Filed under: Personal
Can one develop brain tumours from living on an extremely irregular sleeping schedule due to a combination of stress and lack of discipline?
The other day I had this flash of metaphor to describe me during the weeks leading to this finals week:
A warehouse. The huge space is lighted by many light bulbs. But as the company (yes, the company owns the warehouse, where it stores its inventory) goes out of business, it cuts costs by turning off the light bulbs or let the light bulbs die. The light bulbs go out one by one, until eventually, only one is left, flickering in the darkness in the wide space.
The camera zooms out into distance.
***
The warehouse is my brain.
Filed under: American Idol
Yeppie, Beatles! How can anybody go wrong with a Beatle song? Coming into the night, my top 3 of this season are: 1.) David Cook 2.) Brooke White 3.) Jason Castro. (In that order)
Chikizie was surprising good. You got to give him credits for the refreshing arrangement, beginning with folk then with rock.
Ramielle sang “All my Life”. Judges didn’t like it. But I like her voice and the song. She didn’t do anything new to it.
Jason Castro’s delivery is always very touching. He sang “If I fell.” Just the guitar and him. (My top 3 of this season)
David Cook is possibly the smartest contestant on this show. Every performance he gave was carefully designed and reliably contained at least one of his creative twists to it. He sang “Eleanor.”
Although I don’t like Carly Smithson, she was good tonight. The song she chose, “Come Together,” exactly suits her voice. Finally, I understood what the judges saw in her voice.
Love Brooke White. She played “Let It Be” on the piano, and was shaking all over afterwards and tearing up. Didn’t do anything new to it, but it was a –as Randy put it–”heartfelt” delivery. This girl is so true that every sentence she utters seems to be coming straight from the heart. So when she sings “Let It Be,” you really felt that she MEANT it.
David Hernandez, like always, is too dramatic. Too show-biz for me. Agree with all three judges that his performance is over the top. (Stripperish!)
Amanda Overmeyer picked a song that I have never heard before. She’s cool.
Michael John sang a song named “Across the Universe.” I have never heard this song before but it sounded so good! It was sung simply, with him standing in the center, just holding the microphone. Simon and Randy thought it was boring because he didn’t do anything new. Paula thought it was heartfelt. I agree with Paula. Maybe females can more easily connect to the emotion current underlying a song’s delivery?
Kristy Lee Cook “Eight Days a Week” with her own country arrangement. I was squinting throughout her rendition. The band seems to be half a beat faster than her. And there was this annoyingly pushy drum beat that just didn’t go with her rhythm. Still, Simon’s comments were too mean.
David Archuleta, put on the pimp spot. Omg, did he just forget the lyrics? Yes he did! It’s a crime to forget your lyrics for a Beatle song on such a highly watched show! Agree with Simon, it’s a mess. It’s obvious David himeslf didn’t even enjoy the song.
My Ranking of the Night:
1. Brooke White
2. David Cook
3. Chikizie
4. Jason Castro
5. Michael Johns
6. Carly Smithson
7. Amanda Overmeyer
8. David Hernandez, Syesha, Ramielle Maluby, David Archuleta
12. Kristy Lee Cook
Going home: Kristy Lee Cook.
Filed under: Economics
Last week the Economist features an article putting forth the decoupling thesis, which says that the world will still grow with US in recession.
Some facts the article uses to support its view:
1. 50% of China’s export is to emerging markets.
2. Emerging markets now export more to China, as a group, than to US. The fact that China does not stop growing, therefore supporting the demand for commodities, allow the emerging markets that base their income on commodities to continue to experience booms (i.e. Russia, Brzil, some African countries)
3. Only less than 15% of investment in China is linked to export. The rest is linked to domestic.
4. Multinational companies in US which derive parts of their profits from foreign business are reporting okay earning. (i.e Coca Kola).
I think the most powerful rebuttal against the decoupling argument is that much of China’s import from the emerging markets are intermediate goods that are used for assembling the final good shipped to US. Therefore, the decrease in US demand just hasn’t seen its effect on China YET. But it will show eventually.
Earlier this week WSJ features an article that says math and science skills contribute to growth. The study that the article cited finds that if US had managed to boost its math and sciene skill to the level of the top performing countries (Finland, Hong Kong, and South Korea) by 2000, its GDP would be 2 percent higher today and 4.5 points higher in 2015. The study means to say that economic growth comes about with education only conditional on that the education is in math and sciences.
How did the authors get that number? You can bet there are regressions involving GDP and education years adjusting the education years by quality (i.e. whether it’s math/science related).
What would Professor Star Wars have said to the authors of this study? I imagine he would say, perhaps, crappy research (sorry! But that’s just my imagination). He would want to see a model explicitly showing how math/science education link to growth, where humanities subject do not. Like you have skilled vs. nonskill labor, you want to show skilled and nonskill human capital, and show why the nonskill human capital is not contributing to growth. (Why do you have such a large nonskill human capital sector in the United States?) For example, you want to show how skill human capital improves innovation or technology adoption, while non skill human capital does not. And then in equilibrium, compute the constant share of high skill and low skill human capital. Alternatively, you may want to stick this “z” variables in front of human capital, which captures quality, and put some sort of process on this “z”, then work out the implications. Then you fit the data to the model. By doing all this, you can see actually what does increase the high skill capital, and you can see what parameters matter. Sure enough regressions show the relation, but what exactly is the quantitative effect? Oh it varies across countries? Why? Writing the model will tell you how. It may not get you the quantitative results that are the same as your zillions of regressions on 67 regressors, but it’ll make you think clearer. (instead of being more confused after reading 96 pages about how adding different regressors change things)
However, this is a nice empirical results. It is true that economists have all along been using variables like average school years in growth regressions. The whole paper that went on about the measurement issues with schooling. I am very amazed by the kind of dedication that some people have for writing such a paper, which has altogether 96 pages. I don’t supposed that the WSJ reporter actually churned through the 96 pages before writing that article.
Some notes I took from the paper:
-Sala-i-Martin ran growth regressions on 67 expanatory variables for 88 countries and found primary schooling to be most significant.
-It is found the each additional school years has greater positive association for non-OECD countries than for OECD countries (diminishing returns for school years, non-quality adjusted?) But not after controlling for openness and property rights. WHY WHY WHY? Write a model! (not me…sorry, I can’t write one….I’m just imagining Professor Star Wars).
Filed under: Politics
Just when people think that Hillary’s Campaign is dead and Obama is sounding more arrogant, Hillary does it again. She rebounces. This tough woman’s history in politics has been that of climbing back from dead again and again.
But I like what she said to her voters in Columbus (excerpt from CNN):
For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s been ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up — this one is for you,” Clinton said before supporters in Columbus.
A continuation of that speech, excerpted from NY Times:
“No candidate in recent history, Democratic or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary.” The crowd chants: “Yes she will!”
That’s nice. I actually admire this woman. Though I am not voting for her. But you know what’s the wierd thing? Despite the growing notion in the press that Clinton’s campaign is dead, I find more and more people around me are supporting her, staunchly too. Yes, it’s a small sample. But it is a sample in places where Obama is suppoesd to do well.
Let’s look at the Iowa Market again:
| Date | Contract | Units | $Volume | LowPrice | HighPrice | AvgPrice | LastPrice |
| 03/01/08 | CLIN_NOM | 310 | 39.337 | 0.123 | 0.131 | 0.127 | 0.126 |
| 03/01/08 | DROF_NOM | 149 | 2.121 | 0.014 | 0.018 | 0.014 | 0.014 |
| 03/01/08 | EDWA_NOM | 157 | 0.336 | 0.002 | 0.003 | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 03/01/08 | OBAM_NOM | 735 | 632.061 | 0.851 | 0.870 | 0.860 | 0.859 |
| 03/02/08 | CLIN_NOM | 837 | 132.985 | 0.128 | 0.181 | 0.159 | 0.181 |
| 03/02/08 | DROF_NOM | 312 | 4.575 | 0.014 | 0.018 | 0.015 | 0.018 |
| 03/02/08 | EDWA_NOM | 669 | 1.278 | 0.001 | 0.002 | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 03/02/08 | OBAM_NOM | 512 | 422.857 | 0.788 | 0.859 | 0.826 | 0.810 |
| 03/03/08 | CLIN_NOM | 1,719 | 314.846 | 0.135 | 0.236 | 0.183 | 0.181 |
| 03/03/08 | DROF_NOM | 223 | 4.031 | 0.014 | 0.024 | 0.018 | 0.014 |
| 03/03/08 | EDWA_NOM | 157 | 0.377 | 0.002 | 0.003 | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 03/03/08 | OBAM_NOM | 1,240 | 991.465 | 0.785 | 0.844 | 0.800 | 0.825 |
Interesting. Although Obama is still highly favored to win the nomination, the number actually has declined!
Why is there such a big price differential between the Clinton and Obama bets when the actual delegate vote count differential is so tiny? Maybe the Obamamania has swept through the Iowa Market also!
All eyes are now on Texas.
Filed under: American Idol
David Archuleta looked nervous tonight. He kept looking down at his piano, as if he’s afraid he would press the wrong keys. It’s an awkward peformance, if you ask me.
David Cook is just getting better and better. People remember stars, movies, or books which slowly build into a climax, not something that begin with a bang but wither afterwards. Romance is the best when it builds up slowly from friendship to love. Not some one night passionate fling. David Cook delivers that slow, friendly climax. You can rely on this one for a creative performance. He is not boring at all.
Jason Castro. He is promisingly not boring. I like his voice. Very soulful. This is the soul singer (not Michale Johns).
David Hernandez? All I can think of when he sings is: stripper. Sorry, I was indeed distracted. But I never liked his karaoke belting. And that arched eyebrow, as if it was carefully carved. And the way he raised his eyebrow, so …stripperish.
Danny Noriega: I like him. He is fun.
