Is Poverty a Choice?

Statistics are ugly little buggers.  We begin this morning with a scandal story or our own, assess why Japan’s mini-crash this week means something in longwave econ terms, and then we get into the good stuff:  As we look at the problem of whether poverty is a “choice” we quickly descend into harsh realities of self-deception.  We develop some
notes on how humans (like us) can still us  shortcuts to get great economic results.  What we find, I think is interesting and useful.  But not as useful as our “first things” column and a few headlines, along with that first cup of coffee…

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The Anti-Marketing League

Want to fix almost everything that’s wrong with the world?  IRS Scandals, the ultimate surveillance state, income disparities, lack of time off, world hunger and all the rest?  Well, today we offer some thoughts on how the Grand Unified Theory of What Went Wrong
(GUTOWWW) arrives at a simple conclusion:  Too much marketing!  First, as usual, we will sort some of the wheat from the chaff and notice that in terms of our propose Anti-Marketing League, there’s not much that can’t be set right in the world with a lot less hype and a lot more thoughtfulness….

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Vacations on the Cheap

After our Vacation Economic School report Wednesday, a number of readers suggested that while my analysis of most cost-effective ways to vacation (paying full retail) was pretty good, a number shared ways to really vacation on the cheap.  So, since this is summertime (or will be in two weeks, officially, but everyone starts the “vacation season” at Memorial Day), I thought we could run down a number of ways to “vacation” while penny-pinching.  After all, why work is there’s no carrot out there?  First, however, we’ll look at our scandal sheet and see what spiked the punch bowl on Wall St. and  make a call to our Water Department in our never-ending quest for trends that matter behind the headlines…

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V.E.S. (and it deals with Vacations…)

June 5, 2013 — Take a drive  through almost any city in America at this time of the year and you’ll see signs  up in many neighborhoods proclaiming VBS!  It’s usually accompanied by fine  print for us heathens to remember it means something other than Visual Basic  Scripting.  Most times, it means Vacation Bible School, but if you were to see  such a sign in a certain part of Redmond, WA, if could just be someone with my  odd sense of humor.  “What’s this VES stuff, Ure?”  Indeed:  Vacation Economics  School…wherein we provide some cost comparisons between different vacation  modalities.  After a Danish, a splash of Mrs. Olson’s (if double Daning can be  forgiven), after a look at just crossing headlines, you’ll read Brother Ure’s  preach on the Gospel of More Time Off.  In Excel see us, daily, et cetera.

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