Returns to Like-Mindedness and Diversity

I’m spending this week at a seminar put on by the Institute for Humane Studies, which involves people listening to lectures on lots of topics from a libertarian perspective and drinking free beer.  It is odd being in a place where most people around me also love to talk about economics and libertarianism, since the [...]

Thought Catalyst

Brain output is quite variable, presumably because brain input is similarly variable.
So when is it that you think best?
For me, its in math classes.  My brain recognizes the diffuculty of the problems being presented, calls up the reserve power, then proceeds to apply it to any problem except the one being presented.  I should really [...]

Economics Subfield Interests

Like all areas of inquiry in the modern era, economics has been broken off into progressively narrower subfields, so that as the sum of human knowledge expands people can still feel as if they have mastered their “field”, however narrowly it has been defined.
With a healthy supply of youthful arrogance and naiveté, I hope I [...]

On Motivation

I’ve been finding lately that motivation is largely about momentum.  It gets caught in circles vicious and virtuous.  Having fun? Have more fun!  Got some work done?  Great, I bet you’d do well at some more work!
I’m in the virtuous circle at the moment, as long as blogging counts as work.  Accomplishing this post will [...]

American Again

Superbowl Sunday is the new July 4th.
I am officially acculturated and assimilated, purged of French idées and cultures.
Playing basketball was a good start; watching the Superbowl with friends patriotic; but the burgers, mozzarella sticks, and hundreds of wings are the real secret.  This food is enough to make a man’s heart burn with revolutionary fervor.

How well do you know yourself?

As I get older and gain some experience in the wide world, I realize that some qualities which I had thought were intrinsic to my being were in fact contingent on something else.
When this happens, it feels a little bit like find out that your arm in detachable, or that unaided flight really is possible [...]

Church softball= Moral Dilemmas

Do *you* think it’s bad sportsmanship to cartwheel onto home plate after your best hit of the season?
‘Cause the other team and the umpire sure did.
Me, I thought it was fun.

The Loser Decision

Dilbert guy tells us how his ego screwed up a great opportunity. Of course, this served as a life lesson and things worked out for him in the end.
By his analysis, I think my “winner decision” would be taking a merit scholarship at a school no one in Maine had heard of instead [...]

Sappy answer to above post

I’d like to think that my money can’t do anything terribly important on its own, but that it will be lubricant or catalyst that helps make important things happen better, faster and with fewer explosions.
I hope my wealth will reflected in the things I learned, the places I went, the friends I met, and the [...]

What to do with $

Now that I have a real job, and may or may not have some other significant revenue streams/assets, this is now a question with more than theoretical importance to me.
Being back home, I’ve been confronted by the examples of my family members.
Some can only measure their net worth with significantly negative numbers; another measures wealth [...]