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Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy
2002 · TV series · documentary · 120 min episodes · 1 season
The people, ideas, and events that created our current world economy.
2 positive1 neutralfrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
I really enjoyed "Commanding Heights" (PBS?). Its more of a series, but in documentary style.
I grew up in California, went to Berkeley, and worked in there for years, but I couldn't stand the backwardness of California's homeowner cabal anymore and moved out of state. In my new state, there's no rent control, no NIMBYism, and homes and neighborhoods are beautiful and affordable. Sure, there's more room to grow here, fewer people, and a smaller economy, so it's not a completely fair comparison, but take a moment and look on a satellite map at how much land in the bay area is completely undeveloped, most of it on hillsides. I'll move back if California ever embraces progress and growth (not going to happen in my lifetime).
Regarding remote work, I've been working remotely here at satellite offices of bay area companies for 7 years at 3 different companies and it has sucked. You're treated like a second class citizen by employees at the mother ship, and the conference call technology (webex) is abominable -- half duplex, compression artifacts, and good luck understanding what an engineer with a heavy asian accent is saying while he's 12 feet from the microphone across all of the garbage technology that delivers his voice to your ear. The only way it would work is if everyone would wear a headset, and whether it's conscious or not, employees at the mother ship would much rather keep you, the remote office guy, in the twilight and not jeopardize their jobs. Never again for me if I can help it.
And FWIW, if you are in favor of price controls (minimum wage, rent control) the Commanding Heights documentary is an excellent retort (starting at minute 50): https://youtu.be/w9ms2WOZi74?t=50m6s
I got the anecdote from the documentary "Commanding Heights: the Battle for the World Economy", where Friedman himself relates the story. Below is a link to the video clip.[1] There is also a Reason interview transcript where the same story is retold by Friedman.[2] In addition, it is mentioned on Mises' Wikipedia page.[3]
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkQfK8hn0ds
[2] http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises