Economic Miracles are Just Fancy Lies

I cannot blame people for not understanding basic economics. For most of my life, I knew nothing of economics, and performed poorly in my high school microeconomics course, so I figured I just wasn't "cut out" for the subject.

Turns out it took a great teacher to turn that around an ignite a passion in me.

However, myths about economics persist everywhere you turn. Take, for example, this article about China's economy in the New York Times, where the author states, "China’s rise is doubtless an economic miracle."

Wrong. China's growth is neither mysterious nor miraculous, but a fairly predictable result of liberalizing trade and business operations. However, their incredible rate of growth is more indicative of just how far behind they were, rather than the "miracle" of economic liberalism. (Note to readers: I use the word "liberal" in its more literal sense, to mean "increasing freedom" distinct from the politicization of the word.) While capitalism is certainly the economic system that promotes the greatest wealth and economic growth among all classes of people, it's applications in China are neither miraculous, nor should anyone extrapolate from the Chinese example that such growth is likely to be maintained at those rates forever. The wealthier China becomes, the slower they will grow, oddly enough.

The article does correctly draw parallels between Japan and China,

“Japan had an economic model that worked phenomenally well for, what, 40 years? And then it stopped working,” Arthur Kroeber, the managing director of Dragonomics, a Beijing-based economic forecasting firm, said in an interview. “Does that prove the model for the first 40 years was wrong? No — it proves that it was right for that stage of Japan’s development.”

The article goes on to explain "what stopped working,"

Japan’s economic miracle ended with the collapse of a phenomenal real-estate bubble and was worsened by a series of policy errors that led to a long period of stagnation.

Correct. The article goes on to hypothesize that China is too wise to make the Japanese mistakes. Yawn. I'm not buying it. Futhermore, what makes me cringe is how the article does not recognize how eerily familiar Japan's "what stopped working" situation is to our own current state of affairs.

How to Take Advantage of the Corporate Beauty Contest, or, How Not to Hire Incompetent Hotties

photo by hartman045

Duke University research reveals some interesting, yet predictable, observations,

There were no evening gowns, swimsuits, or artistic talents on display, but a corporate beauty contest staged by Duke University researchers nevertheless revealed strong ties between appearance and success in the business world.

By pairing photos of the chief executive officers of large and small companies with photos of non-executives with similar facial features, hairstyles and clothing, finance professors John Graham, Campbell Harvey and Manju Puri of Duke's Fuqua School of Business found that CEOs are more likely than non-CEOs to be rated as competent looking, but less likely to be classified as likeable.

The trio found that CEOs who appear competent earn more money than less competent-looking CEOs, even though appearance is not associated with measurable differences in company profitability.

"Other researchers have found links between beauty and workers' pay, and demonstrated that politicians benefit from good looks at election time," Graham said. "We wanted to see whether appearance also plays a role at the corporate executive level."

Here's the thing...attractive people, on aggregate, make more money and get better opportunities. While anti-discrimination laws ostensibly guard against practices favoring more attractive people, for instance, can the biological drive to seek and reward beauty be consciously opposed?

Can even the most earnest person ignore what is essentially the same thing as the instinctive attraction of bees to honey?

I for one have long been a fan of blind hiring practices such as those used by the Metropolitan Opera. Symphony musician hopefuls play behind a screen for their auditions. If their playing is up to the caliber sought, they are hired. That's the end of the story. This practice dramatically cuts down on politics and the off-chance an auditioner will be unwittingly seduced by an auditionee.

Perhaps resumes and interviews should be conducted this way too. Not by law of course. Also, not for amorphously defined purposes of so-called "equality", but for the completely practical purposes of choosing the most competent person for a job! Think about it: resumes could be submitted electronically (most already are) and coded into a single format with a random numerical identifier, interviews could be conducted behind a screen with a voice scrambler. I know that all sounds absurd, but would it cut down on hiring incompetent hotties??

Seeing as this suggestion is unlikely to become a common practice, my advice is to take advantage of this research: bathe often, dress well, and you are already waaay ahead of most of your peers. It doesn't take much to be "attractive." Watch any makeover show and you will see that most of the time so-called unattractive people are just making terrible mistakes with their hair and makeup, cut, style, and/or quality of clothing, and overall presentation (like staring at their shoes, making crude jokes, mumbling, or using poor grammar).

Money Cures All Ills...No, Seriously, It Does.

Via Futurity,

The Mere Thought of Money Makes You Feel Less Pain

Will someone remind my husband of this when I go into labor? Forget the epidural - give me a big wad of cash...

You Have to Watch This: Luckiest People

H/T: The Big Picture

Why Twitter is Wonderful and Rachel Ray is Not

I'm becoming more politically active (I signed up to be a precinct delegate on Monday, which was fun...that is if you think trying to turn in paperwork while 5 loud-mouthed candidates attempt to talk louder than the other about the challenges of their respective races in 2010 is fun) so I thought I'd try to see if my Michigan Senators were on Twitter. A quick search of "Stabenow" revealed this:

If you squint, you'll see a number of tweets referring to a certain post on a site that's new to me, Moonbattery, where it's revealed that Stabenow and Rachel Ray had a lot to say about nutrition and so-called "food deserts."

Rachael Ray, the peppy television cooking queen, met with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, [yesterday] afternoon to chat about child nutrition and obesity…

During their roughly 10-minute chat, Ray told Stabenow she'd like to see more federal funding for programs that increase the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables to families in urban "food desert" areas like Detroit, as well as a return to fresh-cooked lunches in public schools.

Clearly, neither Ray nor Stabenow have ever been to Detroit, nor do they know much about the food available there. Distinct from being a "food desert," Detroit boasts one of the best places around to get fresh, wholesome, and incredibly cheap fruits, veggies, meats, wines, and even plants to start one's own garden on a weekly basis. This apparently super-well-kept secret from Ray and Stabenow is in fact the very well-known and prominent Eastern Market.

As the Eastern Market website puts it,

As many as 40,000 people flock to Eastern Market for its Saturday Market to enjoy one of the most authentic urban adventures in the United States. The market and the adjacent district are rare finds in a global economy - a local food district with more than 250 independent vendors and merchants processing, wholesaling, and retailing food.

At the heart of Eastern Market is a six-block public market that has been feeding Detroit since 1891. Every Saturday it is transformed into a vibrant marketplace with hundreds of open-air stalls where everyone from toddlers to tycoons enjoy the strong conviviality served up along with great selections of fruits, veggies, fresh-cut flowers, homemade jams, maple syrups, locally produced specialty food products, pasture and/or grass-fed meat and even an occasional goose or rabbit.

Is a 6-block public market with specialty foods boasting 40,000 weekly visitors the very definition of a "food desert?" In a supreme display of farcical absurdity, Ray and Stabenow ostensibly assert it fits the bill.

I'm not sure what criteria they are using to define something as a "food desert" since it clearly cannot mean the absence of easily-obtained fresh fruits and vegetables, since clearly Detroit does not suffer from a dearth of such foodstuffs.

I'm assuming they are labeling places "food deserts" that do not have some prescribed number of grocery stores to frequent at any time in case someone needs to make a last-minute shopping trip. While that may be inconvenient, it is hardly desert-like. I shop once a week for all my family's food needs. I save gas, time, and money doing so. Is there some reason I should be compelled to believe Detroit residents are incapable of the same time and money management skills? I think not. I just cannot imagine why Ray and Stabenow are led to think so.

Everything You Know Is Wrong

Photo by rick via flickr

I should start a series by the title of this blog post to enumerate all the wisdom I've amassed in my short life about things I took to believe as true but really aren't. Add to this truths about beekeeping and running shoes. I'll explain that in a bit.

Some of the biggest lies I learned and adhered to in my life are the ones everyone seemed to repeat like brainless zombies. These lies become part of the fabric of one's life and understanding so you don't bother to question them. It is almost as if your brain is not capable of questioning some oft-repeated truism like "Dieting helps you lose weight." Want to have your mind blown (and stop thinking diets work)? Immediately buy and read Marc David's "Slow Down Diet" and you'll realize all your headless-chicken running and fake-food eating is making you either: a) permanently fat b) permanently crazy (even if you have managed to become skinny via dieting).

Of course, I like to give humanity some credit, and I assert we are not headless chickens or zombies. I believe that if we only try even the tiniest bit, the faculty of reason via rational thought processes and scientific inquiry can restore our minds. Oddly enough, I also assert that this kind of scientific and seemingly detached rational thought can serve to awaken a deeper inner wisdom. (Psychic benefits or so-called spirituality as the kids like to say these days.) This is because I think we get so used to ignoring our inner signals for things like hunger, comfort, and spiritual sustenance and look to others to tell us how to look, feel, think and act, we ignore some pretty incredible metaphysical stuff of which I know little but am pretty certain exists.

So. Beekeeping and running shoes (or lack thereof).

This post via Homegrown Evolution is fabulous and should be read in its entirety. But here's a few excerpts,

Beekeeper Kirk Anderson has a simple message, let bees be bees. Let them form their own comb, raise their own queens and generally go about doing what they want to do. In short, work with nature rather than try to control her. "Duh," one might say, but Kirk's beekeeping method just so happens to run counter to a hundred years of conventional beekeeping practices and "expert" advice. Kirk calls his method "backwards beekeeping" after Charles Martin Simon's eloquent essay, "Principles of Beekeeping Backwards." Simon's essay is essential reading, in my opinion, even if you have no interest in bees. It gets you thinking about what other things the so-called experts might be wrong about.

How about shoes for instance?

--

I was addicted to running throughout my 30s until a series of injuries in recent years, arthritis in the knees and plantar fasciitis, a painful inflammation of connective tissue on the bottom of the foot, effectively ended my happy morning runs. In the case of plantar fasciitis the doctors and physical therapists I consulted all said the same thing, that I should wear shoes with arch supports at all times, even around the house. A routine of stretching, incessant shoe wearing and abstaining from running beat back the pain for a year or so. But then it returned for no good reason.

Desperate and with nothing to lose, I decided to VERY slowly adjust to not wearing shoes. I gradually wore them less and less around the house. I began to feel a noticeable difference immediately. My feet felt stronger. In the past few weeks I've begun to carefully transition to running barefoot. I'm using a program adapted from a book, Run Less, Run Faster: minus all the advice about shoes.

Read the rest of the post at Homegrown Evolution if you are even marginally interested in the babbling I have excused as a post here. And enjoy being "backwards" - it's a good place to be.

Truth in Advertising, or, The Most Amazing Local Commercial Ever

Honestly, if you were not interested in buying a mobile home before this commercial, something tells me you are far more likely to get one, and get one from this guy than if you had not seen his commercial. (h/t kottke.org)

Ever since I saw that movie "Crazy People" as a little girl with Dudley Moore, I always wondered why advertising wasn't more honest - I like that style, hence why I am now interested in buying a mysteriously stained mobile home from Mr. Robert Lee. I'm a no-nonsense kind of gal and I hate being BSed. If a product does not do what it says it will do, I, like most rational people, will certainly notice, and never buy that product or a product from that company or store again. But ads continue to promote the most bizarre images and ideas.

If the treacly and disturbing commercials displaying man's love for cell phones, iPods, and other electronic media was not enough to make you sick and sad for humanity - then the alcohol commercials are certain to make you weep. I mean, I get it, drinking can be fun. But those Smirnoff commercials with musicians donning Boy George attire while making atonal and arhythmic quasi-jazz-fusion music in a dirty subway makes me never want to see a bottle of Smirnoff lest it give me any inclination towards such horrible taste in music.

And what is up with the beer commercials that show people working out and then drinking lo-cal beer practically as soon as they get off the treadmill? Am I supposed to want to be that person? So desperate for slamming enormous quantities of beer after dehydration, and so unwilling to sacrifice my hot bod I'll pump myself full of crappy tasting, low calorie beer - and the commercial has me believe I'll actually feel GOOD about myself afterwards?

Dunno. Maybe I'm just not the target market. I mean, I am pregnant. I've not had a beer nor stepped on a treadmill in 6 months. Show me a pregnant lady in mismatched pajamas watching America's Next Top Model, nursing a headache while sitting on her couch eating your cookies - and I'm so there.