EclectEcon

It applies to politicians of all political stripes, Paul

Please note that this applies equally to left-wing elitist interventionists (of whom Keynesians and big-gubmnt folk are a subset) who promise all sorts of gubmnt solutions.

OP-ED COLUMNIST

A Heckuva Job

By PAUL KRUGMAN

As some Republican candidates have shown, it's not too difficult to fool many of the people for quite a long time.

Grumpy Old Man Meets Restaurant Servers

I am an old man. And I am generally a mild-mannered, contented, happy, grateful old man. But there are some things in restaurants that really turn me into a Grumpy Old Man.

1. "We". The server greets us in a condescendingly chipper voice, "Hi Folks, and how are we today?" They are really asking, "How are you today?" and so why don't they just ask that? This "we" nonsense really bothers me. I generally let it go, but sometimes either Ms. Eclectic or I will respond "We are fine. How are YOU?" But they never seem to get the message. 
   
   Ms. Eclectic threatens to respond, "What do you mean, 'WE'?"
   
   My own preference, though I doubt I would ever do this, would be, "WE? Does that mean you're splitting the bill with us?"
   
   The point is, why must servers say "we" when they mean "you"? It is rude, improper, incorrect and just plain stupid. Whoever started using "WE" when they mean "you" deserves a special place in hell.
   
   
2. "How is everything?" Of course it is a good idea for a server to check to make sure people are happy with the meal. And of course it is likely to be the case that I have food in my mouth when they come to check (I'm there to eat, after all). But please try to act sincere about asking this question.
   
   What I mean is look at us when you ask, wait for our answer, and give us time to describe a problem before scurrying away. Yesterday we had a server who not only used "We" in a far-too-cordial voice but who also committed this error: she stopped by our table and while asking if everything was okay, began looking and walking elsewhere. And as (not after) we were saying things were fine, she was moving away, saying "Great!". What if we had wanted to add that we wanted more butter or another drink or something? We'd have had to call her back or wait for her to return. Her performance seemed perfunctory, insincere, and disinterested despite all the fake vivacity.
   
   
3. I know this is a losing battle and not everyone agrees with us, but please do not try to clear the table before everyone at the table is clearly finished eating. Clearing one person's plate while the others are still eating sends a signal that you want the other diners to hurry up. I might understand this if tables are at a premium, but rarely is that the case when we eat in restaurants. Higher end restaurants seem to understand this preference (and good manners), but the mid-range places do not. For more, see this.

I want to print up cards to distribute to restaurant servers:

We are generous tippers.
We usually tip between 20-25% of the bill, including taxes.
However,

• if you say "We" when you mean "You",
• or if you don't look at us and wait for serious, full answers after asking how our meals are,
• or if you try to clear one person's plate while the other is still eating,
• or if you make us wait too long to pay and leave once we have clearly indicated we are ready to leave,

then your tip will be reduced accordingly.

The Earth Is Getting Greener!

No foolin', and this is good news: the earth's biomass of plants has been growing, and noticeably so. From the G&M [via JR]:

... between 2003 and 2012 (the last year... analyzed), something surprising happened: The trees started growing back. Their results showed that deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia slowed sharply, while better growing conditions in the savannahs of northern Australia and southern Africa added mass, and – most dramatically – the vast forests of China and Russia grew back at a considerable pace. The last point is especially significant: The boreal forest, which stretches across Northern Canada and Russia, stores almost 60 per cent of the world’s carbon (tropical rain forests store about half that much).

The result was, they reported, “an overall gain” in the world’s carbon-absorbing green matter – a result that has been reproduced in other recent studies showing an expansion of the global carbon sink.

And the conclusion is especiallyimportant:

The return of the trees teaches us a lesson. To reduce our destructive carbon output, the solution is not to reduce economic activity; rather, it’s to combine a booming urban economy with smart policies that make growth and ecology work in harmony.

The details in the link are interesting and worth a read.

OPEC Faulty Budgeting

Most of the OPEC countries seem to have budgeted with the expectation that oil prices would be up over $70US/bbl or higher. If the price of crude oil remains where it is, down under $50/bbl, these countries will have massive budgetary deficits. And so, btw, will Alberta (and Canada)

Furthermore, those of us in the rest of Canada, hoping for continued redistribution from Alberta via "equalization" payments will likely be disappointed and find our own provincial budgets facing greater shortfalls so long as oil prices remain low.

Save the Kittens!

Please, Facebook Friends! Save the Kittens!

[via Scoop]

"Under God"? Gimme a break

I have been thinking about posting about this for some time, but have been reluctant. I may lose some FB friends over this, but here goes:

For those who don't know, I was born and raised in the USA.

When the US changed its pledge of allegiance to the flag in 1954 to add the prepositional phrase "under God", as a very young student I was confused and I think more than a bit disappointed. I saw no reason to add that phrase. I was, at the time, being raised in a solid Christian family, but it was in the Congregational church, which had a somewhat liberal (?) view of theology. I had no idea what I believed or didn't believe theologically, but believe me I revealed these doubts very rarely.

I saw then, and I see now, absolutely no reason for that phrase ("Under God") to have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance. I had a somewhat negative reaction when it was added, even at the tender age I was (grade school?) at the time. My feeling then, as I recall, somewhat vaguely, was "Why add that? It doesn't matter, and (believe it or not, I think I had this thought) I thought we had separation of church and state in the United States.

And only recently did I realize the US had replaced "E pluribus unum" on its coins. Good grief. "E pluribus unum" is a wonderful statement about the history of the USA. The replacement "In God we trust" seems so different. It denies the history of the US (albeit indirectly) and borders on turning the US into a theocracy (heaven forbid! [incongruity intended]).

What prompted this post? Earlier today I read yet another Facebook posting about the pledge of allegiance to the US flag (which strikes me as idolatry that Moses would have discouraged). Here it is:

My reaction? Yea Pepsi! If this is correct, I may have to switch from Coke Zero to whatever Pepsi sells.

On Leading from Behind

In response to the news that the IAEA is going to trust Iran to do its own monitoring of its nuclear activities, JR (my favourite drug dealer) wrote,

So the U.S. government has an army of bureaucrats called the I.R.S. to audit Americans, but decides to trust the IAEA who are trusting the Iranians.

 

Leading from behind becomes trust outsourcing which will lead to ever bigger euphemisms, which is all the agreement with Iran is.

 

Expect more of the same.

Consistent with what I wrote last week about Iran, The West, and The Bomb.

 

Related articles

Iran: U.S. Banned from Knowing Details of Iran Nuclear Inspection Agreement

Repeated International Violations Prove Iran Cannot Be Trusted in Deal

Success Academy

Success Academy, a network of charter schools in New York, seems to be doing very well for its students. And their success seems to be the result of more than just selection bias [see this].

What if those Success Academy kids had been distributed among all of the top schools in the city? Would they have done better or worse in math?

Brown found that they would have performed significantly worse: 310 fewer kids would have gotten a level 4 on the exam, the top score. And 203 more kids would have received a 1 or a 2, which are considered to be failing grades. That would have been a tremendous waste of potential.

Of course, this assumes that all of these schools are drawing from the same pool. That's difficult to determine with any certainty, but we know that Success Academy students, who are selected through a random lottery, tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds. [emphasis added] Seventy-seven percent of its students qualify for free or reduced school lunch. Ninety-two percent of test takers were black or Hispanic.

Let's hear it for private alternatives!

Related articles

NYC report on charter school boom aids school choice push

What Exactly IS a Fluid Ounce?

Discovering that some 16-ounce glass mugs we had recently purchased were not quite as big as we would like, Ms Eclectic and I were delighted to discover these 17-ounce glass mugs on Amazon.

It turns out they aren't really much, if any, bigger than the 16-ounce mugs we already had.

Q. How could 17-ounces and 16-ounces be approximately the same thing?

A. If the 17 ounces are imperial fluid ounces, and the 16-ounces are US fluid ounces.

Roughly, 17 imperial fluid ounces equal 16.334 US fluid ounces.

No foolin'. They are different. See this from Wikipaedia.

An imperial fluid ounce is ^... approximately 28.4 ml.

A US fluid ounce is ^... approximately 29.6 ml. ...

1 imperial ounce =~ 0.960759940 US fluid ounces

 

 

In fact I once knew this difference, after winning an argument over 40 years ago about the comparative sizes of US vs Imperial gallons. I just didn't expect the difference to appear here, and I guess I should have.

From now on, I'll try to stick to millilitres.

The Universe is Dying

According to this article, the universe as we know it is dying [h/t Jack]. Stars are burning out and energy is being dispersed.

New data further confirms [sic] that our 13.8 billion-year-old universe is well past its prime, and is slowly fading out.

The Australian-led project known as Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) has been measuring the energy output of stars for the last few years, and the team of 100 scientists discovered that the output is only half what it was 2 billion years ago.

“The universe has basically sat down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze,” said Simon Driver,  a leader of the GAMA project ... and a professor at the University of Western Australia, in a press release.

When Jack sent me this link, he added,

But for those of us who believe our personal ‘100 years’ is all there is, it’s a yawn ……..

My response, somewhat expanded here:

Like you, I believe that our personal "100 years" or so is all there is. I guess that means I can probably accept my own mortality with at least some equanimity.

 

But you know what? For some dumb (?) and inexplicable reason it saddens me that the earth will likely be demolished in the next 5b years, if not sooner. 

 

I seem able to accept my own mortality, but  to accept the mortality of all human life on earth and, what's more, of the universe as we know it??? I understand the silliness of this, but it creates a sense of loss for me.

 

Why do I find this so frickn difficult, even infuriating? If the universe is going to end, why "on earth" was the universe (as we know it) even created? Are we just some game or toy for something/someone else in a multi-verse?

 

 Or is this all some randomness in which time and space are both non-Euclidean and non-linear?

 

And this question leads to one of Ms Eclectic's favourite questions, "Why is there anything?"

 JR (my favourite drug dealer) added (with less whimsy than it might initially seem),

[Our] universe is expanding, communicating with other universes ([via] black holes), and who knows, it might even procreate by fission or budding or by exchanging universal fluids with another universe one day:  this sounds like living more than dying.

 

What would Jonathan Livingston Seagull do?

Why "Organic" Foods Make So Little Sense

First, traditionally "organic" meant chemical compounds with carbon in them. All living things, plants and animals, have carbon in them, and so all plant and animal food is "organic" in that sense.

Second, much of the hoopla about so-called organic foods is nonsense:

 Dick Tavern in his excellent book, The March of Unreason – science, democracy and the new fundamentalism, devotes a chapter to exposing the myths of organic methods and points out things like:

• Tests conducted by independent consumer organisations show that people cannot taste the difference between organic and non-organic foods.
• The rules for pesticides and fungicides use have no ‘rhyme or reason’. Older, more damaging chemicals like copper sulphate are allowed, but more modern and specific ones are not.
• If most farming became organic then we would have returned to a time when crops were vulnerable to large scale blights, high labour costs were required and low yields the norm. The poorest in the world would suffer enormously.
• Low yield crops need more land and that is damaging to the environment with more forest clearing and less land set aside.

So what about health? The main issue tends to focus on the ‘evils’ of pesticide residues. The problem here is that although pesticides can harm in large doses, there is no evidence that they harm at the minute quantities left on foods. As Dick Tavern points out in his book,

In fact every mouthful of food contains some poison, as does every sip of water. Carcinogenic’ substances are routinely consumed by all of us in the form of natural chemicals made by plants to repel predators, but at amounts so low they do not harm us. … There are some dioxons in every breath of air we take...

If there is little basis in fact for the claims made by the organic movement then it looks like the word organic is just one more advertising word used to push expensive, unnecessary products on us. Furthermore, and more damning, by focusing on organic production, our society pays less attention to farming methods and technology advances that really could improve health, protect wildlife and ensure a consistent quality and quantity of food supply. Rather than securing our health, the illogical worship of the word ‘organic’ could be damaging us all.

My Prediction for the Canadian Election Outcome

I predict that Justin Trudeau will be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Whether he and the Liberals will form a majority or minority gubmnt, though, is up for grabs. I have a bet in this regard with my friend and colleague Salim Mansur.

I also predict the Progressive Conservatives will be lucky to win 50 seats in the October election. I agree with much of what Stephen Harper says, but at the same time I don't think he has been very persuasive or convincing. In all his pronouncements and election-year hand-outs, he sounds more like a desperate Paul Martin (who was a losing Liberal leader) than a confident Stephen Harper.

I've come to these predictions because I'm impressed with the way Mulcair (leader of the New Democratic Party) has been handling himself and with his continued growth in the polls (see this), and I see a large number of people who are impressed with the views and leadership potential of Justin Trudeau (leader of the Liberal Party).

Right now the NDP seem to be leading in the polls, but I doubt that lead will translated in to a majority gubmnt. The major question I have about my prediction is whether the NDP or the Liberals will form the next gubmnt, especially if neither party wins a strong plurality of the seats.

Either way, look for more disastrous gubmnt intervention in the economy, distorting incentives and inhibiting economic growth.

What Did China Devalue?

You read or hear that recently China devalued its currency, but just what did they devalue: was it the yuan or was it the renminbi?

The answer is yes..... or both.

The yuan is the primary denomination of China's currency, which is officially called the renminbi. As this site says,

Renminbi — abbreviated RMB — is the formal term most often used by Chinese officialdom to refer to the currency. ... Literally, it means “People’s Currency.”  But it’s a too stuffy for everyday use. “No one says RMB,” Cheng Li, a senior fellow at Brookings told MarketBeat.

It seems... there’s not a really good equivalent to renminbi in American English, maybe something like “legal U.S. tender.” Yuan is renminbi, just like the dollar is legal U.S. tender — but so are dimes, nickels and quarters.

The yuan is the actual unit. It’s pretty much the equivalent to “dollar.” It’s more likely to be used in everyday interactions. Further down the slang spectrum is “kuai,” which is sort of like saying “a buck,” here in the states.

Speculation and THE Bomb

My guess is that Iran will have working nuclear weapons and missiles capable of "delivering" them within the next five or fewer years. (somehow using the verb "deliver" with launching a nuclear weapon cries for the use of quotation marks in my mind.)

My guess, also, is that the US and the West will do nothing more to impede this process, other than issue very strong and very meaningless proclamations and rhetoric.

I also am guessing that Israel would love to stop this but will be pressured by the West not to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.

As a result, I expect two things from Israel:

1. They will (continue to?) have bombers with nuclear warheads in the air and at the ready 24/7, prepared to annihilate Iran, or portions thereof, should Iran send any nuclear weapons to attack Israel. Iran's leaders will assume this. The only question then, is how much their religious fanaticism and hatred of Israel will overcome the presumed deterrent effect of Israel's potential retaliation. [Former students will recognize this as part of my exposition of game theory and the prisoners' dilemma. See this].
2. At the same time, with heavy assistance from the US, Israel will continue to work on its missile defense shield. The shield has been at best only partially successful against incoming rockets from Gaza, and it must be perfected to protect Israel from the possibility of incoming nuclear missiles from Iran (or elsewhere?).

What if bombers in the air and a missile shield don't deter Iran?

• In anticipation of this possibility, Israel could launch a pre-emptive strike [a la 1967]. It worked against Iraq later, too. For some reason I expect Israel would be VERY reluctant to do this, but I wouldn't rule it out.
• Alternatively, Israel could have a good enough missile shield system in place that they could intercept the missile over Iran (or Iraq or Syria). Despite fairly compelling evidence to the contrary, Iran (and others surely) would claim that Israel launched the weapon. Sadly this lie would be believed by too many Israelphobes.

My major hope is that the threat of mutual annihilation will deter the outbreak of a nuclear war in the middle east. I'm not entirely optimistic, though. Sometimes information is imperfect, sometimes errors in reasoning are made, and sometimes determination and beliefs affect decisions in unbelievable ways.

In Praise of Bandwagon-Jumpers

About 25 years ago, I wrote a column "In Praise of Fairweather Fans". Unfortunately, I can no longer find it; otherwise I would just link to it.

With the way the Trono Blue Jays are playing these days, Blue Jay fans are coming out of the woodwork. Like many fans, I love watching their games when they win. And when they are losing, I start checking to see what else is on tv or start spending more time on the internet or (gasp!) reading a book.

We are Jays fans, but we are certainly anything but die-hard fans. We watch more, and we buy more memorabilia for our children, grandchildren, and great grandchild when the Jays are winning.

Actually, I don't have all that much respect for die-hard fans. I see no reason to support mediocrity or worse. I think all fans should be fairweather fans. [Dare I say, unlike Trono Maple Laugh Leaf fans who seem to keep going to Leaf games no matter what!].

Furthermore, die-hard fans owe a huge vote of thanks to the bandwagon jumpers. We are the ones who provide the big incentive for teams to get better; we are the ones who provide the big incentive for teams to win. Without us, the teams would have markedly diminished incentive to improve, to win.

I see very little value in being loyal to a team. If they don't produce, there is no good reason to support them. I feel the same way about nearly all producers of goods and services: if they don't produce high quality goods and services at reasonable prices, I'm less interested in patronizing them. If I were a loyal fan or loyal customer, they don't have to pay attention to me.

With these thoughts in mind, I was thrilled to see this sign outside one of our favourite restaurants, The Blu Duby, yesterday:

I love their honesty and I love their implied understanding of the basic economics tenet, "People respond to incentives."

Central Control and Generics vs the Value of Choice

When I was an undergraduate nearly 97 years ago, I had a professor [Ada M. Harrison] who opined that we didn't really need all those different brands of toothpaste or bar soap. I questioned her assertion, suggesting that consumers like choice and value different flavours, smells, textures, and packaging. She essentially poo-pooed this thought. She was a brilliant professor, probably the best professor I had in economics as an undergraduate. And yet she had this notion that variety and consumer choice is somehow somewhat wasteful.

She got her PhD from Harvard/Radcliffe, though, so I guess it's all understandable.

The elitist centralist interventionists of this world tend to downplay the value consumers attach to choice and variety.

E.g. Bernie Sanders, as is emphasized in this meme that has circulated on Facebook [via Leon Drolet and Tom Palmer]:

She and my other profs at Carleton College also poo-pooed Hayek's Road to Serfdom. They really needed to read and study more F.A. Hayek,

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Related articles

7 F.A Hayek Quotes to Make You Go Full Austrian

Time to Serious Up

Four months ago I had reached my goal weight of 160lbs [see this] and promptly began celebrating. I continued to celebrate for four months, making great use of the hashtag #carbsbedamned on Facebook.

By this past weekend, after our fun anniversary celebration watching the Jays at Rogers Centre and "lunching" up the CN Tower, I had gained over ten pounds in four months. I had begun eating more desserts, more popcorn, more potatoes, more restaurant nachos, more pizza, and more bread --- tonnes more carbs overall.

Well, it's time to face reality and cut down on the carbs again. More cheese and pepperettes as snacks, and less popcorn. More veggies and fewer potatoes. Fewer nachos 8-(. More pasta specials, "without the pasta." Less ice cream. More burgers without the bun.

No more pizza for awhile (well.... not very often anyway), and again no Dairy Queen Blizzards until I get back down to my goal.

With renewed determination, I need to resist the bread basket in restaurants. And for awhile at least, no more Tim Hortons Nutella donuts 8-(  .

And, of course, definitely more scotch, less wine, and less cider. [scotch has zero carbs!]

I'm a Seenager

Sent by Ms Eclectic's cousin:

I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 50 years later.

I don’t have to go to school or work. 

I get an allowance (pensions).

I have my own pad.

I don’t have a curfew.

I have a driver’s licence and my own car.

I have ID that gets me into bars and the Beer Store.

The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant.

And I don’t have acne.

Life is great.

I Find It Really Difficult To Believe the War on Drugs Passes Any Reasonable Cost-Benefit Test

Especially marijuana.

From Wonkblog at The Washington Post,

Wonkblog

Sheriffs are asking for armored trucks to wage war on marijuana.

Yes, really.

By Christopher Ingraham August 11 at 7:30 AM  

Police officers in Mason City, Iowa, get a look at the department's new mine resistant-ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle on loan from the Department of Defense on Monday, April 14, 2014. (AP Photo/The Globe Gazette, Arian Schuessler)

If you're going to wage war on drugs, you need to be outfitted like a warrior.

That seems to be the rationale behind hundreds of police department requests for armored trucks submitted to the Pentagon between 2012 and 2014. The requests, unearthed in a FOIA request by Mother Jones magazine, shed light on how the war on drugs has directly contributed to the militarization of local police forces in recent years.

Police departments can request surplus military gear from the Pentagon through the Department of Defense's 1033 program, which doles outhundreds of millions of dollars in military goods to cops each year. Theequipment includes everything from underwear to office equipment to armored combat vehicles. After Ferguson, when images of local cops training assault rifles on peaceful protestors from atop armored trucks flooded the airwaves, the program has come under increasing scrutiny.

The Mother Jones investigation focuses on requests for armored combat vehicles, arguably the most iconic piece of police military equipment in the post-Ferguson era. Among the requests Mother Jones obtained, the most frequently-cited rationale for needing an armored vehicle was drugs: "Fully a quarter of the 465 requests projected using the vehicles for drug enforcement," the investigation found. By contrast, police departments rarely cited hostage situations, terrorist attacks or armed gunmen as rationale for obtaining the trucks.

At least seven departments explicitly cited marijuana in their vehicle requests, tying pot with methamphetamines for the drug that shows up most often in the documents. In 2012, Sheriff Tom Bosenko of Shasta County, Calif.,requested two armored tactical vehicles to be "used during apprehension of suspects in both Marijuana eradications and during high risk search warrant service for drug offenders."

In 2013, the Sheriff of Sumter County, Fl., requested one armored vehicle partly because his office had located "several marijuana grows both indoors and outdoors" in Sumter County. Here's how other departments wanted to wage war on pot from the gun turret of an armored truck:

 

Haters Gonna Hate

As regular readers of EclectEcon know, I sometimes "nose" deer-warning signs by putting a 2" diameter circle of red reflector tape on the nose of the deer on the sign. E.g.,

Most people I know seem to get a kick out of seeing the signs after the signs have been "nosed". Because of this positive feedback, I willingly take the time and risk the possible penalties for nosing the signs.

There is a section of Highway 7, though, between Stratford and St.Mary's, Ontario, where someone keeps removing the noses from the deer-warning signs.

Removing the noses is not easy work. The adhesive is tough 3M adhesive, made for multi-year all-weather use.

Why would anyone go to such lengths to take away the joy my progeny and I are so willing to share with other travelers? We have nosed deer signs elsewhere, and the noses have stayed in place for years, much to the enjoyment of people who see them.

And so, once again, yesterday I made the journey and the effort to re-nose some of the deer signs along highway 7. And I will likely do more on the weekend.

But meanwhile, what kind of curmudgeon does it take to remove (and/or order the removal of) those noses. Petty para-bureaucrats with no love of life and living?

Joyless farghin' iceholes, if you ask me.

"Haters gonna hate" was the phrase that leapt to mind.

 

Cut Fossil Fuel Subsidies

From Bjorn Lomborg's page on Facebook:

The United Arab Emirates just cut its fossil fuel subsidies significantly following the lead of countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, who have also managed to cut their subsidies.

That means less pollution, lower CO2-emissions and not least more money for more important areas such as health and education.

In its most recent report, the International Energy Agency estimates that the world spends $548 billion a year subsidizing fossil fuels. That’s $548 billion that could have been spent much better.

For the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, an expert panel including several Nobel Laureate economists found that phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels is one of the smartest things the world should focus on over the next 15 years.

The economists estimate that every dollar spent (you still need to help the most vulnerable to energy access) will create benefits for society and the environment of more than $15. The billions of dollars that governments save from phasing out fossil fuel subsidies could be spent on providing better health, education and nutrition, which could benefit hundreds of millions of people.

Plummeting oil prices is a window of opportunity to reduce the subsidies. Other countries with heavy subsidies should also grasp at this opportunity.

More on Dubai's subsidy cuts here:
http://www.economist.com/…/21660490-emirates-move-improve-i…

My op-ed in The Globe and Mail on the topic: 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/…/its-time-…/article24002168/

The Copenhagen Consensus Center's latest research on energy: 
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consens…/energy

He made these comments on Facebook, linking to this article in The Economist. He has an excellent way of identifying the problems of opportunity costs and spin-off effects.

Cut the fossil-fuel subsidies and it reduces massive distortions and inefficiencies in the economy.

An added benefit is that cutting fossil-fuel subsidies will lead to less use of fossil fuels [the reduced subsidy to sellers shifts the supply curve to the left, leading to an increase in the equilibrium price and a reduction in the quantity demanded]. And this reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels will lead to reduced CO2 emissions and (assuming there is a relationship) reduced global warming.

"Catch a Falling Star and Put it in Your Pocket"

CBC has some information on how to maximize your chances of seeing falling stars during the Perseid meteor shower over the next few nights.

• Go someplace dark [a real problem for us urban dwellers].
• Try to catch the peak [roughly 4am on August 13th].
• Watch after midnight [may be possible for those who are nightowls or who wake during the night].
• Look to the Northeast [oops. our entire building faces WSW.]
• Be patient.

Also, see this.

Despite the fact that the odds are stacked against us, several years ago Ms. Eclectic and I sat on the balcony for a couple of hours one evening, and we both saw several shooting stars. I was thrilled because I had never seen any before.

So maybe if it isn't cloudy, rainy, or too cold on the night of the 12th, I'll consider sleeping on the balcony.

Overnight Conversion

Last week, Ms Eclectic and I were at the SkyDome Rogers Centre Marriott Renaissance Hotel to watch a couple of Trono Blue Jays baseball games. Less than an hour after the final game of the homestand, hundreds of employees began the all-night-and-longer process of transforming the field from a baseball stadium into a football stadium for the Sunday evening CFL game between the Trono Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

One crew started separating all the seams in the artificial turf so it could be removed.

I had no idea that was what they were doing since I didn't realize they use different turf for football vs baseball at Rogers Centre.

Another crew began using bucket loaders to remove the dirt from the base cutouts.

They had some pretty nifty machinery for rolling up sections of the turf.

All the black lines you can see are the black stuff that sprays up when a ball hits the turf during a baseball game, and it is all swept/vacuumed up. We noticed none of it sprays up during a football game.

In these photos, you can see the empty metal spools onto which the turf is rolled. You can also see the rolls of turf, which were moved individually to some area under the left-centrefield seats.

In the photo below we now see some groups of seats. These later became field/ground-level seating for the football configuration.

The green paint on the concrete shows where the movable permanent stadium seats will be aligned, and you can even see the tracks the seating sections are moved along.

I had trouble sleeping all night because I found watching the conversion so fascinating.

I'm not sure how well these photos show the stairway directly behind homeplate. The stadium seating splits right in the middle of that stairway and is swung around to the sides to form better sightlines with football seating.

If you look carefully at the pitching mound in the photo below, you can see it is about 5 feet or so below the surface of the turf. There is a hydraulic mechanism that raises and lowers the mound.

As the sun was rising, the dugouts and pitching mound had been removed and filled in,  and most of the outside turf had been removed. The dugouts are just sitting at the bottom of the photo. This photo (below) shows the seam in the stairway where the field-level seats divide.

In this next photo, seats down the first-base line (left side of the photo) have been slid over toward the football configuration. It is almost in position; the final position is shown by the green paint on the concrete.

Right near where the visitors' dugout had moved, there's a small(ish) white vehicle. It's the sweeper/vacuum that sweeps up all the black particles and other debris left on the concrete.

This next photo shows the dugouts waiting to be moved, the turf rollers working on the centre square of turf, and the seats along the 3rd base line rotated to the football configuration.

The yellow vehicle at the bottom of the photo has a long projection at the front, making it look xiphias-like. The folks driving those units (there were some orange ones, too) have good aim and insert the pole into the spools of turf to move the turf.

Here is another view, below, showing both sections of the seating moved to the sides, making way for the endzone seating.

Also, the roof is partially closed, and all the base cutouts have been filled in and covered.

And they are starting to move the football turf into location. It took them forever to get it located properly which, when you think about it, makes sense --- that first piece must be put down in exactly the right place so that all the others line up properly, too.

Finally, they began to unroll the first roll of football turf. But unfortunately then we had to check out to catch our train back to London.

Overall, what a neat thing to watch.

And then, after the football game, they had to do it all over again in reverse to get the field ready for the next Blue Jays home game on Tuesday evening. What a lot of work! What a costly setup. But it was oh, so intriguing.

Note: I was tempted to title this post "Overnight Sensation".

Unsolicited Email from a Wannabe UWO Student

Subject line: Eager registrant whom contacted Western University in winter, currently Juggernaut student attempting to add to your finance program.

About once every 2-3 months, I receive an unsolicited letter from someone who would like to study at The University of Western Ontario. Often the letter is from someone hoping to do graduate work in economics and asking if I have some funding I can provide (all this despite my having been emeritus for five years).

The letter received by many of us earlier this week beats all the previously received letters.  It is reproduced in full below (with the sender's name and some personal information deleted). A few spots each year should be reserved for applicants like this one, just to see what happens.

Background: The UWO sports teams are known as "The Mustangs", and Amit Chakma referred to in the email is the UWO president [see this and this].

 

 To all of my future acquaintances that this does concern,

 

Firstly, thank you, you are an elite group at an elite school and time cannot be wasted. My name is Xxxxx X. Xxxxxx, I am zzzzz years old, proud of my name, and I am from [EE: some other city in Canada]. I enrolled at YYYYY University during the 2014-2015 academic season and now I am currently enrolled in reputable university preparatory courses. These courses include Intro to General Chemistry(XXXXX University), physics(YYYYY University), and precalculus-plus(YYYYY University).

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

  During the 2014-2015 academic year I incurred excusable academic issues which I have now been advised with positive outlook by career counselling to have used as reason clear my unsavory academic transcript. It is all a complete excuse and i'm going to use that excuse in order to attain my CFA at a copiously reputable school. I have decided I want to become a chartered financial analyst after my first year of political science, within this year I explored capitalism and realized the most comfortable fit for me within this political system is to understand the methods in which all political power is obtained.

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

  I grew in love with the mysterious aura an outstandingly non-ordinary essence of investing when I began reading a large amount of books to stay on a scholastic path during my time off last year. Teach yourself Investing with 24 easy lessons was my first book on the topic. It was so utterly hilarious how many times they suggested I go ahead and invest after chapter 13, 15, or whichever it may have been. To truly attack the stock markets you need to be bred to challenge wolves. Benjamin Graham's intelligent investor as suggested by Warren Buffet was necessary, Think and Grow Rich is surely a major building block of a financially optimized mindset as well. I read somewhere around 15 books on the topic, one repeating name on many informative reads was "Peter Lynch".

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

  PWC is a reputable corporation which released a report in February 2015 http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/the-economy/assets/world-in-2050-february-2015.pdf, this report projected China's GDP to land around sixty to seventy trillion and the United State's GDP to land around thirty to forty trillion in 2050. Afterwards ETF's such as IShares MSCI China Small-Cap returned upwards of 30% in a span of three months. This was my first broad view of the method of investing, how intricate, and based on many variables it truly can be. 

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

  Through my search for a degree I liked I chose initially engineering due to the fact it produces most millionaires.Thus I am currently finishing up a nine hour study session of physics and sending along this email. I am completely capable of attending a fantastic engineering school, XXXXX University for Mineral Resource engineering, or attending ZZZZZ for financial engineering. That being said, I enjoy business and I believe my life would be absolutely perfect at what is in my opinion the best school in Canada, Western University, as researched and suggested by close friends. I have researched Western University extensively, I know it is all it's hyped up to be, and [EE: personal information deleted].

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

  I am the most serious, determined, focused, and outright dedicated student you could receive. I may not arrive perfect, but obedience after obedience is how you perfect something, how you become successful. If some magical, and it would be magical I must say, if through a magical way I was able to be enrolled for September into your first entry DAN school, then move on to my specialization in finance or possibly entrepreneurship, I would literally fall out of my seat into a puddle of utter infinitesimal joy. I haven't currently been able to gather means to apply to the OUAC or I would have an application in, I often walk across the city to the library to prepare for my current path which is engineering in September. If given the thumbs up by any faculty at Western University, the best university in Canada, to apply and have a great chance of acceptance, I would send you along a biography, a resume, and agree to clean the halls for fifty hours a week to begin in September.

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

 My high school average lies somewhere around 72%, that being said I by August 20th have three exceptional marks in physics, chemistry, and pre-calculus, which were very condensed and add credibility. I also believe my IQ to be somewhere among the top 10% of your students and guarantee you the only thing accepting me on such whim would do to any of you is give you a really feeling. I will enter every classroom looking for the alpha student and competing with them, I will join any society I can and hopefully prepare myself to work within an investment bank, or at least gain the financial literacy to pursue my own company without economic downfall. Goldman Sachs workers probably had to impress, and so I have to impress. Give me this chance and you will likely read about it in a book someday, I kid you not I have had my physics teacher this summer suggest to me to write one.

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 I am an intelligent investor and i'm asking anyone who has been so outrageously courteous as to read this far to be one themselves. Invest your time and a bit of effort to gain a premier student, you will turn an unsure world into a wonderland, yes school as a wonderland, and I apologize if i'm being too wordy but the words that would come out of my mouth if accepted are insurmountable and so I must give insight. Western University, the decision is yours, if i'm accepted to Goldman Sachs I will send diagnostics of the trajectory back as they say in physics.

(GO MUSTANGS!)(SALUTE PRESIDENT AMIT CHAKMA)

 

Western University, honorable faculty members, thank you for reading, please inform me of any possibility to turn myself into the most fully agile student I could ever become. Your school will prepare me for things of a substantial magnitude.

 

Sincerely,

Xxxxx X. Xxxx

The Minimum Wage and Unemployment

Some years ago a student told me about a Socionomology prof who opined that raising the minimum wage wouldn't cut employment. "How many burger-flippers can you lay off?" he asked.

My response to the student was along the lines presented here.

When the minimum wage is raised above the equilibrium wage rate, employers look for ways to substitute capital for labour. In the fast-food industry, there have been loads of substitutions over the past 50+ years that I'm aware of since I worked at a McDonalds.

The fries are prepared offsite now, the cheese is sliced offsite, the burgers are pre-formed offsite, the milkshakes are made differently, computers are used to record the orders and calculate the amount due, etc.

In general there are two forms of substitution that take place:

1. More capital and less labour are used on site.
2. More inputs are produced offsite using more capital-intensive methods of production. Another prime example comes from Tim Hortons donuts. They used to be mixed and formed on site. But over a decade ago, Tim Hortons made the decision to make their donuts in factories at central locations and to ship them to the local outlets. More capital, less labour per donut.

But here is another type of substitution:

As the wages for unskilled and semi-skilled labour go up and the costs of production go up, the prices of food at fast-food restaurants goes up. Consequently, over time, people begin to buy less fast food than they otherwise would from fast-food outlets and more from the freezer sections of their supermarkets.

The capital-labour substitution that takes place doesn't occur just at the fast-food outlets. It occurs in people's homes as they acquire bigger freezers and more microwave ovens to quickly prepare frozen dinners and snacks. And it occurs in food-preparation factories where zillions of dollars worth of capital are used with very little labour to prepare all the frozen dinners, frozen snacks, etc. that are now available.

This point is in addition to the one made recently by Tim Worstall, in this column,

The basic point being that Card and Krueger studied the capital intensive part of the food industry, not the industry as a whole. ...

... [T]hey are very specifically recording the reaction of chain restaurants to the change in the minimum wage. They have no data, nothing, from the Mom and Pop stores that make up the subs, meatballs and deli sector. And I think we’ll all agree that the two are very close substitutes for each other in terms of consumer demand. However, they’re also quite different in terms of the labour and or capital that they use as inputs. The chain restaurants are hugely more mechanised: the Mom and Pops rely a great deal less on capital and a great deal more on labour. So, we would expect a change in the relative prices of labour and capital (which is of course what a rise in the minimum wage is) to have different effects on the two sectors. That change in relative prices means that we would expect to see a decline in the size of the labour intensive sector and an increase in the size of the capital intensive one.

 

Related articles

The Minimum Wage and Unemployment among Minority Teens

Two Good Pieces on the Minimum Wage

Why The Card And Krueger Paper On Minimum Wages Rises And Unemployment Is Wrong

Considering Paul Krugman's Remarkable Statement About The Minimum Wage

More on the Spiralizer

Nearly two months ago, on a whim we bought a kitchen gadget called a "Spiralizer". As my Facebook friends know from all the photos I have posted, we have used the Spiralizer quite a bit and for the most part are more than pleased with it. [see this and this].

Over these two months, we have spiralized zucchini, eggplant, broccoli stems, onions, and potatoes. Our most recent adventure involved broccoli stems.

When we first got the contraption, we used it for potatoes and onions. They were fabulous. Mostly we use it for zucchini and onions, and we love them done with a spiralizer. And now that we have tried broccoli stems, we have another way to enjoy broccoli.

Here are the pluses:

• The spiralizer works really well with most foods.
• It is fun to use.
• The resulting noodles are impressive.
• Many of the noodles have excellent taste and consistency (I wasn't quite so thrilled with the eggplant noodles - see below).
• Clean-up is pretty easy. We just rinse off the parts and let them air dry.

The cons:

• Eggplant is the only thing we have tried with the Spiralizer that didn't work out very well. The texture of eggplant is too fragile and coarse to work; the eggplant kept crumbling and falling apart.
• The Spiralizer doesn't spiralize the entire piece of vegetable. It leaves a "core" and an end piece about 3/8" thick [see the above photo]. I can see from the product design why this happens, and I don't mind cutting up the remnants.
• You have to make sure the back end of the vegetable is cut square. Otherwise it just gets ripped up by the teeth that are supposed to hold it in place. Of course once you figure this out, it is easy to do.

Friends tell me a similar device is available at Walmart. But if you want to order one from Amazon, please use this link: spiralizer

 

Politicians Hate You

Wise words from P.J. O'Rourke:

All politicians hate people. Politics is a way to gain power over people without justification for having that power. Nothing in the 11,000-year history of politics—going back to the governing elites of Mesopotamia—indicates that politicians are wiser, smarter, kinder, more moral, or better skilled at any craft (aside from politics) than we are.

But political rulers need the acquiescence of the ruled to slake the craving for power. Politicians hate you the way a junkie hates junk.

Related articles

P.J. O'Rourke on Mike Huckabee

Dear voters: Democrats hate your guts

"Politics Is a Scam"

There Is a Club to Help Me with my Problem

 

For reference, my Shakespeare problem is set out here.

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Well at Least I Wouldn't Struggle to Learn My Lines....

Desertion on Civic Holiday

This weekend is "Civic Holiday" weekend in Ontario. Monday is an official holiday.

Many people plan short holidays, trips to the cottage, family get-togethers, etc. during the Civic Holiday weekend.

Apparently most of our neighbours have deserted the parking garage, as Ms Eclectic ably demonstrates:

Related articles

What's open, what's closed for the Civic Holiday

What is open and closed on the holiday Monday

Sherlock in Eastbourne

There's a new Sherlock Holmes film out that was filmed mostly in East Sussex: Hailsham, Eastbourne, etc.

It doesn't have Benedict Cumberbatch in it, but I still want to see it (and Ian McKellen is no one to disparage).

Here [via Kath] is a photo of an article about the film:

Related articles

Ian McKellen Redefines Our Dear "Mr. Holmes"

McKellen plays 'Mr. Holmes' like you've never seen him