Monday, July 02, 2007

Good Morning Summer Scholars!!!

Today we will stick to introductions, course outline, and some general discussion of the program. I am very excited about the next four weeks, and I hope you are as well. I will use this forum to post articles, both, with and without commentary. My expectation is that you will have checked the blog before you go to sleep so that you may come prepared for any potential in-class discussion the following morning. Please feel free to create an account and post things, but remember, anyone, anywhere might read it - including mom and dad.

Peace, Jim aka The Green General

8 comments:

Page said...

I really enjoyed what we discussed today in class. It is interesting to see the large gap that is created between the findings of economic science and the creation of the appropriate policy. While in class, my Model United Nations involvement caused me to be formulating all sorts of draft resolutions that could solve the problem of poverty such as what we discussed in class. In looking at topics on the internet I ran across this article that actually discusses Adam Smith, and morality associated with economics. I'm currently reading through it so I'm not 100% sure if it has any benefits for the class but I thought it was an interesting find.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/morality-and-ec.html

-Page

Anonymous said...

When leaving your class earlier today you mentioned the "greatest good for the greatest number" and as I was reading the article it said that this was not possible. I don't want to say I disagree with the statement, but as I read further and learned about the "optimum population" I began to see the two as similar. I'm not sure there can be a greatest good for the greatest number, but I certainly believe there can be a population where everyone can live comfortably with a finite amount of energy. If there can or can't be a greatest good for the greatest number, I seriously doubt it will be achieved through the "invisible hand" as I believe the common man does not know what is TRULY in his best interest, or therfore the best interest of society as a whole.

-Jarrett

Robbie Day said...

I mentioned today that Mexico City was the fastest growing city in the world. I was really wrong. Here is a link that gives the fastest growing cities in the worlld in decending order:

http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/urban_growth1.html

The chart claims Beihai, China is the fastest growing City in the World with an extrapolated 10.58% mean annual growth rate from 2006 to 2020. This complies well with Profesor Casey's guess that this urban area must be located in China.

As for the Tradgedy of the Commons essay, I found so many calc references in the passage I forwarded it to my Math teacher back at home, who to say the least is a brilliant man. Here's what Mr. Bazak had to say:

"Thanks for the article. I found it extremely interesting. Milton Friedman spoke at my graduation from Tech (in 1977) on the the differences between a "free" society and a "fair" one. Economically, of course, he favored the former; we, America, seem to settle for the latter. A nation united around the ideal of individual rights is problematic, no doubt. But, of course, find something better; that is the trick."

Mr. Bazak went on say, some what cynically, how he sees our inner-city highschool as a commons and how these problems relate on a small scale.

From what I have learned, populations grow with an upper limit. In a standard form of this family of curves, when half of this limit is achieved, the rate at which the population is growing decreases. I wonder if that is the point when quality of life of developed nations quickly turns sour. Our goal now is to extend this definite limit as high as possible. This begins with alternative, environmentally friendly sources of energy.

Anonymous said...

This is an article about the Immigration Case that involved my dad's law firm that I was talking about this morning. I thought you guys would find it interesting. My dad had just transferred back to the firm after working at a different firm for ten years about two months prior to this. Cohen and Grigsby did not specifically sponser this conferance, and it this is not the only case of this kind of conference, it's just that Larry was stupid enough to film it and put it on YouTube. At first everyone thought it would just blow over after the clip had been removed from YouTube, but instead of blowing over the "scandal" was featured in the New York Times front page and editorial section.
Anyway my opinion on this is that it is a symptom of a larger problem that people are actually going to conferences to learn how to not hire an American. I think this is a sign that we, as Americans, need to work harder and give large companies better reasons to hire us. We are just as smart and as qualified as those people coming over from Asia, the only difference is that we often don't work as hard or we insist on higher pay. I think if the government wants to try to keep the jobs in America they should regulate payrolls, if firms can't pay the foreign workers less than the American ones then there goes one of the biggest reasons for hiring someone from overseas. Globalization is a two sided reality, and I think this is really solid proof of that.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070621_912042.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Anonymous said...

This is an article about the Immigration Case that involved my dad's law firm that I was talking about this morning. I thought you guys would find it interesting. My dad had just transferred back to the firm after working at a different firm for ten years about two months prior to this. Cohen and Grigsby did not specifically sponser this conferance, and it this is not the only case of this kind of conference, it's just that Larry was stupid enough to film it and put it on YouTube. At first everyone thought it would just blow over after the clip had been removed from YouTube, but instead of blowing over the "scandal" was featured in the New York Times front page and editorial section.
Anyway my opinion on this is that it is a symptom of a larger problem that people are actually going to conferences to learn how to not hire an American. I think this is a sign that we, as Americans, need to work harder and give large companies better reasons to hire us. We are just as smart and as qualified as those people coming over from Asia, the only difference is that we often don't work as hard or we insist on higher pay. I think if the government wants to try to keep the jobs in America they should regulate payrolls, if firms can't pay the foreign workers less than the American ones then there goes one of the biggest reasons for hiring someone from overseas. Globalization is a two sided reality, and I think this is really solid proof of that.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070621_912042.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

-Marti

Anonymous said...

sorry it posted twice by accident.
-Marti

Bobby R. said...

Hey guys,
Here is a great article that is very pertinent to what we have beeen discussing in class; it is about the problems of mixing politics and science. Ther article contends that in order to mitigate climate change the middle and upper classes are going to have to be prepared to pay more initially to lower carbon emissions, even though, according to the article, currently, the lower class is suffering the largest detriment, while the burden of mitigtion lies with the affluent. So here lies the problem with the politics of climate change: we all want a "cleaner" world- a world in which New York City is not under water, but the average consumer doesn't want to pay more money on gas to get it. This article talks not only about this problem, but it deals with the ethics of this situation, which according to many economists is the "worst market failure of all time."
I think ya'll should check it out.

http://find.galegroup.com/ips/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Locale%252528en%25252CUS%25252C%252529%25253AFQE%25253D%252528su%25252CNone%25252C14%252529Climate%252BCHANGE%252524%257E%2529_1&contentSet=IAC-Documents&sort=DateDescend&tabID=T003&sgCurrentPosition=0&subjectAction=VIEW_TOPIC_TREE&prodId=IPS&searchId=R2¤tPosition=2&userGroupName=vic_wlu&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2CUS%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28su%2CNone%2C16%29%22Climate+Change%22%24&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&displaySubject=&docId=A165730127&docType=IAC&contentSet=IAC-Documents
-Bobby

Bobby R. said...

Sorry I don't think that site worked, so here is the link to it: check it out!