It still says “Ohio Art” on the frame, but the magnetic drawing toy isn’t made in the Buckeye State—or any other state, for that matter. After 40 years, Ohio Art Co. shut down domestic production in 2000, seeking labor cheaper than the unionized, $9-per-hour workers who had been making the toys. The Chinese factories that now make Etch A Sketches have been the subject of unflattering allegations about work conditions.
...But after nearly 60 years of St. Patrick's Day ceremonies, what's actually become of all those bowls of shamrock?Ronald Reagan used one of his Waterford bowls to hold jelly beans. Bill Clinton displayed his glassware in the White House. "Upstairs in our residence, there is so much Irish crystal now," he mock-lamented at his eighth and final shamrock ceremony. As for the shamrock itself, it has a short shelf life after its long journey from Ireland. White House security regulations dictate that any food, drink or plant presented to the president be "handled pursuant to Secret Service policy." That's Secret Service-speak for destroyed -- an unceremonious fate, for an enduring symbol of a long friendship.
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ARLINGTON, Va. -- Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden?
That's one suggestion the Pentagon has received from someone who noted, quite correctly, that a bear's sense of smell is much more powerful than a bloodhound's. "Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be," the innovator wrote. "Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing." The bears-in-the-air idea, and scores of others, came from people who clicked on the "contact us" button on the Defense Department's Web site, which allows the general public to ask questions or make suggestions. Not that the Pentagon needs any particular help in the idea department. Not long ago, for example, the agency spent $2 million to find out whether honey bees could be relied upon to sniff out roadside bombs.
Gallup did something pretty cool in connection with their latest health care survey, which was to provide the verbatim responses (.xls) of the rationales given by people who would tell their Congressman to vote for or against the current health care bills, respectively. I ran the responses through Wordle, a word-cloud generating tool, omitting certain words that were parts of speech or were otherwise nongermane.
Here are the words that were used most frequently by the 45 percent of the country who would tell their Congressman to vote for the health care bill:
And here are the words used most commonly by the 48 percent of the country who would tell their Congressman to vote against it:
In some sense, this is a very old-fashioned debate about the proper role of government. The message that the pro-reform voters have taken away comes through loudly and clearly: 'PEOPLE ... NEED ... INSURANCE', whereas concerns among the anti's boil down to 'GOVERNMENT' and 'COST'.
IN 27 out of 36 countries surveyed by Manpower, an employment-services firm, more companies said they expected to add jobs in the three months to the end of June than said they reckoned on reducing their workforce. The difference between the proportion of hirers and firers was highest in Brazil and India. Throughout Asia companies have become more optimistic about hiring than they were a year ago, most dramatically in Singapore but only slightly in Japan. Things look less rosy in Europe. In several countries, including Spain and Ireland, more companies expect to see cuts to their workforce than expect it to grow. Of the four countries where the outlook has darkened, three are in Europe.
About 85% of the sugar consumed by Americans grows domestically, with the rest imported from about 40 countries under a quota-allocating system and Mexico, which isn't bound by the program under a free-trade treaty. Within the quota, exporters get higher prices paid by U.S. buyers but are subject to stiff tariffs once that limit is exceeded.The presumed market price, quantity demanded and quantity supplied would be at point "A" in the US Market for Sugar (below on the left).
The gap between what Americans and the rest of the world pay for sugar has reached its widest level in at least a decade, breathing new life into the battle over import quotas that prop up the price of the sweet stuff in the U.S. For years, U.S. prices have been artificially inflated by import restrictions designed to protect American farmers. That has kept the price well above the global market.Quotas are one way to restrict imports. The other way is through tariffs. Both serve to limit imports, but tariffs bring revenue to the government and quotas allow domestic producers of sugar to reap a higer price market price, hence, presumably higher profits. Regardless of the method it seems we pay, directly or indirectly, more for sugar and products we consume made with sugar. The government does this to protect the US sugar industry and to ensure that we can continue to have a virbrant domestic source of sugar. Is this policy correct? Should we allow more imports even if it puts domestic producers out of business? Tough choice...You make the call!!!
Do higher cigarette prices deter smoking? This column finds that policymakers in developing countries could reduce cigarette consumption by youths by raising taxes. A 10% increase in the price will reduce youth cigarette demand by 18.3%.
Reducing tobacco use has been an important issue for policymakers ever since the US Surgeon General’s 1964 report on the adverse health effects of tobacco. Tobacco is now established as a leading cause of preventable death worldwide and is expected to claim nearly a billion lives in the 21st century (WHO 2008).
Youth smoking in developing nations
The majority of the tobacco public health burden will be carried by developing countries, due to the unfortunate combination of increasing consumption and health system inadequacy. Of particular concern in developing countries is youth smoking, which can start at very young age and is the primary way of establishing adult smoking habits.
Although tobacco use is a major public health problem in lower-income countries, most of the evidence on what determines smoking comes from a few industrialised countries, primarily the US. There is a wealth of research on the impact of US cigarette prices or taxes, most of which agrees that taxes/prices can be used effectively to influence smoking decisions.
However, many studies have difficulty in claiming a causal price effect due to inability to control for variation in state characteristics. The most recent research on US youth smoking employs better identification techniques (DeCicca et al. 2008, Carpenter and Cook 2008, and Tauras et al. 2005), but the results have been mixed with regards to the impact of price. This hinders extrapolation of US-based results to other countries.
Even if uniform evidence on US price effects were available, US results may not be easily generalised to other countries due to differences in income, cultural environment, and individual behaviour.
New evidence from 20 developing nations
In recent work, co-authors and I claim that policymakers in lower-income countries would be able to reduce youth cigarette consumption through tax policies that increase the price of cigarettes (Kostova et al. 2010). Using individual-level data from 20 developing countries, we estimate that the price elasticity of cigarette demand among youth is -1.83.
We focus on youth (the average age in our sample is 14 years) since smoking habits are established primarily in adolescence, making this the optimal age for intervention. Our data come from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), combined with cigarette price data from the Economist Intelligence Unit Cost of Living Survey.
Our total price elasticity estimate can be decomposed into two parts:
•the price elasticity of smoking participation (-0.63), and
•the price elasticity of consumption intensity (-1.2).
The first represents the effect of price on smoking prevalence while the second represents the effect of price on the number of cigarettes consumed by smokers. We estimate that a 10% increase in price would reduce youth smoking rates by 6.3%. We also estimate that a 10% increase in price would reduce the average number of cigarettes consumed by young smokers by 12%. Overall, a 10% increase in cigarette price would reduce youth cigarette demand by 18.3%.
The causal effect of cigarette prices on smoking in our analysis is identified by:
•using country fixed effects, and
•including a measure of local anti-smoking sentiment.
These measures control for unobserved country characteristics which could affect both price and demand, and could potentially bias the price estimate. We further reduce unobserved country heterogeneity by controlling for confounding environmental factors such as the prevalence of cigarette advertising, anti-tobacco media outreach, and compliance with youth access restrictions.
Conclusion: Higher prices reduce youth smoking in developing nations
Our results suggest that price is a significant determinant of cigarette demand among youth in lower-income countries, and the price may be used as a policy tool to curb smoking in the developing world.
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