TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. This is writing.

The Boy Genius Report compared the iPhone 4′s 5-megapixel camera to the Droid X’s 8-megapixel camera. The iPhone’s shots are much nicer.

John Taylor:

The low interest rates added fuel to the housing boom, which in turn led to risk taking in housing finance and eventually a sharp increase in delinquencies, foreclosures, and the deterioration of the balance sheets of many financial institutions as toxic assets grew rapidly. To test the connection between the low interest rates and the housing boom I built a simple model relating the federal funds rate to housing construction. My research showed that a higher federal funds rate would have avoided much of the boom and bust.

And:

Others might say that my research ignores mistakes in the private sector. Of course there were market problems of various sorts. Mortgages were originated without sufficient documentation or with overly optimistic underwriting assumptions, and then sold off in complex derivative securities which credit rating agencies rated too highly. Individuals and institutions took highly risky positions either through a lack of diversification or excessive leverage ratios. But such mistakes do not normally become systemic, and in my view, the government actions tended to convert non-systemic mistakes into systemic risks.

The link is to a PDF, but if you have any interest in politics or the economy at all, you should read it. And then read it again.

Placing the Federal Reserve’s awesome power in the hands of men is dangerous no matter how it is managed, but we would be in a much better position if the Fed followed Taylor’s recommendations.

Keith Hennessey nicely breaks down the different positions on fiscal stimulus.

It’s well done and a good way of framing the debate. For what it’s worth, I’m in the first group.

Clive Cook:

Under these circumstances one could forgive the US for lecturing others on fiscal policy, were it not for the fact that (a) poor US financial regulation and inattentive monetary policy caused the crisis in the first place, and (b) its own fiscal policy is a shambles. President Barack Obama is telling other countries to maintain fiscal stimulus even as his own fades and the US Congress is denying his modest requests for extra spending. For this, Mr Obama himself is mostly to blame.

He and his allies in Congress bungled last year’s stimulus. A big package was needed, and was duly delivered. But its design was poor: too much spending on shovel-ready projects that weren’t; too little in tax cuts. It was seriously oversold, leaving voters sceptical that more stimulus would do any good. Worst of all, with public debt through the roof, the administration has failed to give the smallest sign of its exit strategy. Last week its budget director, Peter Orszag, disclosed his own. He said he was quitting; colleagues said (though he denied) that he was frustrated by White House indecision over medium-term fiscal control.

Perhaps liberals should have thought about that before bungling the initial stimulus as described above (and therefore mostly wasting its potential effect), and committing the U.S. to a trillion dollars of new spending with healthcare reform, thus wasting the nation’s capital and will to stimulate the economy. The left, and Obama in particular, had a golden opportunity to handle the stimulus in a non-partisan manner to truly help the economy. Instead, though, they used it as a chance to rapidly increase government spending, as their will desired.

Never waste a good crisis indeed.

How brent Simmons manages memory in his OS X applications.

Russ Roberts has a nice, succinct overview of what F.A. Hayek argued. Hayek was a brilliant man.

(The article is gated, so you’ll have to click through from Google. The above link is to Google News–just click on the first link.)

Brahma Chellaney describes China’s world position:

That approach became more marked with the global financial crisis that began in the fall of 2008. China interpreted that crisis as symbolizing both the decline of the Anglo-American brand of capitalism and the weakening of American economic power. That, in turn, strengthened its two-fold belief – that its brand of state-steered capitalism offers a credible alternative, and that its global ascendance is inevitable.
…
The biggest loser from the global financial crisis, in China’s view, is Uncle Sam. That the US remains dependent on China to buy billions of dollars worth of Treasury bonds every week to finance its yawning budget deficit is a sign of shifting global financial power – which China is sure to use for political gain in the years ahead.

The amusing thing about the U.S.’s complaints about China’s currency policy is the vast sums of dollars it results in for China are used to fund our drunken borrowing. Biting the hand and all that.

Chellaney is correct—China views this as the moment where they begin to pull ahead of the west in global power.

Our refusal to recognize the role government power played in the 2008-09 financial crisis only strengthens their position. We continue to try to fix our economy through government control (government spending as stimulus, home buyer tax credit which only delays the inevitable home sales contraction, prolonged low interest rates, and ridiculous amounts of borrowing to support it) under the illusion that the financial crisis was merely a resort of free markets, and thus can be controlled. All the while we are granting the Chinese Communist Party’s basic premise that capitalism must be directed by an authoritarian government hand for the benefit of society, and borrowing our way toward future disaster. We are losing our philosophical and financial edge.

Jonathan Fenby comments on China’s currency policy:

It has to bring the economy back from the runaway 12% growth reported early this year to a sustainable level of around 8% which would create sufficient jobs, keep the population happy and underpin the Communist party’s claim to be the only force that can ensure material progress. It needs to rein-in industries whose excess output adds to the perennial problem of over-capacity, but without creating mass unemployment. It needs to guard against inflation and boost wages.

China’s economy is still heavily dependent on exports. Their incredible economic growth, and thus employment for the population, is driven by it. Allowing the Yuan to appreciate as much as U.S. critics desire would severely harm their export sector, so it isn’t an option.

China does need to become a more self-dependent economy, which entails building a larger and sustained middle class (so consumer goods can be a larger part of the economy) and moving up the supply chain into a product design role.

There still is, though, a huge portion of the population just looking for a steady job of any sort. While the east of China is well developed and in some parts feels very much like a developed country, the west of China is also very much a developing country. The incredible amount of migrant workers in China’s eastern cities bear this out. The CCP knows China’s history well, so it knows that the largest threat to its power is poor economic conditions. They want to continue developing the west and secure the east’s affluence so their power isn’t threatened.

Allowing the Yuan to significantly appreciate against the dollar would threaten this. China’s move away from manufacturing must happen, but the CCP wants to develop the economy in a controlled manner to prevent significant social shocks.

Farhad Manjoo:

This all depends on what your definition of revolutionary is. Apple’s talent is far more cunning and more profitable than mere infringement. To use a musical analogy, Apple’s specialty is the remix. It curates the best ideas bubbling up around the tech world and makes them its own. It’s also a great fixer, improving on everything that’s wrong with other similar products on the shelves.

Apple certainly does borrow ideas from others, as does everyone. But Apple’s basic strategy has always been to identify markets with great potential that are either in their infancy or are being done completely wrong, so they can do it right and completely re-do it. The Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad all follow this.

Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player. Instead, they did it how it should have been done from the beginning. This isn’t simply “remixing,” as Manjoo describes it. This is recognizing new markets that fit Apple’s core skills, taking good ideas from others, and extending them far beyond what others envisioned into a complete whole. That’s Apple’s talent.

Kevin C. Tofel:

Look at the iPad, 3 million units of which the company has sold in just 80 days. Instead of floundering around by trying to define the device as a keyboard-less smartbook or a tablet PC without native handwriting capabilities, Apple gave it a definitive name with specific, usable functions and in the process — as I noted when the name was first unveiled in January – cornered the nascent smartbook market before that market even got started.

An even better example is the original iPhone announcement in 2007. Apple didn’t just describe the iPhone as the best smartphone on the market, but instead defined it by how it is to be used. They defined it by three uses: a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communication device.

This gave people trying to grasp what the device is something solid to hold on to. A “smartphone” is a nebulous, abstract concept—it doesn’t denote (or emote) anything specific. A smartphone could be anything, but the iPhone is simple: it’s an incredible iPod, a really good phone, and an Internet communicator. Done.

Because people could easily grok what an iPhone is, the iPhone transcended the smartphone category. It stood alone in people’s minds. There’s an important lesson here: when you’re launching something completely new (whatever it is—it doesn’t need to be a product), you should define it by something concrete and physical, in terms people can understand, rather than in abstract terms.

In 2007, no regular person could tell you what a smartphone was. But they sure as hell could tell you what an iPhone did.

Leonard Pierce:

I’ve always hated this tendency. Even when I was young, people who looked back at the ’60s and ’70s as the pinnacle of American popular culture made my skin crawl. And the older I got, the less patience I had for the retro-minded bores of every age who bitched and moaned about how nothing was as good as it was during the years when they just happened to be in college. And on the flip side, I’m equally frustrated by people who don’t want to recognize that—at least in terms of culture—we’re in a golden age right now. Sure, there are plenty of individuals and tendencies to complain about, but doesn’t anyone recognize how great things are now?

Sven Wilson:

Fuller’s point is basically that life is hard and unfair for many hard-working people, and government can help.  Fair enough.  But what she doesn’t seem to get is that the more government steps in to fulfill the traditions of churches, families, neighbors, colleagues, clubs and associations, the less people feel a moral obligation to others, the less they have the ability to help others because of high taxes, and the less they feel a personal responsibility to provide for themselves.

Scott Adams:

A business is also a way to store data. As a restaurant owner, I was fascinated at how employees came and went, but their best ideas often stayed with the business, especially in the kitchen. The restaurant was like a giant data filter. The bad ideas were tested and deleted while the good ideas stayed, most often without being written down.

Fascinating idea.

(Via Kottke.)

This will probably be the only list article I ever link to here, but here’s 2011′s most anticipated sci-fi movies.

There’s more than a few with great potential. I’m excited, especially after this year’s lack of worthwhile movies.

(Via Kottke.)

Jorge Quinteros shows what the iPhone 4′s camera can do. Incredible.