Done Today

• I went to the Comic Hunter and sold three roleplaying books for $23: the core book for Palladium's Robotech game, the core book for FASA's Legionnaire, and Mechwarrior for BattleTech. I put that directly towards two GURPS books: In the Well (mainly Mars, with entries on Mercury and Venus) and Deep Beyond (everything from the asteroid belt to Virginia). It's a good trade; I'll sell the rest over eBay.


• Work at the library is nearing completion, although we still have to move the computers and sundry other things in the front third of the library and possibly reshelve the non-fiction to get more room. It looks and feels quite nice; I'm happy with it.


• The Angel season finale was quite good. Why do I feel like Connor in the sporting-goods store without the other-directed hatred?

Cuba Notes

From J. Bradford Delong's blog:

"Let's Get Even More Depressed About Cuba"

Just because people begin their papers with quotes from Ludwig von Mises does not automatically mean that they are wrong:

http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume12/perezlopez.pdf

The hideously depressing thing is that Cuba under Battista--Cuba in 1957--was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or Finland. Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had 45 TVs per 1000 people--fifth highest in the world. Cuba today has fewer telephones per capita than it had TVs in 1957.

You take a look at the standard Human Development Indicator variables--GDP per capita, infant mortality, education--and you try to throw together an HDI for Cuba in the late 1950s, and you come out in the range of Japan, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Israel. Today? Today the UN puts Cuba's HDI in the range of Lithuania, Trinidad, and Mexico. (And Carmelo Mesa-Lago thinks the UN's calculations are seriously flawed: that Cuba's right HDI peers today are places like China, Tunisia, Iran, and South Africa.)

Thus I don't understand lefties who talk about the achievements of the Cuban Revolution: "...to have better health care, housing, education, and general social relations than virtually all other comparably developed countries." Yes, Cuba today has a GDP per capita level roughly that of--is "comparably developed"--Bolivia or Honduras or Zimbabwe, but given where Cuba was in 1957 we ought to be talking about how it is as developed as Italy or Spain.

Comments are here.

(no subject)

I read an interesting book today, Remembering Denny by Calvin Trillin. Unfortunate fellow Denny.

I also went to the gym after work. The sauna was nice, and I biked home.

That's it.