Obama's choice for Office Of Management And Budget cites best Toby Keith song

Peter R. Orszag

Is otherwise known for: Running marathons and attending country-western concerts. In a June 2007 appearance on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Mr. Orszag's paraphrase of a country star's hit song disarmed Mr. Dobbs, who was unsuccessfully pushing Mr. Orszag, as the Congressional Budget Office director, to validate his own views that illegal immigrants impose high costs on taxpayers. "Well, Lou, as Toby Keith would say, that's not how it is," Mr. Orszag said. The host, taken aback by the unlikely allusion from the bespectacled economist, replied, "You rock on, Mr. Director!"

Consequences

I have a whole bunch of notes written down that didn't make it into my most recent Department Of Dilettante Research thread (which you should look back at, since byebyepride made a couple of late comments that I've been thinking about).

(1) What's the reward for teaching well and for understanding? What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? --When I wrote those questions I was thinking of how they would apply to an actual dep't we'd set up. Any answer would have to take into account what sort of thing the dep't is, e.g. an actual funded dep't somewhere or a message board or a magazine or a bunch of conversations on the town green or an itinerant group of marauders who "intervene" in some or all of the aforementioned. BUT actually when I glanced at the questions just now I interpreted them as applying to the world in general, not the Dep't in specific. What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? Like, in one's life.

If success and failure were its own rewards, then "departments of dilettante research" would have emerged all over the blogosphere. I wonder if the loose gaggle of economists blogs I've been reading - mostly by academics, a few by those in the financial industry, a few by journalists - could actually be considered a de facto Department Of Dilettante Research. Presumably the academics read each other's papers. Or I would like to think that they do. But they also have the ongoing financial support of institutions, and some of them get paid for columns and - presumably - for their blogs. (I don't know this, however.)

( Ways of creating courses )

( Where do we start? )