Another One of Those Posts

I'm a little embarrassed that this keeps happening to me! But here goes another one of those catch-up posts...

This summer the kids and I visited my family in EP while Qujiote went to Europe for a conference. The kids got a lot of cousin time- and it was DZ's birthday!!! Lots of fun.

Then we came home to wash clothes and get ready to celebrate with his family the anniversary of the M Parents.

There was a little gardening fun as well, and we got some zucchinis, tomatoes, and herbs from our very first time starting a little garden out back. It was fun! We want to do it again soon.

The big news this summer is we are in the process of buying our first house! We close on the 5th, so it's not official yet till then. But since just a few close friends read this, I gather it's safe to share here :)

It's been a super hectic summer, despite all our goal-setting and promises of a non-eventful year. LoL. God probably thinks we're hilarious.

On a serious note, though, we are grateful and excited for the next few months' craziness. We'll be busy trying to make this house a home and making lots of hard choices (who knew picking a fridge would be so hard?).



 

Texas Data: GSP

Considering my crippling writer's block seems to have resolved itself when I sit down to do actual research, I'm going to take a page from Rambler's "blind focus on research only" strategy book and start talking the Economics of Texas, quant style.

A lot has always been said and continues to be said about the state of Texas, and I find the best way to cut through the Amarillo land mines (think about it, you'll get that joke in a second) is go straight to the data. So I will present in what are most probably the most boring blog posts to anyone else a series of posts on my interpretation of the data regarding Texas.

Let's start "top down" with the "Macro" indicators and my best data friend in the whole world FRED.



Above is the year-over-year percentage change in the Real (meaning "inflation adjusted") Gross State Product of Texas. This is the growth in the size of production. Texas appears to be recovering at an "alright" clip after the recession. The picture looks rosier compared to the US Real Gross Domestic Product as a whole:



I know, apples and much larger apples, but based on GDP, Texas isn't a bad place to be. But the size of an economy's production is not a good measure of its welfare, nor its "richness". If we spread out that production over the population (y = GDP / Population), we get a better idea of the amount of the pie available to the average resident of the US or Texas. 



In terms of GDP per capita, Texas has risen above the GDP per capita of the US. In 2013 the average Texan produced (earned) around $52,000 per year, while the average US output per capita did not break $50,000.

In fact if we take the growth rates, Texas has been growing faster than the overall US economy since just before the recession:



A similar story appears when comparing Texas and New York; New York is by the far the "richer" state per capita in terms of production than Texas. Texas has been growing faster, but there is still a nearly $10,000 difference per person.





So yes, in terms of production, Texas is big, and still growing. 


Here is what is not included in these graphs that I will get to in later posts:
1) Median household income, average hourly earnings, and employment,
2) Price level indicators for a standardized basket of goods in major metropolitan areas (say Dallas vs. New York City),
3) Poverty and inequality (as measured by the Gini and Theil indices- no "1%" laziness on this blog, we use all parts of the bison in the Panhandle),

5) Demographics, education, and other "dashboard" measures (as they are available).

As I tell the students: GDP is a good place to start, but not a good place to finish. 

Edit. A data note. As some would probably point out, I use the total population of the United States to calculate real GDP per capita for the US, including minors and military. Some would debate the use of this population measure and ask that the "Civilian Noninstitutional Population"; those who are not under the age of 16, not incarcerated, and not serving in the military. Sure. You can do that with FRED. It changes the story, and GDP per capita for the US rises much higher and stays higher than Texas (around $64,000 per person) but the growth rate story (Texas growing faster) remains the same.

Parking is an Issue

I hate driving my car to work. Not because I am anti-gas or pro-environment or whatever. No, I hate driving my car because parking is a nightmare at my school. I can either ride two miles on my bike to the empty bike rack right next to my building, or spend twice that time driving around looking for  parking space.

What amazes me is that not many people who live and work where we are don't do the same. I do not think this is because they are lazy or ill informed. No... I get the feeling I'm about to be hit by some nasty weather and wind come this winter. They know something I don't, like all the truck and SUV drivers out here who can get places in the rain while I worry about my Accord being swept away when the Monsoon starts.

What's the deal? I already know that the streets flood badly when it rains. I don't see an unusually large amount of pot holes. No, it must be the wind. The wind has been a nuisance but not a severe hindrance. I'm told it will get to "slam your car back door on you" proportion soon enough, and I'm not looking forward to riding two miles in that. But with the right gear it should be doable. I just really do not want to continue wasting valuable minutes of my life looking for parking.

In Transition

Much like the wife just did, I'm going to be updating the blog. It's been a while, so updates and posts coming soon.

Plagiarism is Not OK.

There has been some recent reporting on self-plagiarism and plagiarism scandals from popular authors, and I've seen some rather morally ambiguous approaches to them.  In fact I'm disturbed at the amount of "plagiarism is not such a big deal" blog posts by tenured professors at major universities.

1) Self plagiarism is not okay, especially when you take money from one publisher to produce something, and then use something you already sold to another publisher formerly you are acting in bad faith with a business partner.  When you submit a work for publication, you are (partially or wholly) giving up the rights to that work.  Yes its "yours" in that you created it, but it is also legally the publisher's.  You exchanged this for a chance to have many people read your work in print.  To self-plagiarize by re-copying your old ideas is to cheat the people who hired you.  If you do not agree with this, then publish your work yourself.  You have full rights to your material, and you are not misleading anybody. Furthermore, why not use the opportunity to approach your old work from a new angle? 

2) Plagiarism investigations are not witch-hunts by non-creative people against creative people.  If you were creative to begin with, you would not have plagiarized. These investigations are a legal precedent to protect other creators (and publishers) who have been stolen from.  These investigations are serious, and should be treated as such. To avoid them, writers should edit, research, and revise a work many times before trying to publish.

3) Student plagiarism is a serious matter, even student self-plagiarism. When a student enrolls in a class (or at least MY class), they are expected to complete the assignments set before them with recent, original material that they worked to bring up.  Photocopying from other students, or from original work in a previous class is done with dishonest intent.  I have had student's approach me about using a project they worked on for a previous class, and in the best cases they ended up significantly revising and improving past work through the lens of the course subject.  That is of course acceptable, and honest, but it was far from re-printing out a paper and submitting it with a different title.  Academically dishonest students should be punished severely, as any act destroys the trust in the student/teacher relationship.

4) Plagiarism is not like the arts and music, where everyone imitates the great masters to learn. That is the dumbest argument I have heard in a long time. We already have people using the works of great writers as practice and performance; its called theater.  But even in the arts there is a clear difference between a great performer of works written by others and those great writers and originators. 

Plagiarism has many facets.  It is theft, laziness, and deceit.  It should not be defended, tolerated, or rationalized. 

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.