Nice interactive graph on the prevalence of smoking in the US...PLEASE tell me WHY anyone under the age of 30 would freely choose to smoke. I really would like to know...

Smoking in America---Go HERE to view this interactive map on the prevalence of smoking in the US by frequency and age groups.  In this day and age, with all the available information, I do not understand why anyone under the age of 30 would smoke. I am not even factoring in the price of cigarettes, which by itself should be a deterrent...

Which Christmas would you prefer? The one from the good ol' days of 1964 or the Malthusian days of 2010?..The choice is easy for me.

After a discussion with my dad about his income in 1964 and the "good ol days" I did some thinking:

Bottom Line: For a consumer or household spending $750 in 1964, all they would have been able to afford was a console color TV from the Sears Christmas catalog. A consumer or household spending that same amount of inflation-adjusted dollars today ($5,300) would be able buy able to furnish their entire kitchen with 8 brand-new appliances (refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, range, washer, dryer, microwave and blender) and buy 9 state-of-the-art electronic items (laptop, GPS, camera, home theater, plasma HDTV, iPod Touch, Blu-ray player, 300-CD changer and a Tivo recorder). And of course, even a billionaire in 1964 wouldn't have been able to purchase many of the items that even a teenager can afford today, e.g. laptop, GPS, digital camera.

As much as we might complain about high unemployment, high taxes, a huge deficit, we have a lot to be thankful for, and we've made a lot of economic progress since the 1960s as the example above illustrates, thanks to the "magic of the marketplace."""

Project Presentations Begin Jan. 10th!!!!!!!!

You can find a copy of the project on the website. 

Christmas is the deadliest Holiday of the year! Be careful out there....

Be careful out there!! Looking at the graphic, it is amazing to see the change in deaths over Christmas/New Year break...Am I too morbid?

"""A new U.S. analysis of mortality rates during different times of year found that people are more likely to die during the holidays — notably on Christmas and New Year’s Day — and researchers cannot explain the yearly spike.
After analyzing all official United States death certificates over the 25-year period between 1979 and 2004, a trio of sociologists identified an excess of 42,325 natural deaths — that is, above and beyond the normal seasonal winter increase — in the two weeks starting with Christmas..."" Source HERE

Graph comparing US Defense spending with other countries...Is there room to cut, and is there room for other countries to pull their own weight? Just askin'...

Is there room to cut defense spending? I just sayin'...Why will it not be cut, in my humble opinion?  Defense spending, MORE than any other industry, affects EVERY Congressional district in the US.  Whether it is a Liberal or Conservative district it does not matter.  Politicians are of the same mind on this one, regardless of political ideology.  I am open to contrarian opinions.  Where am I going wrong?

Why The United States Of America Is Broke

BusinessInsider

I don't endorse the political view on the war(s)  that accompanies this graph (below). I am neutral on that point for the purposes of this posting.  However, to put the Defense Dept budget off-limits for a cost-benefit analysis is something I don't endorse.  Everything should be scrutinized for WTF! (Waste, Theft, Fraud---what were YOU thinking....)... 

""Greedy politicians willing to accept bribes to get reelected, support massive defense budgets. Defense contractors as well as those receiving handouts from defense contractors label anyone not in favor of wars and massive military spending as "soft on defense". With massive fearmongering campaigns, including pictures of nuclear bombs going off, those organizations are able to whip up public sentiment to do whatever they want, which essentially is to spend more on defense. Every soldier in another country is another soldier that needs to be equipped. At election time defense contractors donate massively to candidates willing to waste more money on needless wars that do not need to be fought. Over time, legislative bodies in general get packed with politicians accepting bribes (campaign contributions) from warmongers.

Unfortunately, "compromise" is such that taxpayers get stuck with the worst of both. We have baseless wars and untenable defense spending. We also have untenable collective bargaining rules, untenable social handouts, and untenable union wages and benefits.""....Source HERE

Be Sure to Thank Me After You Make That First Million!! The link at the end of the article is very interesting as well.

December 21, 2010, 1:54 pm

When Good Teaching Pays Off

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

Earlier this year my colleague David Leonhardt wrote about a new study that found that a good kindergarten teacher can drastically improve students’ future earnings. On that basis, an especially strong kindergarten teacher is arguably worth about $320,000 a year, which is the present value of the additional earnings that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers.
Now another working paper, by Stanford’s Eric A. Hanushek, gets similar results, arguing that a minor improvement in teacher quality could have dramatic effects on test scores, especially as they compare to those of other countries. From the abstract:

A teacher one standard deviation above the mean effectiveness annually generates marginal gains of over $400,000 in present value of student future earnings with a class size of 20 and proportionately higher with larger class sizes. Alternatively, replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the U.S. near the top of international math and science rankings with a present value of $100 trillion.

So does that justify paying teachers more money? Only if pay can be directly linked to effectiveness, Mr. Hanushek writes, a task our educational system has not yet been able to master:

This paper has concentrated on the demand side of the teacher labor market. The underlying idea is that knowing the impact of teacher quality on economic outcomes provides immediate information about what kind of rational changes in teacher incentives and salaries are economically desirable.
Unfortunately, we know little about the supply function for teacher quality. Thus, it is not possible to predict what kinds of pay changes would be needed to ensure any given quality of teacher force.
The standard arguments for performance pay suggest the potential value of differential pay based on effectiveness in the classroom. We actually have little empirical evidence about how to structure any such pay systems or about what the effects might be. The evidence presented in this paper simply suggests that the economically appropriate rewards for particularly effective teachers in the context of a performance pay plan could be very large.

For more on the relationship — or lack thereof — between education spending and student outcomes, see this post on the latest PISA scores.  source:  nyt.com

Christmas is the deadliest Holiday of the year! Be careful out there....

Becareful out there!! Looking at the graphic, it is amazing to see the change in deaths over Christmas/New Year break...

"""A new U.S. analysis of mortality rates during different times of year found that people are more likely to die during the holidays — notably on Christmas and New Year’s Day — and researchers cannot explain the yearly spike.
After analyzing all official United States death certificates over the 25-year period between 1979 and 2004, a trio of sociologists identified an excess of 42,325 natural deaths — that is, above and beyond the normal seasonal winter increase — in the two weeks starting with Christmas..."" Source HERE