Plane reading - Sept 3, 2015

Expert takes on interesting topics of the last week, an innumerate baker's dozen:

1. Paul Krugman, discussing Baker's piece on clay tablets illustrating trade "law of gravity" held even thousands of years ago (click through to read Baker)
2. Christopher Balding, debunking the China GDP debunker debunkers
3. Tyler Cowen, offering a simple primer for understanding China's downturn
4. Fred Wilson, stating that a clear strategic plan, communicated well, is more effective at people retention than compensation
5. Bloomberg View, on why tapped-out gains in global trade could make this global slowdown different
6. Wired, on the evolving merits and politics of choosing a programming language for a particular task
7. DisneyBlog, describing the impact on guests and operations of unscrupulous scalpers at Disney Dining
8. Variety, discussing the threat of Netflix and Digital Single Market on European film taxes' subsidy of film production.  Note Croatia's rhetorical TKO by invoking Godwin's law
9. NYTimes, covering a union-owned bank that specializes in funding Democratic candidates
10. NYTimesMagazine, covering "The VCs of BC." A discovery of extensive clay tablet documentation of trade in the town of Kanesh (present day Turkey) between 1890 and 1860 BC (~4,000 years ago)
11. VentureBeat, covering Farming as a Service - vertically and underground.  Boston startup FreightFarms has been developing a turnkey solution housed in a shipping container
12. Alex Tabarrok, commenting on an interview of Paul Romer discussing the economics of when centralized urban planning preempts coordination failures (Alex links to full Paul Romer interview)
13. Miles Corak, discussing the 156 definitions of "middle class" and why most people think they fit
14. VOXblogClimateChange, a critique of "Nerd Politics"
15. LibertyStreetEcon, on the entry/exit dynamics for bitcoin miners leading to zero profits.  Their previous piece on the economics of a 51% attack in Bitcoin was also quite interesting
16. Jag Bhalla, on Errors We Live By: Is market love blind?
17. Playboy, on Uber for goats.  Yes, I read it for the articles