February 9th, 2013
Tyler Cowen has some nice things to say about What to Expect.
5 commentsDaily “What to Expect” Update
February 8th, 2013
So the good news is that we broke Amazon. And the Kindle version is available. The bad news is that Amazon is out of hardcovers and waiting for the second printing. Further good news is that Barnes & Noble still has hardcovers and the Nook version available.
I’ve got an op-ed up on immigration and fertility rates over at the Los Angeles Times.
Then there are two reviews out. The first is from the Daily Beast’s Justin Green, who did the only thing a writer can really ask of a reviewer: He read the book carefully. I’m really grateful for that.
The second is from Ruy Teixeira at The New Republic. (Note to TNR’s digital editors: You’ve mis-spelled Ruy’s last name in your URL. Better for SEO if you fix it.)
I don’t want to say too much about Ruy’s review–if he read the book and wasn’t convinced by the data and research I assembled, then fair enough. Also, I’m a big fan of his work. Have been for a long time, and so I’m really inclined to assume the best. I’ll just suggest that I think it’s possible that if Ruy were to go back and read the book a little more closely, he’d find that–at the very least–I’m more careful than he’s giving me credit for in his review.
For instance, I don’t “reject out of hand” proposals about government setting up something like affordable, national daycare. What I say is this:
The best-case results suggest that the natalist programs—which essentially pay parents enough to put their kids in day care so that they can go to work—have created a small, positive effect. A large body of the research suggests they’ve had no effect at all, other than to nudge the timing of births slightly later in a woman’s life and closer together.
There are footnotes to this with links to the research, because I tried to make What to Expect as data-driven as possible, since a lot of the assumptions we hold about demographics and public policies turn out either not to be true, or to be more complicated than we think. Now maybe Ruy is unconvinced by the research on this–and that’s fine, though to my mind the body of it is fairly compelling. But my point is that if we decide that something like Scandinavian-style national daycare is a good which we value on its own, then so be it–but that there is research on its efficacy which suggests we should not expect more than marginal returns from it.
He also seems to fundamentally mis-understand the immigration section of What to Expect, where he says I’m not “interested” in seeing more immigration. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how that was his takeaway from the book. Here’s one passage on the subject from What to Expect, for instance:
So in sum: Immigration isn’t as good for your demographic profile as baby-making—and it causes lots of problems.20 Yet we are lucky to have it for as long as it lasts. Think of it as a hedge against our native fertility rate, should we continue down the slope toward Ital- ian or Japanese levels (as Second Demographic Transition theory suggests we will).
Again, there are footnotes in there showing that these statements are all based on research in the field. But like I said, I don’t want to belabor all of this.
If Ruy didn’t like What to Expect, or found it unconvincing, that’s fine by me. He’s a really smart guy. And as I said, I respect his judgment and generally admire his work quite a lot. But again, I think if he were to give the book a closer reading, his judgments might be a little different.
PSA
February 8th, 2013
Brendan and wwtdd are back. And possibly about to change formats.
0 commentsOn The Blaze, Again
February 7th, 2013
First, a reminder: The Kindle version of What to Expect is here.
Second, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m fascinated by what Glenn Beck is doing with The Blaze as an internet TV network and it’s incomprehensible why media reporters (and business reporters) aren’t all over this story. Beck took a cable TV following, ported it out of an established network, and ushered into his own new network, which is not just an internet TV channel, but a pay internet TV channel. How is this not the most interesting, and potentially disruptive, media experiment since the advent of Fox News Channel? And yet when you look around the mainstream press . . . crickets.
As I said, incomprehensible.
I went on The Blaze’s Real News last night and came away even more impressed with the operation. What they’re doing isn’t an alt-version of Fox. It’s actually more like what PBS might be in an alt-universe where it had created a hit newscast for younger, conservative viewers. It’s long-form broadcast. It’s high-energy, but not shout-y. And it’s really, really smart.
I had a great time with The Blaze gang and then went over to my other favorite cable show, Greg Gutfeld’s Red Eye. Doing those shows back-to-back is basically the most fun you can have on TV.
12 commentsFinally, the BOOK has come back to Kindle . . .
February 6th, 2013
The Kindle version of What to Expect is here. Go get it.
If that’s what you’re into.
0 commentsTales from the Green Room
February 6th, 2013
So later this morning I’m going to be on a radio show where another guest (not in my segment, I assume) is Rachel Dratch. That’s kind of neat, though not the coolest booking I’ve ever had.
The best was being booked after Stan Lee on the Dennis Miller’s old CNBC show; getting to hang out with Stan the Man in the green room was really awesome.
But the funniest experience I ever had was way back in 2001. I was doing Fox & Friends and found myself in the green room with Henry Kissinger and Jenna, from the first season of Survivor. It was about 6:30 am and I introduced myself to Dr. K (all the while thinking about The Simpsons–“No one must know that I, author of the Paris Peace Accords, have lost my glasses!”) and we chit-chatted for a few minutes. I glanced over at Jenna, sitting on the sofa next to us, looking to be polite and bring her into the conversation. And the look of supreme annoyance on her face made clear to me that she had no idea who Kissinger was and felt a little put out that a genuine celebrity like herself was being forced to listen to some pudgy old man cracking foreign policy jokes first thing the morning.
PS: What to Expect cracked the top 100 on Amazon last night. A Kindle version is coming very shortly but if you haven’t gotten yourself a copy yet, now would be a really good time to do so. And for whatever it’s worth, I highly recommend the hard cover version because an enormous part of the value in the book is in the endnotes, which are easier to take advantage of in dead-tree form.
PPS: Once you read What to Expect, it really would be helpful to post your thoughts over at the Amazon page. Thanks.
1 comment10 Questions
February 5th, 2013
Certainly this Daily Caller interview is the most fun I’ll have over the next couple weeks. I got to work in Octomom and Matt Labash. #winning
(Scroll all the way down for the full transcript.)
1 commentThings Not To Do on Television
February 5th, 2013
#7,031: Tell Oprah’s best friend, “Let’s get drunk and make bad decisions!”
6 comments
