EclectEcon

Problems with TypePad: why does this blog take so long to load?

TypePad has changed things again. And now it seems to take about 5 seconds for this blog to load, no matter which browser I use. Does anyone have any suggestions? I notice that other TypePad-hosted blogs don't seem to have this problem, so I'm wondering what it might be on this blog that is causing the lag.

Stop Quibbling over Terror Profiling

"Stop Quibbling over Terror Profiling" is the title of one of the best columns ever written by my friend and colleague, Salim Mansur. It should be required reading for everyone, but especially for those who are concerned about the profiling of young Muslims in our defense against terrorists. 

Here are some pithy quotes, but be sure to read the whole thing. It does a great job without ever having to discuss probabilities, statistics, and inference:

The arrests last week in Ottawa and London, Ont., of four of eight suspects allegedly linked with the global Islamist movement reveal again how vulnerable Canada and other democracies are to Islamist “homegrown” terrorism. ...

These alleged terrorists are not emerging from the ranks of the desperate poor, hungry and homeless. They come mostly from the aspiring middle class background of immigrant families, and their education ironically makes them readily susceptible to the sort of identity politics that thrives on the cocktail of Third World resentments and grievances....

There will be more such cases, and the terrible thought is some of these homegrown terrorist plots may succeed as it happened with the July 2005 London, U.K., bombings, or get barely foiled as were the attempted attacks in July 2007 in Glasgow and London (those arrested in this episode of terrorism were all Muslim doctors), or the failed bombing in New York’s Time Square by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American.

There is ample evidence, if proof is still needed, that homegrown terrorists in the post-9/11 world are predominantly Muslim males primed by Islamist ideology. ...

[The] time to quibble over “profiling” is long past. This is not a matter of becoming “illiberal,” for liberalism, which I hold dearly — as I do my faith tradition as a Sunni Muslim — is not a suicide pact.

Our common security requires a clear understanding of where our threat emanates from, to focus on that threat with necessary resources, and to remove blinders of political correctness that only weakens our efforts in defeating Islamism.

And for all my friends, please note Mansur's distinction between Islam and Islamism.

Energy Conservation: People Respond to Incentives

What Paul Heyne refers to as "The Law of Demand" says that as prices rise, ceteris paribus, people will in general want to buy less of the product. It is true for energy as well as every other product. 

So if additional energy conservation is somehow "a good thing", then a great way to reach that goal is force energy prices up. In fact, that is what has been done in Copenhagen:

How, then, has Denmark been so successful in managing its carbon emissions? The answer lies not with the source of power, but with the price of power. At 30 cents per kilowatt hour, electricity costs anywhere from three to five times what the average North American would pay. And, not surprisingly, Danish households consume a fraction of the power that we do....

The other reason commonly cited for Denmark’s success at carbon management is cars—or, more precisely, the lack thereof. Nearly everyone in Copenhagen seems to be riding a bicycle. At first I thought this was testament to the environmental consciousness of the populace, or at a minimum, to a commitment to physical fitness. Then I checked out what it costs to buy a car....

Depending on how many horses are under the hood, Danish car buyers pay a tax ranging anywhere from 100 to 180 per cent of the sticker price of the vehicle. In other words, when you purchase a car in Copenhagen, you can pay almost as much as if you were buying three cars in North America. At that tax rate, I’d be riding a bike too.

What I learned from my trip to Copenhagen is that you don’t have to be a world leader in green energy technology to cap your carbon emissions. Just charge 30 cents per kilowatt hour for power, and slap a 180 per cent surcharge on vehicle prices. Consumers will do all the rest.

That piece is by Jeff Rubin and appeared in The Globe and Mail. It's a great example of how to use prices to conserve scarce resources, assuming there is a good reason to conserve them. 

 

 

Conspiracy "Scholar" Visits The University of Regina: I have to wonder if he will dust off The Protocols during his talk

Sponsored by the department of (you guessed it!) sociology, an English professor from The University of Guelph is visiting The University of Regina to speak on the very open-minded-sounding topic, "Antisemitism, Real and Imagined". 

It turns out the speaker, Michael Keefer, is coincidentally on a tour to promote a book of the same title. It also turns out he has a history of advocating that conspiracies are responsible for 9/11, the London terrorist bombings, etc., and he has a history of association with anti-Israel groups. From a friend at UWO whom I asked about him,

This thing smells bad. I did a little further research because I remembered his name. Here's part of what I found out:

Michael Keefer is a tenured English professor at the University of Guelph who may become best known in coming months for his contribution to a book called "Antisemitism. Real and Imagined". The book warns against a nebulous conspiracy of Zionists and co-opted far right conservatives attempting to undermine free speech.This is a common theme for the Canadian Charger, a publication for which Keefer sits on the editorial board. Typical headlines you might read in the Canadian Charger would include "Zionist Israel Built On Ethnic Cleansing", "Harpervision for Canada" and "The Sacred Mysteries of 9/11", just to give you a flavor for the rag.

Keefer is no stranger to conspiracy theories. Indeed, his worldview seems to be utterly dominated by them. He has come to prominence as a 9/11 truther of the boldest variety. He doesn't just reject the "official" story propagated by the "corrupt" media. He stated unequivocally in February 2010 that "senior people in the United States government had systematically disabled their air defenses to make these (9/11) attacks succeed."

The purpose of the conspiracy? "The effect (of the 9/11 attacks) was a double-effect. It legitimized a program of aggressive geopolitics, including war on Afghanistan, war against Iraq and the planners of the event no doubt hoped that they would also in the future be able to follow up with wars on other countries including Iran."

Well, of course. High level officials (Bush? Cheney? The undead Richard Nixon they keep in the basement?) collaborated with a sordid assortment of Islamist nutcases from Saudi Arabia and Egypt who would as soon behead an Infidel as spend thirty seconds in a room with them. In this case, the terrorists were not the aggressors but the dupes - even, one might argue, the first victims of the plot. And the wars that followed are not so much strategically required as pathologically necessary for this wicked cabal bent on killing Muslims around the world.

That's how Keefer's mind seems to work. Nice.

It doesn't stop there. Not just the US government, but other Western nations, the Canadian government, and of course, the cops, are all in on the plot (or blind stooges for the shadowy masterminds - again, Zionists and neo-cons). Any high-profile terror attack in the West is automatically suspect, most likely perpetrated by the conspiracy and blamed on innocent Muslims who were probably tortured into confessing. He makes these sorts of statements in an article published at the "Global Research" site called "The Harper Government and Canada's 'War-on-Terror' Immigration Policy":

On the 7/7 attacks by Islamist terrorists in London:

 "The London bombings of July 7, 2005, for example, are said to have been carried out by suicide bombers-a story that is contradicted by the testimony of survivors that the explosions blew the floors of the underground carriages upward from below. If the bombs were not carried onto the carriages, but detonated from beneath, then the purported Islamist fanatics said to have been responsible for these appalling crimes cannot have been the actual mass murderers."

On the arrest of the "Toronto 18" terror cell in Canada:

 "Did Canadian intelligence agencies really anticipate that squads of heavily armed terrorists might descend on the Brampton courthouse in a desperate Robin-Hood style attempt to free their captured comrades? Or would it be cynical to think that the state was trying to panic the Canadian media and the public at large with this graphic demonstration of how terrified we should all be-if not of the handcuffed prisoners, then certainly of their shadowy accomplices. The logic is clear: if the brave and clever men who dress like ninjas, carry big automatic weapons and work in intelligence are worried, then the rest of us ought to be gob-smacked with fear."

Why does it really matter if a Shakespeare expert most people have never heard about goes on a speaking tour perpetuating these bizarre fairy tales about brutal cabals corrupting democratic governments that are leading us into an unending, unthinking war on innocents here and abroad? Why does Michael Keefer matter?

In a sense, he doesn't. If Keefer dropped off the face of the Earth today, he could be replaced in a moment. There are literally thousands of "experts" around who would love to take his place on the speaking circuit, whose main goal in life seems to be to evangelize these twisted unicorn myths. And they would continue to deliver their message to packed theatres and conferences.

The relentless propaganda has already had its effect. Over a third of Americans believe 9/11 was an inside job. Numbers are similar in other Western countries. And of course, in the countries that most need to switch over to a more reality-based approach to managing their own affairs and dealing with the world, these conspiracy theories are not minority views; they are accepted broadly as facts.

When citizens of a democracy no longer feel represented; when they feel that the government is controlled by, if not run by, mass murdering scum; if they believe that urgent threats, like a relentless global attack by modern fascists and totalitarians is bogus and not worth defending against; if they believe that every institution from the government to the justice system and virtually all media is irredeemably corrupt and wicked; then they will cease to take part in that democracy. In fact, they will work against it, probably in the most extreme sorts of ways.

We're talking about societal breakdown, brought on by nothing more than fear-mongering and indoctrination. That's why people like Keefer matter. And it's why their crackpot theories must be exposed and condemned by all those who truly care about freedom.

 My friend also recommends these website:

Jonathon Narvey <http://propagandistmag.com/2010/2010/jonathon-narvey>  is the Editor of The Propagandist. This is the final part of a 6-part series.

 Read Part 5 of

<http://propagandistmag.com/2010/09/25/kind-talk-can-get-you-trouble-part-5>

That Kind Of Talk Can Get You In Trouble <http://propagandistmag.com/2010/09/25/kind-talk-can-get-you-trouble-part-5>

 If I weren't teaching at the time his talk is scheduled, I wonder if I could provoke Keefer into saying that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are probably legitimate...

 

Roger Kimball Reflects on Ed Miliband

Is the Labour Party of England doomed? With leaders like Ed Miliband, Roger Kimball thinks so [h/t BenS]:

With the ascension of Ed Miliband, a Marxist  who narrowly beat  out his brother David for leadership of the party,  the Labour Party has turned its back on the nannyish but pragmatic New Labour of Tony Blair and has taken a step back into the thuggish, anticapitalist militancy of the 1970s. Far from offering a “road not taken,” Ed Miliband — the son of one of the most poisonous far-left academics of the 1960s, Ralph Miliband — threatens to take his party, and with it part of the country, down that well-trod road to serfdom England managed largely to extricate itself from thanks to the reforms of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s....

 It’s the same old sub-Marxist, redistributionist, politically correct playbook that extended England’s post-war poverty well into the 1970s and installed resentment at the center of social policy.

Some of the Best Evidence Yet about the Harm Done by Minimum Wage Laws

Garment workers in South Africa are upset because they lose their jobs when minimum wage laws are enforced. From the NYTimes,

NEWCASTLE, South Africa — The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage. But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it.

“Why? Why?” shouted Nokuthula Masango, 25, after the authorities carted away bolts of gaily colored fabric.

Raising the wage above the equilibrium level leads to a reduction in the quantity demanded of labour and creates unemployment, especially among low-skilled, less-well-educated members of the labour force. And who benefits? 

Major beneficiaries of laws imposing higher minimum wages are workers employed in union jobs. Raising minimum wages reduces the competition for work that uses union labour. Also from the same article,

Last year, as South Africa’s economy contracted amid the global financial crisis, unions negotiated wage increases that averaged 9.3 percent. The International Monetary Fund hypothesized in a report last week that companies were unable to pass on higher labor costs during the country’s recession and laid off workers instead, contributing to job losses that were among the highest seen in the G20 industrialized nations.

Mr. Zuma promised last week at a national gathering of the governing party in Durban that the cabinet would act soon.

But it remains unclear how decisively he can move. His party, the African National Congress, conceded in a report last week that its alliance remained divided over what should be done. Eight months ago, Mr. Zuma proposed a wage subsidy to encourage the hiring of young, inexperienced workers. But it ran into vociferous opposition from Cosatu, the two-million-member trade union federation that is part of the governing alliance, which contended that it would displace established workers. The plan has stalled.

 

Pricing Convergence in a Duopolyvending machines at UR revisited

A little over a month ago, I posted that at the University of Regina soft drinks sold in vending machines serviced by the Coca-Cola distributor were priced at $2/bottle, while those sold in machines serviced by Pepsi were priced at only $1.75/bottle. The price difference puzzled me:

What really puzzles me, though, is why the prices are different and how long this price differential will last. Are the drinkers of Coca-Cola products such die-hard fans of the products that they gladly pay the 25-cent difference? I can imagine there are some for whom the price elasticity of demand is pretty small, but there must be lots who'd be happy to switch to Pepsi products to save the 25 cents. 

I was prescient (no tarot cards; just plausible economics). Two weeks later, the prices in the Pepsi-serviced machines were raised to $2/bottle. 

One would expect that products which are nearly homogeneous (please, no vehement comments about the differences between Coke and Pepsi; I said "nearly") would have identical prices (or nearly so). I was surprised that the prices weren't the same last month, and I'm not surprised that the prices are identical now.

What I don't know is the dynamic that led Pepsi to raise the prices on their products rather than Coke to lower its prices. From a transaction cost perspective, it makes some sense (Canada has a two-dollar coin) because it cuts down on change making in the machines. 

Do you think there was any communication between the two distributors that led to Pepsi's price increase? If so, that would probably be illegal. But communication wasn't necessary. My guess is that Pepsi said to itself, "Why charge less if Coke is going to meet our lower price? Why not raise our price instead? After all, we won't lose many sales compared with the alternative  of having us both charge $1.75/bottle."

This is classic convergence to a joint-maximizing price. And the simple prisoners' dilemma model needs to be expanded to explain why price raising, not price cutting, is the dominant strategy in similar duopolistic situations.

Social Conservatives or Libertarians in the Republican Party?

Gerry Nichols tells of his work for a more-libertarian and less social-conservative candidate for the Republican nomination for the Senate in New Hampshire. His column in the National Post reminds me of the difficulties that often ensued when the more-libertarian and more-social-conservative folks formed a shaky coalition in Canada called "The Reform Party". 

Once again in the US, it looks as if the social conservatives are tending to dominate and are making life very difficult for those candidates with more libertarian views. Bill Binnie, the candidate for whom Gerry was working, wrote,

To me, if you’re a Republican, it means you stand for the very principles which made America great, principles such as freedom, individual rights and tolerance … Yet elements within my own party have a different vision of what it means to be Republican. They are more about imposing moral values than individualism, more about allowing government to dictate decisions on issues that should be a matter of personal conscience.

I would delighted if more people with views like these (e.g. King Banaian as well) were elected to public office. But as Gerry concludes: 

The fact is: Social conservatives have come to dominate the Republican Party and they will simply not tolerate social moderates in their midst. That’s too bad because they are driving away good candidates. In the process, they are making the Republican Party weaker, narrower and less electable. 

And let me add that if the social conservatives are driving the libertarians out of the Republican party, I cannot wish them well. I resent the anti-freedom, big-gubmnt views and policies of both major parties in the US, and I worry that we are facing a similar situation in Canada.

Opportunity Costs and Debt in the English Premier League

Fans of Liverpool and Manchester United are upset because some Americans used leveraged-buyouts to obtain ownership of their teams. From Brian Phillips at Slate,

The problem, in a word, is debt. The sales of both Manchester United and Liverpool were structured as leveraged buyouts—the owners borrowed money to finance their purchases, then transferred the debt back onto the clubs. This means, first, that the fans, those obliging trickles of revenue, are effectively being made to buy soccer clubs for owners they despise. It also means the clubs are gushing out millions of dollars each month in interest payments, money that might otherwise be used to help them compete in the cash-maddened upper echelons of the Premier League.

I'm struggling a bit to figure out what Phillips (and the fans) are complaining about here. 

• Okay, so they borrowed money to buy the team. As a result they have interest payments to make. If they had used their own money completely to buy the teams, they would be foregoing tonnes of interest income (an opportunity cost) and would be suffering massive losses in that sense. Since sports writers and sports fans seem incredibly dense when it comes to understanding implicit opportunity costs, it makes much more sense to make these interest costs explicit, using borrowed funds, even if the borrowing is done from a sister corporation. 
• If the fans understood opportunity costs, they would still be upset: prices have increased at a very rapid rate at both Liverpool and ManU. But so what? Do the fans at these sold-out venues really think they would be better off queuing to try to obtain tickets rather than letting prices do the rationing? Maybe some, who have low-valued uses of their time, would be better off; but most would be just as aggravated (or maybe more so) by any alternative scheme for allocating tickets. Ticket prices are high, not because of the debt incurred by the American owners. Rather ticket prices are high because demand for the tickets is high. 
• Sometimes I wonder if maybe the real problem for the fans is that these teams are losing increasingly to teams like Chelsea and Arsenal (and others in the Champions League).

Phillips' article makes for fun reading. But it doesn't show much awareness of the concept of opportunity costs.

An Odd Co-incidence? the Settle Roughriders?

The logos of the Settle Orchestra and Saskatchewan Roughriders are amazingly similar:

  

 

My friend, Stuart, plays French horn and has developed the website for the Settle Orchestra (Settle, Yorkshire, UK). I'm sure many of the brass players in that orchestra also perform with the Settle Brass Band, whom I had the pleasure of hearing in concert 3 years ago. 

Adapting Expectations to a New Reality

I have never liked economic models in which the actors are assumed to have rational expectations with instantaneous adjustment to regime changes. It takes awhile before people are convinced that regimes have, in fact, changed. And it takes awhile for expectations to adjust to the new realities. 

Here is a good example. Manufacturing employees have seen much manufacturing growth in Asia, compared with North America, and yet it is difficult for them to adjust their own expectations to the new reality. Here's the latest example [h/t Jack]:

.. Harley-Davidson Inc.'s three Wisconsin unions approved a labor contract Monday laden with steep concessions, reacting defensively after the motorcycle company threatened to move hundreds of jobs out of the state.

The proposed deal freezes employees' pay, slashes hundreds of production jobs and assigns large volumes of work to part-time workers. But it also saves at hundreds of other jobs, at least in the short-term.

Some 1,140 union members from a suburban Milwaukee plant voted, approving the contract by a 55 to 45 percent margin. In northern Wisconsin, 293 workers at the Tomahawk plant voted, approving it by a margin of 73 to 27 percent.

Harley-Davidson Inc. executives had said they would move production out of Wisconsin if the contract were rejected, which would have eliminated about 1,350 jobs. They are now set to decide the next steps Tuesday. ...

Employees in Tomahawk were more willing to concede. That's because the loss of Harley jobs there would be far more devastating in such a small community, said Frank Garrou, the president of the local union.

"This is about jobs in the local economy," Garrou said. "Once they're gone they're gone. That's what it boiled down to."

But keep in mind that labour is a mobile factor of production. In the end, the big losers when a plant moves are not labour. The big losers are the owners of real estate, which plummets in value and cannot move to follow the changes in economic conditions.

Digression: One of my many .sig files back in the olden days internet newsgroups was, "The New Macro: Rationalized Expectorations and Overlapping Generalizations". 

Pirates? in Saskatchewan? "...on Regina's Mighty Shores"?

At Saskatchewan Roughriders football games, the crowd has a great time singing along with a song about pirates in Saskatchewan. When I first heard the song, I was both amused and confused. Pirates? in Saskatchewan? Huh?

The song is about a prairie farmer who lost his farm to the banks and can't find a job anywhere, so he decides to become a pirate on the Saskatchewan River. No matter that Saskatchewan has the booming-est economy in Canada; no matter that there is no branch of the Saskatchewan River going through Regina, home of the Roughriders; fans here love the song. Here's the chorus:

And it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains 
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains 
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores

Regina's mighty shores??? In the city itself there's Wascana River/creek, but it's pretty hard to think of that as mighty (except maybe where it's dammed up to form a bit of a lake). But who cares? It's fun. 

The song is called "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" by The Arrogant Worms (when I first heard it, I thought maybe it was by Stompin' Tom, but it isn't). The full lyrics are here.

What Would Happen to the Money Supply if the Fed Increased the Required Reserve Ratio?

This question is a typical question from a US introductory economics course or from a course on money and banking. And the answer is, ceteris paribus, that the money supply would decrease.

According to Richard Bove, the requirement that commercial banks in the US hold increased capital has the same effect. 

[T]he main reason bank lending has declined may be that the banks’ capital requirements have increased, and this encourages them not to lend. They certainly don’t have a shortage of capital. The F.D.I.C.’s data shows that the common equity in the banking system — the amount of money invested — as a percentage of all bank assets is now at the same level as it was in 1937. If one calculates what is called the banks’ “capital ratio,” which is done by adding the banks’ reserves and common equity and then dividing by the assets, it appears that the banking system has more capital than at any time since 1934.

Yet banks are sitting on the money rather than getting it out into the economy. Why? Because ever since the collapse, politicians and policymakers have been insisting that risky lending by the banks was the prime culprit, and have demanded that banks build up a cushion of capital to protect the system.

Another culprit that Scott Sumner and others (including me) have been writing about since the fall of 2008 is the decision of the Fed to pay interest on reserves held at the Fed by the commercial banks. This policy change, by itself, has induced commercial banks to hold more of their assets in the form of deposits with the Fed instead of making loans (i.e. instead of creating more money).

So what has happened, in a nutshell, is that the US Fed has tried to increase liquidity with its quantitative easing (and the buying up of many, many assets) yet at the same time it (along with Congress!) is soaking up most of that increased liquidity with various policies that require or encourage commercial banks to hold more reserves. The net effect has been not much monetary easing. Quoting Bove once again,

In fact, by many measures — like MZM, which tracks the liquid money supply in the economy, and M2, which includes deposit and retail money market funds in addition to cash — the money supply is actually shrinking on a year-over-year basis. While in 2005 the Fed stopped publishing its assessment of the broadest money measurement — called M3 — by some estimates that figure is shrinking at the fastest rate since the Great Depression.

Increased capital requirements might not be a bad idea, in light of the recent financial crisis. And I have always wondered why commercial banks were required to hold deposits at the Fed at zero interest, so from that perspective, I agree with paying interest on those reserves. But at a time when the economy needs to increase the amount of liquidity in the system, implementing policies that reduce liquidity seems counter-productive. As Scott Sumner wrote,

In fact the Fed has done almost nothing to stimulate the economy.

Stimulus Spending and Sports Arenas/Stadia

There is a tonne of pressure in some circles to build a new stadium (oops) entertainment complex in Regina, Saskatchewan. Without considering any of the other pros and cons, from a purely Keynesian perspective it does NOT make sense to build one now when Saskatchewan has the booming-est economy in Canada, net immigration is staggeringly high, real estate prices are still rising rapidly, unemployment is lower than anywhere else in Canada, and people are having a difficult time finding places to live. 

If there is one thing Regina does not need now, it is fiscal stimulus. In fact, from a Keynesian stabilization perspective (of which I'm pretty skeptical, I'll admit), it would make more sense to try to dampen demand in Saskatchewan; that means an appropriate policy would be to increase taxes here in Saskatchewan and cut back on gubmnt spending in the area.  

Extreme Innumeracydistinguishing between clutch ability and clutch performances

In my sports economics course I wanted to demonstrate that it is difficult to determine whether an athlete has "clutch ability" or just got lucky and performed well in a succession of clutch situations. I was trying to emphasize the difference between "clutch ability" and "clutch performances".

To do this, I asked students to predict whether a coin toss would be heads or tails; then I tossed the coin. Those who predicted correctly "performed in the clutch" and were allowed to continue; those who predicted incorrectly "choked" in the clutch situation and were not allowed to continue. I presumed the students would all understand that their "clutch performances" were due solely to luck and had nothing at all to do with "clutch ability".

We repeated the coin toss four more times, after which there were only two students (out of 130) left in the game. Clearly (in my mind anyway), these two students  had not demonstrated any superior ability to predict the outcome of the coin toss; rather, they had been lucky. 

So I asked them, "Do you think you have any special ability to predict coin tosses?" 

They both said that, yes, they thought they did. 

Argh. If a sizable chunk of the population believes that people have the ability to predict the outcomes of coin tosses, that explains a lot: e.g. why people continue to play slot machines or throw dice or play roulette or why people continue to believe that clutch ability explains so many clutch performances.

I wonder whether, if those two students really do have such amazing abilities, perhaps we should all drop out of school and quit our jobs so we can spend our time and money following them around at the casino.

 I also wonder if they will show up for the next class....

Open Letter to My Students (6th revised edition)

This year I will be a visiting professor at The University of Regina. As I begin my new experiences here, I have decided to update my open letter to my students.

To my students:

• University is different from high school: reading all the material and going to class does not guarantee you an A or even a B unless you are considerably above average in ability. You actually have to study too. I expect you to do about two hours of work out of class for every hour in class.
• If you miss class, please do not ask me if anything important happened. I wouldn't give the lecture if I didn't think it was important. What do you expect me to answer? 

“Yes, actually, on the one day you missed I decided to give a pop quiz that counts for 20% of your course mark. Then we discussed the answers to the final exam, and then I gave everybody real, not invisible, chocolate chip cookies. Too bad you missed it.”

• When I was an undergraduate student, I had friends who got out of many different assignments and exams for all sorts of reasons; further, any excuse I didn't hear about as an undergrad I have heard enough times in my 74 years as a prof to be familiar with it. Deaths in the family, apartment fires, tears on command, cars breaking down, feigning symptoms of depression, you name it: I either knew someone who used it or have had to deal with it. I have a pretty good feeling for when you are trying to bull$hit me, so don’t try. And while I am very sympathetic if your excuse is legitimate, I am ruthless if you lie to me. (For example, see this).
• I read quite a bit, and I am an okay writer. People who read copious amounts and who write a lot notice writing style, so if you try to plagiarize, I will almost always be able to tell. If you plagiarize work for my course, I will report you, and I will fail you in the course, and I may try to get you expelled from the university (as I did several years ago with one student whose offence was repeated and flagrant). Don't plagiarize. I will catch you even if TurnItIn.com doesn't.
• Cell phones are disruptive. Please turn them off before you come to class. If yours rings in class, you will have to leave. In fact, because of past disruptions from students playing games or text messaging, if your cell phone is on your desk or in your lap, you will have to leave class, regardless of whether you are actually using it.
• The same thing applies to laptop computers or iTouch web-surfers and the like. Don't bother bringing your laptop to class because I will just ask you to close it and put it away. If you really would rather spend your class time surfing the internet, just change majors to hydraulic socionomology or transfer to York (or Calgary).
• And while we're on "don'ts", please do not eat in class. Doing so is very distracting to the students around you.
• During the lectures and discussions, I may seem fun and amusing, but that does not mean my tests are easy. My exams can be hard. 
• Class clowns may have been funny in high school, but they aren't in university. My classes are not like Canadian Parliament --- heckling is not permitted.
• Please don't send me nasty e-mails about an exam or mark when you are fired-up and angry or in a drunken stupor at 4am. Believe me, you will regret it the next day.
• I hope you are not offended by my jokes. They are funny, but sometimes not to social conservatives or most liberals.
• If I am late for a meeting and rushing out of my office, or if I am trying to eat lunch in between classes, or if I am out with my colleagues for dinner, I might not be all that keen to answer questions about the upcoming midterm or about something you missed in a recent lecture.
• Incompletes are for students who, for legitimate, documented reasons, could not finish the class. If you don't like your grade, you may not take an incomplete.
• If you take the midterms and do badly, and then don't drop the class, and then come back 3 months later and try to act as if you were never in my class and you want me to sign a form, I won't. I'm a pushover for many things, but that does not include unwillingness to accept responsibility for your own actions or inactions.
• If you are failing this course, do not make sly little suggestions about what you might do to earn a passing grade. You are failing the course — why should I think your performance would be better in any other areas? Besides, I'm too old to care.
• If I see you out on the town or at the sports bar, and you want to buy me a drink, you cannot currently be in my classes or ever take any of my classes again. Then probably you can buy me a drink. 
• If you see me out on the town or in a mall or whatever, and you're too shy to come over and say "Hello", we'll develop an official course gesture that will stand for, "Hi. I'm in your class."
• When you tell me, “I’m getting kicked out of school because of the grade I got in your class,” this might make me feel bad, but it certainly makes me question whether this is the first/only bad grade you have ever received.
• If you come to see me because you are worried about your grade, and you use all the study suggestions that I might provide, and I really honestly believe that you are trying hard but you are still getting a bad grade, I will wish I had the courage and integrity to tell you that not everyone is meant for university, and in my curmudgeonly dotage, I just might!
• If you ask a stupid question in class, I will try not to laugh at your question. I apologize if I do. After all, I shudder whenever I think of all the stupid questions I have asked (but which helped me learn).
• In fact, please ask all the questions you want in class. I learn from my mistakes, and I suspect that most other folks do, too, so ask away. If I see anyone so much as roll an eye, I will pull them aside after class and tell them their behaviour is inappropriate. If it is a very large class, though, and your questions seem to be dominating the class discussion, I may have to ask you to save some for after class.
• I like to tell stories. Once you figure this out, please do not use it to try to reduce the content and coverage of the actual, regularly scheduled lecture, and hence, the amount of material for which you will be responsible: You will still be responsible for the assigned material regardless of whether we cover it in class.
• If you work for me on a project, and you do a good job, I will write you a glowing letter of recommendation. If you work for me and do a lousy job, I will write a letter that, while not direct, will let the program or job you are applying for know what kind of a student you are. Remember that things like, “She was often on time,” or, “From my conversations with him, it is clear that he very much wants to go to graduate school,” are not really compliments.
• And, please, if you liked my class, if you feel that it changed the way you think, if you learned a lot, if you were challenged, please tell me. Because people in our economy face limited resources and time, seeing the lights go on for you is what keeps me going. I love teaching, and I am clearly not in it for the money. Actually, this last item goes for all your professors.

Catch-22 at the Gubmnt Passport Office?

Our four-and-a-half-year-old Canadian passports will expire in less than 6 months. Hence, as many of you know, we will have trouble using them to fly internationally. So we looked into renewing them, only to find:

The Simplified Renewal Application Process allows Canadians to renew their passports without resubmitting proof of Canadian citizenship or supplementary identification and guarantor information. Some conditions apply.

Canadians who meet the following eligibility criteria are now able to benefit from this process:

• Their most recent passport:
  • Must have been valid for five years;

 The most recent passport must have been valid for five years but we have to renew them after 4 1/2 years. So just how does anyone qualify for the simplified renewal process?

addendum: Despite the confusion, I went to their website and there was informed that we can use the simplified passport renewal process if the passport I am renewing is

• no more than six years old and
• is/was valid for at least five years.

Okay. That works. But that past perfect tense in the opening page sure left me scratching my head. I understand now that the minute the old passports were issued, they were valid for five years, but I sure was confused; quite frankly, I had no idea that Canada issued passports with anything other than five-year validity.

Women, Chattel, and Islam in Yemen

Here is yet another disturbing story about female children in Yemen being treated as chattel to be sold off as brides to willing bidders. In this case it was a swap, a trade in kind: my sister for your sister [h/t Gary]:

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and drew the attention of international rights groups seeking to pressure the government to outlaw child marriages.

Legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry is in serious peril after strong opposition from some of Yemen's most influential Islamic leaders...

More than a quarter of Yemen's females marry before age 15, according to a report last year by the Social Affairs Ministry....

Last month, a group of the country's highest Islamic authorities declared those supporting a ban on child marriages to be apostates.

Okay, I guess I am an apostate. News stories like this one highlight the importance of understanding that freedom of religion cannot be and should not be absolute. There are far too many religious practices and dictates throughout the world that impinge on and threaten other personal freedoms that I consider more important.

Some Reflections on My First CFL Game

Fun things: 

• wading through the sea of green outside the stadium before the game, selling souvenirs. What a mass of happy people!
• entering the stadium and seeing almost nothing but green and white (the team's colours). Mostly green with a bit of white, but with some people wearing black shirts with Rider logos, too. There were a few pockets of fans supporting the Winnipeg BlueBombers, but not many.
• the feeling of belonging one has when being a part of a large group of 40-50 thousand people. I know it can be dangerous, but it also generates a type of euphoria, too.
• playing in a band at a football game. What fun. What memories from high school and from my few years with the UWO marching band.
• The flags, the watermelon hats (and bras!), the other amusing hats and signs. Sorry, no photos. 

Other observations:

• Concession prices. I understand but I'm stunned every time.
• the noise! Wow! I'm taking earplugs to future games. An old friend called my cell phone during the game, but I couldn't have taken the call even if I'd heard the ring. 
• Quality of play: I strongly suspect that any top-twenty NCAA team could beat any CFL team more often than not. It's hard to tell, though, because Canadian football is different: 3 downs, not four; wider and longer field, the backfield is always in motion; no yards rule; one point for a touchback, etc. Or maybe (I hope I am not ejected from the pep band for this) it's just that the two teams I watched on Sunday weren't very good that day.
• It may not seem possible, but it seems to me that last two minutes in Canadian football take longer to play than the last two minutes in either the NFL or the NBA. I think 3-down football, with its more frequent possession changes (and the resulting clock stoppages), contributes to this sense.

Living in Regina, Saskatchewan, reminds me in several ways of a very brief visit I once inadvertently made to Lincoln, Nebraska, on an autumn game day. In both places, everyone wears the team colours, especially on game day. In Lincoln, all we saw was red and white; in Regina, everyone was wearing green, mostly Roughriders shirts, hats, flags draped around them as capes, and other paraphernalia. In Lincoln, people were loud and boistrous, waving and honking their horns. Pretty much the same thing in Regina .... perhaps a bit more subdued (not much, though).

After the game, I changed out of my pep band uniform before Ms. Eclectic and I went out for dinner. I didn't think about it until we were in the restaurant, but I was wearing a pale blue shirt, and Ms. Eclectic was wearing a dark blue sweater over a pale blue shirt. Nearly everyone else in the restaurant was wearing Roughrider green shirts or jerseys; I'm sure some of them must have thought we were from Winnipeg (whose colours are dark blue and gold). I wonder if that contributed to the mediocre service we had.....

I'll have a chance to play during at least four more home games for the Roughriders this fall. And then the pep band regularly puts in an appearance at the Grey Cup (non-stop playing at different venues for several days, I'm told) no matter what teams are playing in it. 

Update: In the comments, Steve asks about the ticket prices, so here are some further thoughts:

The games are all pretty much sold out. It looked to me the last time I checked as if the prices were much higher than I would have thought, but given that they sell out at those prices (people drive in from all over Saskatchewan to watch the games), maybe the prices aren't high enough! Next home game, if I get a chance, I'll ask some of the quasi scalpers what tickets are going for. 

The stadium here in Regina isn't much smaller than SkyDome, and the population base is MUCH smaller. You'd think, then, the Argos should sell out in Trono, too. I guess the Argos don't sell out because they aren't very good. After all, one of the important determinants of the demand for tickets to sporting events is fans' expectations about whether the home team will win.

Also there is an immense sense of both belonging and stakeholdership (if that's a word) among the people in Saskatchewan. That must contribute immensely to their willingness to buy tickets, attend rallies, buy jerseys, etc. 

No, the pep band doesn't pay for its tickets. But if all I wanted was to attend and watch the game, given where the pep band seats are (low in the endzone), maybe I should quit the band and try for a media pass instead. 8-)

My First Day Playing with the Roughrider Pep Band

I've joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders Pep Band in Regina. Here I am, getting ready for my first day, playing with them. Souvenir sales in the morning, concert and parade in the afternoon, party this evening, game tomorrow. My lips will be in tatters by the end of the weekend. Thank goodness we don't march and don't have to have our music memorized!

Update: after Saturday, bbbbbbbbbbbb..... my lips are indeed shot, and I'm exhausted. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Sunday.

What is the Price Elasticity of Demand for Potash?

Today I attended an excellent presentation by Jason Childs, a colleague here at The University of Regina, summarizing some basic information about the Saskatchewan economy. 

During his presentation and in our discussions afterward, it seemed he was saying something pretty unusual about the price elasticity of demand for potash, which led me to look into the question a bit.

Most previous studies (see here for a summary) indicate that the the short-run price elasticity of demand for potash is lower than the long-run price elasticity of demand: if the price rises, people don't cut back much on the quantity of potash demanded, but over time, if the price stays high, they cut back more. From the article cited above,

[F]or potash fertilizer, it was found that in the short run there was 18.5 percent decrease, while in the long-run there was 32.6 percent decrease in demand [sic] with an increase of 10 percent in the relative price of fertilizer. [EE: they probably meant to say "quantity demanded", not demand]

I think their study, which was taking previous work to task about whether the demands are elastic or inelastic, was based on data from a time period when potash prices were not nearly so high as they were in 2008-09.

But today Jason suggested that for potash, things work more like the demand for many consumer durables: if the price goes up above some historical average or trend, then some people will expect (or hope) the price to decline and will be tempted to put off an application of potash to their fields for a year or so while prices are high. But if the price remains high for several years, then people will increase the quantity demanded because (a) their expectations of a future price drop will diminish and (b) their land will deteriorate noticeably and seriously if it goes without any applications for more than a year or two. The direct implication of this type of behaviour is that the long-run price elasticity of demand is much less than the short-run price elasticity of demand for large price swings and for products for which the purchase can be deferred for a year or so. 

This type of distinction between short-run and long-run behaviour, intertwined with changing expectations, is common with many consumer durables. Should we replace the car, stove, or fridge, etc. now or should we wait a year? If prices just rose recently, some people might be more inclined to wait, either for sales and price declines or for their incomes to rise. To the extent that this behaviour occurs, then, contrary to most observations, the short-run price elasticity of demand will be greater than the long-run price elasticity of demand.

But of course this explanation violates the ceteris paribus assumption that we make with our usual demand models in economics. Over time people's expectations about future prices change, as do their expectations about future incomes. Our usual story talks more about storage costs, habits, and costs of adjustment, assuming expectations and incomes remain constant. 

If, in the real world, it is difficult to hold expectations constant, it is important to make sure we know what is changing when we look at demand curves. In the case of potash, it looks as if the effects of the price spike of the past two years was different from the effects of price changes in the past. 

 

More on Class Action Awards

As I delete the 25th piece of spam from my e-mail accounts in 12 hours, and as I reflect on some of the feedback I have received on Facebook and in e-mail for this post, it occurs to me that there is a sure-fire way for defendants in class-action suits to reduce their total pay-outs to plaintiffs: disguise the award notices to make them look like e-mail from Nigeria or the Ivory Coast; have the notification website where people register to collect payment be located in the Czech Republic; make some egregious grammar and spelling errors near the beginning of the notice. 

Most of us receiving an e-mail notification like this would just delete it with at best a cursory glance, assuming it to be yet another piece of junk mail.

Nuts. Does this mean I now must actually read through all that spam???

[I expect legal notifications of class action awards must be hard copy, not e-mail; but that will probably change at some point.] 

btw: 8-)

Best and Worst Airports?

This is clearly a measure of which airport is comparatively best and which airport is comparatively worst [h/t Jack]. In my experience over the past 75 years, all airports are worse now than they used to be, primarily because of the long line-ups for the security checks. I would gladly pay $25 more just to be able to breeze through these checks. 

But according to this article, in the US, these are the (comparatively) best airports:

• Houston
• Orland
• Minneapolis/St. Paul
• Portland OR
• Providence RI

I have been through Houston a number of times over the past few years. I must agree, all things considered it is a pretty okay airport. But it didn't have "free" wifi (as does Ottawa) the last time I was there, which would have made it even better. 

Recently I have had an opportunity to use the Flint, Michigan, airport. It's pretty okay, too. I especially enjoyed having a beer for breakfast there on a recent trip.

Worst airport? I'm not a big-time world traveler, but I'd say both Gatwick and Islay compete. Gatwick because it is SO busy and confused and frustrating. Islay because the security guards have so little to do that they take every opportunity to explore every conceivable (and inconceivable) security threat.

According to this article, the worst airports in the US are:

• New York City (the article lumps all of the airports there together)
• LAX
• St. Louis (I guess things have changed since the last time I was there... 15 years ago)
• Washington, DC (both airports lumped together)
• Boston

What makes a good airport for me?

1. short, efficient security lines.
2. "free" wifi
3. cheap food with a wide selection
4. convenient, cheap parking