Donald Rumsfeld & Saddam Hussein Shaking Hands
(Baghdad, December 20, 1983)
"When shall we... meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth (First Witch at I, i)
4.15.2006
3.07.2006
Israeli Defense Minister Tells Hamas PM To Watch His Back
I just love it when Heads of State threaten each other.
I just love it when Heads of State threaten each other.
2.26.2006
Hi, Would You Like to Buy A Kidney?
No, not kidney beans, the two little round things you have which filter out by-products from your bloodstream. Oh, and incidently, you have two of 'em and only need one to survive. The going rate depends on country:
$6,000 = average going rate.
$500 - $1000 = Iraq after Gulf War
$2,000 = Manila = 1,282 Big Macs
$20,000 = Israel
$30,000 - $50,000 = America =9,523-15,873 Big Macs
These are all in the common US Dollar currency, and a reflection of how much each person from their respective country values their own kidney. In order to make this more applicable, I've converted to dollars to Big Mac Purchasing Power, how many Big Macs you could buy with that money.
Me being a wannabe economist, think that you can probably find black market prices of various organs, enough to figure out just how much a human life is worth. What is interesting, looking at this data (and it is a small sample I know) is that life is worth differently compared across countries; i.e. if you're from America -- the value of your kidney is worth 100x that of someone from Iraq. Interesting arbitrage opportunity there; if I were Iraqi, and wanted to sell my kidney, I'd buy a ticket to the U.S and sell it from there.
There are also many interesting things you can do with this data. If the value of a life is the present value of all expected income, and expected income is measured in productivity units of, say Big Macs, one might say that Americans were expected to produce more than other people.
Humph, you might say, my present value is worth millions more than what I'm being paid now; well either the labor market rate is wrong, or you're not doing a very good job marketing your human capital. Too bad either way.
No, not kidney beans, the two little round things you have which filter out by-products from your bloodstream. Oh, and incidently, you have two of 'em and only need one to survive. The going rate depends on country:
$6,000 = average going rate.
$500 - $1000 = Iraq after Gulf War
$2,000 = Manila = 1,282 Big Macs
$20,000 = Israel
$30,000 - $50,000 = America =9,523-15,873 Big Macs
These are all in the common US Dollar currency, and a reflection of how much each person from their respective country values their own kidney. In order to make this more applicable, I've converted to dollars to Big Mac Purchasing Power, how many Big Macs you could buy with that money.
Me being a wannabe economist, think that you can probably find black market prices of various organs, enough to figure out just how much a human life is worth. What is interesting, looking at this data (and it is a small sample I know) is that life is worth differently compared across countries; i.e. if you're from America -- the value of your kidney is worth 100x that of someone from Iraq. Interesting arbitrage opportunity there; if I were Iraqi, and wanted to sell my kidney, I'd buy a ticket to the U.S and sell it from there.
There are also many interesting things you can do with this data. If the value of a life is the present value of all expected income, and expected income is measured in productivity units of, say Big Macs, one might say that Americans were expected to produce more than other people.
Humph, you might say, my present value is worth millions more than what I'm being paid now; well either the labor market rate is wrong, or you're not doing a very good job marketing your human capital. Too bad either way.
2.23.2006
Would I be able to wear a T-Shirt saying "nigga"? The possibilities are endless...
The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term "Nigga" for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals."...
It was rejected as "immoral or scandalous."
Fun Fact: Ol' Dirty Bastard used the term 76 times in the 1999 album Nigga Please, not counting repetitions in a chorus."
Meanwhile, more fodder for the lawyers:
If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using "Nigga" on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business."
The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term "Nigga" for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals."...
It was rejected as "immoral or scandalous."
Fun Fact: Ol' Dirty Bastard used the term 76 times in the 1999 album Nigga Please, not counting repetitions in a chorus."
Meanwhile, more fodder for the lawyers:
If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using "Nigga" on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business."
2.21.2006
Tax Auditor Found Dead in Office After Two Days
Nope, won't happen to me -- I never leave my apartment.
Nope, won't happen to me -- I never leave my apartment.
Man Kills Roommate Because of Toilet Paper
This reminds me of the time when my roommate came at me with a knife. Apparently I had left my toilet seat up one too many times...
This reminds me of the time when my roommate came at me with a knife. Apparently I had left my toilet seat up one too many times...
3 Years for Saying the Holocaust Didn't Occur
This man received 3 years in prison for saying the Holocaust didn't occur.
This man received 3 years in prison for saying the Holocaust didn't occur.
2.20.2006
One Man's Chance, is Another Man's Misfortune
Windfall profit taxes on oil companies have no efficiency problems if the money just transferred directly. However, there are serious incentive problems associated with an ex post taxes. Taxation in general reduces the initiative of these companies (or any company) towards any profitable project -- it reduces research and consumption -- and may increase the likelihood that they hide any profit they generate.
A very large part, however, occurred simply because ExxonMobil happened to be standing in the right place at the right time holding a bushel basket (or a huge oil drum) collecting surplus profits resulting from chance and other people's misfortune."
It's interesting to note that when people are standing at the right place at the right time, and make money, there is moral outrage, but when their in the wrong place at the wrong time, there is not.
On the topic of Ex-Poste taxation, think of the government and the oil company engaged in a game (or contract). The government can unilaterally tax - take - steal? -- from the oil company a windfall tax, but once that happens, that will change the company's behavior toward the government. They will report less profit or they will work less hard, decreasing the present value of future tax flows to the government. If they think it's worth it, they'll do it... One interesting thing is the discount rate that the government places on that present value, it can be subjective, or taken as the interest rate-- if they really need the money badly now, that future tax flow really becomes small.
Last fall, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a one-year tax increase of $5 billion for the nation's largest oil companies."
My prediction is that the accountants at the oil companies are already hard at work trying to change their profits into something... less profitable.
As to people who must drive to work: A 2005 CNN poll found 58 percent of drivers experiencing severe or moderate hardship when gasoline was at $2.22 a gallon. Now the government is predicting $2.41 a gallon for this year."
Two points of fact here: 1.) Those hardy brits once paid $6 a gallon and 2.) The government is already making a chunk of money here; in fact, they might be why gas prices are so high!:
Taxes - Taxes, including federal and local, account for about 31 percent of the total price of gas in the United States. Federal excise taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon, and state excise taxes average 20 cents per gallon. There may also be some additional state sales taxes, as well as local and city taxes. In Europe, gas prices are far higher than in America because taxes on gas are much higher. For example, gas prices in England have risen as high as $6 per gallon, with 78 percent of that going to taxes."
Windfall profit taxes on oil companies have no efficiency problems if the money just transferred directly. However, there are serious incentive problems associated with an ex post taxes. Taxation in general reduces the initiative of these companies (or any company) towards any profitable project -- it reduces research and consumption -- and may increase the likelihood that they hide any profit they generate.
A very large part, however, occurred simply because ExxonMobil happened to be standing in the right place at the right time holding a bushel basket (or a huge oil drum) collecting surplus profits resulting from chance and other people's misfortune."
It's interesting to note that when people are standing at the right place at the right time, and make money, there is moral outrage, but when their in the wrong place at the wrong time, there is not.
On the topic of Ex-Poste taxation, think of the government and the oil company engaged in a game (or contract). The government can unilaterally tax - take - steal? -- from the oil company a windfall tax, but once that happens, that will change the company's behavior toward the government. They will report less profit or they will work less hard, decreasing the present value of future tax flows to the government. If they think it's worth it, they'll do it... One interesting thing is the discount rate that the government places on that present value, it can be subjective, or taken as the interest rate-- if they really need the money badly now, that future tax flow really becomes small.
Last fall, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a one-year tax increase of $5 billion for the nation's largest oil companies."
My prediction is that the accountants at the oil companies are already hard at work trying to change their profits into something... less profitable.
As to people who must drive to work: A 2005 CNN poll found 58 percent of drivers experiencing severe or moderate hardship when gasoline was at $2.22 a gallon. Now the government is predicting $2.41 a gallon for this year."
Two points of fact here: 1.) Those hardy brits once paid $6 a gallon and 2.) The government is already making a chunk of money here; in fact, they might be why gas prices are so high!:
Taxes - Taxes, including federal and local, account for about 31 percent of the total price of gas in the United States. Federal excise taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon, and state excise taxes average 20 cents per gallon. There may also be some additional state sales taxes, as well as local and city taxes. In Europe, gas prices are far higher than in America because taxes on gas are much higher. For example, gas prices in England have risen as high as $6 per gallon, with 78 percent of that going to taxes."
2.12.2006
LPU'S
It's so hard to do research... to come up with a good paper which meets the exacting standards of academia; in light of this, I've decided to harness probability by releasing my hundreds of trained monkey minions to typing at computers and maybe they'll produce an economic paper.
Oh wait -- it's already been done with grad students, and it's even worse than you think: not one publication among us.
Speaking on the subject of publishing, here's an exerpt from The Chronicle of Higher Education on the LPU -- the Least Publishable Unit --
"In order to appear to have more publications on their CVs, young scholars are often advised to break their research down into pieces and publish those pieces in multiple articles -- i.e., LPU's.
As we talked, my young colleague described the larger picture of her investigations in molecular biology, and how she believed they would lead to a major publication within the year. But she also acknowledged that she was working on a couple of smaller papers that could be submitted to second-tier journals and that were likely to appear quickly and with little revision.
In other words, she has taken the advice of her faculty mentors and produced LPU's while also pursuing the brass ring of a major publication in a leading journal....
Having a couple of LPU's will ensure that the bean counters cannot assail her record. We both know that there are those among us who would easily ignore her aggressive pursuit of grants and a single brilliant paper in Cell if her four years here did not include the magic two papers. She's a realist and so am I, and our meeting ended on a positive note. I was confident that she was exactly where she needed to be to achieve tenure this time next year, and she was confident that she was doing the right thing by generating some LPU's."
...we're just a bunch of monkeys, churning out those LPU cycles
It's so hard to do research... to come up with a good paper which meets the exacting standards of academia; in light of this, I've decided to harness probability by releasing my hundreds of trained monkey minions to typing at computers and maybe they'll produce an economic paper.
Oh wait -- it's already been done with grad students, and it's even worse than you think: not one publication among us.
Speaking on the subject of publishing, here's an exerpt from The Chronicle of Higher Education on the LPU -- the Least Publishable Unit --
"In order to appear to have more publications on their CVs, young scholars are often advised to break their research down into pieces and publish those pieces in multiple articles -- i.e., LPU's.
As we talked, my young colleague described the larger picture of her investigations in molecular biology, and how she believed they would lead to a major publication within the year. But she also acknowledged that she was working on a couple of smaller papers that could be submitted to second-tier journals and that were likely to appear quickly and with little revision.
In other words, she has taken the advice of her faculty mentors and produced LPU's while also pursuing the brass ring of a major publication in a leading journal....
Having a couple of LPU's will ensure that the bean counters cannot assail her record. We both know that there are those among us who would easily ignore her aggressive pursuit of grants and a single brilliant paper in Cell if her four years here did not include the magic two papers. She's a realist and so am I, and our meeting ended on a positive note. I was confident that she was exactly where she needed to be to achieve tenure this time next year, and she was confident that she was doing the right thing by generating some LPU's."
...we're just a bunch of monkeys, churning out those LPU cycles
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