Market Power

Halloween Joke

Q:  What do you get when you take the insides out of a hot dog?

A:  A hollow weenie.

I'll be here all week.

Doc's Gold Medal

A little over a week ago, Doc announced he had sold a 10K, approximately 2 ounce gold medal he won as a teaching award from UWO.  He also asked readers to guess how much he had sold it for.

I took the market value of pure gold and adjusted it by a factor of 10/24 (24K gold is pure gold) and got a result of approximately $920.  I was right in that he sold it for less than what it was worth, but my estimate of $800 was way off.  I correctly guessed the "why" reason (high opportunity costs), but my guess was so general that it's barely worth even mentioning now.  But I'll take what I can get.  However, my reasoning for "why now?" wasn't even in the same universe.  The price and the reason.

Price:  $454 Canadian

Why so low?  One reason was because of the high transactions costs that someone who lives in "the boonies" will have to pay to get it sold.   Instead of incurring those costs directly, he incurred them indirectly by selling the medal at below market value.

See.  I told you I got the opportunity cost part right.  

A second reason was that the medal actually weighed a bit less than 2 ounces.

But as for why now?  My guess was that John believed that there was a bubble.  But it had nothing to do with John believing there was a bubble.

At the same time, Eliot had some good insight about my motives in selling the medal. I figured that if I didn't sell it, it would become a part of my estate when I die, and my heirs would sell it as part of a box of crud for only a song to someone who buys up boxes of stuff at estate sales. And, as Eliot noted, I really don't have a tonne of warm feelings about the issuer of the award.

I did not adjust for disutility, but the thought did cross my mind in my calculations.

Simple Yeast Starter

As long-time readers know, this blog also serves as my recipe collection.  This recipe is a simple yeast starter to help ensure that I have enough yeast when I brew beer.  The starter is approximately of gravity 1.040.

1. 2 cups water
2. 1/2 cup dry malt extract (DME).  The type of DME matches the type of beer style you are going to brew.  If you are planning on brewing a stout, use dark DME.  If you are planning on brewing a brown ale, use amber DME, and so on.

I mix the DME with the water in an ordinary sauce pan and thoroughly dissolve the DME.  Then I bring the wort mixture to a rolling boil for 10".  TAfter the 10 minutes are up, I remove the wort from the burner, cover, and let it sit for two minutes.  Next I cool the wort to about 65 degrees using an ice bath (i.e. I put the sauce pan into a large frying pan and completely and thoroughly surround the perimeter with ice cubes).  It takes about 10 minutes to cool to the desired temperature. 

After the wort has cooled, I pour the wort into a sanitized beaker, shake it vigorously to aerate, and pour in the yeast.  I install a rubber plug and put an airlock in place.  Lastly, I shake the beaker one more time to mix the yeast with the wort and then put the beaker in a dark room (usually my closet).

In a couple of days, there should be sufficient activity to allow me to brew my desired batch of  beer.

Rest Assured: Sam, The PowerCat, is Safe

Halloween can be bad luck for black cats.

Because of superstitions about the felines and witchcraft, several area pet shelters don't allow the animals to be adopted in the days leading up to Oct. 31. They fear the animals could be abused or killed by disturbed individuals.

Although reports of such incidents are rare, some shelter officials say they're taking no chances. Others, including the Nebraska Humane Society in Omaha, however, say they are confident that pre-adoption background checks and counseling will weed out potential abusers.

The Cat House in Lincoln has a “blackout” policy during October and discourages black cat adoptions, said Carol Mathias, publicity coordinator and owner of four cats. Mathias said pure white cats can also be targeted.

I worry about this each Halloween, for we have a Halloween cat living here.  A living, breathing, rambunctious Halloween decoration, Sam has thankfully never been the target of ne'er-do-wells.

Halloween Candy Rules!

As a child, Christmas was my favorite holiday for obvious reasons.  Christmas still occupies a favored place in my mind, and raising two kids brings back the magic every year.  But speaking purely as an adult Christmas takes third place in American holidays in my book.  In first place is the Fourth of July.  I prefer the Fourth over any other holiday because it gives me the opportunity to make things blow up without having my neighbors give me odd looks.

My second favorite holiday, if you want to call it a holiday, is Halloween.  What is it that I like about Halloween?  For one thing, I get to take my kids trick-or-treating which reminds me fondly of when I was a kid and would go door-to-door to get candy from total strangers. 

But one of the things I like the most these days is that Halloween gives me a chance to go out and buy a lot of candy without feeling guilty about it.  I always make sure to buy more candy than what I expect to have given out at my house so that I have some to munch on for the next, oh, 6 months or so.  What's better than to have loads of Milky Ways, Butterfingers, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (lots of RPBC's), and Nestle Crunch Bars on hand.  I have enough to feed me and my family in the event of a nuclear holocaust.  Plus we'll have enough of a sugar high to allow us to rebuild all of society in this unfortunate event.

Lucy

I had the pleasure of being in Chicago last week.  One of the things I did was visit the Field Museum (named, by the way, for realtor Marshall Field).  One of the displays at the Field Museum is a depiction of the skeleton of Lucy, a person who lived over 3 million years ago.  The actual remains, on display in Addis Ababa, were considered the oldest remains found on record...

until now.  HT Art Diamond.

Green Jobs = Broken Windows

Spending on green jobs will likely not create a net increase in jobs.

Day Two: Virtumonde Still Appears to be Gone

It appears that the measures I took to rid my computer of the Virtumonde trojan horse were successful.  The pop-ups are gone, Windows Updater is still turned on, and my Google search results lead me to the correct page when I click them.  Here's what I did.

1. Close the web browser when the pop ups appeared
2. Run an anti-spyware program (I ran SpyBot).
3. Run a second anti-spyware program (I ran AdAware) as insurance.
4. Reboot the computer with the internet connection turned off (I unplugged my cable modem)
5. Run an anti-spyware program again (I used SpyBot).  I still found a remnant of Virtumonde at this point.
6. Reboot the computer with the internet connection turned on.
7. Run an anti-spyware program yet again.  Again, I used SpyBot.  At this point, the program found no spyware.
8. Open browser and cross your fingers.

This process took three to four hours.  You may be able to clear your computer by using fewer steps, but this is what ended up working for me.  I've had my computer on for over 24 hours since then and I have had no problems.

How to Reduce Water Shortages

Consider a typical demand curve.  When the price of the good rises, it gives consumers an incentive to reduce the amount they'd like to have.  In times of shortages, reducing quantity demanded is one way to alleviate the problem.

The supply side of the tap water market is controlled by public utilities, and political considerations such as "I want to get re-elected" take center stage when debating ways to control water shortages.  The result is that  about every proposal gets debated - every proposal, that is, but raising prices.

Why Is the H1N1 Vaccine So Slow to Market in the US?

While the H1N1 flu virus seems to be running its course here in Minnesota and in other parts of the US, the vaccine for the virus hasn't even hit the market.  It's quite possible that the course will be run before the vaccines even come out. 

Even though many will no doubt blame the private companies that are producing the vaccines for being so slow, Scott Gottlieb argues that it's the US regulatory process that is to blame for the snail's pace.  Part of this could be the fear that regulators will get much more blame for things that go wrong than they will get in praise if things go right.

I can't say for sure, but both of my kids had H1N1 flu-like symptoms - fatigue, fever (103.5 for one, 100+ for the other), persistent cough - three weeks ago.  My wife had mild symptoms soon after that.  My mom and I, so far, haven't had any symptoms.