Some More

Another post on futures markets and speculation.

It will all work itself out.

Life Is Funny

Someone else on oil speculation, just in time.

And someone else on irrational fears. Wal-mart cannot rule the world.

"Don't believe in rock 'n' roll
Can really change the world
As it spins in revolution
It spirals and turns"

It spirals and turns, baby.

"This is my life
It's what I've chosen to do
There are no free rides
No one said it'd be easy"

No one said it would be easy, did they?

Some Things

1. To answer's GGM's question, the government will and would screw any reforms up. I say this from a purely ideological standpoint. I will say the same thing about any attempt for government reform. Endy points it out better than I can. Sometimes speculators win. Sometimes they lose. As my old finance professor asked, "Why does bread stay the same price all year?" What would reducing speculation really do except make things more volatile most of the time?

2. Economists should champion optimism in times of pessimism. So look at all of the evidence for self-correction. I have driven for 1200 miles in the last two weeks. Every time a car passed me, I compared its fuel efficiency to the Blazer. Almost every new car I see gets more than 30 miles per gallon. The buses are more crowded. I have organized my computers to be able to work from home more often. I hitched a seven hour ride with two guys that I moderately despise. "The times they are a changin'." It will be tough, but everything is going to work out eventually.

3. What I am saying is I haven't thought about or studied gas prices very much. This is probably a good thing. Adaptability is the only trait that matters.

4. Last year there was a drought. This year I am low on blood because of mosquitoes. Uncertainty abounds. We adapt.

5. The Wal-Mart oil change tradeoff is why I got into economics in the first place. The only thing I know is that there is no optimal answer. That is why there is a non-Wal-Mart oil change place on every corner. That is why no single entity can ever rule the world. We adapt.

Oil Changes, Wal-Mart, And Disposability

I get my oil changed at Wal-Mart. I figure they cannot mess it up too bad. My regular mechanic would charge me more and tell me everything that was wrong with the piece of shit. The guys at Wal-Mart change the oil, make sure there is air in the tires, and let me go on my merry way. I like this, even though, every time I am waiting, they screw-up something on someone else's car. It usually has to do with tires, so I guess I am okay.

The beauty of Wal-Mart is that it has turned most everything into a disposable product. I buy a $8 shirt or jeans, I wear them for a while, but I do not care if they rip or get stained. They are only $8 and replaceable at a moment's notice. The other day I bought a $9 coffee maker. All I could think was as long as it made coffee 10-15 times, then it was worth it.

Now GGM will surely point out the sadness in all of this. I like quality stuff too. But right now, when times are tough, I am really thankful for $8 jeans and $9 coffee makers.

A Story I Have Told A Thousand Times Or Fear Is A Two Way Street

When I was in middle school, we played football after school. It was me and a bunch of mediocre athletes. No, I am a less than a mediocre athlete. So it was me and a bunch of boys who were less athletic than me. Me competing against inferior athletes was mostly due to circumstance. It is also me revisiting and revising my youth.

I did not run the ball often. But when I did I would spit. I would claw. I would keep my feet moving. I would punish the mediocrity that was trying to tackle me.

So this one time, my team was losing. I decided we needed a quick score. I ran the ball. This hockey player tried to wrap me up. A central Virginia hockey player was trying to tackle me. I had to punish the mediocrity. I elbowed him square in the temple. He went down. I scored the touchdown.

"You killed him." The guy was still laying on the ground like he was dead with everyone huddled around him.

"He shouldn't have tried to tackle me." I jogged over to make sure he wasn't really dead.

He eventually got up. He suffered no long-term effects. No one's mother ever knew. He has a wife, two kids, and a career in the Navy.

We finished the game.

But I ran the ball less often.

Einstein Quote Of The Day

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

It Is Not Missing The Bus By Twenty Seconds

It is how I react to missing the bus by twenty seconds. At least that is what I have to keep telling myself.

Some Things

1. I went home at 5:15PM. I ate dinner. I read about Tom Seaver. I came back to the office at 6:30PM. So what?

2. Before I went home I read this. I am talking about something I know nothing about, but the old-school sports columnists (not profilers like Jordan, Rick Reily comes to mind) take themselves too seriously. Every now and then, they hit a poignant subject, but most of the time their insecurities and their jealously of athletes comes through. I find most of their writing empty. I like Simmons most of the time, because he is objective about his subjectivity. He always reminds me that he is writing his opinion. I still like Whitlock, because he obviously cares. (Maybe I like him for his libertarian slant on many issues.) The point here is that good writing is hard to come by.

3. I have gotten old. I enjoy sports writing more than watching the games. I find this very disturbing. I need to go to a baseball game.

4. The vast majority of shit does not matter. I must accept this.

5. Even though George Carlin is gone, everything is going to be all right. It will never be the same, but life's comedy will not stop.

Video Stores Or Why Family Businesses Fail

1. My Dad turned down a thirty days free account for a cash on delivery account. "It is just easier." I had the whole thing worked out, but the woman bypassed me and went to the old man. I guess she knew what she was doing. I guess he knows what he is doing.

2. He is complaining about documentaries and foreign films not creating high enough returns. He has a point. But the idea was always to develop a yuppie-artsy clientele that liked going to video stores with documentaries and foreign films. To build this clientele there has to be some cross-subsidization.

3. We have the best employee we have ever had. She is organized and driven. She makes us a lot of money. But she does not share my vision. This combined with number one and two infuriates me. I might just be an absentee buyer, but I would rather not care than be this angry.

Tomorrow Does Not Exist

1. Tomorrow is just another concept like infinity or demand or supply. It doesn't mean a damn thing. I find this comforting.

2. In the Father's Day Wiffle Ball Game, I was 2-2 with two homers. Then it rained before it was an official game erasing my stats.

3. I saw a yard sale sign that said "Moving Sale Write Here." The people were moving away because they had just finished their doctorate degrees.

4. I lost four out of seven games playing basketball. I won the sixth and seventh game, because the other guy had played hard for the first five. I guess I was waiting to "turn on the jets." I am certainly waiting for something.

For The Record

I find the majority of the posts on this blog sad. I hope to one day look back at all of this, and say: "Wow, that was a difficult time in your life. I am so glad you finally got over yourself. I am so glad you stopped being your own worst enemy. I just don't know why it took so long."

Soul Searching Or This Goes Nowhere

I am behaviorist. I have no idea what that technically means. I doubt if it means anything. It would be better to say I am an addict. No, I am like an addict.

I have habits. Most of them are bad. Most of them are destructive.

After my second movie in my second night, I was complaining. My girlfriend told me that my problem is that I can not enjoy anything, because in my mind, there is always something left undone. When I was at the movie, I was concerned about my unfinished dissertation. When I was working on my dissertation, I was worried about not watching movies and getting a job. I have difficulty finishing, focusing, and letting go. These fears make my life much more difficult.

Now I have known all of this for some time. (Most of my posts concern these subjects.) I have made studying self-help books and productivity porn a pastime. The solutions I have found have all been the same: set goals, establish habits to meet these goals, and then you will be successful. I interpret this as the backwards induction model or as the planning model.

But I do not believe in planning. Planning always leads to failure because of uncertainty. One day the alarm clock does not go off. One day someone needs help moving. Random events screw up the plan. One would have to create an infinite number of contingency plans. And honestly, the screw-ups usually turn out to be better than the original plan. I wrote one time: "I want to prove that the world works even if it doesn't make sense." I really want to do this, even though I don't know what "proves" means in a world that doesn't make sense. I am a behaviorist.

I am beginning to realize that this aversion to planning and goal-setting is bullshit. I am addicted to being unhappy. I am addicted to indecisiveness. I am addicted to not having goals and plans. My habits confirm these addictions. All addictions are empty in the long-run.

Some of my addictions stem from genuine curiosity. I am interested in many things but only for short periods. Maybe it is because of Nintendo. Maybe it is just me.

I know this. My dad and uncles are the same way. I will never be happy working for someone else. I will never be happy if I consider myself "stuck." I know this. But instead of recognizing it and adopting the singlemindness that it takes to put oneself in unstuck positions, I continue with my "stuck" habits and addictions.

I have no idea exactly what I am saying here. But things are much clearer in my mind.

I just have to finish.

Three Movies Three Nights

Iron Man was another good Marvel film. It didn't pretend to be more than it was. It remained wonderfully fake without feeling fake. It reminded me of X-Men. Good actors, slick dialogue, and good special effects. Just like a good comic book.


I felt similarly about The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Of course, it was deeper because of C.S. Lewis, but I enjoyed the action and the pace. I will leave the deep thoughts for some other night. As my Dad says, "It kept me awake past midnight, it must have been pretty damn good."


Sex and the City did something I always wanted to try. It made a movie based on Don Henley's "The Heart of the Matter." After watching it, I do not want to try anymore.

I am still young and dumb. I know very little about anything. But eventually one has to wake up and put childish things away. One has to "fuck the bullshit" and live life for happiness. Pride, the accumulation of fashion, and living like you are twenty lead to one looking like they have been "rode hard and put up wet." There is nothing prideful or fashionable or youthful about looking leathery. The women of Sex and the City look old and worn out, and in the end, they admit it.

It just took them too long to get there.

I Need A Jump Start

Blogging is useless. It is wasteful. It is intellectual masturbation for non-intellectuals. It is psychology without a professional. It is excessive. It is dangerous.

But I like it. Yes I do.

I wanted to write a "Why I Blog" post, but I could not come up with any reason other than "Some times I want to bitch and complain."

Some times I want to bitch and complain, and that is good enough for me.

Best Quote I Heard In A While

And if you try to bring up how sensationally he played on a gloomy night when the seven Spurs outside of the Duncan-Tony Parker-Barry troika combined for just 16 points, Barry said: "It's like putting whipped cream on s---."

What I Learned Today, Email To Sam, And Thoughts On Experimental Economics

Sam said I needed to expand on these, but expansion is overrated.

1. Being professional and organized are the keys to success. It is all about time management and getting something done everyday.

2. Someone needs to really reexamine experimental economics. Levitt and List (2007) tried to do this, but they miss the point. Field experiments are as uninteresting and uninformative as laboratory experiments and econometric analysis on revealed preferences. McCloskey's rhetoric argument comes to mind. We are all telling stories. The beauty of stories is that at the end the reader defines what the moral (meaning) is.

3. I readily admit I am an idiot, but "bias" has no relevance in economics. This is also a big problem with experimental economics. The experimenter has to define "bias." This makes "bias" subjective.

4. I want to be an applied economist. I want to apply the "economic way of thinking" to relevant problems. Yes, "economic way of thinking" and relevant are subjective.

I will settle for a job that pays well and has good benefits.

Sports Thoughts

1. I could not watch the Pistons last night. I care too much. I do not like the Celtics, and I have a feeling that this is going to be a rough series for the Pistons.

2. The National League is getting screwed with this 16 versus 14 team alignment. You can take this argument further and break it down to divisions. A six team division versus a four team division. Is this a big deal? Probably not. But it bothers the hell out of me.

3. I am reading David Halberstram's The Education of a Coach about Bill Belechick. I still say it is about luck.

Some Thoughts

1. Pat Jordan should write an article about Seth Greenberg. There is a classic shade of gray Jordan story there.

2. I cannot stand people saying "Well, you have the right to your opinion." What does that mean? If you do not agree with me, tell me why. If you are tired of arguing, then you must be wrong. This is as bad as saying "You are biased."

3. Some times the world seems fake. People seem fake. Existence seem fake. These times create religion. This is why people talk about "living for a higher cause." But that seems fake too. Reality has to be perception. Perception is all we have.

Thinking, Time, The Next Five Minutes, Athletes And Other Shit

I stay away from others' comments. I read them. They make me feel self-important. I am saddened by this self-importance. So I stay away.

But in the last post some things came up. It is obvious I do not practice what I preach. One cannot blog at 9:49AM from his office about how important it is to to get up and go to work. This blog is not my work. It cannot be. I get paid to bullshit about integrated pest management in the United States. I do not get paid to blog.

This being said, my work requires me to have portfolio of ideas at all times. It requires me to read. It requires me to be up-to-date with things going on in the world around me. It allows me to examine many ideas and increase my "knowledge." Maybe allows is a better word.

I am a knowledge worker. I do not possess any physical skills. I do not perform manual labor. My "knowledge," my "human capital," my capacity to bullshit earns my salary. This is what college degrees do. They turn people into professional bullshitters.

I wish I could romanticize this fact. I cannot. All I can say is that "some of this bullshit is kind of cool."

To be good at anything, one has to focus. One has to concentrate on the task in front of him. He has to take control of the the next five minutes. Just the next five minutes, nothing else matters.
I agree with Jeff. Jim Brown would run that lily white motherfucker over. He would not think about it. He would just do it. I have to bullshit about integrated pest management well enough to get me a job.

I agree with Sam. I have to maintain a portfolio of ideas. This will be key to getting a job. A portfolio of ideas requires thinking. It does not require worrying. Worrying is a waste of time. I cannot continue to waste time. I cannot continue to have too much time on my hands. Life is much too short.

So I am going to quit fucking around. I was fortunate enough to be around some good athletes. The one common thread between all succesful athletes is training and focus. They train and focus to the point where they cannot worry. They gain knowledge in their training, but when they play, they just do. All they care about is the next play or event. All the other shit leaves their mind, and they just do.

I have been like this before, and I will be like it again. And I am going to stay away from others' comments.

"The trouble with talking
Is it makes you sound clever
The trouble with waiting
Is you’ll just wait forever

There’s a loop of excuses
That plays in your mind
And makes the truth
Even harder to find"

What Successful People Have Done

And they got up in the the morning and went to work.

And they worked.

And they did not let others' perceptions cloud their work.

And they did not let their own perceptions cloud their work.

And they did not let depression stop their work.

And they integrated their experiences, their successes, and most importantly their failures into their work.

And when the day had ended and their work was done, they allowed the day to end and their work to be done.