TVHE

We (the Phoenix) have a home “semi” today.  Now the use of the word semi is strange – if we win, we play the Newcastle Jets.  If we win that we play the loser of the two legged playoff between Sydney and Melbourne.  If we win that, we play the winner of the two legged playoff and are champions.

Anyway, we have a home game today in the finals round.  So get down to Westpac Stadium and support the Phoenix – the game is at 5pm.

That is all.

PS Actually, I think if we win today then we have another home game – spectacular!

Taking a brief break from discussing economics I thought I should mention a new Xbox game called Mass Effect 2 (reviews).

Why am I mentioning this.  Two reasons:  I don’t have time to put any thought into a post as I am extremely busy (which rules out most economics ), and it is the best game I’ve every played.  It is like a good movie, with entertaining action and a strong story.  I figure this is a blog, so I can really write about anything anyway as long as I’m not breaking the law

Experiences during the game are strongly based on what you did in the prior game – quite a breakthrough for games.

I haven’t wanted to replay a game this much since Knights of the Old Republic 2, and I haven’t appreciated the story and the tie in of characters this much in a game since Ultima 7.  As a result, I’ve immediately lent my copy of the game to a friend so I can’t play it anymore and can get some work done.

My one qualm is that Bioware seems to find a way of making the sex scenes in their games more and more uncomfortable with each game they release.  I don’t know what it is, it just feels like other emotions/interactions in the game are treated with such depth (and awesome amounts of moral ambiguity), whereas the “love/sex” chains feel more contrived.

Note:  I seriously recommend playing through Mass Effect 1 and then importing your save game for Mass Effect 2, it just adds that little bit to the experience.

The Wall Street Journal has an article that discusses how economists are “cheapskates”. I probably wouldn’t use that term, I would say that economists understand the opportunity cost of different choices and so can pick more objectively between alternatives.

Anyway, what struck me was this passage:

Economist Robert Gordon, of Northwestern University, says he drives out of his way to go to a grocery store where prices are cheaper than at the nearby Whole Foods, even though it takes him an extra half hour to save no more than $5.

So an economics professor only values his time at $10 an hour?  Seriously, what the hell.  This seems like a terrible choice to me.  The only ways I can rationalise this are:

1. He is exaggerating because he gets some pleasure from that,
2. He gets some consumption value from driving out to the other supermarket and saving a bit of money.

Is spot on (ht Offsetting Behaviour).  I can’t remember the last time I got as genuinely bored in a movie as I did with Avatar.  The scenery and graphics were beautiful, but the acting and story were both atrocious.

I tried to enjoy it, hell I even did enjoy it for the first 30 mins.  But over time the lack of story combined with the fact that how “beautiful the animation is” was being rammed repeated and unnecessarily down my throat made me both bored and a little bit irritated.

However, to be fair almost no-one seems to agree with this negative view.  IMDB is currently giving it 8.7/10.  The Dim Post also reviews.

I was recently accused (by co-author Goonix) of becoming more libertarian over the past 2 1/2 years.  Now I don’t agree, I think I am where I was in July 2007.  However, it is evident that the particular focus of the blog has evolved since then.

Read more…

New Zealand’s football (soccer if you are from the US) team is playing in their final World Cup qualifier tonight.  If they beat Bahrain they reach the World Cup finals for the first time since 1982.

Most of the members of TVHE will be going to the game tonight, and all of them will be watching in some form.  So we are thinking that everyone else should really cheer the All Whites on as well

Go the All Whites!

A short post by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution lays down what I think is the most important element of economics blogging.

People who learn economics through the blogosphere also receive feedback, especially if they sample dialogue across a number of blogs of differing perspectives.  The feedback comes from which arguments other people found convincing.  Do the points you wanted to hold firm on, or cede, correspond to the evolution of the dialogue?  This feedback is not as accurate as Rybka but it’s an ongoing test of your fluid intelligence and your ability to revise your opinion.Not many outsiders understand what a powerful learning mechanism the blogosphere has set in place.

For both the author, readers, and people that comment that blogging experience adds value, not just from the initial post, but from the conversation that takes place following the post.

I know my reasons for blogging are purely selfish.  I want people to tell me why I’m wrong about things, and how I can improve my understanding of issues.  Furthermore, I like the idea of having a historical record of my opinions – so if similar events happen in the future I can quickly jog my own memory.

Following today’s discussion on an addiction study I have realised that I must have an addition.

For the last 2 months I have been painfully addicted to a horrendous substance – not drinking (except for this one intervention that was staged about 3 weeks ago).

It has had all the negative impacts associated with addiction:

1. It has visibly negatively impacted on my health – I have had the flu a few times after all,
2. The longer I haven’t drunk the harder it has been to go out and drink (a sure sign of addiction, and in conjunction with funky discounting this could lead to time inconsistency),
3. It has caused externalities (namely my complaining to other people).

All I know is that I’m personally concerned about this addiction, and I’ll be doing what I can to solve it tonight.  Even so, can the government really trust an irrational agent like me to drink enough?

Given this I think I need some government intervention.  How about the government subsidises my alcohol and the Law Commission pushes for the regulation of alcohol towards me.

Note:  The only parties I’m making fun of in this post are the government, the Law Commission, and myself (for not drinking for 9 weeks) – not any of the economic analysts.

And don’t try to convince me not drinking isn’t an addiction – I seriously have been struggling to break it!

As you will have noted all four of the current authours (Matt, Rauparaha, Agnitio, and Goonix) have been running at close to full capacity outside of the blog, and so blog material has been lacking for the last three months. Furthermore, we have barely been able to respond to comments.

To help push along blog output we have expanded the effective labour force by introducing “the Hand”. It will cover issues that the rest of us either don’t really care about or don’t feel that we know enough about. However, the authour of the Hand will not remain constant. Effectively, it is a guest blogger.

The Hand differs from previous guest bloggers in that it allows people to post with us without having to think up their own pseudonym. This should reduce the cost associated with producing a piece for us, increasing output at the margin.

The first “the Hand” post will take place at 8am tomorrow on the BERL alcohol report – the one issue I can think of that I’m both sick of hearing about and haven’t read anything about

I know no-one here will really care, but I’m actually pretty excited that we (the Phoenix) signed Paul Ifill (ht Yellow Fever).  He is a player I’ve rated for this level for a couple of years now and had no idea that we were tracking him.

Definitely looking forward to the start of the season.  BTW, buy a season ticket already.