Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

"I keep loaning my copy out to graduate students"

So is it enough to just be a graduate student in general or does one have to be one of your graduate students in particular to qualify for the J. Bradford DeLong Book "Loan" Program?

Mexicans have a saying: he who lends a book is foolish; he who returns it, more foolish still. Or does everyone have that saying?

I always try to distinguish between books I am loaning, books I am "loaning" and books I am flat out giving away. So, for a while back there, I was flat out giving away copies of "The Palm at the End of the Mind" to any worthies I came across. I have "loaned" many books I had no obvious need of for months or years at a time to people who needed them more than I do. Many of those haven't come back yet, but then again I haven't forked over some books I have "borrowed", either. Then there are books you loan to a colleague that you will still need AND that you both know cost some money AND that are never in at the library. Those do come back, or else.

I suspect that Brad DeLong is really giving away these books. There is also the added point of interest that they might have his name inside the cover, which might one day allow somebody to trace intellectual pedigrees. Or this habit might provide future fodder for blogging, when he encounters a copy of this book in a used book store and wonders whether the rules for receiving stolen property apply in cases like these...

"...wonders whether the rules for receiving stolen property apply in cases like these..."

What a hilarious thought!

Lend me one, please, Brad?

There is a dog eared copy of that on my mom's book shelf. Right next to "The Semi-Sovereign State."

David

I thought it was colombians that had that saying. At least that's what they taught me in my spanish jesuit high school.

My experience is that I loan books because I REALLY want someone to read them, and people don't return them because they feel guilty about not reading them. One guy returned a book after his cat peed on it.

Too bad you didn't give one to Krugman, he badly needs to read it. But, save yourself some money, it's online:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCv3Contents.html

BS, non-sequitor, and Krugman-bashing. A threefer!

Patrick R. Sullivan wrote:
>
> Too bad you didn't give one to Krugman, he badly needs to
> read it. But, save yourself some money, it's online:

1) Score! Thanks for generously pointing out this link. :-)

2) I have enough experience to know that sometimes people haven't read things they should have, and this can be annoying.

However, I just checked the Science Citation Index and this book has likely well over 1000 citations to it in the literature (when you fold back the not-quite-correctly-done citations). From which I surmise that it is a true classic in the field, and you don't get as far around the block as Krugman without being at least aware of the classics in your field. So what gives you the idea he is innocent of it? Heck, I'd be tempted to lay even money that he's cited the thing at some point...

Au contraire, Patrick. Krugman's commentaries on the Bush administration are doing wonders for the credibility of public choice models on how government functions!

Sidenote: I have a copy of Sen's Collective Choice and Social Welfare, on "loan." I thought that was a neatly written book because of the alternating formal/informal chapter system.

" So what gives you the idea he is innocent of it? Heck, I'd be tempted to lay even money that he's cited the thing at some point..."

Krugman has never written anything citing CofC that I'm aware of. Further I've never seen anything from him that gives any indication he's aware of the general thrust of the book. In fact, he's usually "shocked, shocked" to find politics being engaged in in Washington DC.

Even his supposedly astute analysis of the California electricity crisis failed to mention the Public Choice problem for the politicians who could have solved the problem by allowing retail rates to rise. Even when Gray Davis admitted it.

" Au contraire, Patrick. Krugman's commentaries on the Bush administration are doing wonders for the credibility of public choice models on how government functions!"

Would that that were true. Krugman can't get beyond; Bush lies, Bush loves the rich. In addition to failing to note the relevance of public choice models in California's crisis, he didn't use them to explain Bush's tax cuts, nor the steel tariffs (kudos to Virginia Postrel who prominently did), nor a host of other things he's written about in his NY Times columns.

Patrick R. Sullivan wrote, "In addition to failing to note the relevance of public choice models in California's crisis, he didn't use them to explain Bush's tax cuts, nor the steel tariffs (kudos to Virginia Postrel who prominently did)..."

What is there to the application of PCT to the steel tariffs that isn't immediately obvious?

Doesn't the cynical realism of Buchanan and Tullock incite readers to steal the book?

In "David Copperfield" there's a harmless lunatic who is obsessed with beheading of King Charles I in 1649, and especially with King Charles' severed head, to the point that no matter what the topic of conversation is, sooner or letter he brings it around the King Charles' head.

I don't know why I mention this, but off-topic comments seem to be OK around here.

"I don't know why I mention this, but off-topic comments seem to be OK around here."

Right, in the midst of everyone talking about Cof C, Buchanan, and Public Choice, some guy thought to share a story about a cat peeing on a book. Amazing.

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