Finding new ways to look at the same old things.

Month: August, 2009

August 24, 2009

Do we pay too much for our cheap goods?

by The Quotidian

A new book examines the real price we pay to have consumer goods at relatively low cost – but offers few ideas to get us out of the mess.

One of the joys of an undergraduate economics education is the feeling that comes over you during your first or second year of having been inducted into a secret society – a sort of Harry Potter world with its own language, its own subculture, and its own special selection of intellectual tools. These are almost like little magic spells that allow you to see the world in a different way: as a world of hidden relations and counterintuitive mechanisms, a world that the Muggles can’t see though it’s right there in front of them.

Of course, this feeling is illusory, and soon fades – not just because real economics is a bit messier than the introductory stuff, but also because just about anyone can learn these basic tools and easily apply them to journalistic effect.

For example, take the concept of externalities. Freshman economics students discover that only some small subset of the costs and benefits of a transaction are explicitly reflected in the price. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 13, 2009

The peanut butter and jelly solution

by Kai Hsing

Can a single individual make a dent into homelessness in America? Here’s how a growing movement is tackling the problem – with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in hand.

Homelessness is a major problem in America – it’s estimated that 3.5 million people in this country are without a home at some point during any given year. Here in San Francisco, there may be as many as 15,000 homeless people in the city at any point during the year – giving the city the distinction of having the highest rate of homelessness in the U.S., despite the fact that the City of San Francisco spends at least $108 million annually on direct services for homeless people.

But how can a single person make a difference within all of this? That’s where the Peanut Butter Plan comes in. Started by 826 Valencia programs director Jory John, the growing movement asks participants to gather all your friends to make peanut butter sandwiches – that cornerstone of any good American diet – at least once a month to hand out directly to those in need. A loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly can feed a dozen people while costing you only about $10-20 and a bit of your time. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 4, 2009

What ‘cash for clunkers’ could have been spent on

by Kai Hsing

With the program’s environmental and economic benefits nearly negligible, billions could have been better spent encouraging more people to buy cars that make a real difference – plug-in hybrids.

junker-clunkerWEB

Much of the discussion around the “cash for clunkers” fervor is as polarizing as the politics involved – you either dismiss the program as a failure in both theory and practice or you declare the program a success while rejecting criticism of the program as GOP firestarting. With further consideration, one realizes that the cash for clunkers program actually has a lot of moving parts to consider before disassembly – unlike what they’ve been doing to the clunkers themselves.

On one level, cash for clunkers could be deemed a success – the program has so far increased sales in its brief period of activity, with Ford posting its first sales increase in two years and the overall industry posting its best month of 2009. The overwhelming popularity of the program has also been lauded as a measure of its success (or irresponsibility), with $1 billion exhausted in $4,500 increments in just one week.

Despite the fact that the Ford Focus (mpg: 24 city/35 highway) has been the top-selling one of the top-selling vehicles among those who traded in their “clunkers” for new cars, a closer look reveals that six out of the 10 best-selling anti-clunkers were from foreign automakers. Read the rest of this entry »

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