Credit Crunch Sound Track
Johannes Kreidler has generated a credit crunch soundtrack that has become a You Tube hit. The melodies colsely follow the global stock markets during the height of last year’s crunch. Weird but worth a listen!
You tube clip can be found here.
Snow ploughs and The Economic Problem
It was no surprise to get the text telling me that school is closed today, as I am in the area of Surrey that has 12 inches of snow so far, and it hasn’t stopped falling yet. Watching the news on TV, I can’t believe the number of people claiming that local councils should have the facilities to deal with ‘a bit of snow’ and drawing comparisons with Sweden and central Germany. But those countries have this sort of weather routinely and expect to deal with it several times each winter – the opportunity cost of using local taxes to provide the number of snow ploughs, gritters and road clearing equipment that might be needed to cover such rare events would be immense. This must be a classic example of resource scarcity and choice – the basic Economic Problem!
Kipper Williams on the funny side of the credit crunch
Newspaper cartoonists are in their element at times of national and global crisis. The Guardian’s Kipper Williams has produced a superb collection of daily insights into the bits of the credit crunch we may have missed…
read more...»Copycats!
If you ever have to discuss plagiarism with your students this BBC news video could be a great help!
read more...»Advice for these turbulent times!
This has been doing the rounds in the city no claims to any originality, but there is some sage advice here during this perfect storm!
If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares a year ago they would be worth £4.95 now!!!!
If you had purchased £1000 of HBOS shares a week ago they would be worth £16.50 now!!!!
If you had invested £1000 in XL Leisure they would be worth less than £5 now!!!!
If you had bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, saved all the empty aluminium cans and sent them to a recycling plant, you would get £214!!!!
It is a relief to know that the best current investment ADVICE is to DRINK HEAVILY AND RECYCLE.
Spoken like a true economist…
Since we’re all going to be swallowed up by that Swiss black hole tomorrow, I thought it’d be useful for us to learn how to sound more Josh Hartnett-convincing in our “If I die tomorrow, I want my last night to be spent with you.”
read more...»The most disgusting thing since sliced bread
I almost spat out my breakfast this morning when I read this piece of news: Rat meat in demand as inflation bites. Apparently with the price of beef at £2.50 per kilo, the poor in Cambodia can no longer afford it and have to resort to rodent meat, despite that being four times what it cost a year ago. We’ve all learnt about bread and potatoes in our lessons about Giffen goods but this is a rather peculiar example which might not quite make it to the textbooks just yet.
More here from the Guardian: Cambodians eat rats to beat global food crisis and from the BBC: India’s poor urged to ‘eat rats’
Dictionary Corner!
The Oxford English Dictionary has released the latest set of new words for June 2008 and the turbulence in global financial markets has made an impact! Business is also well represented in our ever-changing lexicon.
read more...»But she ain’t messin’ wit no broke…
This Wednesday the Law Commission announced that pre-nuptial agreements could become legally binding with a few years. This is a landmark decision that could change the face of British society as we know it. Currently, “prenups” have no legal standing in the United Kingdom while they are quite common in the United States and Canada. Today I am going to examine the prenup as a merit good, and offer a policy imperative which may be rather brow-raising.
Striking doctors - fewer deaths
When doctors go on strike, the death rate can often fall - why is this?
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Of lemons and light bulbs
In his book Everlasting Light Bulbs, John Kay dispels the myth that inventors have already came up with a light bulb that lasts forever, and at a reasonable cost. However, light bulb manufacturers have always managed to keep it under covers somehow (through bribery, blackmail or even assassination in some versions of the story!) because such a light bulb would destroy the market for light bulbs and put the manufacturers out of business.
Learning Lessons from: The Simpsons
Back to the econ lab at UCL, and this time the experiment was mercifully short, unlike Experiment 11 which I participated in last time. This one was a market research experiment, a lot more enjoyable but also less wholesome to pick apart.
Well that camel ain’t gonna fit there…
Over the last few weeks it seems like I’ve been discussing nothing but competition policy so I’ve decided to omit the two new stories about the OFT challenging tobacco companies and supermarkets, and cover something else a little more miscellaneous: the annual bitch about the UK’s super-rich.
Learning Lessons from: Experiment 11
Last Thursday I guinea pigged for an economics experiment at UCL. Unfortunately it wasn’t anything as exciting as Tim’s ones, no apples or chocolates were on offer but it was fascinating to see an economics lab from the inside. The invitation simply named it “Experiment 11” which I thought to be rather mysterious but it was probably just because economists don’t have an imagination. I’ll try and describe what it was like, but it will be very confusing so bear with me.
read more...»More proof that sex sells
At the Tutor2u economics blog, we’ve written incessantly about two of our most favourite authors: Tim Harford and Dan Ariely. Now Amazon’s new OMNIVORACIOUS books blog has made my dream come true and pitted the two pop economists against each other in a lively debate. Who will triumph? Logic or irrationality?
Britannia is dead. Long live Britannia!
The audacity of hopelessness
Comedy Central has some great video clips on the dire state of the US economy. Here is one from the Colbert Report!
“10 Grand” Design
If, like me, you dream of living in a modern home of the like seen in Grand Designs, this link from the BBC gives you hope - and perhaps offers a solution to the UK housing shortage.
read more...»Freeconomics
Mark Boyle is no ordinary man. He is a self-styled ‘community pilgrim’ and he hit the news over the weekend after setting out to walk from Bristol to India - without using money.
“Most of the problems in the world such as greed, fear and insecurity, manifest themselves in money,” he is says, “so I’m going out and instead putting my trust in the universe.”
read more...»Alternative Take
Some light relief from youtube - here is an alternative take on ten principles of economics.
read more...»Passionate Flavours
The classic 2007 Superbowl half time break advert for Doritos
read more...»The Mouse Strikes Back - Doritos Superbowl Ad
A very funny (and short) ad from the 2008 Superbowl carrying on in the tradition of very effective Doritos adverts at half time in the big match!
read more...»The £198 Burger - Market Failure or The Success of Innovation?
The message about the private and social costs of rising obesity is being promoted pretty effectively at the moment. However, it seems to have missed a restaurant in Michigan…
read more...»Markets and the year of trouble
The Fairer Sex
It’s been a great week for economics with plenty of macro issues in the news. Half term has also given me lots of time to think about the microeconomics of everyday life, inspired in part by reading Tim Harford’s The Logic of Life.
On Friday I rushed, fashionably late, into Rhyme Time at my local library. My daughter and I quickly joined in a rousing chorus of ‘The wheels on the bus’ and after a few lines I realised that my voice stood out, and not just because I am appalingly tone deaf; its defining characteristic was that it was probably at least two octaves lower than anyone else’s in the room. Of the thirty plus parents there, I was the only dad!
read more...»Canines or SUVs? Carbon foot (paw) prints
Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV?
So asks Arnold Kling on his excellent blog and there has been a merry and fasincating discussion on the site ever since. I have never even considered buying a new SUV (my ever-reliable Citroen has done only 20,000 miles in seven years) but I do have an eye on getting a puppy sometime soon and I hadn’t even considered whether I should consider the environmental impact!
As I hurtle through middle age, I am far more likely to spend an hour or two jogging and playing with my dog than I would watching tv; the marginal benefits of canine ownership and companionship are substantial to dog lovers, witness how many of them are prepared to pay huge vets bills to prolong their pets lives.
Kling makes the rather provocative statement ‘I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.’ - presumably to send dog owning bloggers into a state of apoplexy!
What do you guys think?
Hamster buyers smell a rat
‘It is not a rat, it is a Siberian hamster!’
The final episode of Fawlty Towers was a 40 minute special titled ‘Basil the Rat’. And followers of the iconic comedy will have smiled today with news report from China that, in the year of the Rat, demand for hamsters has increased to such an extent that the going price for hamsters has tripled to about 30 yuan ($4.20, £2.10) across the country. Less than a week into the Chinese New Year, stocks of hamsters are running low as demand outstrips supply. The news has caused a flurry of excitement among hamster owners most of whom immediately leap to the defence of their furry friends when they are compared to rats and mice.
Carrots and Sticks
Half-term brings a time for reflection and on the train heading north with the family, to visit family, I maintained my fix of economics via The Economist. I particularly enjoyed an article on StickK.com, a website allowing users to set and monitor contracts to achieve personal goals. The founders, graduate economics students Dean Karlan and John Romalis, got the idea when they used contracts to create sufficient incentives to both lose weight. If one failed to meet their weight loss target, they were to pay the other $10,000. It worked (unsurprisingly?) and now the site apparently has 50,000 users who have pledged either serious sums of money (to charity) or public humiliation (via the website) to provide sufficient incentives to succeed in giving up smoking, losing weight, taking more exercise or generally just becoming a better person.
read more...»Frozen in time - for 5 minutes!
What happens when 200 performance artists freeze for five minutes amidst the hussle and bustle of New York’s Grand Central Station?
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