Consumption Rules

PC takes a stab back at MAC in these hilarious new commercials you can watch at www.lauriemcguinness.com: PC responds to MAC.

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At www.lecturefox.com.

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From Productivity 501

1. Manually Depositing a Paycheck — That is what direct deposit is for. If you spend 15 minutes every two weeks dealing with depositing your paycheck that is 65 hours over the next 10 years. Put this time to better use.
2. Writing Checks for Bills — That is what the bill pay service from your bank is for. Use this time for something worthwhile.
3. Partially Filling Up with Gas — Yes it might go down 3 cents next week, but how much is your time really worth.
4. Looking for your Keys or Cellphone — Always put them in the same place (hook by the door, etc).
5. Unpacking your Laptop Power Adaptor — If you go from work to home with your laptop, get an extra adaptor for each work area so you don’t have to unpack and crawl under the desk each time.
6. Check Multiple Email Boxes — Get a program that will show you all your email in one place or filter by individual accounts. Apple Mail and several other products do this.
7. Watching Commercials — Use Tivo to skip them. Use Netflix and just skip television all together. Buy the shows you want to watch off iTunes. If you had a friend who spent 20% to 30% of your time trying to sell you things you didn’t really need, would you put up with it? (If you have a friend in network marketing, you may have already experienced this.)
8. Losing Telephone Numbers — Your cell phone should sync with your computer. We are past the days where a phone only held 25 numbers. If someone calls, take the few seconds to record their name in your phone, so it will be transfered next time you sync your computer.
9. Commuting to College — Take your classes online. Spend your commute time studying instead of driving.
10. Commuting Through Heavy Traffic — Talk to your boss about working from home–even for just a few days a week. Shift your schedule to miss rush hour.
11. Dialing into Voice Mail — Get your voicemail setup to send you messages as email attachments that way you only have to check one mailbox.
12. Backing Up to CDs or Disks — Get an external hard drive. It will be fast enough that maybe you’ll go ahead and backup more often. Plus if you do it right, you can create a working version of your entire computer on the hard drive. If you laptop is stolen you can start working from your last backup with all your programs and settings just as they were. (Here are some more tips about relying on technology.)
13. Visiting Lots of Blogs — Use a news reader like Google Reader or NewsFire. Most people don’t realize how much time they waste looking at the same sites over and over again to see if there is anything new. With a newsreader you’ll know whenever something new is posted.
14. Removing Spyware — Use a computer or web browser that doesn’t get infected.
15. Wasting Time in the Car — Subscribe to podcasts and get a connector for your MP3 player in your car. Spend your time learning instead of just sitting there driving.
16. Getting Lost in the Car — If you spend a lot of time driving to unfamiliar areas, go ahead and invest in a GPS with routing capabilities. That way you can spend your time focusing on your work instead of honing your navigation skills.
17. Clubbing Baby Seals — Just in case this applies to you, this would be a good thing to stop as well.

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You can calculate which is better with this calculator from the New York Times. The result should be weighed with healthy skepticism: the graph the calculator produces actually leans slightly to the left.

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The economics are simple: another use of corn, sugar, and other farmed food inputs to produce ethanol increases the demand, which pushes up the price. In the US the primary input for ethanol is corn, although in other countries like Brazil they use sugar cane. So now everything that involves corn in any way in its production is rising in price. This means that many staple food products will be more expensive this summer than we’ve seen in a while - milk, beef, chicken, etc. So while ethanol may be a renewable, domestic alternative to “foreign oil,” it essentially puts a tax on food - which hurts the lower classes the most because food represents a higher percentage of their budgets than higher-income families. It’s a trade off that should be considered when lobbying for ethanol use. I guess it should have been an obvious side effect of using a food product to fuel your car (in Brazil some drink ethanol straight from the pump).

One of the chief causes of food-price inflation is new demand for ethanol and biodiesel, which can be made from corn, palm oil, sugar and other crops. That demand has driven up the price of those commodities, leading to higher costs for producers of everything from beef to eggs to soft drinks. In some cases, producers are passing the costs along to consumers. Several years of global economic growth — led by China and India — is also raising food consumption, further fanning the inflationary pressures.

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Authorship disputed, but illustrates a valid point about taxes. I got it from Greg Mankiw:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
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Part of Congress’ plan to reduce energy consumption in the US seems to have proved ineffective after its first year of implementation:

From Reuters.com:

“We haven’t seen any measurable impact,” said Jason Cuevas, spokesman for Southern Co., one of the nation’s largest power companies, echoing comments from several large utilities.

That may come as no surprise to the Energy Department, which last year predicted only modest energy savings because the benefits of the later daylight hour would be offset.

For example, households may draw less electricity for lights at night, but will use more power in the early in the day as they wake to darker and chillier mornings.

(more…)

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Republican Mitt Romney reported raising $23 million for his presidential campaign during the first three months of the year, a surprising tally for a relative newcomer and an amount rivaling the total reported a day earlier by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Meanwhile, the GOP front-runner in the polls, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said his donations totaled $15 million—including more than $10 million during March alone.

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