My Celebrity Connection

I went to the dentist yesterday, and I told my oral hygienist that I'm taking an Economics class at UW. She said, "oh I have a patient at another dentist office that I work at who has a PhD in Economics, and he teaches at UW. I asked her what his name was, and she couldn't remember. But she told me that she bought his book, and it's a cartoon book that is supposedly funny if you know something about economics. Immediately I knew who it was. "Is it Yoram Bauman?" I asked her, and sure enough it was!

So... I have the same dental hygienist as the Stand-Up Economist. How awesome is that??

More Orwellian Moments

I just joined two different facebook groups that are against the AZ immigration reform. I hesitated to join them because I don't want to broadcast to all of my 300+ facebook friends (who are of course following my every move intently) that I support illegal immigration. I don't really condone breaking laws, even if I might not agree with the law itself. (I am not saying it's a bad law, but it maybe needs some tweaking. For example, I think a guest-worker program would be in order.) Anyway, I don't like this new law partly because I have a lot of respect and sympathy for migrant workers, and also because I don't like the idea of living in a 1984-style world.

The other day one of my favorite blogs asked the question:

Non-Economic Question of the Day: Should I Take My (US) Passport If I Visit Arizona?

I really liked the comment from one reader who, like me, seems to favor a 'root-cause' approach versus a 'treat-the-symptoms' approach:

Actually, this is very much an economic question. The purpose of immigration law is to maintain the gap in value between the ins (citizens plus legal residents) and the outs (illegally employed foreigners and those considering it). In other words, if there were no US immigration restrictions on Mexicans, immigration would proceed until the wage gap between Americans and Mexicans with equivalent relevant skills disappeared.

This is why tighter immigration laws are usually popular. And even from an ecnomics perspective, excessive immigration is undoubtedly damaging to origin and destination countries.

The problem the US has though is that its politicians love to take the ineffective, populist road, which is to punish the little guy immigrants, rather than the effective but politically difficult road, which is to punish those who employ them. The goal should be to raise the risk-weighted price of employing illegal aliens until it becomes more expensive than employing legal residents. To randomly punish a small percentage of illegal aliens without doing anything to cut the supply of work available to those who are lucky enough not to get caught is just plain stupid and mean.

Alaska!

Sean and I are leaving tonight to drive to Alaska!! In about 4 hours, we'll be hitting the road, junk food and reading materials in hand, ready to explore the great white wilderness up north! I hope we see Northern Lights!!!!

The story here is that our friend's sister (who lives in Anchorage) bought a car down here in the lower 48. He told us that he was going to drive her car up to Alaska for her, and we thought, hey why don't we tag along? Two days ago, Sean and I each asked for Friday and Monday off of our respective works, somehow we both got it, then bought ourselves one-way plane tickets back to Seattle, and that's it! We're off!

(BTW this is one of the reasons I like, er, put up with, my current job. Only a month after taking 2 days off to go to my sister's wedding I now ask for 2 more days off, and it isn't a big deal.)

We bought a disposable camera today since we still haven't replaced our "real" camera after it broke in Hawaii. Oops. We were meaning to get around to that, but then this whole Alaska trip was conceived, gestated, and came into the world in about 5 days, sooo... disposable camera.

Link to the google map, in case you are curious about this insanity we're about to embark on. 44 hours of drive time, woo!!

Orwellian Moments

Two posts in 1 day?! I know, I'm at work, so I should be working. Or at least if I'm not working I should be doing Econ 482 homework. But no... I just read this and had to share.

FDA plans to limit amount of salt allowed in processed foods for health reasons.

I love freedom and all, but it just makes me so MAD when people eat salt! I mean, my God people! The salt! How many times have I shook my head in despair, asking when in the name of all that is holy will someone make it STOP!

Career change

Well, I am starting the 4th week of my class and I really like it so far! I also just applied for another job.... this time at the SF Fed. I have applied for a few of these positions but now I can add that I am taking econometrics! We'll see how it goes....

A while back I was reading Greg Mankiw's blog and I found a guy (or girl) who is just like me. I love that post so much... I should print it out and put it under my pillow, to remind myself that I am not the only "old" person who wants a career change!