Things are not that straightforward. Married women are more attracted to single "manly" guys, at least during the fertile period of their menstrual cycle when their hormonal levels are high. 
 
So it seems that women, when they are at their horniest, want to have sex with different kind of guys (assholes) than with whom they want to be married or in a relationship when their hormonal high is over (nice guys). 
 
Maybe in the minds of these looking-for-a-relationship women, being in a stable relationship indicates that a man is nice. Being perfect candidate who had been tailored to match their interests exactly, and yet single, indicates that a man is an asshole. Asshole, who becomes attractive only after they are in a safe and steady relationship with some nice guy. 
 
Complicated. 
 
 
 
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080226/full/news.2008.625.html

To Joe6pak: 
 
"Certainly in economics it is better to look at what worked over and over again" 
 
Mercantilism worked well in the 18th century. All the most powerful nations had more or less mercantilist policies. With your logic it would have been best to stick with it. 
 
Too bad some cranks misused their abstract reasoning ability by applying it to soft sciences, and thus created the theoretical background for classical liberalism. 
 
It is certainly true that economic policies that have failed constantly shouldn´t be supported. There is no need for arguments. 
 
Socialism has failed constantly in practice but also in theory, just like mercantilism and protectionism. In economics there IS a connection between theory and reality. That´s why it´s usually leftist who don´t like economics as a discipline. 
 
I wonder why those people who believes that protectionism is good for a country don´t insist USA to quit embargo against Cuba. At least those protectionists who dislike Castro. Well, I don´t know if there exist any.

"The problem with economic theory is that it is based on abstract reasoning instead of the case metho--Business and law students look at actual reality--case studies--and avoid abstract unproven assumptions--until proven worthy." 
 
Science is abstract reasoning and systematical thinking, not case studies. Case studies are mere applications of acquired theoretical understanding. 
 
Economical theory as an abstract thinking is always right, if you can do it right. If your theory doesn´t fit to reality there is something wrong with your assumptions or you didn´t include every relevant factor in it. Yes, sometimes they are not included and things just don´t work out as they should. But don´t blame abstract reasoning. It´s because our ability to understand and predict the world and human behaviour is irremediably limited, and hence there is possiblity to make false assumptions. 
 
I don´t want to live in the country where the abstract reasoning is not integral part of economics and economical decision making.  
 
Statistical empirical research and case studies are indeed common practice in economics to validate theoretical assumptions and see if they fit to actual reality. Believe or not economists are really trying to create models that explains real world as accurately as possible. 
 
Of course there will be a lot of non-economists who doesn´t need any theory to explain everything about the economy, and a lot of people who take them seriously. That´s a bit scary. 
 
"Clearly globalisation is empirically bad for workers in richer countries: contrast workers wages in the U.S. from 1945 to 1975 with the growth in wages from 1975 to now, and abandon the textbooks." 
 
Economic growth in developed world was faster back then because the starting point was lower. The same reason why economic growth is now much higher in developing countries. It´s not because they are more protectionistic. That´s why the wages rose faster back then. Wages is correlated with economic growth. If you increase wages without growth you will only get inflation.  
 
Trade is not the cause of the slower growth. Instead you will be richer when you export highly refined products to foreign countries and your purchasing power increase when you use that money to buy cheaper foreign goods. 
 
"And it is also bad for the relative economic position of the once richer powers,"  
 
That´s right. Developing countries are growing faster than developed countries. We are losing our relative economic position. But we are not getting poorer in absolute sense. 
 
"although I suppose that when China is the foremost industrial, and software power in the world - and with the associated global reach this hard economic power will translate into military prowess - the West can be proud of it's superior haircuts, burger
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Don´t worry Razib. I study economics and I can assure you that everything will be alright. You can support liberalism without fear of being mugged. 
 
I don´t recommend any books of economics to anyone . They are boring as hell unless you are really into it, but I recommend you to read this wikipedia article. 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balassa-Samuelson_effect 
 
"The effect in more detail 
 
A typical discussion of this argument (e.g. by Paul Krugman) would include the following features: 
 
* Workers in some countries have higher productivity than in others. This is the ultimate source of the income differential. (Also expressed as productivity growth.) 
* Certain labour-intensive jobs are less responsive to productivity innovations than others. For instance, a highly skilled Zurich burger flipper is no more productive than his Moscow counterpart (in burger/hour) but these jobs are services which must be performed locally. 
* To equalize local wage levels with the (highly productive) Zurich engineers, McDonalds Zurich employees must be paid more than McDonalds Moscow employees, even though the burger production rate per employee is an international constant. 
* The fixed-productivity sectors are also the ones producing non-transportable goods (for instance haircuts) - this must be the case or the labour intensive work would have been off-shored. 
* The CPI is made up of: 
o local goods (which are expensive relative to tradables in rich countries) 
o Tradables, which have the same price everywhere 
* The (real) exchange rate is pegged (by the law of one price) so that tradable goods follow PPP. The assumption that PPP holds only for tradable goods is testable. 
* Since money exchange rates will vary fully with tradable goods productivity, but average productivity varies to a lesser extent, the (real goods) productivity differential is less than the productivity differential in money terms. 
* Productivity becomes income, so the real income varies less than the money income does. 
* This is equivalent to saying that the money exchange rate exaggerates the real income, or that the price level is higher in more productive, richer, economies." 
 
So when the productivity of export sector rises, consumption of non-tradables (services), and the income and employment of the people producing non-tradable good rises also. Services tend to be superior goods, which are consumed proportionately more heavily at higher incomes. 
 
There will of course still be negative effects on some people in the short run, but that´s the price of economic development. No one here in Finland misses our decades ago prominent textile industry anymore. We are far better of with Nokia and high-tech industries. Eventhough
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"why is that finnz have all the answers & questions on this blog??? btw, what's your favorite finnish rapper?" 
 
These guys are pretty cool. Dont ya think? 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjtAVkum9E&feature=related

Multicultural reality: 
 
 
White men are bitter to black men. 
 
Black women are bitter to white women. 
 
East asian men are bitter to white men. 
 
White women are bitter to East asian women. 
 
East asian women are bitter to no-one. 
 
Black men are also bitter to no... Hey! Why do they complain? Tell me what`s behind of all these hostile rap lyrics. Are they serious, or is that crap just a way to make money and get some white p****?

I think it´s true that people here in Finland are more shy and use alcohol more in social situations than average European, so Razib has some point in his joke, althought as a Finn I don´t find it that funny. 
 
John Emerson said, 
"The most violent people in Europe except maybe for Scots, and they do hold grudges." 
 
 
Finland is quite safe place to live. People are not really that violent and I don´t know if Scots are either. 
 
Most of the criminals and lowlife here are alcoholics and we do have more alcohol-related problems than rest of Europe. Maybe it´s just that without booze we are too shy to do crimes. 
 
Anyway: 
 
"The level of crime in Finland has reached a plateau 
in the 1990?s it has in recent years been clearly 
declining and is now below the level of 1988. In the 
EU context Finland is a low crime country. All 
crime indicators show scores far below the EU 
average. The rating of police performance is 
relatively favourable." 
 
http://www.europeansafetyobservatory.eu/downloads/EUICS%20-%20The%20Burden%20of%20Crime%20in%20the%20EU.pdf