In just a tad more than 21 days, the new Indiana Jones movie will be unveiled. I can't wait!!! "No time for love, Dr. Jones."
When I heard that HRC was proposing a gasoline tax cut, I was saying to myself, "Here we go again." It's amazing how many economists have come out from the woodwork against this idea. And it is a bad idea. Sure, it's a one time thing - just this summer. But the thing is suspending the gasoline tax is not going to relief consumers from paying higher prices at the pumps. Let's face it, there will be no more $55 per barrel of crude oil. That price level has been RIP (though dearly missed) for a few years now. We have to get used to hearing $100 per barrel. Oil reserves are not going to be replenished anytime soon. So, as supply declines and demand keeps going up, you know what will happen.
Both my mom and grandma used to tell me to eat every grain of rice on my plate; however, they didn't want me to be wasteful not because rice was expensive, but more out of respect for hard labor that farmers put in to getting each grain of rice. Growing up in Thailand with rice paddies as just across a narrow canal away, I got to witness the labor. With no aids from machines, growing rice is literally a back-breaking occupation.
Bravo to a recent article in the New York Times on being green. The article asks, why bother with reducing our carbon footprint when many data and forecasting models are showing that our actions may be too little too late. The answer is, of course, our actions still matter in this fight to global warming. Individuals, together, we can make impacts. We can demand markets to create more greener products and conduct their businesses in a greener manner. The article gives an example of hybrid cars. They're popping up everywhere like mushrooms. Pretty soon, you probably won't be able to buy one that is not hybrid.
Life has been quite hectic for me lately. I'm completely stressing out about my finals, which are rapidly approaching in two weeks. Therefore, as you can probably tell already, I haven't been blogging lately. Not even updating news links. But please don't stay away. I will be back before long!
Last night, 60 minutes featured a story on a possible cancer treatment invented by John Kanzius, a leukemia patient. I thought the story was fascinating and full of hope. Mr. Kanzius himself has gone through (if I remember the number correctly) 60 chemotherapy treatments. He actually has thought of given up, but the hope of seeing his invention helping millions of lives gives him the reason to keep going. I hope that this dream will turn into reality as so many people are dealing with all types of cancer. Some are lucky to survive, but many are not.
So, I found this clip while I was browsing. Sure Atari got here before Nintendo and Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man were among the greatest, but it was the Mario brothers who took the US by storm. The best part about the video? Bill O'Reilly.
If people have so much money to drink animal dung coffee at £50 a cup, may be they ought to think that their money could be better spend elsewhere, like... donation to feed people who are starving all over the world!
In an article reported in The New York Times yesterday, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) along with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and others have approved money for design and construction of a 4,000 MW coal-fired power plant in India. That's huge! I know it's not even the largest fossil plant in the world, but the planned project is gigantic regardless. The article cited that the plant is expected to release approximately 23 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. I'm sure this makes Al Gore tossing and turning at night.
I don't want to gripe, but a recent approval by EU for uses of mobile on planes just irks me. You've got to be kidding! It's only a matter of time before the FAA considers a similar proposal. I think the use of mobile phone has gotten out of control. No one gives a second thought about their conversations in public anymore. I hear all sort of inappropriate conversations from people on cell phones all the time. Why should I care to hear about other people's lives when I have my own to worry about, which I certainly don't broadcast it publicly? I see that speaking on cell phones in enclosed spaces is just like having someone smoking in your face. And if there's such an uproar about smoking, why is talking on cell phone acceptable? Bring back smoking on airplanes then. When people talk on their cell phones on buses or trains, at least you have the option to move away. You won't be able to do so with assigned seatings like on an airplane. One of the reason the Commission has decided to approve the proporsal is that "continuous communication is a 'fact of modern life." So now, not only we have to endure screaming children, we have to deal with people's need for "continuous communication." Is there no line between what's appropriate and not anymore? Grrrr.
I think my husband can attest to that: I'm weak. I try to be better at disciplining myself, but it's hard. Sometimes it's like depriving yourself from enjoying life to the full extend. Sometimes it's more like, "Who cares?" or "Whatever." I'm better at disciplining myself on some subjects, like spending. I don't spend very much (except on books.) No shoes or purses, unless it's a good deal (and I mean GOOD deal.) But when I read a recent article in New York Times, "Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind," I felt like there was something to be said about having weak self-control.
The article says that there's a storage of will-power. Every time you impose restrictions on yourself, like limiting food or drink, will-power gets depleted so that you have less will-power left over for the next tasks. This happens because planning and self-control are very sensitive to fluctuations in blood sugar level which brain cells use as energy resources. Therefore, it's best to focus your effort on one task, or a few tasks at most, to be successful. However, your can also train your brain to increase your will-power, like training for a marathon. The more self-control you do, the more will-power you will gain.
I find the article very interesting. It makes sense. However, why do I need to have self-control? I don't need to have large storage of will-power. I function just fine now. Now, if the article ties the size of your will-power to the memory storage or other brain performances, then I might be interested. I know I need as much memory cells as I can get to get through graduate school.
In 2005, there was a mania that swept through the US. I certainly was caught up in the fad, along with many other people I know. I am referring to the book Freakonomics. Even though no actual economic theory was debunked nor new concept was introduced, I thought the book offered many intriguing economic perspectives, along with “riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties,” as the inside cover claimed. In a recent article “Freaks and Geeks – How Freakonomics is Ruining the Dismal Science” by Noam Scheiber in The New Republic April 2, 2007 issue, a blame was placed on Freakomics for creating a new breed of economics called “cute-o-mics,” that many questions raised by economists today were done only if they can draw media attentions.
Scheiber’s main complaint was a growing trend among young economists in searching for answers to questions that seem to be related to economics but not at all “truly deep questions we reply on economists to answer.” There had been less interest in solving problems such as wages or inequality, while there was more focus on seeking relationships between, for example, Japanese sumo wrestler and Chicago schoolteachers and how each one had incentives to cheat. He called this type of questions “’clean identification’—a situation in which it’s easy to discern the causal forces in play.” Questions got dumb-down so that answers could easily be found without years of data crunching or that no one wanted to ask “important” questions because they seemed boring.
Studies on topics such as how people pay too much for gym memberships they don’t use or how Mexican men pay prostitutes for unprotected sex are not so “earth shattering.” While some made contribution, most are simply worthless. Part of the problem, Scheiber explained, was that the authors were “usually unclear about the economic questions they address.” They merely explained human behavior, but offer no explanation using any economics. Scheiber stated further that because works like Levitts were “so far removed from using meat-and-potatoes economic theory they may as well be practicing journalism.”
The implication is that this kind of questions makes economics seem not at all that credible. In defense of Freakonomics, Levitt tried to explain human behavior using economic analyses. Take the case of incentive schemes from his book for example. Levitt explained three types of incentive—economic, social, and moral—and the difference between each type. Though he did not use economic terms such as Pareto optimal outcome or coordination failures, I thought he did a good job explaining the basic theory to average readers. However, a question such as “stock traders are not sharp on Fridays because they’re distracted by the weekend” on the other hand offers little relevance to economics and can be answered by a statistician. It compromises the integrity of the field of economics because I economists answer questions that much more meaningful than the examples cited above. I think that there is a fine line here, and it depends on how an economic theory is presented. As stated in the article by an economist David Card, “It is exactly like postmodernism in humanities. What is there to say about Beethoven anymore?...Every moron can’t understand technical orchestration, doesn’t know the history of music. So you write about him having a gay affair with his nephew.”
