Can you see me now?

Ever read something that seems to describe you perfectly? Is that always a pleasant feeling? Baseline Scenario posts a commentary on the Planet Money efficiency podcast, pointing out that shaving wasted time out of a person's workday doesn't necessarily mean an employer will get more work out of them.

Baseline Scenario: The Myth of Efficiency

Hank Paulson: Just like us

Several facts about Hank Paulson have come to my attention since the release of his book about the financial crisis.  The first was that he's a Christian Scientist, the second  (via Talking Points Memo) that he's got friends in the environmental community and his wife Wendy doesn't like to see them trifled with, and the third (also from TPM) that he's a bird enthusiast.  Worth seeing in his own words.

TPM: Collapse of Bear Stearns Took Away from Hank Paulson's Bird Time

Cost of Twelve Days of Christmas

The eight milking maids received an automatic minimum wage increase, to $7.25 an hour. Even so, they totaled a mere $58, up $5.60 from last year. The eight ladies dancing fared far better, with a 15 percent raise, to $5,473 for each performance based on figures from the Philadelphia modern dance company, Philadanco.
But other performers were not as fortunate, reflecting a jobless rate that doubled this year after hovering around 5 percent for much of the decade, Mr. Dunigan said. Pay was flat for the 12 drummers drumming, at $2,475, 11 pipers piping, at $2,284, and 10 lords-a-leaping, at $4,414.


NYTimes: 12 Days of Gift-Giving Cost True Love $21,466

Today's Oxymoron: Economist Humor

"We learn that Bernanke played a prank on President Bush one day by coordinating the whole economic staff, along with even Dick Cheney to wear tan socks..."


Satyajit Das's Blog: Fear & Loathing in Financial Products

Modern-Day Buffalo

Another exotic animal that isn't in such high demand these days: alligator.


"Stolid men wade into shallow tanks and pull the alligators out by hand. Biting happens. After the gators are killed with a stab to the brain, they are skinned and sorted: heads and claws for the French Quarter souvenir shops, meat for the Cajun restaurants, guts for turtles, dogs or anything else whose tastes run that way."


NYTimes: As Sales Vanish, Skins Stay on Alligators

Inside Out

When I first saw the premise of this FT blog I was taken aback- Florida prisons let inmates send email? Even if he  is "as innocent of my charge of insider dealing as my beautiful two-year-old triplets ", that's pretty laid back for minimum security! Of course, the joke was on me.


FT: Notes from Inside

Sally the Camel is DINNER

Squeezed by higher costs and cash-poor butchers, middlemen at an Egyptian market wonder if they'll ever get over this hump.

...

"I've been doing this for 29 years," says Ammar, who wears a white-lace cap and an even snowier pinstriped vest, a risky choice amid blowing dust and rubbish fires. "You have to know your camels, setting price to age. The best come from Sudan. The ones from Somalia don't adapt so well. I can tell if a camel will bite me or just run away. It is essential to know such things."

The traders around him, some with blood splotches on their tunics, nod.

LATimes: Egypt camel trade runs into the sand (Not one but TWO puns before the lede. Nice.)

Russia vs. United States

I'm not sure what this is doing on a personal finance blog but it looks pretty. Some of the matchups are very dramatic- murder rate and number of prisoners are right next to each other with pretty striking differences.

Mint: Russia vs. United States: A Visual Comparison

North Dakota's moment to shine

Stories keep popping up about North Dakota's relative reprieve from the economic crisis. When will all this good news actually convince people to move there?

One bright spot in the bleak state picture is North Dakota, which has not had to cut budgets because of 20 percent growth in the past year and $1.2 billion in reserves. That has come with lots of planning over the past 10 years, including a diversification of the state economy from primarily agriculture into energy and manufacturing, according to Pam Sharp, director of the state office of management and budget.

She says North Dakota’s basic conservatism helped it avoid the foreclosure crisis because very few homes were purchased with subprime loans. Also, about a decade ago, North Dakota began significant investments in “centers of excellence” – partnerships between state universities and the private sector, to help grow the economy.

“We’ve got a very conservative population and state officials who really think things through carefully,” says Ms. Sharp.

Christian Science Monitor: Economy may be rebounding, but state budgets are still hurting

Boogie down with trust busting!

The greatest thing about this WSJ chart explaining the otherwise pretty unfunny proposed merge between Live Nation and Ticketmaster is the graphic for the fans. What are they dancing to?

WSJ via Atlantic Monthly Business Channel: Ticketmaster-Live Nation Update: DOJ Doesn't Like It Either

Why it's unfunny: Planet Money: The Economics of Ticketmaster

That's settled

I've never been behind more than one person at my new supermarket, even though most nights when I go there's only one or two cashiers. But at peak times in DC, even with every lane open, I spent a lot of time wondering whether I was better off behind someone with a full cart or 5 people each carrying a six-pack, toothpaste, and mustard. Dan Meyer, high school math teacher and savior to anyone who hates to feel like a sucker watching the unchosen line move faster, weighed in.

“The express lane isn’t faster. . . . You attract more people holding fewer total items, but as the data shows above, when you add one person to the line, you’re adding 48 extra seconds to the line length...Meanwhile, an extra item only costs you an extra 2.8 seconds. Therefore, you’d rather add 17 more items to the line than one extra person!"

My question for Mr. Meyer is how self-checkout holds up.

Economix: Which Grocery Line is Faster?

Pretty/Scary

I thought this graphic was kind of fun...until I thought about it for a minute.

Good via Planet Money

Financial crisis in a handy chart

I have a vague idea that it has something to do with credit default swaps; but (like everyone else) I'm still a little fuzzy on exactly how the whole mess started. This CRS report made a succinct chart that lists 26 causes AND counterarguments to each including aforementioned credit default swaps, "relaxed regulation of leverage", and my favorite, "human frailty". There's something very comforting about seeing such an orderly presentation of a decidedly disorderly situation.

Planet Money: Dept. Of Canned Debate

I don't pay them for sex...

"I pay them to leave." One of the Freakonomics columnists opens with this quote from Charlie Sheen to explain, among other things, why businesses hire consulting firms and why people go to ATMs so they won't have to interact with a bank teller. This column, about the trend towards "restricting and regulating our contractual relationships" (even though, although the author doesn't get into this, we reveal more and more about ourselves through social media), made me kind of uneasy. Why? Because after one month of working from home, the lack of human interaction barely registers as a negative. My biggest complaint is that my apartment is kind of cold but my old office was freezing and, unlike here, I couldn't protect myself with two hoodies, two pairs of wool socks, and a scarf.

Freakonomics: I Pay Them to Leave

Hear that? It's the world's tiniest violin

Continuing what may become an ongoing series on people for whom I find it hard to feel sympathy (see part one here), this quote from the Wall Street Journal comes from a woman who fired her childrens' nanny to cut costs.

Mrs. Sirof's daughters took the separation badly. They inquired incessantly about "Vita," as they called her. Normally a lively child, daughter Addie became sad and withdrawn. A doctor Mrs. Sirof consulted suggested renewed contact with Ms. Monterrosa.

"I try to have Alba come once a week," says Mrs. Sirof. She says she feels "horrible" about laying off Ms. Monterrosa. But there are some perks she isn't willing to give up. "Nothing deters me from my Botox treatments."

Wall Street Journal (subscription required): When the Going Gets Tough, Some People Lay Off the Nanny

Christmas and the dismal science

As a follow-up to the post on fake Christmas trees for tight spots, below is an excerpt from the reply to a letter written to the Financial Times' Undercover Economist column inquiring whether the author should bother taking down his/her Christmas tree, which had been left up until spring. My parents' tree in all its metallic glory stayed up for quite a while so I'm not convinced this wasn't written by my mom under an alias.

I think we can postulate a utility function along the following lines: having a Christmas tree up during the Christmas season brings positive utility, but diminishing marginal utility over time. After a while, the marginal utility is negative: the tree becomes an irritation, offering neither use nor ornament.
...
If the tree is still up, I would suggest that your problem is deeper than poor cost-benefit analysis: it is a profound tendency to put off action that is troublesome in the short term. We have developed an institution to deal with this. It is called the New Year’s resolution.

FT.com: Dear Economist: Should I take down last year’s Xmas tree?