Thursday, October 16, 2008

You Got Me Babe

Here are two books one can read on-line and that I may read:The first book discusses data mining in an anti-terrorism context. Success of this tchnology in this context is difficult, while false positives are a threat to privacy. At least this is the conclusion - if I am fairly summarizing - of the Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions on Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals. (The National Academies Press publishes reports by the National Academies and by the National Research Council, organizations of some importance in the formation of United States policies on science and technology.)

The second book is Nicholas Kaldor's demonstration that monetarism does not work. On this blog, Kaldor should need no introduction.

Both books are in a freely readable on-line format that I find annoying. I suppose the format of the free version of the first is a business decision to encourage the purchase of the PDF version. And I blame copyright law for the format of the second.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kaldor's book is essential reading. He was originally a follower of von Hayek, then became one of the first Keynesians.

He critiqued von Hayek's business cycle theory, forcing him to utterly rewrite it. Then he critiqued the new version, so ensuring that the "Austrian" theory was quickly forgotten.

Unsurprisingly, when it came to non-Nobel prize for economics they handed one to von Hayek for his work on the business cycle...

Kaldor's critiques of neo-classical assumptions are worth reading (The Essential Kaldor is, well, essential!), not to mention his critiques of Monetarism -- and (surprise!) the state could not control the money supply after all!

So, well worth reading.

Iain
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