Oh, Just Stop Already.

Seriously, enough.  We all know that smoking is bad (mmk).  Anyone who has half a brain will tell you that now, but that does not stop people from doing it.  Why?  Because people make that choice despite all the great information in the world.  Meanwhile the CDC is spending $54 million of taxpayer money to pay advertisers to tell everyone what we already know. 

If our government was serious about smoking there is one thing to do that works, and so far one thing only: tax the hell out of it.  Does not cost taxpayers a dime, and people respond a whole lot faster to their wallets than they do to an advertisement they half-ignore for one or two minutes out of the day.  Doesn't cost taxpayers a dime. 

But they are not serious about smoking, and that is why as this article says, Phillip Morris is still raking in billions and billions each year.  Because despite research, despite advertising/propaganda, despite all the flowery speeches and warning labels people will smoke and that is their right.  But when they do, they impose a cost on the rest of us that I think should be compensated.  A lousy propaganda scheme isn't going to fix that, it will just let cigarette companies and smokers off the hook for payment.  Tax it! 

Thank You, Rick S.

For the purposes of keeping my blog out of a rather unpleasant google search algorithm, I will respond to a certain politician's recent remarks on college, referring to him only as "Rick S." 

This is my response to the hub-bub: Thank you, Rick.  And here's why.

If you think everyone in college is a snob, don't come here.  You should be in college because you want to learn something more deeply than you could in high school, and/or you want to take advantage of that sweet college graduate/high school graduate wage gap.  If you're perfectly happy earning low wages and thinking everyone in college is a snob, stay home and don't muddy my class with what would surely be your inane commentary (I do sound kind of snobbish don't I?).

If you think that Satan has taken over college campuses, don't come here.  I have heard this lunacy more times than I can count, but it is not half as bad as the lunacy I get from those who think the devil runs universities and actually show up to class.  Those are the students who accuse me of socialism when I even begin to bring up government involvement in markets, though they have no issue with religious involvement in markets.  Often times government regulation is a response to a natural monopoly, an externality, or some other "market failure".  In that case efficiency can be improved.  There is no moral argument here, it's all about economic efficiency, and its tiring to deal with a theological debate when all I want to do is draw my supply and demand graphs.  I strictly prefer those people I've met who never went to college because of some idea of religious purity than those who wasted my time in the class refusing to work because they thought I was a tool of Satan.  At least the ones who don't even enroll know what they want, and are willing to live with the low wage result. 

If you think that going to college will turn you into Obama, then don't come here.  The last thing I want is a multitude of law professors who don't understand ECON 101 (as I've complained about on this blog, several times) trying out their argument-du-jour when I'm trying to talk about things that matter: child mortality, imperfect markets, getting basic statistics right, and analyzing the effects of development policy.  If you think that my goal is to do that to you, then you're going to be wasting more time in my class trying to resist every comment I make that vaguely sounds progressive, instead of studying what the statistics and literature are saying.  I welcome argument in my class.  Reasonable argument.  I have no time for idiots accusing me of motives I do not hold. 

So yes.  Listen to Rick S, people.  Thank you for saying it, because there is no reason to spend four years of your life, or waste five months of my time, in a place you hate.  It will also make my degree a heck of a lot more valuable with less people graduating who subscribe to these ideas.  If you subscribe to these ideas, and you can get straight As and a great job: be my guest.  Get the A in my class and move on.  But the correlation seems to be that people I've met who believe this:
a) Spend no time on my class, and more time on things that will not help them understand the material,
b) don't listen to a dang thing I say, even things that will help them perform better in the class, and
c) have as little patience for me as I have for them.

So don't come here, don't enroll in economics, and don't waste my time.  Thank you, Rick.  No way I'm voting for you, but thank you. 

Do Not Automate College Yet...

Seen a few articles on how it would be better to push more people through college by automating classes and putting more classes on the web.  This is my counter argument.

The following is an assignment:
Gather the Head Count Ratio (percentage of the population who fall below the poverty line at $2/day), the population, and the poverty line ($2/day).  Use a spreadsheet to calculate the total headcount of the population falling below the poverty line, remembering that the Head Count Ratio is the Head Count divided by the Population.  Turn in a spreadsheet table that says if the Head Count has increased or decreased in your country over time and graph it.

Let me give you an example of a student let's call "Bob."  Bob gathered that in China in 2002, the Headcount Ratio is 51.2%, and the population is 1.28 billion.  Bob then calculates the head count, the total amount of the population of China who fall below $2 a day, as 65.5 billion people.  Bob turns this in. 

When I give Bob a "D" (which means 'incomprehensible work, showing minimal understanding' in my class) he comes into my office demanding to know why.  I point him toward my comments on his grade evaluation: "Check your spreadsheet formula.  Are there 65 billion people in China?"  Bob still does not understand.  I ask Bob what 20% of 100 is.  Bob responds, "20".  And how do we get that? "I don't get where this is going?  There aren't 100 people in China!" (*actual quote*)  Some one does not appear to have the faculties for abstract thought. 

I sigh with depression, and ask him if the planet has 65 billion people on it.  He does not know how to respond.  I ask him that if we want 51% of x, how do we get that? 

This goes on for ten minutes.  Ten... painful... minutes. 

Now, I have 27 students in my class.  Only 33.3% (approximately) managed to successfully apply the lessons in percentages they should have known since 7th grade.  I'm not even going to mention the idiots who multiplied the headcount ratio by the poverty line, especially when we spent an entire lecture just explaining what each of these measures are. 

When I see a majority of my class doing the work that I could not legitimately train a monkey to do, then I will support automating university.  Until then, they apparently need college to make up for their absolutely dismal middle school education. 

Full Office Space...

Nearly 7 AM.  The beeping... the damn beeping...

Let me share my hatred with you.  Let me pour out my unbridled disgust.  Let me unload by burning desire to destroy something so completely that it frightens me how close I am teetering back and forth off the edge of the abyss of madness.  I have looked into that abyss... and it is the BabyCall Rechargeable NTM 910 Baby Monitor from Sony.  Damn you, Sony.... damn you all to hell.

My wife and I, back in a simpler time, a quieter time, when we looked forward to a bright and happy future without our new baby registered this baby monitor with Target.  The price seems reasonable.  The reviews are good.  What fools we were... what fools... and our dear friend bought it for us, at our desire.  If only we had known... the horror... the horror.

It started with a few chirps.  An annoying alarm clock like sound to tell you when its "out of range."  How could it be out of range in a 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment?  Well, never mind.  And then came the static hissing.  Loud, random, "TSSSSH!" right out of the radio that cared not for lower volume settings.  I comforted my wife, "Surely we can figure out how to minimize that."  What a terrible imbecile I was.  What ignorance in the face of the beeping, staticy maw of unfathomable doom.

For three months it has beeped and "TSSSH!"ed at all hours.  It has woken my baby from the other room with an inexplicably loud "OUT OF RANGE!!!" beep.  This plastic radio siren has woken me up more than my infant child at night, and I'm willing to bet has "cried" more.

It is too late for me.  But to you dear reader, who has not purchased it, there is still time.  Stay away from the Sony BabyCall NTM 910!  There's is the path of blighted insanity, lost sleep, and endless frustration.

In other words: I hate this thing.  So much.  So very, very much.  I'm going to go full on "Office Space" on this thing when I get the chance.

Junkie Football.

Maybe its my upbringing (an undergrad degree from KU does not instill one with the greatest confidence in football programs) or maybe I just don't get it, but I'm finding college sports to be more a reputational hazard for universities.  I'm absolutely certain they're a great source of money, but let's skip that.

This morning, seventeen TCU students were arrested for dealing what seems to be a considerable amount of illegal drugs.  Enough to warrant a six month investigation, including undercover cops, and I hope clever operation titles (Operation Frog Lickin'?).

Four of these seventeen were football players.  One of them was a leading tackler, and a former SMU player (ah memories of Dallas).  Now I've seen sources say that this has nothing to do with the football program itself, but I don't think the numbers support that.

4/17 = approx. 23% of the dealers were associated with the football team.  According to the TCU FAQ on this matter, less than 1% of the student body were "disciplined for drug law violations."  I'm assuming very few of those are enough to warrant a six month undercover operation, but let's move on.  For the sake of argument let's say its 1%.  There are 99 people listed on the football roster for TCU.  Four of those have been arrested for dealing drugs to an undercover officer, apparently.  4/99 = approximately 4%.  Now let's take the "lesser scandal" 13 students.  If TCU has a student population of about 9,500, and we say for this year there will still be about 71 "usual" drug violations, let's add the 13, without considering the football players, and that gives us 83.

83/9,500 = 0.87%.

You want to try again with claiming there is not something specifically wrong with the football program?  Where was the coach during the six month police investigation, which was apparently sparked by several complaints from students, parents, and others?  And you know what, to those people who called the police instead of kicked the can up to the next guy: thank you.  If there were more of them, there'd be less of Penn State.

Meanwhile yet another football program that boasted of its moral superiority is facing a hard reality.  And if I read one article on "we should pay the players so they won't have to deal drugs/take bribes/what-have-you" in the next few weeks, I'm going to vomit.

Christina's Point of View.

Maybe I'm wrong on this Falklands thing.  The Argentine claim dating back to the 1830s should be seriously considered, without the opinions of those living on the islands now, who have been there for as one BBC interviewee put it, "nine generations."

But while we're at it, I think Paraguay should look over the Argentine claim to the Misiones province, which was wrenched from it after the War of the Triple Alliance in the 1870s.  Such a recent annexation must be debated by the UN and revised as the Paraguayans have a right to that land.  No need to discuss this with the residents of Misiones, this is purely a diplomatic matter.

The Argentines should halt their imperialist acts, and withdraw any garrisons from those lands immediately.

In the non-sarcastic side, this is not a "diplomatic" threat as Frau Kirchner claims.  In the 1980s, an aggressive and belligerent Argentine government invaded these islands with military force in order to subjugate them against their will.  The only reason there is a military garrison on the Falklands in the first place is this threat of invasion by Argentina.  So why would the British send in another ship?  Because the last time an Argentine government made rumblings about sovereignty and nationalism they backed it up with violence.

Argentina does not get to play the imperialism card when its the country trying to subjugate a small island of people who do not want to be part of their nation.  The only good explanation for all of this is that Kirchner has so badly messed up domestic policy that she's emulating the generals in trying to distract the populace from how bad things are in Argentina.  And as described in a previous post: they are bad.

Argentine Sociologists Can't Use Statistics.

I've been following the Falklands/Malvinas dispute for a while now.  It's just a really great slow motion train wreck.  It's amazing that the dictator years of Argentina have such a hold on the people that they still cling to what was obviously a propaganda attempt by a fascist government to distract from the mass murder of its own people.

But its even more amazing when sociologists get into the fray and pretend to be economists.  Especially one Atilio Boron, who claims that the notion of the current government using the Falkands as a distraction from domestic problems is ridiculous, and that its the British trying to distract their population from their problems.  Because apparently:
"The UK's economy is no better than Argentina's. It was not Buenos Aires that had social unrest and riots last year, but London."

Alright lab partner, let's hold that statement up to the data for 2010 from Google Public Data.  And for the fun of it I'm comparing Argentina to Mexico as a regional Latin American comparison.

1) The per capita GNI (Atlas Method) of the UK is at about $38,000 give or take, meaning the average English person has the ability per year to purchase $38,000 worth of goods and services.  The average Argentine has about $8,500, which is $430 less than the average Mexican ($8,930).  So by the basic measure of economic purchasing power, Argentina is worse off than the UK... by a lot.

2) But maybe our good sociologist prefers to not use the paltry measures of income that an economist would.  How about life expectancy?  Argentina is about 75 years.  Not bad.  UK is at 80.  Just to point out again, Mexico is at about 76.  So the English and Mexicans are in general healthier.

Child mortality rates per 1000 live births: 4.6 babies for the UK, 12.3 for Argentina. 14.1 for Mexico.

Should I go on?  How about measures of inequality:

3) Just as a quick glance, the income share of the lowers 20% of income earners in 1999 (couldn't get Google Data past that, but I'm sure there are some more recent years... 1999 will do for my point): 6.14% for UK, meaning the lowest income earners had an okay amount of the pie, and a little over 3% for Argentina.  I'm too lazy to get the Gini right now, but I'm fairly confident in saying that the UK is most likely less unequal a society/economy than Argentina.

4) Let's bring in the UN (although avoid the apparently mandatory outbreaks of cholera associated with their involvement): the UN HDI for the UK is 0.86, and 0.80 for Argentina.  (Viva) Mexico is catching up at 0.77.  If we readjust the UN HDI for inequality (as they are now doing) for 2011, the UK drops to 0.77, Argentina drops to 0.64, and Mexico drops to 0.59. 

So the BS-o-meter is off the charts for Atilio Boron, because the economy of the UK is in every possible measure better than the economy of Argentina.  Maybe he should FGI* before he goes on record.  In fact for Latin America in general, there are several economies "doing better" than Argentina: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela.  I would say that Mrs. Kirschner has plenty to distract the average Argentine from in 2012, and the fact that she's taking a page out of the "Dirty War" playbook should be unsettling to say the least. 

Again, this is pretty simple; let the people who live in the Falklands decide for themselves.  Have a referendum.  If they want to be English let them be English.  If they want to be Argentine, let them be Argentine.  But until then, grab some popcorn and enjoy the political fireworks.  

* $$$$ing Google it!