State of the economy

Everytime I tell someone now what my major was in college the common response is "well, with the state of the economy, what is your opinion? what do you think we should do?" This is an extremely tough question to answer for two reasons. One is that although economics is my major and I was great at it, the economy is tremendous that economics uses simplified models to make sense of it all, one person spending an entire lifetime can't get very far (unless your Becker). What I know about the state of the economy is a collaboration of many other collaborations to try and make sense of it all. The second reason that is a tough question is because nothing about our economic state is defined. We are still dancing around the R word (thats recession for non-dorks), the Dow jumped almost 1k yesterday (a dramatic turn), and many of the key elements to a textbook recession just aren't there (what does a credit crunch really look like then?).

My opinion on the state of the economy is that it is down... duh! Who cares about a text book recession, or a bank crisis, or what the fed is going to do tomorrow. If you are feeling the hit in your wallet and your emotional state then the economy is down. Ready for the shocker? Who cares about that either. We know that the economy is cyclical and Keynes showed that there are actions that can smooth it out, even if you can't name what will do it in jargon you have been taught it through common sense and general money management (I hesitate to say money management since in America we spend 101% of all the money we make, not including government debt, we should call it debt management). Keynes thought we need government to get us out of a downturn but I just think we need smarter consumers. Government is an option but not the only one.

In a downturn if people pull their money out of the economy and out of investment the economy will have nothing to recover, think of it like a complex game of marbles. If no one is bringing any marbles to the table it wont draw anyone else to bring their marbles, everyone is standing around holding their marbles which are now worth nothing since you can't even use them. Put your money into the economy to make it worth something, but do it in a smart way. Only invest when the interest rate is good, interest rates although set by the Fed are a market and you can get a better deal than what is first offered to you, play the market. If investing isn't your style then spend the disposable income you have, people like to save in a downturn "for a rainy day", but this is the rainy day and if you don't spend it could become a hurricane. Make sure you are smart and cover your needs but then go out and buy tangible goods that will be of good use to you for the future (like a bike!).

And lastly, although it is extremely difficult don't let it ruin your life. It is temporary, it will pass. Luckily we have many smart people who are brave enough to stay out of government and make their impact from elsewhere, maybe Helicopter Ben will read their books and blogs and make some good moves to pull us out quicker.

P.S. Please don't read this and take it all to heart. Hopefully it sparked some interest and you read up more on the economy. I am not the only say and there are a lot of people who are smarter than I am that would disagree with me (and a lot that would agree).

OMG!!!

If you care to see what interests me educationally click the link below. This makes me want to get my masters or doctorate.
http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/game-theory/

So thats why they started the saloon....

So the last few days I have been going out with different people every night. Between the friends and co-workers, new friends and even the people I've never met before, I have come to realize a few things.

1. I still have the best friends in the world. My friends are better in every sense than most of the people out there.
2. Age doesn't matter much, I have been the 22 year old approaching the 40 year olds, and then some of the people I have been with were the 42 year old approaching the 20 year old.
   
3. Age matters a little, I hope I can rock it like Max D when I'm in my 40s.
4. Going out is great to break up monotony. I could easily get bogged down in work and find an excuse to not go out but when the opportunity arises I find myself saying YES! and really enjoying myself.
5. So much more can happen when you go out rather than staying in. Both good and bad, but at least something is happening. After all isn't change good? (Real change, not Obama change)
6. There is always the drunk KSU fans or girls in wigs a week before Halloween to make fun of and who doesn't feel better about themselves after a good senseless verbal bashing from a safe distance
7. I LOVE my friends. (See #1)
   

It's like breakfast

So my computer blew up. Literally it made a loud bang or four and smelled like smoke and shut off, luckily my brother knows everything about computers and will get it working again. In the mean time he gave me one of his many computers to hold me over, cause I could never live without the internet.

Whats new with me? I get asked this alot. And it seems like the less I have new going on, the more people ask it. All I get to respond is that I'm working alot and I like it. And I suppose that isn't even that new. I've been on the nose to the grindstone train since May and I don't anticipate getting off of it anytime soon. So then what else do you do besides work? That's typically the next question I get. The answer is spend as much time with my friends as they will give me and decompress from work so I can do it again. When put into words this existence sounds lame and unfulfilling but it is actually quite the opposite. Everyday I get to work on something that I know is going to be great and I get to do this in a way that is truly impactful. I have more of a stake in the direction of my company at the age of 22 than I ever thought I would by the time I was 50. This is the allure of smaller companies but even within my company I feel that the culture is conducive to the smartest and hardest working get to have the most say, which is an appropriate consequence of incentives. So aside from justifying my long work weeks there, hopefully I prevented anyone who reads this (or my future self since no one reads this) from asking that type of question.

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch...

It is true that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If anyone can prove otherwise to me I will indeed pay for a lunch wherever that non-existent person wants to go. This got me to thinking about ways to get the cheapest lunch possible since free is out of the question (try to follow; this all allusions, I'm not talking about food even though I am). I've had many a lunch that I did not pay for, my parents have bought me many meals, as have other people. If the cost of the meal is not monetary and also not disclosed, I will safely assume that this is the most expensive lunch on the planet. Even parents who operate under the pretense of love will happily hold a meal over their child's head when it comes to them wanting something. And those are the people we trust the most. The cost of that meal is then whatever they say it is whenever they want to say it. What about when your boss pays for your lunch, or a significant other. On the same lines, what if a person under you at work or your enemy bought your lunch? What would be the cost of that? (still thinking about food? well stop it!) The cheapest lunch is one you work for yourself. This doesn't mean you should not let people aide you in earning your own lunch, you don't have to start your own company to work for the money to start the farm to grow the food... and so on. What it means is that what will get you the furtherest toward a free lunch (by this point I am debating calling it golden egg) is hard work. If you work hard and make sure that you don't owe anyone anything other than the rights that all humans deserve then your lunch will be as cheap as possible. If you are given an opportunity or a handout, work harder than expected and make sure you earn everything. The kid with the silver spoon in his mouth is a theif and it will catch up to them. (honestly, what could be worse than the person who eats a free lunch with a silver spoon?)

Yom Kippur

Both of my parents are Jewish by heritage, and both practice the religion in their own way although I will say that my father is a bit more orthodox than my mother. My brother and I are straight bastard children of the faith and are horrible practitioners. I find the limitations that religion imposes on my life unnecessary and ultimately they lead to my unhappiness. There are parts of the tradition of Judaism, and parts of the heritage, that I am drawn to and see purpose in. One of those pieces of the faith is the holiday of Yom Kippur, which is in essence a day of atonement. Some people use it as a day to make up for the bad things they have done to other people, or to reflect on their position in society, or a number of other reasons. I like to use it as a day to make myself better, I like to take a full assesment of myself, see what I'm good at, what I'm not good at, and find a way to improve everything. Thursday is the big day and I wil be spending the day with my father going to and from temple multiple times plus a break the fast dinner. Is this a push towards me being a better Jew?

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs!

Blogs are highly polarized. There are great blogs, and there are crappy blogs. I don't see any gray space. To this effect here is a list of blogs I consider to be great. The best blog on the internet is:

• Marginal Revolution

And then there are the rest of the blogs:

• Freakonomics
• Paul Krugman
• The Becker-Posner Blog (honestly, one of the best blog ideas I've ever seen. If anyone wants to take on a _____-Lesser blog I'd consider it)
• Greg Mankiw

As you can see I like econ blogs alot. But there are all sorts of other blogs I like:

• Joy Engine
• Engadget
• Geekologie
• Hot Chicks With Douche Bags
• Crackberry
• Trackosaurus Rex
• Trackstar NYC
• King Kog
• Honeyee (blogroll)
• Fatlace (blogroll, please come back soon)
• Boy Genius Report
• Chris Reinhard

If you have a blog to suggest let me know. I'm always hungry for information (or in the case of Hot Chicks with Douche Bags useless nonsense).

Cold or Calculating?

I am not much of an advice giver. If you know me well enough you will find that my advice most of the time is to suck it up, and change your attitude (that and if we talk about music I will probably make fun of your musical tastes and advise you towards Converge or The Wonder Years). I've been told countless times that I'm cold and unsympathetic, usually with a tone of condemnation. The more I think about it though, the more I am right. Most of the time when I get to that spot of heartlessness the best thing for the person is to focus on what they can control. It is a purely logical frame of thinking, but I'm an extremely logical person (even to a fault at times). What interests me the most is that I am being empathic, I put myself into their shoes, and that's what I come up with. It is typically a statement like "you can't change that, but you can change your attitude about it" or "you need to find the positive things in this." Probably not the best things to say to someone who needs comforting but that's who I am and that's what works for me.

On a similar note: I think I'm one of the most posi and level headed people around, which from everything I have been reading lately is prime for what I want in life. I don't see myself changing on this front much, I have always been this way, what I do see is me honing the craft and using my rationality a little more rationally.

If I were offered to be hung or to be shot, I'd choose to live

False Dichotomy - a logical fallacy in which there are only two options considered when more options exist. Sound familiar? Who will you be voting for this year? I have resisted making this post for years (between my various blogs), and now it is more important then ever as important as always (don't be fooled by appeals to importance to undermine your decision making) to understand the trap that is American politics. I could write an entire book on this so I will use formatting to keep it short.

• Politicians only say what the voter wants to hear despite their personal beliefs as a means to get elected
  
• This leads to the candidates moving towards the middle of the political spectrum where the majority of the voters are, this is called the median voter theorem
• This also leads to candidates saying anything and everything that the majority wants to hear, they are mostly empty promises (all under the guise of being benevolent)
• This leads to the social construction that there only two options
• When there are two options presented to you, both of which are unsatisfactory you will choose "the lesser of two evils" instead of seeking out what will actually satisfy you
• This allows the two parties in the majority to then converge into one party, while maintaining the image of separation
• This leads to the parties (and politicians within them) getting what they want despite who is elected and all they have to do is pretend to be different with their empty promises leading up to the election

This is the circle that is padding the wallets of the gentlemen in congress wearing suits in their mansions (or in McCain's case 7 homes), taking vacation in July while the housing market takes another hit. It is a similar system that keeps women out of politics, board rooms, and below the glass ceiling. I will only give one supporting piece of evidence although like I said, there's a books worth. George Washington, our first president, is the only president in American history to be independent.