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" Buying from a local farmer can mean that he makes a two-hour extra truck drive, which can damage the environment more than a bunch of bananas on a boat. "
Tyler Cowen
Truck
Boat
Drive
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" When I hear people express extreme optimism about the Internet, I say, we've had it in mature form for about ten years. Macroeconomically speaking, those are about the worst 10 years we've had since about the 1930s. I don't blame the Internet for that - that would be ridiculous. "
Tyler Cowen
Say
Optimism
Blame
" What the banking system needs is creditors who monitor risk and cut their exposure when that risk is too high. Unlike regulators, creditors and counterparties know the details of a deal and have their own money on the line. "
Tyler Cowen
Line
Own
Money
" At least in the United States, most economic resentment is not directed toward billionaires or high-roller financiers - not even corrupt ones. It's directed at the guy down the hall who got a bigger raise. It's directed at the husband of your wife's sister, because he earns 20 percent more than you do. "
Tyler Cowen
You
Down
Husband
" In chess, computers show that what we call 'strategy' is reducible to tactics, ultimately. It only looks creative to us. They are still just glorified cash registers. This should make us feel uncomfortable, whether or not we think computers will ever be good composers of music or artistic painters. "
Tyler Cowen
Computers
Good
Music
" There's so much free material on the Internet you can learn from, and some people are pure self-starters: they pick up computers and teach themselves everything. Certainly there are millions of people like that. But at the same time, I think it's a pretty small percentage of the population. "
Tyler Cowen
Computers
People
Time
" To get anything done, Obama has to be seen as having winning economy - which isn't easy. "
Tyler Cowen
Anything
Economy
Winning
" For the U.S., I think we should have a carbon tax, for environmental reasons. "
Tyler Cowen
Carbon
Think
Tax
" Look at electricity in human history - it took a few decades for electricity to really revolutionize the American economy. And the Internet will be the same. At some point in the future, we will arrive at a new era of low-hanging fruit. "
Tyler Cowen
Fruit
American
Look
" The 'low' quality of many American films, and of much American popular culture, induces many art lovers to support cultural protectionism. Few people wish to see the cultural diversity of the world disappear under a wave of American market dominance. "
Tyler Cowen
People
Culture
Art
" Vietnamese food has probably been saved from the mass market because most people never master the sauces and condiments that must be added to the food, at the table, for its glories to become apparent. It's too much trouble, and a lot of people don't like asking for help, especially if the interaction involves some linguistic awkwardness. "
Tyler Cowen
Food
People
Trouble
" We will be returning to historical levels of inequality. We'll view post-war America as a kind of strange interlude not to be repeated. It won't be the dreams that we all had that virtually all incomes go up in lockstep at three percent a year. It hurts to give that up. "
Tyler Cowen
View
Dreams
Inequality
" Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism. "
Tyler Cowen
Done
Hate
Love
" If we want to improve American food and make it much cheaper, we should deregulate the food trucks and the other street vendors, provided they meet certain sanitation standards. Many cities have already moved down this path, and people are not keeling over with salmonella. "
Tyler Cowen
Street
Path
Food
" I think higher ed in the U.S. is fairly healthy, and by global standards it dominates, and it makes people more productive. But a lot of our K-12 is a disaster. And the single most important reform would just be to fire the worst ten or 15 percent of teachers in the lot, and we would have massive improvements. "
Tyler Cowen
Teachers
People
Fire
" Often, economists spend their energies squabbling with one another, but arguably the more important contrast is between our broadly liberal economic worldview and the various alternatives - common around the globe - that postulate natural hierarchies of religion, ethnicity, caste and gender, often enforced by law and strict custom. "
Tyler Cowen
Important
Gender
Law
" We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. "
Tyler Cowen
Accept
People
Sometimes
" Throwing more science at things isn't always the answer. "
Tyler Cowen
Always
More
Science
" I'm not a vegetarian. But I think people who are vegetarians, they are actually more virtuous than the rest of us. I think they should be admired. "
Tyler Cowen
Rest
People
More
" I think a lot of people will be liberated from a lot of oppressive manufacturing jobs, or a lot of service jobs, because they'll be done by computers. There'll be the world's best education available online and free. "
Tyler Cowen
Service
Education
Think
" In the early stages of negotiation software, on your smartphone, there may be programs that listen to the pitch of a voice, or that test for stress. You'll just ask the program, 'Was he lying? Was he eager to do business with me?' Maybe the computer will be right sixty per cent of the time. "
Tyler Cowen
Me
Business
Voice
" Economics is sometimes associated with the study and defense of selfishness and material inequality, but it has an egalitarian and civil libertarian core that should be celebrated. "
Tyler Cowen
Sometimes
Study
Economics
" Most restaurants in most cities, including Washington, are at a sort of mid-level. They're somewhat trendy, or they have some sort of gimmick, or they're somewhat expensive. And they make a lot of money off drinks. I tell people don't go to most of them, unless your goal is just to socialize. "
Tyler Cowen
Tell
People
Money
" In truth, it's not the shareholders of the American International Group who benefited most from its bailout; they were mostly wiped out. The great beneficiaries have been the creditors and counterparties at the other end of A.I.G.'s derivatives deals - firms like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays and UBS. "
Tyler Cowen
Truth
Great
End
" After aircraft production, the entertainment industry is America's largest source of trade surplus. "
Tyler Cowen
Source
Trade
Entertainment
" Sports is remarkably cognitive. I think it's underrated just how smart it is. Actually, if I had more time, I would spend more time with sports. Watching it, reading about it, I think it's oddly underrated. "
Tyler Cowen
Sports
Think
Time
" Some Google employees have their self-driving vehicles take them to work. These car robots don't look like something from 'The Jetsons'; the driverless features on these cars are a bunch of sensors, wires, and software. This technology 'works.' "
Tyler Cowen
Employees
Work
Car
" I've been a foodie most of my life. I started when I lived for a year in Germany in my early 20s, and here was this new food environment, and I decided I needed to make sense of it. And I found it was the rules of economics that do the best job. Food is a capitalist product of supply and demand. "
Tyler Cowen
Rules
Life
Food
" What I would like to vote for is a candidate that is socially liberal, a fiscal conservative, broadly libertarian with a small 'l' but sensible and pragmatic and with a chance of winning. That's more or less the empty set. "
Tyler Cowen
Chance
Vote
Winning
" Everything will have a Yelp review. And if you're a worker, there will be like credit scores. There already are to some extent. How reliable are you? How many jobs have you had? Have there been lawsuits filed against you? How many traffic tickets? "
Tyler Cowen
You
Everything
Credit
" At fancy and expensive restaurants (say, $50 and up for a dinner), you can follow a simple procedure to choose the best meal. Look at the menu and ask yourself: 'Which of these items do I least want to order?' Or: 'Which one sounds the least appetizing?' Then order that item. "
Tyler Cowen
Simple
Look
Dinner