Five articles that I enjoyed reading this week, and figured you might too:
I’d actually prefer they not allow foreign language films in the best picture category, as they’ll never be judged on a level playing field. Alternatively, have three Oscars; best high-brow film, determined by highbrow critics. best middlebrow film, determined much like the current Best Picture, and best popular film, determined by box office receipts. The same film would be allowed to compete in all three categories.
The Godfather would have won all three, but I’m not sure any other film would have (Birth of a Nation?, Lord of the Rings III?)
Rear Window would have won highbrow and popular, but it wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture. LOL. Middlebrow people are the worst.
Scott Sumner being provocative – but notice that this is kind of how Filmfare Awards work!
Even in a dense city like Paris, which has more than 21,000 residents per square mile, the concept as laid out by the Hidalgo campaign group Paris en Commun is bold. Taken at a citywide level, it would require a sort of anti-zoning—“deconstructing the city” as Hidalgo adviser Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris-Sorbonne University, puts it. “There are six things that make an urbanite happy” he told Liberation. “Dwelling in dignity, working in proper conditions, [being able to gain] provisions, well-being, education and leisure. To improve quality of life, you need to reduce the access radius for these functions.” That commitment to bringing all life’s essentials to each neighborhood means creating a more thoroughly integrated urban fabric, where stores mix with homes, bars mix with health centers, and schools with office buildings.
In any crisis, leaders have two equally important responsibilities: solve the immediate problem and keep it from happening again. The COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent case in point. The world needs to save lives now while also improving the way we respond to outbreaks in general. The first point is more pressing, but the second has crucial long-term consequences.
Bill Gates on not just how to contain the coronavirus, but how to build better capacity for the next one. Worth two excerpts:
Pandemic products are extraordinarily high-risk investments, and pharmaceutical companies will need public funding to de-risk their work and get them to jump in with both feet. In addition, governments and other donors will need to fund—as a global public good—manufacturing facilities that can generate a vaccine supply in a matter of weeks. These facilities can make vaccines for routine immunization programs in normal times and be quickly refitted for production during a pandemic. Finally, governments will need to finance the procurement and distribution of vaccines to the populations that need them.
Check the info graphic out in the article as well.
Goldman Sachs now forecasts (nowcasts) -6% q/q AR growth in Q1, down from -0.5%.
2020 @PredictIt recession prediction market probabilities are now above 40% amid #Coronavirus concerns.
EconForEverybody 