Economics Rap Video: Bling bling!!

Ok - so even if you're not really interested in Economics, check out the video below.  Its pretty funny. 

I'm an economics nerd, and I follow the blogs of two fairly 'famous' economists - Greg Mankiw (of Harvard) and Mark Perry (of UMichigan - Flint).  Here is a rap video that was posted on Perry's blog.  Hilarious, informative, biting and witty all at the same time.

The video pits two economists against each other - each who have had a distinct influence on how Republicans (who favor a Hayek point of view) and Democrats (who favor Keynes) perceive the best way to deal with a recession such at the one that the US and World has just gone through.*

Keynes:  tends to favor government spending in order to fix the economy.  His solution:  people are not buying enough to support producers.  If producers aren't supported, they fire people, raising unemployment, who then buy less, causing layoffs, which leads to unemployment, and so on and so forth.  His solution says that government should spend money until spending increases again.

Hayek: tends to favor little government regulation of the economy.  Instead, the problem is the the economy starts growing too fast and gets ahead of itself.  Eventually it hasn't grown enough at the core to support itself and collapses.  This problem can be rectified if the government merely raises or lowers interest rates to encourage growth when the economy slows or raise interest rates to discourage growth when it may start overheating.



Some witty/interesting things from the video itself

• When Hayek (bald guy) walks into his hotel room at the beginning and looks in the drawer, the book is not a Gideon Bible (as many hotels have), but a book by Keynes.  The insinuation?  Many economists see Keynes work as "the bible" of economic theories - the theory on which everything else is based.  
• As Keynes is rapping, he is drinking a lot.  He later becomes drunk and hung over.  It seems that too much of a good thing (bailout money?) might be destructive in the end.  The overall setting of the video was creatively done and the creators seem to favor Hayek.  
• The bar tenders who are giving Keynes his alcohol that eventually causes him to collapse and throw up are named "Tim" and "Ben".   These are thinly veiled references to Timothy Geitner (Treasury Secretary) and Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve Chairman) and the fact that they were the ones who may have overloaded the economy with too much bailout money.  

So there you have it.  Economics is cool.  And so am I.

*Yes, I speak in the past tense.  Though it may not be felt in all sectors of all economies, in general, indicators from various sources seem to show that the economy has pulled out of a recession and is heading into recovery.  See support for that here.  Scroll down to posts on the end of the recession.

February 2nd

February 2nd marks the day of the second most important day of 2010 thus far (and the 1 month anniversary of the most important event).  The day that we have been waiting for for over 8 months.  The season premier of LOST - the most compelling tv show I've ever watched.  I got hooked on it during the second season, and have been following it feverishly ever since.  Incidentally, our first child has two important connections to Lost:

• She shares the first name with Evangeline Lilly, who portrays Kate 
• She was born on January 2nd, exactly one month before the season premier of the final season.

Some of you have not yet discovered what you've always been waiting for, but for the rest of you who are beside yourself with excitement, here are some of the promotional vidoes (from least interesting to most interesting).













This is by far the best one.

Academic Earth

I have been publicly accused of blogging only about my daughter, my wife and famous economists.  Its time I struck back.  With a fury.  I will not stand by and allow my good name to be bludgeoned.  While my blogs do pertain to them more than any other single subject, I would like to refute that ALL I blog about is my wife and child.  See here, here, and here.   So today I thought I'd share something that I've found and am currently enjoying.

I've found a website called Academic Earth.  Its a fantastic website that has video lectures on a variety of subjects from some of America's most prestigious universities:  Yale, Harvard, Standford, etc.  Sometimes it is a single lecture, and other times it is a whole semester of lectures from the professors themselves.  And its not pirated.  Rather, this project is approved and encouraged by the universities themselves.

I've not viewed a whole lot for lack of time, but I have read some of the transcripts for the Introduction to Psychology course, and have just watched the first two lectures of the Game Theory course (economics related).  Its always fascinating, and the professors have a bit of wit about them.  So for your perusal, I thought I'd include the lecture I just watched from the Game Theory course.

Watch it on Academic Earth

MLK, Jr on Children

"I have a dream that ONE DAY, all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'SLEEP at last! SLEEP at last! Thank God Almighty, we have SLEEP at last!' "


Ok - so maybe not an exact quote, but I bet that's what he was thinking during the first weeks after HIS children were born!

Parenting Advice from a Scientist

A scientist friend of mine recently sent his congratulations on the birth of our first child, Evangeline Marie, along with some advice he wished to pass on to me.  It was such good advice that I wanted to share it with those of you out there who have children now, will have children in the future, or will interact with children at some point in your lives.

First of all, congratulations!

You have achieved reproduction and have thus secured your genetic legacy, which means that you are a biological success! Good work sir!

A few quick notes about your new offspring:

• If juvenile humans are anything like juvenile fish, and I'm going to assume they are via principles of induction, your baby should shed its remaining yolk sac and be fully self-sufficient by about one week. At this point, your child will no longer need you to supply food and may presumably be released into the wild to forage every few hours. Baby predators primarily include falcons and eagles, but opportunistic omnivores, such as dogs, may be a threat as well. Make sure your baby is properly armed.
• Via observation, I have determined that the primary function of a baby is to convert food directly into poop. It may be wise to invest in some type of methane harvester and convert one vehicle to run directly off of it. This is dependent on the Bahraini gas prices however, so some more math is required to determine the economic feasibility of this option.
• It is never to early to start teaching your child about the horror and danger that is the velociraptor. As soon as you can, you should sit your baby down and watch Jurassic Park, and then have a long discussion about dinosaurs, the dangers of cloning, and fighting creatures that can learn to open doors.

Best of luck Josh! If you need any more science-based advice, please feel free to contact me.

Pictures! World, meet Evangeline Marie.

I want to start at the beginning.  Here - it was supposed to be my first video blog (or vlog).




Well, the walk must have worked because Evangeline was out in just over 24 hours!  It must have been the walking (and then the Caribou Coffee afterwards).  We also had the help of a friend who was able to come with us to the hospital and be with Alison and I through the whole birth process.  She was great as she was able to do all the things that Alison and I couldn't, or things that we hadn't even thought about.  Such as order us a pizza after we were back in the room.  Her husband and daughter came later to see Evangeline and be our very first visitors.

As previously mentioned, Evangeline is 3.75 kgs and 52 cm when she was born.  She is very healthy and there were no problems.  Alison is also really health.  Both were doing so well that we went home the next day (to the disapproving looks of the nursing staff - but it was either stare at the wall in a hospital room or stare at the wall in our own home).  However, friends at the hospital made our stay very very pleasant as a steady (but certainly not overwhelming) stream of people came to visit.  Here are some of the pictures.*




We were able to go home later that evening and Eva had her very first stay in an apartment.  In fact, it was a whole day of firsts!  Such as first time in a car, first time over a speed bump, first time in an apartment, first time meeting all her new friends (many of whom were boys...), first time seeing the sun, first time, first time first time!  It was quite a day for her.  But not enough of a day to sleep through the entire night.    Insha'alla that will happen.  Someday.  

*if you are on facebook, you may not be able to see the actual pictures.  You'll have to go the original blog post.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Welcome to the world Evangeline!

Evangeline Marie Perkins was born on January 2nd at 6:05 pm.  She was 3.7 kg's and 52 cm (those of you in the US will have to do your own conversions - sorry!)  The delivery went very well and mommy and baby are currently sleeping.  We (sometimes) call her Eva for short.  Pronounced Ay-vah.

We have just arrived home and are quite beat.  But don't worry!  We have plenty of pictures that will get posted soon!!

*! مرحبا

Forbes magazine has recently announced the friendliest country in the world.  I'm not going to tell you who it is - you'll have to read the article to find out.  But if I'm posting it on here, you can probably guess which country it might be!  It would behoove some to note which region of the world the 'friendliest country' came from.

Oh yeah - and happy new year!  2010 will be bringing some big changes to our lives.  And as I type this, Alison and I are beginning to wonder whether this WEEK will bring the biggest of those changes.  If not the next few days!!

Friends Always Welcome

*use google translate to figure out what the title says