This Week in Magazines: Vanity Fair Tries to Figure Out Symbols of the New Sophistication

Our adoration of economists is a vivid reminder of the frequent gulf between fame and performance; in this case generally dismal performance.

So last week the Wall Street Journal informed us about all the economists who are stars of the blogosphere, generating gazillions of page views as they generally sit in the academic or think tank peanut galleries opining at any length. Now comes July 16 Economist to cut to the real chase in "What Went Wrong with Economics": "Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself."

A few years ago, the dismal science was being acclaimed as a way of explaining ever more forms of human behaviour, from drug-dealing to sumo-wrestling. Wall Street ransacked the best universities for game theorists and options modellers. And on the public state, economists were seen as far more trustworthy than politicians. John McCain joked that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve was so indispensable that if he died, the president should "prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him."

Now, the wonderful, generally right-leaning weekly does ultimately pull back from the broadsides at the profession, while conceding a need to re-examine macroeconomics and financial economics as it calls for "reinvention." Economists must "reach out from their specialised silos: macroeconomists must understand finance, and finance professors need to think harder about the context within which markets work. And everybody needs to work harder on understanding assets bubbles and what happens when they burst."

All well and good but still a bit unsatisfying. What's obviously needed is the equivalent of batting averages for economists, starting with Obama administration officials, who've been arguably way off in the jobless projections underlying their stimulus plans. Treat them like Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols.

Give us every prediction and how each is faring. And when they slip below a certain average -- say .250, perhaps to be called the Greenspan Line -- ship them off to some community college for several years of re-education. And, please, no blogging.

---August Vanity Fair caused a modest ripple with Todd Purdum's "It Came From Wasilla," an examination of Sarah Palin's vice presidential campaign odyssey rife with too many spineless Republicans not willing to have the writer use their names as they attacked Palin and John McCain. But that piece was just part of an excellent issue, including a melancholy take on actor Heath Ledger's life and last movie; Michael Lewis' excellent profile of one Joe Cassano, key figure in the A.I.G. debacle from his perch in the firm's London office; Michael Wolff on the perhaps double-edge sword of the political website Politico.com's success; and Christopher Hitchens on the Nixonian aspects of the disastrous leadership of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

But the most interesting opus may be James Wolcott's "What's a Culture Snob to Do?" It raises the rather befuddling matter of how we'll demarcate social and intellectual sophistication and snobbery in a digital world. If people turn to Kindles and iPods, rather than showing off what books they're reading or what albums they've collected, what will be the emblems of the high-brow? And, though he doesn't mention same, what about a world in which a traditional symbol of being a smarty-pants, namely reading a newspaper, doesn't amount to much at all?

This gets at the traditional notion that material possessions can define who we are. Thrown in, too, the democratization of luxury, with Tiffany-branded products available to the masses, and this can be a most confusing time for snoots.

---It's hard not to read the July 13-20 double issue of Business Week without a sliver of ghoulishness, given word that its owner is putting it on the auction block and that there may not be a long line of bidders. It's all rather sad since it continues to do a fine job even amid the plunge in financial advertising. The best here is a fine section on trends in retirement savings (including a look at IBM's very successful 401(k) and "Will Tax Breaks Boost Jobs?" a cautionary note about the downside of states battling one another to favor companies with tax breaks and other goodies, such as cheap land.

---Nostalgia buffs can feast on the July 13-20 double issue of Sports Illustrated, with its annual "Where Are They Now" look at starts from the sporting past. So what is Monica Seles up to and how has she ultimately dealt with real trauma? What great pitcher on the Amazin' Mets of 1969 just got into hot water with the Internal Revenue Service? And what baseball icon has never heard of the book Moneyball? As many sad tales as one finds, there are enough uplifting ones to remind one that there can be great achievements beyond the spotlight of athletic fame.

---Distinguishing the August Cosmopolitan's "Hot Issue" from its usual ingenious, libido-driven fare may well be a distinction without a difference. But we do have a sex pool of a group clearly not targeted previously by Pew or Gallup, namely "6,000 horny guys." Be informed that the "girlie look" they go for most is "the girl next door: casual, not a ton of makeup, ponytail." As for a woman's "no-fail move" to turn them on, a steamy kiss barely (pun intended) beats out the cerebral alternative of "when she grabs my crotch."

---August Smart Money makes clear that Warren Buffett's acolytes would be turned on by vastly-improved performance by the Omaha savant who oversees Berkshire Hathaway. "Buffett: Waiting for the Bounce" details his dismal performance of late, with some claiming his buy-and-hold modus operandi is anachronistic. Great reputation aside, "Over the past decade, the average North American stock-oriented hedge fund earned 9.7 percent a year after fees, compared with 2.9 percent for Berkshire, according to research by asset-management firm Lyster Watson & Co."

---And, finally, if you still have money to travel, July-August Business Traveller rates the "50 Top Airport Lounges," sticking KLM's in Amsterdam as the top in Europe and American Airlines' and United's lounges at O'Hare as the top of the U.S. heap. The sofas, massage chairs, rock garden and prayer rooms at Turkish Airlines' lounge at Istanbul Ataturk International get praise, too.

Comments

[Tom Matlack - Huffpost Blogger]

I actually think the digital world democratizes snobbery in the sense that there is so much more to read and experience on the web that finding stuff that is unique and cool takes a certain creativity and 6th sense that reading the book or magazine that is already deemed high brow never did. Anyone can set the new trend not just a select few...all good from my POV.

[quillsinister]

I'm not sure what the big deal is. I can download Mozart to my iPod and Plato (as well as several newspapers) on a Kindle. In both cases the content is the same; the medium alone has changed. This is not without precedent. There was a time when music was something you had to perform yourself, or pay others to perform. There was a time when books were unknown, bards sang around the fire, and much later when writing was a specialized skill practiced mostly by monks in monastaries illuminating manuscripts. I remember reading an ancient Greek philosopher who railed against writing itself because he felt it would destroy human mnemonic ability. He may have been right, too. I certainly can't recite the entire Iliad from memory. However, the transition was not without certain gains. I don't think it stretches the truth too much to say we use too much paper as a civilization. If e-paper and Whispernet can give me newspapers and magazines, I think that's excellent. If I can carry the equivalent of an entire bookshelf or extensive musical library in a single small device, I'm all for it.

Of course I will still buy the occasional CD, and some of my nicer books (leatherbound Dunsany, Tolkein, etc.) are treasures in my house. However, I don't think civilization will come crashing down because I choose to eliminate the physical medium in some, or even most, cases.

[jdevans]

It makes it much more difficult to strike up a conversation with an attractive stranger about the book he or she's reading that you just finished when the stranger's reading a Kindle.

[quillsinister]

Now THAT is a good argument!

:-)