EclectEcon

The Desert Between Us and Them: The War of 1812 in SW Ontario

The War of 1812 involved lots of burning and killing all over eastern North America. The ultimate losers were the Indians of the midwest who were driven farther west as a result of the treaty agreement between the US and Britain. One area that suffered during the war was in southwestern Ontario, where the US attacked from both the east (via Niagara) and the west (via Detroit). 

TV Ontario is airing the premiere showing of a documentary "The Desert Between Us and Them" this coming Saturday, October 5, from 9-11pm. The film describes the daily trials and tribulations of settlers in SW Ontario as the Brits harassed them to join the war effort and the US confiscated considerable food, etc., after the successful invasion at Amherstburg. From the TVO website promoting the airing of the film (which has a short video as well):

A cinematic documentary that explores those stories that make the War of 1812 a "modern war" by stepping back in time to experience the conflict through the eyes of the people of Southwestern Ontario, who spent several years living in a War Zone. Saturday October 5 at 9pm (ET).

Unless it ended up on the cutting room floor, there is a brief portion of the film in which I appear as Kentucky Governor (and successful general) Isaac Shelby. The scene was filmed over a year ago. In it, a group of women pleaded with me not to destroy their homes. From Wikipaedia,

On July 30, 1813, General Harrison again wrote Shelby requesting volunteers, and this time he asked that Shelby lead them personally.^[44] Shelby raised a force of 3,500 volunteers, double the number Harrison requested.^[1] Future governor John J. Crittenden served as Shelby's aide-de-camp.^[56]Now a Major General, Shelby led the volunteers to join Harrison in a campaign that culminated in the American victory at the Battle of the Thames.^[1]

The Battle of the Thames was fought exactly 200 years earlier than the date of the premiere showing of this documentary. Leading up to, and during that battle, it became clear that the Brits were going to sell out Tecumseh and their Indian allies. From the Wikipaedia entry on Tecumseh,

During the War of 1812, Tecumseh's confederacy allied with the British in The Canadas (the collective name for the colonies of Upper Canada andLower Canada), and helped in the capture of Fort Detroit. American forces killed Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames, in October 1813. His confederation fell apart, the British deserted their Indian allies at the peace conference that ended the War of 1812, the dream of an independent Indian state in the Midwest vanished, and American settlers took possession of all the territory south of the Great Lakes, driving the Indians west or into reservations.

I have no idea whether my scene made the cut, but we have the PVR set to record it.

Global Warming and Gubmnt Debt

24 Hours at The Arts Project This Weekend: Reprise

I just spent a hugely hectic time at The Arts Project in London, Ontario, and I loved it!

• Last night, those of use who were selected as actors met and were randomly assigned to different groups (or companies). There were sixteen actors in total assigned to four groups.
• directors, stage managers, and writers were also randomly assigned to the groups. 
• Then the topic was assigned to the writers and artists: "About the River"
• Overnight, the writers wrote one-act plays.
• Also overnight, 8 artists worked to create new, original works reflecting the theme.
• We received the scripts at 8:30am this morning (Saturday). 
• All day, we rehearsed, we blocked the movements, we ran lines incessantly, we worked on character development -- we really, REALLY worked.
• Tonight beginning at 8pm the four groups presented their plays.
• Our group went third. Our play was probably the shortest (maybe 20 minutes -- thank you, Michael and Lynda). According to my [totally unbiased] relatives, our play was the best and best performed!
• We had great direction from Megan! and it was wonderful team to work with!
• I had a fantastic time! Here I am, backstage, getting ready to play "MoonMaster", searching for the inner river of tranquility.

So thank you EVERYONE who helped make this such a great experience!

More iOS7 Problems

As I posted several days ago, I am not at all pleased with iOS7. Since that posting there have been some serious additional problems that have come to light:

• a security problem which an update to iOS7 is scheduled to address.
• a nausea problem resulting from the zooming and motion on the screen [ht MA].

This second problem has not yet been addressed by Apple and seems to affect a substantial number of people.

Apple’s latest and greatest operating system is making people sick – literally.

The animations and transitions added to iOS 7 have unexpectedly been making people nauseous and giving them motion sickness.

The issue is so prevalent, in fact, that it has an entire message thread filled with complaints on Apple’s forums, first spotted by The Verge, and complaints have been building on Twitter as well.

The main source of the problem appears to be the zooming animation added in the recent upgrade.

Examples abound at the Daily Mail site linked above.

More silliness and non-functional glitz from from a highly paid designer that actually makes the product worse. What was Apple thinking? That silly glitz would help them in the smartphone wars with Samsung?

And what is with all the beta testers of iOS7? Are they not critical enough? Are they insensitive to poor designs?

Hopping a Freight and ridin' the rails

I have had two experiences hopping a freight train. They were more laughable than exciting.

Both occurred during my freshman year at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota). My friend George had looked into the practice and had a good idea what to do:

• wait for a train that isn't going any faster than we could run
• run alongside a freight car
• make sure you catch onto a ladder that goes to the top of the car (there are ladders that go up only part way; don't hop onto one of those!)
• climb to the top and lie flat

So we walked down to the tracks and waited for a train to come along that was moving slowly enough. One came along about 11pm or so.

It was perfect. We ran alongside adjacent cars, caught the right ladders, climbed up, and lay flat on top. It was exhilarating. 

But the train stopped after about a mile or two and clearly wasn't going any farther than the rail yards, and so we climbed down and walked back to our dorm. 

---

The next incident was also with George. On the next Saturday, we decided to go up to "The Cities" [short for the Twin Cities, short for Minneapolis-St.Paul]. So we walked down to the tracks again. 

We weren't sure when a train would come by slow enough for us to hop, so we agreed we would also hitchhike from that place, and we would take a ride with whatever came first, a train or someone who was willing to pick us up. 

Back then, hitchhiking was more common than it is today, and it was somewhat expected around Northfield (town motto: cows, contentment, and colleges). In no time at all, we had a ride to The Cities. But while we were there, wandering around on foot, we were stopped at a level crossing by a slow moving train. We laughed, and agreed we'd hop it for a block or two since it was going in the direction we were. 

And that's what we did. We each ran, grabbed a ladder, and rode on it for a city block. 

---

That's it. That is the sum total of my freight-train hopping days. But it really isn't the end of the story. From then on, I had fantasies of hopping flatcars with tractors on them, and riding across the prairies. I had fantasies of finding open box cars and riding in one of those. I had fantasies of riding on hopper cars across the continent.

But those were just fantasies....  until one day in the fall shortly after my first marriage was on the rocks and I was living alone. I was walking to the home of some friends for dinner and reassessing my life plans and goals. As I approached a railroad crossing, a slow-moving freight came along, and it had numerous open box cars on it. I was sorely tempted to hop in one and just go where ever it would take me, but I knew my friends would worry if I didn't show up and they couldn't reach me. So I didn't. 

I expect that if there had been cellphones back then, I'd have done it. I could have called my friends and told them what was going on.  

Nowadays though I just sit, watching and listening to the trains, and continue with my fantasies. 

24 Hours at The Arts Project This Weekend

I have agreed to be one of the actors participating in a 24-hour fund-raiser at The Arts Project [T.A.P.] this weekend. Actors, writers, and directors will gather on Friday evening to be randomly assigned to four different groups or temporary theatre companies; then the writers will be given a topic and will write one-act plays overnight (while the actors and directors sleep!). The four different groups then meet at 8am on Saturday, receive their scripts, rehearse all day, and perform the plays at The Arts Project that evening. At the same time, five or six artists will be working all night to create works representing or inspired by the same topic; their work will be auctioned off on Saturday evening (via silent auction). 

Proceeds from the art auction and the theatre tickets are all going to help support The Arts Project. I attended this event last year and had a wonderful time as a spectator. I'm thrilled to be a part of it this year. And they are offering a pretty good special: for $35 you can buy a membership AND a ticket to the theatre events. The combination is a rather substantial savings over the two items purchased separately.

For more details, see this. 

[no disclaimer. I'm not on the Board of T.A.P., and I don't work or exhibit there. I have performed in several plays there, and I have attended quite a few others. It is a wonderful addition to the theatre and arts community to have this excellent space (a former shoe store) available downtown.]

Cursive? I Won't Miss It

According to this article [ht MA], cursive handwriting is on its way out. To be honest, I won't miss it. From the article,

As schools swap out old state standards for new Common Core academics, educators are warning about an overlooked casualty of progress – cursive handwriting.

They say that, because Common Core standards don’t call for cursive instruction, public schools are more likely to drop or, at least, de-emphasize it. Their fears are not unfounded.

• At least 41 states do not require public schools to teach cursive reading or writing.

• Kentucky leaves cursive instruction up to schools and districts; Ohio also leaves it to districts. Before Common Core, Ohio’s elementary standards recommended teaching cursive in grades 3 to 4.

I don't know who these "educators" are who warn about the demise of cursive handwriting (the article quotes some).  From my experience, cursive is hard to learn, and much less important in the 21st century than is keyboarding, and from many adults, the cursive is next to illegible.

My experience as an educator is that students who use cursive to write exams or course notes can indeed write down their thoughts every-so-slightly more quickly than their classmates; my experience is also that students who hand-letter (we called it "print") their exams or class notes never have problems with legibility. 

Despite its name, it is time to drop cursive handwriting from the curriculum. 

One question, though: how do people who don't use cursive handwriting sign their names? It must happen. Do they just print them?

Canadians: a "sorry" lot?

These caricatures are pretty funny. [ht Frank]. A few appear below. My favourite of the bunch is the graffiti.

There are are more at the linked site.

Jeffrey Sachs: Colossal Failure as a Development Economist?

Even if you don't buy and read this book by Nina Munk, be sure to read this review of it. It is careful, on-the-ground research that leads to scathing condemnation of Jeffrey Sachs and his grand plans in Africa. Sachs is a quintessential elitist interventionist who would love to take over the lives of others --- to make them better off, of course. At least Bono has seen the light, but I doubt if Sachs ever will. Here are some selections from the review:

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty is a devastating takedown of Mr. Sachs’s technocratic fantasies. It is essential reading for anyone who thinks that brilliant people with the right interventions can save the world. ...

In Dertu, Jeffrey Sachs was revered as the Great Professor. But gradually it became clear that even he didn’t have all the answers. As Ahmed Mohamed, the local Millennium Fund project manager, sighed, “What can we do? We cannot enforce. We try to explain. We want to empower. But no one can come and change them if they do not want to change themselves.”

In other ways, the project did change Dertu. The population exploded from hundreds to thousands. People were attracted to the town by the free food, water and medicine. They gave up their pastoralist ways and built shantytowns. And then the money ran out. The doctor left, and the project manager was fired, and the good times came to an end.

... What makes Ms. Munk’s critique so compelling is the legwork she put in on the ground. In Dertu and other villages, she got to know the people that Mr. Sachs set out to help. He is famous for being combative and ill-tempered, and has ferociously attacked her book. But as she points out in an interview, “I’ve spent more time in these places than he ever has or will.”

Recent history is littered with the wreckage of grand plans to save Africa. So why should we care about another? Because, Ms. Munk argues, “Oversimplification is terribly dangerous.” Promises that can’t be kept invariably result in disappointment, cynicism and donor fatigue. Western taxpayers are increasingly reluctant to fund foreign aid without some assurance that it works.

As for Africa, Ms. Munk energetically rejects the notion that there’s nothing that can be done. The good news is that things are gradually improving. And Africans themselves are increasingly taking the lead. The moral of her story is that the last thing Africa needs is more Great Professors. As she says, “I think we’d all be a lot better off if we were a little more humble.”

I added the emphasis to the last sentence of that review [quoted above]. It is very Hayekian and very true. From the conclusion of Hayek's acceptance speech when he received the Nobel Prize in Economics,

 The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society - a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

Ferguson on Keynes

All six of Brian Ferguson's papers from his lectures on Keynes' General Theory are now in the top ten of the SSRN category. Indeed five of them are in the top six downloads. 

RECENT HITS (for all papers announced in the last 60 days) 
TOP 10 Papers for Journal of ERN: Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian (Topic)  
July 24, 2013 to September 22, 2013

Rank	Downloads	Paper Title
1	165	Capital-Based Macroeconomics: Austrians, Keynes, and Keynesians  John P. Cochran,  Metropolitan State College of Denver,  Date posted to database: August 13, 2013  Last Revised: August 13, 2013
2	56	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1): Chapter One, Background and Historical Setting  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 19, 2013  Last Revised: August 19, 2013
3	47	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (2): Chapter 2, 'The Postulates of the Classical Economics'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
4	38	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (3): Chapter 3, 'The Principle of Effective Demand'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
5	32	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (5): Chapter 6, The Definition of Income, Saving and Investment; Appendix to Chapter 6, Appendix on User Cost; Chapter 7, The Meaning of Saving and Investment Further Considered  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
6	30	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (4): Chapter 4, 'The Choice of Units'; Chapter 5, 'Expectations as Determining Output and Employment'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
7	29	From 'A Treatise on Money' to the 'General Theory': John Maynard Keynes’ Departure from the Doctrine of Forced Saving  Ho-Po Crystal Wong,  University of Washington - Economics Department,  Date posted to database: September 5, 2013  Last Revised: September 5, 2013
8	28	A Note On: What Keynes (1936) Intended to Show - And What Became of It  Rudolf Richter,  Saarland University,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 23, 2013
9	27	On the Laffer-Keynesian Synthesis  Vladimer Papava, Iuri Ananiashvili,  Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University - Department of Econometrics, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies,  Date posted to database: August 5, 2013  Last Revised: August 5, 2013
10	27	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (6): Chapters 8, 9 and 10: Keynes' Theory of Consumer Behaviour  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013

 

Sunrise Rainbow in the Mist

I have seen photos of sunrise rainbows, but I had never seen one in person until this morning. The orange-pink of the sunrise alters the colours of the rainbow to fill the sky with a pink-gold-orange arch. 

I was blown away by the sight this morning from our balcony. The rainbow stretched all the way across the sky and was so huge I couldn't fit the whole thing into one photograph. So here are two photos of it.

 

You can even see a hint of echoes of the rainbow. 

Fleeting, but spectacular!

Addendum: Here's another photo I took, this one with my Note2:

Purolator Has a Sick Sense of Humour

One day last week, I guess an agent for Purolator stopped by our place with a delivery of something we had ordered, but we weren't there, and we had no idea the delivery was coming so soon. No tag was left. We had no idea they had been there.

The next morning, we received a phone call. The caller i.d. said, "Private Caller". It didn't say "Purolator", and so we had no advance warning of what was to happen next.

An automated voice said, "blah blah blah, and your tracking number is: ************" followed by some more blah blah blah. It didn't repeat the number. We had no warning that Purolator was calling, and we were not prepared.  

We had no idea what was going on. At best we had an inkling that a shipment was about to arrive. 

So I called Purolator's 888 number. Fortunately, after listening to their menu, I guessed the right number to punch and ended up speaking with a real person. 

She knew exactly what I was talking about when I asked, "I know it's not your doing, but does Purolator have an especially sick sense of humour?" and then I explained what had happened. She allowed that she hears this same story from customers all the time, and she said she would make arrangements for the local agent to call us.

No sooner than maybe 7 hours later, the local agent did indeed call us. She, too, understood that I was frustrated and bothered by the automated call, and she made arrangements to deliver the parcel the following day.

So here is my gratis advice to Purolator:

Purolator, Do these two things to greatly improve your customer service:

1. Stop blocking the name of your company. Let customers know it is Purolator calling. Why on earth would you NOT want us to know that?
2. Please, please warn customers to get a pen and paper and let us pause the message before you give the tracking number.

Purolator, you're welcome.

Canada's Social Safety Net: Subsidizing Immobility

Workers in The Maritimes of Canada are upset because of some changes that will be taking place in Canada's "Employment Insurance" [EI] programme. Traditionally workers in The Maritimes have had to work less to qualify and/or have received a longer pay-out. Understandably, unemployment rates in The Maritimes have consistently been higher than elsewhere in Canada.

Why understandably? because [all together now] "People Respond to Incentives."

As has been explained by those protesting the EI revisions, 

"It's not people who don't want to work year round, it's simply the jobs are not there,"

One effect of the EI programmes in The Maritimes has been to raise the height of the social safety net there. After all, Canadians are known for being kind, caring, and sharing.

A more serious effect for long-term growth and economic efficiency is that people are induced to stay in The Maritimes rather than move elsewhere, to places where jobs are more plentiful. 

But it isn't so much the workers of The Maritimes who benefit from this policy. Rather, it is the land and real estate owners there who benefit. If more people would try to leave The Maritimes and move, say, to Saskatchewan to look for work (or in response to finding work), real estate values in The Maritimes would fall. 

Isn't it interesting that protesting workers are trying to defend the vested interests of people who have a stake in the real estate in The Maritimes.

I Wish I Hadn't Installed iOS7 on my iPad

Usually I am more cautious, and I wait a few days to read user reactions before installing iOS updates. For example, I never installed iOS6 on my iPhone (when I had one) because I wanted Google maps to be the standard app for my phone.

I should have waited before changing the iOS on my iPad yesterday. If I had waited, I would have seen this from Forbes [ht Jack], outlining some of the basic problems with iOS7.

I use my iPad for reading ebooks and scripts, for playing a few games when I'm bored, and for checking my email and Facebook at times. I am not a heavy user. In fact I mostly use it at night when I'm not on my computer. I gather others use their iPads this way, too.

My complaints about iOS7 are similar to those in the Forbes piece:

• What is with limiting the number of apps shown on the first page of a folder to just 9? Did nobody complain about this when iOS7 was in beta? I used to have 16 apps per folder, and they all appeared on the screen at once I had them all arranged in ways I liked, and now it has all been changed. Hey, Apple, the iPad screen is pretty good sized. Those folders (even on an iPhone) can show 16 apps on the screen. It's nice to be able to put more apps in a folder than just 16, but why limit us to only 9 on the first page of each folder? This is just plain stupid, an example of Apple's silliness and attempts to control the units in ways that only irritate the customers.
• Those backgrounds for the screen and folders are annoying. I know Apple hired some hot-shot Brit designer to help with the screen designs, but the folders (and other things) are harder to read and harder to use now that they blend in with the wallpaper. And since the wallpaper I like is light-coloured, the thin white letters do not really show up all that well on it. Sheesh. Two days of beta testing should have revealed these two problems. Ugh.
• I don't play multi-person interactive games. I don't want that friggn game control centre to show up all the time. 
• What will happen to Stanza, now that iOS7 has taken over the swipe up and swipe down functions? I loved being able to swipe up or swipe down in Stanza's e-reader to adjust the brightness of the screen. Once again, Apple does it to Stanza (and to those of us who prefer it as an e-reader).

Regular readers of EclectEcon know I am not enamoured of Android, and the bizarre inability to turn off only some of the notifications on my Note2 really irritates me often. I have been eagrely awaiting the day that Apple would see the light and bring out a larger iPhone. 

With iOS7, I'm less eagre.

Update: Yassir wrote in a comment on Facebook:

"If you have trouble reading the fonts in iOS 7, go to Settings > General > Accessibility, then touch the switch for Bold Text and also the Increase Contrast switch right below it. It will require a restart of your iPhone/iPad, but now reading should be a lot easier"

His suggestion works well for me.

What's Your OCD?

Last month a friend was telling me that he and his co-workers had noticed a person across the street from their office every morning would walk a weaving pattern between the columns of the building. And if pedestrians blocked his way, he would wait until they left and then scurry to the opening to make sure he completed the pattern. I gather they all chuckled a bit at the realization, but then my friend asked, "Well, what are your compulsions?"

He was astounded to learn that many of them had to have all the papers on their desks "just so". They have to have their edges parallel and perpendicular with exactly the same amount of space between each sheet or pile of sheets.

So I asked him what his compulsion/obsession is. He and his wife both laughed. He says he has to leave a tip that makes the bill come out to an even figure on the credit card (he is a generous guy and undoubtedly rounds up to, e.g. $90 instead of $88.77 or whatever a 20% tip might be). The reason they laughed is that every time his wife leaves a tip she purposely makes it come out uneven, just to bug him.

Someone else I know is hung up on fours. They have to eat four crackers. Or four groups of four crackers, etc. 

[Addendum: I met someone the other day who says that whenever she's in a library, she has to make sure all the books on the bookshelves around her are straightened before she can do any work herself.]

My friend then asked about my obsessions. I'd been thinking about it some even before this conversation, and I realized I have a very minor hang-up (!) with coloured plastic coat hangers. When I take things out of the dryer, I try to match the colour of the item with the colour of the hanger. But it isn't serious. If they don't match, I just hang them on whatever is available.

Later I realized I have a more serious compulsion. I count stairs. Whenever I go up and down stairs, I count them. It's not a complete obsession, though. If I'm walking with someone else, I don't count them.

I have no idea how this pattern got started. Probably some form of reinforcement at some point in my life.

Rock-Opera-Drama. Not for Me

Yesterday we went to see the rock opera, "Tommy" at Stratford. We left at the intermission. But that isn't saying much because we also left "Hair" at the intermission when we saw it at The Grand Theatre  a little over a year ago.

We had been warned that Tommy was loud [and great thanks to several FB friends who warned us]. So, just in case, we took earplugs. I quite smugly said to Ms Eclectic that I'd put my earplugs in as the house lights were dimming, but the buggers started the loudness before dimming the house lights. :-(  It was WAAYYY too loud. 

For me the problem with both "Tommy" and "Hair" was that the band/orchestra was too loud --- so loud, in fact, that I couldn't hear the singers very well. Is it just me, or are the sound mixers and balancers right out to lunch on this? Why on earth would they consistently make the bands too loud to hear the singers?

I took out the earplugs twice during the first half of the show: once when they sang "touch me, feel me", and then again when they sang "Pinball Wizard". The volume was deafening. I don't know how people could stand it, and I don't know why more people didn't leave when we did (or maybe they did; how would I know?). If I hadn't had earplugs, I'd have left after the first minute and probably been screaming "Turn down the volume" on my way out.

"Pinball Wizard" was a great party/club/dance song back when it first came out. Everyone loved yelling/singing "He played a mean pinball," but until I read about the plot of Tommy, I had no idea what the story was behind the song. To be honest, back then I couldn't understand the rest of the words in the song and for that reason didn't much care for it. 

We got cut-price tickets for the show and at those prices we were glad we saw the first half of the show; we certainly would NOT have felt that way if we had paid full price for our tickets. It was "interesting"... "Very interesting".

The review in the Trono Globe & Mail of a May performance was a pretty accurate description of the show we saw. The singer who played Tommy's father was quite good. But the staging, while intriguing, was so fast-paced with all the screens and colours, that it amounted to sensory overload. 

I think that will be our last visit to a rock opera. I just don't trust them not to kill us with the sound.

Capital-Labour Substitution in Restaurants

Have you ever watched the clerk at a fast food place or a server at a mid-level restaurant? They use touch-screen computers to send the orders to the kitchen, track inventory, compute bills, etc. 

In a world in which so many people have tablets and smartphones, there is no reason customers cannot do this work themselves. It may take some getting used to, but good design with smooth interfaces should make it all work with the result that window clerks and servers will be less in demand as they are replaced by touch screens.

It is happening gradually now [ht Jack]:

Get ready to order dessert at Chili’s on a tablet–just look out for your sticky fingers. Brinker, which owns and operates the Chili’s and Maggiano’s brands, will be installing tablets on each table in its 823 operated Chili’s restaurants by March 2014, though the company says its servers will play a critical role in its new wireless experience.

Those tablets, provided by Texas firm Ziosk, will allow customers to order drink refills and desserts as well as play interactive games in what is an overall “reimaging” of Chili’s restaurants’ design, says Krista Gibson, senior vice president of brand strategy at Brinker International.

What you can’t do, at least initially, is order appetizers and your main course. 

Restaurants make more money when customers can order dessert and coffee and then get out of there faster, and the Ziosk allows customers to pay by credit card on the tablet. A green LED light then notifies the serving staff that a group has paid and can leave without fuss. In tests, Chili’s found that half of customers opted to pay through the device and even more during busy workweek lunch hours.

But the device is supposed to really make money when groups, especially families, pay $0.99 to play games like trivia on the device while they sit. The system pays for itself, Mulinder says, if enough guests, at least a tenth of customers, opt into such “premium” content.

If it pays to use touch screens on a partial level, watch for it to become even more prevalent for ALL transactions, especially if the minimum wages for food-service workers are raised by gubmnt.

Shine On, Harvest Moon

I love the song, and I love the big full moon. 

With these being the very last few days of summer, the full moon that graces our skies tonight becomes the Harvest Moon. So named because it helped farmers to bring in their crops on time, it also marks a special time for sky watchers and gives a great opportunity to see an amazing optical illusion that makes the moon look exceptionally big.

There is a lot of detail at the site, but here's the summary:

...[T]he curious optical illusion known as the 'Moon Illusion' will likely be especially noticeable to anyone watching the moon as it rises tonight or sets in the morning, making the moon look huge when it's near the horizon.

And here's a version I remember (please let me know if it doesn't show up):

Underfunded Pension Liabilities: State-by-State

Many (most!) state and local gubmnt pensions are seriously underfunded by any reasonable estimate. Well, they aren't underfunded if they can all earn about 25%/year forever, but let's be realistic: they are grossly underfunded and the taxpayers in those jurisdictions are going to be on the hook for the balance, out of general revenues.  From here:

State and local public employees, for the most part, have DB retirement plans. Much discussion has occurred in recent years to estimate how underfunded they are: the estimates start at $1.3 trillion and go up from there. The difficulty is that calculating the amount depends on your estimate of future rate of return. Most plans themselves project they will earn 7 to 8 percent on their investments, and critics say that is too optimistic. [EE: 7 or 8% in perpetuity?? Those folks are super dangerously delusional]

The organization State Budget Solutions this month produced one such estimate, using a 3.2 percent rate of return (the 15-year Treasury bond yield rate). This calculates to public employee pension plans having only 39 percent of the assets they need to cover their promised payments—a $4.1 trillion gap. [emphasis in the original]

Here, via the Tax Foundation, is a map showing the percentage of underfunding in each state:

If I lived in one of those states with the low numbers, I would try to move. If I couldn't move, I would try to hide my assets somewhere that they'd be less vulnerable to increased taxation. And if I ran one of these states, I'd try to commit everything possible to fixed continued programmes for the future so the state could go to the Feds and say they had no choice but to beg for a bail-out. 

It is hard to understand how people have let things get this far. 

And it isn't just states in the US. Oil-rich Alberta has a bloated budget and an underfunded pension scheme, too.

Alberta’s pension has unfunded liabilities of $7.4 billion which, while affordable now, won’t be as the ranks of retirees grows and people collect benefits over longer lives. The number of active workers to retirees has already shrunk dramatically, so fewer people are paying more money to support retirees over a longer period. There’s a limit to how often pension plans can boost payments by active workers or ask taxpayers to foot a larger government contribution, and the market struggles of the past decade demonstrated how uncertain investment growth can be.

I really feel sorry for the younger generations. The older ones (with support from such insidious groups as AARP and CARP) have negotiated generous pension plans but have apparently been unwilling to pay the taxes required to fund the plans. And the younger generations will have to deal with the situation, including the possibility of having their parents live with them.

It is not just a bad joke that some years from now people will be writing about boomerang seniors instead of boomerang children. 

Update: The C.D. Howe piece in the Globe and Mail has a better piece about the Alberta revisions.

A Bear's Head?

This is a very humorous story about a woman who went shopping for a lamp and came home with a bear's head [ht Marla]. It is well-written and enjoyable. One brief excerpt:

I said, “Before we go any further, I just want to point out that this bear is literally 75% off.  I mean, unless you have the body of the headless bear in the back, in which case I might be interested in purchasing it too” and then he wandered off in a bit of a daze.  Victor shook his head and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, but in his defense it’s possible it was because he was looking at the pony chandelier because that shit was fucking dazzling.  Then the salesman came back saying, “We would be so…so thrilled to let you have it for $75″ and I shouted “SOLD!” and then I was a little offended on Beartrums behalf because why were they so happy to get rid of him?  Clearly I was saving him from people who did not appreciate him and probably didn’t even realize his name was Beartrum.  This was a damn rescue.

I sort of understand this. One of the houses we bought had a bearskin rug in it. I wanted to specify that the rug be included with the house but Ms Eclectic wouldn't agree.

An Intriguing Foreshadowing of Big Box Plazas: The Big-Box Plaza Is the New Downtown

Downtowns are dying. Even some of the big malls are dying. Big-box plazas are dominating the retail scene these days. I wrote about this last week, and I've had some more thoughts about the transitions since then.

In the 1950s both plazas and large discount stores began to emerge. From a powerpoint slide that Jack sent me,

Given that plazas made such strong inroads into the retail business (I remember quite a few that emerged in the 1950s and 60s), what happened between then and now? Why did we embrace the enclosed mall concept so readily and then drift away from malls back to the plaza concept?

Malls are nice because they are enclosed and climate controlled. Also, the larger ones have a sufficient variety of establishments that there is rarely any reason to go anywhere else. And yet the big boom in retailing has been Big-Box Plazas.

One suggestion I made before has to do with shopper convenience. We often know which store we want to go to, and it is much quicker and easier to drive right up to that store than it is to park and walk through the mall to the store. 

In the old days, plazas tended to have the shops lined up along one side of a parking lot. One important feature of big-box plazas is that the shops ring the parking or are located in lines in the middle of the large parking areas. There are more shops, but they take advantage of being able to locate all around the parking lots, not just along one side of them.

The big-box plaza I frequent most these days reminds me very much of the downtown I used to love wandering through as a child. There are all kinds of shops there: department stores, auto supply stores, electronics and appliance stores, tonnes of clothing and shoe stores, restaurants, and even the modern-day equivalent of dime stores -- Dollar Stores! I can readily imagine myself as a youngster, taking a bus to a big-box plaza, and wandering from store to store over an area only slightly larger than the main retail area that was the downtown where I grew up. The main difference is that the stores ring the parking, which is central, whereas in the old downtowns, the parking rings the downtown, requiring shoppers to walk farther even if they wish to go to only one store.

It looks to me as if the big-box plaza is the new downtown but without the bothersome office buildings (although many small professional buildings are beginning to crop up near the perimeters of those plazas). 

 

Why Is This Man Laughing?

In this photo, Foreign Minister Lavrov is smiling, even laughing. The Russians have now (temporarily) headed off (explicit) US intervention against the Russian/Iranian puppet. 

But the US is allegedly supplying arms to the rebels via the CIA. From a broad perspective, the US is likely hoping for a lengthy stalemate between two anti-US factions in many respects.

At the same time if the rebels are more pro-western (is that possible?), say like the rulers of Saudia Arabia or UAE, then supporting the rebels would eventually undercut the Russian natural gas monopoly over Europe and might very well be a good strategy. But to do that, they US must support the right rebels (assuming that is possible and such a group even exists). 

But it looks like a short-term Russian diplomatic victory. No wonder Lavrov is laughing and Kerry appears to be grimacing.

Makes Me Go Awwww

Elephant and Lab are good buddies. 

Amazing Photographs

This site. The extreme close-ups give a whole new perspective on things! Just ignore the first one, which seems silly to me. Really, go look at them. They are absolutely amazing!

And the photos added at the end are pretty amusing.

Brian Ferguson's Lectures on Keynes

Brian Ferguson has posted the texts of his lectures on Keynes and the General Theory to SSRN. They are clearly good and popular. 

Five of the lectures on the various chapters rank 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th in the top ten of their category in terms of numbers of downloads for the past two months. 

Brian and I have known each other for nearly 30 years. We were colleagues briefly twice while I visited the University of Guelph, and we share many interests and views about many things. 

This new work of his is in a different direction from much of his earlier work. It is a great contribution to the history of economic analysis and thought.

Here are the links to those lectures:

Rank	Downloads	Paper Title
2	46	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1): Chapter One, Background and Historical Setting  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 19, 2013  Last Revised: August 19, 2013
3	42	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (2): Chapter 2, 'The Postulates of the Classical Economics'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
4	33	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (3): Chapter 3, 'The Principle of Effective Demand'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
9	25	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (5): Chapter 6, The Definition of Income, Saving and Investment; Appendix to Chapter 6, Appendix on User Cost; Chapter 7, The Meaning of Saving and Investment Further Considered  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013
10	24	Lectures on John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (4): Chapter 4, 'The Choice of Units'; Chapter 5, 'Expectations as Determining Output and Employment'  Brian S. Ferguson,  University of Guelph - Department of Economics,  Date posted to database: August 22, 2013  Last Revised: August 22, 2013

 

Amazon Prime

If you order much from Amazon, you should consider Amazon Prime. For $79 (US) you get free shipping plus lots more. Ms Eclectic uses the Canadian version of prime and it pays itself off easily.

 

Talk about Tight Priors!

Sometimes we go into a situation with such strong prior beliefs about the truth (or the state of the world or whatever) that even very strong evidence that contradicts those priors doesn't persuade us. As a long-time academic and supposed scholar, I'd like to hope that doesn't happen very often with me, but I expect it does. [For more on the use of prior beliefs in statistical analysis, see this and the related links on Bayes.]

But here is a pretty impressive example from Slate. 

This morning, out of nowhere, Public Policy Polling revealed to the world that it had polled the Colorado recalls, been on the money, but failed to release it. "In a district that Barack Obama won by almost 20 points," wrote PPP's Tom Jensen, "I figured there was no way that could be right and made a rare decision not to release the poll."

I expect that PPP could not possibly believe their poll results were accurate. So rather than report what they feared was flawed and what might sully the reputation of their firm, they chose instead not to report the results.

Well, at least this way they can say, "Our polling techniques are better than we thought they were."

Open Letter to the US NSA, DOJ, and Anyone Else

I am a journalist. I am a semi-retired economist. I am a sometime actor/musician. But I am a journalist. That means I have protections guaranteed to journalists by the US Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights.

I am prompted to remind you of this position because of this report. Apparently a US Senate committee is struggling to define what a journalist is, and I do not like their definition(s):

The protections would apply to "covered journalist," defined as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have to have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.

It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years. A federal judge also would have the discretion to declare an individual a "covered journalist," who would be granted the privileges of the law.

The compromise also says that information is only privileged if it is disseminated by a news medium, described as "newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, news agency, news website, mobile application or other news or information service (whether distributed digitally or otherwise); news program, magazine or other periodical, whether in print, electronic or other format; or thorough television or radio broadcast . or motion picture for public showing."

While the definition covers traditional and online media, it draws the line at posts on Twitter, blogs or social media from non-journalists.

This definition more than cheeses me off. In other people's eyes, I am a journalist. Despite the fact that EclectEcon is a small-ish blog, it has more readers than some small weekly newspapers. And that doesn't include anything else I do as a journalist. I deserve protection, and I assert that I am entitled to it. Just try to get me to reveal my sources! As I wrote last June,

Here are my media credentials:

• Blogging since November 4, 2004, probably averaging more than a post a day, including live-blogging several conferences and events.
• Teaching economics for journalists between 1979 and 1994.
• Writing numerous columns for various newspapers. (here are just a few)
• Appearances on CBC, CBC-TV, TVO, and CTV discussing economics issues.
• Play-by-play baseball announcer for the London Tigers (radio) and the London Werewolves (radio and television).
• Member of the Canadian Curling Reporters association, reporting from national and international championships.

 

Apple Does It to Me Again

According to several news releases, iOS7 will take over the swipe up and swipe down commands. Grrrr. From the Telegraph (via MA):

A new way to access search

The ability to search on the iPhone and iPad has been around for a while, however, iOS 7 will introduce a new way of accessing it.

Simply swiping down on the homescreen will open a search box and the keyboard, allowing you to search without having to swipe to a dedicated screen as in previous versions of the software.

Swipe up to close Apps

Like in previous versions of iOS, double clicking the home button at the bottom of the phone will show all of the Apps that are currently open.

Simply swipe up on the screen to close the app.

One of my favourite e-readers on my iPad is Stanza, and one of the many reasons I like it so much is that I can swipe up to brighten the screen and swipe down to dim the screen. 

iOS6 buggered things up for Stanza for awhile, and Stanza had to redo their app. And now Stanza will have to redo their app once again.

[and meanwhile, of course, Apple has still not addressed the segment of the market that would like a larger phone]

How Does Amazon Price Its CDs and MP3s?

Over the past few days, my frequent internet correspondent [MA] has sent me numerous examples of Amazon music pricing that seems unusual. In most of the examples he sent, CDs are priced at roughly 2/3 the price of MP3s with some priced much less than that even. 

Why would Amazon price MP3s more than CDs? Are there distinct markets?

One possible explanation might be that many young people don't even have CD players (except on their laptops) but listen to music only on MP3 players and especially like having accessibility to their music via the cloud. So while the cost to producers (and to Amazon) of producing MP3s is lower, the demand for them is higher. 

Another possible explanation comes from the economics of durable goods considerations: those who want CDs have more choice, including being able to buy used CDs for considerably less than the prices of new ones (check out the differences between the new and used prices in item #2 below). I have no idea how the market in used MP3s would work, if there even is such a thing.

A third possible explanation is that many people (like me) do not wish to store so many CDs. Storage is costly, and if I can pay a bit more to have someone else store my music or to have music in a form that allows me to store thousands of tunes on a very small device, it might very well be worthwhile.

Here is just one example. They abound on Amazon.

• The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need, CD $7.99
• The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need, MP3 $9.99

To add to the weirdness, if you buy the above CD, Amazon will include the MP3 at no extra charge. So why would anyone buy just the MP3? 

• Maybe someone who doesn't have Amazon Prime and who doesn't want to pay the shipping charges for the CD would buy only the MP3. 

In other instances, however, the CDs are much more expensive. Here is just one example: the complete set of Haydn's symphonies performed by Philharmonia Hungarica, conducted by Antal Dorati.

• On CD, the London Label, $136.99
• Same thing on CD, the Decca label, $435.19
• Same thing on MP3, $47.49

And it is not just Amazon.com. Similar anomalies appear for the same items at Amazon.uk. MA writes that,

First the CDs:
Haydn: The Symphonies
Haydn: The Complete Symphonies (This is no longer being sold by Amazon. MA paid £49.98 for this a few years back - - it was always more or less this price - quite a bargain compared with the first set)

Then the MP3s:
Buy the MP3 album for £149.89 at the Amazon MP3 Downloads store.
Buy the MP3 album for £37.49 at the Amazon MP3 Downloads store.

MA tells me that London and Decca are owned by the same company. Is this pricing of the CDs just a weird case of the right hand not knowing what the other right hand is doing? Or is the Decca set really that much higher quality? As he said, bizarre.

I just checked the Amazon.uk prices for the first example, and the pricing for them is reversed. What is the possible explanation? Are market conditions all that different in the UK compared with the US? 

• The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need, MP3. £7.49
• The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need, CD+MP3. £11.33

It really is difficult to believe that rational maximizing economic actors thought long and hard about these prices.

 

 

. . . .