Happy Holidays!

Escape from Academia will be taking a break over the holidays until mid-January. Thank you for all your support.

Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Philosophy of Parkour

Imagine you jump, you run, and you free-fall all over a city. How free, or how zen, can you feel?

I read this article about a group of free-runners in Bangkok. They practice parkour not only for fun. On top of jumping off buildings and making dangerous moves without protection, parkour is also about developing self-discipline.

Parkour is a term that comes from the "obstacle course" used for military training. According to the founder of parkour, David Belle, the philosophy of parkour is to move from one point to another in the most effective way possible. In addition, the "traceurs" i.e. the practitioners of parkour, believe that parkour can improve critical thinking and mentality.

It's very interesting. I think I will begin to practice parkour someday. One day ...

Shalom to the Recession or Ben Bernanke?

Foreign Policy named Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke 2009's number one global thinker. Excerpt is as follows:

The Zen-like chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve might not have topped the list solely for turning his superb academic career into a blueprint for action, for single-handedly reinventing the role of a central bank, or for preventing the collapse of the U.S. economy. But to have done all of these within the span of a few months is certainly one of the greatest intellectual feats of recent years. Not long ago a Princeton University professor writing paper after paper on the Great Depression, "Helicopter Ben" spent 2009 dropping hundreds of billions in bailouts seemingly from the skies, vigilantly tracking interest rates, and coordinating with counterparts across the globe. His key insight? The need for massive, damn-the-torpedoes intervention in financial markets. Winning over critics who have since praised his "radical" moves (including Nouriel Roubini, No. 4 on this list), he now faces an uphill battle in his bid for permanently expanded Fed powers. The radicalism is far from over.

"Those who doubt that there is much connection between the economy of the 1930s and the supercharged, information-age economy of the twenty-first century are invited to look at the current economic headlines -- about high unemployment, failing banks, volatile financial markets, currency crises, and even deflation. The issues raised by the Depression, and its lessons, are still relevant today." --Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression.

Though many claim Bernanke has successfully utilized his academic intelligence to save us from a worse collapse during the economic crisis, his lack of attention to the long-term economy has also put us in a potential hyperinflation (see my recent post about the current economic crisis). Well, we will see how Bernanke brainstorms and deals with it when it comes.