Author Archive
Blogging for the inverterately lazy
Hello, to my now single reader. (I still think it’s my mom…)
Anyway, I’ve obviously not got my act together to blog like Megan McArdle, and as I’m thinking more and more, argue like Don Boudreaux (of whom I am enough of a fanboy to recently buy donboudreauxismyhero.com after seeing some sympatico from Steven Landsburg and [...]
Hiatus
I just wanted to let my loyal fans (yes there are now two) know that I haven’t been killed in a freak gasoline fight accident. Over the past few weeks kids, holidays, work and work have overwhelmed my time making me incapable of acheiving my goal of blogging like Megan McArdle.
Over the next coupla weeks [...]
Counter-cyclical demand watch #1
So we’re in a recession, and in a recession people tend to buy less of most everything. That is unless you’re dealing with inferior goods. So what’s been shown to be economic inferior goods lately?
Pasta. From a post to Curious Capitalist you can learn about the Pasta Index and the currently fabulous fortunes of the [...]
Alberta government continues with vague economic pronouncements
From the Canadian Press comes the announcement that the Alberta Government feels that it has the oilsands problem figured, since they announced that they have a 20 year plan. Directly from the Canadian Press:
The report says the energy industry should be required “to use best available technology” that is “economically achievable.” The fine print doesn’t [...]
Half or double - Alberta government employee salaries
Straight out of See, comes an article describing expectations for the new sitting of the Alberta Legislature. Tucked in near the bottom of the article is a paragraph describing a move by Harry Chase:
Social Workers: Harry Chase, the Liberal MLA for Calgary-Varsity, is calling for a review of the wages for social workers or other [...]
Strange names likely screw with your kid’s future
Do unusual names really affect future outcomes for your children? A study out of the States by David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee - First Names and Crime: Does Unpopularity Spell Trouble? - suggests that this might be true.
Their objective in the study:
We investigate the relationship between first name popularity and juvenile delinquency to [...]
Economic experience in formative years affects adult attitudes
In a paper entitled Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk-Taking? (PDF) Ulrike Malmendier and Stefan Nagel try to determine what effect the larger economic environment during childhood has on adult economic decision making. They lead in with the idea that people are biased and will incorporate all available historical data from their experience. From [...]
Deep sleep enhances memory
It’s a truism that getting a good night will help you function better the next day, but a study by out of Holland done by Ysbrand van der Werf and his colleagues, published in Nature Neuroscience, explicitly shows effects of differing types and amount of sleep. Most clearly they show that uninterrupted deep sleep greatly [...]
Stay grumpy and you’ll have a more realistic worldview…
A 2008 paper out of Australia, entitled “Can bad weather improve your memory? An unobtrusive field study of natural mood effects on real-life memory” attempts to show the effects of mood on subjects ability to recall items recently seen in a shop.
Using weather as a proxy for mood, what they found was those who were [...]
White guys do not look all alike…
Catching up child development and behaviour related articles that I’ve seen and read over the past few weeks.
A study was recently published by Sophie Labrecht, Lara J. Pierce, Michael J. Tarr and, James W. Tanaka, from Brown University and the University entitled “Perceptual Other-Race Training Reduces Implicit Racial Bias“. The team attempted to:
…examine the relationship [...]
Thailand training tax incentives and unintended consequences
Recently in Thailand they passed an amendment to the tax code that I received as a note from our Smiling Albino accountant. In that note they said:
Please also note, that in line with Government Policy, with regard to educational seminars, you are entitled to deduct 200% as a company expense.
My gut said that it was [...]
Alberta Gov’t incentive “plan” sounds economically illiterate
As many of you know, there has been lots of recent discussion about Alberta’s competitive advantage compared to other regimes in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basic (WCSB), and other jurisdictions. Recently, a few reports have suggested that Alberta is the highest cost region in the highest cost basin in the world right now. There are [...]
Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy
If you have any interest in the writings of Adam Smith and see his name and works seemingly quoted in the press, you really should take a peak at Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy. Gavin Kennedy, a prof out of the UK, does an excellent job deconstructing and critically evaluating the general misuse, misunderstanding and misquoting [...]
Top 5 things I’d like to see Obama do
These are more pet issues that the world saving ideas that top other lists, but they’d make a significant difference in America and in it’s sphere of influence.
1. Trade with Cuba
The trade embargo has allowed a despot to drive his country into abject poverty, and kill thousands. Trade will increase - and would have increased [...]
Why the federal budget is poorly conceived…
Ok, ok, ok. I know it’s late and this topic has been pundited to death, but I figured I should throw my two dollars in here.
The Canadian Federal Government recently (last week) brought down the new budget. In it there seemed to be something for everyone, and like in the US it’ll take us, federally, [...]
Alberta royalties miss the point…
While there are a variety of other issues at play it seems that the Fair Share plan, since changed to the New Royalty Framework and most recently rebadged as the Alberta Royalty Framework, isn’t doing much to improve the prospects of the oil industry.
It’s like no-one pictured oil at less than $50/bbl when the Stelmach [...]
Children and early schooling effects
A couple of articles from the Berkley Electronic Press present some narrow but interesting things about child development.
Maria D. Fitzpatrick suggests:
For disadvantaged children residing in small towns and rural areas, Universal Pre-K availability increases both reading and mathematics test scores at fourth grade as well as the probability of students being on-grade for their age.
But [...]
Holiday medical myths
An article posted on the BMJ site clears up a few myths peripherally related to the holidays, including:
Sugar causes hyperactivity in children
Suicides increase over the holidays
Poinsettia toxicity
Excess heat loss in the hatless
The first I’ve known for a while, but it’s refreshing to have a few more tidbits available for debate when the need arises.
In a [...]
Children have innate numeracy
A excellent article from the Economist describes a variety of studies - but primarily one by Brian Butterworth - that show that the ability to count, or more simply, the ability to recognize the number differences in small collections of objects is built in. From Dr. Butterworth’s paper:
Here, using classical methods of developmental psychology, we [...]
All the financial crisis blather is making economics reading boring…
We need more challenging and entertaining stuff like these (mostly from the recent AEA conference):
Dwight R Lee’s article entitled Should Government Reduce Inequality in Life Spans? with such swell quotes as:
Government transfers to reduce the gender gap in life expectancy would do little more than reduce improvements in both women’s and men’s life expectancies. For [...]
AC/DC efficiency research presented at the AEA
After publishing his mock economics paper, then having the joke missed entirely during a (mini-)rant by Steven Levitt (who later apologized), Robert J. Oxoby of the University of Calgary has reached a new height with the presentation of his paper - entitled ON THE EFFICIENCY OF AC/DC: BON SCOTT VERSUS BRIAN JOHNSON - to the [...]
Global warming duds…
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy represented an article from the Melbourne Herald Sun entitled Top 10 Dud Global Warming Predictions.
While I would rank myself as a skeptic of global warming, especially of the histrionic man-bear-pig Al Gore variety, articles like this entertain me for reasons other than the debunking.
Global Warming, or Climate Change as [...]
Surprise! More competition serves consumers…
From a paper entitled How does access regulation affect broadband penetration?, the authors do a study trying to determine the type of regulation that provides for the highest acceptance of broadband internet access.
They compare three regulatory regime styles that in turn allow for:
single technology where resellers sell the same thing
single technology where resellers also can [...]
Madoff’s con won’t be fixed by regulations…
…only by improved personal responsibility.
To put things very simply, it wasn’t a lack of regulations that let Madoff run his scheme for as long as he did.
What allowed him to evade prosecution by current laws was merely a lack of due dilligence on the part of the investors in his “fund”. While most investments take [...]
Bush was a freemarket leader?
Since the market crash that followed the cratering of the property market in the US and elsewhere, many people have been shouting that this cratering proves that capitalism and markets don’t work. The contol-the-world types of both ends of the spectrum have trotted this one out, often for political expediency, but mostly because they seem [...]
Starting up again…
So I’ve actually been nagged by my loyal reader again and have decided to shake off the holiday blahs and get back into this effluent that I call “writing”.
Over the holidays betwixt events and Events and the like I worked my way throughsafer loads of TV and movies and had the chance to read through, [...]
US still hates gays…
In an unsurprising - and selfish - move the United States has decided that it should still have to right to criminalize the mere existence of homosexuality. The reason the US delegation put forward for not supporting the declaration is that as the federal government they are not legally aloud to contravene laws of individual [...]
More clueless bureaucrats in the UK
Given the recent lack of posts making fun of UK bureacrats I’ve decided to do an omnibus edition to catch up. Here is a round up of pettiness from the past two weeks.
The Hampshire County Council decided that the tinsel adorning the stop sign of a lollipop man should be removed in case it distracts [...]
Why you shouldn’t trust forecasts…
…but, you need them anyway. A simple example showing why financial market forecasts aren’t worth much except in terms of historical forensics.
Recently TD Bank suggests that oil prices will be 30USD in the 2nd quarter of 2009.
In their prior forecast they suggested that the price would be closer to 45USD.
In a report on agriculture from [...]
Terrorism and lessons from Dubai
Short post since all the good content is on Bruce Schneier’s site.
In the latest Cryptogram, Bruce Schneier puts together 3 short articles on things we should keep in mind after the terror attacks in Mumbai. My favorites are:
Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats — terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our [...]
Economic Manhattan Project or simple creative destruction?
In the latest Edge newsletter is an article proposing and discussing an economic Manhattan Project where a group of good scientists would get together and “solve” the current economic crisis. On the surface this doesn’t sound completely bad when the initial description is:
The economic crisis has to be stabilized immediately. This has to be carried [...]
US Libertarians demonstrate why they are unelectable
An article titled The Left-Libertarian vs. Right-Libertarian Controversy is a clear example the kind nitpicking that makes the US libertarian movement marginal.
Libertarianism is generally defined as individualism, with clear property rights and minimal (but not zero) government - and is clearly an antonym of authoritarianism. A pretty simple definition. Getting into the line between left [...]
New Toronto trash service offers higher incentive to cheat
In caring, kind Toronto, if you want your garbage picked up, you need to place it in city mandated grey bins or you need to have it labelled with city-issued garbage tags. If neither of these is done, you can’t expect your trash to be collected. Additionally home owners must pay according to the volume [...]
Further apologies
Again, I feel particularly bad that I’ve been neglectful of my postings. Mostly I want to apologize to my loyal reader (who I suspect is either my mother or my wife, or maybe even a guy I work with). I’ll try to get my act together and do some serious muckraking over the next coupla [...]
Che Guevara was a murdering thug
Reason TV published a video about the celebrity impact of Che Guevara juxtaposing it with interviews by a Cuban-in-exile musician and a Chinese basketball player who played during Mao’s tenure.
The clearest point made in the segment is that people seem to very comfortable wearing clothing of mass murderers as long as they’re the communist brand [...]
Marking with red is aggressive
Queensland state government has published educational changes that pointedly suggest marking with red pen is aggressive and may harm the fragile egos of children. In addition to marking with more subdued colours, such as blue or black (likely to be culled for racist overtones), the guide also includes mandated peer reviewing and tutoring - of [...]
Alberta Liberals marginalize themselves for another 5 years
The results are in. The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) has again chosen to be sidelined in Alberta politics with the recent selection of Dr. David Swann as the new party leader. A real opportunity was lost by not selecting his primary opponent Dave Taylor whose passion is to bring the party more to the centre [...]
iPhone proving itself out as a real computing platform
I got an email from a friend of mine last week that showed a new app for the iPhone. I’ve been slightly resistant to portable computing platforms as I’ve played with Blackberries in the past and am a current owner of a Nokia N800 - both of which a reasonable cool, epsecially the resolution on [...]
Canadians less likely to dole out bribes
Transparency International just released their Bribe Payers Index this week. It tracks the perceived propensity of various nationalities to pay bribes in foreign countries. The rankings are determined by polling almost three thousand executives from around the world with questions like:
How often do firms headquartered in (country name) engage in bribery in this country?
Basic stats:
Canada [...]
UK: Welcome mats are health and safety risk
A recent Telegraph story tells of the local council in Gosport deciding that residents of council flats who have welcome mats outside their doors are quite possibly causing safety problems. Not only this, but some renters have been threatened with legal action if they don’t remove the mats. This was opposed by some senior local [...]
Disincenting everyone is a poor policy idea
I stumbled across this book by Daniel Raventos distributed by the University of Michigan Press. In it Mr. Raventos suggests that everyone should have, freely available, a subsistence income with no strings attached. He supports this idea with these perceived benefits:
Anyone could opt out of employment at any time. Those with few skills would no [...]
Alberta Liberal Party election watch
So the Alberta Liberal Party has 2 days left to vote to determine who the next leader will be to take on the perenially powerful Tories.
I’ve been lucky enough to be on the mailing lists of the three leadership hopefuls, and policy statements and positions have been showing up regularly. None of the information I’ve [...]
Beer ordering gestures studied
A couple of researchers out of the U of A, Elena Nicoladis and Paula Marentette, along with Simone Pika out of Manchester did a study of gestures that various cultures use for ordering beer. They hypothesize:
…it should be possible to guess an individuals’ cultural origin by observing her way of counting up to ten on [...]
Change diapers often! (just in case you didn’t know)
Best study conclusion I read this past week:
Among infants wearing disposable diapers, there is an increased risk of [Urinary Tract Infection] as the frequency of changing diapers decreases.
Boy am I glad I read the study, I was getting this diaper changing thing all wrong…
addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saucecaptain.com%2F2008%2F12%2Fchange-diapers-often-just-in-case-you-didnt-know%2F’;
addthis_title = [...]
Followup to Federal Fiasco - my feelings
Since I’ve been a bit slack on my posts this past week, I missed following up on my political disaster review of last week with an entertaining and engaging blow-by-blow. Since I wrote previously, things happened roughly in this order - focusing on how generally inept Dion has handled this thing from the beginning.
Both McKenna [...]
Pay the fine before you light up inside
In Holland where the laws are much nicer to pot than to cigarettes, some bars that illegally still allow smoking have resorted to asking for a cover charge to defray eventual fines. It’s not only an interesting way to make a statement about laws that affect property rights it’s a solid economic move as well, [...]
Public schools are a must unless you’re rich
TSC points out that left-of-centre Obama is sending his kids to a private school instead of a public one. While this may be surprising to some, most left-leaning politicians with enough cash send their kids to private schools while stridently opposing anything resembling a voucher system.
This is true of most aspects of enforced public funding, [...]
Clamp down on petty infractions, but not if it’s an MP
As the CSM suggests, all the zero-tolerance, petty bureaucrats in the UK are allowed to push the citizens around, as long as it doesn’t begin to affect the lifestyles of British MPs.
Counterterrorism unit,
Officers didn’t just search the home of [MP] Damian Green – they arrested him, raided his office, and detained him for nine hours [...]
Good teeth help women in the labour market
Sherry Glied and Matthew Neidell attempt to show in a recent paper that having good teeth is an asset in the labour market.
Their study tracked the earnings of a mix of people comparing those who grew up in communities with fluoridated drinking water and those without. They came to a variety of conclusions based on [...]
Tomatoes, Weed, what’s the difference?
A crack team of constables tore apart a Scottish house after mistaking tomato plants for marijuana - explicitly stating their obvious confusion as they burst through the door.
Lulu Matheson had been growing tomatoes on her windowsills and these seemingly set the alarm bells ringing for the local police. Obviously the Northern Constabulary’s training criteria doesn’t [...]
