You can't multitask:

Ask students to recite the letters A through J as fast as possible, and then the numbers 1 through 10. Each of those tasks typically takes around two seconds. Then he asks them to interweave the two recitations as fast as they can: "A, 1, B, 2," and so on. Does that take four seconds? No, it typically requires 15 to 20 seconds, and even then many students make mistakes.

The Mexican mobster who owns the New York Times controls the story:

This is a scandalous story, involving one of the world's largest banks, a powerful federal judge, and two Mexican telecom giants. Under any other circumstances, the business section of the Times would be expected to cover it.

Unrelated, but I'll pass it along while I'm blogging: Megan McArdle explains simply why health care is expensive.

A depressing article about unemployment:

A slowly sinking generation; a remorseless assault on the identity of many men; the dissolution of families and the collapse of neighborhoods; a thinning veneer of national amity—the social legacies of the Great Recession are still being written, but their breadth and depth are immense.

I warned you it was depressing - don't read it if you're unprepared.

Fix poverty, not with aid, but by making charter cities:

Because Hong Kong helped make reform in the rest of China possible, the British intervention there arguably did more to reduce world poverty than all the official aid programmes of the 20th century, and at a fraction of the cost. And, if many such cities are built, fewer people will be trapped in the failed states that are the root cause of most humanitarian crises and security concerns.

Apparently "we" should just build a million-plus city from scratch somewhere on the coast of Africa with no fresh water, and the world will be transformed. Romer might have identified the right problem in this article, but his solution sounds ridiculous. Then again, it might just work.