Archive for November, 2008
Diarrhea, Foreclosures and the American Dream
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008Interesting stories I came across this morning: Diarrhea kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria: According to the estimates of one sanitation specialist George cites, each of the 2.6 billion people who live without sanitation may ingest up to 10 grams of fecal matter a day. The consequence is often diarrhea, which is a […]
Voting is Rational, but People Don’t Vote Rationally
Thursday, November 20th, 2008I’m about a month later than most to ponder the workings of our democracy. But, given that a few elections are still up in the air, the topic is still somewhat timely. The book I learned the most from this year, was “The Myth of the Rational Voter” by Bryan Caplan, which I reviewed last […]
Sunk Costs: Literally
Thursday, November 13th, 2008When the cost of maintaining a boat exceeds it’s value, owners abandon them. From MSNBC.com: Unlike cars, wooden and fiberglass boats have virtually no scrap value. So rather than pay the high cost of hauling their boats to the dump, people ditch them or sell them for as little as $1 to anyone who will […]
Discouraging Spam
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008I just spent the last 30 minutes deleting over 2500 blog comments “Awaiting Moderation” because my filters indicated they might be spam. All of them were. I was deleting them 25 at a time through the WordPress interface, before a Google search showed me how I could delete them all in one fell swoop using […]
Happy Halloween!
Saturday, November 1st, 2008He was consistently ignored by the economic graduate students at the department party.