Friday, February 27, 2009

Academic Earth

Academic Earth is one of the coolest websites I have seen in awhile. It is a new start up from some recent Yale (I think?) graduate. Essentially, many Ivy League schools film their lectures and put them on their website. That way a student who has missed a class can watch the podcast. Some of these classes are given weak copyright protection so that someone can use and distribute the video, provided they do not exploit them for profit. Well this Yale Alum decided to collect the videos available and put them on a single website. People are able to watch videos on a variety of different subjects coming from highly regarded universities including MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Berkley. As of right now there are perhaps 100 full courses on the website but I am sure in the future there will be a lot more. There is a clear bias toward economic and political topics that is probably because the founder was a business grad. From what I have seen so far, I think that Princeton may have the best professors around; though there is a very famous physicist from MIT with videos online.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Accidental Theorist - Paul Krugman

This book is amazing. It is a little dated (at times it discusses the possibility of a European currency) but the essence of the book still rings true. The book, published after Bush's first electoral victory, discusses a myriad of issues, not the least being the folly of Reagan's supply side economics. The book comprises about 30 shorts originally written for a few American newspapers and an online newspaper called Slate. Although Krugman is no longer writing for Slate it has a list of all his previous articles. There are also many other prominent liberal academics who currently write for, or have written in the past for, Slate. Krugman attempts to discuss economic theory using plain language that is designed to be understood by lay people.
If you would like to get two birds stoned at once, that is to say read one of the essays that epitomizes his style and check out the very cool Slate magazine, do so by clicking here.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

13 year old boy dies skiing

A Korean exchange student in Toronto died while on a ski trip to Snow Valley with his school. After the accidental death of the boy it was revealed that an $8 provision on the permission slip for the rental of a helmet may have saved his life. After the fact one parent said that she assumed helmets were mandatory. Why would someone say that? It's so clearly bullshit. Who reading this wore a helmet, or saw someone wearing a helmet, when we went skiing as kids? I can't for the life of me think of ever seeing someone on a ski trip wearing a helmet. I know that with the crazy style of snowboarding that is getting popular helmets are becoming more fashionable but they are certainly not to the point that a school board would make them mandatory. These parents are probably in their late thirties or early forties and should be thinking about when they went skiing. Were ski helmets even invented when they were kids?
Further to that the school board is defending its permission form with the opt in helmet program by arguing that parents carefully read permission forms and therefore were aware of the provisions. I highly doubt this too! Did your parents sit down and read all of your forms or just ask you what it was for? Did they even ask what it was for before signing it? Nothing like tragedy to bring out the worst in people.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

$75B for the stupid and careless

President Obama just announced a new $75 billion plan to help people who would otherwise have their homes foreclosed. It would be geared toward those individuals who have a mortgage greater than the current value of their home.
I am not one to support government intervention. I think that generally the government should only use taxation in its fiscal policy. That is to say it should influence the market only as far as varying tax rates can achieve. It should only help obtain economic equality with progressive taxation. That being said I do concede that, at times, expansive policy and grants may be necessary; that is to say the least bad policy. So in that respect I do not go as far as to feel my anti-intervention beliefs are a moral imperative.
So how do I feel about this? Well I will say that I like a lot of the major Obama stimulus package. Working to increase the national capital should pay off in the long run. For example, renewing the National Defense Network, along with other infrastructure, should help America regain part of their competitive advantage. It will create construction jobs now and more permanent jobs in the future. Putting money into research for future technologies including renewable energy resources should keep America at the forefront of technological improvement. So the main stimulus plan is, generally, well designed.
But I have a hard time liking this new stimulus plan. I understand that millions of people losing their homes could have an adverse affect on the economy. Further to that it may cost even more money in welfare and homeless shelters and all of the other burden on the social safety net associated with homelessness, than to keep them in their houses. All the same this plan is essentially the same as bailing out the banks. It is rewarding the careless and stupid; those who did not save money and/or bought houses out of their means with very small down payments. It sets up a bad precedence for the future: don't worry about saving or taking care of yourself because the state helps those who screw themselves.
The banks, in theory, employ those with a strong understanding of the economy to help turn a profit. So they should have known better than to lend to anyone who wanted to borrow. Further transforming said high risk loans into low risk derivatives was not kosher. But you cannot ignore the individuals who sought out these loans. Its not as though bankers accosted people on the street with sacks of money and a repayment schedule.
Its also not entirely the Bush administrations fault on the government side. Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac were encouraged to lend to anyone who wanted to buy a house by Democrats as a way of closing the gap of the Plebs and Plutocrats (working class and investing class; stray cats and fat cats; proletariat and bourgeoisie; ad nauseum).
This is also why housing prices shot up so quickly. Basically because of a new policy from Washington, the number of potential purchasers ballooned in an instant. This excess demand increased the value of homes across America. It also led to a construction boom which has now led to an excess of residences.
This is the folly of grandiose government policies. Something as innocuous as an attempt to raise up the poor in America helps crash the global economy. What could this current policy do? Well if I were a person whose mortgage was say $X and the value of my home is $X+Y, I may be looking for a Realtor who will tell me that Y is a negative value so I qualify for some of the relief funds. This could, though fictitiously at first, drive down the value of homes even more and lead to a further loss of faith in the economy.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Mac users should be a recognized minority

Mac users should be visible minorities with all the rights afforded to other groups under constitutions and charters around the world. Our glowing apple emblems are visible from far away. When some company does not support Mac formats (like yahoo internet radio), we should be able to chant OScism. I call an for an end to the world of hate that these corporate OScist have created.
If I type,
does text not appear?
Does my battery not drain,
If no jack is near?

Friday, February 13, 2009

Revelation

Having now experienced both, I can say with some authority that the literal knife in the back is way more painful than the proverbial.
I had to have a cyst removed from my back at a Japanese hospital. First thing I noticed was the cashier. Canadians, Europeans, Australians, etc, should not call their systems universal if they do not cover everyone in the universe. I think there is an opportunity for a class action lawsuit there. I am just saying.
My stupid insurance stipulates that I have to pay in advance then wait for the money to come back to me. So along with the cystectomy, which hurt so much, I had a walletectomy which I think annoyed me even more.
Want to be scared? Let someone who doesn't speak the same language as you cut you open while you are watching. Its a bad situation because we think of doctors as the most intelligent people around. Its where the trust needed to allow them to do such things to us comes from but how can you personally gauge someone's intelligence if you cannot communicate with them. Or, worst, weakly communicate with them. In Japanese they say push for both push and pressure (oshimasu) so hearing a doctor say "now pushure" does not inspire faith.
But the operation was a resounding success so I felt better after.
On the bright side, both the nurse and doctor were hot.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Will blogging ruin my life?

I don't think so, but then this isn't a blog about my intoxicated romps and sexual conquests. Are people so naive as to think that companies won't find their blogs when they apply for a job?

Monday, February 09, 2009

Unpaid overtime affects the labour market negatively

I am not one of those people that grumble if I have to work too much. Even with my current job, which is quite easy, I regularly come in before my shift officially starts to prepare my lessons, clean the classroom and get myself organized. I also tend to stay late to catch up on my students paperwork or reply to e-mails from the higher ups. But there is a point where this becomes detrimental, not just to your own personal life but, to society as a whole.
In good economic fashion, let's assume people who are paid a salary make more than those earning an hourly wage. So, perhaps, built into the salary is some allowance for unpaid overtime. Which I think is perfectly acceptable. You should try to go above and beyond expectations to prove yourself useful to the company that hires you. Further to that you can also think of putting in extra hours as a way to differentiate yourself from your peers as the better candidate for promotion.
However, working too hard for that future career is not always wise. If you put in an extra 20-30 hours a week (without pay) to move up in the company, the raises you receive barely cover the work you have already put in. It also means your boss has an expectation that now for an even better salary you will gladly put in even more hard work. It could be a bad precedence to set.
Paid overtime is a beautiful thing. I would happily put in 70+ hours a week if I received 150% pay for all of the extra hours; at least those in excess of what is a fair expectation of a salaried employee.
In Japan overtime is rarely paid. There is an expectation that you must do 'service time' before and after every shift. It also means coming in on the weekend when the need arises. Though there is no extra pay, it is a Japanese tradition to pay a bonus equal to 1-2 months pay twice a year so it may come out in the wash. During this recession, however, it is becoming clear that a lot of corporations are forcing people to work constantly. This is effectively driving down the hourly wage below the legal minimum.
Minimum wages disrupt the labour demand making unemployment higher than it would normally be. A lot of people argue that it is a reasonable limit to insure those who are able to find work are earning a living wage. But when the overuse of unpaid overtime occurs, there is no clear winner. Marginal productivity surely falls with the increased fatigue, unemployment still rises as fewer people are taking on the workload previously spread out and employees get burnt out; not to mention career satisfaction plummets. Although unpaid overtime is strictly illegal, corporations have been unhindered in the practice. Government enforcement during these times would help bolster employment numbers and keep Japan the world leader in productivity.