Econ Rap

Little late in posting this little ditty from Russ Roberts. We're not ALL Keynesians now. Hayek is dead; long live Hayek.

Best Walmart Ad Evar

Republicans as hypocrites

Normally this word is used in a moral context. However, this graph illustrates how I think Republicans are hypocrites and possibly the key reason I struggle to identify myself as such. Notice the massive increases in public debt during the Reagan and Bush years. So much for fiscal conservatism.

HT: Zion's Bank

Summary of my 70s project

I've spent the last while reviewing the last ten conferences, specifically studying each sermon given by a member of the seventy, so what I might have forgotten. I found some gems and thought I'd share them. Here are my favorite five talks and then five honorable mentions. They are my favorites either because they are profound and/or very important at this time, affected me personally, and/or enlightened a topic in a new and different way that I found particularly noteworthy.

1 - Gerald Lund - April 2008 - Opening our Hearts

God allows us to be the guardians, or the gatekeepers, of our own hearts.We must, of our own free will, open our hearts to the Spirit, for He will not force Himself upon us.

2 - Kent Watson - October 2009 - Temperate in All Things

Likewise, a temperate soul—one who is humble and full of love—is also a person of increased spiritual strength. With increased spiritual strength, we are able to develop self-mastery and to live with moderation. We learn to control, or temper, our anger, vanity, and pride. With increased spiritual strength, we can protect ourselves from the dangerous excesses and destructive addictions of today’s world.

3 - Neil Andersen - October 2008 - You Know Enough (he is now an apostle)

Brothers and sisters, we each have moments of spiritual power, moments of inspiration and revelation. We must sink them deep into the chambers of our souls. As we do, we prepare our spiritual home storage for moments of personal difficulty.

4 - Tad Callister - October 2009 - Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration

There will always be some seemingly intellectual crisis looming on the horizon as long as faith is required and our minds are finite, but likewise there will always be the sure and solid doctrines of the Restoration to cling to, which will provide the rock foundation upon which our testimonies may be built.

5 - Whitney Clayton - October 2007 - Blessed Are All the Pure in Heart

When a dinner-sized fish came near the trap and sensed the bait, it would find an opening on the side of the trap and swim in, just squeezing between the cut wires. Then, when a trapped fish tried to swim out, it would discover that it was one thing to squeeze past the cut wires to get into the trap, but it was an entirely different thing to swim against those sharp ends to get out—it was caught.

Joseph Sitati - October 2009 - Blessings of the Gospel Available to All

Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord revealed that the determining criteria for the order in which the gentile nations are invited include the capacity to spiritually and temporally nourish the kingdom of God as it is established on the earth for the last time.

Dale Renlund - October 2009 - Preserving the Heart's Mighty Change

Enduring to the end can be challenging because the tendency of the natural man is to reject the spiritually changed heart and allow it to harden.

Carlos Amado - April 2008 - Service, A Divine Quality

Kindness, love, patience, understanding, and unity will increase as we serve, while intolerance, jealousy, envy, greed, and selfishness decrease or disappear. The more we give of ourselves, the more our capacity to serve, understand, and love will grow.

Lance Wickman - April 2008 - Today

This life is not so much a time for getting and accumulating as it is a time for giving and becoming.

Robert Oaks - October 2006 - The Power of Patience

Patience may well be thought of as a gateway virtue, contributing to the growth and strength of its fellow virtues of forgiveness, tolerance, and faith.

Political musings

I have felt entirely disenchanted by the three presidential administrations that I have lived through during my married life, and the executive branch seems to be in far better shape than the legislative. I have felt far from any political party in my views of both what to believe in and how to get things done. However, I have also felt that I should be far more active politically to attempt to be less of the problem.

As a consequence, on a long flight this week, I took the opportunity to make a list of the primary political issues that matter, then wrote down my beliefs, then rated those beliefs by their alignment with the stated platform of the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties. I'd actually like to see how they align with others as well, particularly Constitution and Green. I had been feeling that I probably aligned best with the Libertarians these days. The tally:

Republican - 90
Libertarian - 86
Democrat - 61

I was a bit surprised by this.
1) I did not think I'd be most aligned with the Republican platform. I realized that I agree broadly with the beliefs, but disagree strongly with the alignment of those beliefs with actions (e.g., massively expanding government spending), the methods and the madness of Republican politicians.
2) I thought Libertarians would be on top. Those of you that are thinking "but Republican and Libertarian are basically the same" need to study up on Libertarianism. Not so at all.
3) All three scores are fairly high. Politics are a spectrum, and I'm more moderate that I thought I'd be given how opinionated I feel about the topic. Look at me - I'm a centrist!

As I've considered how to properly enter the political debate, I found this speech inspiring.

EDIT - I just added another issue. Current score: L 96, R 92, D 69.

Ethnic markets

In the name of sharing:

Asian: China Market on 90th S just west of state on the south side of the road
Latin: La Herradura de Oro on 78th & Redwood

Does anyone have a favorite Middle Eastern market?

The Antidote

I'm in the middle of reviewing a long series of conference talks. I am acquainted with several folks that seem to struggle with false inadequacy, exaggerated imperfection, and needless guilt. A few thoughts on how to overcome them here.

Happy Friday.

Recommended stuff from 2009

Not a top ten list. Just a few of the best stuff I enjoyed during the last year. I'm sure I've missed a few important ones, but this is a pretty good year.

Restaurants:
JoJo
Cut
BLT
Tao
Prime
Bouchon

Books: (I never would have expected a list without fiction)
Outliers
The Much Too Promised Land
Predictably Irrational
Crisis of Abundance
Cooking

Boardgames:
Agricola
Railroad Tycoon
Le Havre
Tichu

Gadgets:
My new smoker
Snowboard
Videocamera
iPhone
PS3
Kindle
Panini Press
RedLaser
Bose headphones

Events/Activities:
Snowboarding with my kids
FastPass at SeaWorld
VIP at Disney World
Third row of Suns @ Magic
Lagoon in the rain
Ragnar

Blogs:
Six in 2006
Mankiw
Cato
My Husband Cooks
Cafe Hayek

Guilty as charged

I was born an economist.

Entitlements

Is our health care crisis one of cost or coverage? This graph makes the answer fairly clear.

The Chill of Irony is In the Air

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) – World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.

Copenhagen (CNN) – In a strange twist, a Washington snowstorm is forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to make an early departure from a global warming summit here in Denmark.

Pelosi told CNN that military officials leading her Congressional delegation have urged the 21 lawmakers to leave Copenhagen several hours earlier than scheduled on Saturday.

The Speaker said she has agreed to the new travel plan so that lawmakers can get back to Washington before much of the expected storm wallops the nation’s capital.

Washington Post: Before long, we will be buried by several times that amount making this a record breaking December storm. Double digit accumulations have already been reported to our south in central Virginia. This is a dangerous, severe storm with the worst still to come.

HT: David Boaz

Twilight

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

The Season of Giving

Some good points on how to spend your charitable dollars here.

Who loves the King?

I'm not a huge BK fan, but I think these Christmas card ideas are great. My favorite is "The holidays are about spending time with family and friends. See you in Januray."

Blast from the Past

 

One of my all-time favorite pictures of our kids while living in Sweden. I'm glad Madi and Bryn get along well these days. Maybe it's because Bryn's scared of the alternative.

Thought provoking commencement address

Referred to by Quentin Cook last month, I found this address insightful.

Always the contrarian

Look at this picture from my high school one year after I graduated and look me in the eye and honestly tell me that today's youth have greater challenges than I did.

Reason #24 why the 80s was the most disturbing decade to be a teenager
Reason #354 why I could never move to Davis County

That said, wearing shorts to a dance does seem legit.

The McFarthest Spot

I thought this was a cool map. It shows every McDonalds in America. The farthest you can get from a McDonalds is a point in South Dakota - 145 miles. Seems like there's not much on the west side of the map, other than the coast. I live in flyover space...

First time I've sympathesized with BYU in a fight

First Principles

I've never been prouder of my alma mater

What happens when you combine Freakonomics and The Daily Show? A giddy Graham.

Steven Levitt

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I'm Buying a Golf Cart

For a long time I have felt that golf carts were the new symbol of American consumption and aristocracy. I'm not talking about the golf carts that retired folks drive around the golf courses in Arizona. I'm talking about the golf carts that rich kids drive around rich neighborhoods.

However, I'm a free market guy, a supply and demand type. And when something's pretty much free, I might as well have one. You never know when that golf cart's going to be just the ticket to take the kids to school or to their polo match or their voice lesson or...

Thanks Obama.

Coolest 2nd Grader EVAR

More Good Food

Bad news - I've been traveling a lot.
Good news - I've been eating well.

Besides eating breakfast every day at Bouchon while I was away, I also had dinner at Cut and Tao while in Vegas. I highly recommend both, if money's no object.

Cut's a Wolfgang Puck steakhouse. I'm no stranger to nice steakhouses after years of living, schmoozing and recruiting in Texas. Cut's the real deal. Spectacular cuts, cooked perfectly, accompanied with outstanding salads, sides and desserts. Very high on my steakhouse list.

Tao's an Asian fusion place in the Palazzo. We had three things that were magnificent. We had the Toro, which as far as I know is the pinnacle of sashimi, some sort of filet mignon done up with a wasabi/panko crust and, best of all, some sort of fish done miso-style. If you haven't had miso black cod and want to do it on a budget, you can actually get it at Costco. Still not cheap, and lots of it, but much cheaper than the alternatives. Let me know if it's any good.

Next up: NYC. Bad news - getting in late and leaving before dinner, so no excuse to eat real food.

Thomas Keller is my MJ

For years I've wanted to find my way to Napa, despite being a teetotaler, so I could eat at the wonderful restaurants there. Mustards Grill is one of my favorite cookbooks, but unquestionably Thomas Keller's French Laundry is where I'd want to eat my last supper. Through happenstance I am staying this week five floors from another one of his restaurants, Bouchon. For less than the price of room service I ate this magnificent french toast for breakfast. To call this french toast would be like calling his creme brulee instant pudding. In all honesty, this was a rich, creamy, challah-based apple bread pudding for breakfast. Combine this with this hotel's ridiculous fitness center that costs $40 to go for a run on the treadmill and I should have packed my fat pants...

Richard Bushman Strikes Again

I really enjoyed Rough Stone Rolling and somehow missed Bushman's publication last year that briefly summarizes Mormonism. I appreciate Bushman's blend of honesty, scholarship and sympathy. We'll see if his approach extends well to this work. I'll be picking it up on the Kindle. Very excited to see it is available in that format. Bad news is you'll have to get your own copy. Why hasn't Amazon figured out the value of sharing?

April 2009 Recalled

Another six months have passed. My five favorite discourses from April conference:

5) Christofferson, The Power of Covenants

We need strong Christians who can persevere against hardship, who can sustain hope through tragedy, who can lift others by their example and their compassion, and who can consistently overcome temptations. We need strong Christians who can make important things happen by their faith and who can defend the truth of Jesus Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism.

4) Eyring, Adversity

[T]he disciple who accepts a trial as an invitation to grow and therefore qualify for eternal life can find peace in the midst of the struggle.

That may seem much to ask of people in such great need themselves. But I know one young man who was inspired to do that very thing early in his marriage. He and his wife were barely getting by on a tiny budget. But he saw another couple even poorer than they were. To the surprise of his wife, he gave help to them from their scanty finances. A promised blessing of peace came while they were still in their poverty. The blessing of prosperity beyond their fondest dreams came later. And the pattern of seeing someone in need, someone with less or in pain, has never ceased."

3) Hales, Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually

In seeking to overcome debt and addictive behaviors, we should remember that addiction is the craving of the natural man, and it can never be satisfied. It is an insatiable appetite. When we are addicted, we seek those worldly possessions or physical pleasures that seem to entice us. But as children of God, our deepest hunger and what we should be seeking is what the Lord alone can provide—His love, His sense of worth, His security, His confidence, His hope in the future, and assurance of His love, which brings us eternal joy.

2) Uchtdorf, We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down

It is easy to become distracted—to become focused on one burned-out lightbulb or the impolite acts of unkind people, whatever their motive may be. But think of the power we would have as individuals and as a body of the priesthood if, in response to every temptation to lose focus or lower our standards—the standards of God, we responded, "I am doing a great work and cannot come down."

1) Oaks, Unselfish Service

C. S. Lewis explained this teaching of the Savior: “The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the centre—wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake. . . . What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come . . . the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

Executive Compensation

Does anyone know of evidence that executive compensation contributed to the financial meltdown? Strong evidence here that it did not. I say we blame it anyway. Off with their heads.

Too cool

Government ticker.

Forget Health Care

This young man shares my priorities.

Second Grade Geography Test

http://jimspages.com/States.htm

For Public School educated Americans, this is a map of the US. Good luck. No cheating.

Two updates

1) Sit Down, Shut Up has already been canceled after four episodes. For good reason. I hope Kristin, Will and Jason land somewhere funny soon.
2) 18 miles so far this week. Desperately running away from the fat man before he can tackle me on Ragnar.

Large and in charge

I've run 10 miles in the last 17 days. Not good.

Not my kid

Careful J

Be green.

Por fin

La iglesia ha creado su propria version de la biblia Reina Valera. La iglesia verdaderamente esta actuando como una organizacion global.

American beats Kenyan by a furlong

Katie and I ran the SL half marathon this weekend. Impressive, I know. Rare that someone with my waistline can make it to the fridge without stopping for rest. Unimpressive, I know. 13 miles really isn't very far for anyone that's run much at all.

What you might find more impressive though is that I beat the Kenyan that won the marathon. Non-sequiteur? (That word's probably both misspelled and misused, but in grammar I like to believe that two wrongs make a right) Not at all. As we rounded the final bend at the Gateway we heard sirens and the sudden roar of the crowd. I'm used to this, but it was new for Katie. It turns out that it wasn't for either of us. The winning marathon runner was right behind us. Don't concentrate too much on what that means for our half marathon time - we ran fast enough, thank you. What's important to visualize is that I sprinted faster than I have since high school for the last 100 yards. There was no way I was getting lapped.

I'll have you know that I beat him soundly. I don't think I qualified for anything as a result, but I can now go to my grave visualizing that Kenyan chasing me futily. (Spell check says that's not a word - what's the adverb for futile? Does this language not have such a word? Perhaps Swahili does.)

Bright shiny objects

The best way to get me to forget the pain in my legs is to put photographers in front of me. What a clown.

If Uncle Rico owned a steak place

This would be it.

Sit Down, Shut Up

From the producers of Arrested Development.
Starring Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Kristin Chenowith, Henry Winkler
Animated
Fox
Pilot airs Sunday

I'm giddy as a school girl...

HT: Sissel

I like it. What's not to like about a guy named Bjorn? Only Torbjorn is better. For those that don't realize it, Porter was supposed to be named Torbjorn until Katie squashed my dreams.

Chunky

Two days away from running a half marathon I should not feel like this. There may be some correlation between my chunkiness and my ice cream fetish. Nah.

Everyone needs something to review

Cool people review movies, but I made a promise to myself 15 years ago not to watch movies worth reviewing. Besides I'm not cool.

Hip people review music. I can't even tell you the correct lyrics for songs I've sung along to since high school.

I could review board games, but you might think I'm kinda nerdy. (bump, set...)

Instead, I've decided to review something near and dear to my heart and my love handles. Ice cream. I've recently found some unbelievably good ice creams, and it's worth sharing.

First off, I live in the land of Amy's, ice cream that is literally so good I've packed it on a plane to bring some home to Katie. I'm not going to start there though.

For my maiden voyage, let me tell you about Haagen Dazs' latest line of ice creams that they call "Reserve". The most blissful ice cream I've ever pulled from a freezer case (and I've pulled a lot of ice cream, I assure you) is their Fleur de Sel Caramel ice cream. I've always been a sucker for caramel and in recent years have found the great offsetting flavor notes (sweet/salty) when you add fleur de sel (expensive salt - flower of the sea) to really good caramel. Next time I'll review Katie's favorite from this collection (no spoiler here, check back). In the meantime, go grab some of this stuff.

The best part is you only need like two bites and you're good. It seems expensive, but it goes a long way. You don't have to eat the whole pint like with Ben & Jerry (ok, maybe not everyone does that like I do).

If you really, really like it, I may just make you some homemade fleur de sel caramels and you may just die on the spot.

New favorite charity

I have a new favorite charity to add to my list. Yesterday I got to hear a speech from Laura Moore, Founder and CEO of Dream House, a charity that helps give medically fragile kids a home, a family and a future. They are Georgia-based and pretty unique from similar programs I've seen before. I'd like to see them get more money and be able to help similar programs roll out elsewhere. Pretty inspirational stuff. Take a look around and donate.

21st century take on Katie's favorite sign

Maybe we can post one of these in our kitchen next.
HT: Freakonomics.

BYU newspaper makes slight typo

Very funny. HT: Dean. Hint: Read the caption.

Another six months have passed

Tomorrow we'll sit in front of the TV for hours on end, without sports or cartoons. This year I have to work on Conference Sunday. Very bummed. Here's my summary from October.

Key themes:
Unity
Keeping hope in uncertain times
Serve others

Five favorite discourses:

5) Oaks, Sacrament and Sacrament Meeting

During sacrament meeting—and especially during the sacrament service—we should concentrate on worship and refrain from all other activities, especially from behavior that could interfere with the worship of others. Even a person who slips into quiet slumber does not interfere with others. Sacrament meeting is not a time for reading books or magazines. Young people, it is not a time for whispered conversations on cell phones or for texting persons at other locations. When we partake of the sacrament, we make a sacred covenant that we will always remember the Savior. How sad to see persons obviously violating that covenant in the very meeting where they are making it.

4) Monson, Finding Joy in the Journey

Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend . . . when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
~ Breathnach

3) Wirthlin, Come What May, and Love It

The Lord in His wisdom does not shield anyone from grief or sadness.

4) Christofferson, Come to Zion

I remember the story of a Vietnamese family that fled Saigon in 1975 and ended up living in a small mobile home in Provo, Utah. A young man in the refugee family became the home teaching companion to a Brother Johnson who lived nearby with his large family. The boy related the following:
"One day Brother Johnson noticed that our family had no kitchen table. He appeared the next day with an odd-looking but very functional table that fit nicely against the trailer wall across from the kitchen sink and counters. I say odd-looking because two of the table legs matched the tabletop and two did not. Also, several small wooden pegs stuck out along one edge of the worn surface.
"Soon we used this unique table daily for food preparation and for eating some quick meals. We still ate our family meals while we sat on the floor . . . in true Vietnamese fashion.
"One evening I stood inside Brother Johnson's front door as I waited for him before a home teaching appointment. There in the nearby kitchen—I was surprised to see it—was a table practically identical to the one they had given to my family. The only difference was that where our table had pegs, the Johnsons' table had holes! I then realized that, seeing our need, this charitable man had cut his kitchen table in half and had built two new legs for each half.
"It was obvious that the Johnson family could not fit around this small piece of furniture—they probably didn't fit comfortably around it when it was whole. . . .
"Throughout my life this kind act has been a powerful reminder of true giving" 

1) Bednar, Pray Always

Morning and evening prayers—and all of the prayers in between—are not unrelated, discrete events; rather, they are linked together each day and across days, weeks, months, and even years.

New apostle? Claudio R.M. Costa, first Latin American apostle (from Brazil)?

Enjoy your weekend.

Katie will pass one more sad GC weekend. Next time we hope to be gathered around the TV with more family, more brunch and more boardgames late Saturday night.

Another child rapidly approaches THAT age

Movie Monday?

Have you seen this yet, J?



I believe it includes this great song:

Housing prices in SLC

This is mostly an email in disguise to my dear wife, but I thought these stats were interesting enough to publish them for broader (i.e., three people instead of one) consumption.

In the last three years, the median home in SLC has fallen from a peak of $400K to $292K, a 27% decline. The 25th percentile home has fallen from a peak of $270K to $199K, a 26% decline. The 75th percentile home has fallen from a peak of $$697K to $491K. While this is a similar decline (30%), over $200K of lost equity is a pretty staggering number.

One notable difference is that the median and below homes had a real run-up during those three years. The 25th percentile home price three years ago was almost exactly the same as it is now, it just ran up and fell back down in the meantime. The median home has lost 20% of its value from three years ago, so the fall is not just from short-term hysteria. In the case of the 75th percentile, prices only ran up 6% and then fell down 30%, so it's long term value that was lost.

Here's what that looks like graphically. Notice that the most expensive houses peaked a long time ago and just continue to tumble.

Here's what the inventory has done in the meantime (a 3x increase).

I'm no fundamentalist (speaking financially, though also religiously for that matter), but the inventory chart looks like a shoulder to me. Inventory looks like it has hopefully topped out and will start falling. I'm sure that's a leading indicator and will not stem price declines until much of the inventory is absorbed. Nevertheless, it is a good sign that things are hopefully turning positive.

The good news for those out there looking for houses these days, or more specifically, today, is that there's a record inventory of houses to look at, houses in the $500K price range used to be in the $700K price range, those prices may fall a bit more, but should not continue to fall for overly long.

Have a nice day househunting.

Note: Prices are list, not sold.

Michigan kills a dream

Every March I look forward to another dismal Big Ten performance. With seven of their ten teams making this year's tourney I had hoped this could be a great year for them to highlight what a joke of a conference it is by going 0-7. They're 1-2 so far and the only solace I can take is that Illinois already fell as a 5 seed, so if Utah can't keep Luke out of foul trouble they won't be the first.

The MWC is hard to defend as long as BYU continues to go 0-fer-ever, but every conference has their weak link, I suppose.

Eat chicken, stop global warning

Proposals to tax the flatulence of cows and other livestock have been denounced by farming groups in the Irish Republic and Denmark.

A cow tax of €13 per animal has been mooted in Ireland, while Denmark is discussing a levy as high as €80 per cow to offset the potential penalties each country faces from European Union legislation aimed at combating global warming.

The proposed levies are opposed vigorously by farming groups. The Irish Farmers' Association said that the cattle industry would move to South America to avoid EU taxes.

Livestock contribute 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for an average car.

HT: Mankiw

No love for Big Love

Producers cross the line. What to do?

TARP, cont.

As a follow up to my post about TARP-accepting companies being unable to hire high-paid execs, it appears there's now an Act II - they can't hire young guns either. An amendment to the stimulus limits H1-B visas to those accepting TARP. The notion of a limit on H1-B visas is a bit asinine to begin with, but to limit these folks from working in our most distressed companies is bizarre reverse logic.

(Note: H1-B visas are those given to foreign nationals with higher education and specialized training)

Life Hain't Fair

Katie:
Six kids
One dog
House up for sale
Sickness galore
Attendant laundry nightmare
No end it sight

John:
Five co-workers
Disney World
VIP passes
No lines in sight

Who feels more horrible tonight?

Utah, we have a big problem

The porn issue is pretty unsettling, but there's something potentially even more so. What's with Utah's addiction to MLM? I just returned from a visit to one of our local purveyors of high-end exotic juices. They have some of the most posh real estate I've been in (and I've been in some pretty posh offices). Who are the fools that are still getting friends to sell acai juice for them? I squirm to pay extra for higher end root beer at the grocery store and I don't have to get anyone else to sell it. This is the (most bizarre) place.

Will it blend?

Katie's currently hoarding our Amazon gift certificates to buy a Blendtec. Please keep it away from my skis.

At least they understand the problem

An ironic article shows that of the 18 people assigned to the federal task force on the auto industry, they collectively own two American cars.

Utah, we have a problem

According to a new publication from Harvard (Journal of Economic Perspectives), Utah is by far the state with the highest consumption of online porn. The good news is they don't look at it on Sunday. The bad news is they make up for it in spades the other six days of the week. Ugh. (I'm sure this is driven somewhat by a lower consumption of offline porn, but still...)

I preferred being known for consumption of ice cream and jello.

Friends can do anything

You've heard that some people can move mountains, heaven and earth, etc.? My friend Judd can move entire cities.

Normal people, like me, think that there are some dilemma's that just can't be solved for. In this case, Judd's been trying to get me to move into his neighborhood so the black helicopters can save gas by watching us together. However, he lives south of the border. The county border that is - he lives in Happy Valley. We folk north of the border are a bit uncomfortable with those south of the border, especially ex-Utes. More importantly, Katie would like to live close to her family in Sugarhouse. So I told him there's not much chance of us moving to Lehi unless he can convince my sweet that it lies between Draper (my job) and Sugarhouse.

Lo and behold, it does. Check out the map of SL neighborhoods on the right. In case Wikipedia reverts the edits someone made, I'll also save a png. Well, Katie, Traverse Mountain it is! And if it turns out that Sugarhouse is still too far away, I'm sure Judd can just move it closer.

Judd, can you also lower ceilings? (more on that another time)

Protect depositors not investors/bankers

Marginal Revolution gives a cogent argument for reorganizational bankruptcy of insolvent banks, even if this leads to temporary "nationalization":

The debate so far has been framed between a "bailout" and "nationalization." But the public rightly sees the bailout as a way to protect bankers and thus we get pressure for government ownership, which has already happened in part through government control over banker wages. Bankruptcy in contrast is a normal free market procedure, it emphasizes that the firm has failed and current management should be removed. Framing the issue in this way, for example, makes it clear that only the depositors should be protected and under reorganization there should be no control over wages on future management (wages are going to have to be high to get anyone to take on the task). Finally the idea of bankruptcy makes it clear that the goal is to get banks solvent, under new management, and back under private control as quickly as possible.

Translating time

I came across this paper from our friend Kathleen Flake yesterday. Not easy reading - Kathleen's one of the deeper people I know - but very interesting and a revealing view of the writings of Joseph Smith, both how and why they created a fundamental break from traditional Christianity and oriented his believers in a new narrative and theological construct.

J, it's back

Pretty sure Tunes Tuesday can rejoin the airwaves. Muxtape's back.

Scared yet?

How about a gold ol' run on the bank in Eastern Europe to further destabilize the world economy:

Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut....

"This is the largest run on a currency in history," said Mr Jen.

My friend Judd gave this presentation at UT last week, describing how hedge funds are to blame for this mess, starting with the assault on Bear Stearns and Lehman. Will be interesting to see if some of these guys end up frog-walking a la Kenneth Lay before this is all said and done.

How's that food storage coming along? Sure wishing this cursed house would sell...

Deep waters

My mom forwarded me an address from Mitt Romney this morning that I thought was very well done. I had to find the original though to make sure it was really from him. It turns out he's given the same speech in several variations at different times. Here's one.

I like this bit:

Over the years, I have watched a good number of people live out their lives in the shallows. In the shallows, life is all about yourself, your job, your money, your house, your rights, your needs, your opinions, your ideas, and your comfort.

In the deeper waters, life is about others: family, friends, faith, community, country, caring, commitment. In the deeper waters, there are challenging ideas, opposing opinions, and uncomfortable battles. Almost every dimension of your life can be held to the shallows or taken into the deeper water. Your career, your involvement with others, your spouse and your children, your politics, each can be lived with you comfortably at the center. Or, they can draw you out of yourself, into service and sacrifice, into selflessness.

There are currencies more lasting than money. It can be enormously rewarding to take the unobvious course, to jump into the deep water. Bias is shallow thinking and shallow water. Read widely, particularly from people who disagree with you. Argue to learn rather than to win. If you don't respect, I mean really respect, the views of people who disagree with you, then you don't understand them yet. There are smart people on both sides of almost every important issue. Learn from them all. If you have life all figured out in neat little packages, you're in Neverland, not the real world. And it's boring there. There's one more thing I've seen in the people who swim in the deep waters of life. They don't fashion their values and principles to suit their self-interest; they live instead by enduring principles that are fundamental to society and to successful, great lives.

Job creation?

Disclaimer: I didn't choose the channel. I hate Fox News. But I was on the treadmill in my hotel this morning and it was on. Regardless of the horribly disreputable source (then again, is there a reputable source these days on tv?), they were showing a list of projects that had been submitted by the city of Philadelphia for part of the stimulus money. The projects were arguably valuable:
* Needed investment in the city zoo
* Investment in the airport runway (I'm a big fan of safe runways)
* Replacement of city's light bulbs with more energy efficient bulbs
* Etc
The projects were in a table with three columns - project, investment needed, jobs created.

As I looked at each of these I was struck, not by the waste of money, but the assumption that this was truly job creation. So if we sign off on number three and hire 200 people to replace all the light bulbs in Philly, what do we do three months later when they're all replaced? The economy's stimulated, the jobs were created, but now we just lay them off, right? Becker and Murphy state this more eloquently than me, but it seems to me that any short-term stimulus package focused on immediate spending and hiring will rapidly turn into either massive layoffs or, even worse, long-term commitments to an increased government cost base, employed or unemployed but now with qualified unemployment benefits.

Can we just give every American $4,000 to go spend on a new big-screen and call it good?

Stimulus wisdom

You're unlikely to find two more sage economists that Becker and Murphy, and I'm not just saying that because they're two of Chicago's finest. Here's their take on the stimulus from yesterday's WSJ. Cliff Notes version - bad news.

Been a while since I let out a good rant

Economics needs a Newton, Carnot, Gibbs or Einstein. Physics and Thermodynamics have laws that are immutable and come in sets of three:

Physics:
1- An object in motion stays in motion until acted upon.
2- Force is mass times acceleration.
3- Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Thermodynamics
1- Energy cannot be created or destroyed
2- Disorder increases over time (entropy) – easy law to remember in a house with six kids.
3- Entropy is temperature dependent which means there’s an absolute zero (-273 C) – easy to remember this week in Kansas City; feels like we might have reached 0 Kelvin.

Economics has no such luck. Oh, there are rules and they’re pretty darn immutable, but there’s no Newton, as hard as folks like Keynes, Friedman and Hayek tried, to declare THE three and number them just right. So since they aren’t written in stone we can still try to thwart them – make gravity fall up. Curse you Robert Reich and all the rest of you whose names don’t come to mind nearly so easily as Robert Reich.

My list of three would probably be:
1- Goods are scarce. Not everyone can have everything.
2- Supply and demand. Market price is where the supply and demand come into equilibrium unless smart energy companies collude.
3- People respond to incentives.

Let me get on my soapbox about the final one with a hypothetical scenario that may feel like it’s straight out of yesterday’s paper.

Suppose you’re a political leader of a large capitalistic country going through a recession and you’ve handed out a “relief package” (or two) named after a common camping item to several companies. These are companies so large, so integrated into your economy, so critical for the rest of the economy, that you decide they can’t fail. You borrow your money, your kids’ money and your grandkids’ money to bail them out (all thanks to our Communist brethren to the East). Now you need the very best and the very brightest to take up the challenge of either joining or remaining at these companies on the brink of financial ruin to lead them back into financial health. Only the very best will do. How might you create the right incentives to get just the right people? Would you cap their pay and tell them no more expensive dinners and hotels? Would you tell them to sell the company jet (while standing on the stairs leading up into your own)? Would that get them jazzed up? Kinda seems to me that they might want to go to a healthy company, one not under distress or at least “less critical” to the economy and leave the 80% lower salaries, the Congresssional reviews and the bad press to a few of the dimmer lights on the tree.

Capping egregious pay of CEOs sounds like a cool, populist (ok, it’s 2009 and cool and populist are redundant – my bad) thing to do, but if you remember Law Number Three, you might think otherwise. Sure you don’t want “those same idiots that got us into the mess in the first place [other than our new Secretary of the Treasury – that’s different]”, but let’s assume we know that and we get rid of them and want to keep/hire the really, really best once the dumb ones are gone. A good old salary cap will help, right?

As much as $500K sounds to the average joe (like me), it’s a whole lot less than $5M and for a whole lot more hassle. No one turns down a pay raise or a bonus. No matter what you make, you don’t consider yourself rich. Rich is 10x what you currently make. I regret that I only have three laws to give for my country, or that could very well be #4.

I sure hope this stimulus works and 500,000,000 Americans don’t lose their jobs like Ms. Pelosi said they would. (HT-Annette).



(I wish I could have found a way to incorporate Pete’s firmament metaphor into this…)

Ignore the fine print

Get up and dance

Not sure if I'm white trash, redneck, pioneer stock or just goofy, but I think the fiddle rocks.

The Myth of Fiscal Conservatism

Whether you wear a red tie or a blue one, your party likes to spend money.

Who knew Swedish statistics could be enjoyable?

How big is big?

I'm doing a lot of work in my new job with Walmart, a company for which my respect has grown tremendously as I've gotten to know them better. This year they'll do about $400B in sales. By way of comparison, the GDP of countries where I've lived are:

South Africa: $283B
Sweden: $455B
Costa Rica: $26B

Hard to believe I lived in countries that were the same size as this company.

Obama

At a family dinner the other day I realized that I had created a perception that I'm an Obama-hater and by corollary a McCain-lover. Neither's entirely true. I think they both kinda suck in their own way, but that's probably inherent to the profession. I do have a healthy skepticism of the mad rush to "do something" about the economy and that whatever that "something" is will be helpful. I don't find the federal government to be much of a savior of anything.

Along these lines, here's a great example:

According to the AP: President-elect Barack Obama says the government has been "asleep at the switch" when it comes to overseeing the nation's financial system. He says Americans are "feeling frustrated that there's not a lot of adult supervision."

Citigroup is one of the top five banks in the US. Their primary federal regulator is a man by the name of Timothy Geithner. Is he one of the guys asleep at the switch?

Oh yeah, Timothy Geithner is Obama's choice to replace Henry Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury.

Politics makes for interesting bedfellows, I suppose. That may be the understatement of the year, the year in which we get a new Secretary of State, the one that Obama railed against for her foreign policy choices in the senate...

Small victories

I fulfilled a lifelong dream in 2008 - I had to order more pages for my passport.

OK, so I didn't climb a mountain, run an Ironman, receive a degree or make a million dollars. Baby steps people.

For J

Classic Porter - the Wii reflected in his lenses. Serious stuff.
This is taken with my new Christmas lens. Great value.

Madi Christmas

Madi got a FlipVideo for Christmas - she's a budding filmmaker. She made this short in the car yesterday and has now gone through one set of batteries rewatching it and giggling to her heart's content. I don't think it's quite ready for Sundance, though it is better than a few movies I've seen with significantly higher budgets.

Tall Enough

Does Mom look a bit concerned that son's caught up to her height?

My favorite things about Christmas

We get quite a few Christmas cards since we have shown ourselves so adept at moving as soon as we get on people's Christmas lists. All of them are great, so don't take offense, but two of them are now my favorite holiday traditions - Eric and Dennis take the cake. They should blog. Daily. I just read Eric's - Emmy nomination worthy. As soon as Dennis' arrives I'll go ahead and put the tree out on the curb because the season's over.

One side note - Eric and Dennis are both lawyers. Who knew that the best thing about law school is that they teach you to write incredibly funny Christmas letters? I'm glad they teach you something you can take with you and make you a useful part of society. Word of warning to the rest of you lawyers - the bar is set and it is high.

Last side note - I can be particularly saucy toward my lawyerly brethren these days since my consulting days are numbered. Consultants generally don't engage in lawyer jokes since most of them can easily be made less funny and hit too close to home by simply replacing the word "lawyer" with "consultant". Or someone can simply call you Bob.

Suburban for sale

We're 95% likely to get Katie a new car in the next week or two to upgrade her Suburban. We're planning on trading in her Suburban on her new car. I don't want to deal with the hassle of selling it. That said, trade-in value's pretty low on cars so if anyone's interested in a 2003 Suburban (4x4) with 73K miles, I'd be happy to give it to you for whatever the assessed trade-in value turns out to be. I'd rather a friend is the beneficiary of the trade-in/retail gap that some nameless/faceless car dealer. Just send us an email if you're interested. KBB's like $8-9K, but I suspect they'll offer far less.

Mormon videos to catch

I have to admit that I have not been a consumer of much Mormon media, particularly movies. I haven't seen any of the mission, home teacher, single adult or whatever comedies. I did see Sons of Provo, hoping it would be a Mormon Christopher Guest flick (it wasn't - but not horrible either). However, there's one show I'd like to see - New York Doll. Apparently it was good enough that it is creating a new genre - documentaries of people you would never expect to see at the ward dinner. The newest one of these sounds like it was fairly well done and I may have to see it - Mario's Conviction - about a member of the mob that converts and leaves the mob without losing his life.

I don't mind watching these sorts of documentaries (even better if they are mockumentaries), but harbor a deep and irrational fear that they'll find themselves all the way down the list of candidates and decide to do "John's Mullet". I've been pretty energetically hiding all evidence of this blockbuster story.

Merry Christmas

Truth in advertising

This is generally a profanity-free zone, so apologies for the PG-13 post. Don't read this while drinking milk unless you want to buy a new keyboard.

Oh my aching 401k

Mankiw had this graph on his blog. This is a histogram of stock returns by year. The black box on the left is this year. Gives you a sense of the historic nature of the current economic environment. I'd sure hate to be trying to sell a house in this market...

I love my job

Secret of my job revealed

Happy Holidays, fellas

Now I know where I'm supposed to shop for Katie's gift? Too funny.

Cars

My conscience is working overtime right now.

My car, as I've stated here before, needs replacing (I'd say it's a piece but since my brother's talking about buying it I shouldn't say that). It has 150K miles, is limited to NPR, and needs new brakes and power steering hoses. I've got to upgrade before the next NPR pledge drive.

This is the first time in my life that I'm in a position to consider buying a new car. Dean, Mason and I drove a bunch of them on Black Friday. Then I fell in love with a slightly used car that's much nicer but has 20K miles on it. Either way, it's a lot of coin compared to the $7K I spent on my current car six years ago.

Aside: I had a $10K budget, but spent $3K on a mtn bike, figuring that the impact of that $3K was going to be much more meaningful on the bike than the marginal value on the car.

Now I'm having guilt. With the economy in the gutter; protectionists, regulators, plaintiff's attorneys and union organizers moving into the White House; people losing their jobs left and right; our pets heads falling off; etc., should I really splurge and get a big boy car, or should I just buy another modest car? If I go modest, do I spend the savings on a new mountain bike, a real-live Texas smoker, new lenses for my camera, and board games that I'm sorely lacking (spend it anyway); give it to my dear wife to spend on new flip flops, cool shirts with large buttons and scrapbook supplies (spend it anyway); put it in our rainy day fund (lose it along with the rest of my invested capital); or give it to the poor and needy?

Wait a minute. The fact that I considered doing something good with this money instead of spending it on myself makes me feel good enough that maybe I don't actually have to do so. I feel better. Definitely get the car. Right?

If you comment, relieve my guilt. If you increase my guilt, I'll delete your comment. LOL.

Food storage and brimstone

If you think you or someone you know might need to have more than an afternoon's supply of Dorito's in the pantry in preparation for potential and pending doom, and if you or someone you know just haven't gotten around to it despite decades of admonishments and exhortations, you or someone you know might want to read The Road.

If I was brighter and more literary, I might have gotten a lot more out of this book than I did. The writing is fantastic and unique, but mostly I just got the bajeebers scared out of me. I bought a "survival handbook" sort of book a few years ago that I've never really picked up. Katie noticed that I seemed suddenly interested in it after finishing The Road. Fortunately I don't go load up on guns and ammo after every Patricia Cornwell book...

The Road also made me want to hug my boys and take them camping (with LOTS of food). So The Road inspired me to do things I should already do - maybe it should be bundled with Nudge, a sort of practicum to go with your theory.

Obama's economic team

Interesting set of quotes from Mankiw.

Twilight, cont.

Well said. Thanks Eric for the link.

Twilight

I think I've probably mentioned on here at some point that I read Twilight to see what the buzz was about. I probably also mentioned that I didn't like it and haven't read any of the subsequent books. I may have mentioned that I didn't mind the story, but the fawning weakness of the protagonist was like a five hour car drive with a love-struck 14 year old girl. Cool if you're 14 and her best friend, agonizing if you're 14 and male, worth running into pylon at full-speed if you're old and jaded.

You can probably guess that I didn't go to the midnight showing last night. Apparently many did. Apparently I'm not alone in my opinions of Bella.

I looked up the stats on imdb and they are pretty incredible. I realize there are probably a lot of shill votes tainting the picture. Nonetheless, the votes currently look like this:

64.2% rate it a 10
22.6% rate it a 1
That means that almost 90% of people either love it or hate it absolutely. No other vote got even 3%. Wicked bimodality. (Jaded, old and geeky)

Men rate it a 4.7 with little variation by age.
Women rate it 7.8, with women under 18 rating it 8.6
Whew, I'm not alone.

But that means ~50% of men LOVE it. Not just like it. Not just went to be nice to their significant other. Holy shamoley. I'd continue, but speculating on who these guys would be is just going to get me in trouble.

Suffice it to say I don't think any of the men reading my blog will be in the 10 column. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd put me in the 10 column for even having read the book. Sorry Ty.

This website analyzes blogs to see what the Meyers-Briggs type is of the writer. This is what it says about my wonderful wife:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

This is what it says about mine:

ESTJ - The Guardians

The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they´ve made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.

The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

When I took the test I was actually ISTP - so this isn't perfect, but not bad either.

The New Immaculate Reception

I never get to watch football anymore, but caught this on ESPN. Unbelievable catch.

Downside of populism

Nice editorial at Newsweek on historical consequences of policies that will sound familiar.

I find it interesting that we generally look back fondly at FDR, yet his economic policies seem to be a large part of why the Great Depression is not known as the late 20s recession.

Things we know about the Great Depression:
* Spawned by stock market declines driven down by heavy borrowing (check)
* Accelerated by worsened consumer confidence and bank failures (which created liquidity and credit crises) (check)
* Driven deeper through government policies of protectionism, regulation, labor control, increased tax rates on capital gains and high income brackets (please don't check)

Huxley by a furlong

I heard another tired, misused allusion to Brave New World in a business setting today. When people use that phrase they seem to be using it in an Ariel from Disney fashion (even though that's a Whole New World, not a Brave New World), not an Aldous Huxley way. I don't think that's intentional though. No one alludes to The Circle of Life or To Infinity and Beyond for inspiration. Brave New World sounds good because it has a ring of the literary to it. The problem is the brave new world Huxley described was not what a business leader is generally envisioning (i.e., a drug-induced societal orgy). I think people should read the book before they allude to it. Either that or they should quote all Disney movies equally - it's more progressive that way.

Anyway...

Made me look up this great summary by Neil Postman comparing the totalitarian futures envisioned in 1984 and Brave New World. I think Huxley's left poor Orwell in the dust as far as where western culture is headed. Here it is:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

Please don't title a presentation "Brave New World" ever again unless you are head of marketing for Soma.

SLC feels a long way off today

Too close to Fort Worth, too far from Rice-Eccles. November 22 is also a long way off.

It's the Economy, Stupid, Part II

Interesting factoid of the day. Obama won all but two of the states whose median home prices have fallen (those two were Arizona and Alaska). McCain won 18 of 27 states whose prices went up.

Let Redistribution Reign

Intrade says Obama has this in the bag.

Wasatch Back 09

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Wasatch Back team. Just need a name. And few training miles.

Note: Will is only included in the pictures because he will be driving Van A. Not sure why Dean's picture came out as Gigantor - will have to edit later.