The Misnomer of the Olympic Medal Count

As I write this, China and the United States each have 30 medals in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England.  China, with 17 golds, leads the standings while the USA, with 13, is on their heels; both have more gold medals than the total accumulated by the next closest team, South Korea with 6 golds and a total of 12.


Every time the Olympics roll around I can't help but be stunned by how quickly everyone turns into a macro-economist.  As always, the focus is the raw medal count, which astounds me because it tells us surprisingly little about a nation's real success.

Aggregates are really unimportant here; instead we should be looking a variety of relative measures.  Take a look at Fig 1; China, Russia and the US have fewer medals per person than the other nations on the list, which is quite interesting. Inherently these nations should have more elite athletes simply because they have larger populations.  (Consider that though only a limited number of athletes qualify for the Olympics; China, for example, trains tens of thousands of athletes at elite camps in hopes of having them qualify.)  Assuming the percentage of potential elite athletes per person is fairly constant across geography, this suggests that elite athletes in smaller countries have a better chance at international success relative to their large-nation peers.

Fig 1.  Major Olympic Countries: populations and medal counts

(A technical note:  Some people like to look at medals per athlete, but this perspective has two problems.  1) It will overstate a nation's success because of athletes competing in multiple events. This can be solved by treating each event as a "separate athlete", thereby increasing the denominator and displaying a medal-attempt ratio.  This unfortunately understates the value of a prolific athlete; sometimes you come across what I call the Michael Phelps effect.  7 Medals in one games is beyond extraordinary, and would overstate a nation's expected performance.  2) The Olympic athletes all have to qualify, but there are limits to the number  of competitors each team can send.  China may well have 180 Olympic caliber swimmers for the 100m freestyle, but only a handful can go, and they may not all be the best (politics and luck during trials obviously play a part.)  The notion of medals per athlete feels like it should be tidy, but leaves a lot to be explained and questioned.)



I feel I should take a moment to draw attention to one of the few media talking points worth thinking about.  When it comes to athletics, how much push is too much?  Six American high school football layers died of exhaustion last year.  Nations like China are frequently targeted for their obsessive devotion to athletic superiority, and who can blame the critics when stories like this hit the news cycle.  This really raises the question of what the medal is worth.  Of course athletes will say it is a lifetime achievement and worth all the pain and suffering, but bear in mind that most of them have been in Olympic feeder programs for years; that sentiment has been bred into them.  Competition is a religion to these people, and it's all well and good to take the relativistic approach of "that's what makes them happy", but we're still left with two questions.  1) In the long run, will they actually be happy?  (Consider the impact of instant stardom on most youth celebrities.  Consider also the expedited decay of their bodies.  Now remember that many of these athletes have sacrificed academics and opportunities at work outside their competitive field; if they fail as trainers/coaches, what will they do with themselves?  Olympic athletes generally aren't millionaires, so there is the important question of sustenance.) 2) Is there no objective point where people can generally agree "that's just too far, period"?  Is this any different from the near-abusive indoctrination a devotion practices we tend to condemn in various religions?

I tried to figure out "what exactly a medal costs", both socially for the average athlete, and fiscally for an athlete and country, but unfortunately I've had no luck getting my hands on national athletics expenditure data (I'll keep trying.)  In the meantime, take a look at some interesting research that was done using data from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, looking at the relative cost of medals for different nations.

This is far from the only way to look at Olympic victory.  As usual, I just want to point out that a) there are a lot of ways to look at things b) some approaches are definitely better than others and c) the media's approach is usually far from the best.  Go watch the Olympics, cheer for your athletes, and think a bit about it all; you'll get more out of it that way.

A good cause

I can't lie to you: economists are human.  Regardless of the deistic support granted to some of the more esteemed members of the profession, they are working from models that only partially reflect reality.  At best they are making highly educated guesses, and at worst, well... I could rant about a number of economists who are more concerned with self-preservation and keeping their incomes than with being right, but I don't really have anything new to add to the conversation.

To get information from the source, here is a small list of top-notch economists who admit their mistakes and are extremely vocal in the community:
Paul Krugman http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Brad DeLong http://delong.typepad.com/
Keep an eye out for Justin Wolfers' and Betsey Stevenson's prescient articles (http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/index.shtml)

There are many more, and reading through some of their articles should provide ample opportunity to explore the issues further.

NOW, THE POINT OF THIS POST!

Check out the link below and, if you agree, sign it. Having functional, open and legitimate discussions about economic policy would be a huge step in the right direction. Obfuscation of reality is one of the core problems with our economic recovery and planning, hopefully this will go a long way toward alleviating that.

http://www.manifestoforeconomicsense.org/

Thanks!

P.S.
Regular posting will be resuming in the near future

How an Economist Breaks Up

So life is full of emotional ups and downs, and one of the meanest downs is a breakup. They happen to all of us, and they aren't always easy to get over. It seems to be that there are two major steps in the healing process: the first is accepting that you should not and will not be getting back together, the second is finding ways to keep yourself happy and distracted long enough that you reprogram your body to understand that it can function just fine without your former mate in your life.

Naturally I'm discussing this because it happened to me just over a month ago. I wavered on stage 1 for longer than I would like to admit, but within just under a week I was on to stage 2. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I think a lot, and in this case that is evidently going to be to my detriment. So I started applying some "operational break-up" theories. First things first: figure out what kind of assets you have and how you can re-arrange your capital structure given the organizational change.

Since I keep extremely detailed financial records, I looked at the total cost of our relationship that came out of my pocket, removed excessively abnormal expenditures, and then made a forecast of spending, including all un-paid in-couple plans that existed prior to the termination of the relationship. I took the net-present-value of our relationship over the next 3 months, and discounted by expected expenditures on entertainment and dates (assuming I'll be ready to date sometime in the next 2-3 months), which I calculated based on an average of "entertainment" costs over the last three months that I spent single. I then added in a "you only live once" premium, as well as premiums to take into account money I had saved for undefined future expenditure in the relationship, and the result was my "break-up slush fund."

Step two is to take on a "project" that will maximize firm utility. In my case, I needed to be happy and I needed to be distracted.  For me the former follows naturally from the latter, so it was simply a matter of determining what would keep me distracted for a while. At the advice of a few friends, I took my "slush fund" and turned it into a 15 day trip to Morocco, Spain (the Canary Islands), and England (London).

The end result: best two weeks of my life, some amazing memories, great new friends, a stronger hold on what I want from life, and my first major international trip under my belt. Not sure I'm ready to date just yet, but I am happier and accelerating into my life once again. Considering what I've gained in the past month, if anything, I should break up more often! (Ok, I'm joking... kind of.)

A suggestion for anyone who isn't as anal-retentive as I am about personal finances.  Doing my kind of NPV calculations can be irritating and nearly impossible, so try this: as soon as you are seeing someone exclusively, start saving 100-200 (or more) per month that you are together.  Whatever you have saved if/when you break-up is the maximum that you get to spend on getting over your ex.  No person is worth becoming poor over, especially someone you aren't seeing anymore.  Spend the money on whatever will keep you happy and distracted (I'd steer away from alcohol, but whatever floats your boat,) and you'll pull through and probably get an awesome experience out of it.

Dear fellow Canadians: If you want to help RIM, stop buying BlackBerry phones

RIM would be better off if you hadn't bought a BlackBerry

The punchline: RIM has never made outstanding products, but novelty, loyalty, and eventually network effects helped them compete beyond their league.  It's a great short-term business proposition, but it masked their problems from management and let them fall far out-of-step with the competition.  RIM is starting to get the picture (about 2-3 years after major complaints became accepted in the mainstream) that Canadians in particular are a poor indicator of their business potential.

A few years ago, Research In Motion (RIM) was an unstoppable Canadian powerhouse, sweeping across the globe.  The only phone secure enough for POTUS; the only phone that could keep you perpetually connected; the golden standard for governments and businesses.  The allure of such institutions drove college kids and young professionals to buy the phones as a status symbol, a means to belong.  BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) wooed the young, social generation with instant gratification that surpassed texting; what's more, now you know if your message has been read.  If you ignore the social ramifications, this is a phenomenal business strategy that blossomed greatly; the BlackBerry held an iconic position as THE phone to have.

Even once the iPhone entered the market, BlackBerry held its ground in the social and "serious people" demographics.  As more smartphones hit the market, thruth behind BlackBerry was exposed, their interface is awkward and their OS is clumsy (it had never been top-droor, but it never really had competition before.) Don't forget that their phones break easily.  And frequently. (Keyboards and trackballs/thumbpads are the most common.)  These were never amazing phones, but they were "ahead of their time" so they didn't have to be perfect.  Granted RIM has tried to upgrade the phones, the OS, and just about everything else, but their massive innovation seems to have stopped soon after BlackBerry hit the market.  Now they have to play catch-up.  They were late to the touchscreen game and have yet to make a sure-footed foray into that market.  Their regular line has barely changed in an appreciable way and the increases in functionality pale in comparison to the field.  (My phone comes with a stock video game that is better than anything I played on my N64 as a kid; I don't expect that on a BlackBerry, but I expect to be wowed in a commensurate way if I'm going to shell out the same amount of cash.)

I've watched a surprising number of friends purchase BlackBerry phones in recent months and it continues to baffle me.  Review after review places the advantage squarely in Android's court, as well as the iPhone's to a lesser extent.  There are some great sites for comparing cell phones, in terms of components and features; often the articles are long, but it's a small price to pay when you'll likely spend 2-3 years with the same phone.  Despite generally positive reviews, BlackBerry phones almost never stand up to the competition, and the rational world has accepted the brand's inferiority as a now-forgone conclusion.  So why do people keep buying them?

A tweet by friend of mine, who only just bought an Android and has lamented the error in his lack of willingness to change, sums it up succinctly:

"Hard to give up on a Canadian company. My patriotism is my bane."

Loyalty; how fickle a virtue you are.  It is the most-cited reason proffered by my friends and acquaintances for buying a BlackBerry.  (Second is "I want to talk to my friends on BBM.")  A very close friend received a BlackBerry for Christmas.  I tried to talk her out of it, listed all of the technical reasons I knew, but it was to be a gift from her parents and they were going to get a better price from some family friends who work at RIM.  Oh and she wanted to support the Canadian company, had always dreamed of being an exec with a BlackBerry, and naturally wanted to support family friends who work for RIM.  Not a month later and she's noticing issues (some I hadn't even known about) and realizing why people don't really like BlackBerry anymore (she's doubly pooched because she got their touchscreen phone).  Bear in mind that this is her first smartphone so she has nothign to compare against and she still "gets it". I'm sure she "loves" the phone, it was a gift and it seems to get the job done, but was it the right phone for her?  No.  Is it the right phone for anybody?  Probably not.  (Note: Smartphones make bad gifts.  They entail extra costs in the form of network connection and phone number transfer fees, acquiring a sim card, and then the necessary data plan.  BlackBerry phones are worse because you need a separate data package if you want to connect to their network for push e-mail and BBM.  There is little to no point in owning a smartphone if you don't have a data plan.  This "gift" will end up costing the recipient upward of $200 more per year [obviously a fair amount less if they decide that they want their smartphone to be pretty but not do anything, avoiding data.])

Now let me ask you somethign: would you smoke because your cousin works for Marlboro?  Would you wear t-shirts to the office because your buddy works for Gildan? (Actually, Gildan makes fine products, but just because they are Canadian doesn't mean you'll purchase them if they aren't the right fit for your life.)  There is no amount of associative support or pride that you can offer that will outweigh the mediocrity of a BlackBerry phone.  You aren't supporting a friend or family member working at RIM by buying a BlackBerry.  The company won't notice YOUR few hundred dollars, your purchase won't get them a bonus and it won't save the company; what's more if your friend/family member is proud of the products RIM now churns out, they need to be given a shake anyway.  Here's what your purchase actually does: it signals that you are OK with a mediocre product.  People buy BlackBerry phones whether they are the best on the market or not, so RIM has not had the incentive to be truly innovative for quite some time.  Unfortunately it may be too late for them now (a reality that drives more "devoted Canadians" to cling to the brand; not enough to save the company, mind you, but still quite a few.)  What RIM has needed for close to three years (two for sure), is for Canadians to make intelligent decisions when purchasing phones.  When the smartphone race was first heating up, RIM could have stayed in the thick of it, but probably didn't realize that they needed to truly improve their phones because they were still growing at a reasonably strong rate.

Rim's descent is being slowed by the expansion into developing markets, where cheaper phones and network effects are premium values.  There are a lot of people without smartphones, meaning that there is plenty of room for growth for every major player, but inferior products will catch up with RIM, especially once mobile phones have spread through the world.  Quality and price-point will become paramount, and RIM has too much pride to become a discount brand.

The good news is, BlackBerry has recently changed leadership and may be able to right the ship.  If the management team takes a page from their origin and becomes truly innovative (like their major competitors), they have the positioning to become a major force once again.  A focus on quality and fluidity of use will go a long way.  Also, a free strategy suggestion for RIM - allow other phones to have access to BBM and your push e-mail newtork.  Make them sign up through wireless carriers like every BlackBerry user; it's free money for R&D in phones and the network, and a strong signal to the market that you are really going to compete.  I bet a lot of people would pay the extra $5 a month to connect (I know I would.)

Prototype for this year's new BlackBerry

Here's my call, either they nail the next two product launches (likely they'll do passably, at best, on this coming year, but hopefully step up next year once the new management's direction can take hold) and be a relevant force again by 2013-2014, or, more likely, they will fade from the market by 2016.  They will still hold 20-30 percent of the Canadian market for a while until the network effects of Android and iPhone (and maybe Meego or Symbian?) dominate the last crepuscule of loyalty Canadians have.

About 4 months ago I called that RIM would get purchased by Samsung once they start to fade.  At the moment I don't think Microsoft/Nokia are positioned well enough to use RIM, and Samsung is the dominant provider of middle and upper-tier Android phones.  RIM's patents, network and proprietary tech would give Samsung a great position against Apple and better bargaining power with Google when it comes to OS development, meaning tailor-made OS builds wouldn't be out of the question.

The Industry in General

You need to realize that your new smartphone is almost as powerful as my first laptop, which I got in 2006.  A 1.6Ghz Dual-Core Processor with 2 GB of RAM vs. my 1.2 Ghz dual-core phone with 1 GB of RAM.  The q-HD screen on my phone is better than my laptop was, despite the 256M Graphics card my laptop boasted (which served little purpose for me beyond scalding my lap.)  Oh and my phone battery lasts longer, my phone has portable internet access, it's smaller and it interacts  What's more, a $200 Android phone has 80% of the functionality of a $600+ iPhone.  (Bear in mind that technology pricing is frequently exponentially priced, which means that each minor level of improvement above the current standard results in a far greater price.  A new iPhone is significantly better in a mostly, but not uniquely cosmetic way.)

Let's be honest, even the worst BlackBerry SHOULD be an improvement over an old feature phone.  (Some would contend that less-than-functional extra features are a significant detractor; I don't disagree but if that's the case, read some reviews ahead of making the purchase and avoid smartphones until they hold up to your standard.)  But that's hardly the marker you should be using; by that logic, using letters is acceptable because they are a massive improvement over smoke signals.  No, you need to look at what is available at the time (or projected to hit the market within a month, if you have enough patience) and pick the best value; this shouldn't surprise anyone.

One thing to note is that American bandwidth is going to reach a deficit soon.  More people hogging more bandwidth is going to fill up the usable spectrum, resulting in slower speeds and more dropped calls.  In fact, the spectrum may reach capacity as early as 2013.  This would give RIM's data-compression technology added value, and a great stepping stone for future development; the question is will they capitalize on it?

Knowing What to Buy

Academic literature in the fields of decision theory and choice optimization suggest that the differences between comparable products are often so small that deliberation costs time that could be devoted to other things, like using the product; the suggestion is just to pick one and go with it.  What the literature does not say is "anything will do."  It tends to take as granted that a base amount of research will be performed  to isolate a target group of products that will fulfil your needs in terms of quality, features, costs, etc...  (This is largely a tacet assumption.)  What's surprising is how few people actually do this research; while I tend to over-research, the average person is content to rely on your resident BestBuy salesperson (or equivalent.)  Sometimes they know their products well, but more often than not they know the talking points.  20 minutes of research on RAM allowed me to steer my sister away from a new laptop model that would later garner much ire in the public forum because if would lag relatively easily.  Depending on the product, bookmarking 3-4 wikipedia pages and skimming them before you make the purchase can make a huge difference.

(As an example of my over-researching, I once looked into the component manufacturers for cell phone parts, discovering that a certain semiconductor is only produced by two firms, naturally one with a high quality reputation and one with a low quality reputation.  I then pared down my list.  Do I regret my decision?  No.  Would I go to that much effort again?  Probably not; it turns out that the issues with the low quality products are frequently mitigated by redundancy, something I didn't know.  The lesson for me was that I can know a lot, but I don't have the time to know everything about everything, and as much as that bothers me, I have to accept it.  I'll still research more than most of you and often make better choices because of it, but my time is too precious to throw away to that extent.)

Also, know that it is proposterous to argue that you don't need a feature because you've gotten along just fine without it.  Everyone I know who has said at one point or another "I just need a phone that calls and texts," then bought a smartphone and told me "it's so cool, there's all these awesome features I didn't know about, and even things I didn't think I'd use are pretty good to have."  1) Remember that texting wasn't a "necessary" feature a decade ago.  2) The vast majority of these people have not become phone addicts.  If your worry is that you will "over use" the phone, just learn to control yourself better.  These smartphones are meant to make life easier, and in so many ways, they do.  Embrace it!  Maybe you don't need a fancy camera with a dedicated photo button (though I tend to use my phone camera more than I ever used my top-of-the-line point-and-shoot) or higher RAM, or a front-facing camera, or any number of other features.  But you never know, so don't shy away just because the phone has them.  You have no idea which features will and won't be useful until you play with your phone and explore its capabilities.  Some you anticipate to be great and won't ever use, and others seem pointless but wind up getting a heavy amount of screen time.  Avoiding data is a self-declaration of membership to the tribe homo troglodytus.

Instead of just figuring out which features you want/need, see which features are available in each price range.  Pick the range you are comfortable with and then compare phones from there.  Also, be open to new ideas.  I was dead-set on an iPhone or a BlackBerry last summer.  I came away with an amazing Android that is still competitive with the top phones on the market today.

Why "11:11" is incredibly stupid

"Make a wish it's 11:11!"

Until recently, I lived in blissful ignorance, believing that this was a relatively confined "observance," obligating a handful of believers to announce the coming of four instances of the digit 1 to all in their vicinity, as if this we're some rare and magical incident.  Increasingly though, I have witnessed random individuals sharing in this belief, individuals raised in developed, thoughtful, scientifically-driven societies!

The strongest challenge I face from supporters is "you can't prove that it isn't real" and they are technically correct (you cannot entirely prove/disprove something's existence); I can, however, raise a fair number of reasons why it is incredibly ridiculous.

1) You celebrate it at 11:11AM and 11:11PM, but since a day is 24 hours long, 11:11PM is actually 23:11.  Technically 10:22PM (22:22) is the third celebration - 12:00AM (00:00) of course being the first - unless of course 1s are the only magical number, which seems rather arbitrary.

2) There are 28 time-zones worldwide... so there is an 11:11 every hour (2 if you count both AM and PM), as well as 4 (8) on the 41s because the other 4 time-zones are off-set by 30minutes.  Whose 11:11 is correct?  If everyone's is, then can't you celebrate the magic at any 11-minutes-past-the-hour?  Are you going to tell me that the magic of 11:11 has decided to respect the arbitrary boundaries that humans have established as time-zones.  REALLY?

3) Our clock is pretty arbitrarily established as well - there's no reason that 5:00AM couldn't be 12:52AM if we so decided... so this magic decided to conform to a random clock as well?

4) What about when you are moving at high speed and perceive time differently?  Do relativity and special-relativity apply?  If so, then the magic SHOULD be able to work at ANY time and not just 11:11 because anyone could experience 11:11 at ANY time given sufficient speed.

5) What about other planets?  Should we observe 11:11 zulu-time?

6) Why is the 11th second not critically specified?  Does magic have a skewed distribution of it's abilities?  Or can magic only specify 60-second intervals?

I'm going to take this a step beyond 11:11 as a time - several cultures (without strong histories of astrological measuring or arithmetic) claim to hold various days in high regard.  A recent example is a spiritual gathering (claiming an aboriginal origin) on November 11th, 2011. (Just a coincidence to my earlier comments; or is it?... Yeah, just a coincidence.)  Note: The webpage has been significantly modified in the past two days.  Because a natural harmony JUST HAPPENS to occur on a day with repeating numbers, as determined by a particular type of calendar developed by some aggressive Europeans, which has been adjusted a few times, and is employed globally for purely functional purposes (many cultures maintain their traditional calendars for to keep with important observances) ; I totally buy that story.  It is a profiteering opportunity; groups organize "gatherings" and offer trips so that you can be with others while living through this "spiritual experience."

Oh and #Occupy movement?  I don't think you can blame the top %1 for this, but I'm sure you'll try!

I know that I sound like I'm just coming down on a bunch of people who want to have something goofy to believe in.  Look, I'm fine with superstition: much of it is derived from real-life experiences, but can we keep it reined in to only moderately-ridiculous things?  Please?  Our world proves that no matter how smart we get, we can still make stupid people in SO MANY WAYS, if the quasi-functional among you would try to not be inculcated by these idiots I'd really appreciate it.

And a side of hipster to go

With a looming food crisis, Americans are looking for alternative sources of nutrition.  Fortunately, a few creative enterprises have taken it upon themselves to find solutions, the most notable being tapping into America's abundant population of "undesirables."

Leading the charge is the recently re-branded KFH (Kentucky Fried Hipster).  "Hipsters are actually a surprisingly accessible source of lean protein.  Though much maligned in some circles, hipsterism's coming in vogue of late has massively grown the existing population of hipsters" Jim Caroosh, VP of marketing, told reporters at a recent news conference.

Caroosh also said that "what's great about this is that we can tie the shift in with our health-conscious initiative, since most of these hipsters were either very health-conscious or too poor to eat junk anyway.  Furthermore, with proper breeding facilities and procedures, we feel that we'll be able to maintain a strong position as a global quick-serve food distributor."  While some activists are complaining about the conditions that both free-range and farm-raised hipsters may soon endure, many hipsters recognize that it will still be a step up from the squalor they would otherwise have faced.

A representative from the United States Board of Commerce has suggested that this shift could provide much-needed stability for commodities markets specializing in hoodies, skinny jeans, lumberjack shirt, fixie-bikes and indie record labels.

Other firms are advertising the use of alternative food sources.  McDonalds has begun to make their burgers out of recycled tires, Manchu Wok will replace all current protein sources with scorpions and Taco Bell has announced that it will continue its longstanding history of serving a "meat-like substitute."

Politics: Sometimes it gets spoiled

Today is election day, so I figure this is an a propos topic...

I am a fervent believer in your civic responsibility to vote.  True, if you don't vote you really don't deserve to complain about the government, since you could have played a role in it being different.  My opinion stems more from the belief that it is like paying a tax - a responsibility borne by those who benefit from the social services, infrastructure, security and climate that the town/province/ nation stands for.  That said, you have an option when voting that doesn't involve picking a candidate: spoiling the ballot.

Unfortunately, sometimes voting sucks.  I'm not referring to the long lines, the awkward locations or the obnoxious campaigns (though as a long-time conservative, I'll tell you that if their policies hadn't made me abandon ship, their overly aggressive GOTV tactics would have.)  No, I'm talking about the possibility that all candidates/parties suck.  It isn't exactly an uncommon occurrence.  Again, I'm not talking about disliking a leader for his/her lack of charisma, but fundamentally disagreeing with his/her views and policies.

Without getting down to the nitty-gritty, here's my problem with Ontario's parties as they stand.


Liberals: McGuinty has been deceitful through his past two terms, and doesn't have a legitimate platform beneath his feet.  He's going with the flow and pandering for votes while making decisions that neither reflect public opinion, nor promote a fair or competitive province.  I'm tired of the lies, I'm tired of watching him and his party alienate his constituents, I'm tired of waiting for him to lay down a policy so blissfully ignorant that it drives myself and like-minded Ontarians from this wonderful province.


PC: Tim Hudak scares me.  He is a hard right conservative, and proof that the PC party has dropped the progressive component all but in-name.  In fact, some of his ideas are downright regressive, and that has never been good for society.  Traditionally a fiscally-sound party, the PCs have adopted an extreme stance that would bankrupt countless social programs that need to be improved and streamlined rather than shuttered, all based on quasi-developed economics that tend not to work.  Normally this could be shrugged off as an election bluff, and a more balanced policy would actually end up being implemented except for one thing: historically, the Ontario PC party keeps their promises.  Remember Mike Harris?  Forget the stigma for a moment: he kept his promises.  John Robarts?  Yup.  Bill Davis?  Yes again.  That's a horrifying track-record when you look at Hudak's promises.

NDP: Apparently nobody remembers Bob Rae.  Do some research, and you will find out how absolutely terrifying his tenure as PM was.  The NDP blows through your money like a lending your credit card to your sex-addict-friend so he can go to a strip club.  You wake up one morning and realize that you're so far in debt it'll take you 10 years to get out.  If you want to be mad at Mike Harris, you need to blame Bob Rae.  Harris did what he promised - he balanced the budget after Rae destroyed it.  All of the damage that Harris caused can be attributed to Bob Rae opening up pointless social programs and overspending your tax money, and all because of another bad pool of candidates on election day (more on this later).  The NDP is O.K. in theory - look out for everybody, fairness, equality and balance (among other things), but their policies tend to focus on those who WILL NOT help themselves, rather than the "cannots."  They are the counterpoint to the Conservatives, because they throw their weight behind any quasi-progressive policy, regardless of its usefulness or actual fairness.  They are best kept as a scare tactic to keep the major parties in check.

Green party: Honestly I don't know enough complete details about this year's policies, but here's a quick run at it - they are unsustainable and limited in scope, and frankly just don't have the experience or knowledge capital to handle a position of power.  Their presence should help keep some focus on green initiatives, but they aren't a viable option.


Back in the early 90s, when Bob Rae was elected, the electorate was faced with a similar conundrum.  No party had a good leader/platform, so when voting time came, here was the shared public idea "I don't want to support the liberals or the progressive conservatives... Nobody votes for the NDP so I can show up and do my civic duty without having to back the big guys."  Unfortunately, so many people did this, the NDP took power and did immeasurable damage.  It's too bad, because they had another option.

Spoil the ballot.  Just about anything you do to the ballot beyond marking an X in a single candidate's box will spoil it - marking it multiple times, for example, writing on it, etc...  If a large enough pool of people do this, the parties will get the hint; we don't want any of you or your policies!

This is an important tool in the democratic process because it provides a great deal of feedback that parties need to hear.  They are so busy listening to their supporters and lecturing their dissenters, parties often don't get to hear reasonable objections, and when they do, often go into attack-mode out of sheer habit.  Getting wrapped up in the passions of the campaign is part of the romanticism of politics.  Trying to best an opponent so you can make things work "the right way," looking out for the people who got you elected, setting up policies that will get you re-elected; these often lead to forgetting about the whole "greater good" that a politician is meant to strive for, let alone the myriad of constituents that s/he is supposed to represent, regardless of their political affiliation.

Bear this in mind the next time you vote: if you don't like the options, the best way to make your voice heard is to make it publicly silent; a glut of spoiled ballots is exactly the medicine Ontario needs to get its politics in order.

Middle-Age Manifesto

"I want it all. I want it all. I want it all and I want it now!" - Queen

Sometimes a song is so glaringly befitting of a situation that to ignore it would be pundit-sacrilege.  (I am well aware that Queen is probably not the choice band of the Boomers, but this is an accessible reference for the reading public, plus it helps me avoid explaining how I know half of the old music that I do.)  We are battling a stagnant, if not receding economy while a large segment of the baby-boom generation is getting ready to retire, poised to plunge a generation of youths into chaos for their own gains.  Melodramatic? Take a look - on average public debt has grown at a faster rate than GDP during the boomers' tenure of the economy - we haven't even isolated consumer debt here!  

Let's start by setting the stage.  Baby-boomers were raised in a strong savings and production economy, but heavily flocked to "make money by doing nothing" fields (we need almost every field that exists today, though the employment ratios could be better).  They decided that they didn't want to have as many children, but instead of saving even some of the not-insignificant extra funds, they took on massive amounts of debt.  The generation leveraged itself to the hilt amassing previously unheard-of levels of consumer credit while lobying for lower taxes to augment their income even more.

Fast forward to today.  Social security/government funded pensions as well as medical expenses are underfunded and this is only projected to worsen.  Boomers are working to manage their debts and prepare for retirement, though with significantly smaller savings rates than will be required to sustain even a portion of their lavish lifestyles.  Often boomers hold jobs that they retain out of seniorty rather than competence, yet they push for more debt and more government spending, while avoiding any of the consequences that their actions have wrought; truly they are an "all for me" generation.

The boomers set themselves up, ignoring the wisdom of their parents(a generation of devout savers), and now want to be coddled, wantonly disregarding the damage they will do to future generations (even if we ignore the damage that's already been done.)  Fair?  Hardly.  And the boomers are setting up my generation to act in the same way because survival will demand it.  Get your act together!  I realize that this is entirely against your nature, and in fact it is your nature that got us into this mess in the first place, but stop prioritizing yourselves over everyone else!  A lot less me and a little more we will go a long way to getting us onside to not legalize "preemptive euthanasia."

How about we make this deal then: if you want my generation to foot the bill for your retirement, get out of the jobs market so we actually have jobs and money with which pay down your fiasco of a debt.  Your other option is to keep employment as is, but lose all sorts of government support.  Baby boomers have been having their cake and eating it too (actually more like eating their cake and a large chunk of ours) for too long, and it isn't right to keep taking food out of the mouths of the youngest generations.

Human Foundations: Part 1 - There are no natural rights

Most people prescribe to some preternatural dictum outlining some measure of the virtuosity of actions and thoughts, be it natural or divine.  Christianity's 10 commandments spring to mind as examples of behavioural guidelines, while claims of natural, "inalienable rights" like education, freedom of expression are ever-more pervasive in society.  There is little doubt in my mind that the latter are important and highly correlated with a nation's economic progress, while the former greatly informed the modern legal system and provided strong deterrents to socially-destructive behaviour for millennia.

I'd like to start by making a distinction between government sanctioned rights and "natural-born rights".  While the government promises to protect my belongings by means of rights of possession, there is no natural right to ownership.  Aside from the age-old "who has the right to own something from the earth anyway", humans squabbled over food, hunting grounds and mates since their earliest times.  Social "contracts" arose out of necessity, as humans discovered that they were often rather weak and under-equipped when facing the world alone.  Thus the human became a social-creature.  But that's just it, governmental rights are simple "guarantees" underwritten by the organism that embodies one of our many social contracts.  These contracts only exist because from them, more effective/efficient results can be achieved.

In the economic analysis of law, it is widely discussed that laws are enacted  to allow people to be more productive.  How do you work to improve your garden when you must spend all day defending it from would-be brigands and thieves?  It turns out that everyone is better off when we protect "rightful" ownership, which is to say we entitle resources to those who may "use them best".  (That's a bit of a stretch in real life, though only because humans are far from perfect.)

The point is that there are no such things as natural rights - they arise because they allow us to create better living conditions.  "What about the extension of rights to minorities and other interest groups?  Are they not fueled on fairness?" I was asked once.  My answer is that fairness is yet again a tool, a commodity to be traded.  Now that people demand fairness (which is hardly guaranteed by nature, and I refuse to give proof of this because it is all around us), to be unfair is to spark protests, rioting and discontent; it slows the gears that keep society moving.  It's all well and good to promote equity and justice, but these only exist because society works better when they do.  People work harder when they are more content, this is hardly news, so society keeps them happy.

Animals do what they do best, survive, hunt, forage, build, etc...  Humans, bearing an increased intellectual capacity, are fundamentally no different from animals in that we are bound by the same laws of physics and survival. 

If you disagree, feel free to comment or e-mail me some of the supposed "natural rights", because though I try to be complete in my appraisal, there will be perspectives that I miss.  It is worth noting that I've tried to keep my argument summative - there's much more to this type of argument, but this is hardly the venue for a full philosophic treatise.
Why does this matter? Because rights go hand in hand with morality, which I will be addressing in short order.

The Learning Curve

A friend of mine brought this up about two months ago and so I want to approach it from a more thorough math perspective.

Occasionally you'll hear that something has an extremely steep learning curve. Naturally we think steep and imagine scaling a sheer wall (or something along those lines) and the sense is that this must be an arduous undertaking.  In reality, that's actually pretty far from the case.

I've set up the "Learning Curve" as a graph, with skill level (y-axis), as a function of time spent learning/practicing (x axis). For non-math people this means we are observing what happens to your skill level as you spend more time practicing.

First of all, I will make the assumption that the relationship is positive - so the more time you practice, the better you get. It doesn't seem very reasonable to think otherwise - at worst your true skill level should remain constant (even if it feels like a particular performance is uniquely horrible).  At the very least, this is likely true for the average person, and so we'll ignore the fact that you're a freak with no real skills while you go cry in the corner.

I'm going to start with two people learning to yodel, with each one's learning curve represented by one of two straight lines labeled 1 and 2.  (See figure below.) Observe that line 1 is steeper than line 2.  Mathologists will note this means 1 has a greater slope than 2, implying that A1/B1 >  A2/B2.  This implies that person 1's skill level increases more for each unit of time spent practicing than 2.  In nerd-light terms 1 is getting better at yodeling faster than 2 is; more accurately if 1 and 2 spend the same amount of time practicing, 1 will reach a higher skill level than 2.

So now we know that a steeper learning curve is a good thing, but how many skills have proportional returns?  I certainly can't think of any, so I thought about what some common learning curve would look like.
Below you'll see learning curves that should hopefully be a bit more realistic.  These two curves should represent the transition from complete beginner to advanced level rider for snowboarding and skiing.

Curve 3 is meant to represent snowboarding.  The first few times you try, it is hard, painful and often progress trickles as freely as chilled molasses (speaking of molasses, I've seen a few people give up the attempt in favor of gingerbread cookies and apple cider... losers).  As the curve describes, this slow start lasts for a little while, until suddenly you find that your board is underneath you, your balance is solid and you are comfortable on the hill.  With each trip to a hill you get better and better, faster and faster until you've earned the right to stop terrorizing skiers and risk serious bodily harm in the terrain park.  Increased risk of injury and paralysis = nirvana.

On the other hand, strap on some skis and you'll be snow-plowing down the hill in no-time.  You're riding chair-lifts and going anywhere you want in a matter of days, and then you hit that rut known as parallel skiing.  It takes seconds to learn the dynamics, and years to master its application - not to mention that it requires constant practice.  Unlike the proverbial bicycle, if you don't use this skill on a fairly regular basis you'll wind up frisky with the snow and intimate with more than a few trees.  Curve 4 tells this story quite well, you start improving quickly, but gradually it gets slower and slower until it may take you a full season to fix a handful of small problems.

While this is far from an exhaustive list, I have demonstrated that a steep learning curve is actually preferable to a flat one, and that was my point (yay me for not getting sidetracked!)

Send in questions so I don't run out of things to brain-vomit about!!!

P.S. Check out my Dad's site http://www.robertswebessentials.com/

Maybe even click some ads on the right side?  Awesome.

Economists ruin all the fun

Captain America unseated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 this weekend, raking in 65.8 $mi.

Granted, Harry Potter grossed a whopping 169 $mi, record-breaking first week, so you can't feel too bad for it. Except for the fact that that's a "nominal" record, but not a real one.

"What's the difference?" you may ask. Nominal implies that the numbers are measured in their own right, which is to say that they are not being compared on equal conditions. This is important because lots of factors change from year to year, let alone across a couple of years.

First off, ticket-price creep; box office prices have steadily risen since their "slashing" in the heyday of the economic slump, meaning that it takes less tickets sold at the current price to equal the revenue generated at the previous price.

Second, the massive surge of 3D movies and their subsequent raised ticket prices; ultimately the same effect as before gets taken into account.

Third, there is inflation: the general tendency of prices to rise over time. Essentially, there is no real growth (i.e. there is nothing extra being produced) but prices rise anyway, meaning that a dollar today buys less than a dollar yesterday. This is essentially a furthering of point 1 yet again; inflation means that your hard-earned dollars are now worth less, relative to before so 169 $mi today wouldn't buy as much as 169 $mi a year ago. More importantly 169 $mi today doesn't buy as much as 158 $mi did in 2007. That's right, in inflation-adjusted terms, Spider-Man 3's opening weekend was bigger than HPDHP2.

Interestingly enough, in ticket-inflation-adjusted terms (dealing with issue 1), Star Wars claims 4 of the top 10 total box office values. (I am unsure, but would tend to believe that the numbers for IV, V and VI include the re-releases of the movies.)

It is interesting to think that in relative terms, modern movies aren't cleaning up like the news would have us believe.  That said, this is probably a boring post for most non-economists out there and yet another glimpse at what makes it the "dismal science."

Is it illegal if you don't get caught?

I had the "Is it illegal if you don't get caught" with a friend over a year ago, and our tempers flared enough that the discussion eventually had to come to an end.

I will reprise my argument here and open it up to attack and criticism, though, as always, I shall attempt to hide behind the shield of logic.  First of all, this feels like a rewording of the old adage "if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"  In both cases the answer is a resounding yes.

Oxford defines the law as "the system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties".

Furthermore, Oxford defines an illegal action as one that is "contrary to or forbidden by law".

By that definition, if an action is against the rules of conduct in the established society, it is illegal.  There is no ambiguity in either definition that could imply the requirement of an observation and charge by an  officer of the law is a necessary condition for an action to be deemed illegal. 

This in no way asserts a link between legality and morality.  The law could tell you that it is illegal to walk on the street instead of the sidewalk, but it seems a rather large stretch to claim that it is immoral.(Morality is a concept I will deal with another time anyway.)  If you perform action X, and the rules of the relevant society state that action X is prohibited, your committing the act has violated this rule and by definition broken the law.  Note again that nowhere are observation, proof, charges or a trial mentioned in the definition of "illegal" or "law", and that "illegal" is logically equivalent to "against the law."

As an extension, just because an individual is found not guilty does not mean that s/he is innocent of a crime.  This type-II bias is inherent in our legal system and the "innocent until proven guilty" structure, but does not imply that the act was not committed, or that the individual is not actually guilty of breaking the law - simply that sufficient evidence is unavailable to convince the court of their actions beyond a reasonable doubt.

Anyway, it seems there's no real philosophic debate to be had here.  If you don't like this, you can take it up with the Oxford dictionary's editors.  They may listen, consider the appalling changes that they've accepted in recent years.

What is a good person, and why fat people intrinsically aren't good.

And now for a taste of something different!

I imagine that this is going to come back to bite me in the butt someday, but here's a thought experiment
that a twitter conversation inspired.

I asked what is a good person?  The other half of the conversation claimed that a good person has a "good heart, [is] well intentioned, generous, caring, kind etc ..."  If we ignore the moderate ambiguity of some of these terms, taking them at face value and ignoring valid philosophic tangents embodied by Socratic and sophist claims as to the nature of good, we can confidently claim to have found a reasonable definition?  I will try to tidy it up by polishing it all down to "an individual who takes others into consideration when making decisions, so as to make everyone as happy as possible. (We could assign economic jargon like uility and welfare to this, but we don't really need them right now, and this way all of the econ-impaired will be able to follow along).  It wouldn't be hard to show how each of the aforementioned characteristics (as well as a few others of equal importance) fall in line with this simplified definition very well, but for sake of brevity, I'm not going to waste my time on that.

We can expect that these characteristics must extend to all people, no?  If so, then they can extend to people who are not yet born as well, as being people, they deserve the same consideration as those who are currently alive.  So then, any action taken should its impact on future generations into account. How does this make fat people bad?  The top ten leading causes of death in America are: 

•Heart disease: 616,067
•Cancer: 562,875
•Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
•Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,924
•Accidents (unintentional injuries): 123,706
•Alzheimer's disease: 74,632
•Diabetes: 71,382
•Influenza and Pneumonia: 52,717
•Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 46,448
•Septicemia: 34,828

Of these heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and diabetes are all linked to obesity.  The cost of healthcare in Canada was 172 $bi in 2008 and can only have grown since then.  I wonder how much of this monolithic cost can be attributed to overweight individuals who are prone to more injuries and ilnesses, meaning that we wouldn't have to incur many of these costs but for the fact that these people are overweight. This debt burden isn't being paid now but is being passed onto future generations, as governments continue to kick the can down the road, to use the runaway colloquialism.  (Don't mistake this as an argument for fiscal austerity.)  How about the increase in waiting times because of their presence in the health system?  How many hip or knee replacements they receive because they didn't look after the ones they had?  How many research dollars are being spent to fix problems that are largely related to obesity when they could be directed at other, more universal problems?  This is not to say that we shouldn't be trying to fix these problems; rather it is more a matter of realizing the enormous, far-reaching impact of obesity on our society.

Fat people are placing an excessive burden on society's shoulders, and how many of them can legitimately claim that it is a medical condition completely beyond their control?  At SOME point it was well within the control of many of these people, and yet they ambled on to Krispy Kreme without thinking about how their decision to finish the whole box would affect everyone else.  That society is worse off for their decisions never crosses their minds, and given our above definition, makes fat people intrinsically "not good."

Please bear in mind that this can be extended to smokers, drug users, extreme athletes - anyone who self-selects into a pool of heightened-risk-of-damage.  At the moment though, fat people seem to be the largest drain and the most controversial one to speak of. 

So that's the gist of it - the central pillar of a thought experiment I toyed with earlier today.  We all have our good moments and our bad moments, but it smacks of truth at some fundamental level - if fat people really cared, they'd try harder to get into shape.  Or maybe not - it's just a musing...

Returning!

So I found myself spending too much time trying to make my posts perfect and airtight, which is absolutely the wrong way to approach the webernet. The whole point is dialogue - having everyone work together - even if we come to the same conclusions, we all benefit from the communal thought-experience. I've removed all posts from the past month and a half, as I feel they put the empahsis on the wrong part of the blog experience.

I will try to maintain a semi-regular updating practicing so that nobody gets inundated or bored... Also, if you want to have a discussion raised, feel free to bring and article or a question to my attention. I'll build a post around it, and then leave it open for thoughts, comments and observations.

I bid you adieu for now, but expect a post tonight!!!

Running Tips: Part 1

First off, sorry for disappearing - sometimes in life awesome experiences arise, and I find that it is often more enjoyable to dig in wholeheartedly, which tends to mean that there's not much time for the documentation process. That said, I will try to be more diligent in the coming months. I have tried to build a small buffer to keep updating, even if I don't have time to write, so we'll see how this goes.

This post breaks from the general form of this blog, but it is relevant to me right now, so I'm writing about it

Lately I've gotten into running - I've now finished two major races; the Montreal Half Marathon mid-April and the Sporting Life 10k in Toronto last Sunday. I beat my target times on both races and am officially hooked - running is great and the races are extremely addicting. I will try to pass on some of what I have learned.

As I ran, I developed some strategies and self-motivators to keep me going, so here they are:

1.Pick a target! Look ahead, find the girl with the best-looking butt, wearing the most unique colour possible, running slightly faster than you. Then, don't lose her! Follow doggedly throughout the race. If by chance she slows down or your pace increases and you find yourself running alongside her, look ahead, find a new butt and repeat. At the half-marathon I followed over two different girls, one with a complete pink ensemble and the other rocking green pants and a blue shirt.

During the 10k I eventually located an extremely fit girl with bright pink shoes and shirt, and some pretty awesome tattoos. I followed her from just after the 3k marker until the 9k marker, at which point I burned the last kilometer (and left her behind.)

2.Take advantage of the terrain.

a. During the 10k, anytime I reached an incline or a decline, I picked up the pace. Most people pick a pace and run it, conserving energy on the inclines and declines. I realized that the shorter run meant that I'd have more energy than during the half-marathon, and could afford to expend more of it to pass the other runners.

3.Heavy wind is what separates the men from the boys - when running into heavy wind, clump in with a group of runners, placing their bodies between yourself and the wind to minimize the wind resistance that you face. Proper etiquette suggests that you rotate with the leaders in the group, but the moment you realize that the group is slowing down, step up your pace and burn up to the next group of runners. I know it works because I used this to pass about 100 runners during an extremely windy 5km stretch of the half-marathon.

More to come later!!!!

Why the NFL isn't fully competitive

Forget about the steroids, the egos, the attitudes and the salaries. The NFL suffers the same fundamental break that many industries do: the competitive structure is improperly organized. The NFL is essentially a monopsony. A monopsony occurs when you have a large variety of sellers, but only one buyer, meaning that the buyer controls the market price and subsequently has all of the transactional power. There are other professional football leagues, but nobody grows up wanting to play in the UFL or Arena Football; they are backups when your name doesn't get called in the NFL draft. The NFL is essentially a "buying group" or a cartel when dealing with other leagues, but intra-league competition results in an inefficient allocation of players. More specifically, poor management on the part of a handful of franchises can result in a highly uncompetitive season.

Take my beloved Denver Broncos for example. They are currently sitting on three high-calibre quarterbacks and may acquire another on in the draft. All three have started NFL games, have recorded wins and bring distinct skill-sets to the game, and with handful of teams scrambling to elect play-callers who can make an impact, the Broncos are hoarding talent. Where it gets sticky is that after another season or two on the bench, those quarterbacks' careers are likely over, particularly Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow, who haven't had enough experience to develop any real pedigree. Both are primed for Matt Leinart-level failure simply because they will be expected to play like 4-year quarterbacks when they are 26, regardless of the fact that they've they've barely registered a year in the NFL as starters. Assuming the Broncos pick a franchise quarterback soon, they will likely retain at least one of the others as a backup. Unfortunately, few teams will jump at the opportunity to hire a former prospect who never got much field time; the Broncos are effectively devaluing potentially great players with their current strategy. It's not as if these QBs are along for the ride behind a legend who is leading the Broncos to championships; Denver went 4-12 last season, finishing second last in the league. (They went on to replace their head coach with the former head coach from Carolina Panthers, the only team to perform worse than the Denver Broncos last season, but I'll deal with that in another post.)

The structural break in the industry occurs from the shift from a monopsony to a competitive structure, whereby players may be in demand, but are inefficiently allocated once inside the organization. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about this. One strategy could involve limits imposed on the size of the depth chart, allowing for a more liquid free-agent market (perhaps even with a free-agent training/workout zone like the draft combine) but this would heavily alter the strategy of the game. For now we must accept that not all NFL players are going to get their fair shot. Remember, for every Matt Leinart, there's a Kurt Warner who is never quite the man the coach wants taking the snaps, but who steps it up nonetheless and wriggles his way into the hearts and minds of fans everywhere. In fact, its these types of underdog stories that keep sports fantasy alive.

From a practical perspective, this is a golden argument for why professional players should have to legitimately earn their degrees from College. When your average career only lasts 3 years, you need something to fall back on, and with so many players quitting school early to join the draft, and many of the rest getting a free pass through their undergraduate programs, many pros just aren't prepared for life beyond the gridiron.

Meanest April Fool's Prank in a while

Normally I don't have to deal with April Fool's pranks - but my prof decided to have us on... here's the e-mail that I woke up to at 9 this morning.

"After carefully revising all projects, I have concluded that there is no single paper with the proper econometrics. If you want a passing grade on this project, each of you individually must use your data and complete the extra assignment I have just posted in Blackboard under the Project folder. The assignment's due date is next Sunday at noon. Jordi."

Took me a few minutes to figure it out, but I had a hunch it wasn't completely legit. I wasn't entirely surprised to find that the new "assignment" linked me following site.

Thanks Professor Mondria... what a way to start the day...

Something that will make everyone else angry

This is one of those posts that is purely centered around me. I want to vent about the nuisance of people around me, specifically regarding the Japanese earthquake and the subsequent relief efforts. (If you want to skip the vent and go straight to the logic, jump to paragraph 4).

I am well aware of the colossal damage that was done, and agree that nobody will ever truly grasp the scope of the destruction. Furthermore, the nuclear reactor problem at the Fukushima Daiichi plant seems like it may persist for some time. I am saddened by the loss of life and the hardships that many Japanese are being forced to endure.

Now with the moral sentiment out of the way, why do we keep having fundraisers? Why do we continue to donate? And who are we donating to? I have only seen one group that transparently operates its finances - all of the funds that you donate will be used for aid, the Ogawa family will match donations up to a total of $1 000 000 dollars and will cover all transaction and operational fees with a supplemental donation. How many organizations can claim the same? Yes, this is an appeal for charity reform and financial transparency. I also have to ask why so few of us will chip in for local issues, but the moment something happens halfway around the world we need to throw money at it? Because it is a fad, it makes us feel good to be involved in a topical issue. Never mind the blistering 10.2% poverty rate among working-aged adults in Canada in 2008. How about the 23.1% of Canadians who were obese back in 2004 with another 36% overweight. With the litany of health problems that these bring on, Canada's health care systems will soon be overflowing with patients costing healthy individuals a fortune so they can jam another big-mac down their gullet. Why bother focussing on any of our issues? Here's a thought, maybe we're helping elsewhere because of a sense of inevitability associated with our own problems?

So far it all seems like a baseless conservative-style gripe, but here's where I turn this all on its head. Japan has been caught in one of the most detrimental economic slumps the world has seen (Argentina is the only nation I can think of with a more prolonged and devastating cycle-stagnation). Back in the early 2000s the world referred to the 90s as Japan's "lost decade"(it's a wiki page but I vetted the sources), where near-zero nominal interest rates and easily obtainable credit created a domestic finance bubble that essentially halted economic expansion in Japan. (It's worth noting that almost all nations maintain some level of economic growth and in terms of world rankings, it is relative growth - i.e. compared to the growth of others - that counts. For a nation to basically stop growing is a huge deal, especially when you consider that Japan was the world's economic darling back in the 80s.) Since the 2000s... not much has changed. No major capital inflow to prop up the economy, no major domestic development, nothing to help dig them out of this hole.

Along comes an earthquake, a subsequent tsunami and then a major reactor breakdown. Many lives are lost, buildings are destroyed, lives are ruined. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel; the world loves Japan. They contribute so much to the world that nobody wants to risk Japan suffering - hence why Japan has maintained one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in world history; other nations keep saying "they're good for it." Outsiders know that Japan will be rebuilt and want in on the way up. A massive inflow of capital will allow Japan to build their infrastructure bigger, stronger and infinitely more resistant, which will result in more employment for the Japanese and more demand for local resources. The more developed infrastructure will make Japan more competitive and allow it to grow and develop, solving 20 years of economic "stagflation." It's just like a forrest fire - much of the forrest is scarred, but the cleanse allows new, better, more resilient life forms to take hold - in fact, some seeds are only released in the extreme heat of a fire. All of this is to say that the net effect of the tsunami is going to be extremely positive for the nation. By no means do I wish to trivialize the lives lost, but people die no matter; Japan's population has an opportunity to grow their standard of living and thrive because of the disaster. These benefits don't even begin to consider the impact on increased production of building supplies, increased activity in construction and contracting firms worldwide, as everyone clamors to help the wounded nation.

When I see on the cover of my student newspaper that one of the colleges' student council has pledged the surplus from their budget (a potentially undemocratic move - I'm still trying to re-find the link that demonstrates how student unions are completely undemocratic by nature, will link it when I find it) to the Japanese relief effort, and has challenged other colleges to do the same, I ask why? Couldn't those dollars be put to more practical use? Will a few thousand dollars actually be the difference? Or are they likely to be eaten by administrative costs? When the Japanese people are going to receive a glut of support from their own government, what impact are we having? Their country is going to be better-off in the long run, massive amounts of money have already been channeled their way, our thoughts and prayers are with them... Let's see if we can't solve some problems at home as well.

Side note: anyone hear about that BP oil spill lately? Seriously, for how large the magnitude of the disaster was proclaimed to be, you'd think that the media and environmental activists would still be trying to milk it.

Next up: the ignorance behind the veil of ignorance: why Rawls is a nutball.

The Green party's got it all wrong

So an old math teacher/swim coach of mine posted this on facebook. On the surface it may seem reasonable and even Canadian at heart, giving every party a fair and subsidized opportunity to present themselves. Unfortunately, this is actually quite counter to the democratic notions that our beautiful nation is founded on.

1)As far as I'm concerned, this is a misnomer: the real issue is government support of parties (which greatly helps to keep the Green party relevant). If you can't convince your members to support you, then why should you receive money from everyone in the country? This subsidized democracy gives parties, who haven't earned the right to be competitive, the opportunity to become a political wedge. Since no major party is targeted uniquely at the poor, there should be sufficient supporters to step up and fund their respective parties, particularly if individual donation caps and total spending caps are put in place.

2)I'd like to start by saying that I'm not against ad reform, but I have yet to hear a reasonable, viable proposal. From where I'm sitting, getting rid of paid political advertising will have little to no benefit(at least as proposed here). Similar results can be achieved by implementing rules such as forcing all campaign ads to not mention other parties. More importantly, most (if not all) of the nations mentioned allow "policy ads," which can be designed to perform almost identically to an attack ad, sometimes even more successfully. Furthermore. this also doesn't consider the validity of the arguments presented in such ads - a statement of fact that reveals flaws in an opponent's campaign is extremely important, both in bringing the issue to the public's attention and in helping parties identify platform problems. It seems more that ads aimed at defamation are the real issue.

3) As far as motive goes, this is just an uncompetitive Green party griping about their lack of fiscal backing.

4) It seems to me that what the Green party is proposing is actually thoroughly UNDEMOCRATIC - an equal distribution of airtime ignores party membership and support, treating parties as equals when they most certainly are not. Think of it this way - do we have an equal number of house seats for New Brunswick MPs and Ontario MPs? No, we distribute them according to a weighting of the population. What makes political parties special? The purchase of airtime is both the most socially optimal and market efficient option available. Think about it like this: donations are a proxy for member support of a party, the party then selects the airtime and messages to best represent themselves given their budget. If you want more members and donations, stop looking for handouts and hit the ground grass-roots style. Earn your right to be competitive!

A quasi-educated proof for the existence of emergent properties

Emergent Beauty

So last year I was introduced to the concept of emergent properties, which claims that, based on complex reactions that occur when various factors co-exist and interact within a system. Simply put, you have a bunch of different things, and when you put them all together, something unanticipated 'emerges,' i.e. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

There's all sorts of examples out there, some require greater scientific belief and devotion than others, so its nice when you can find an instance that doesn't step on all the traditional religious and philosophic toes. (Granted, there will be objections to this theory, but it is based more on every-day observances than on science, making it at worst a matter of perspective.

So, I am asserting that physical attractiveness is an emergent property. For the sake of keeping this brief, I will restrict my proposition to human beings.

As proof that aesthetic appeal is emergent, I offer the observation that, individual, no part of the human body is attractive. (Before you freak out and start spamming me with messages about how "my (name of body part) is fantastic thank you very much", listen to my explanation.) The individual factors are almost infinitely divisible (you can keep looking at smaller and smaller parts - provided you have the technology to see something even smaller, at infinitum) and at close up perspectives everything seems to look weird. At the levels of pores in the skin, veins in the eyes, etc... the human body is interesting... but attractive? I don't buy it. Imagine the most perfect pair of legs... zoom in on the knee joint, or the ankle and then tell me it is actually attractive. (I believe that even fetishists would agree that when the hormones aren't pumping, the human body looks weird.) At the level of component parts, no body is attractive.

Thus, if all components are not attractive, the whole of the body should not be attractive... and yet, often (if not always) it is. That means the the whole (body) is greater than the sum of its parts (all the weird little components). And yet, somehow, when we have the context of the whole body (the 'interaction' between the parts), physical beauty magically appears.

My theory is that, despite the nasty little components, when we see the big picture, we recognize the beauty. I think there's a life lesson in there, and it swings both ways. (Get your minds out of the gutter!) First off, despite all the problems in society, when we imagine the world as a whole, it is actually quite beautiful... (ok so it is more like a really, really, really fat person with full-body acne, greying hair, a receding hairline, bad table manners, gas and B.O. ... but I'm sure someone could fall for it... or maybe that's just the hopeless romantic in me... rofl) From the other perspective, no matter how wonderful we are led to believe the world is, there are always problems that need to be addressed.