Someone is going to be assaulted with a "blood-diamond" by Naomi Campbell...

I would not want to be within a shoes throw of the World Court if she actually testifies...

War crimes prosecutors in The Hague say supermodel Naomi Campbell should be subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Liberia's ex-President Charles Taylor. They say Ms Campbell "was given rough diamonds" by Mr Taylor in 1997 at Nelson Mandela's house in South Africa. Mr Taylor is accused of using "blood diamonds" to fuel an insurgency in Sierra Leone that cost tens of thousands of lives. Ms Campbell had previously declined to provide testimony to prosecutors.
Ms Campbell's testimony is necessary as there is evidence that Ms Campbell was given rough diamonds by the accused (Mr Taylor) in September 1997," said a prosecution motion filed with the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Chinese buy US houses at rapid pace...Is this a bad trend?

Should we be concerned that residents of China are buying houses in the US at an increasing rate? Does it not help absorb surplus housing and help maintain housing prices for everyone, especially in a tough housing market?(Carpe Diem has supporting evidence) How did they get so much surplus cash to buy houses in the US...

""As China’s economy rises, a group of China’s new rich with abundant cash funds appeared in Southern California, mostly businessmen, taking advantage of the housing market downturn bought a lot of foreclosures, short sales or not yet listed houses with cash.""

Well, we all know how one sided trade with the China is,  right?  I don't believe so...Trade is a two-way street--always and each side benefits!...With regards to China, people think it is one-way trip---we buy more stuff from China then they buy from us. We MUST be the loser in this scenario , because the media and the political party OUT of power remind us so with regularity . BUT this is only half the story. China now holds the dollars we used to buy their stuff. What are they going to do with those dollars? To be any good, dollars HAVE to find their way back to the US (directly or indirectly) to be redeemed for US goods/services OR US financial/physical assets...period, end of story! They can (1) buy a US good (John Deere tractor, Dell Computer, etc) or service (IT services, banking services,etc), (2) buy a US financial asset (stock, mutual fund, savings bond, OR GOVERNMENT DEBT...) or physical asset (land, commercial building, factory...) OR a HOUSE! Another incidental aspect to financial assets is China buying bonds/mortgages from the Federal guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that allow Americans to buy houses for relatively low interest rates. Yes, that is right, the Chinese may own part of your home mortgage.  Whether all of this or only some of this is desirable, we have to consider both sides of trade and recognize the flow of money (or financial capital) as it chases goods/service/assets is CIRCULAR  and benefits as well as costs (yes, I recognize the costs) accrue on both sides.  Disagree? Let me know...

General Motors Ad claiming pay back of loan---what the SHOULD have said...

A re-do of the infamous ad from General Motors claiming they "paid back" the government loan they received...This is what they probably SHOULD have said...It is now known that it was the result of creative accounting and some slight of public-relations-hand. I have no problem with GM making a claim, but they owe the public the explicit truth and not make people have to chase it out of them or the government...That is all I ask...

Heavy Metal Band names---Where do they come from???

Heavy Metal Band flow chart...I am not into the music, but I love graphs of any sort.  I am also curious about how names came about...Did not realize some of these bands were fans of William Faulkner...(HT: Chartporn)

Harmful Drinks...How many of these do YOU consume on a regular basis???

Yikes!! The sugar content on various "popular" drinks. Each picture gives you an idea of the sugar content of a drink to the quantity of a relative product...I drink several of these beverages...I am really unhealthy and make poor choices....How about you???

Clink here to see the Top 20 : Harmful Drinks in America

AP Macro AND Micro FRQ answers as I see them...

The 2010 AP Macroeconomic and Microeconomics FRQ's have been released.  I have put together a not so fancy powerpoint of what I believe are the correct answers, or what would be acceptable answers...Go to http://www.haywardecon.com/ and the links will be in the center of the page...(I reserve the right to modify upon learning I may be wrong in my interpretation)

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been the real estate market..."

Ok, I made that up... but the farm that was host to the filming of the movie "Field of Dreams" is for sale for $5.4 million...Wish I had the money....(Source HERE)

""The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come"" ”

This is what the night sky REALLY looks like outside the light pollution of the city...

From Here via Marginal Revolution

If you watch/play Baseball--This may be one of the best homeplate touches EVER!!

If you are a poor college student, this invention is for YOU!!!

If you are a "poor" college student, or are VERY frugal with your money, this my be your best purchase ever!  The Japanese are geniuses.  It solves the age-old logic problem of eating Ramen Noodles: Do I use a spoon or a fork? What do you call it a Spoork or a Froon?  :) 

""Behold, the Ramen Fork. A fork with both tine for noodles and a small bowl for soup base. It's basically a spork, just a little more professional. As a frequent ramen eater -- mostly thanks to Ramenbox -- I am constantly irked by the difficulty of eating noodles and slurping soup simultaneously. Their supposed to be eaten together, and yet, no utensil has been able to accomplish this. Until now. Because of the Ramen Fork. Japan, I'll take 100...."""

Click HERE for source..

Do you ACTUALLY make phone calls with your cell phone? If you do, you are in the minority...

We do not have a landline phone (you know, one that plugs into the wall) in our home anymore.  We have cellphones as our primary home and mobile telephony devices.  How about you?  This article in the NYTIMES make the point that we have passed the point where we now collectively use our phones MORE for other uses than simply making a phone call:

""Instead of talking on their cellphones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages. The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.""

Professor Mark Perry at Carpe Diem makes an ironic point about this process of "creative destruction" but in reverse(??)...

""Isn't it interesting that historically the telephone replaced the telegraph, and talking on the phone replaced sending telegrams as the preferred method of communication. Now with the popularity of using phones for text messages and emails, it's almost like going back to sending telegrams by phone instead of talking on the phone.""

World's First Gold Dispensing Machine---Watch your fingers!!!

"""This Wednesday saw the official opening of the world’s first permanent gold-dispensing vending machine. Created by German company TG Gold-Super-Markt, the GOLD To Go ATM is located (unsurprisingly) in the lavish Emirates Palace Hotel, in Abu Dhabi. Gold has strengthened 13 percent in 2010 following nine straight annual gains, so now when hotel guests want to exchange their cash for something a little more economically-stable, they won’t have to bother with gold store clerks or business hours.
A computer inside the ATM keeps track of gold prices in real time, and prices its gold accordingly. Because it has less overhead costs than a store, TG Gold-Super-Markt claims the machine is able to offer “very competitive prices.” Besides dispensing 24-carat gold bars in 1, 5 and 10 gram sizes, the ATM also offers gift boxes of gold coins bearing symbols such as the Krugerrand, a maple leaf, or a kangaroo - perhaps market research showed that South Africans, Canadians and Australians like gold? Interestingly, there’s no American eagle."""

A Penny for your thoughts...unless that Penny costs 1.62 cents to make...

Nice example of interest group politics getting in the way of "good" economics...I support the President on this one....

""Those pennies and nickels in your pocket cost more to manufacture than they are worth. That's why the Obama administration wants to use cheaper materials -- possibly an aluminum alloy -- to make the coins.
"Making coins from more cost-effective materials could save more than $100 million a year, which isn't just pocket change," said Dan Tangherlini, the Treasury Department's chief financial officer.
But some businesses, particularly vending machine owners and laundromat owners, are preparing to fight the administration plan to downgrade nickels. They're worried that any change in weight and metal content would require expensive overhauling or even replacement of their machines, The Los Angeles Times reported.
"We're all taxpayers, and we're all in favor of being able to mint coins at a more reasonable cost," Brian Wallace, president of the Coin Laundry Association, told the Times. "But we want to make sure there aren't unintended consequences that could deeply impact the small business owner during a recession."
Last year a penny cost 1.62 cents to manufacture. The nickel (which contains more copper than actual nickel) costs 5.79 cents.""

Donate a shirt or shoes and destroy a business in Africa...STOP this madness please!!!

No good deed goes unpunished...OR is it a good deed?  There seems to be a consensus in the international aid business that, no matter the good intentions, people who collect a variety of goods to send to poor countries are really hurting more than helping...Click HERE for original story from TIME Magazine "Bad Charity? "All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!)"

In the history of foreign aid, it looked pretty harmless: a young Florida businessman decided to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa. Jason Sadler just wanted to help. He thought he'd start with all the leftover T-shirts from his advertising company, I Wear Your Shirt. But judging by the response Sadler got from a group of foreign aid bloggers, you'd think he wanted to toss squirrels into wood chippers or steal lunch boxes from fourth-graders.

Little did Sadler know he had stumbled into a debate that is raging in the aid world about the best and worst ways to deliver charity, or whether to give at all. He crashed up against a rather simple theory that returned to prominence after aid failures following the 2004 Asian tsunami and 2010 Haiti earthquake: wanting to do something to help is no excuse for not knowing the consequences of what you're doing.

 Dumping "free" goods that are readily available in these countries (yes, there are LOTS of viable industries/businesses in ALL parts of Africa) have negative consequences on the local economies...

But why gang up on a guy who just wants to help clothe people in Africa? First, because it's not that hard to get shirts in Africa. Flooding the market with free goods could bankrupt the people who already sell them. Donating clothing is a sensitive topic in Africa because many countries' textile industries collapsed under the weight of secondhand-clothing imports that were introduced in the 1970s and '80s. "First you have destroyed these villages' ability to be industrious and produce cotton products, and then you're saying, 'Can I give you a T-shirt?' and celebrating about it?" says James Shikwati, director of the Nairobi-based Inter Region Economic Network, a think tank. "It's really like offering poison coated with sugar."

Mr. Sadler has relented and is not going to send the shirts to Africa. He is going to raise money with them or donated them to local charities...

Sadler has proven flexible: he says he is listening to his critics and no longer plans to send the shirts to Africa. He says he will find another way to use the T-shirts he collects, possibly for disaster relief, giving them to homeless shelters or using them to create other goods. He says any profits would then "go back to the company's goal of helping foster sustainability." And judging by the response on the Web, he's getting a lot of donations. "I've since listened to a lot of these people," he says. "I want to change this thing into something that's better, that's more helpful and that listens to the people that have the experience that I don't have."

This story is just representative of the whole "problem" of foreign aid, BUT I believe the model is changing for the better.  Aid is necessary for immediate relief to save lives---NO question about that. However, when it extends beyond that scope you risk the unintended consequences of imposing harm on local  industries and entrepreneurship, and that is the only real hope for life beyond subsistance level in developing countries.

DONATE CASH--NOT YOUR TRASH!!!

Economics Majors rank #2 in pay!!! Get you some!!!

Just a plug for Economics as a major...Number 2 on the payscale!!!  A very flexible degree and can take you in many different directions. It trains you to think about resources in non-traditional ways...

2. Economics. A pretty ubiquitous myth is that economics is all statistics and math. The fact is, while economics majors do a lot of statistics and math, they also study a wide range of topics, including social science, psychology, political science and history. Alan Metzer, even said: "economics is a social science." There are plenty of humanitarian efforts you can make in this line of work, as economists are needed to create public policy -- domestically and internationally.


Average first year salary: $50,200. Average mid-career salary: $101,000. 

Go HERE to see number 1...