a principal.

But it makes no sense in Tyler's context. May be he is referring to scarcity of able manpower aka talented Jews. If so, try the Har Bracha yeshive (pic). 

I learn something new every day. 

San Francisco-On-The-Hadas

Hadas is the name of the only "river" near my beloved city of Kever Benjamin. Hadas is a winter stream that flows from the pond behind the Ushiland Shopping Center (pic), receives the treated wastewater of the Kfar Saba WWTP and flows on to feed the Yarkon River.

The only thing common to San Francisco and my place is the rejection of development: the Municipality will invent the most bizarre reasons why no new buildings may be built nor apartments added to the existing ones. The recently elected major "froze" two important projects in the downtown that already had their permits, and wove that no new developments - approved or not - will pass. The obvious result of this policy is an immediate jump in real estate prices. As owner, it benefits me, but on the other hand, I would love my daughters buying and settling near. Prices are not yet at the infamous San Francisco range (after all, this is a town bordering with knife-wielding savages), where hi-tech millionaires can only afford a mobile home, but we are not far.

Frightened by the financial media talk about recession and crash, I had been looking for investable real estate nearby, and a 4-room 40-years old apartment costs about 700,000 dollars. And going up fast.

I am wondering if current prices are... cheap. Maybe I should take a 25 year mortgage and buy. The bank doesn't care that my probabilities of being alive in 2044 are nil, they would love to lend me the money, just ask dear J.