Assorted links

1. Did the 2009 Card Act work?

2. Has the Great Recession had a “productivity cleansing” effect?

3. The automated burger is coming to DC.  I’ll actually bet against that one.

4. Claims about Chinese cities (unconfirmed, I would say, but interesting).

5. The endangered sopranos.

6. The culture that is Russia (I am not convinced, by the way, that all of those will be ineffective as personal ads, quite the contrary).