July 30, 2004
Headlines
Poorly written headlines bother me. For instance, the April-June gross domestic product growth rate was announced this morning at 3.0% vs the expected 3.8%.
One headline trumpeted: U.S. Economy Slows Dramatically in Spring
Another stated: U.S. Economy Grew More Slowly Than Expected in Spring
The second of these much more clearly represented the 'new' news, and the first one even implies through the use of the verb "slows" that economic activity decreased.
July 28, 2004
Mont Pelerin Society
Friedrich August Hayek founded a society of scholars called the Mont Pelerin Society.
The central values of civilization are in danger. Over large stretches of the earth’s surface the essential conditions of human dignity and freedom have already disappeared. In others they are under constant menace from the development of current tendencies of policy. The position of the individual and the voluntary group are progressively undermined by extensions of arbitrary power. Even that most precious possession of Western Man, freedom of thought and expression, is threatened by the spread of creeds which, claiming the privilege of tolerance when in the position of a minority, seek only to establish a position of power in which they can suppress and obliterate all views but their own.
Mennonite Blogs
While Googling to check the rankings of my site, I came across some other Mennonite blogs. Tree and leaf is an interesting one. The pictures are definitely worth the visit, especially if you want to be reminded of college adventures.
July 27, 2004
Friedrich August Hayek
Reading about the lives of any sort of Renaissance man (or woman) gets me fired up. And when the person is a passionate economist associated with the University of Chicago (during his time on this side of the Atlantic) I get even more excited.
The Library of Economics and Liberty has an excellent bio of Hayek that is worth the read. I am planning to read at least one of his books before starting at the GSB.
Chicago GSB Dean
I found this 2002 interview with Dean Snyder (with his undergrad college) that contains some interesting points. The dinners/breakfasts with the Dean sounds like a great idea. I wonder if leaders do that in the business world?
Also, in a misc note, ROSCOR will be doing all the media and IT for the new GSB building. I still wonder who the building will be named after...
July 26, 2004
Mirror Update
I ordered the transparent mirror (one-way mirror) the other day and had it shipped to my parent's place. Unfortunately it arrived broken, at least one pane of it, due to some very very poor packing. Now I have to go through a UPS inspection process of some kind.
Hopefully it gets worked out in the next couple weeks...
July 25, 2004
Moving, Complete
The move is essentially complete and went much more smoothly once we left DC, thanks to the help of a number of friends on this end. Driving a 30 ft truck is actually quite fun, especially after I realized the seat was about the height of the roof of an SUV. The SUV drivers suddenly seemed to have much more respect for a larger vehicle than they generally do for smaller ones.
We stopped in northern Indiana to spend an evening and morning with my family. The drive to Chicago was fairly uneventful, other than the search for diesel in the southside of Chicago took a bit longer than planned... S. 40th and Ashland in case anyone is curious.
We moved our things into Regents Park with the help of my parents, some close friends, and some new friends from Hyde Park. The view is better than I expected and I think it'll be a nice community to be in for at least the first year. I would post a picture or two from the living room, but I left the camera there. I'll have to do it later.
After moving we had dinner at Wildfire - great steaks, but a bit loud for real conversation.
July 22, 2004
Moving 2
I think I've finally learned my lesson with respect to do it yourself moving. As I've said before, if I don't learn vicariously I learn painfully. The do it yourself process can be fairly easy if everything goes well. But if it doesn't it can be a real pain...welcome to my DIY experience.
I had arranged to park the 20+ ft truck in the loading dock at my apartment tower all day today, but was informed late yesterday that what they said wasn't correct - I didn't have it from 8 AM until 12 noon. What do you do with a big truck for four hours?
So instead of taking off work to joy-ride for four hours I parked it in a neighborhood where I used to live. What could have been a straight forward logistics plan turned sour.
Hmmm, so a logistics plan/path is good until a primary link is broken - at which point alternative methods become the backup. Thankfully I had a decent backup plan.
Does anyone else have a strong sense of justice when hassled by mistakes others make and refuse to remedy? This judge is still trying to decide whether to turn the other cheek or write negative reviews at the various apartment building review sites.
Comments or Counsel?
July 21, 2004
Jacob's Question
My response to Jacob's comment became long enough to be another post, and I decided to categorize this as 'Stewardship', which is a topic I am passionate about. Hopefully more will follow in this area; now back to Jacob's question.
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The simple answer is, I'm not; because doing taxes is completely backward-looking it's impossible to 'do' them now. The real answer is that I'm projecting what my taxes *will* most likely be.
Why? To calculate my 'free' loan (my likely return) to the Federal and State governments and therefore to determine the number of withholdings. For instance, what if I determine I'll get a return. Should I or my spouse continue to pay the current level of withholdings? No.
Also, it helps me see how I'm doing with respect to the likelihood of itemizing deductions. And ask the question - how much more do I need to give (cash charity) in order to itemize and therefore take advantage of further deductions (Goodwill, etc).
By putting it all in Excel it also enables me to determine other info - specifically I'm working out how large a partial rollover should be from a Traditional IRA account (formerly a 401k) to a Roth IRA and balance out what would have been a return. (i.e. use a tax return to balance the additional tax because of the conversion). Tax tables would make this type of scenario planning a pain.
If income and giving is fairly consistent then this type of planning only needs to be done once or twice a year. If major transitions occur (job changes, new pre-tax deductions, new tax credits, etc) then the planning can be used to assess the impact.
In a slightly larger scope, the government provides tax forms in PDF, not Excel. So over the last few years I've worked on and off each tax season to develop them for my own use.
Tax
In case anyone was wondering the little piece of code below was modeled after a line from an example in the Excel help file of the IF function. This is a nested IF statement (four actually, so is that three nested and one statement?) that looks at tax backets in the referenced cells and calculates Federal tax based on taxable income input.
Two reasons this is valuable (if you do your own taxes or tax planning) -
1. You don't have to do visual table searches of the Tax Tables (actually a final lookup would be required since the tables are the standard and I think it's $50 steps)
2. More importantly, since the calculation is in Excel you can use Solver and/or Goal Seek to find answers to 'what if' scenarios
Finally, the references in the forumula make it relatively easy to update the process as the tax brackets change every year (at least the dollar amounts that define the boundaries of the brackets).
July 20, 2004
Financial Planning IP
Today's small piece of intellectual property...
=IF(D3<=D8, F8*D3, IF(D3<=D9, E9+F9*(D3-D8), IF(D3<=D10, E10+F10*(D3-G10), IF(D3<=D11, E11+F11*(D3-G11), "Error"))))
Moving
Some aspects of moving are fun - new places, new sights, new neighbors. I really enjoy throwing things out. It's amazing to me how much paper I collect in the course of a few years. I'd like to have less paper in the future.
I also don't like packing. During moves is when I wish I'd have fewer 'things.' The big move starts Thursday - although packing was started a couple weeks ago. I go pick up the truck on Wednesday and friends are coming over on Thursday to help load it. I think I'll get a 2nd dolly/hand cart.
Gas mileage on the truck is very low. I'm hoping for a drop in gas prices between now and Friday. :)
July 19, 2004
GSB Graduate
During my Google searching I found Dave Rangel's blog. He just graduated from the GSB. Congrats Dave!
Dave's site has posts on a lot of different topics. I'm particularly impressed with his mix of business and technology-related posts.
Mennonites and Linux
I found this interesting little blurb about Mennonites and Linux as I performed some Google searches to see how my site ranked (not well enough yet).
League of MBA Bloggers
I finally made the listing at League of MBA Bloggers, probably the best source for MBA-related blogs. I'll have to settle for the 2nd Chicago listing thanks to that other student. ;)
Oh and I even got a mention, although not by name...
July 15, 2004
DC Event: Alumni & Admits
Last night was another Chicago GSB DC alumni/admit event, this time held at Whitlow's on Wilson. The showing of the alumni was impressive - nearly all new alumni compared to the previous alumni event a few months ago. The admit showing was a little less impressive, but since many of us are moving in a week or so or have already moved I guess it's not surprising.
It's always interesting to meet almuni in the area and hear what they're doing/interested in. Looking forward to starting!
July 14, 2004
Five Guys
I am going to Five Guys for lunch today. Five Guys is good. They use 100% peanut oil for their fries. Their spuds (in this area) are from Idaho. And their burgers are amazing! Check out their menu. It's good. :)
July 13, 2004
New Building - Update
While searching for new pictures of progress on the GSB building, I came across this photo tour completed about a week and a half ago. Enjoy!
Chicago Maroon: A photo jaunt around the new GSB
Also, I saw an interesting article about Starbucks developments on the South Side. Check it out, and be sure to read the final paragraph - it's quite humorous.
July 12, 2004
Departures
Perhaps the best thing about departing a wonderful community of friends is the opportunity to spend lots of quality time with them before leaving.
For instance, last Friday I went to Alex's house since our significant others were gone...and we had our own personal Gamefest. Fun evening - to say the least - because we were joined by our good friend Mr Cuervo soon after dinner.
The following evening, Saturday, we spent a few hours at a reception for a newly-wed couple from our small group. Most of our small group was there some whom we hadn't seen in nearly a month.
Sunday we had turn down a lunch offer (rescheduled to Saturday) so we could work on financial planning at the nearby Panera on the T42. :) Decisions made regarding health insurance, cash flow, retirement benefits, etc.
Sunday evening we had a great dinner with Rob & Eleanor at Las Tapas in Old Town Alexandria! Yummmmmmyyyyy!
Leaving friends is the worst part about moving for school...but hopefully the trip to Napa with some or all of the above will work out! :)
July 09, 2004
Laptop
My productivity enhancer arrived yesterday, otherwise known as my GSB toy...my IBM T42. It's a very nice machine, at least as far as I can tell. The only design flaw I've noticed in the first 24 hours is the battery fasteners. The battery has two 'claw' fasteners - one on the end and one near the middle of the pack. However there is no fastener on the opposite end, giving a few mm of wiggle.
The only downfall of having a great screen (1400 x 1050) resolution on it is that I immediately notice the difference when I sit in front of my 1280 x 1024 screen. I know, the world's smallest violin is playing my song... :)
MT & Browsers
I've started converting to a different browser (away from IE) called Firefox (Mozilla). Unfortunately MT doesn't seem to like Firefox. The helpful little buttons above the Entry Body box (URL, B, etc) aren't visible and don't seem to exist in Firefox. So I'm left running IE when I post.
July 08, 2004
Congrats!!!
A big congrats go out to my spouse, who just found out she'll be working at a Center connected with the GSB.
We're pretty happy about having that final detail nailed down.
July 07, 2004
Comment Spam
I apologize for the comment spamming that has been occuring over the last couple days. I will be working to install MT-Blacklist as soon as I can. In the meantime I will delete spam comments as soon as I'm notified.
July 06, 2004
LEAD 360 Feedback
I've finally sent out all the emails for the LEAD 360 Feedback. I feel that I'm a little behind in my pre-class assignments. Actually all the tests are completed, but I've got a lot of little things to deal with now: immunization forms, Facebook photo, career services info, rebuild resume, etc.
Looking forward to playing with my laptop. It's currently on it's way - from HK to AK to KY to VA. Unfortunately I probably won't have it today.
July 02, 2004
Mirror Project
In advance of the long holiday weekend, this post kicks off another project that has been in mental development for the last couple years. If all goes well, this summer will see the 'mirror project' take tangible shape thanks to a couple weeks off before classes start and the availability of tools and work area at my parents home.
Original credit for this project should go to an artist in the DC/Baltimore area. Unfortunately I don't remember her/his name, but I saw the exhibit sometime within the last two years.
See the Mirror Project page for more info. Here's a sneak peak...
Over 30...again
A comment by Jacob regarding the Over 30 post made me think about the inter-connection of inefficient structures/systems (not in the hardware sense).
The conclusion of the Over 30 article - younger and older workers are not compensated based on their productivity - (assuming that it is generally true) has at least one significant implication for retirement provision.
In the current structure, younger workers are 'missing' a chunk of compensation that they must wait for until they are older. Essentially the structure defers income, savings, and investment.
If however, younger workers were compensated for productivity that chunk would be available at a younger age - giving them a very valuable option to invest/save more money at a younger age for their eventual retirement. The de facto deferment of 'their' productivity is both a short-term disincentive and a long-term inefficient form of saving.
Clearly changes in overall compensation would need to occur gradually in order for workers 'stuck' in the current inefficient system to adjust. But a more effective structure for younger workers would also help address their own savings needs in light of a completely trashed Social Security system.
July 01, 2004
Leftovers as Tapas
When I was growing up (still am) we would often call leftover dinners 'Mennonite weekly review.' I thought maybe we should change the name to something that uses the word 'Tapas.'
Tapas restaurants have become much more popular here in DC. Jaleo was the first one that I discovered a few years ago. Since then many more have been opened including the very nice Las Tasca in Clarendon (one of the first US openings of the UK group).
But back to leftovers...calling leftovers 'tapas' - and presenting them as such on small plates, seems to make eating leftovers much more appealing. At least it worked the other night! :)
Reading List
One of my favorite profs at 
was Dr. Julia Williams. See her website for information on her classes and a very nice picture of a southern Indiana flower. Oh and check out the page for her Utopian Thought and Literature class, of which I was a founding student.
Ok, but apart from the fact that I earned a 'Dr. Williams minor' with the number of electives I took, this post is about a reading list that she gave me. Before I graduated, I asked her if she could list a handful of books that every person should read. She responded with a two page list...I thought that appropriate for a professor of English and literature!
Here are the first 10 on the list (in no significant order). Apologies for any mis-spellings and mis-interpretations of her handwriting.
- Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse
- George Eliot - Adam Bede
- James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
- Thomas Mann - Buddenbrooks
- Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
- Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
- Charlotte Bronte - Villete
- Samuel Beckett - Murphy
- James Agee - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Over 30 and over the hill
The title might be mis-leading because I am not over 30, but I read a very interesting article in the Economist this morning, during the typical Metro commute, regarding pay and productivity. The overall conclusion is that productivity and pay are not correlated. A study cited in the article showed that job performance peaked at 35. The only significant exception was female writers, who are most productive in their 50s. The following is from the Economist Print Edition, "Over 30 and over the hill," June 26th 2004
"Younger workers are underpaid and older workers overpaid relative to their productivity." - Vegard Skirbekk
"Technological change puts a premium on adaptability, and a discount on experience."
For those of you with online Economist access the article is here. For more indepth reading, see a study by Mr. Skirbekk here (PDF).