Common Craft - How US Presidential Elections Work

Common Craft is a company that produces "plain English" videos on how things work. Their explanations are straight forward and use lots of graphics. 

Their latest video explains how the US presidential elections work.  This is really useful for individuals who aren't quite sure how the electoral college process works.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwe introduces new currency

Robert Mugabe is at it again. This time his government is going to redenominate the Zimbabwe Dollar so that 1bn becomes 1 dollar. Apparently the 9 million percent inflation has made simple financial transactions extremely difficult to calculate from an equipment perspective.

Mugabe continues to threaten business men, telling them not to become profiteers. Gee, Mugabe, do you think your current economic policies might be to blame? After all, you outlawed inflation and now the stores are bare...

Someone needs to depose this fool. What's South Africa waiting for? These people are going to starve to death if something is done.

Empathy cannot change an elasticity

Justin Wolfers on the Freakonomics blog posted a piece on McCain's proposed gas tax holiday.  George Stephanopoulos interviewed McCaiin on the subject and Wolfers has a brief analysis of it:

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The Gas Tax and the New Economics of Shame

My gas tax challenge still remains unanswered: Try to find any coherent economist willing to support Senator John McCain’s proposed gas tax holiday.

In May, George Stephanopoulos posed my challenge to Hillary Clinton, who famously responded that she was “not going to put my lot in with economists.” I didn’t like her response, but at least it was honest.

On Sunday, Stephanopoulos posed the challenge to McCain and elicited a truly bizarre response.

Stephanopoulos: Not a single economist in the country said it’d work.

McCain: Yes. And there’s no economist in the country that knows very well the low-income American who drives the furthest, in the oldest automobile, that sometimes can’t even afford to go to work.

McCain’s response — attack the economists — has now become a recurring theme of the campaign. I agree that we economists need to understand the lives of the folks we study. But my understanding of Average Joe is not going to help me better understand the impact vs. incidence of a gas tax. Empathy cannot change an elasticity.

And then Stephanopoulos continued, pushing the economic argument:

Stephanopoulos: But they all say that … the oil companies, the gas companies are going to absorb … any reduction.

McCain: … they say that. But one, it didn’t happen before, and two, we wouldn’t let it happen. We wouldn’t let it — Americans wouldn’t let them absorb that.

Stephanopoulos: How would you prevent that?

McCain: We would make them shamed into it. We, of course, know how to — American public opinion. And we would penalize them if necessary. But they wouldn’t. They would pass it on.

Stephanopoulos: Let me ask you about …

McCain: But let me just finally say, Americans need trust and confidence in their government.

McCain’s response — that tax incidence is a function of shame — is completely novel to me. Does shame really determine oil prices? If so, why aren’t the oil companies already feeling ashamed of high oil prices? I don’t get it.

And if shame doesn’t work, Mr. McCain would “penalize them.” Is he suggesting price controls? Or something else? Help me.

(Full transcript here. Hat tip: Free Exchange and Matt Yglesias, who provide further discussion.)

Where's George?

I came across a dollar bill earlier today that had "Track this bill at www.WheresGeorge.com" stamped on the side of it.

Following my curiosity I went to the site and entered the serial number.  Apparently the person who stamped this bill did so in La Vernia, TX.  La Vernia is just East of San Antonio.

The website includes tracking reports and the top ranked bills by denomination.

I thought the "United States Currency Tracking Project" was worth a mention. 

Defacing US currency, however, is a crime and you shouldn't do it. 

Ha... http://tinyurl.com/6lhlva

Two Fed myths that need debunking: http://tinyurl.com/6jdlr4

Life Without Blackwater: http://tinyurl.com/68keoz

On a plane to Philadelphia

One of the Unhappiest Places on Earth http://bit.ly/4qPmV3

One of the Unhappiest Places on Earth

An Associated Press story quantifying the inflation in Zimbabwe:

Zimbabweans battle money shortages as collectors buy hundred billion dollar notes on eBay

The Associated Press ,  Harare   |  Wed, 07/23/2008 7:13 PM  |  World

Amid Zimbabwe's mind-boggling hyper inflation, a new $100 billion bank note has more value as a novelty item on eBay than on the streets of the capital.

The note, launched this week, is worth enough to buy a loaf of bread -- if you can find one on Zimbabwe's depleted store shelves. Meanwhile on eBay, the bill was on offer for nearly US$80.

Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it's cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper.

In the political and economic turmoil since disputed March 29 elections, prices have risen almost daily. Factories and businesses have shut down amid empty order books and chronic shortages of gasoline, power, water and spare parts for equipment repairs.

President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed an agreement Monday to hold talks about power- sharing to end the crisis and restore economic stability. But the news failed to move the exchange rate, since little cash is available.

House prices and lottery prizes are quoted in quadrillions -- that's with 15 zeros. Zimbabweans says it's only a matter of time before big ticket items will be priced in the quintillions, which have 18 zeros.

Official inflation is quoted at 2.2 million percent but independent finance houses say it's closer to 12.5 million percent.

One major commercial bank said its automated teller machines are not configured to dispense multi-zero withdrawals and freeze in what it called a "data overflow error." Software writers are busy writing programs to try to overcome the problem.

Urgent electronic transfers in trillions also take several days as electronic accounting systems grapple with transactions in 12 zeros.

Bank transfers command a special rate. A hundred billion dollars is worth US$5 at the official rate, $1 at the black market rate -- but just 30 U.S. cents in a transfer because by the time the funds are processed the Zimbabwe currency can be expected to be worth a lot less.

Shops have dropped six zeros from price tags, adding them again after totals are tallied at tills.

Zimbabwe has 27 denominations of bills and no coins. Lower value bills -- 10 million Zimbabwe dollars -- are all but obsolete, even in brick-sized bundles. Beggars and street urchins rarely bother to pick up such bills dropped on the street.

But one recent day in Marondera town outside Harare, traffic stopped and business came to a halt when someone -- apparently upset by the dizzying rate of inflation -- started throwing 50- billion-dollar notes from a moving car. Residents scrambled to collect the money.

The biggest bakery in Harare shut down this month and sent 1,200 workers home on forced leave because flour stocks recently ran out. For years, the bakery donated free loaves every week to a home for the handicapped and charity-run hostels.

One Internet provider has invited customers to pay their fees in gasoline coupons that hold their value.

A 58-year-old Harare financial director who asked not to be identified said his monthly salary is paid in local money which converts to US$50 at the bank rate. When available at his local sports club, a hamburger costs the equivalent of US$12. He hasn't eaten out in a year.

A cup of coffee at a government-owned five-star hotel was 130 billion Zimbabwe dollars, or US$5.30 this week. A waitress at the hotel said she earns 100 billion Zimbabwe dollars, US$4 a month.

A German company stopped shipments of bank note paper to the central bank's printers this month as the European Union looked to strengthen sanctions.

The release of new money slowed as the central bank said it was looking to Indonesia and Malaysia to supply the specialized paper.

The daily grind for Zimbabweans to survive in the economic meltdown has won them a rating as the world's unhappiest people in the World Values Survey of the Michigan Institute for Social esearch.

Zimbabweans were slightly unhappier than Armenians and Moldovans, also victims poverty and "the legacies of authoritarian rule," the researchers said.

Dereck Nhamo, who manages a warehouse, says he wants to join the teeming ranks of unemployed because he can't afford to work any longer.

Nhamo earns less than his bus fare to the warehouse in Harare but adds to his monthly income by selling firewood collected on weekends in outlying woodlands.

"It doesn't make sense to go to work any more," Nhamo said.

The Cato Institute on Zimbabwe's Inflation

The Cato Institute has a fascinating article comparing Zimbabwe's runaway inflation with post WWI Germany and early 1990's Yugoslavia (under the now-dead war criminal Slobodan Milosevic).

 

Hyperinflation: Mugabe Versus Milosevic

by Steve H. Hanke

Steve H. Hanke is a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Added to cato.org on July 21, 2008

This article appeared in the August 2008 issue of Globe Asia.

When a country's monthly inflation rate exceeds 50% – that is close to an annual rate of 13,000% – it qualifies as a hyperinflation.

Episodes of hyperinflation are rare. they have only occurred when the supply of money has been governed by discretionary paper money standards. No hyperinflation has ever been recorded when money has been commodity-based or when paper money has been convertible into a commodity. The first hyperinflation occurred during the French Revolution (1789-96). As the accompanying table indicates, the French episode was followed by 28 additional hyperinflations—all in the twentieth century.

Perhaps the most well-known was the great German hyperinflation of the 1920s, when the monthly inflation rate peaked at approximately 30,000% in October 1923. The two most virulent hyperinflations ever recorded – Hungary (1945-46) and Yugoslavia (1992-94) – curiously remain little known. Perhaps this is because the peak monthly inflation rates were so high as to be incomprehensible. This problem can be overcome by thinking in terms of daily inflation rates, however. On that metric, the highest daily inflation rate ever recorded was in Hungary on July 10, 1946, when the daily rate was 348.46%.

The accompanying chart plots the destruction of the German mark against the US dollar during the world's most well-known hyperinflation. It also plots the decimation of the Yugoslav dinar against the US dollar during the last great hyperinflation of the twentieth century. Under Slobodan Milosevic's rule, Yugoslavia recorded the second-highest monthly inflation rate in history, a whopping 313 million percent in January 1994. While much higher than the German peak-monthly rate, the Yugoslav rate was much lower than the record monthly rate which was chalked up by Hungary in July 1946. This brings us to the world's thirtieth, and this century's first, hyperinflation. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has been engulfed in a hyperinflation since March 2007.

Absent current data, we don't know exactly what today's inflation rate is. However, we do know the course of the Zimbabwe dollar against the US dollar (see chart). The destruction of Mugabe's dollar is approaching that which visited the German mark in the 1920s but it's not yet close to the ruin of Milosevic's Yugoslav dinar. Everyone knows that high inflation rates inflict untold damage on a country's economy and misery on its suffering citizens. Zimbabwe's inflation has pushed its inhabitants into poverty and forced millions of Zimbabweans to emigrate. Between 1997 and 2007, cumulative inflation was nearly 3.8 billion percent, while living standards fell by 38%.The source of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's money machine. The government spends, and the RBZ finances the spending by printing money.

The RBZ has no ability in practice to resist the government's demands for cash. Accordingly, the RBZ cannot hope to regain credibility anytime soon. To stop hyperinflation, Zimbabwe needs to immediately adopt a different monetary system.

Three choices

Any one of three options can rapidly slash the inflation rate and restore stability and growth to the Zimbabwean economy. First is "dollarization." This option would replace the discredited Zimbabwe dollar with a foreign currency, such as the US dollar or the South African rand. Second is a currency board. Under that system, the Zimbabwe dollar would be credible because it would be fully backed by a foreign reserve currency and would be freely convertible into the reserve currency at a fixed rate on demand.

Third is free banking. This option would allow commercial banks to issue their own private notes and other liabilities with minimum government regulation.Central banking is the only monetary system that has ever created hyperinflation and instability in Zimbabwe. Prior to central banking, Zimbabwe had a rich monetary experience in which a free banking system and a currency board system performed well. It is time for Zimbabwe to adopt one of these proven monetary systems and discard its failed experiment with central banking.

Will this happen any time soon? The answer is not clear. It is surprising how long the perpetrator of a hyperinflation can stay in power. Yugoslavia's hyperinflation peaked in January 1994 but Yugoslavs suffered for nearly eight more years of high inflation until Milosevic reluctantly conceded defeat after the September 2001 elections.

Yugoslavia's experience with currency destruction, hyperinflation and a determined dictator is sobering. Those who believe hyperinflation will bring down Robert Mugabe rapidly might, unfortunately, be engaging in wishful thinking.

That said, there is room to end on an optimistic note: the life of most governments that have used the printing presses to create hyperinflation have been much shorter than Milosevic's. And there are proven remedies to bring hyperinflations to an abrupt halt.

Check this BBQ Smoker Out

A friend forwarded this photo of a barbecue smoker a FFA student built.  It's great!

 

Location: San Joaquin Valley

Look what a clever FFA student entered into our County Fair. The barrel actually diverts the smoke away from the grill. There is also a meat smoker built into the grip of the revolver. This new BBQ has leftist Senators Feinstein and Boxer already starting legislation to ban BBQ's in California.

Yes, he won the blue ribbon.

 

Don't even think about taking this to San Francisco.

 

 

New DC gun law - the stupidity continues

A colleague sent me this link this morning:

http://reason.com/news/show/127686.html

At the Astros game.

Mind Mapping

I like to use mind mapping to brainstorm and organize thoughts and tasks.  I use a licenced software that I paid for, but there are a number of free mind mapping applications available.

Here's one that Justin and I collaborated on for a joint best man speech  at Geoff and Pam's wedding:

 

For a list of the free applications, see Wikipedia's article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mind_Mapping_software

Do you use RSS?

Of all the things that I find efficient with computing and the internet, RSS is absolutely up there as a simple implementation that greatly increases efficient data gathering.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  What does that mean?  It means that rather than surfing to a thousand news and blog sites everyday to find out what's going on, you subscribe to a URL from that site that let's you know when new information is available. 

The best explanation is a video available from Common Craft.  Take a moment to watch it, it's really good.

Over the past five or six years I've used several different RSS feed aggregators: News Gator, Google Reader, MS Outlook 2007's built in reader, and a reader I built in MS Access.  The one that I like the most, though, is the RSS feed reader built into IE 7. 

It doesn't matter so much which reader you prefer, just as long as you RSS a try. 

For example, here's what my blog looks like through a RSS feed reader (IE 7):

 

On the left you see all the categories that I have set up (as folders).  The each feed I subscribe to is displayed.  If it's bold that means that I have unread feeds.  Most news feeds only display a summary under the title, so you can skim through the articles.  When you find something you want to read, you click on the title and it opens in the browser so you can read the entire article. 

My blog is set up to give the read the entire entry, so there's no need to go to my site to read the articles. 

My new favorite blog is Lifehacker.

Enjoy the RSS video.

Happy Cost of Government Day

In case you’re wondering what that is…

It’s the number of days that the average American must work to pay their portion of taxes.  Essentially 53% of your income.  So for the rest of the year you can use what is left to spend as you please ( you know – bills)

http://www.atr.org/national/cogd/2008/overview.html

Some Updates

I've updated the format on my blog space again.  The "Simple" layout I was using before seemed to too chaotic. 

I've also been using some new tools that were part of the expansion utilities through FireFox 3.0.

LifeHacker has been a great source for new tools, tips and tricks.  

Currently I'm using Windows Live Writer to post most blog posts through Blogger and then it ends up on my personal domain (blog.nonsufficitorbis.com) hosted on Network Solutions.

Twit updates on Twitter should now post to my blog and to Facebook using Switchabit. 

I have Switchabit configured as such:

I'm using the Dashblog 1.5 add-on in FireFox 3.0 to grab video from websites.

I also twit via SMS and occasionally blog from there as well. 

Flickr is where I store all my photos.

External Anti Depressant.

This Dilbert animation made me smile. Here's the link to the official Dilbert website: http://dilbert.com/animation/comic/2008-07-16/

BigGovHealth.Org

Check out this website on what big government would do to healthcare: BigGovHealth.org

Switchabit

 

I read a Lifehacker post earlier today that mentioned a new beta service, switchabit.  This service reroutes messages from one social networking service to another automatically.  This makes posting to multiple services really simple.  Post a twit and it appears in Facebook.  Post a new photo on Flickr and it gets sent to Twitter and Facebook.

I've just set up my account, so I haven't evaluated it long enough to comment on it.  Conceptually, though, this is a great service.  Currently it is free.

Biking to work

Jessica Hagy at Indexed has a great post today about biking to work when it's humid out.  Sounds like every summer day in Houston!