Oh, how I hate it. It's just another opportunity to make bad decisions. And now here two more reasons to hate it:
Preteens Trading Fairy Wands for Fishnets: Halloween Trend Toward Racy Get-Ups Vexes Parents
Oh, the Horror of Rush Hour
Update: Went to the Halloween parade at school and I didn't see many preteens in racy get-ups -- yes, there were a few in fishnets and short skirts, which for now I'm going to put the blame squarely on the parents. Children to a large extent reflect their parents after all, in the same way that dogs reflect their owners. There were a few very cool home made costumes though, in a time when home made costumes are on their way out: cardboard I-Pod (do preteens acutally want I-Pods? Now, that's scary) and cardboard painting to look like bottled water.
The most inventive one I had heard about but have not actually seen is one where the kid has a cardbox box over his head with a slit near his chest and a painted numeric pad. He told the greeter to push some of the buttons and then he would pop out a photocopy of a 20 dollar bill. (He was an ATM, in case you haven't already guessed).
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Boring meetings
I sympathized with Tyler Cowen's piece In Favor of Boring Meetings although I find it hard to sit through them. This sentence caught my eye since I am reading Robert Rubin's In An Uncertain World:
Attendees feel like insiders who have a real voice in decisions. This boosts their motivation to implement ideas discussed as a group. For this reason it is especially important to listen to the blowhards and the obstructionists, who otherwise would pursue their own agendas rather than support a common plan.
This is similar to his description of meetings and he sat through while in the NEC with the Clinton admnistration and the participatory process of decision making that he liked.
But the point is that in our process, everybody had a fair and full say. Not only did that lead to better decisions because all views were considered, but the participants also bought into those decisions, despite their reservations, because they felt fully invested in the decision-making process. (p. 142)
What might have looked messy to outsiders was actually a process of deliverate and open discussion, of smart, committed people engaging in debate as a way of getting to the best decision. (p. 144)
Attendees feel like insiders who have a real voice in decisions. This boosts their motivation to implement ideas discussed as a group. For this reason it is especially important to listen to the blowhards and the obstructionists, who otherwise would pursue their own agendas rather than support a common plan.
This is similar to his description of meetings and he sat through while in the NEC with the Clinton admnistration and the participatory process of decision making that he liked.
But the point is that in our process, everybody had a fair and full say. Not only did that lead to better decisions because all views were considered, but the participants also bought into those decisions, despite their reservations, because they felt fully invested in the decision-making process. (p. 142)
What might have looked messy to outsiders was actually a process of deliverate and open discussion, of smart, committed people engaging in debate as a way of getting to the best decision. (p. 144)
Another boiling frog post
When Al Gore used the parable of the boiling frog to compare our situation with global warming I wondered if the claim could ever be true:
If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he’ll jump out. But if you place a frog into a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat, it will boil to death.
A lot of blog posts including this one by James Fallows, have debunked this by referring to this article in Fast Company, Next Time, What Say We Boil a Consultant. This parable is popular in business literature as a story of companies which are slow to recognize change, etc. Thanks to Wikipedia which notesthat while the Fast Company article is correct, the original experiments conducted in the late 19th century were at a rate 10 times less than those in the recent experiment. In the original experiment, the the temperature was raised at a rate of 0.002°C while in the Fast Company article, the temperature was raised at 0.019°C.
It's too bad we can't try to replicate the original experiments. PETA would have our hides for doing this. The reference to the original experiment is here in Google Books.
If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he’ll jump out. But if you place a frog into a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat, it will boil to death.
A lot of blog posts including this one by James Fallows, have debunked this by referring to this article in Fast Company, Next Time, What Say We Boil a Consultant. This parable is popular in business literature as a story of companies which are slow to recognize change, etc. Thanks to Wikipedia which notesthat while the Fast Company article is correct, the original experiments conducted in the late 19th century were at a rate 10 times less than those in the recent experiment. In the original experiment, the the temperature was raised at a rate of 0.002°C while in the Fast Company article, the temperature was raised at 0.019°C.
It's too bad we can't try to replicate the original experiments. PETA would have our hides for doing this. The reference to the original experiment is here in Google Books.
Is cleaning out ear wax an example of overconsumption of Medical Services?
When we were in Kuala Lumpur this past summer, K1 fell sick. We had thought it was a virus and after 3 days we decided to bring her to a local doctor who confirmed that it was indeed a virus. We mentioned that back in the states, the doctors usually order a complete blood count (CBC) at her annual checkup. The doctor was surprised and seemed to indicate that this was not normal practice in Malaysia. Is CBC at every annual checkup an example of overconsumption of medical services that drives up the cost of health care in the US? I haven't made up my mind. It's not that expensive and it's mostly covered by insurance. Our bill shows $49 before insurance.
Another related story is the following: My cousin who lives in Singapore has a 5 year old (I think) but for almost 2 years was incredibly worried because he was not talking. They went to see a specialist to try to figure out what was wrong. Eventually, hard as it was for me to believe, they found out that he could not hear and hence could not repeat anything back because his ears were full of wax. I was amazed to hear this because here in the US, during the annual checkups the pediatrician always looks in the kids ears to make sure they're clear. (K1 has a problem with impacted cerumen (which I'm guessing is ear wax) and always needs it cleaned out.) Having a doctor look into her ears doesn't cost us anything -- well, at least it's not itemized in the bill but is probably included as part of the checkup. Is checking ears an example of overconsumption of medical care? Here I would disagree.
It's dangerous to generalize about the quality of health care based on these incidents but it makes me wonder. I'm also not too partial to some of arguments of overconsumption because of generous insurance plans, for instance, noted here by Prof. Mankiw.. If there were overconsumption is it driven by the patient, the doctor or both? And if there were overconsumption but is still beneficial overall, why would insurance companies who are profit maximizing entities continue to insure that part of the medical care? I would expect that in equilibrium, if the overall costs of coverage are higher than the benefits then insurance companies would refuse coverage (as they already do for certain pre-existing conditions).
Another related story is the following: My cousin who lives in Singapore has a 5 year old (I think) but for almost 2 years was incredibly worried because he was not talking. They went to see a specialist to try to figure out what was wrong. Eventually, hard as it was for me to believe, they found out that he could not hear and hence could not repeat anything back because his ears were full of wax. I was amazed to hear this because here in the US, during the annual checkups the pediatrician always looks in the kids ears to make sure they're clear. (K1 has a problem with impacted cerumen (which I'm guessing is ear wax) and always needs it cleaned out.) Having a doctor look into her ears doesn't cost us anything -- well, at least it's not itemized in the bill but is probably included as part of the checkup. Is checking ears an example of overconsumption of medical care? Here I would disagree.
It's dangerous to generalize about the quality of health care based on these incidents but it makes me wonder. I'm also not too partial to some of arguments of overconsumption because of generous insurance plans, for instance, noted here by Prof. Mankiw.. If there were overconsumption is it driven by the patient, the doctor or both? And if there were overconsumption but is still beneficial overall, why would insurance companies who are profit maximizing entities continue to insure that part of the medical care? I would expect that in equilibrium, if the overall costs of coverage are higher than the benefits then insurance companies would refuse coverage (as they already do for certain pre-existing conditions).
Monday, October 29, 2007
How much difference does all this matter anyway?
I just spent half an hour shredding our old checks because we changed our accounts and I was thinking how much of an impact collectively does all the shredding have on identity fraud anyway? Does it really make a difference? It must have an impact because we're all mostly now doing it and sales of shredders have increased (not to mention shredder accidents). But really, is there any evidence out there?
K1 had head lice once and there was a whole regimen of things that we had to do: wash and change sheets daily, vacuum daily, daily laundry, head lice shampoo. Like a lamb following its mother, we did all of these. Did any of these really had any impact? Our suspicions have been no -- the only thing that has really worked is to comb through the hair with a nit comb and to pick them out one by one.
Am I sounding like some of those who scorn proposals to change over to compact fluorescent light bulbs, turn off our computers, etc. to save the earth from global warming? I hope not because like another lamb, I am following all these suggestions.
K1 had head lice once and there was a whole regimen of things that we had to do: wash and change sheets daily, vacuum daily, daily laundry, head lice shampoo. Like a lamb following its mother, we did all of these. Did any of these really had any impact? Our suspicions have been no -- the only thing that has really worked is to comb through the hair with a nit comb and to pick them out one by one.
Am I sounding like some of those who scorn proposals to change over to compact fluorescent light bulbs, turn off our computers, etc. to save the earth from global warming? I hope not because like another lamb, I am following all these suggestions.
Are we protecting our kids too much?
Over at Half Changed World, ELB writes:
Coming from our little ad-free world, it was a real shock to be visiting my parents Columbus Day weekend and to encounter all the commercials in the baseball games. ... Since D doesn't see commercials all the time, he was fascinated by them.
Our kids don't watch too much television either and when they do it is usually PBS which only has sponsor messages at the end. I sometimes wonder if we are over protective -- how would they react when they see something we have been sheltering from them for the first time? Curiosity? Over react? I sometimes think that age limits on alcohol use is a little like over protecting but I'm not fully convinced yet. Ideally, if it is something important that we are protecting them from, we would talk about it little by little over time so that they adjust or get used to the idea. For TV ads, I guess we would say what? That they are trying to sell us something that we may not want?
Coming from our little ad-free world, it was a real shock to be visiting my parents Columbus Day weekend and to encounter all the commercials in the baseball games. ... Since D doesn't see commercials all the time, he was fascinated by them.
Our kids don't watch too much television either and when they do it is usually PBS which only has sponsor messages at the end. I sometimes wonder if we are over protective -- how would they react when they see something we have been sheltering from them for the first time? Curiosity? Over react? I sometimes think that age limits on alcohol use is a little like over protecting but I'm not fully convinced yet. Ideally, if it is something important that we are protecting them from, we would talk about it little by little over time so that they adjust or get used to the idea. For TV ads, I guess we would say what? That they are trying to sell us something that we may not want?
Can turning on car lights when it rains be an equilibrium?
In some jurisdictions, the law requires that car lights (tail lights and head lights) be on when it rains. If I don't turn on my lights, some behind me might not be able to see me because of the spray. I would like to be seen so that I don't get run into. Likewise, I would like the car in front of me to have its lights on so that I don't run into it. If it is mutually beneficial to have our lights on why do we need a law? Is there a reason not to have the lights on that would outweigh the benefits of not getting into an accident?
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