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Pam Rognlien serves with her husband, Bob, as leaders of 3DM West, and in the Footsteps of Jesus and Footsteps of Paul Experiences.
Drowning in a Sea of Extroverts?
I just love how God has made us each with unique quirks, preferences, and styles of expression! I love being around people who are not like me—I need their perspectives to help stretch my viewpoints, solve problems in ways I wouldn't consider and just plain live out life in ways that inspire me!
But have you ever noticed how those inspirational differences can sometimes turn into the bane of your existence? Let's consider just one of those differences—introverts and extroverts, and how they either swim with ease or gasp for air in the sea of Christian community.
God's pronouncement in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good for man to be alone" rings true to me as I have experienced life. I grew up in a family of mostly quiet, introverted people. I gave my life to Christ at age 16. My new life in Christ was first lived out in a Christian community in upstate New York, and then with a Christian mission organization overseas.
Compared to my relatively quiet family, I enjoyed the excitement of community living, experiencing a variety of personalities and opportunities to grow in my Christian faith. We would sing, evangelize, work, create and worship together which formed very strong bonds of love between us. We were mostly single adults, and had the freedom to choose to be together, or alone, as we wished. I knew I enjoyed quiet time by myself, but I also enjoyed the joy of gathering in groups.
"God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell"
Psalm 68:6
Soon the blessing of marriage and children came along—the deepest longings of my heart were suddenly fulfilled! But, as an introvert, I am energized by time alone and my husband, Bob, is energized by being around lots of people. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say he is an uber-extrovert! We also have two sons; one is extroverted, the other is not.
I first noticed my need for "personal space" boundaries had come to a head when our sons were young, around 7 and 9 years old. One day I found myself walking out the front door after Bob's return from work, heading to the car, leaving their seemingly incessant questions and requests ringing in my ears and muttering to myself "NOT AVAILABLE! NOT AVAILABLE!" I don't recall if I actually drove somewhere or just sat in the car; all I knew was I needed time to myself, right away!
I always knew Bob and I had very different personalities, which I viewed as the charm that attracted us to each other. Somehow I failed to register the impact of our premarital personality analysis results, or hear the kind suggestion from our pastor who said we might face challenges ahead given the fact that we were exact opposites on all accounts. I had stars in my eyes and wedding dresses on my mind, never imagining our differences could be anything but a bonus, and adorable!
These differences popped up when planning vacations. My ideal was a book on a quiet beach. His was being surrounded by family and friends all the time, the more, the merrier! I saw it as a sign he didn't love me anymore, and he must have thought I hated him, his friends and his family. None of that was true, of course.
Trying to put a social calendar together between us was also a very delicate balancing act. My preference would be getting together with friends two times a month; his preference was five nights a week! Early in our marriage, I must admit, I won the tug of war over that issue. Our compromise evolved to the point that if he wanted more entertaining dates than I did, he would have to handle the details, and I would join as desired. It seemed OK, but still made me uncomfortable to have people in my home without being "in charge."
About eight years ago my husband and I began journeying with some Christian brothers and sisters from 3DM, going deeper into what it means to live out lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. It meant offering my home as a place for hospitality. It meant there would be groups of people in my home, even two nights in a row! We ended up renovating our home to create space to accommodate larger groups of people for Missional Community. I was caving in to the reality that this wasn't going to change, and it was the right thing, but how could I do this without being overwhelmed?
Our friends from 3DM reminded us of the instructions Jesus gave to His disciples on this very point—abiding and bearing fruit. To teach the concept that Jesus spoke about in John 15 they used a semi-circle, a line etched out by a pendulum swinging between times of bearing fruit and abiding. We start with rest, causing us to grow, which produces fruit. We enjoy the time of fruitfulness until that season is over, when pruning occurs, directing us back to a time of rest once again. And so the pendulum swings. I like to say the semi-circle transformed my marriage. It brings health to both me, as an introvert and Bob, as an extrovert, pushing us out of our fleshly preferences, into a rhythm that gives life all around—a life worth imitating.
Our culture is bent towards the belief that the more friends you have and interact with, the more successful you are. A job interviewer will always consider a prospective employee's "people skills." It seems equally a banner of success if one can easily float among groups of people, able to talk on any topic at the drop of a hat, and keep smiling. In the book The Introvert Advantage Marti Olsen writes, "We live in a culture that caters to and extols extroverts. We definitely learn that extroversion is the way we should be" (p. 54).
Now, looking back over the past 29 years of marriage, 25 of them as a pastor's wife, and the launching of two awesome human males that are adding value to our world order, I can say there are skills, tools, and wisdom needed for introverts to navigate the waters of Christian community without sinking into despair. Yes, extroverts, you CAN get too much of a good thing! (Because hanging out with people IS a good thing, introverts!) Some "water wings" that have helped me navigate these waters have been:
- Choose time with people in small groups, as well as large. I find I really enjoy time with 5-8 people, and can have very meaningful interaction with them for quite a while without pulling my hair out. Be intentional about choosing to spend your social energy allotment here.
- I rely on Bob's ability for marathon time with people (large groups or small) so I can pull out of the crowd if I find my well of "people reserves" running dry. I'll just quietly slip out for a while, take some deep breaths, read a book, check in on Words with Friends, and then return when I can honestly enjoy the group again. He's still at it—and the group never missed me! If you're single, go with an extroverted friend who can spell you in large social settings.
- Find one person or a small group within a large group with whom you can have deeper conversation. You're not the only introvert in the room! You may find someone else, like yourself, who would prefer a one-on-one visit, making the large-group gathering a win for both of you.
- Release yourself from guilt! Celebrate the handprint of God on you and others! I recommend a great book by Adam S. McHugh called Introverts in the Church: Finding our Place in an Extroverted Culture.
I have been amazed by the thanks I receive after speaking at Family on Mission Workshops with honestly about these struggles. I know the idea of gathering groups of people together on mission for God can produce hives for some (quite literally), and not because they don't love the idea! They just can't imagine how they could function amidst a group, enjoy it and be used by God in that context. Fear not; you have a place, and God wants to use you. But don't use the term "introvert" as an excuse to tell God what you can and cannot do. God wants you to live in healthy rhythms, and that means being part of a family that loves you and one that you can love. It may look different than your extroverted best friend's way of doing it, but there is a way that fits you—so dive in!


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A World of Books in Translation
Joy Court and Daniel Hahn·January 2017
ISBN 9781911222002 · Price: £13.50 (Members £9.00)Add to Basket
Series: Riveting Reads · Level: Primary and Secondary
'Books in translation help us all to reach beyond our own language and culture,' writes David Almond, yet until recently few foreign children's books were translated into English. In this Riveting Reads publication our two renowned editors, Joy Court and Daniel Hahn, go some way to illuminate the wealth of material now coming from all corners of the world. They provide a superb selection of book reviews for the Under 8s through to the 14+ age ranges - titles that really should be on our library shelves. With pithy and illuminating annotations covering a wealth of topics and genres, A World of Books in Translation is an excellent guide that reflects the 90% of the world that does not speak English as its first language.
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Two colourful #bookbenches #childrensbooks #childrensauthor #librariansofinstagram #schoollibrarian #teachersofinstagram #jacquelinewilson #laurenchild #childrenslaureate See More...

subset: commoncrawl


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Reviewed By Ronald P (Wayne, NJ) Reviewed for a 2017 Mini Cooper —2/7/2017 6:40 AM
Was easy to install and solidly built. It is a great light weight utility hitch.
Reviewed By Mathew F (PALATKA, FL) Reviewed for a 2013 Dodge Challenger —8/17/2017 6:24 AM
2013 Challenger R/T Classic with aftermarket exhaust. Perfect fit. You can do it by yourself but it's beneficial to have a second person to help hold the hitch up while you get a bolt or two started. The face of the receiver sits about 8" inward from the outer edge of the rear bumper so you need a fairly long (and tall) ball mount (I got a 5 1/4" x 10"). I wish the safety chain loops were made from flat bar as these look like they'd bend if the safety chains were ever really "used".


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VP Franchise Owner of Park Lane True North.
Park Lane Jewelry launched in Canada in 2013.
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It is the World's Leading Direct Sales Jewellery Company.
The jewellery is BEAUTIFUL and affordable and also comes with a lifetime, unconditional guarantee.
Park Lane Jewelry was founded in Chicago in 1955 by Arthur and Shirley LeVin, Jewels by Park Lane. The company is now second generation owned and operated in multiple countries worldwide. Park Lane is the world's leading direct sales jewellery party plan company. Park Lane proudly offers exceptional quality high fashion jewellery that is backed by an unconditional guarantee.
The continuous Customer Sale, the Five Star hostess reward program, and the opportunity to have a home-based business as a Park Lane representative are just a few of the extraordinary incentives that make Park Lane an industry leader. As it has for 62 years, it all begins with the jewellery!
Jewellery expresses your mood, your attitude, your personality. Jewellery places your signature on your outfit. If you are in search of the perfect gift, jewellery is always appreciated and appropriate. Fashion-forward, unique, and exquisitely handcrafted, many Park Lane creations are inspired by world-renowned designers. Wear Park Lane jewellery with pride, and you will sparkle with beauty and confidence everywhere you go!


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When it's the weekend and it's sunny and you're feeling the lazy Sunday vibes, a visit to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is a must. Unlike its sisters the National Portrait Gallery and the The Scottish National Gallery, it is a little further out of town, but it's definitely worth the trip.
Category Archives: West End
The Pompadour by Galvin
Recently a friend and I took a break from the madness of the festive season to retreat into the stylish calm of the Pompadour by Galvin – an excellent restaurant tucked away in plain sight of the first floor of the Waldorf Astoria Caledonian Hotel.
Dine with Stuart Muir
Earlier this month Mr Bug and I were invited to try Dine with Stuart Muir – one of the newest additions to the food scene in Lothian Road. Right above the Traverse Theatre, this fresh foodie gem might be easy to miss, but it's certainly worth seeking out.
Hidden down the back of one of the side streets behind the Usher Hall, you'll find Kanpai. This Japanese restaurant has an unassuming exterior but don't be fooled – inside you'll discover some of the best sushi in that can be possibly found in Edinburgh.
A firm favourite of locals (especially the students), Wannaburger is an independent burger joint in the Edinburgh's West End, serving up simple food that is good value for money. It's the perfect place to go if you a craving a quick burger (or hotdog!) hit.
Croma Pizzeria
A few years ago now, the landmark large Odeon cinema on Lothian Road changed quite dramatically. The large letters ODEON hanging above the glass front came down and were replaced by the unfamiliar signage of Croma – a new pizza place. For a while, I thought that the cinema had closed completely but to avoid any confusion, the Odeon is still open today, it's just the main foyer is almost completely dominated by this new restaurant.


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It was apparent back in the 1970s that something needed to be done about Social Security. A presidential commission under Alan Greenspan proposed a combination of phased-in tax increases and benefit cuts that were enacted into law in 1983. The changes were sufficient so that the date at which the Social Security trust fund would run out of money was moved back from 1983 (!) into the 2030s. My purpose here is neither to praise nor to critique that report and legislation from more than three decades ago. It is to point out that the 2030s are a lot more visible in the headlights now than they were back in 1983, and we need one more round of legislation to assure that Social Security will remain solvent.
A few figures from the the 2017 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds (released July 13, 2017), tell much of the underlying story. The figure shows expenditures and costs. One result of the legislation following the Greenspan commission report was that for several decades Social Security was collecting more in taxes than it paid out in benefits, with the surpluses being invested in US Treasury debt and deposited in a trust fund. But back in 2009, the trust fund started to diminish, instead of to increase. Up through 2034, on the current projections, annual benefits paid out can be larger than the annual income of the system, because of the trust fund. But in 2034, the trust fund runs out, and the annual income of the system would be 77% benefits that have been promised.
What would it take to close the gap? Conveniently, the Social Security Administration publishes a "Summary of Provisions that Would Change the Social Security System" (most recent version, February 28, 2017). It lists dozens of proposals, many of them just variations on the timing and size of the change, and for each proposal, it lists what percentage of the long-range short-fall (that is, over the next 75 years) would be eliminated by this specific change. It's not really kosher just to add together the estimates about individual proposals to get an estimate of the combining several of the proposals, because the changes would overlap or interact in certain ways that could diminish or increase their effects. But for back-of-the-envelope estimates--and just getting a sense of what changes would matter a lot and what changes wouldn't matter so much--no great harm is done by listing some specific estimates. Without pre-judging the merits, here's a selection of some possible changes.
Under current law, Social Security benefits are adjusted upward each year according to the rise in the Consumer Price Index. For example, if instead the cost-of-living adjustment was 0.5 percentage points lower each year (starting in December 2017), this step would eliminates 34% of the long-run actuarial imbalance.
Under current law, Social Security benefits are calculates by looking at average earnings over the highest 35 years of earnings, which are expressed as a statistic called AIME, or "average indexed monthly earnings." Then a formula is applied to AIME to calculate the PIA, or "primary insurance amount," which is the basis for benefits paid. A higher AIME generally leads to a higher PIA, but the relationship isn't a simple proportion; instead, there's an element of redistribution in which those with lower AIME get a higher share of their income replaced by Social Security benefits. One could adjust how AIME is calculated, or adjust the PIA formula in many ways.
For example, one proposal is to "increase the number of years used to calculate benefits for retirees and
survivors (but not for disabled workers) from 35 to 40, phased in over the
years 2017-2025," which would address 17% of the long-range actuarial imbalance. However, there are lots of ways of tweaking the PIA formula. For example, one can tweak the formula so there is a benefit cut only for those with higher AIME, and so that the change doesn't start right away. For example, one such proposal would "create a new bend point at the 30th percentile of the AIME
distribution of newly retired workers. Maintain current-law benefits for
earners at the 30th percentile and below. Reduce the 32 and 15 percent
factors above the 30th percentile such that the initial benefit for a worker
with AIME equal to the taxable maximum is reduced by 1.21 percent per
year as compared to current law (for the years that progressive indexing
applies)." This step would eliminate 53% of the the long-run actuarial imbalance.
Under current law, there is a "normal retirement age" for Social Security, although retirees have an option to retire earlier and receive lower benefits, or to retire later and receive higher benefits. The Greenspan commission recommendations, have already been phasing in a later "normal retirement age," and as life expectancies continue to rise, this change could be extended. For example, one proposal would be that "after the normal retirement age (NRA) reaches 67 for those age 62 in
2022, increase the NRA 2 months per year until it reaches 69 for
individuals attaining age 62 in 2034. Thereafter, increase the NRA 1
month every 2 years." This change would eliminate 40% of the actuarial imbalance.
Social Security is funded by a payroll tax of 12.4% on earnings up to $127,200. Thus, it would be possible either to raise the tax rate, or to raise the income ceiling, or both. If one was to increase the payroll tax "by 0.1 percentage
point each year from 2022-2041, until the rate reaches 14.4 percent in
2041 and later," that step eliminates 55% of the long-run actuarial imbalance. Alternatively, say that we "eliminate the taxable maximum in years 2027 and later. Phase in
elimination by taxing all earnings above the current-law taxable maximum
at: 1.24 percent in 2018, 2.48 percent in 2019, and so on, up to 12.40
percent in 2027. Provide benefit credit for earnings above the current-law
taxable maximum, adding a bend point at the current-law taxable
maximum and applying a formula factor of 5 percent for AIME [average indexed monthly earnings] above this
new bend point." This step alone would address 72% of the long-run actuarial imbalance.
An alternative proposal in this category would be to apply Social Security taxes to the value of employer-provided health insurance,which is currently an untaxed fringe benefit for some workers --but not others. A sample proposal sounds like this: "Expand covered earnings to include employer and employee premiums
for employer-sponsored group health insurance (ESI). Starting in 2020,
phase out the OASDI payroll tax exclusion for ESI premiums. Set an
exclusion level at the 75th percentile of premium distribution in 2020,
with amounts above that subject to the payroll tax. Reduce the exclusion
level each year by 10 percent of the 2020 exclusion level until fully
eliminated in 2030. Eliminate the excise tax on ESI premiums scheduled to
begin in 2020." This step would eliminate 33% of the long-run actuarial imbalance.
As long as we are tinkering with tax and benefit rates, some steps might be taken to help those with the lowest incomes who depend most heavily on Social Security. For example, there are a variety of proposals for raising the minimum benefit, which would tend to worsen the long-run actuarial imbalance by about 5%. A related idea is to offer an increase in minimum benefits for the very old, who have been receiving Social Security for at least 20 years, on the ground that this group is especially likely to be in need. Another option would "increase the earliest eligibility age (EEA) by two months per year for those age 62 starting in 2018 and ending in 2035 (EEA reaches 65 for those age 62 in 2035)," so that people who have economic or health-related reasons to claim benefits earlier could do so--although the level of benefits would be reduced for those who took this option. One could also tinker with the formulas to provide a boost for elderly workers who remain active in the workforce. For example, one proposal would eliminate Social Security taxes for those who have worked more than 180 quarters (that is, 45 years).
Thus, if thinking of an overall big deal on Social Security, it makes sense to take steps that would address, say, 120% of the long-run actuarial imbalance, and then "spend" 20% of that amount on targeted increases in Social Security benefits for the most needy.
At least for geeks like me, innocent as a rose of real-world political machinations, it appears that a political opportunity lurks here! What if the remaining practical politicians in one party or the other could hammer out a plausible bill to fix Social Security for the 21st century, which would offer some mixture of all these policies.
Of course, whatever party wants to take this on would need to keep its own extremists in check. In my experience, Republican extremists on this issue sometimes insist on trying to address the entire problem with benefit cuts, or on turning this into a fight over whether to privatize Social Security. Meanwhile, Democratic extremists on this issue sometimes want to disregard the projections of the Social Security actuaries, argue that the problem isn't real, and then offer large and broad increases in benefits. I'm not saying it's an easy problem--although compared to North Korea or rising health care costs, I don't think Social Security is an especially hard problem. And think of the potential political gains from being the party that got its act together and saved Social Security for the 21st century!
Monday, August 21, 2017
Friday, August 18, 2017
Blockchain: New Frontiers
Blockchain is a technology that offers reliable by decentralized record-keeping. The best-known applications of "blockchain" technology are still the alternative currencies, of which Bitcoin remains most prominent. But it looks more and more as if the main near-term expansions of blockchain technology are not going to be about currencies, but instead relate to other kinds of ownership, transactions, and record-keeping. A couple of recent studies emphasizing this theme are "How blockchain technology could change our lives," written by Philip Boucher, Susana Nascimento, and Mihalis Kritikos for the European Parliamentary Research Service (February 2017), and "Blockchain and Economic Development: Hype vs. Reality," written by Michael Pisa and Matt Juden for the Center for Global Development (CGD Policy Paper #107, July 2017).
Both papers offer a verbal and intuitive sketch of how the blockchain technology works. Here's a taste of the explanation from Boucher, Nascimento and Kritikos:
This recent spike,while it certainly gladdens the heart of those who already hold bitcoins, is actually part of the reason why bitcoin is not an especially good currency. Useful currencies are relatively stable in value! In most modern economies, traditional currencies typically allow transactions that are already relatively fast, secure,and cheap. For most people, it's not clear how they would benefit from using bitcoin for transaction purposes. Pisa and Juden explain (footnotes and citations omitted):
Ownership of Digital Media (as explained by Boucher, Nascimento, and Kritikos)
Boucher, Nascimento, and Kritikos write:
A number of countries have recently enacted digital identification systems for their citizens, including most notably India, but also Estonia, Pakistan, Peru, and Thailand. However, these are not blockchain systems, but rather a combination of ID numbers, biometric markers (like fingerprints or iris scans), and cryptography (where a person needs to know a private code). Governments are not likely to outsource the identification of their citizens to blockchain technology. The question is whether it might be useful to use blockchain to provide a private proof of identification that people might use for other purposes, alongside their government ID, while having greater control over their private information. The authors explain:
For a couple of earlier posts on blockchain and Bitcoin, see:
Both papers offer a verbal and intuitive sketch of how the blockchain technology works. Here's a taste of the explanation from Boucher, Nascimento and Kritikos:
"Blockchain offers the same record-keeping functionality but without a centralised architecture. The question is how it can be certain that a transaction is legitimate when there is no central authority to check it. Blockchains solve this problem by decentralising the ledger, so that each user holds a copy of it. Anyone can request that any transaction be added to the blockchain, but transactions are only accepted if all the users agree that it is legitimate, e.g. that the request comes from the authorised person, that the house seller has not already sold the house, and the buyer has not already spent the money. This checking is done reliably and automatically on behalf of each user, creating a very fast and secure ledger system that is remarkably tamper-proof. Each new transaction to be recorded is bundled together with other new transactions into a 'block', which is added as the latest link on a long 'chain' of historic transactions. This chain forms the blockchain ledger that is held by all users. ..."Thus, anyone can download the blockchain of all transactions. But who has an incentive to update and check the blockchain? Blockchain technology relies on "miners" to do this job. Miners need to spend computing resources to solve a complicated algorithm before they can add a block of transactions to the blockchain, and they are paid either by users of blockchain services or by the system itself. Again, Boucher, Nascimento and Kritikos explain:
"This work is called 'mining'. Anybody can become a miner and compete to be the first to solve the complex mathematical problem of creating a valid encrypted block of transactions to add to the blockchain. There are various means of incentivising people to do this work. Most often, the first miner to create a valid block and add it to the chain is rewarded with the sum of fees for its transactions. Fees are currently around €0.10 per transaction, but blocks are added regularly and contain thousands of transactions. Miners may also receive new currency that is created and put into circulation as an inflation mechanism.
"Adding a new block to the chain means updating the ledger that is held by all users. Users only accept a new block when it has been verified that all of its transactions are valid. If a discrepancy is found, the block is rejected. Otherwise, the block is added and will remain there as a permanent public record. No user can remove it. While destroying or corrupting a traditional ledger requires an attack on the middleman, doing so with a blockchain requires an attack on every copy of the ledger simultaneously. There can be no 'fake ledger' because all users have their own genuine version to check against. Trust and control in blockchain-based transactions is not centralised and black-boxed, but decentralised and transparent. These blockchains are described as 'permissionless', because there is no special authority that can deny permission to participate in the checking and adding of transactions."When blockchain is used for Bitcoin, the blockchain records the ownership of each bitcoin, and when each bitcoin is transferred to another user. But the users themselves remain (although sufficiently motivated law enforcement can sometimes find a way in). Bitcoin has been in the news lately because it has been experiencing a price spike. Here's the price of bitcoin in US dollars from Google Finance website. As you can see, the price of a bitcoin first soared above $1,000 back in 2013, sagged, slowly moved back to about $1,000, but then in the last few months has soared to above $4,000.
This recent spike,while it certainly gladdens the heart of those who already hold bitcoins, is actually part of the reason why bitcoin is not an especially good currency. Useful currencies are relatively stable in value! In most modern economies, traditional currencies typically allow transactions that are already relatively fast, secure,and cheap. For most people, it's not clear how they would benefit from using bitcoin for transaction purposes. Pisa and Juden explain (footnotes and citations omitted):
To usurp the role of national currencies, bitcoin would first need to fulfill some (though perhaps not all) of the core functions that money provides, including serving as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Currently, bitcoin does none of these things very well: its extreme volatility prevents it from being a good store of value and unit of account, and retailers and consumers—who appear satisfied with the cost/benefit tradeoffs associated with using credit cards—have not accepted the currency widely enough to consider it a reliable medium of exchange. National governments also present an obstacle: currently, no government allows taxes to be paid with bitcoin, which reduces the incentives for individuals and companies to use it.
"Even if national governments choose not to resist broader usage of bitcoin, there are questions about the technology's ability to scale due to the speed of the network. Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain can process a maximum of seven transactions per second. To put this in context, Visa processes an average of 2,000 transactions per second and has a peak capacity of 56,000 transactions per second. Increasing the speed of the Bitcoin network could be accomplished through increasing block size. This is technically feasible, but some network participants have resisted it, since it would increase the cost of mining bitcoin and give more control to larger entities, leading to greater centralization of the network. Finally, there are concerns about the energy intensity of mining. Although estimates vary widely, some indicate that bitcoin mining could consume 14,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020, which is comparable to Denmark's total energy consumption."But although bitcoin and virtual currencies may not be likely to take over the money supply anytime soon, the blockchain technology can be adapted for a considerable array of other purposes. Here are some suggestions about these other purposes.
Ownership of Digital Media (as explained by Boucher, Nascimento, and Kritikos)
"When consumers purchase books and discs, they come to own physical artefacts that they can later sell, give away or leave as part of their inheritance. There are limitations to their rights, for example they should not distribute copies, and should pay royalties if they broadcast the content. In buying the digital equivalent of this same media, consumers know they will not gain ownership of a physical artefact, but many do not realise that they do not gain ownership of any content either. Rather, they enter into a licensing agreement which is valid for either a period of time or a fixed number of plays. These licences cannot be sold, given away or even left as part of an inheritance. Building a collection of legitimately-owned digital music, literature, games and films often comes at a cost similar to that of a collection of various discs and books with the same content. It is a substantial lifelong investment but one that cannot be transferred and that expires on death. While older generations might take pleasure in reliving the tastes and experiences of loved ones via the boxes of vinyl, books and games they left behind, today's children may not enjoy the same access to their parent's digital content. Could blockchain technology help resolve these and other problems with digital media? ...
"The blockchain could be used to register all sales, loans, donations and other such transfers of individual digital artefacts. All transactions are witnessed and agreed by all users. Just like transactions in a bank account or land registry, artefacts cannot be transferred unless they are legitimately owned. Buyers can verify that they are purchasing legitimate copies of MP3s and video files. Indeed, the transaction history allows anyone to verify that the various transfers of ownership lead all the way back to the original owner, that is, the creator of the work. The concept could be combined with smart contracts so that access to content can be lent to others for fixed periods before being automatically returned, or so that inheritance wishes could be implemented automatically upon registration of a death certificate. ... Using blockchain technology in this way could for the first time enable consumers to buy and sell digital copies second hand, give them away or donate them to charity shops, lend them to friends temporarily or leave them as part of an inheritance – just as they used to with vinyl and books – while ensuring that they are not propagating multiple unlicensed copies."Management of Global Supply Chains (as explained by Boucher, Nascimento, and Kritikos)
"Blockchain-based applications have the potential to improve supply chains by providing infrastructure for registering, certifying and tracking at a low cost goods being transferred between often distant parties, who are connected via a supply chain but do not necessarily trust each other. All goods are uniquely identified via 'tokens' and can then be transferred via the blockchain, with each transaction verified and time-stamped in an encrypted but transparent process. This gives the relevant parties access whether they are suppliers, vendors, transporters or buyers. The terms of every transaction remain irrevocable and immutable, open to inspection to everyone or to authorised auditors. Smart contracts could also be deployed to automatically execute payments and other procedures.International Financial Transactions (as explained by Pisa and Juden)
"Several companies, innovators and incumbents are already testing blockchain for record-keeping in their supply chains. Everledger enables companies and buyers to track the provenance of diamonds from mines to jewellery stores and to combat insurance or documentation fraud. For each diamond, Everledger measures 40 attributes such as cut and clarity, the number of degrees in pavilion angles and place of origin. They generate a serial number for each diamond, inscribed microscopically, and then they add this digital ID to Everledger's blockchain (currently numbering 280 000 diamonds). This makes it possible to establish and maintain complete ownership histories, which can help counteract fraud and support police and insurance investigators tracking stolen gems. It also allows consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions, e.g. to limit their search to diamonds with a 'clean' history that is free from fraud, theft, forced labour and the intervention of dubious vendors who are linked to violence, drugs or arms trafficking. ...
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is trialling Blockchain for food safety. It is expected that a Blockchain-based accurate and updated record can help to identify the product, shipment and vendor, for instance when an outbreak happens, and in this way get the details on how and where food was grown and who inspected it. An accurate record could also make their supply chain more efficient when it comes to delivering food to stores faster and reducing spoilage and waste.
"The cost and inefficiency associated with making international payments across certain corridors present a barrier to economic development. Whether it is a business making an investment in a developing country, an emigrant sending money back home, or an aid organization funding a project abroad, moving resources from rich to poorer countries ultimately requires money to be sent across borders. ... [C]onducting these transactions through the formal financial system can involve considerable cost and delay. Cross-border payments are inefficient because there is no single global payment infrastructure through which they can travel. Instead, international payments must pass
through a series of bilateral correspondent bank relationships, in which banks hold accounts at other banks in other countries. The number of such relationships that a bank is willing to maintain is limited by the cost of funding these accounts as well as the risk of conducting financial transactions with banks who lack strong controls to prevent illicit transactions ...
"One consequence of the fragmented global payments system is the high cost of remittances, which are an enormously important source of development financing. Roughly $430 billion of remittances were sent to developing countries in 2016, nearly three times as much as official aid. The global average cost of sending remittances worth $200 is 7.4 percent but varies greatly across corridors: for example, the average cost of sending $200 from a developed country to South Asia is 5.4 percent, while the cost of sending the same value to sub-Saharan Africa is 9.8 percent (World Bank 2017). ...
Small and medium-sized businesses face similar costs when conducting cross-border payments. Industry surveys suggest that approximately two-thirds of cross-border businesses are unhappy with the delays and fees associated with using traditional bank transfers for sending international payments ...
"Using a bitcoin-based company to send remittances to countries that have deep bitcoin exchange markets can be cheaper than using traditional MTOs. For example, sending a $200 remittance from the United States to the Philippines with Rebit.ph currently costs 3 percent, while World Remit, an established MTO that relies on the traditional system of bank wires, charges 3.5 percent. However, in most corridors, bitcoin-based remittance companies have not been able to offer fees that are substantially lower than traditional players. As a result, many have closed, while others have shifted to emphasizing business-to-business payments ..."Public record-keeping and land registries (from both sets of authors)
Boucher, Nascimento, and Kritikos write:
"The most immediate applications of blockchain technology in public administrations are in record keeping. The combination of time-stamping with digital signatures on an accessible ledger is expected to deliver benefits for all users, enabling them to conduct transactions and create records (e.g. for land registries, birth certificates and business licences) with less dependence upon lawyers, notaries, government officials and other third parties. ...
"The Estonian government has experimented with blockchain implementations enabling citizens to use their ID cards to order medical prescriptions, vote, bank, apply for benefits, register their businesses, pay taxes and access approximately 3 000 other digital services. The approach also enables civil servants to encrypt documents, review and approve permits, contracts and applications and submit information requests to other services. This is an example of a permissioned blockchain, where some access is restricted in order to secure data and protect users' privacy. ...
"Several countries including Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria have begun to use blockchains to manage land registries. Their aim is to create a clear and trustworthy record of ownership, in response to problems with registration, corruption and poor levels of public access to records. Sweden is also conducting tests to put real estate transactions on blockchain, in this case to allow all parties (banks, government, brokers, buyers and sellers) to track the progress of the transaction deal in all its stages and to guarantee the authenticity and transparency of the process while making considerable time and cost savings.
"The Department for Work and Pensions in the UK have also trialled the use of blockchain technology for welfare payments. Here, citizens use their phones to receive and spend their benefit payments and, with their consent, their transactions are recorded on a distributed ledger. The aim of the initiative is to help people manage their finances and create a more secure and efficient welfare system, preventing fraud and enhancing trust between claimants and the government. The UK government is also considering how blockchain technology could enable citizens to track the allocation and spending of funds from the government, donors or aid organisations to the actual recipients, in the form of grants, loans and scholarships."Pisa and Juden write:
"The idea of storing land titles on a blockchain has obvious appeal. Most importantly, sharing a land registry across a distributed network greatly enhances its security by eliminating "single point of failure" risk and making it more difficult to tamper with records. It could also increase transparency by allowing certified actors (including, potentially, auditors or mon-profit organizations) to monitor changes made to the registry on a near real-time basis, and enhance efficiency by reducing the time and money associated with registering property. ...
"A blockchain cannot, however, address problems related to the reliability of records. This is an obvious point but one that is often overlooked. As noted earlier, the blockchain is a "garbage in, garbage out" system: if a government uploads a false deed to a blockchain (either out of carelessness or deceit), it will remain false. This suggests that using the technology to store land records works best in places where the existing system for recording land titles is already strong. This was certainly the case in Georgia, which initiated a project with The Bitfury Group and the Blockchain Trust Accelerator in 2016 to register land titles on a blockchain. ... Bitfury's pilot project in Georgia has reportedly been a success. By February 2017, NAPR had registered more than 100,000 documents and the Georgian government announced a new agreement with Bitfury to expand the use of blockchain technology to other government departments. The question now is whether this success can be replicated in less favorable environments. Bitfury will face this challenge in Ukraine where it recently reached agreement with the Ukrainian government to put all its electronic records (not just land titles) onto a blockchain."Private and Validated Proof of Identity (as explained by Pisa and Juden, citations and footnotes omitted)
A number of countries have recently enacted digital identification systems for their citizens, including most notably India, but also Estonia, Pakistan, Peru, and Thailand. However, these are not blockchain systems, but rather a combination of ID numbers, biometric markers (like fingerprints or iris scans), and cryptography (where a person needs to know a private code). Governments are not likely to outsource the identification of their citizens to blockchain technology. The question is whether it might be useful to use blockchain to provide a private proof of identification that people might use for other purposes, alongside their government ID, while having greater control over their private information. The authors explain:
"Because of the weaknesses of centralized and federated ID solutions, and the belief that people should have greater control over their own personal data and the value derived from it, some ID experts have turned their focus to developing "user-centric" or "self-sovereign" systems. These systems aim to shift control to individuals by allowing them to "store their own identity data on their own devices, and provide it efficiently to those who need to validate it, without relying on a central repository of identity data." Until recently such a solution seemed technically infeasible, but blockchain technology appears to make it possible.
"Several benefits arise from storing certified attributes on a blockchain. The first is privacy: Alice can control both who she shares her personal information with and how much information she shares. The second is security, as the absence of a centralized database eliminates single point of failure risk. The system is also more convenient, since it allows users to provide verified information with the touch of a button rather than having to access and submit a wide variety of documents. Finally, a blockchain provides an easy and accurate way to trace the evolution of ID attributes since each change is time-stamped and appended to the record preceding it.
"The idea of a self-sovereign ID system based on blockchain is close to becoming a reality. For example, SecureKey and IBM are now piloting a digital ID system in Canada using the Linux Foundation's open-source Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. The project connects the Canadian government (including national and provincial government agencies) with the country's largest banks and telecoms on a permissioned blockchain network. These participating companies and agencies play a dual role of certifying users' attributes and providing digital services. The project is expected to go live in late 2017, at which time Canadian consumers will be able to opt into the network to access a variety of egovernment and financial services by sharing verified attributes stored on a mobile phone."Transparency and Coordination of Financial Aid (as described by Pisa and Juden)
"An example of the first model is an application called Stoneblock developed by the company Neocapita. Still in an early stage of development, the platform will allow actors along the development supply chain (including donors, recipients, implementing partners, and auditors) to simultaneously track information about how a project is progressing and the flow of funding. The company is also exploring the use of smart contracts that would trigger disbursement of funds tied to performance metrics. In most cases, human observers would report metrics onto a blockchain (e.g., reporting the number of children attending a school) but in others, electronic meters could play the same role (e.g., measuring the amount of water produced by a well). By allowing all participants on the network to view the same information at the same time, using a blockchain to share project data could dramatically reduce administrative overhead. Storing records on a blockchain would also make them essentially tamper-proof, thereby reducing the potential for misappropriation."These papers include other possible applications: blockchain-enabled records of when a patent application occurred; blockchain-enabled voting; "smart contracts," which might involve provisions for payments related to in loans, insurance payments, or wills that can be automatically carried out when prespecified dates or conditions occur; and even talk of setting up "decentralized autonomous organizations" on blockchain that would own assets and could carry out a set of contractual commitments with humans, firms, and other autonomous organizations. The alternative currencies like bitcoin get the headlines, but my guess is that these alternative frontiers for the application of blockchain technology are going to be considerably more important very soon -- if they aren't more important already.
For a couple of earlier posts on blockchain and Bitcoin, see:
- "How Does Bitcoin Work" (September 25, 2014)
- "Bitcoin: A Remarkable Innovation and Its Limitations" (May 18, 2015)
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Autonomous Cars: Altering One in Nine Jobs
It seems clear that driverless vehicles are coming, although the timeline for their arrival remains unclear. David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram of the Economics and Statistics Administration at the US Department of Commerce look at one aspect, "The Employment Impact of Autonomous Vehicles," in ESA Issue Brief #05-17 (August 11, 2017). They set the stage this way:
"In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published policy guidelines for AVs [autonomous vehicles], recognizing their potential as "the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago" (NHTSA 2016). ... The worldwide number of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), such as backup cameras and adaptive cruise control, increased from 90 million to 140 million units between 2014 and 2016. Consumers have indicated a willingness to pay $500-$2,500 per vehicle for ADAS. Sensor technologies are rapidly advancing to provide sophisticated information to vehicle operating systems about the surrounding environment, such as road conditions and the location of other nearby vehicles. However, slower progress has been made in developing software that can mimic human driver decision-making, so that fully autonomous vehicles may not be introduced for another ten or more years ..."Autonomous vehicles could lead to sweeping changes in personal mobility, car ownership, parking arrangements, traffic congestion, road safety, and more. I ran through some of the main effects in an earlier post on "Driverless Cars" (October 31, 2012).
The focus of Beede, Powers, and Ingram is on jobs that involve a substantial amount of driving. They write:
"In 2015, 15.5 million U.S. workers were employed in occupations that could be affected (to varying degrees) by the introduction of automated vehicles. This represents about one in nine workers. We divide these occupations into "motor vehicle operators" and "other on-the-job drivers." Motor vehicle operators are occupations for which driving vehicles to transport persons and goods is a primary activity, are more likely to be displaced by AVs [autonomous vehicles] than other driving-related occupations. In 2015, there were 3.8 million workers in these occupations. These workers were predominately male, older, less educated, and compensated less than the typical worker. Motor vehicle operator jobs are most concentrated in the transportation and warehousing sector. Other on-the-job drivers use roadway motor vehicles to deliver services or to travel to work sites, such as first responders, construction trades, repair and installation, and personal home care aides. In 2015, there were 11.7 million workers in these occupations and they are mostly concentrated in construction, administrative and waste management, health care, and government. Other-on-the-job drivers may be more likely to benefit from greater productivity and better working conditions offered by AVs than motor vehicle operator occupations."When they break down these jobs by industry, I was interested to note that "government" is the area where the greatest number of jobs will potentially be affected by driverless cars. This suggests that certain might play a leading role in offering examples of how driverless vehicles could work. Or not!
Many of those whose jobs would be affected by autonomous vehicles are likely to push back. When tallying up the costs and benefits, it's worth noting that those who spend a lot of time driving are actually in relatively hazardous jobs, because of the risk of motor vehicle accidents. "[T]he fatality rate (per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers) for motor vehicle operators from on-the-job roadway incidents involving motor vehicles is ten times the rate for all workers, and the numbers of roadway motor vehicle occupational injuries resulting in lost work time per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers is 8.7 times as large as that of all workers."
Any innovation which directly affects the jobs of about one-ninth of all US workers has the potential to be a dislocating shock of some force. Some types of workers who spend a good portion of every day in a vehicle will have a harder time adjusting to the change; for others, autonomous vehicles may come as a relief, by freeing them up to focus on other parts of their job. The authors note:
"Workers in motor vehicle operator jobs are older, less educated, and for the most part have fewer transferable skills than other workers, especially the kinds of skills required for non-routine cognitive tasks. ... [I]n contrast to the workers in the occupations we classify as motor vehicle operators, other on-the-job drivers, of which there are about triple the number of motor vehicle operators, have a more diversified set of work activities, knowledge, and skills. For this group, although driving is an important work activity, it is only one of many important work activities, many of which already require the kinds of non-routine cognitive skills that are becoming increasingly in demand in our economy. Such workers are likely to be able to adapt to the widespread adoption of AVs."
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Adam Smith: The Plight of the Impartial Spectator in Times of Faction
Adam Smith's first great book, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, relies heavily in places on the idea of an "impartial spectator." Smith's notion is that our beliefs about morality are closely related to our notion of how a hypothetical "impartial spectator" would react to a given situation. (Here's a quick overview of Smith's argument.) But what happens to a person trying to think like an impartial spectator--that is, a person trying to preserve the integrity of their own personal judgment--in a time of faction? Smith argues that anyone trying to act in this way is likely to be marginalized by all competing factions.
Here is Smith's comment from the 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments (Book III, Ch. 1, paragraph 85). As is my wont, I quote here from the online version of the book at the Library of Economics and Liberty website. Smith wrote:
Here is Smith's comment from the 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments (Book III, Ch. 1, paragraph 85). As is my wont, I quote here from the online version of the book at the Library of Economics and Liberty website. Smith wrote:
"The animosity of hostile factions, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is often still more furious than that of hostile nations; and their conduct towards one another is often still more atrocious. ... In a nation distracted by faction, there are, no doubt, always a few, though commonly but a very few, who preserve their judgment untainted by the general contagion. They seldom amount to more than, here and there, a solitary individual, without any influence, excluded, by his own candour, from the confidence of either party, and who, though he may be one of the wisest, is necessarily, upon that very account, one of the most insignificant men in the society. All such people are held in contempt and derision, frequently in detestation, by the furious zealots of both parties. A true party-man hates and despises candour; and, in reality, there is no vice which could so effectually disqualify him for the trade of a party-man as that single virtue. The real, revered, and impartial spectator, therefore, is, upon no occasion, at a greater distance than amidst the violence and rage of contending parties. To them, it may be said, that such a spectator scarce exists any where in the universe. Even to the great Judge of the universe, they impute all their own prejudices, and often view that Divine Being as animated by all their own vindictive and implacable passions. Of all the corrupters of moral sentiments, therefore, faction and fanaticism have always been by far the greatest."
Monday, August 14, 2017
Misallocation and Productivity: International Perspective
In pretty much every industry in pretty much every country, the firms exhibit a range of productivity: that is, some well-run and efficient firms produce more output given their levels of labor and capital, while others produce less. What ought to happen in a well-functioning economy is that the lagging-productivity firms should either be catching up with the leading-productivity firms over time, or the laggard firms should shrink in size while the leading firms grow in size. This process has been demonstrably important to economic growth in the past.
However, a wide range of taxes, rules, and institutions may act to inhibit reallocation of resources, and thus to slow down productivity growth. For example, if smaller farms are less efficient that larger farms, but the land use rules in a developing economy keep farm sizes small, then agricultural resources will not be reallocated. Economists refer to this as an issue of "misallocation."
Diego Restuccia and Richard Rogerson discuss "The Causes and Costs of Misallocation" in the Summer 2017 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (31:3: pp. 151-174). The IMF discusses the role of tax policy in creating and sustaining misallocation in the April 2017 IMF Fiscal Monitor, with an overall theme of "Achieving More with Less." The discussion of reallocation is in "Chapter 2: Upgrading the Tax System to Boost Productivity." The IMF researchers write:
In their JEP essay, Restuccia and Rogerson provide a useful overview of what can cause misallocation, and how economists have sought to measure the potential gains from reducing misallocation. For a flavor of the issues and analysis, here are a few of the studies mentioned in the paper:
Moreover, a better understanding of the gaps between leading and lagging companies--why suchh gaps persist, what might help to close them-- may even help to explain one of the really big questions in the global economy, which is the overall slowdown in productivity growth. A 2015 study done by the OECD found that productivity growth among leading companies in various industries has not been slowing down; instead, the gap between leading and lagging companies has expanded, as if lagging companies are having a harder time keeping pace.
However, a wide range of taxes, rules, and institutions may act to inhibit reallocation of resources, and thus to slow down productivity growth. For example, if smaller farms are less efficient that larger farms, but the land use rules in a developing economy keep farm sizes small, then agricultural resources will not be reallocated. Economists refer to this as an issue of "misallocation."
Diego Restuccia and Richard Rogerson discuss "The Causes and Costs of Misallocation" in the Summer 2017 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (31:3: pp. 151-174). The IMF discusses the role of tax policy in creating and sustaining misallocation in the April 2017 IMF Fiscal Monitor, with an overall theme of "Achieving More with Less." The discussion of reallocation is in "Chapter 2: Upgrading the Tax System to Boost Productivity." The IMF researchers write:
"Resource misallocation manifests itself in a wide dispersion in productivity levels across firms, even within narrowly defined industries. High dispersion in firm productivities reveals that some businesses in each country have managed to achieve high levels of efficiency, possibly close to those of the world frontier in that industry. This implies that existing conditions within a country are compatible with higher levels of productivity. Therefore, countries can reap substantial TFP [total factor productivity] gains from reducing resource misallocation, allowing firms to catch up with the high-productivity firms in their own economies. In some cases, however, the least productive businesses will need to exit the market, releasing resources for the more productive ones. For example, Baily, Hulten, and Campbell (1992) find that 50 percent of manufacturing productivity growth in the United States during the 1980s can be attributed to the reallocation of factors across plants and to firm entry and exit. Similarly, Barnett and others (2014) find that labor reallocation across firms explained 48 percent of labor productivity growth for most sectors in the U.K. economy in the five years prior to 2007.
Resource misallocation is often the result of a large number of poorly designed economic policies and market failures that prevent the expansion of efficient firms and promote the survival of inefficient ones. Reducing misallocation is therefore a complex and multidimensional task that requires the use of all policy levers. Structural reforms play a crucial role, in particular because the opportunity cost of poorly designed economic policies is much greater now in the context of anemic productivity growth. Financial, labor, and product market reforms have been identified as important contributors (see Banerjee and Duflo 2005; Andrews and Cingano 2014; Gamberoni, Giordano, and Lopez-Garcia 2016; and Lashitew 2016). This chapter makes the case that upgrading the tax system is also key to boosting productivity by reducing distortions that prevent resources from going to where they are most productive. ...
Potential TFP gains from reducing resource misallocation are substantial and could lift the annual real GDP growth rate by roughly 1 percentage point. Payoffs are higher for emerging market and low-income developing countries than for advanced economies, with considerable variation across countries. ...Many emerging market economies have a relatively small number of leading firms, and a large number of laggards. If the distribution of leaders and laggards in these markets became more equal, similar to the distribution between leaders and laggard firms in US industries, the productivity gains could be large. By the IMF calculations, total factor productivity "would increase by 30 to 50 percent in China and by 40 to 60 percent in India."
In their JEP essay, Restuccia and Rogerson provide a useful overview of what can cause misallocation, and how economists have sought to measure the potential gains from reducing misallocation. For a flavor of the issues and analysis, here are a few of the studies mentioned in the paper:
"Government regulation can also hinder the reallocation of individuals across space. Hsieh and Moretti (2015) study misallocation of individuals across 220 US metropolitan areas from 1964 to 2009. They document a doubling in the dispersion of wages across US cities during the sample period. Using a model of spatial reallocation, they show that the increase in wage dispersion across US cities represents a misallocation that contributed to a loss in aggregate GDP per capita of 13.5 percent. They argue that across-city labor misallocation is directly related to housing regulations and the associated constraints on housing supply. ..."
"Tombe and Zhu (2015) provide direct evidence on the frictions of labor (and goods) mobility across space and sectors in China and quantify the role of these internal frictions and their changes over time on aggregate productivity. The reduction of internal migration frictions is key and together with internal trade restrictions account for about half of the growth in China between 2000 and 2005. ..."
"Restuccia and Santaeulalia-Llopis (2017) study misallocation across household farms in Malawi. They have data on the physical quantity of outputs and inputs as well as measures of transitory shocks and so are able to measure farm-level total factor productivity. They find that the allocation of inputs is relatively constant across farms despite large differences in measured total factor productivity, suggesting a large amount of misallocation. In fact, they found that aggregate agricultural output would increase by a remarkable factor of 3.6 if inputs were allocated efficiently. Their analysis also suggests that institutional factors that affect land allocation are likely playing a key role. Specifically, they compare misallocation within groups of farmers that are differentially influenced by restrictive land markets. Whereas most farmers in Malawi operate a given allocation of land, other farmers have access to marketed land (in most cases through informal rentals). Using this source of variation, Restuccia and Santaeulalia-Llopis find that misallocation is much larger for the group of farmers without access to marketed land: specifically, the potential output gains from removing misallocation are 2.6 times larger in this group relative to the gains for the group of farms with marketed land."There will always be leading and lagging firms, and various hindrances to reallocation of resources across places and firms. In that sense, misallocation is never going away. But studying misallocation offers a useful reminder that productivity growth and economic growth are driven (or not!) by the dynamic forces of competition in a reasonably flexible economic setting.
Moreover, a better understanding of the gaps between leading and lagging companies--why suchh gaps persist, what might help to close them-- may even help to explain one of the really big questions in the global economy, which is the overall slowdown in productivity growth. A 2015 study done by the OECD found that productivity growth among leading companies in various industries has not been slowing down; instead, the gap between leading and lagging companies has expanded, as if lagging companies are having a harder time keeping pace.
Friday, August 11, 2017
NAFTA in a Multipolar World Economy
Discussions of globalization often seem rooted in an assumption that the main choices, either for the US or for other countries, are either nationalism or global. But there is another possibility, which is that the world economy evolves to a "multipolar" setting, which is based on primarily regional agglomerations of cross-national trade. In this situation, the issue for the US economy is whether it will be part of its geographically natural multipolar group, here in the Americas, or whether it will try view itself as a group of one, competing in the global economy with multipolar groups in Europe and in Asia. Your attitude toward the North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, may vary according to whether you see it as one of many trade deals in a globalizing economy, or whether you see it as the specific trade deal for building a US-centered trading bloc in a multipolar economy.
Michael O'Sullivan and Krithika Subramanian lay out the case for the multipolarity hypothesis in "Getting Over Globalization," written as a report for Credit Suisse Research (January 2017). They write:
Michael O'Sullivan and Krithika Subramanian lay out the case for the multipolarity hypothesis in "Getting Over Globalization," written as a report for Credit Suisse Research (January 2017). They write:
"Globalization is running out of steam. We can see this in various ways. Our measure for tracking globalization – made up of flows of trade, finance, services and people – has ebbed in the past year, and has slipped backwards over the course of the past three years so that it has dropped below the levels reached in 2012–2013 to about the same level as crisis-ridden 2009–2010 ... . Perhaps the most basic representation of globalization is trade, and this is sluggish or according to many measures it is plateauing. ... Other indicators of globalization paint a more negative picture – cross-border flows of financial assets (relative to GDP) have continued downward from their pre-financial-crisis peak, most likely because of the effects of regulation and the general shrinking of the banking sector. Trade liberalization, as measured by the Fraser Institute's economic freedom of the world indices, has been slowly declining since its peak in 2000, although it is still at a relatively healthy level. ... It should be said that the extent of globalization/multipolarity is still at a historically high level, although it is hard not to have the impression that it is on the verge of a downward correction, especially once we consider some of the underlying dynamics. ...If one believes that the US should view its economy as part of an emerging American bloc in a multipolar world economy, the North American Trade Agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico is the foundation for that bloc. C. Fred Bergsten and Monica de Bolle have edited an e-book titled A Path Forward for NAFTA, a collection of 11 short essays discussing NAFTA "modernization," "renegotiation," and "updating" from various national, industry, and foreign policy perspectives (Peterson Institute for International Economics Briefing 17-2, July 2017). They give some sense of the possibilities for cooperation and agreement, and the unlikeliness that such an agreement will address bilateral trade deficits, in the "Overview" essay:
"One of the notable sub-trends of globalization has been a much better distribution of the world's economic output, led by what were once regarded as overly populous, third world countries such as India and China. This has fueled multipolarity – the rise of regions that are now distinct in terms of their economic size, political power, approaches to democracy and liberty, and their cultural norms. ...
We believe that the world is now leaving globalization behind it and moving to a more distinct multipolar setting. ...
"The ... scenario is based on the rise of Asia and a stabilization of the Eurozone so that the world economy rests, broadly speaking, on three pillars – the Americas, Europe and Asia (led by China). In detail, we would expect to see the development of new world or regional institutions that surpass the likes of the World Bank, the rise of "managed democracy" and more regionalized versions of the rule of law – migration becomes more regional and more urban rather than cross-border, regional financial centers develop and banking and finance develop in new ways. At the corporate level, the significant change would be the rise of regional champions, which in many cases would supplant multinationals. We would also expect to see uneven improvements in human development leading to more stable, wealthier local economies on the back of a continuation of the emerging market consumer trend. ...
"An interesting and intuitive way of seeing how the world has evolved from a unipolar one (i.e. USA) to a more multipolar one is to look at the location of the world's 100 tallest buildings. The construction of skyscrapers (200 meters plus in height) is a nice way of measuring hubris and economic machismo, in our opinion. Between 1930 and 1970, at least 90% of the world's tallest buildings could be found in the USA, with a few exceptions in South America and Europe. In the 1980s and 1990s, the USA continued to dominate the tallest tower league tables, but by the 2000s there was a radical change, with Middle Eastern and Asian skyscrapers rising up. Today about 50% of the world's tallest buildings are in Asia, with another 30% in the Middle East, and a meager 16% in the USA, together with a handful in Europe. In more detail, three-quarters of all skyscraper completions in 2015 were located in Asia (China and Indonesia principally), followed by the UAE and Russia. Panama had more skyscraper completions than the USA."
"The overarching goal of negotiators from the three participating countries must be to boost the competitiveness of North America as a whole, liberalizing and reforming commercial relations between the three partner countries and responding to the many changes in the world economy since NAFTA went into effect in 1994. These changes include the digital transformation of commerce, which has enabled sophisticated new production methods employing elaborate supply chains, transforming North America into a trinational manufacturing and services hub. But concerns about labor, the environment, climate change and energy resources, and currency issues have become more acute than they were at the time NAFTA started. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was thus correct when he said that NAFTA "didn't really address our economy or theirs [Mexico and Canada] in the way they are today." ...
"The broadest consistent goal shared by the NAFTA countries should be to strengthen the international position of North America as a whole in a world of tough competition from China and others. Beyond that objective, the negotiators can take steps toward achieving regional energy independence, since all three countries are large consumers and producers of different kinds of energy, from those based on fossil fuels to those derived from new technologies and renewable sources. There is also plenty of room for additional or indeed full liberalization of key sectors, such as financial services and telecommunications, to the benefit of all three economies.
"The new NAFTA could borrow some of the TPP's innovative approaches and embrace cutting-edge standards for issues such as e-commerce, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and other sectors that have become central to international trade and investment. The North American partners might be able to help resolve a politically inflammatory issue plaguing trade agreements worldwide: incorporating dispute settlement mechanisms that will make their provisions enforceable and thus credible without being perceived as undermining national sovereignty and widely shared concepts of fairness. Another step in this direction would be to work out a North American competition policy that would enable the three countries to disavow the use of antidumping and countervailing duties against each other, as Australia and New Zealand have done. The NAFTA partners might also strive to achieve a degree of regulatory coherence that has so far eluded the United States and the European Union in their efforts to forge a transatlantic agreement. NAFTA negotiators could permit like-minded countries, notably the members of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, and Peru, as well as Mexico), all of which are already free trade agreement partners of the United States, to join NAFTA. ...
"[T]rade agreements are inappropriate and ineffective vehicles for attempting to reduce trade imbalances. The reason is that external imbalances are created by internal macroeconomic imbalances and can be remedied only by changes in the latter. Hence continued US insistence on cutting its trade deficit, especially via bilateral efforts with Mexico, would almost surely lead to dissatisfaction with the outcome and a potential blowup of the entire agreement. Taking the concern about trade deficits at face value, moreover, is a prescription for deadlock with Canada and Mexico, both of which run global trade and current account deficits on the same order of magnitude as the United States. Hence they properly view themselves as deficit countries that need to strengthen, not weaken, their external economic positions. They are most unlikely to accede to US demands to strengthen its external position at their expense, even if the economics were to make that possible, and can in fact be expected to argue (correctly) that the three North American deficit countries should work together to improve their joint and several external positions with the rest of the world.
Those interested in NAFTA and the possibility of an emerging multipolar world economy might wish to check some earlier posts:
- "NAFTA Turns 20" (May 12, 2014).
- "A North American Vision" (November 5, 2014)
- "Regional Patterns of World Trade" (April 17, 2013).
Thursday, August 10, 2017
The US Fiscal Outlook
Pretty much everyone agrees that the US fiscal outlook for the long-run--a few decades into the future--looks grim unless changes are made. Here's are estimates of the ratio of accumulated federal debt/GDP throughout US history, and projected up through 2050, from a Congressional Budget Office Report in March 2017. The spikes of government debt during wartime, the Great Depression, and the Reagan and Obama administrations are clear. The trajectory forecast would take US government debt outside past experience.
Alan J. Auerbach and William G. Gale set the stage for the discussion that needs to happen in "The Fiscal Outlook In a Period of Policy Uncertainty," written for the Tax Policy Center (August 7, 2017). Douglas W. Elmendorf and Louise M. Sheiner also tackle these issues in "Federal Budget Policy with an Aging Population and Persistently Low Interest Rates," in the Summer 2017 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (31: 3, pp. 175-194).
Auerbach and Gale summarize their theme straightforwardly:
1) If the US political system decides not to focus on deficit-reduction now, is it capable of focusing the additional spending on investment that will raise long-run growth, or will the additional budget flexibility just lead to more transfer payments?
2) If the US political system doesn't focus on deficit reduction in the near-term, then in the medium-term roughly a decade from now, it will need to preside over even greater budget changes (as Auerbach and Gale explain) to avoid the outcome that everyone agrees is unsustainable. It would be a hard political U-turn to shift from larger deficits for investment in the present, to taking budgetary steps in the fugure that will offset that additional borrowing, and more besides, in the future.
3) The theoretical case for enacting changes now that will have the effect of holding down the increase in deficits in the long-run is strong. But in practical terms, just what these changes should be is less clear. For example, Congress could pass a law which places limits on, say, the level of government health care spending from 2030 to 2040, but there's no reason to believe that those limits will have any actual force when those years arrive. There are a few changes, like phasing in an older retirement age or a change in benefit formulas for Social Security, that might have a better chance of persisting. It seems useful to think more about about budgetary policies that could be enacted in the present, but would have most of their effect after a long-term phase-in, and would be relatively resistant to future political tinkering.
It's not exactly news that democratic political systems are continually enticed to focus on the present and push costs into the future in a wide range of contexts: public borrowing, pensions, environment, and others.
Alan J. Auerbach and William G. Gale set the stage for the discussion that needs to happen in "The Fiscal Outlook In a Period of Policy Uncertainty," written for the Tax Policy Center (August 7, 2017). Douglas W. Elmendorf and Louise M. Sheiner also tackle these issues in "Federal Budget Policy with an Aging Population and Persistently Low Interest Rates," in the Summer 2017 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (31: 3, pp. 175-194).
Auerbach and Gale summarize their theme straightforwardly:
"Budget deficits appear manageable in the short run, but the nation's debt-GDP ratio is already high relative to historical norms, and even under optimistic assumptions, both measures will rise in the future. Sustained deficits and rising federal debt will crowd out future investment, reduce prospects for economic growth, and impose burdens on future generations. ...
"For example, we find that just to ensure that the debt-GDP ratio in 2047 does not exceed the current level would require a combination of immediate and permanent spending cuts and/or tax increases totaling 3.2 percent of GDP. This represents about a 16 percent cut in non-interest spending or a 19 percent increase in tax revenues relative to current levels. To return the debt-GDP ratio in 2047 to 36 percent, its average in the 50 years preceding the Great Recession in 2007-9, would require immediate and permanent spending cuts or tax increases of 4.6 percent of GDP. The longer policy makers wait to institute fiscal adjustments, the larger those adjustments would have to be to reach a given debt-GDP ratio target in a given year. While the numbers above are projections, not predictions, they nonetheless constitute the fiscal backdrop against which potentially ambitious new tax and spending proposals should be considered."Auerbach and Gale go through a variety of ways of projecting future deficits, but the overall message that there is a long-run reason for concern keeps coming through. They also offer a useful reminder that even if the proximate cause of the higher federal debt burden is projections for higher spending on entitlement and especially health programs, there are a number of cases in addressing a problem by reversing its cause doesn't make sense. As I sometimes say, "When someone is hit by a car, you don't fix their injury by reversing the cause--that is, backing up the car over their body." As Auerbach and Gale write:
"Looking toward policy solutions, it is useful to emphasize that even if the main driver of long-term fiscal imbalances is the growth of entitlement benefits, this does not mean that the only solutions are some combination of benefit cuts now and benefit cuts in the future. For example, when budget surpluses began to emerge in the late 1990s, President Clinton devised a plan to use the funds to "Save Social Security First." Without judging the merits of that particular plan, our point is that Clinton recognized that Social Security faced long-term shortfalls and, rather than ignoring those shortfalls, aimed to address the problem in a way that went beyond simply cutting benefits. A more general point is that addressing entitlement funding imbalances can be justified precisely because one wants to preserve and enhance the programs, not just because one might want to reduce the size of the programs. Likewise, addressing these imbalances may involve reforming the structure of other spending, raising or restructuring revenues, or creating new programs, as well as simply cutting existing benefits. Nor do spending cuts or tax changes need to be across the board. Policy makers should make choices among programs. For example, more investment in infrastructure or children's programs could be provided, even in the context of overall spending reductions."Elmendorf and Sheiner tackle a different aspect of the same question. They agree that federal deficits are on "an unsustainable path." However, they also note that interest rates are very low, which offers an opportunity for federal borrowing aimed at infrastructure and long-run investments. They write:
"Both market readings and detailed analyses by a number of researchers suggest that Treasury interest rates are likely to remain well below their historical norms for years to come, which represents a sea change for budget policy. We argue that many—though not all—of the factors that may be contributing to the historically low level of interest rates imply that both federal debt and federal investment should be substantially larger than they would be otherwise. We conclude that, although significant policy changes to reduce federal budget deficits ultimately will be needed, they do not have to be implemented right away. Instead, the focus of federal budget policy over the coming decade should be to increase federal investment while enacting changes in federal spending and taxes that will reduce deficits gradually over time."As a focused argument in economic reasoning, Elmendorf and Sheiner make a strong case. As a matter of political economy, it's trickier, because one can raise at least three questions.
1) If the US political system decides not to focus on deficit-reduction now, is it capable of focusing the additional spending on investment that will raise long-run growth, or will the additional budget flexibility just lead to more transfer payments?
2) If the US political system doesn't focus on deficit reduction in the near-term, then in the medium-term roughly a decade from now, it will need to preside over even greater budget changes (as Auerbach and Gale explain) to avoid the outcome that everyone agrees is unsustainable. It would be a hard political U-turn to shift from larger deficits for investment in the present, to taking budgetary steps in the fugure that will offset that additional borrowing, and more besides, in the future.
3) The theoretical case for enacting changes now that will have the effect of holding down the increase in deficits in the long-run is strong. But in practical terms, just what these changes should be is less clear. For example, Congress could pass a law which places limits on, say, the level of government health care spending from 2030 to 2040, but there's no reason to believe that those limits will have any actual force when those years arrive. There are a few changes, like phasing in an older retirement age or a change in benefit formulas for Social Security, that might have a better chance of persisting. It seems useful to think more about about budgetary policies that could be enacted in the present, but would have most of their effect after a long-term phase-in, and would be relatively resistant to future political tinkering.
It's not exactly news that democratic political systems are continually enticed to focus on the present and push costs into the future in a wide range of contexts: public borrowing, pensions, environment, and others.
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The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army. (102 mins.)
Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby. (102 mins.)
Director: Howard Hawks
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld. (112 mins.)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Stars: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main
Cluny Brown (1946)
A free-spirited parlor maid and a Czech refugee surprise an English village with their unconventional ways. (100 mins.)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Stars: Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker
On the Town (1949)
Three sailors on a day of shore leave in New York City look for fun and romance before their twenty-four hours are up. (98 mins.)
Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Stars: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller
Monkey Business (1952)
A chemist finds his personal and professional life turned upside down when one of his chimpanzees finds the fountain of youth. (97 mins.)
Director: Howard Hawks
Stars: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
Scaramouche (1952)
18th century France. A man sets out to avenge the death of his friend at the hands of a master swordsman. (115 mins.)
Director: George Sidney
Stars: Stewart Granger, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker, Mel Ferrer
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound. (103 mins.)
Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Stars: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen
Bread, Love and Dreams (1953)
When a veteran marshal is sent to a small town, he quickly falls for two women: a midwife and an earthy young woman nicknamed "Frisky". (93 mins.)
Director: Luigi Comencini
Frisky (1954)
The relationships between a veteran marshal, his bride-to-be, a rookie and his fiancée are severely tested when the young carabiniere is temporarily sent to a distant town. (97 mins.)
Director: Luigi Comencini
Scandal in Sorrento (1955)
Back to his hometown, a former marshal finds his house occupied by a young woman working as a fishwife. (110 mins.)
Director: Dino Risi
Bread, Love and Andalucia (1958)
Determined to postpone his own wedding, a former marshal leaves his bride-to-be and participates at an international music festival in Spain, where he falls for a young dancer. (95 mins.)
Director: Javier Setó
Mary Poppins (1964)
In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father. (139 mins.)
Director: Robert Stevenson
For Love and Gold (1966)
A group of misfits, headed by an incompetent knight named Brancaleone, set out to reach the small town of Aurocastro so that their leader can take possession of the fief. (120 mins.)
Director: Mario Monicelli
Brancaleone at the Crusades (1970)
After saving an infant of royal blood, knight Brancaleone forms a new army and sets out to return the baby to his father: a prince fighting in the Crusades. (116 mins.)
Director: Mario Monicelli
9 to 5 (1980)
Three female employees of a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot find a way to turn the tables on him. (109 mins.)
Director: Colin Higgins
Stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby. (86 mins.)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Working Girl (1988)
When a secretary's idea is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to steal it back by pretending she has her boss' job. (113 mins.)
Director: Mike Nichols
Tre uomini e una gamba (1997)
Three friends cross Italy by car in order to deliver their boss his dog and a wooden leg. (100 mins.)
Stars: Aldo, Giovanni, Giacomo, Marina Massironi
Taxi (1998)
To work off his tarnished driving record, a hip taxi driver must chauffeur a loser police inspector on the trail of German bank robbers. (86 mins.)
Director: Gérard Pirès
The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Emperor Kuzco is turned into a llama by his ex-administrator Yzma, and must now regain his throne with the help of Pacha, the gentle llama herder. (78 mins.)
Director: Mark Dindal
Stars: David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton
Bread and Tulips (2000)
After being forgotten in a highway café during a bus trip, a housewife decides to start a new life by herself in Venice. (114 mins.)
Director: Silvio Soldini
Taxi 2 (2000)
Police inspector Emilien and his taxi-driver pal Daniel are back, this time on the tail of a group of Japanese yakuza. (88 mins.)
Director: Gérard Krawczyk
The Emperor's New Clothes (2001)
During Napoleon's exile on St. Helena, some loyalists hire a look-alike to swap places with the deposed emperor: while the impostor lives in luxury on the island, the real Napoleon returns to Paris in order to retake the throne. (108 mins.)
Director: Alan Taylor
Stars: Ian Holm, Iben Hjejle, Tim McInnerny, Tom Watson
Bringing Down the House (2003)
When a lonely guy meets a woman on the internet who happens to be in prison, she breaks out to get him to prove her innocence, and proceeds to wreak havoc on his middle-class life. (105 mins.)
Director: Adam Shankman
Stars: Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright
Freaky Friday (2003)
An overworked mother and her daughter do not get along. When they switch bodies, each is forced to adapt to the other's life for one freaky Friday. (97 mins.)
Director: Mark Waters
Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Mark Harmon, Harold Gould
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
The Looney Tunes search for a man's missing father and the mythical Blue Monkey diamond. (91 mins.)
Director: Joe Dante
Last Holiday (2006)
Upon learning of a terminal illness, a shy woman (Queen Latifah) decides to sell off all her possessions and live it up at a posh European hotel. (112 mins.)
Director: Wayne Wang
Dan in Real Life (2007)
A widower finds out the woman he fell in love with is his brother's girlfriend. (98 mins.)
Director: Peter Hedges
Stars: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Alison Pill
Molière (2007)
Imprisoned for debt, playwright Molière is rescued by an aristocrat who needs his help in order to seduce a young marquise. (120 mins.)
Director: Laurent Tirard
Stars: Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, Laura Morante, Edouard Baer
Ratatouille (2007)
A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous restaurant. (111 mins.)
Director: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Stars: Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm
Happy Ever Afters (2009)
Two weddings collide when both receptions are held at one hotel. (101 mins.)
Director: Stephen Burke
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Tom Riley, Sinead Maguire, Tina Kellegher
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
A waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to face the same problem after she kisses him. (97 mins.)
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Stars: Anika Noni Rose, Keith David, Oprah Winfrey, Bruno Campos


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Author Archives: Boston Interiors
Beach House Beautification
A coastal home makeover With the help of a Boston Interiors Design Associate, one lucky customer was able to beautifully outfit their beach home in plenty of time for summer. The client took advantage of our free in-store design service, … Continue reading
even more ways…to color your world
Spring has sprung in earnest here in New England, and we've officially caught the color bug! In our last post we highlighted ways to set the vibe in your home, from bold accent walls to cheery accessories. But who's to … Continue reading
Color your world
At Boston Interiors, we love color. Color—yes, real color!—can completely change the mood of a room. You can create a color story starting with any element, from accent pillows to patterned rugs to paint color. Zen Den Generally, sunny, bright … Continue reading
Outdoor is in
It used to be that your outdoor space was utilized periodically—a simple picnic table would do the trick. These days, outdoor spaces are truly an extension of your home. Whether it's on a mahogany deck just off your kitchen, a … Continue reading


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Category Archives: Piano
2017/12 Prep Tests and Teaching by Rote
Rote is how I learned to play piano – I had a "knuckle-rapper" teacher to start with. "It goes like this, dear" she would say, playing the first phrase. If I copied it right, all was well and good. If … Continue reading
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2017/11 The New ABRSM Prep Test
I'm a fan! I can't remember how long the old prep test book had been out, but if I never teach "Boating Lake" or "Jogalong" again I won't mind a bit. Not to mention "Walking", "Rocking" and "Hopping". The new … Continue reading
Posted in Piano Tagged prep test Leave a comment
92/100 Another Christmas Collection for piano
I follow the website www.pianodao.com run by Andrew Earles. He has recently reviewed this collection of Christmas Carols for piano solo; by Barbara Arens and Alison Mathews published by Editions Musica … Continue reading
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84/100 Easy Piano Sight Reading in F major
Here are three short pieces in F major for learning to do Grade 1 piano sight reading. The last one doesn't have any dynamics; so you can add your own. They are meant to be a starting point; try adding … Continue reading
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71/100 More about sight-reading
Following on from my previous post on C major sight-reading… I started the ABRSM Grade 1 piano exam piece "O when the saints" place with a very young pupil this morning. She's an astonishingly quick learner, but like many children (and … Continue reading
Posted in Lessons that have happened, Piano Tagged note reading techniques Leave a comment
70/100 – Sight-Reading – Grade 1 Piano
This might become a short series of posts… or there again it might not – see how time and inclination go… I've a couple of young students who started working towards their Grade 1 (ABRSM) piano exams this term, Sight-reading … Continue reading
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63/100 Colouring-In for speedy learning
Going back to the contents of my teaching pencil-case, let's talk about "colouring-in". I don't mean the mindfulness colouring books which are the current fashion! Here's an example – the ABRSM Grade 5 piano piece, "Tarantella" At first sight, the … Continue reading
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62/100 My Piano Teaching Pack
This little bag (about A5 size) comes to all the piano lessons that I teach. And here is what lives inside: Items: A pair of castanets – for rhythm work Some coloured pencils – for livening up notes in the … Continue reading
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