Heavy Lifting

• The end is near?

  I don't remember reading about the end of the Eggo in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, but the lack of Eggos on the shelf, and the weak explanations for their absence, has a weird feeling associated with it.Maybe it is all falling apart.' [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 12:42pm EST
  

• Calm down talk radio hosts...

  Listening to Mike Gallagher this morning and he rips on the Obama administration for putting a red AIDS/HIV ribbon on the white house. A quick Google search indeed turns up a few right-of-center articles lambasting the Obama administration for not pointing out all the great things compassionate conservatism did for [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 9:53am EST
  

• Funny t-shirt idea

  After the Georgia Dawgs put down the gnats of Georgia Tech last night I was not the only one to realize that the two teams playing in the ACC championship - Clemson and Georgia Tech - both lost to sub-par SEC teams.Then I came across this t-shirt idea at Georgia [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 7:23pm EST
  

• Wait - what?

  Came across this paper's abstract while searching for something completely different. What the heck is "stator leakage reactance saturation"?"Saturation model for squirrel-cage induction motors"Here's the abstract, I didn't get past the first sentence:An induction motor model which includes stator leakage reactance saturation, rotor leakage reactance saturation and magnetizing reactance' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:44pm EST
  

• In loco parentis ad infinitum?

  From this USA Today story:A university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.Officials at historically black Lincoln University said Friday that the school is simply concerned about high rates of obesity [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 3:24pm EST
  

• Damn good Dawg

  UGA VII died suddenly yesterday. RIP [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 2:27pm EST
  

• I'm sure it's photoshopped but it's still funny

  From dawgsports.com:Classic.The post has another funny line:The toothbrush was invented by a professor at Auburn University. We know this because, if it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called the teethbrush.Hopefully we can get it done on Saturday night but I have my doubts.GO DAWGS!! [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:59am EST
  

• I'm no macroeconomist (or accountant)

  I am scratching my head over this one and I wonder if I am just making too much out of something that is painfully obvious to the macroeconomists (and macro-accountants). I heard this yesterday and then read this sentence today:The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday the White House is considering [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:42am EST
  

• Math is your friend? Maybe not in NYC

  An interesting, and depressing, story concerning the utter lack of basic math skills on the part of freshmen at City University of New York:During their first math class at one of CUNY's four-year colleges, 90% of 200 students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem, the report by the CUNY' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:27am EST
  

• Shut it down!!

  The pay-for-grades program lasted about two seconds:A North Carolina middle school's cash-for-grades fundraiser has come to an abrupt end, school officials said Wednesday.Wayne County school administrators halted the plan at Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro that would have allowed students to get 20 test points in exchange for a $20 [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 9:45am EST
  

• Markets in everything: selling grades edition

  Well, it was bound to happen. As schools find themselves strapped for cash and the allure of buying one more magazine subscription or another chocolate bar wanes, where do schools go next for their fund raising efforts? Our local elementary has gone with an outfit that essentially replicates cafe-press for [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:29am EST
  

• Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  Special thanks to friends Karl P., Roger F., Mark B., and Tom H. and family Richard W. [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:24am EST
  

• Creative accounting: Federal Government Edition

  Just how many jobs were "created or saved" by the Federal stimulus package? Hard to say. It is notoriously difficult to prove the "saved" portion of the equation. However, notwithstanding such difficulties, the Federal government provided "guidelines" as to how states and localities could determine whether a job was "saved" [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 8:48am EST
  

• Beware politicians (and the CBO)

  From the executive summary of the CBO analysis of the Republican response to the House Health Care bill:This evening, CBO released a preliminary analysis of a substitute amendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proposed by Representative John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:19am EST
  

• President breaks FERPA laws?

  One might make a case that he did:Then, to a chorus of oooohs from the crowd, he said that Malia, a sixth-grader at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, had come home with a 73 on her science test not long ago. He recounted how, a few years ago, she had [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:03am EST
  

• New boss worse than the old boss?

  One wonders if the famous Who line should be amended because over time the Congress (I don't even say "our Congress" anymore) has become more and more authoritarian. Tomorrow's vote on the Health Care "bill" in the House is yet one more manifestation:Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD' [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 8:55am EST
  

• Deadlines matter?

  I am messaging the database of cash-for-clunkers trades and generated the total number of C4C transactions by date. Here is the line plot for the 100 days of the program:Notice the two big spikes in the sales that correspond, essentially, with the two announced deadlines: the first was the initial [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 3:54pm EST
  

• What exactly is a Credit Default Swap?

  A nice explanation of the Credit Default Swap and the extent that the market for these derivatives provides benefits to the financial system, and also a few risks, is provided in this Cleveland Fed Economic Commentary. Here's the abstract:Credit derivative instruments allow default risk to be segregated from debt of [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 2:26pm EST
  

• A Chamblee-Colwell-Dehring-Depken production

  A plug for a new working paper of mine with John Chamblee (UGA), Peter Colwell (Illinois) and Carolyn Dehring (UGA) ""The Value of Land Conservation: Evidence from North Carolina " available at SSRN. We appreciate any comments on the paper. Here's the abstract:We examine conservation activity in western North Carolina," [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 10:00am EST
  

• The power of suggestion

  How about this time series of hand sanitizer sales? Via Nielsen [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 1:02pm EST
  

• An interesting comment

  A comment posted on a story over at Politico:Is anyone really surprised???? Hope and Change... Nah! Get used to Rope and ChainsJames left a great comment and hence the change in the post's title. I posted not because I agree with the comment only that there are still some creative' [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 12:50pm EST