Montreal is funny city

So here's the deal about Montreal: Saint Catherin’s Street in Montreal is a lot like Michigan Ave in Chicago. It is where all of the neat stores are at, but it has more hip, lower profile nook stores, and tons of great restaurants. The stores have all of the fashions that the teens and 20 something’s wear. There are Thai, Vietnamese, East Indian, French, Italian, Japanese, and all other kinds of great restaurants. It is hustling and bustling with all kinds of people: whites, blacks, Asian, Latino, middle eastern, and Indian - they are all hip, slick, and attractive.

Here’s where things get weird: about every block, or every other block there is a nudy bar. It is jarring, the is so much beauty, youth, and vitality marred by the tackiness of adult entertainment. Only in Montreal, I suppose.

Later,

B

Joke Time

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000 or you can bury her here in the Holy Land, for $150."

The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150?"
The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can't take the chance."

Hahahahahah, that cracks me up.

It’s a Disappointing Time of Year

The weather is warming (BTW, it’s been butt-ass cold here this winter, where’s my global warming?), the grass is greening, and the Boilermakers are going to under perform in the NCAA Tournament. From the time of Glen Robinson to Brad Miller, to today’s bunch, the Boilers have gone into the Tournament with high expectations, and always exited early. Some people think that this is going to be the Boilers year because the Fab Four (the four freshman playing for the team) have done so well. I’m afraid that they are going to play like freshman and choke – just look at their performance against Illinois in the Big Ten tournament. I think that next year is the year: the Fab Four will be sophomores and Chris Kramer (best defender in the country) will be a junior. The next two years will be good years for Purdue basketball.

When the Boilers lose in the first or second round, and you feel the need to mock me, call my toll free number: (800) 382-5968.

Later,

B

I like my job

The title of this post might throw some people. Now, through out my career I appreciated the fact that I was employed, I make a good salary, and it is honorable to work hard at what your boss assigns you. The thing is, I usually haven't liked my job. I've always liked most of the people I've worked with, I've found some of the work interesting; but I've never liked the job in totality. Maybe because I've viewed work as something that pays the bills and gives me structure in my life (after 5 months of unemployment in 2006 to 2007 I realize how important the structure is), but nothing that makes me happy.

I like my job at the Stanley Works. I can't say why, maybe it is that the work is interesting, maybe because I have a good boss (he is tied with Don P, from GM, as the best boss I've had), or the fact that there are a lot of cool people here; but I like this place. Proof of this 'like' is observed that when I drive into work, I am looking forward to work. I do not dread getting to work, but rather I am thinking how I am going to solve the issues on my plate for the day.

I just hope that the company continues to do well: or, more precisely, I hope the other shoe doesn't drop anytime soon.

Later,

B

Economic Tuesday: Budget Lines

The topic of today's post is simple, but very powerful: Budget Lines. For any given two items, that have a cost, one can buy any combination of the two items, as long as the cost of the combination is under the budget (or, available funds, if you will) for the two items. A budget line is the set of combinations where the cost of the combination is equal to the budget for the items.

An example will make this clearer: Suppose that a college student has $1,000 to spend on booze for the school year. The student likes to drink beer and wine. A bottle of beer costs $1 and a bottle of wine costs $10. So, for our student, he can buy 1,000 beers, 100 bottles of wine, 900 beers and 10 bottles of wine, or any combination where $1 * Beers + $10 * Bottles of Wine is less than or equal to $1,000. The $1 per bottle of beer line represents this equation in the illustration.

The line, and every point under the line, represents an available combination of beer and wine that the student can buy.

The other four lines represents what happens to the available combinations when the price of wine is held fixed, and the price of beer is increased to $2, $3, $4, and $5 per bottle. As expected the number of available combinations goes down as the price of beer goes up. The intuitive idea is that with a fixed budget, when the price of the input (beer) goes up, one can afford less.

This exercise can be done for any two items that have a cost and a budget associated with them: trips to Sydney and cat food, gas and milk, months of cable TV and movie rentals, etc, etc, etc. The idea of a budget line is simple; but it a tool that allows some powerful analysis in to peoples demand.

An Unsatisfying Endeavor

I saw No Country for Old Men this weekend, and I had one of those moments; you know, the one where you are not quite sure whether or not you are watching pure genius, or just a bad movie. Javier Bardem's acting was genius, easily, and the story line was gritty (the way a western should be), and the story wasn't ruined with a Hollywood ending; but still, the story seemed incomplete. I know that the incompleteness was intentional, and that life does have a lot of ambiguity; however, I think this movie could have used a more definitive ending. Anyway, definitely a thumbs up.

A movie that does not leave question to its greatness: Super Troopers. Funniest movie of all time.

Office Rodney Farva: I don't want a large Farva, I want a goddamn litre o' cola.

Or,

Complaining Fan: Move that gigantic cotton candy!
Local Officer Rando: God dammit!
[hits man with cotton candy]
Local Officer Rando: How's the view from sugar heaven, bitch?

Hahahahaha, that still cracks my shit up.

Damn that Hillary Clinton

I must admit, Hillary Clinton surprised the crap out of me, Tuesday. I figured that she was dead meet in Texas, and that she was most likely going to lose Ohio by a small margin. I believed in this enough to make a more than marginal bet on Obama in these primaries. (You can bet fake money on the political outcomes Wall Street Journal Intrade app) When Shillary won, I went from a balance that was just shy of $10,000 to a balance that is barely above $7,000. (Damn, a Reschly can’t even fake invest good)

I was sure Obama was going to win; hell, I’m a big time McCain supported, and I like this guy. (Polls show Obama cleaning McCain’s clock and McCain beating ole Shrill Hillary) How his team let Texas, and a 12 state winning steak, slip away is beyond me. We all know Ohio is filled with boobs (I, as a Boilermaker, hate all things Ohio), but Texas disappoints.

Anywho (stole that one from Luke), I have since made a huge play on the position that Bernake will have the Fed Funds rate above 3.0% by the end of 2008. Hopefully his Republican ass will see the light of day on inflation and start raising the Funds rate. (Lowering it has done jacksh*t on adverting disaster in the credit markets)

Later,

B

I'll never use my cell phone in Canada again

I was in Montreal for two weeks in February. (Not consecutive weeks) While I was up there, on business, I used my cell phone as the optimal way for people to get a hold of me. During both weeks I had an uneasy feeling that I was courting cell phone bill danger by using my Blackberry. The first clue should have been that the network being used was/is called Rodgers. I took and placed calls from friends, family, work, and other sources.

Then I got my bill (online) today; and I just about crapped my pants. My bill is normall $94, but this bill was for $222.15. All of the extra charges were based off of romain fees from making calls in Montreal. My company is going to pick up the work related call, plus the normal fees, but I'm still going to be stuck with $80 in cell phone charges. Live and learn, I suppose.

Later,

Brian

Economics Tuesday: A perfectly competitive Market

So, I was think about economics, and I was drawn to the idea of competitive markets. For an economist, a market is considered to be its most efficient when it is perfectly competitive. A market is perfectly competitive when the marginal revenue(MR) of a product is equal to its marginal cost(MC).

To explain this further, I need to define what MC and MR are. MC is the change in cost associated with making one more, or one less, widget. Cost is equal to the variable cost plus the fixed cost. Fixed Costs are the costs that do not change (up or down) based on the amount of products produced, examples are: rent, electricity, the company car for the president, the production equipment. Variable Costs are costs that go up or down in proportion to the quantity produced, examples are: production labor, raw material, shipping material, shipping fees, equipment maintenance, etc. Marginal Cost being the change in cost associated with the smallest change in quantity possible ends up being the first derivative of the cost equation: C = VC + FC: d(C) /d(q) = d(VC)/d(q) + d(FC)/d(q). Since fixed cost is a constant, it becomes MC = d(VC)/d(q).

The second definition, MR, is a close cousin of MC: it is the change in revenue (up or down) due to the smallest possible change in quantity of production. Revenue equals Price times Quantity. Again, the first derivative of the Revenue equation is the Marginal Revenue; thus MR = d(r)/d(q) = d(Pq)/d(q). Since P is a constant, the equation can be simplified to MR = P * d(q)/d(q); or, MR=P. This is somewhat intuitive in that if you sell one more widget, you should get the price of the widget as your increase.

So, now that I have defined MC and MR, why is it that a market is perfectly competitive when MC=MR? Here’s why, when MCMR, the firms are losing money, it costs more to produce an extra widget than what is made off of it. As the firms start to lose money, some firms will leave the market, as they do so, the surviving firms will raise their prices (less competition to keep the prices down) until MR is equal to MC.

The natural question is this: if MC=MR and profit, pi, is equal to revenue minus cost, are you saying that firms make no profit when the market is perfectly competitive? Yes, and no. Firms do make a profit, but not economic profit. This is different in that the firms allocate a cost of capital in to their cost. Cost of capital is what the investors in the firm must earn to make the investment a success: think of it as interest on a bank account. Economic profit is the profit that exceeds the return on cost of capital. If an investor must make four percent a year on his/her money, and the profit margin on his/her widgets is five percent, economic profit is being made. A perfectly competitive market says that the investor can only make his/her four percent, not anymore. Thus the cost of capital can be recovers, but economic profit does not occur.


Later,

B

I'm A CompletemWuss

So, typically, I'm the tough guy. I usually have ice running through my veins. I can watch sad movies and laugh when tragedy strikes the protagonist. However; lately, there has been a crack in the armor.

For work, I was having to travel to Montreal every other week. Being gone for five days at a time, and not having anyone in Indy to look after Smokey (my cat) seemed unfair. So, being pragmatic, if somewhat cheap, I dumped off Smokey on Sara, in Chicago. A couple of weeks ago I dropped off Smokey at Sara’s, then it was off to Montreal.

Due to a change in my responsibilities on the Montreal job (not a bad thing, but not great) I found out that I wouldn’t be traveling to Montreal very much. I learned that information last Monday. I sat around my empty apartment trying to decide what to do. : pick up Smokey early, or leave Smokey at Sara’s for the balance of the month? Cold logic says that I should leave Smokey up there to allow for more freedom (I know a cat isn’t much, but it is still greater than zero), but the ice melted. I missed Smokey (I realize that’s weak, but like I said, the ice melted) and I didn’t want Smokey to start liking Sara, Mark, and Eli more.

Yup, it was weak, but I have my Smokey back.

Later,

B