Picasso's Secret

Now we know Picasso's secret. Thanks to Argonne National Laboratory and a study using high energy X-rays, we have learned that Picasso painted some of his masterpieces using house paint.

It isn't fair. We have always been told that a craftsman is known by his tools. A fine craftsman must use the best tools. And the best materials.

So how can Pablo Picasso, one of history's great artists, have made great art with ordinary house paint?

Maybe we need to alter conventional wisdom. Perhaps great craftsmen and artists are free to choose the tools and materials that work, not just the "best quality" tools.

Don't be snobbish.

Do what works.

Minimum Wage

I have been reading a lot of scholarly articles on the minimum wage. Most of them pooh-pooh the idea that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. There's a lot of research showing that no job loss will occur, especially when we are at the zero lower bound and caught in a liquidity trap.

I thought about posting links to some of the articles. Here's one blog post among many. Be sure to click on John Schmitt's (pdf) document. Instead of posting many links to scholarly posts, I decided to post a link to a cartoon in today's New York Times. Here is the link to the Strip.

Duck And Cover!

Yulia Karbysheva, a fourth grade teacher in Chelyabinsk, Russia, saved 44 students in her class from injury by telling them to "duck and cover," the Cold War defensive maneuver from a half century ago. The teacher herself suffered an injury, but not her students. She didn't know what was happening when she saw the brilliant light from the meteorite that landed nearby, but she knew what to do.

Older residents of Chelyabinsk had likely been trained in such protective measures. Chelyabinsk has been a center of defense industry since Joseph Stalin moved huge factories East of the Ural Mountains in 1941 to get them beyond the reach of Hitler's invading armies.

A town of about 45,000 at the outset of World War I, Chelyabinsk experienced rapid growth during Soviet industrialization of the 1930s. Several industrial establishments, including a Tractor Plant and a Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time. Relocation of industries to the Urals in 1941 began a period of rapid expansion. There were several tank factories and plants to manufacture Katysha rockets. The town became known jokingly as "Tankograd" (Tank City). Chelyabinsk was essentially built from scratch during this time.

Later in the 1940's the area around Chelyabinsk (Chelyabinsk Oblast') became a center of nuclear weapons development. It is thought that much of the area has suffered environmental damage from plutonium pollution.

Perhaps the area will now become a center of the meteorite tourism industry.

US Federal Debt TO GDP Ratio Recent History

Recent US Debt To GDP Ratio

As you can see from this chart, the ratio of debt to GDP declined in the Johnson administration, continuing through Nixon/Ford and Carter. Then the ratio skyrockets from 1981 through 1992 (Reagan, Bush I) begins to level off in 1993 and declines sharply during the Clinton administration. Skyrockets again under Bush II, who ran the economy into the ditch. Subsequent increase in debt is what automatically happens with high unemployment and economic collapse. To get out of the ditch, we need to expand employment.

My Job

Just want to share a little poem that makes a point some may agree with:

MY JOB
It’s not my job to drive the train,
The whistle I can’t blow.
It’s not my job to say how far
The train’s allowed to go.
It’s not my job to blow the horn,
Nor even clang the bell.
But let the damn thing jump the track
And see who catches hell.

Maybe a better title would be: NOT MY JOB

The Face Of America

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the child Strom Thurmond had with a black maid, passed away on Monday, February 4, 2013. This photograph, taken in Charleston in 2003 when the relationship became public, can be seen as the face of America.

I am particularly struck by the face of the man to Essie Mae's left. He is Essie Mae's son, Strom Thurmond's grandson. To her right is her daughter. These are strong faces. The faces of leaders.

Our American faces.

Growth In Spending - Recent Presidents

Economist Mark Thoma has posted a bar chart showing per capita changes in government spending under recent presidents (Nixon to present). You may find it interesting.



Had there been growth instead of contraction during Obama's presidency, it seems fair to suggest that unemployment would have already returned to a normal range.

We have Republicans in both houses of Congress to thank for where we stand.

Black Death And Papal Resignation

I read this morning that Pope Benedict XVI has announced his resignation. The Washington Post account mentioned that the last papal resignation was in 1415.

The 1415 resignation is one of the most interesting events in European history. It was preceded by the Babylonian Captivity of the Pope, the Black Death, and the Burning of Jan Hus. It was followed by the first Protestant regime in Europe, that of Bohemia and Moravia, the subsequent Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance and Enlightenment. These events were all accompanied by the end of serfdom in Europe, at least until 1619.

And by the way, the 100 Years' War between England and France.

It was all set in motion, or at least accelerated, by the Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1348, which killed from a quarter to two-thirds of the population of Europe.

Survivors wanted to know who to blame. In Germany and much of France, the answer was obvious: Jews had poisoned the wells. Thousands of Jews (who by the way were dying in great numbers also) were rounded up and slaughtered.

In Bohemia, however, many saw the plague as God's punishment for a corrupt church. One manifestation of that corruption was the fact that, since 1309, the Catholic Church had had two Popes, one in Avignon, under influence of the King of France and one in Rome. Another example of the church's corruption in the view of many clerics was the sale of indulgences, which so offended Martin Luther a century later.

The situation was exacerbated, in the eyes of the church hierarchy, by dissident priests challenging central tenets of Catholicism. The most prominent of these in the late 14th century was John Wycliffe of England, who escaped papal retribution by dying in December, 1384. The other prominent voice of dissent was the Bohemian Jan Hus, who was very much alive.

By 1415 there were three popes. Church authorities hoped to resolve the problem by scheduling a Council at Constanz, in present-day Germany. They also hoped to resolve the matter of their troublesome priests. John Wycliffe was already dead, but the Council declared him a heretic, ordered his body exhumed, decreed that his books be burned. The exhumation was carried out in 1428 when, at the command of Pope Martin V, his remains were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the River Swift.

Jan Hus was "invited" to the Council under a safe conduct. The safe conduct was not enforced. He refused to recant, and was burned at the stake.

Gregory XII, the Roman pope,  resigned so that a special council in Constance, which is today a German city, could excommunicate the Avignon-based pope and start fresh with a new, single leader of the Catholic church.

A year later, just to show they weren't kidding, the Council burned Jerome, Jan Hus' deputy, at the stake.

If the new pope thought that would end the problems with Bohemia and Moravia, he was badly mistaken. The countryside rose up against the pope and his supporters among the nobility. The supporters of Hus fled to the Bohemian hills and fortified their headquarters. Appointing a one-eyed general (Jan Zizka) to lead their peasant army,during the following seventeen years, the Hussites fought back against seven different papal crusades, defeating the Catholic Nobles at every turn.

Eventually cutting a deal with the least militant Hussites, the Utraquists, the pope looked the other way while Bohemia and Moravia were allowed to practice what amounted to protestantism for nearly two centuries.