… going to be necessary to send that letter in a few months …
Stamp Price to Increase One Cent
You know, if the postal service changes its stamp prices too often, the externalities of the price change may outweigh the marginal revenue of the postal service. Of course, it’s not just the one cent on the regular stamp that is rising, but none of the prices are going up *that* substantially ..
How Sticky is Your Membership on Facebook? from the NYT
I agree with the first comment: if there are “private” things on Facebook that you don’t want coworkers to see, change your privacy settings or don’t have them up in the first place. I’m currently unsearchable (though I’ve loosened that up, or intra-network things) and my profile has all of maybe 10 lines of info – not even including my activities or interests. I’m friends with several professors (and have written on their walls, to find that many respond) and don’t allow my photos to be public … I’m generally comfortable with what info is available, and who can access it. And I do think that being able to easily re-activate Facebook is a plus. But I guess I do sympathize with the people who feel that they need to delete their accounts, but find that it’s still searchable and publicly available (though I’ve never encountered anyone in this scenario myself).
“Household consumption statistics indicate that the gap between the rich and the poor is less than most assume”.
Brilliant. Also, this underlies the issue of a “negative saving rate”. The definition of “income” – and therefore, “saving” – often doesn’t account for wealth that people can use for consumption.
Google Software Makes It Easier to Share from the Associated Press.
The “Team Edition” – a free online package – is supposed to debut Thursday. Pretty cool.
More info about it here. I still don’t like Google’s spreadsheet software – I’ve only tried to free version and find it VERY limited for my needs. Ditto the Powerpoint. The Docs software is really nice, especially since you and collaborators can edit at the same time, but often when it saves the page moves a bit and it’s difficult to continue typing or find your spot. The formatting/font tends to be a little funky as well, but I don’t know if it’s just by nature of having the free software – there has to be incentive (a “better” version) for people (companies) to pay, right?
A Long Story from the NYT
I pretty much agree with his arguments. For some time, I’ve argued that the US was not headed into a recession, but somewhere along the line – after several indicators (perhaps hardest-hitting was the employment release) came out, I started to think that it might be a recession. And as Krugman points out, this recession may be relatively bad due to the combination of economic conditions now – though many economists think that the Fed can prevent recessions in magnitudes comparable to what we’ve seen in the past.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
From the Financial Times: China may yet be economy to lose sleep over
I’m not sure how I actually feel about said issues – I’ve only skimmed the issues through – but it seems pretty convincing. In any case, I’m taking Rogoff’s class this semester at Harvard, and I’m pretty excited (and not just because the girl:guy ratio is about 3:30). I’m relatively worried about it, no lies – quite technical, which is awesome and fine, but i just haven’t learned to think intuitively in formulas yet (usually juniors and seniors take this class, too, which means i have to meet people to do psets …).
And Rogoff is a really nice, extremely knowledgeable professor. I’m just a tad intimidated by him (I always am, with prestigious professors), but I’m super excited.
“Drew Endy, an assistant professor in the biological engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues are putting together a registry of standardized biological parts, which they call BioBrick parts.”
All iGEM teams are scored partially (and to a good amount) on their contributions to the BioBrick registry. That’s the funny thing about iGEM – the competition (iGEM coordinators, at MIT) doesn’t provide cash prizes, nor do they provide any real form of financial aid (in contrast, we have to pay to register and compete). We give them parts, we pay them, they hold the competition once a year. Sounds like a too-good deal: is it sustainable? Why are teams continuing to sign up? [Are you arguing "prestige"? ... I don't really think so. Who, outside of iGEMers, knows who won this year? Last year? Two years ago?]
That said, I do love the iGEM competition. … from an economist’s perspective, the costs and benefits don’t seem to align. I’m not sure how sustainable it is, essentially …
Economy Fitful … from the NYT
“The top fifth of American earners generates half of all consumer spending, noted Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays Capital”
We do have to realize, as it is not mentioned in the article, that “spending” includes spending on education. I would guess that the higher income families tend to have more children who attend private schools … and when they attend school, they don’t get financial aid. This might add to the seemingly large spending rate of the higher classes. Of course, it’s likely that the top fifth of earners do spend greater amounts in absolute value, even if the spending rate as a percentage is roughly equal …
Mankiw’s Birthday Wish, New York Times
“Economic View
Free distribution of scholarship online …?
Harvard Proposal to Publish Scholarship Free on Internet
I really have to think about how I feel about this, I’m not sure how I feel about anything “free”. At least, for course materials (lecture notes/videos, past exams), I don’t advocate free distribution because I feel that I’m paying for my education … so why should anyone else benefit by getting it free? If they are to benefit, shouldn’t they contribute by paying (so that the cost to me is lower)? … It is somewhat selfish, yes.
Anyways, this is a slightly different issue, which is why I do have to think about it.