One of the most interesting aspects of Jared Diamond’s work is the fact that there has been no attempt at finding THE truth to THE question of economic growth or collapse. He freely admits that he will not do that and points to multiple sources of causality.
It is unclear to me why economists and econometricians persist on attempting to find THE ultimate cause of some question such as financial crises. Part of the reason they have embraced randomized trials is because they divine that they can finally grasp the answer in their hands instead of exploring the deeper questions of multiple causes or intermediate outcomes that may affect the final outcome of interest.
What is even more surprising from my naive point of view is that while they have become obsessed with exogeneity and strength of their instruments they have moved away from goodness of fit statistics and analysis of variance. What does an econometric model really say when an instrument is strongly exogenous with a large t-statistic but the fit of the model is low? Even more so, what if the variance explained by the instrument is even lower? And to sound even more radical, I am surprised that few have adopted MIMIC models. Is this perhaps because (gasp) it smacks too much of structural equations without microfoundations?
In their pursuit for their idealized version of truth, economists and econometricians have perhaps more than ever acquired an extreme form of tunnel vision are unable to see the forest for the trees.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
The efficient market strikes back?
The Atlantic reported on the tripling of the stock price of Etch-a-Sketch parent company after a gaffe by presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Here’s the play by play:
There it is, quietly moving between $4.00 per share and $4.25 per share for the past two months and then bam! Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom makes the gaffe of the month: "I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart."
In the 12 hours after that comment, Ohio Art's price tripled to just above $12.00 a share. To give you an idea of how insane that is, consider that over the past three years, the stock has strictly traded in a band between $2.50 and $4.00 a share.
Efficient marketers of different stripes would need to respond to this somehow. One might say that because markets are efficient we would see the stock price fall back down to its historical values. The skeptic in me would say that if markets are efficient then this shouldn’t have happened in the first place. The conspiracy theorist would say that maybe the Romney is financing his campaign by talking it up and then shorting the stock later. If an economist really believed in efficient markets, would he also have to believe in conspiracy theories?
There it is, quietly moving between $4.00 per share and $4.25 per share for the past two months and then bam! Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom makes the gaffe of the month: "I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart."
In the 12 hours after that comment, Ohio Art's price tripled to just above $12.00 a share. To give you an idea of how insane that is, consider that over the past three years, the stock has strictly traded in a band between $2.50 and $4.00 a share.
Efficient marketers of different stripes would need to respond to this somehow. One might say that because markets are efficient we would see the stock price fall back down to its historical values. The skeptic in me would say that if markets are efficient then this shouldn’t have happened in the first place. The conspiracy theorist would say that maybe the Romney is financing his campaign by talking it up and then shorting the stock later. If an economist really believed in efficient markets, would he also have to believe in conspiracy theories?
When someone says the worst is over
It’s time to believe that it’s just beginning.
According to the ECB, the worst of the sovereign debt crisis is over.
“The worst is over, but there are still risks,” Draghi was quoted as saying. “The situation has stabilized. The important indicators for the euro zone, like inflation, current account and above all the budget deficits, are better than, for example, in the United States.”
Investor confidence has returned and “the ball is now with governments,” Draghi said, according to Bild. “They must sustainably secure the euro zone against crises.”
But according to MR, the Spanish 10-year yield is still high and that one measure of the Portugese deficit has been higher than expected but investors appear to be as confident as Draghi.
Portugal's core public deficit nearly tripled in the first two months of 2012, showing a deepening economic slump is denting tax collection and stoking concerns the country may miss its budget targets and follow Greece in requiring more rescue funds.
The gap widened to 799 million euros ($1.06 billion) from 274 million euros a year earlier, when the deficit had slumped by more than 70 percent, the finance ministry's budget office said on Tuesday.
But, investors appeared to shrug off the numbers and bought 1.99 billion euros in Treasury bills on Wednesday at the lowest yield levels since late 2010, before the country resorted to a 78-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout in May last year.
According to the NYT, the worst for Greece might still be yet to come.
… even after the new relief, Greece is still expected to be saddled with a ratio of debt to gross domestic product of 151 percent in 2012, and 149 percent in 2013. These debt levels remain the highest in Europe. The Greek economy remains in a wretched state — it shrank by 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter. And youth unemployment, at 51 percent, is now officially the highest in Europe. So it is by no means clear that Athens will be able to generate the cash to service its remaining debt.
…
“Greece is staring at decades of interest payments to the official sector,” said Adam Lerrick, a sovereign debt expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “They traded their ability to write down debt to private sector creditors for low-interest-rate official sector loans that cannot be reduced.”
The Atlantic believes that kicking the can down the road is the best strategy since it worked the last time.
Consider the case of Greece's recent default. Markets shrugged off the 74 percent writedown on Greece's privately held debt, because there had been plenty of time to prepare for it. Even the payouts on the much-hyped credit default swaps on Greek debt turned out to be a relative non-event.
In other words, the can-kicking worked! If Greece had defaulted like this two years ago, when its debt problems first roiled markets, the result likely would have been panic. Today, it elicited more headlines than actual worries.
The lesson is clear: Greece and Germany should keep kicking that can!
The Atlantic article then outlines a proposal for Greece to leave the Euro, and according to Columbia University professor David Beim it should be accompanied with debt forgiveness.
My thought is to give the stressed Eurozone members true debt relief — comprehensive debt reduction that could let them restart their economies, but on one condition: those that get such relief must leave the euro. That condition gives them a reason not to ask for it; every country would want a debt reduction unless there was a penalty, and this would be the penalty, which would slow down contagion.
I don’t think this is an unreasonable condition. Greece should never have been in the euro in the first place. Its businesses are now being crushed under a wave of cheap imports because its currency is overvalued. Re-establishing the drachma would be messy and expensive, but less messy and less expensive than staying in the straitjacket of the euro.
My head aches. Previous thoughts on Greece here. However we slice it, the future of Europe will probably be like the lost decade of Japan.
According to the ECB, the worst of the sovereign debt crisis is over.
“The worst is over, but there are still risks,” Draghi was quoted as saying. “The situation has stabilized. The important indicators for the euro zone, like inflation, current account and above all the budget deficits, are better than, for example, in the United States.”
Investor confidence has returned and “the ball is now with governments,” Draghi said, according to Bild. “They must sustainably secure the euro zone against crises.”
But according to MR, the Spanish 10-year yield is still high and that one measure of the Portugese deficit has been higher than expected but investors appear to be as confident as Draghi.
Portugal's core public deficit nearly tripled in the first two months of 2012, showing a deepening economic slump is denting tax collection and stoking concerns the country may miss its budget targets and follow Greece in requiring more rescue funds.
The gap widened to 799 million euros ($1.06 billion) from 274 million euros a year earlier, when the deficit had slumped by more than 70 percent, the finance ministry's budget office said on Tuesday.
But, investors appeared to shrug off the numbers and bought 1.99 billion euros in Treasury bills on Wednesday at the lowest yield levels since late 2010, before the country resorted to a 78-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout in May last year.
According to the NYT, the worst for Greece might still be yet to come.
… even after the new relief, Greece is still expected to be saddled with a ratio of debt to gross domestic product of 151 percent in 2012, and 149 percent in 2013. These debt levels remain the highest in Europe. The Greek economy remains in a wretched state — it shrank by 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter. And youth unemployment, at 51 percent, is now officially the highest in Europe. So it is by no means clear that Athens will be able to generate the cash to service its remaining debt.
…
“Greece is staring at decades of interest payments to the official sector,” said Adam Lerrick, a sovereign debt expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “They traded their ability to write down debt to private sector creditors for low-interest-rate official sector loans that cannot be reduced.”
The Atlantic believes that kicking the can down the road is the best strategy since it worked the last time.
Consider the case of Greece's recent default. Markets shrugged off the 74 percent writedown on Greece's privately held debt, because there had been plenty of time to prepare for it. Even the payouts on the much-hyped credit default swaps on Greek debt turned out to be a relative non-event.
In other words, the can-kicking worked! If Greece had defaulted like this two years ago, when its debt problems first roiled markets, the result likely would have been panic. Today, it elicited more headlines than actual worries.
The lesson is clear: Greece and Germany should keep kicking that can!
The Atlantic article then outlines a proposal for Greece to leave the Euro, and according to Columbia University professor David Beim it should be accompanied with debt forgiveness.
My thought is to give the stressed Eurozone members true debt relief — comprehensive debt reduction that could let them restart their economies, but on one condition: those that get such relief must leave the euro. That condition gives them a reason not to ask for it; every country would want a debt reduction unless there was a penalty, and this would be the penalty, which would slow down contagion.
I don’t think this is an unreasonable condition. Greece should never have been in the euro in the first place. Its businesses are now being crushed under a wave of cheap imports because its currency is overvalued. Re-establishing the drachma would be messy and expensive, but less messy and less expensive than staying in the straitjacket of the euro.
My head aches. Previous thoughts on Greece here. However we slice it, the future of Europe will probably be like the lost decade of Japan.
Social media as a weapon of mass confusion
Maybe social media can’t become a weapon of mass hysteria, but perhaps it could become a weapon of mass confusion. The BBC points to the source of confusion:
Have you heard? There's been a coup in China! Tanks have been spotted on the streets of Beijing and other cities! Shots were fired near the Communist Party's leadership compound!
OK, before you get too agitated, there is no coup. To be more exact, as far as we know there has been no attempted coup.
To be completely correct we should say we do not know what's going on. The fact is there is no evidence of a coup. But it is a subject that has obsessed many in China this week.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of reporting on China in the past few days. Coup rumours ricocheted back and forth, most over the internet, but some were picked up by western newspapers. China's microblogs were awash with speculation. Hard facts were non-existent.
In a situation where news is censored, blacked out, or when we are overtaken by events. Fortunately, the last has not happened in China - yet.
Have you heard? There's been a coup in China! Tanks have been spotted on the streets of Beijing and other cities! Shots were fired near the Communist Party's leadership compound!
OK, before you get too agitated, there is no coup. To be more exact, as far as we know there has been no attempted coup.
To be completely correct we should say we do not know what's going on. The fact is there is no evidence of a coup. But it is a subject that has obsessed many in China this week.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of reporting on China in the past few days. Coup rumours ricocheted back and forth, most over the internet, but some were picked up by western newspapers. China's microblogs were awash with speculation. Hard facts were non-existent.
In a situation where news is censored, blacked out, or when we are overtaken by events. Fortunately, the last has not happened in China - yet.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Reading Jared Diamond
Enjoyed Guns, Germs and Steel a little more than Collapse - perhaps because I had read about the theories of societal collapse in Easter Island at various magazines before this. What was most impressive was his ability to absorb the material from various disparate fields and pull them together into a coherent thesis. The books gave me some new found respect for archaeologists as a synthesizer of information.
In these two books, Diamond has captured the essence of what liberal arts colleges would like their graduates to be - someone who has gone through a liberal arts program can immerse themselves in any complex subject and yet be able to connect different dots into a neat intelligible package that a lay audience can relate to.
At the back of mind while reading these books however, were these thoughts coming from the comments on Andrew Gelman’s post on Freakonomics:
I’m reminded of my reaction to Charles Murray’s book of a few decades ago, “Losing Ground.” He looked at crime policy, education policy, welfare policy, poverty policy, etc., in that book. I thought he was right on in the other fields, but in criminal justice (my field) I felt he misused the data and got it wrong. I then found out that people in the poverty field at the University of Wisconsin felt that he had done a useful job on all areas he looked at except poverty, where he misused the data and got it wrong.
That reminds me of a story someone told about Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision”. They thought the astrophysics, history, etc. was really interesting, but the chemistry was crap – hydrocarbons falling out of the sky, turning to carbohydrates, and becoming the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert! Then they talked to a colleague, who was an astrophysicist, who said the astrophysics was terrible, but he thought the history and the manna stuff was really interesting. So they went off to talk to a historian, who said…
In the end, does this mean that a liberal arts major is someone who knows (or thinks he knows) a lot about everything but everything he knows is wrong?
In these two books, Diamond has captured the essence of what liberal arts colleges would like their graduates to be - someone who has gone through a liberal arts program can immerse themselves in any complex subject and yet be able to connect different dots into a neat intelligible package that a lay audience can relate to.
At the back of mind while reading these books however, were these thoughts coming from the comments on Andrew Gelman’s post on Freakonomics:
I’m reminded of my reaction to Charles Murray’s book of a few decades ago, “Losing Ground.” He looked at crime policy, education policy, welfare policy, poverty policy, etc., in that book. I thought he was right on in the other fields, but in criminal justice (my field) I felt he misused the data and got it wrong. I then found out that people in the poverty field at the University of Wisconsin felt that he had done a useful job on all areas he looked at except poverty, where he misused the data and got it wrong.
That reminds me of a story someone told about Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision”. They thought the astrophysics, history, etc. was really interesting, but the chemistry was crap – hydrocarbons falling out of the sky, turning to carbohydrates, and becoming the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert! Then they talked to a colleague, who was an astrophysicist, who said the astrophysics was terrible, but he thought the history and the manna stuff was really interesting. So they went off to talk to a historian, who said…
In the end, does this mean that a liberal arts major is someone who knows (or thinks he knows) a lot about everything but everything he knows is wrong?
Can waiters be replaced?
I was amused and gratified at the same time to read this:
My name is Katie. I went to Dartmouth, and I am a waitress.
…
I was lucky. I started waitressing in high school, but after college I moved to New Orleans and worked at the Besh Restaurant group, which for three days sequestered its staff for an "Excellence in Service" seminar taught by Eric Weiss. It started with a group of waiters and waitresses standing around banquet trays covered with spoons, matchbooks, limes, and pens of various varieties. We were told to study what we saw, return to our seats and write down everything we could remember: good memories could make us excellent servers.
Beyond the memory games, the course included pearls like: Don't ask table 51 if they would like "another" cocktail, ask if they would like a "fresh" cocktail—the former may make them feel like a boozehound. Don't assume the beautiful woman with the power broker at 22 is his wife. It could be his secretary—be discreet. Don't ask how "we" are doing this weekend—you will sound like a dope. Guests always have the right-of-way, then the food, then you—fade into the wall, kiddo! Don't walk too fast when seating guests—they might get lost. Try using thoughtful details to remember names, like Cowboy Curtis for the guy in boots and Labradorean Leslie for the lady with the dog sweater. And always, always, always read your guest.
The power broker may want you to sing, dance, and make him look like a big shot in front of his lady. But the boozehound wants you to cut the crap and pour the wine. According to Weiss, an excellent server knows the difference immediately.
… According to Weiss, sequence of service should include the following: within two minutes of sitting down, guests should be greeted with water. Drinks should arrive in five minutes—if you didn't order a fancy cocktail. If your liquor has been infused, cut the bar chef some slack. Appetizers should arrive in 10 minutes, and the next course in another 10. Dishes should be brought to the guest who ordered them and not auctioned off—this isn't Sotheby's. Dirty plates and silverware should be replaced, napkins refolded, and steak knives set. When servers are not busy, they should stand up straight and reside quietly in their sections.
At more casual spots where these orthodox white-tablecloth standards don't apply, the staff simply needs to be kind, genuine, and attentive. Many of the hipper restaurants seem to pick and choose which standards they adopt. I recently trailed a server at a popular Brooklyn restaurant, where I was told not to leave the cork on the table during wine service because "this is Williamsburg."
... A veteran manager at a Michelin-starred Brooklyn establishment told me that he thinks we are missing the point. "At a trendy restaurant I am happy if I get what I order," he said, adding that the waitstaff at these places are usually hired for their beauty, not their frontal lobes.
I don’t know if it was the chirpy tone of the article or the seriousness in which she takes her job but I was gratified that there are people who can still take pride in what they do. And at the same time points to how, just maybe waiters cannot be replaced.
And then there is this:
It sort of looks like a small iPad, maybe a thick Kindle Fire. Presto is its name. The screen shows an animation that says, "Touch me!" with half a dozen different animations. It's a menu and a way to order food and a method for paying the check all in one. The Presto functions like a better, more responsive version of the touchscreen food ordering system on Virgin America.
…
With no instructions, I order the two items through the Presto. Beautifully lit photos let me see what I'm going to get. The UI is intuitive. Within 20 seconds, I've sent my order to the kitchen. Before we'd even finished eating, I swiped my card slightly awkwardly into the built-in payment slot, added a tip, and settled up. I would not say that this machine will blow your mind with its technical capabilities, but that's exactly the point: It just works.
...
"It costs about a dollar a day per table, it can even go lower depending on if you have sponsors involved because all the alcohol companies want to get involved," Suri says. "For that, they get about $6 a day per tablet in increased sales. That's extra desserts, appetizers, drinks. They get about another $5 in extra table turns. If you can fit in one more table per night, that's worth a lot of money....”
I watch as two women a few tables away poke and prod the machine. They seem to be enjoying or at least tolerating the interaction, but then a waiter arrives at their table and they order from him. ...
Margo Will and Lisa Jafferies are affable and willing to talk about their experience with the Presto. They were first-timers with the Presto.
"We started to order through it, even though we're so old," Jafferies laughs. "But then Josh, our waiter came up, and we just talked with him."
"But then we played a game on it," Will says, "And that was fun."
Both women agreed that the main advantage of the Presto was that the digital menu featured photographs and extended descriptions of the food items. They could really know what they were getting. "It's a good way to learn about what the food looks like," Will said. "It's visual."
They did worry, though, about the labor implications of the device: if you don't need waitstaff for taking orders, what do you really need them for? ...
I tried to present a more hopeful scenario. Perhaps the paperwork would get automated and then the servers could concentrate on knowing the food and wine better, solely doing the service and explanation without the hassle of keying in orders. The duo weren't buying it.
"I don't want people losing their jobs because of something like this," Jafferies says. "That's the main thing I think about. The bottom line for the restaurant could be that they don't have to staff as many people per schedule. So what happens to those people?"
… It is impossible to ignore that this technology threatens a job class, which through its flexibility and unusual hours, has supported many people trying to pull themselves up through school or a creative career.
But the employees that remain, ..., are actually better off. Their data shows that after their tablets are deployed, the staff's per-night tips tend to go up both because servers cover more tables but also because, for whatever reason, people tip better through the machine than they do otherwise.
My name is Katie. I went to Dartmouth, and I am a waitress.
…
I was lucky. I started waitressing in high school, but after college I moved to New Orleans and worked at the Besh Restaurant group, which for three days sequestered its staff for an "Excellence in Service" seminar taught by Eric Weiss. It started with a group of waiters and waitresses standing around banquet trays covered with spoons, matchbooks, limes, and pens of various varieties. We were told to study what we saw, return to our seats and write down everything we could remember: good memories could make us excellent servers.
Beyond the memory games, the course included pearls like: Don't ask table 51 if they would like "another" cocktail, ask if they would like a "fresh" cocktail—the former may make them feel like a boozehound. Don't assume the beautiful woman with the power broker at 22 is his wife. It could be his secretary—be discreet. Don't ask how "we" are doing this weekend—you will sound like a dope. Guests always have the right-of-way, then the food, then you—fade into the wall, kiddo! Don't walk too fast when seating guests—they might get lost. Try using thoughtful details to remember names, like Cowboy Curtis for the guy in boots and Labradorean Leslie for the lady with the dog sweater. And always, always, always read your guest.
The power broker may want you to sing, dance, and make him look like a big shot in front of his lady. But the boozehound wants you to cut the crap and pour the wine. According to Weiss, an excellent server knows the difference immediately.
… According to Weiss, sequence of service should include the following: within two minutes of sitting down, guests should be greeted with water. Drinks should arrive in five minutes—if you didn't order a fancy cocktail. If your liquor has been infused, cut the bar chef some slack. Appetizers should arrive in 10 minutes, and the next course in another 10. Dishes should be brought to the guest who ordered them and not auctioned off—this isn't Sotheby's. Dirty plates and silverware should be replaced, napkins refolded, and steak knives set. When servers are not busy, they should stand up straight and reside quietly in their sections.
At more casual spots where these orthodox white-tablecloth standards don't apply, the staff simply needs to be kind, genuine, and attentive. Many of the hipper restaurants seem to pick and choose which standards they adopt. I recently trailed a server at a popular Brooklyn restaurant, where I was told not to leave the cork on the table during wine service because "this is Williamsburg."
... A veteran manager at a Michelin-starred Brooklyn establishment told me that he thinks we are missing the point. "At a trendy restaurant I am happy if I get what I order," he said, adding that the waitstaff at these places are usually hired for their beauty, not their frontal lobes.
I don’t know if it was the chirpy tone of the article or the seriousness in which she takes her job but I was gratified that there are people who can still take pride in what they do. And at the same time points to how, just maybe waiters cannot be replaced.
And then there is this:
It sort of looks like a small iPad, maybe a thick Kindle Fire. Presto is its name. The screen shows an animation that says, "Touch me!" with half a dozen different animations. It's a menu and a way to order food and a method for paying the check all in one. The Presto functions like a better, more responsive version of the touchscreen food ordering system on Virgin America.
…
With no instructions, I order the two items through the Presto. Beautifully lit photos let me see what I'm going to get. The UI is intuitive. Within 20 seconds, I've sent my order to the kitchen. Before we'd even finished eating, I swiped my card slightly awkwardly into the built-in payment slot, added a tip, and settled up. I would not say that this machine will blow your mind with its technical capabilities, but that's exactly the point: It just works.
...
"It costs about a dollar a day per table, it can even go lower depending on if you have sponsors involved because all the alcohol companies want to get involved," Suri says. "For that, they get about $6 a day per tablet in increased sales. That's extra desserts, appetizers, drinks. They get about another $5 in extra table turns. If you can fit in one more table per night, that's worth a lot of money....”
I watch as two women a few tables away poke and prod the machine. They seem to be enjoying or at least tolerating the interaction, but then a waiter arrives at their table and they order from him. ...
Margo Will and Lisa Jafferies are affable and willing to talk about their experience with the Presto. They were first-timers with the Presto.
"We started to order through it, even though we're so old," Jafferies laughs. "But then Josh, our waiter came up, and we just talked with him."
"But then we played a game on it," Will says, "And that was fun."
Both women agreed that the main advantage of the Presto was that the digital menu featured photographs and extended descriptions of the food items. They could really know what they were getting. "It's a good way to learn about what the food looks like," Will said. "It's visual."
They did worry, though, about the labor implications of the device: if you don't need waitstaff for taking orders, what do you really need them for? ...
I tried to present a more hopeful scenario. Perhaps the paperwork would get automated and then the servers could concentrate on knowing the food and wine better, solely doing the service and explanation without the hassle of keying in orders. The duo weren't buying it.
"I don't want people losing their jobs because of something like this," Jafferies says. "That's the main thing I think about. The bottom line for the restaurant could be that they don't have to staff as many people per schedule. So what happens to those people?"
… It is impossible to ignore that this technology threatens a job class, which through its flexibility and unusual hours, has supported many people trying to pull themselves up through school or a creative career.
But the employees that remain, ..., are actually better off. Their data shows that after their tablets are deployed, the staff's per-night tips tend to go up both because servers cover more tables but also because, for whatever reason, people tip better through the machine than they do otherwise.
Signs of globalization?
From NYT:
“I knew I wanted to serve food that would taste authentic,” said Mr. Kansagra, who opened three franchised sandwich shops before turning his attention to Indian fast food in 2009. “I also knew that if I wanted to get American customers, the food did not necessarily have to be authentic.”
…
Some inspiration for these chains-in-the-making came from the subcontinent. Jumbo King, based in Mumbai, now serves potato croquettes on hamburger-style buns at more than 40 fast-food outlets. Kati Zone, based in Bangalore, dishes up variants on Mexican quesadillas called “cheeserias” as well as masala-dusted French fries.
…
Many ... newfangled foods are being built on bases of relatively authentic Indian flatbreads.
Merzi, one of these nascent chains, serves roti wraps, stuffed with “tandisserie” chicken, at its Washington prototype. (The menu translates the term as “tandoori-seasoned chicken cooked rotisserie style.”) Veda, with three locations in Toronto, recently introduced rice-and-butter-chicken-stuffed “curritos,” which translate as curried burrito-style wraps.
From Florida:
The images of Zimmerman — not just his face, but the words used to describe him — can confound and confuse. Why are they calling him white, wondered Paul Ebert, the Prince William County commonwealth’s attorney who knew Zimmerman’s mother, Gladys, from her days as an interpreter at the county courthouse. Zimmerman’s mother, Ebert knew, was Peruvian, and he thought of her as Hispanic.
Looking at Zimmerman’s photograph made Darren Soto, a Florida state legislator, think he might be Latino. But he just as easily might have been Italian or French, he thought. “It’s all over the place in Florida,” said Soto, who represents a statehouse district in Orlando, a 20-minute drive from the gated subdivision in Sanford where Martin died. “You have people with Anglo first and last names who speak perfect Spanish and are from Puerto Rico. And you’ve got a third- or fourth-generation Joey Gonzalez from Tampa who can’t speak a word of Spanish.”
“I knew I wanted to serve food that would taste authentic,” said Mr. Kansagra, who opened three franchised sandwich shops before turning his attention to Indian fast food in 2009. “I also knew that if I wanted to get American customers, the food did not necessarily have to be authentic.”
…
Some inspiration for these chains-in-the-making came from the subcontinent. Jumbo King, based in Mumbai, now serves potato croquettes on hamburger-style buns at more than 40 fast-food outlets. Kati Zone, based in Bangalore, dishes up variants on Mexican quesadillas called “cheeserias” as well as masala-dusted French fries.
…
Many ... newfangled foods are being built on bases of relatively authentic Indian flatbreads.
Merzi, one of these nascent chains, serves roti wraps, stuffed with “tandisserie” chicken, at its Washington prototype. (The menu translates the term as “tandoori-seasoned chicken cooked rotisserie style.”) Veda, with three locations in Toronto, recently introduced rice-and-butter-chicken-stuffed “curritos,” which translate as curried burrito-style wraps.
From Florida:
The images of Zimmerman — not just his face, but the words used to describe him — can confound and confuse. Why are they calling him white, wondered Paul Ebert, the Prince William County commonwealth’s attorney who knew Zimmerman’s mother, Gladys, from her days as an interpreter at the county courthouse. Zimmerman’s mother, Ebert knew, was Peruvian, and he thought of her as Hispanic.
Looking at Zimmerman’s photograph made Darren Soto, a Florida state legislator, think he might be Latino. But he just as easily might have been Italian or French, he thought. “It’s all over the place in Florida,” said Soto, who represents a statehouse district in Orlando, a 20-minute drive from the gated subdivision in Sanford where Martin died. “You have people with Anglo first and last names who speak perfect Spanish and are from Puerto Rico. And you’ve got a third- or fourth-generation Joey Gonzalez from Tampa who can’t speak a word of Spanish.”
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