Archive for June, 2008
June 29th, 2008 - See The Visitor
A movie about an economics professor, music and immigration policy. It is a powerful and poignant indictment of how America’s government treats those whose only “crime” is a desire to live here.
It is bad enough that where we happen to be born has so much to do with how life turns out for us. It is worse when something as artificial as national frontiers prevent those born into bad circumstances from improving their lots in life.
June 29th, 2008 - Perhaps some hope on California’s Housing Market
According to the California Association of Realtors, existing home sales in May were up 18 percent from a year earlier. At the same time, my colleague Delores Conway is showing that the gap between house payments and rents is returning to its historical norm for Los Angeles.
But perhaps more interesting are anecdotes I heard at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco last week–buyers are going on REO “bus tours” and purchasing multiple homes–with their own money. It is not all all clear how widespread this phenomenon is, but if we see large numbers of vultures in a market using equity to sweep up REO properties and short sales, we have seen the bottom of the market.
June 29th, 2008 - Perhaps some hope on California’s Housing Market
According to the California Association of Realtors, existing home sales in May were up 18 percent from a year earlier. At the same time, my colleague Delores Conway is showing that the gap between house payments and rents is returning to its historical norm for Los Angeles.
But perhaps more interesting are anecdotes I heard at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco last week–buyers are going on REO “bus tours” and purchasing multiple homes–with their own money. It is not all all clear how widespread this phenomenon is, but if we see large numbers of vultures in a market using equity to sweep up REO properties and short sales, we have seen the bottom of the market.
June 25th, 2008 - Volcano Vaporizer
Nowadays since technology is fast arising we are not getting the same quality of air that we used to get 20 or 30 years ago. Pollution has been the main problem of cities and houses in the present time. But there is a good solution for this. A vaporizer is a device used to release the active ingredients of plant material, commonly cannabis, or tobacco, and also to release therapeutic compounds from herbs Vaporization is an alternative to smoking. Rather than burning the herb, which produces numerous harmful by-products, a vaporizer heats the material, ideally to 180°C (356°F), so that the active compounds contained in the plant boil off into a vapor.
Have you ever heard the product name volcano vaporizer? Well, if you never heard it before, let me introduce to you the newest invention in the market name volcano vaporizer. This product has a lot of features that will truly help you in your daily life. This volcano vaporizer is more advanced electronic control system that can be able to control accurately the temperature. It can display both Fahrenheit and Celsius. This volcano vaporizer works properly with 110 volts power. As I said this is the latest invention in the field of vaporizer science. This product is very affordable and they will ship the product for free. To know more about the volcano vaporizer, visit their website and click the icon. They guarantee 100% satisfaction for their buyer.
June 24th, 2008 - Superior Classical Music Blogging
So I am listening to Perahia’s Goldbergs, and I run across this: http://jessicamusic.blogspot.com/. Jessica is clearly witty and informed. I’ll enjoy reading through the archives.
June 24th, 2008 - Was the "Northwest" in North by Northwest the first example of product placement?
One commenter thinks it is perhaps so. You see the red tail when Carey Grant and Leo G. Carroll are headed for a plane from Midway to Rapid City. I don’t know whether the coincidence of the airline name (actually Northwest Orient at the time) and the movie title was intentional or not.
I did forget to list NW among airlines. It is funny, because I think after United I have flown on it more than any other. There must have been a traumatic experience that made me want to forget….
June 24th, 2008 - Was the "Northwest" in North by Northwest the first example of product placement?
One commenter thinks it is perhaps so. You see the red tail when Carey Grant and Leo G. Carroll are headed for a plane from Midway to Rapid City. I don’t know whether the coincidence of the airline name (actually Northwest Orient at the time) and the movie title was intentional or not.
I did forget to list NW among airlines. It is funny, because I think after United I have flown on it more than any other. There must have been a traumatic experience that made me want to forget….
June 23rd, 2008 - More on airlines
I didn’t mean to pick on United in my last post, it just happened to be the airline that the woman worked for. I hear people complain a lot about United, but as I have said before, I don’t think they are too bad. They give frequent fliers extra room (an excellent loyalty program benefit), and you can hear the pilots communicate with ATC. I find this calming. The ground staff and flight attendants are generally very nice.
So here is my list, best to worst, of domestic airlines I have flown:
Jetblue
Midwest Express
The Old TWA (RIP)
United
Delta
Continental
Southwest
American
US Airways
The bottom two tie for worst–I try to avoid them.
Among international carriers, my list is
Singapore (in my egalitarian dream, everyone gets to fly it at least once)
Lufthansa
Cathay Pacific
KAL
ANA
Emirates
KLM
Air France
Thai
Air Canada
Alitalia
Air India
The Ukrainian National Airline–soviet era plane smelled of oil
June 23rd, 2008 - Framing
When I was in Philadelphia last week, I met a woman who had worked in the HR department at United Airlines. As one might expect, the employees at United are not a happy group, but they also don’t want to leave. I asked the woman why, pointing out that people such as flight attendants are quite intelligent, and could presumably make more money doing something they might like better.
She said the issue is that the flight attendants love the travel benefit (talk about your busman’s holiday!). I asked the HR woman whether the travel benefit compensated for the pay lost not working in other areas. She said no–that many workers could make tens of thousands more, which would, of course, suffice to pay for a large number of plane tickets. But beyond this, people could use the money to buy things other than plane tickets, were they to chose.
This seems like a classic example of framing. Flight attendants see their travel benefit as an entitlement, and they would have to be paid something more than the value of the entitlement to let it go. Economics needs to get better at figuring this stuff out.
June 22nd, 2008 - Stuart Thiel knows why people are unhappy (about George Bush)
Stuart (my Econometrics TA in Graduate School) has been tracking this relationship for some time. Looks pretty robust to me.
