The Exxon Valdez Ruling

I don't know very much about this, but the Supreme Court just ruled that punitive damages cannot exceed compensatory damages.  Having just take a survey class on law and economics, I know that there are some good reasons for punitive damages (the classic one is that compensatory damages should be scaled up by the inverse of the probability of getting caught for the misdeed), so this rule strikes me as slightly simplistic.  But I'm not clear on why, after paying for all the damage that they did, Exxon should be expected to pay an enormous amount in punitive damages.  

Yahoo News is covering this story from the victims' perspective.  Not surprisingly, many of them are unhappy to be getting less money rather than more.  In fact, many of them "were planning their retirements with the $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp. was expected to pay."  Given that these people received compensatory damages, which means that they were (at least in theory) compensated for lost earnings (and lost future productivity), is it reasonable for them to demand that Exxon also pay for their retirements?  I'm not convinced that the answer is "yes."  I'm quite sure that a lot of people do not feel that the compensatory damages were adequate, but nobody seems to care about the distinction between the types of damages.

On a lighter note, one fisherman attempted to express his indignation by saying,

It [the decision] really hurts...It gives big business the formula they need to calculate the cost of their actions when they destroy the environment.  This gives them the formula to calculate their risk, period.

Would he prefer that big business only have an unbiased estimate of the cost of their actions?

Is the iPhone Misogynistic?

The L.A. Times reports that Erica Watson-Currie has trouble with using her iPhone because of her long fingernails.  And she's not the only one.

She and other women who have long nails - as well as people of all genders with chunky fingers - have real trouble typing on the iPhone.

"Why does Apple persist in this misogyny?" Watson-Currie asks, apparently unaware that some men too have long nails.  Of course, long nails interfere with a great number of productive activities, iPhone use being only one of them.  And that leads me to my claim, which is that interference with productivity is exactly the point of having long nails.  Veblen talks directly about clothing and shoes that purposefully cripple women of high standing, signaling that their families are so well off that those women need not engage in productive activity.  Long nails seem to serve exactly the same purpose.

Complaining that devices do not cater to the needs of women with long nails does make sense from the individual nail-owner's perspective, because a nail-compatible iPhone would erode the signaling value of nails.  For the woman who would prefer to signal but can't because, for some reason or other she is of inferior quality, such a device would provide a short-term boost.  But, once everyone figured out that nails no longer guarantee a crippling inability to engage in productive tasks, women and other signalers would be forced to find another way to conspicuously cripple themselves.  So maybe, Apple isn't so misogynistic after all - maybe they're saving the world from an inferior equilibrium in which products must cater to those with long nails (which is costly), and in which women must adopt another form of self-crippling fashion statement.

As a side note, the chunky fingers quote reminded me of the scene in "King Size Homer" in which Homer, having purposefully gained a lot of weight, attempts unsuccessfully to dial the phone.  "The fingers you have used to dial...are too fat.  To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad now."

The Internet That Wasn't

I was very pleased with myself for avoiding retaining Comcast's services, because they charge exorbitant "installation" fees and have incompetent customer service.  I called on RCN instead, and they sent out a very friendly, helpful tech who got the Internet running in five minutes and then got out of our way.  That was Tuesday. 

A week later Wednesday, while I was at the bureau, Mia called to tell me that the internet was down.  The (Apple) wireless router was blinking amber.  I pulled out the only trick in my bag, i.e. the "power cycle," but that didn't work, so I told Mia to call RCN.  They told her that it was a Boston area problem, and that hopefully it would be fixed soon.

Today is Monday, and we still don't have Internet.  And, much more shockingly, the people at RCN don't seem to think that this is remarkable in any way.  According to the illiterati of RCN technical support, the entire Boston area has been without service for five days.  They were nice enough to offer us a waiver for 2 days of service, which came to somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.

On The Eve of Beer-Making

Mia's birthday present to me was beer-making equipment. We haven't bought the equipment yet, but we have been speculating on what beers to make. Here are the three best ideas:

1. Caraway-flavored rye wine. It will be like liquid rye bread.

2. Smoked bacon-bock. You know how some bars serve blueberry beers with blueberries floating in them? Imagine a manlier version of that.

3. Old cock ale. This is stolen from the Sam Adams guy. You throw a rooster or two into the beer during the boiling, and you get a beer that's perfect for when you're home sick.

Can't wait.

What I've Been Shaving With

The allure of the straight-edge razor with leather sharpening-strap has always captured my imagination, but my instinct for self-preservation is still too strong for me to take that leap. However, after a recent tip-off by a friend of a friend, I have found the next best thing, the so-called "safety razor."

I went with a Merkur double-edge model safety razor, which features a butterfly-style blade enclosure and metallic finish. In addition, I went on eBay and found a deal on a Vulfix brush, and I got some shaving soap from Kiehl's. Getting the best shaving cream is extremely important - almost as important as picking up a styptic pencil at your nearest pharmacy. The first five times I used this system, I accumulated a lot of nicks that bled surprisingly profusely. The styptic pencil stings a little, but it stops the bleeding immediately.

The advantages of the safety razor over its safer, modern cousins are subtle. Now that I've gotten decent at using it, the shave is a little closer than with the current Gilette technology. Mostly, for me though, it's the ritual and the process. The single blade gives you a sensory feedback that the Fusion cannot match - you can feel the blade scraping the hair off your face in a pleasing way. And those of us who think of razor blades as "Laibson-Gabaix shrouded attributes" will be interested to know that, in the world of safety razors, the handle is expensive, and the blades are almost free. I am looking to fully recoup my investment relative to Gilette blade purchases sometimes during the 2009 calendar year.

The firm handshake

Those of you who know me know that I like a firm handshake. And I like to return such a handshake in kind. There's nothing more off-putting than rearing up to shake someone's hand only to get a cold, clammy, noodle-like response, or, even worse, the other person's group around your fingers instead of your hand. Yahoo! News reports today on a study that proves, using correlations in data generated by a dubious psychology experiment, that having a strong handshake causes you to get a better job!

The author of the study said

We probably don't consciously remember a person's handshake or whether it was good or bad," Stewart said. "But the handshake is one of the first nonverbal clues we get about the person's overall personality, and that impression is what we remember."

I consciously remember every handshake I've ever had. And rest assured, I judge people by it.

Micah Owings

Young Diamondbacks pitcher Micah Owings, who, in his second year as a starter is pitching extremely well, slugged .683 last year.  This year, after 20 plate appearances, his OBP is almost .500.  It's becoming pretty clear that the guy can really hit.  The Diamondbacks acknowledge this point by pinch hitting him, as when, yesterday, he hit a game tying pinch hit homerun.  

So why the hell does he bat ninth?

Sam Adams Beer School

The other day I got to go to one of Harvard Queenshead Pub's highly subsidized beer school events, and the founder of Sam Adams was there.  He's the guy who appears in the company's ads, talking about how he hates stale beer (in one ad, he actually jumps in a huge tank of stale beer).  I liked his style - he used swears sparingly but occasionally, which is unusual for a speaker at Harvard.  For example, he told us the Canadian joke about American beer - what makes American beer like having sex in a canoe?  You can guess the answer or email me and I'll let you know.

Someone asked him why Sam Adams light isn't a calorie-free beer.  His response, besides the obvious, was that Michelob Ultra is literally thinner than water.  I haven't had Michelob Ultra, but something tells me, if I did, I would find it unsatisfying.

Something Not Mentioned in the Whole Fritzl thing

Most people are aware of this incredible and horrible story.  Now, I don't advocate incest any more than the next man, but something that I found mildly interesting in this whole thing was that none of the children seem unhealthy.  In fact, considering that they never saw daylight, they are "surprisingly healthy."  Isn't incest supposed to produce horribly sick and deformed children?

Trenton Thunder Dog

I'd like to announce my triumphant return to this blog by linking to a video of the trained golden retriever that the Trenton Thunder use as a bat boy.  Thanks to John N. Friedman for the tip.

Food Blog, 1.0.0.1

I decided to make the blog classier by giving it its own domain name. It can now be found at

http://www.redramekin.com

Food Blog

All future food postings will be available at our new food blog:

http://redramekin.blogspot.com/

Baked Eggs

Inspired by my new favorite food blog, 101cookbooks.com, I decided to experiment with baked eggs this morning. We used oiled ramekins, lined them with bread (whole wheat pita for me, sourdough toast for Jonathan), piled in a few diced tomatoes and onions, seasoned with parsley, salt, and pepper, and then plopped an egg on top. We baked them at 425F for about 10 minutes, just until the yoke was set. They were fantastic. Similar in gooey deliciousness to poached eggs, but with all the flavors of a tasty omelette.

Pumpkin Biscotti

Soon, Mia and I will be posting to a food blog. Until then, however, I will post food-related things here. Tonight I, alone, and by myself, with no help whatsoever, made pumpkin biscotti, using a slightly modified recipe from Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Pinch of ginger
• Pinch of cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-some raisins, chocolate chips, and/or walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

3. Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Add the raisins, walnuts, and chips. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about 1/2 inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350 F, until the center is firm to the touch.

4. Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300 F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.
Biscotti may be still a tad moist and chewy, so if you prefer it crisp let it sit uncovered overnight in a dry space. Serve and enjoy.
Makes approximately 15 cookies.

Harvard Prepares for Faust Coronation

Walking through the yard these days, one can't miss that they're preparing for a major ceremony of some kind. Turns out its the "installation" for our new president. What has struck me, and surely others, is the imagery that the decorators have gone with. The picture I took hardly captures it - the yard is hung in hundreds of blood-red banners. Many of these banners have simple, imposing designs which I have never seen. I'll charitably liken it to the coronation ceremony in Ian McKellan's Richard III (instead of directly comparing it to Nazi rallies).

Edgeworth's Test of Interpersonally Dependent Demand

It turns out that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, economists were very much concerned with whether or not their models should incorporate the ways in which one agent's consumption can affect another's utility. In creating a literature review for Hongyi's and my work on conspicuous consumption, I stumbled across one of the earliest empirical tests of this idea, conducted by Edgeworth himself:

The conception may be illustrated by the common supposition that at social gatherings which are cheered by alcoholic beverages the consumption of liquor per head is likely to be greater the more numerous the company. An opportunity of testing this belief is afforded by the varying size of the dinners at a certain Oxford college, whose members are thought to be susceptible to the influences of good fellowship.

Finding that the dinner's population had no effect on wine drunk per person, Edgeworth concluded that indirect, interpersonal demand effects had no merit, and he never revisited the concept.

Tradesports' Take on The Most Electable Candidate

Tradesports gives us two different odds - the odds of any given candidate winning her primary, and the odds of any given candidate winning the presidency. I believe that (correct me if I'm wrong), we can apply the definition of conditional probability to calculate the probability of any candidate's winning conditional on winning the primary to see who is the most "electable." Here are the results:

for the Suckpublicans:

Giuliani: 41.2%
Thompson: 37.5
Romney: 34.6
McCain: 50 (!)

and for the Suckicrats:

Clinton: 70%
Obama: 48.5
Edwards: 43.1
Gore: 70.4 (!)

I leave analysis of these numbers to my far-too-long-blog-starved readers.

Russia III: St. Petersburg

After days of lazy cruising, it was a shock to hear the intercom wake us up at 6 in the AM so that we could eat another bland breakfast before heading to our "exclusive" tour of the Hermitage. Judging by the size and makeup of the line outside the Hermitage, the exclusivity was characterized as excluding any and all non-tourists who had no interest in seeing the museum anyway. The Hermitage, which is housed in 5 separate old buildings, the main one being the Winter Palace of Catherine the Great, is impressive beyond description. It has a larger collexion than the Louvre (according to them at least), and more gallery space. It features all of the big names of Europe, from the 15th century on. Pictured below is the main view of the Winter Palace, though you actually enter it from the other side:


We then walked around looking at monuments and stuff. We had a $10, 5-course lunch at the fabled Tinkoff Brewery (fabled because Chris Hall once brought a 6-pack of Tinkoff from Bevmo on a summer house-boating trip, and it was consumed with pleasure by all), and we stopped at the "Bronze Horseman" monument presented by Catherine in memory of Peter the Great:


Russia is, above all things, a strange place. Not only did we see people walking their pet bear cubs on the city streets (honest to God), but we also saw this:


What, you say, a tall ship? That's not so strange. Every self-respecting port city in the US has a tall ship. But wait - this is no tall ship at all! It's a combination fancy restaurant (the most expensive in the city) and fancy gym, designed to look like a tall ship! Why? Who cares?

Like Venice, St. Petersburg is built on water and swamp. As such, it has a bunch of canals. And you can take boat tours, at cost. The bridges you pass under are so low that if you're standing up, you can get killed. The same imbecilic woman on our tour had to be shouted at at least 10 times because she was trying to photograph something behind the ship just as death was looming up from in front. Naturally I did not take part in the shouting. Here's a red boat and some buildings:

The obvious place to close this series on my adventures is with what the Russians refer to as the 8th Wonder of the World. First came the Pyramids at Giza, the great Colossus, and the elegant Hanging Gardens of Babylon, unfortunately lost forever to the sands of time (except the pyramids). But luckily, the Russians contributed, what, to their mind, is at least as impressive as all of those (possibly all of those put together): the AMBER ROOM.

Like most things in Russia, the amber room was far from all it was cracked up to be. It is a room about the size of the living room at 20 Ellery, and its defining feature is that instead of wall paper, the walls are covered in little bits of amber. But the problem is, it's not a big enough room, and amber isn't cool or expensive enough (the restorations after WWII, when the Nazis ganked the original amber, cost a piddling $9 million in today's dollars) to admit a comparison to the Great Pyramids.

Luckily, instead of taking "Delta" back to the US, we took a legitimate airline, Lufthansa. Frankfurt's airport has gotta be one of the biggest in the world. It took a bus and train combination 30 minutes of constant movement to get us from our landing gate to our flight to SFO. 21 hours after leaving St. Petersburg, I stepped off the the 747, back in these United States, and more appreciative than ever of the freedom and bounty that this great country provides us with every day.

Russia II: Cruising on the Volga

As many of you know, I was confused as to how a boat might proceed from Moscow to St. Petersburg in a timely way, because no rivers really connect the two cities. Luckily, Peter the Great realized this to be a problem, and he began what ended up being a massive construction project to dig a canal from the Moscow River to the Volga. By the 1930s, the last of 18 locks was installed to make the route highly navigable. The locks are filthy cesspools that breed mosquitoes, so one must make sure to close one's cabin windows before bed every night.

Unsurprisingly, the damming of the Volga created some reservoirs. Judging by the number of "sunken churches" and other sunken things, the Soviets specifically targeted only interesting and beautiful towns (as most of the route is completely void of humanity). Here's the most famous sunken church, which we saw on our first full day of cruising:

Our first stop along the way was in the town of Uglich. Uglich has 35 churches for its small population, but, as I discovered, only one of them (the one the tourguides take you to) would avoid being condemned as unsafe in a more civilized country. Pictured below is my Russian "friend" (it was not easy to communicate with her, but she represented the best of a bad situation) Ekatajarina in front of the second-best kept church in all of Uglich

Uglich has 40% unemployment, which might help explain why many of the overgrown dirt-lots were populated, at 10am, with middle aged men drinking vodka straight out of the bottle. "Kate," as we were encouraged to call her, did not think this particularly remarkable.

We next stopped in "Yaroslavl," where we saw more churches and stuff. 'Nuff said. Day 3 was spent "cruising," so I sat, alternately reading and rocking back and forth in my chair mumbling to myself, to pass the time. (NB: I almost lost it at the end of the trip when someone said that they hadn't had any time for reading on the entire trip, but then I decided that would not be a productive thing to do).

The most interesting stop on our cruise was an island whose name I don't remember. It is famous for its wooden churches. Pictured below is the Summer Church (too cold to use in the winter, too big to heat I guess), which was originally built without the use in construction of a single nail:


Here's another view, along with some of my boatmates. The dude in the foreground is so old he still uses a film camera.

Next day we went to Mandrogi. Oh Mandrogi. How to even describe it. Perhaps the best thing to do is for you to Google this place for a few minutes. Most telling is that all of the signs, from the Vodka Museum to the Moose Farm, are written only in English. We did have mediocre Russian barbecue though - and it smelled fantastic.

During the cruising portion of the trip, I read The Brothers Karamazzov (highly recommended), Thomas Pynchon's "V" (only recommended for those who practice flagellation), and Mark Twain's "Roughing It," which is classic. But honestly, I can't really read for more than 10 hours a day - so how did I spend the other empty hours of the day? I slept. I was in bed for like 16 hours a day basically.

Next, perhaps after my backpacking trip, you can look forward to Russia III: St. Petersburg, the final entry in this trilogy.

Russia I: Moscow

We arrived in Moscow at 10:30am. The flight brought us over green hills dotted with enormous and beautiful mansions - the summer homes of the new Russian super-upper-class. Because the ship, which was our floating hotel for the whole trip, was not open until 3pm, the completely unprepared "Intrav" tour guides brought us to a "MegaMall." For 3 hours. Its most interesting feature was a supermarket that was, quite literally, easily the size of the largest Walmart I have ever been in. Criminally, I did not photograph the beer aisle (actually, there were two beer aisles). It was not only as long as the eye can see, but beer was shelved to at least 30 feet above the floor. Capitalism has brought with it many choices for Russians in terms of food, but, unfortunately, they still have almost no selection of fresh fruit and vegetables.

For the next few days, we were led around by the hand by tourguides to see the various tourist attractions that Moscow has to offer. Some of the more infirm members of our group would go back to the ship after a busy morning of riding the bus. Here I am with my grandmother (both the oldest and most sprightly of all the passengers besides myself) in famous Red Square. St. Basil's Cathedral, built with all those colors back in the 16th century, is visible behind:


We saw a bunch of churches, none of which really piqued my interest more than St. Basil's. Lots of onion domes, lots of not-very-shiny gold on those domes, etc. They call all the churches "cathedrals," even though none is very large. I couldn't quite figure out how the hierarchy works in the Russian Orthodox Church, but I didn't try very hard.

The tour guides brought us to "Gym" (pronounced 'goom'), which used to be the only shopping center in all of Moscow. Now, it's the most expensive shopping center in Moscow, which, trust me, is saying a lot. I hear that Let's Go has declared Moscow to be the most expensive city in the world, and I believe it to be true. Our guides said that, in the center of the city, apartment space sells for as little as $30,000 per square meter. Check out this display in a store window in Gym (the speech bubble does NOT explain the dog...)


Evidence of capitalism's influence was available all along the main streets in Moscow, where in addition to McDonald's, we saw a TGI Friday's, with "TGI Friday's" spelled out phonetically in Cyrillic (I apologize for the blurriness)

"Pectopah" is pronounced "Restoran" - this will make sense to anyone who knows Greek, but it mystified most of the people on our tour. The most confused rectified the situation by falling asleep on the bus, and making as little attempt as possible to learn anything about the language.

By far the most notable thing about Moscow, and the note on which I will close this post, is the subway. It was built in the '20s and '30s as a testament to the awesomeness of the regime, and it is really something else. My pictures don't really capture how beautiful, clean, and elegant each station is - and each station is different in some interesting way. Lots of sculptures, original paintings, floor designs, etc. And between 6am and 8pm, the train on the main circle line comes at least every 40 seconds. Guaranteed.


Tomorrow you can look forward to "Russia II: Cruising on the Volga"!

Back From the Dead

Hello gentle readers, I am returned from Russia. I will be posting several short descriptions with pictures for anyone interested (in chronological order). I decided not to overwhelm anyone by writing all of my posts at once. Please let me know if anything of note happened while I was out of touch.

For Those of You Who Are Skeptical

Here is a link to an LATimes article that confirms claims of a coffee whose beans are selected first by wild civets (cat-like mammals), who eat the beans. The processed beans are reclaimed from the civets' solid waste...the resulting beans sell for $600/pound. Apparently, the civet's digestive tract removes some of the chemicals that make coffee bitter and harsh. However, the process also removes some of the caffeine.

Fall Courses I'm Looking At

I noticed that the course guide has been updated, so I'm making a list for the coming semester.

• Ec 2061: Dynamic Games and Contracts. Susan Athey's new course, which should snuggle nicely with Oleg's class.
• Ec 2140: Econometric Methods. This way I can say I am taking two classes from a husband and wife pair of professors.
• Ec 2723: Asset Pricing. Everyone must endure this trial by fire...from what I understand.
• Ec 2800b: Urban and Social Economics. Taught by the dark lourd himself. But this conflicts with metrics...such giznank.

Those are the only 4 courses that really catch my eye. In addition, I'm sure I'll have various requirements to satisfy, like Economic History and distribution requirements, and I'll also need to sit in on macro at some point. I don't really remember much from Barro's section...

Unusual Airplane Disasters

I inherited from my dad an obsession with airplane disasters and crashes. Today I discovered that planecrashinfo has a page dedicated to strange disasters. Among more recent disasters are an Aeroflot crash caused by the pilot's allowing his children to take turns at the controls, a Peruvian plane that hit the water because its crucial sensors were covered with duct tape by a negligent maintenance worker, and the following amusing incident on a British Airways flight(it's ok to be amused because no one was seriously hurt):

On a flight from Birmingham, England to Malaga, Spain, at FL 173, a large section of windshield fell away from the aircraft. The decompression pulled the captain out from under his seatbelt. Despite trying to hold onto the yoke, the captain was sucked out into the opening. A steward in the cockpit was able to grab hold of his legs. Another steward was able to strap himself into the vacant seat and aid in holding onto the captain's legs. The copilot wearing full restraints made an emergency landing at Southampton. The captain remained half way out of the aircraft for 15 minutes and suffered only frostbite and some fractures. Improper bolts used to replace the windshield two days earlier resulted in the accident.

Removable Tattoos

Yahoo News reports on a new kind of tattoo ink that, while permanent, is much easier to remove than the usual ink (it's "combustible"). Assuming this new ink is indistinguishable from the old, how will this affect the market for tattoos? My guess is that tattoos are generally sold as costly signals of commitment, and as such, the availability of cheap counterfeits will hurt the tattoo market. Perhaps branding, which I can only assume is impossible to remove, will have a newfound popularity that extends beyond the NFL...