Awesome.

It’s been a while. I was hoping for an easy last quarter of college, but this spring has been busy as hell. This week, though, I did not have an epic economics problem set due, and so I decided to turn my attention to sprucing up somatablet. The first thing I did earlier this week was upgrade my server package, so that it could run the latest version of WordPress, the content management system I use to do a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff. Hopefully, this will mean the amount of spam comments I receive decreases a lot. It also means somatablet has the latest, most delicious feed technology. So, by all means, add me to your Google Reader with the feed links in the sidebar.

Speaking of Google Reader. I really like it. If you haven’t used it before, or don’t know much about feed readers/rss aggregators, the concept is pretty simple. You tell it a website you like to read, and it checks to see if there are new updates for you. Back in the olden days, I would click my “blogs” bookmark link in Safari two or three times a day, and about 20 blogs would pop up in tabs. Then I’d flick through them, only to see that 18 people hadn’t even updated. I no longer waste time with such compulsions. Google Reader only notifies me of new content, with the result that I spend more time reading new stuff online and less time checking to see if there is new stuff online.

The other thing I really love about Google Reader is Shared Items. If I see an article or entry that I find interesting, all I have to do is click “Share”, and any of my Gmail contacts that happen to use Google Reader can see the article that I shared. Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve completely neglected the linked list I used to have here on somatablet. Using another Google product, I managed to get the items I share in Google Reader to appear here on somatablet in a format that I like. Maybe down the line I’ll be able to have them interspersed with my blog posts again, but in the mean time, they’ll reside in the sidebar to the right.

***

Besides economics problem sets and German homework, I’ve started getting ready for the move. It’s crazy to look at the iCal printout I have on my bulletin board and see that we’re leaving Chicago in just six weeks. Danny and I have created some spreadsheets for packing, things we have to do before moving, and a budget for when we get there. We’re going to use Door2Door to ship and store most of our stuff; the cats and our clothes are coming with us across the country in the Jetta. I’ve started boxing up books and throwing out the detritus that has accumulated in the last year. If anyone wants some books, there are plenty that are not going to come with us.

Three more weeks—11 days—of classes.
Four weeks until graduation.
Six weeks until moving.

2) Wow, Hillary’s still in it. Clinton has now won the nation’s largest state (CA), the 2nd largest state (TX), the 3rd largest state (NY), the 4th largest state (FL), the 7th largest state (OH), and the 8th largest state (MI). (5th=IL=Obama, 6th=PA=has not voted yet). A part of me is beginning to think the Democrats don’t have a chance in the general election unless Clinton and Obama run together.

3) Some spin-free numbers*:

Counting Florida and Michigan

Not counting Florida and Michigan

*These numbers are subject to change as final tallies from yesterday’s election are updated. In fact, I’ve already changed them once. Here is the source data I’ve used.

4) Some light-spin commentary: in light of the 2000 election, I think it is only fair that the candidate who actually wins the popular vote takes the nomination. Surprisingly, that appears to be Hillary at the moment. Some will undoubtedly argue that Michigan and Florida don’t count—and by party rules, they technically don’t. But this country is supposedly built on fair and free elections. I think it’s ridiculous that State party leaders (specifically the Republicans in Florida, and the Democratic governor of Michigan) have the ability to disenfranchise as many as 28 million people (of which 1.7 million voted for Clinton or Obama in the FL and MI Democratic primaries). The Florida and Michigan results should either count as is or both states should hold another election in accordance with party rules. And Obama should get himself on the Michigan ticket this time.

From the article I got my data from above, this quote framed the election numbers nicely: “Clinton’s comeback yesterday appears to have been just strong enough to put her back in the total popular vote lead, inching Obama out by 28,305 votes out of a total combined Clinton-Obama vote of over 27 million. That leaves Obama as having received 99.8% as many votes as Clinton. (Meanwhile, McCain has received only 54.2% as many votes as Clinton, and all Republican candidates combined have received only 78.4% as many votes as Clinton.)”

5) P.S. Caucuses are undemocratic.

In unrelated news, this is the harshest Winter in memory. I’m ready for Spring.

Aside from a highly relaxing and fun trip to Minneapolis to visit Andrew and Lindsay last weekend, I’ve been busy with the usual stuff. My only strictly new class this quarter is Environmental Economics. I have a love-hate relationship with the class, because I have a love(or)hate relationship with the two professors that take turns teaching it. The senior professor on the tag-team is… uh, senior. “Emeritus faculty.” I can only speculate that the hour and twenty minutes that we all doodle, groan, play hearts on laptops, and tap our watches through must go by in the blink of an eye for him; the end of the class always catches him by surprise. I wish I could tell you anything he’s said in the three lecture/discussions he’s lead so far, but I can’t, mostly because I usually can’t hear him. (The TA brought a microphone yesterday, but he pretended he didn’t see it. Or maybe he didn’t see it.)

On the other hand, when the other professor is leading the class, I’m thoroughly engaged. At the start of the quarter, I said this:

I’m currently leaning towards [taking] Environmental Economics, but I can already predict how the first (and subsequent) class will go: “It’s not really possible to put a price on the environment. But we don’t know how to model without price, so we’re going to assume the price is $k. Let’s start modeling.” Maybe/hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.

I have and I haven’t. The central theme of the class, much like in Development Economics last quarter, is market failure. It is best illustrated in this example from The Tragedy of the Commons, an early environmental economics essay by Garrett Hardin in 1968.

The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality [ie the number of cattle on the commons provides enough cattle for the society without---yet---overcrowding the commons]. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.

As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, “What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?” This utility has one negative and one positive component.

1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.

2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of 1.

Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

This example is representative of a lot of environmental worries that face the world today: too many coal plants, too many cars on the roads, and, indeed, too many methane-producing cows. Because the costs to society for any individual’s coal plant in China, car in Los Angeles, or cow in Kansas are not placed directly on the individual, nobody willingly changes their behavior. This is where what I said earlier comes in: “It’s not really possible to put a price on the environment … so we’re going to assume the price is $k.” The first part is still openly acknowledged in the class. How do you value reductions in CO₂ emissions? How do you value saving a human life? These are the external costs that are not being absorbed by various polluters, but there would be swift changes if we could somehow make them pay these costs. Nonetheless, measuring them is not straightforward. Where this class has surprised me is that, despite being the easy (and boring) option, we are not just going to assume a certain cost. Instead, we are learning techniques and specifically environmental considerations that will help us make estimates of the costs and benefits behind all kinds of policy changes.

I didn’t intend for this post to be a gush about Environmental Econ. Nonetheless, the things we’ve read and learned about in the first three weeks have really heartened me. Groups like the Nature Conservancy have really adopted this kind of economic approach to environmentalism. Before, I cynically believed that most nature conservancies spent their (donated) money lobbying Congress (against industry lobbies). While that certainly still happens, the Nature Conservancy has economists on staff who determine what they’re willing to pay to buy land. An article from the New York Times a few months ago:

In 2002, the conservancy worked with the Great Northern Paper Company to protect 241,000 acres of forest near Mount Katahdin in Maine. The conservancy bought $50 million of loans to Great Northern, retired $14 million and refinanced the rest. In return, the company transferred 41,000 acres to the conservancy and placed a conservation easement on 200,000 acres that allows some logging but guards sensitive habitat.

Everyone wins; the conservancy can protect land for its patrons, the company gets loans and builds its green credentials, and a large swath of CO₂-absorbing forest is preserved. I’m sure I’ll write more as I start working on my final paper: a full cost-benefit analysis of a congestion tax in downtown Chicago.

Time to get ready to power hour.

Update. Good thing I didn’t have the money. Apple closed at $169.04, and I would have lost $832. The market was apparently expecting more than a MacBook Air, Time Capsule, and iTunes movie rentals. (Software updates to iPhone and iPod touch were also released).

Break has been restful, but I’m looking forward to the vaguely mind-expanding routine of going to class. I couldn’t care less about the Economics offerings this quarter, unfortunately, but I have to take at least one. I’m currently leaning towards Environmental Economics, but I can already predict how the first (and subsequent) class will go: “It’s not really possible to put a price on the environment. But we don’t know how to model without price, so we’re going to assume the price is $k. Let’s start modeling.” Maybe/hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.

I’m also taking the next quarter of German (past tenses, other assorted grammar!) and Astrophysics (galaxies, black holes, big bang theory, dark matter, dark energy!). At least they should be fun.

Every day I wake up, in the late morning or early afternoon, and all five of us are around the house for the rest of the daylight hours. Occasionally one or more of us will go to the store or out for lunch, but the rest of the days are spent mostly idle at home, usually in the living room, usually with a laptop nearby. During the day, my life is completely different from my everyday life away from home; it feels like stepping back in time, and back into a role I’m used to and comfortable with but very rarely play.

Then dinner hits, and my mom has a drink or two. At this point, the men of the house (ie everyone but my mom) make an informal bet. Will she stay up past nine? Nine thirty? Despite thirteen consecutive days off, she refuses or is unable or prefers not to adjust her sleep schedule at all, and she hardly ever stays awake past ten. This is a good thing, because the very specific sound of my parents’ bedroom door closing causes an internal reaction in which I completely lose the sense of guilt that I don’t spend enough time with my family. The night hours are my own, and I get to drop the pseudo-charade. I’m very lucky in that I get to spend most evenings when I’m at home with Kate and Ellie, usually in some way intoxicated. As always in Columbia Station, Ohio, a lot of time is spent in the car on long, straight stretches of country road between places. This time in the car—filled with anticipation, indecision, great ideas, and hilarious banter—is one of my absolute favorite things about being home.

***

My parents used to do a lot of cooking, but it has tapered off as John and I went to college, my mom has started traveling more, and Sam started working all the time. My mom has seemingly forgotten how to make all but half a dozen things, and the rest of the time we eat out or fend for ourselves. Not happy to let the nice ingredients for Christmas Eve dinner be overcooked and poorly seasoned, I volunteered to help out. I made some highly complimented mushrooms as a topper for grilled bacon-wrapped filet mignons, and my mom handled the rest (baked potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, bread, a lovely choice of wine). For the mushrooms, I surveyed the fridge and pantry, and ended up throwing the following together:

1/2 a white onion, minced very fine
a few pats of butter
about a tablespoon of sugar
about two tablespoons of garlic paste
a dash of ground thyme
salt and pepper

After this caramelized down considerably over medium heat, I added a bunch of sliced baby portabellos and porcinos and a little more butter, along with maybe a quarter cup of nice quality whisky from the liquor shelf. I put the pan on low heat and covered it, stirring occasionally, while I got the meat ready with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme. Because the porch is already pitch black at 5:30pm in winter, I relied not on sight but on intuition and took them off the piping hot grill early instead of late. After resting for five minutes, they were just reaching medium rare, and I didn’t have to gag down what otherwise would have been an overcooked (read: ruined) but pricy steak.

[Thanks to Lin for inspiring this section. The gumbo sounded delicious! My mouth was watering by the end of your description.]

***

Dishes done, we settled down in the family room to open presents. We’re getting older, and Christmas is less exciting than it used to be. My brothers, my dad and I all kind of poke fun at my mom most of the time, and while we were opening presents it was no exception. “Mom, don’t you remember you got me this last year? I still don’t need it.” “You bought this on QVC, didn’t you? Please stop doing that.” My brothers and I have this inability to stick up for my mom, because of the awkward (read: unprecedented) position it would put the other two brothers in. My mom is quite hardened to living with a bunch of boys for the last 22 years.

I got some gifts of replenishment (vitamins, some cooking sauces, soap, etc), a “first edition” (ie replica of the original) game of Monopoly, candy (because I need it), a large rolling duffel bag (thumbs up), and some cash. My parents also said they’d buy me and Danny tickets out to San Francisco for a trip over spring break, with the (both very good and very mildly frustrating) caveat that they’ll be joining us for a few days to visit wine country (it’s only very mildly frustrating because I’d like to spend more than a couple days in San Francisco, but I can’t complain about a trip to wine country on someone else’s dime. I’ll have plenty of time in San Francisco soon enough).

The present of the evening was my idea. My brother and I had already gotten something for my mom (she ended up not liking it, which was very frustrating). But the three of us were stumped on my dad. The obvious answer was to get him a Wii—both he and my mom have been raving about it since I brought mine home over Thanksgiving. It could not be found, though. On Saturday night, driving home from Kate’s very mildly buzzed (don’t worry, there are literally two turns between my house and Kate’s, even though we’re about ten minutes apart), I realized I could always find one on eBay. I logged on when I got home, and played the online auction house for a Wii. It was kind of insane. When I first made a search for a Wii, the first page was full of auctions less than a minute away from ending. More than ten Wiis, selling in the next minute. Insanity. It was immediately apparent what the market price was, within about 15 dollars. I decided to aim for the low end of the range, and tried to bid on one of them. The auction had already ended before I could get a bid in. I searched again, and tried again. Same problem.

I decided to go to the third page of results next, and found an auction ending in a few minutes. I placed a conservative bid on one of the dozens of identical systems, and counted down the minutes. I won.

The Wii got here on Tuesday morning (incredible work, USPS!), and I wrapped it up. My dad was shocked we found one, because my mom had been complaining for weeks about not being able to find one. We’re all glad to have something to do during the day, and my parents can’t wait to show it off the next time they have some neighbors over. Quite a success.

***

I leave for Chicago on Friday. I miss everything about my everyday life while I’m in Ohio, especially Danny and the cats. My family. I’ll be back to it soon.

I hope everyone had a merry X-mas!