Consumption Rules

These are from an article Greg Mankiw wrote for the Wall Street Journal January 3, 2006, which he re-posted recently on his own blog:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Now is a time when most of us sit back and reflect on the past year and on how to do better in the year ahead. Since I know, however, that economic policy makers inside the Beltway are often too busy for such introspection, my gift to them is a list of seven New Year’s resolutions. Any senator, congressman or presidential wannabe is free to adopt them as his or her own. Just repeat after me:

• #1: This year I will be straight about the budget mess.

• #2: This year I will be unequivocal in my support of free trade.

• #3: This year I will ask farmers to accept the free market.

• #4: This year I will admit that there are some good taxes.

• #5: This year I will not be tempted to bash the Fed.

• #6: This year I will vote to eliminate the penny.

• #7: This year I will be modest about what government can do.

[Read the full text of the article HERE]

Editor’s Note: notice #6 is along the same lines as an article previously posted here on consumptionrules.com (It’s Time to Get Rid of the Penny), and has been the subject of a new study by Robert Whaples, an economics professor at Wake Forest University.
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Here are excerpts from ESPN’s story about a paper written by David Romer, an Economics professor at Cal-Berkely, who analyzed fourth-down situations in football to determine the optimal game-time decisions. [Read the full text of the paper HERE]

Ei Di(gt) Vi = Pgt + Bgt Ei Di(gt+1) Vi - egt

This, in the unimpeachable terms of the Bellman Equation (CR note: Wikipedia article), is the definitive proof that NFL head coaches should go for it more on fourth down. Really, no kidding.
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From The Associated Press:

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died. He was 93.

“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”

He died at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, his office said in a statement. No cause of death was released. Funeral arrangements were to be announced Wednesday.

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Amazon is running their year-end sales right now, and as part of that, you can buy two seasons of Seinfeld for the price of one [details]:
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It seems like a question that is rarely asked, because the answer traditionally has been so obvious, but Michael Robertson presents an argument that maybe, at least for half of Americans, college isn’t such a smart move. I disagree with a few of his assumptions, although the argument seems to be well put together. If nothing else, it’s an interesting read and something to think about:

[From michaelrobertson.com]

While the data hints at ways for some individuals to improve the odds of a positive financial outcome, half the people attending college should hear the frank counter-intuitive advice, “Don’t go to college.”

…These numbers indicate that a college education is an extremely poor economic investment for private universities and while better for public institutions still poses a meager return when compared to typical investments. To put this another way, most financial planners expect a 7-8% annual return. If you proposed to them a 40 year investment with expected yields of 2-4% on average they would most surely recommend against it. Making matters worse the numbers used for this calculation use average salaries for men. Since average women salaries are less college is even a poorer investment for females.

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This is from a comment made by Jon, but I wanted to highlight it:

In fact, auto manufacturers have already installed code readers directly onto the dashboards of cars newer than 1998 model year—they just haven’t told anyone about it. If your check engine light is on you can turn your key into the on position 3 times and your code will pop up where your digital odometer is at.

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If you need help finding information (more information than you’ll probably ever need to know) about mortgages, choosing the right mortgage, and calculators to figure costs, insurance, options, etc. then there’s a great resource provided by Jack M. Guttentag, who is a professor emeritus at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. It can educate you about all of your options available, and has dozens of tools and calculators to help you determine which option is best for you. It’s called www.mtgprofessor.com.

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I thought this was interesting. It’s a site called www.madehow.com and it explains how products are made:

How Products Are Made explains and details the manufacturing process of a wide variety of products, from daily household items to complicated electronic equipment and heavy machinery. The site provides step by step descriptions of the assembly and the manufacturing process (complemented with illustrations and diagrams) Each product also has related information such as the background, how the item works, who invented the product, raw materials that wer