Korbel Kamera

Something I really like about Korbel is the effort they make to connect with prospective students on a level other universities really don’t. Call me a child of the cyber age, interested in nothing but frivolities and fluff (really? That’s harsh…), but I like the fact that you don’t just have some dry old webpage with a few bullet points, a contact address and an application deadline.

Case in point: This blog and all the other great blogs that my fellow students in other programs have been recruited to write. I know that when I was applying to Korbel, I checked out all the blogs that existed and found they offered something beyond the generic descriptions of coursework and courseloads that other schools offering similar (but not the same, ofcourse…) programs provided, in terms of a chance to get a better idea of what it’s really like to be a student at their school.

If you haven’t already taken a look at some of the other blogs on here, I’d recommend it (see tab at the top of this page!). Even if they are not written by students who are taking the programs you are interested in, you can still get a nice little insight into student life at Korbel and in Denver generally. If you’ve already submitted your application to Korbel, you’re probably aware of the great blog written by Brad Miller (Director of Admissions, and super cool dude) and Nicole Vilegi (assistant director of admissions, and, you guessed it…super cool gal) at korbeladmissions.wordpress.com. Their posts can be as unexpectedly funny/random as they are useful for getting all the pertinent information you need about applying to Korbel, which fits well with what I would say is the generally slightly unorthodox leanings of the school, academic content-wise and program structure-wise (you might have heard people mention the flexibility of the programs vs other APSIA programs as a major bonus – and I’d definitely agree).

Another thing you might want to consider doing, is to join the Josef Korbel School of International Studies Facebook page, and the Korbel channel on youtube. There you’ll find some other Korbel school media gems – like the “Ask Korbel” series put together by our very own Sarah Crozier, who works for the Admissions office whilst studying for her MA here. Yet another example of how the admissions office uses the talents of our student body in an awesome way that benefits you, us, and them. That’s pretty cool, no? And I don’t even get paid to say that…(except in muffins, that I am yet to see, if I’m honest with you. Minus one point for Korbel).

Here’s the latest in the “Ask Korbel” series… about how students are surviving the crazed haze of finals week, and featuring yours truly. Click on the videos in the side bar and you’ll see some of the Student Perspective Videos where some of my awesome Korbel peeps talk about why they chose Korbel and answer other critical questions. NICE.

Word Cloud

Taking a break from working on a paper for my economic development class (investigating the relationship between growth and income inequality in The Bahamas), this awesome website was brought to my attention: Wordle.net.

Since I find myself lost in a verbal haze right now trying to finish this paper and am in need of some inspiration, it seemed appropriate that I should present to you: Three of my Korbel school essays….in the form of Word Clouds! Not only do they look very aesthetically appealing (who would’ve thought such sweat and toil went into creating these…), but they should also give any of you prospective students a minor insight into some of the types of things you might end up writing about should you come to Korbel. I really enjoyed both of these classes and learnt a lot. The sooner I can turn this 30 page economic development paper into a word cloud the better…

SO, I present to you…… International Political Economy essay # 1.

International Political Economy essay # 2….

And the most recent, my International Trade midterm:

Chucho, Te Quiero

The quarter is progressing rapidly, as it tends to do. Good sign that things are about to get crazy and finals will soon be looming: I’ve already registered my classes for the Spring quarter. Capital Markets in Africa (super excited about that one), International Business Transactions (potentially good), Statistics III (supposedly it “pulls everything together” from Stats I and II, making all those Saturday mornings seem worthwhile after all…) and Project Management.

Ofcourse, midterm exams and essays aplenty raining down on my conscience has not stopped me from taking a moment or two to enjoy Denver life. This week, this meant spending a wicked $15 on a student-discounted ticket to see Cuban jazz piano legend, Chucho Valdes, and his backing band, the Afro-Cuban Messengers, play at the University of Denver’s Newman Center for the performing arts, which just happens to be right next to campus and literally a few blocks from my house.

The music was soulful, sultry, frenetic, powerful and energizing……imagine the wailing of a muffled trombone, punctuated by the freewheeling melodies of Chucho’s piano, infused with an infectious Afro-Caribbean rhythm. Perfect for a Valentine’s evening out in Denver with some other Korbel ladeeez.

A five-time Grammy winner, the 70 year-old piano virtuoso lifted notes from the instrument as if conjuring up a spirit – the keys flowed like a wave under his nimble fingers. If I closed my eyes, I could be sitting in a bar in Havana, sipping a mojito in the warm Cuban breeze. Ah, Havana…te quieroooo.

On that note, what better excuse to post some pictures of the most photogenic city on earth. I took these in Cuba in ’06, ’08 and ’09. It’s one of my favourite places, hence why I’m drawn to anything that’s reminsicent of it like a moth to a flame. I would highly encourage any and all to visit. Some are not aware that even as a US citizen you can still get legitimate permission to travel to Cuba on certain terms, and if not in this way, thousands of Americans choose to visit Havana each year by flying via Canada or The Bahamas…Just sayin’:

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As for topics more GFTEI related, I present to you yet another talk at Korbel by yet another distinguished visiting professor. I’d actually forgotten about Robert Wade’s talk until I read this quote from John Maynard Keynes somewhere today (a quote from 1933 no less, which reads like it could have been written in an op-ed yesterday. Man, that guy was prescient):

“The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods. In short we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.”

Robert Wade, professor of political economy and development at the London School of Economics, thinks its finally time (78 years later) that we stop being perplexed and take action, and has come up with his own plan to reform global governance in the face of the most recent crisis of capitalism. Wade stopped by Korbel last week to talk about why the G20 is an illegitimate, opaque, poorly-equipped grouping to manage the challenges of the global economy today and in the future, and should be replaced by a governing “Global Economic Council” that is more representative.

Global governance is a topic that has become increasingly debated since the 2008 financial crisis and prolonged economic crisis that has continues to follow. Political economists hark back to the days when global powers came together post WW2 to forge the Bretton Woods system of monetary management to stabilise the international economic system, which led to what is generally perceived to be 30 years of growth and prosperity (particularly amongst those countries who came together to forge the agreement). It’s something that we talked a lot about in my International Political Economy class last quarter, which I enjoyed a lot (yeah you probably got that by now…).

While people like Nicolas Sarkozy would like us to believe that the G20 is at the centre of achieving this goal in today’s global economy, Wade says of the grouping:”There’s no sign that it is suitable and legitimate enough to stabilise the world economy today.”

The G20 evolved out of the G7, which functioned as a “rich man’s club, with developing countries waiting for crumbs” (says Wade, and with which I tend to agree). The G7 expanded to become the G20 in the late 90s, including within its membership what it described as “systemically important” countries. In fact says Wade, its membership could not be reverse engineered and as such should be considered adhoc. As just one example, Spain has “permanent guest” status, while the Netherlands is just left out. On what basis, it cannot be determined. Same with numerous other nations. “There is no explicit criterion for membership, no mechanism of universal representation, no mechanism for adding or dropping countries as their relative economic weight changes over time,” noted Wade.

The expansion came after efforts at “outreach” by the G8 leaders to emerging economies – which, Wade said, saw “emerging market leaders invited to G8 summits for breakfast, or maybe dinner” where they would get very little substantial input or engagement from the G8 leaders – failed to quell growing complaints about the grouping’s legitimacy (“I didn’t come here to drink coffee,” Wade quoted one Brazilian minister as saying…), and after the financial crisis of 2008 generally “undermined the legitimacy of neoliberal norms, the US, UK and G7 leadership”.

“They (G8 leaders) woke up and realised they needed to make a better offer of power” to other countries, said Wade.

The G20 Summit of heads of state met for the first time in November 2008 as the financial crisis bore down, calling itself the “premier economic forum”. It went on to upgrade itself from “a crisis committee to a steering committee”, said Wade.

But while its action in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis did have some positive impacts – “fellowship in a lifeboat” is how Wade describes it – and its membership is now of a broader nature that includes the critical BRIC economies, it has since only sought to expand its influence whilst providing no further basis for legitimacy. Meanwhile, despite having no secretariat through which to formally exercise its authority, it has sought to sway global outcomes in favour of its membership informally through the World Bank – much to the chagrin of non-G20 Executive Directors at that institution, claims Wade.

“Senior officials outside the G20 see the G20 as acting in an illegitimate way,” he added.

The Global Economic Council proposed by Wade would be based on the principle of universal representation and inclusion and would “pave the way for the G20 to exercise real authority” in governing the global economy, claims Wade. The Global Economic Council would determine its members “by region, and by economic weight”. Four world “regions”, each with 16 seats on the council, would be represented.

However, Wade concluded that the “degree of consensus needed to establish the GEC will probably require more crisis.”

While I do believe that the G20 lacks legitimacy, What seemed strange to me is that Wade had come to a conclusion on how it should be reformed without reaching any conclusion on what its mandate should be once it is “properly constituted”, and how this will be enforced, or if it will simply be a talking shop.

Being the cynic that I am, I also doubt this kind of representative expansion into a Global Economic Council really result in much more “representation” in reality. As Thucydides told us, “The Strong will do what they can, the weak will suffer what they must.” Except that under a Global Economic Council, you would have the same core countries ultimately calling the shots but this time with a more impenetrable facade of legitimacy and inclusion, but a facade nonetheless. But I definitely agree that the face of global governance is an area which is ripe for further investigation by academics – which could mean you or I – unless we wish to find ourselves without a legitimate reason to complain when powerful leaders shape these “institutions” as they please.

The Transgender Libertarian Feminist Economist and “the Blob”

One of the last ways in which I would expect a distinguished University of Chicago economics Professor to describe the economy is as “The Blob”.

“The Blob is watching us,” Deirdre McCloskey said, ominously, during a talk recently at Korbel.

You thought this economy was bad, just wait for....SON OF BLOB!

But then again, Deirdre McCloskey does not tend to be associated with the expected or mundane. Case in point: Deirdre McClosky was Donald McCloskey until the age of 53, and she’s a transgender libertarian feminist economist. She also happens to be a Professor of Economics, English, History AND Communications at one of the country’s top universities, which is evident from her quirky, inclusive style of speaking that allows her to convey complex subject matter to a lay audience in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

McCloskey's intellectual one-two punch: "When was the last time you changed your mind? I changed my mind about my gender...". Hard to argue with that!

McCloskey came to speak at Korbel this week, as part of the “Spectre of Ignorance” Speaker series on the “limits of knowledge in the social sciences” that Korbel professor George DeMartino, a huge fan of McClosky’s despite disagreeing with many of her more extreme libertarian conclusions, has been instrumental in coordinating.

Brought into U of Chicago while neoclassical economic idol, Milton Friedman, was heading up its economics faculty, McCloskey could be considered a surprising candidate to tell an audience of gathered Korbel students and faculty that economists have been getting an awful lot wrong for a very long time. According to McCloskey, this is because they have been failing to realize the limits of knowledge – of what they can know and predict about the world. And that is something that she (then he) was also saying long before it became “fashionable” to do so in recent years, post-crisis.

Ever sat and listened to pundits on the evening news talk about how “inevitable” a series of events was, or how it’s obvious what policy the government should put in place to deal with a particular issue? Well McCloskey says the question we should be asking these and all other people like them – including social scientists proper – is “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?”. That is, if the guy on late night TV who is telling you you can make millions by investing in real estate really knew that to legitimately be the case, then he must be able to predict the future, and if so, why is he hawking this all over late night TV rather than retiring at 32?

Same with all of the Dr Dooms who suggested that saw the recent financial and economic crisis coming. “Why didn’t they do the Big Short?” asked McCloskey.

Her underlying point is this: There is too much arrogance and hubris in the social sciences, to the point where societies and economies have been treated like “vending machines” with simple “input/output” mechanisms. You put in one set of variables, you get out another set of outcomes. But this is not only wrong, but dangerous and potentially harmful, says McCloskey.

Harmful.

Making a comparison with weather forecasting, the academic said: “Even with weather forecasting there are theoretical limits. You can predict the weather maybe 2 weeks out. But the slightest disturbance today can change what happens weeks down the line. The difference in economics is that the clouds are listening. Imagine if a hurricane could hear a prediction that it’s going to go to South Carolina, and then decides it can make a fortune if it goes to Savannah…” said McClosky of the way in which economic and social predictions reverberate throughout the economies and societies that come from in ways that then go on to alter behavior and outcomes within those economies and societies, thereby making accurate prediction even less plausible.

“It puts a limit on social engineering,” said McCloskey, who, as a die hard libertarian, finds this particular conclusion about the limits to knowledge supportive of her ideological anti-government intervention stance.

“If the social world was a machine that wasn’t paying attention to our predictions social science would be like mechanical engineering. In fact, you get catastrophes even in mechanical engineering, but it’s even worse in the social world because there’s this conscious blob. The economy is The Blob and The Blob is watching us. It’s listening and it’s reacting. It is people,” said McCloskey.

The answer though, is not paralysis. We must still act, and try to make things better in our social and economic worlds, she concludes. In social research and policy-making, “You’ve got to make yourself wise – not clever,” said McCloskey.

“Clever is to do a calculation quickly. What you need to do is to value judgment. There has been a tremendous pressure to devalue judgment. Practical wisdom is what you must try to accumulate. Read novels, history and think deeply about philosophy and the implications of interfering in other people’s lives and the harm that can do.”

Sunday morning, 11am, Colorado:

Now, this is what living in Colorado is all about!

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That is, except when it’s about t-shirt weather (that was a couple of weeks ago), or visits to your university by distinguished libertarian feminist transgender economists…(more on that after tomorrow…)

On a side note, today my friend and I literally became giddy at the thought of an upcoming class on Capital Markets in Africa. Or to be precise, the capital market subsector in Africa, taught by the founder of the only US-Based Venture Capital Fund operating in Africa and funded entirely by private money. And I don’t even feel weird saying that. Because I go to Korbel. And that’s How We Roll.