Putin highly recommends that people take economics courses from Professor Palmer so they will avoid making all the economics mistakes he and his cronies have made in Russia:
I'll keep reading as long as you keep blogging" - - - Rick
It's excellent." -- Rodney Hide, Member of Parliament, and Leader of the ACT Party, New Zealand.
"This is actually one of my favourite blogs on the internet, no exaggeration." -- Adam Nelson
Contact Information
Facebook: John P. Palmer"We saw a lot of road kill and thought of you." —my sister
For more information on oil prices, click here.
Podcasts of My Intro Economics lectures
(in .wma format)
For my 2005 Radio Economics MP3 podcasts, go to the bottom of the page that lists the lecture podcasts.
Canada
United States
Israel
United States
Israel
My email address:
[email protected]
My 2005 post about the housing crisis, before it happened, is here.
« August 2014 | Main | October 2014 »
September 2014
September 30, 2014
September 26, 2014
September 25, 2014
The Fun-Loving Folks at WestJet
I will likely have some extra luggage when going to Regina next week to give my seminar on "An Options Market for Human Organs", so I went to the WestJet website to see what the charges might be.
Here is a portion of the explanation of the fees at their site:
If you are paying a fee at the airport, we will accept Canadian dollars or the equivalent amount of the local currency. Much as we'd like to, we can't accept payment in the form of songs, yardwork or feats of strength. [emphasis added]
Some interesting, digressive notes:
- My extra luggage will be full of things for my granddaughter who is moving to Regina the day before I go.
- The Roughrider Pepband regularly plays at the WestJet Hangar in Regina for the WestJet employees. In exchange, WestJet provides food for the band and waives extra charges for transporting instruments when the band flies to perform at Grey Cup games.... so dya think that maybe if I offer to play "Green/White Fight" on my green trumpet at the ticket counter, they'll waive the fees for me??
Here's to sobriety....
But, as I posted earlier on Facebook, on the plus side...
Whoever said no news is good news was wrong. Turns out drinking red wine is better for you than going to the gym! How’s that for good news? Jason Dyck and other science researchers in the University of Alberta in Canada found that red wine, nuts and grapes have a complex called resveratrol which improves heart, muscle and bone functions; the same way they’re improved when one goes to the gym. Resveratrol proved to be an effective antioxidant when tested on rodents which is why scientists are planning on testing it with diabetics. If results are positive for the benefits of the complex, patient’s heart health could be improved just as much as it does when they work out vigorously.
September 24, 2014
September 23, 2014
September 22, 2014
More Photos from Death of a Salesman
Taken during a dress rehearsal by Ross Davidson:
September 21, 2014
Death of a Salesman: It Just Keeps Getting Better
I have a small role (Charley) in the London Community Players' production of Death of a Salesman, so I claim no credit for this. And I make no claim to being unbiased, though I do my best.
This production is one of the best you could ever see. I'll stack it up against any professional production of Death of a Salesman. And last night's performance was the best yet.
The production takes place in Procunier Hall of The Palace Theatre, a too-small standard black-box-type performance venue, but Jason Rip (director), Steven Mitchell (tech and staging consultant), and Tia Morin (stage manager) have worked tirelessly and flexibly to bring off a tour de force in the venue.
The more we work on the play, the more I fail to see it as a critique of the American/Canadian dream or an attack on greed, success, or materialism. Rather, I see it as an exploration of the early onset of dementia in a man who never faced reality, about himself or much else.
To me, the hero of the play is Biff, who finally comes to grips with who he is and who his father was, after years and years of anguish about it all.... sort of a prolonged identity crisis.
Sure, Charley is a kind, sympathetic, generous guy and in some sense is a testament to the American/Canadian dream that success comes to those who work hard and who are honest and kind. Also his son, Bernard, who grows from being a nerdy (anemic, Willy calls him) kid to become a hot-shot lawyer arguing a case before the supreme court, is something of a hero. But they aren't the real heroes of the play.
Willy, of course, is a tragic hero. You want to grab him, shake him, tell him to stop lying to himself and everyone around him.
Linda (Willy's wife) is a tragic heroine. She lives with Willy's lies, trying to put bandaids on major wounds everywhere, going along with him and not forcing or even asking him to face reality very often. She keeps Willy from going to Alaska, and I'm not sure but what I wish Willy had gone there. Yet there's a good chance that if they had gone to Alaska, Willy still would have been a failure. After all, he was rejected and abandoned by his father and his older brother and likely would not have dealt with the challenges of Alaska any better than he dealt with the challenges of being a salesman in a changing market.
No matter whether you agree with my take on the play, you will be in awe of the performances. The audiences clearly are moved by the performances, and people have used phrases like "stunningly good" or "brilliant" or "mesmerizing" or "deep and moving" when talking about the show.
Rob Faust (Willy) and Deb Mitchell (Linda) are simply amazing, having captured the essence of their characters [not to mention having learned such taxing roles and the physical strain of actually performing them]. And the support from James Roberts (Biff) and Marshall Lemon (Happy), Willy and Linda's two sons, is terrific. Beyond those four main characters, the rest of us have supporting roles. And, to tell the truth, everyone in every role does a tremendous job.
See this play. It is one of the best productions you will ever see of Death of a Salesman.
Remaining performances:
- September 21 2pm
- September 24-27 8pm
- For tickets, call 519-432-1029
September 20, 2014
September 19, 2014
Duplicitous Consulting and Planning? In Local Gubmnt?
"say it ain't so, Joe"
I have recently looked at the proposed "Justification Report" the county has prepared to justify their putting a 30-story building where the current Middlesex County Health building is at Ridout and King Street in London, Ontario.
Not only will the building take up and block a LOT of park space and add seriously to traffic congestion problems, but I have to wonder how purposely duplicitous they were being with their shadow/sunlight study.
Their diagrams show that a 30-story building would cast NO shadow over the heritage Middlesex Courthouse which is only about 60 feet to the north of the proposed building. They must have estimated that result for June 21 or something, when the sun is highest in the sky. Clearly other times of the year the proposed building would frequently cover the old Middlesex Courthouse and its surrounding land in shadows, detracting seriously from the light which helps make the old courthouse such an intriguing and beautiful sight.
Here is the diagram:
Now look at this aerial photo which appears in that same report. The shadow cast by the north Renaissance tower (shown in the lower right of each of the above drawings), which is only about 20 stories, would clearly reach and cover the old Middlesex Courthouse if it were located on the orange rectangle of the proposed tower. It reaches all the way to "The Bud", not halfway, as is shown in those above diagrams.
I don't want to go overboard, but it looks as if the planners who did that shadow diagram were either seriously mistaken or intentionally misleading. Whatever the explanation, their credibility here (and likely throughout the report) must be questioned.
If nothing else, this portion of that report must be challenged.
September 18, 2014
Charley in Death of a Salesman
Here is a photo of me as Charley in Death of a Salesman. The photo is by Ross Davidson taken during Monday's dress rehearsal.
The preview is tonight. We have our official opening tomorrow. Friends who saw the rehearsal last night were VERY moved by the performances.
Procunier Hall, The Palace Theatre.
September 16, 2014
Important Data About Minimum Wages
Via Jason Clemens on Facebook:
Some folks have asked for references regarding my comments earlier today about the fact that hiking the minimum wage will not by and large benefit low-income households. This is the first of several FB posts with references. This first post is to an academic article that appeared in the journal Canadian Public Policy. The researchers used Stat Can data to profile households with members earning the minimum wage. The results were in line with previous reports that show the majority of minimum wage earners are young people living at home. Here's a key finding from the abstract:
"First, over 80 percent of low wage earners are not members of poor households and, second, over 75 percent of poor households do not have a member who is a low wage earner. We also present simulation results which suggest that, even without any negative employment effects, planned increases in Ontario's minimum wage will lead to virtually no reduction in the level of poverty."
September 15, 2014
Wine Connoisseur
For some reason I didn't bother to pronounce the name of this wine to myself until I got it home and put it in the fridge. I'm glad I bought it now, even though I haven't opened it yet and have no idea what it tastes like.
I'm sure my Facebook friend, Michael Snell (aka The Wine Commonsewer) will want this for his wine cellar, even though he seems to have a VERY strong preference for reds.
Other wines I like because of the names:
September 14, 2014
People Respond to Incentives:
Carbon Taxes, Minimum Wages, Unemployment
From Coyote Blog, a spectacularly accurate and funny Venn diagram:
The first lesson of economics is (or ought to be), "People respond to incentives." And I would add, ".... whether we like it or not."
Scott Sumner has more along the same line at EconLog:
A few weeks ago I did a post pointing out that pundits on both the left and the right have moved further to the extremes, and away from sensible policy views. I just noticed another example today, an article claiming that if you pay people not to work, it won't significantly increase the number of people not working.
Extending benefits to unemployed workers beyond the 26 weeks provided by most states has little effect on the unemployment rate and essentially no impact on labor force participation, a recent working paper released by the Federal Reserve Board found.I guess they didn't notice that the natural rate of unemployment in Europe is at least 8%. [EE: and typically the natural unemployment rate in Canada has been higher than that in the US, in part because of our more liberal/generous unemployment compensation programmes]
Question: When was the last time you saw a liberal pundit point out that extended unemployment benefits increased the unemployment rate? Maybe when Bush was implementing the policy? Here's Brad DeLong in 2008:
The rule of thumb, IIRC, is that the average duration of an unemployment spell increases by 1/4 of the increase in the duration of unemployment benefits. Thus a 13-week increase in unemployment insurance duration should increase the average unemployment spell by 3 weeks. With current mean unemployment spell duration at 17 weeks, and with roughly 2/3 of the unemployed eligible for UI, this would produce a 3/17 * 2/3 * 5.5% = 0.6% increase in the measured unemployment rate. ...That was only a 13-week increase, not a 73-week increase, as Obama implemented. And BTW, DeLong's prediction was precisely correct.
As I said, "People respond to incentives, whether we like it or not."
September 13, 2014
September 12, 2014
September 11, 2014
September 10, 2014
September 09, 2014
Mirror Cylindrical Art
These are absolutely amazing drawings, utilizing the extreme convexity of a cyclindrical mirror.
Here's a "standard" piece... a picture of a tree:
Here's a more complex one, in that without the cylinder it looks like a seascape, but in the cylinder it looks like a portrait:
And I love this one. A weird, intriguing sculpture that shows a hand to match the foot and hand in the background.
September 08, 2014
Holy Cosmology!
Laniakea
Fifty years ago I was content with the concept of an infinite universe --- infinite in time and space. Then I started learning about expansion, deflation, the big bang, string theory, parallel universes, 11 dimensions, criticisms of string theory, etc.
I was shaken from my contentedness by the turmoil and uncertainty of it all. Ms Eclectic and I began reading more and watching more PBS-type television programmes about cosmology. I cannot even pretend to understand the mathematics and all the physics of cosmology [mired, as I am, in my basic Newtonian world outlook which struggles for even/especially/only an intuitive grasp of relativity and quantum physics], but I love trying to understand cosmology.
And so it is with pleasure and delight that I read this article [via RalphK]. It doesn't really help me understand cosmology any better, but it is a fascinating expansion of human knowledge about the earth, the Milky Way, and the universe.
[O]ur galaxy is a mere speck in a larger structure, which was just revealed for the first time by a group of scientists who created a map of more than 8,000 galaxies in an effort to understand where they fit in the universe.
The team placed the Milky Way on the outskirts of a massive, previously unknown galaxy super-cluster scientists have named Laniakea, from the Hawaiian words for "immeasurable heaven."
The finding, reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature, stems from a new mapping technique that combines not only the distances between more than 8,000 nearby galaxies, but also their motion as the universe expands and galaxies are pulled through space by gravity.
It sort of looks as if we're in suburbs of Laniakea:
Note that this is a two-dimensional map of what is surely 3 or 4 (or more?) dimensions. Where were these galaxies and other clusters 5 billion years ago? and is this a map of where astronomers think they are now or where they were when they emitted the light we see now?
"Immeasurable Heaven", Laniakea, is a good term. I like it. And I'm thrilled with the increased understanding of the universe even if this understanding means little or nothing to our lives and struggles on earth.
September 07, 2014
September 06, 2014
Sunk Costs and "The Death of a Salesman"
Here is a short exchange from the play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller:
Charley: When a deposit bottle is broken, you don't get your nickel back.
Willy: That's easy enough for you to say.
Charley: That ain't easy for me to say.
Charley is telling Willy to recognize that he can't change the past, but Willy holds onto his dreams for himself and for his son, Biff. Charley tells Willy, "Let him go," referring to Biff. And then Charley acknowledges that it is difficult to give up on past dreams.
It's like the old adage, "Don't cry over spilt milk." You can't undo the spill. You can rue the loss, you can clean up the mess, you can buy more milk, you can even learn to be more careful in the future; but you cannot get the milk back.
It's an example of the sunk cost fallacy that we talk so much about in economics: Costs should be based on forward-looking decisions if people are rational maximizers.
For example, what if I paid $12000 for a used car but then realized I don't like it. What I paid for it is irrelevant. The only things I should consider are my options for the future: should I donate the car to charity to get a tax write-off? should I sell it to someone else? etc. Trying to recover my $12000 is meaningless. Instead, I should look forward, identify my options, and choose from among them.
Humans don't seem to work that way though. Willy can't or won't give up on his dreams; he can't give up on the expectations created in the past. And Charley asknowledges that he, too, had trouble giving up the past and making decisions for the future when he says, "It ain't easy for me to say."
Here is another example of the sunk cost fallacy, from this site.
Hal Arkes and Catehrine Blumer ... asked subjects to assume they had spent $100 on a ticket for a ski trip in Michigan, but soon after found a better ski trip in Wisconsin for $50 and bought a ticket for this trip too. They then asked the people in the study to imagine they learned the two trips overlapped and the tickets couldn’t be refunded or resold. Which one do you think they chose, the $100 good vacation, or the $50 great one?
If, indeed, you think the Wisconsin ski trip would be better (of course you don't know for sure, and so the decision will be based on your expectations), then what you paid should not affect your decision because you will not be able to obtain a refund on either trip. You have paid $150 in total; it's gone, it's sunk. The only relevant questions is, "Now what're you gonna do?"
A "rational" maximizer [homo economicus?] would choose the Wisconsin trip, expecting it to be better. What was paid for the two trips is sunk; the decision should be based on expectations concerning future alternatives.
The example continues,
Over half of the people in the study went with the more expensive [Michigan] trip. It may not have promised to be as fun, but the loss seemed greater. That’s the fallacy at work, because the money is gone no matter what. You can’t get it back. The fallacy prevents you from realizing the best choice is to do whatever promises the better experience in the future, not which negates the feeling of loss in the past.
Willy does this throughout the play. He maintains his dream of being a big-time salesman even though, "He was a happy man with a batch of cement," and would have been much more successful in the construction business. He not only refuses to recognize his own, personal comparative advantage, but he holds onto that dream even in the face of his apparent lack of success. Does Linda do the same thing when she talks him out of moving the family to Alaska? Maybe, or maybe she just has different expectations.
Willy's dreams for himself, for Biff, and for their relationship are like a sunk cost. He could give up the dreams and be more successful, but he doesn't let go of them. Instead of looking forward and making decisions based on his options for the future, Willy keeps looking backward, trying to live a dream that cannot be, even in end.
Note: I play Charley in the upcoming performance of Death of a Salesman at Procunier Hall, The Palace Theatre, London, Ontario.
September 05, 2014
September 04, 2014
September 03, 2014
September 02, 2014
For the shade und Freud rs in all of us
Subject line and link courtesy of JR (my favourite drug dealer).
Artist designs products that are frustrating. E.g.,
And about the subject line? JR's version of schadenfreude. The subject line of the email message he sent with the link was, "Pleasingly displeasing".
These would make excellent gifts for some people, but I haven't seen any on Amazon. ;-)
Categories
- 2605
- Aging
- Anti-Semitism
- Blogging
- Books
- Computer Stuff
- Current Affairs
- Eclectic Miscellany
- Economics
- Economics and Law
- Economics, Money-Macro
- Education
- Energy
- Environment
- Film
- Food and Drink
- Freedom (Academic and Otherwise)
- Games
- Global Warming
- Gubmnt
- Health and Medicine
- History
- Housing
- International Affairs
- Islam
- Israel
- Klymchuk
- Lockdown Photos
- Media
- Middle East
- Music
- Mysteries
- Pennies
- Philistine Liberation Organization
- Photography
- Race
- Religion
- Rocky Mountain Economic Summit, 2013
- Science
- Snow Stomp Art
- Sports
- Susan's Story
- Television
- Theatre
- Travel
- UN
- Web/Tech
Archives
- September 15, 2024 - September 21, 2024
- July 28, 2024 - August 3, 2024
- July 14, 2024 - July 20, 2024
- February 11, 2024 - February 17, 2024
- December 3, 2023 - December 9, 2023
- July 23, 2023 - July 29, 2023
- July 2, 2023 - July 8, 2023
- March 26, 2023 - April 1, 2023
- March 5, 2023 - March 11, 2023
- January 22, 2023 - January 28, 2023