Results for “markets in everything” 1895 found
Markets in everything, Hallmark card for job loss
It does not mention the ZMP idea, so perhaps Mark Thoma’s blog has had more influence at Hallmark: the cover states “Life Isn’t Fair” and the inside reads:
You didn’t cause this.
You don’t deserve this.
You simply have to get through it.
And I know you will,
Because I know you!
For the pointer I thank Jerry Brito.
Markets in everything the culture that is Japan
Meanwhile, in Japan, a new fashion has women paying to have their straight teeth purposefully disarranged.
A result of tooth-crowding commonly derided in the United States as “snaggleteeth” or “fangs,” the look is called “yaeba” in Japanese or “double tooth.” Japanese men are said to find this attractive: blogs are devoted to yaeba, celebrities display it proudly, and now some women are paying dentists to create it artificially by affixing plastic fronts to their real teeth.
“It’s not like here, where perfect, straight, picket-fence teeth are considered beautiful,” said Michelle Phan, a Vietnamese-American based in Los Angeles, who wrote about the phenomenon on her popular beauty blog. “In Japan, in fact, crooked teeth are actually endearing, and it shows that a girl is not perfect. And, in a way, men find that more approachable than someone who is too overly perfect.”
Here is more, thanks to Jack Kessler for the pointer.
Ilya Somin on Israeli signaling (markets in everything)
Ilya writes:
Various commenters on this and my previous post on the same subject claim that the Israeli government had to do this in order to send its citizens a “message” about how much it valued their lives and was willing to pay a high price to save them. But if these deals lead to the deaths of far more innocent Israelis than they save, the real message sent will be exactly the opposite: that the government is willing to make a large net sacrifice of innocent life in order to gain short term public relations benefits or a short-term boost in national morale. It’s possible, of course, that Israeli public opinion is myopic enough that they will think that the government is saving life despite the fact that it is actually sacrificing a much larger enough of innocent lives. If so, there could be a more permanent and substantial boost in national morale. Even then, it will probably fade as public attention shifts to other issues. In any event, it’s not worth the sacrifice of numerous innocents and the creation of perverse incentives for terrorist groups.
Link here. I don’t know whether this exchange is a good idea, but Ilya is possibly underrating the power of signaling models. It is precisely the fact that that Israeli government will trade for this single life, even apart from whether it is instrumentally rational, that sends the relevant signal. The less “rational” the act, the more potent the signal of concern, and in this case the possible irrationality is stochastic, not certain. Perhaps one must take a stand for the single, identifiable life in question; Hollywood rescue movies accept this meme and they face market tests all the time. Doesn’t the starship captain go back down to save the one life, even though it may place the entire ship in jeopardy? “That’s what makes us human, Bones,” while Spock raises the eyebrow, etc.
One can also read the Israeli government as signaling (correctly or not) that it has the power to prevent or at least limit future kidnappings. It is an expression of strength, or at least a belief in strength, and citizens seem to like that signal from their leaders. It also may allow governments to perform other (efficient) acts which involve offsetting signals of weakness.
That said, Ilya’s comments indirectly raise an issue in signaling theory: where does salience come from? Why is “one person” the relevant unit of concern for the Israeli citizenry here? There are plenty of simple answers, but most of them beg the question and of course one person is often considered quite disposable in other contexts, especially military. It also would not suffice to get just a month of freedom for him. Yet neither is the deal insisting that more than this one soldier be delivered.
If you haven’t already, I recommend that you all read David Grossman’s splendid To The End of the Land.
Markets in everything
The entries in this series are still capable of surprising me:
A pair of Alabama conservation enforcement officers think they’ve come up with the perfect way for avid hunters to honor their loved ones for eternity.
Officers Thad Holmes and Clem Parnell [TC: great names] have launched Holy Smoke LLC, a company that will, for a price, load cremated human ash into shotgun shells, and rifle and pistol cartridges.
It’s the perfect life celebration for someone who loves the outdoors or shooting sports, Parnell says.
And to put your mind at ease:
The animal should be killed quickly by the shot, to prevent any possibility of spreading the ashes in the animal’s blood, he says. The area around where the animal was struck should not be consumed.
The article is here, the company’s web site is here, and I thank J. for the pointer.
Detached markets in everything
Most egg donors, who have exactly the same genetic relationship to offspring as sperm donors, come to the opposite conclusion: they are not mothers.
That is from the new and interesting Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm, by Rene Alemling.
Frequent flyer markets in everything
Smoke poured into the airplane cabin and activity came to a screeching halt. As the captain yelled “Evacuate! Evacuate!” passengers did what comes naturally: They froze.
The “emergency,” staged with theatrical smoke in a full-motion airline cabin simulator, was part of an unusual British Airways safety course. Sixteen travelers from some of the airline’s top corporate customers and its advertising agency practiced jumping down evacuation slides, opening heavy airplane doors and scampering out smoke-filled crashed cabins. They also learned simple tips that could save lives.
It seems odd that an airline would want to train people to deal with catastrophe, but British Airways believes the course engenders customer loyalty and helps calm nervous fliers. The airline plans to open up the course, which costs about $210, to individual travelers next year, possibly letting passengers redeem frequent-flier miles to attend. About 11,000 people have gone through the class so far.
Bob Frank may not approve of this one:
“We teach people to react faster than anyone else so they are in the aisle first and down the slide first,” said Andy Clubb, a British Airways flight-attendant trainer who conceived of and runs the passenger course.
On the brighter side:
… it’s not simply survival of the fittest. Other passengers seeing someone react positively will quickly follow, and the prepared passengers become leaders, making the entire evacuation faster.
The article itself passes along some tips. For the pointer I thank Kurt Busboom.
Efficient Markets in Everything
Sabermetrics worked but “once the casino catches on to your card-counting tricks, you can’t prosper at the table for long.”
NYTimes: The A’s, meanwhile, have tumbled back to mediocrity: the team is on its way to a losing season this year, after compiling a record of 231 wins and 254 losses over the previous three seasons. Most of the innovations introduced or popularized by Beane have been freely adopted by other organizations, thus eliminating whatever stealth advantages he once enjoyed.
… He told me baseball is moving “back to an efficient market — albeit one with some random events that don’t offer perfect efficiency — where whatever you spend, that’s where you’re going to finish.” In short, the Yankees spend a lot and make the playoffs pretty much every year. The Pirates don’t, and they don’t. There are aberrations to this pattern, but the pattern itself is unmistakable.
But the more efficient baseball becomes as a market, I asked him, the worse it is for you, right?
“Oh, yeah!” he said, and laughed.
Self-constraint markets in everything the culture that is Japan
OKITE is a Japanese alarm clock app. It’s designed to help users wake up, but with a twist: it sends embarrassing messages to the user’s Twitter account every time they hit snooze.
“From today on I’m going to head to work via unicycle.”
“I want to buy a fast red Ferrari and a horse!”
“Just as I thought, I want to become a stewardess.”
Here are further examples, all in Japanese.
For the pointer I thank Jordan, a loyal MR reader.
Guinea pig repo markets in everything the culture that is Swiss
Swiss animal lover Priska Küng runs a kind of matchmaking agency — for lonely guinea pigs that have lost their partners. She lives with around 80 of the furry, squeaky little creatures, in addition to six cats, a number of rabbits, hamsters and mice in the village of Hadlikon, some 30 kilometers from Zürich.
Küng, 41, rents out her guinea pigs, a service that has been in high demand in the Alpine nation ever since animal welfare rules were tightened up a few years ago. Switzerland has forbidden people from keeping lone guinea pigs because the animals are sociable and need each other’s company.
As a result, the sudden death of a guinea pig, shocking enough in itself, can also place the hapless owners outside the law if they only had two of the pets.
Here’s the efficiency point, concerning liquidity premia and carrying costs and inventory cycles:
Without her rent-a-guinea pig service, the owner would have to purchase a new, probably younger guinea pig as a companion to the ageing survivor, whose eventual death would force the purchase of yet another guinea pig, locking the owner into an endless cycle of guinea pig purchases in order to adhere to Swiss law — even though he or she may only ever have wanted one guinea pig in the first place.
As you might expect from the Swiss, it’s done through a repo:
She takes 50 Swiss francs (€41) for a castrated male and 60 francs for a female, “as a deposit,” Küng explains. In effect, she sells the animals but pays back half the purchase price when they are returned
Attention all you hedge fund readers: if these people can arbitrage and convexify their guinea pig market, you’d better not bet against their currency peg.
The full story is here and hat tip goes to the excellent Robert Cottrell.
Markets in everything, old school edition
From 1836 to 1940, the Bellville family of London operated a business of letting people know the time. Ruth Bellville, the most famous member of that family, walked around London with a high grade watch that had been set to within one tenth of a second of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. For a fee, she’d tell you the current time…Belville continued to ply her trade up to the age of 86, including making the twelve-mile journey on foot to Greenwich.
Here is the post and I thank John Thorne and Peter Metrinko for the pointers.
Markets in everything the countercyclical asset the culture that is Japan
…Teramura’s place is neither a love nest nor a pit stop for tired travelers. The white and grey tiled building is a corpse hotel, its 18 deceased guests tucked up in refrigerated coffins…
The daily rate at Lastel, as it is known, is 12,000 yen ($157). For that fee, bereaved families can check in their dead while they wait their turn in the queue for one of the city’s overworked crematoriums.
Death is a rare booming market in stagnant Japan and Teramura’s new venture is just one example of how businessmen are trying to tap it.
Here is more. Unlike with crematoria, in this market entry is not restricted or licensed.
Bond markets in everything
But there is a backdoor onto Centre Court. About 2,500 seats are reserved for investors in the club’s so-called debentures, or bonds.
The club has issued these since the 1920s to finance development. But instead of paying cash coupons, like regular bonds, Wimbledon debentures pay interest in something much more valuable: tickets.
Holders get one ticket for each day of the Wimbledon tournaments during the five-year life of the bond. And here is the kicker: If you don’t feel like going on any given day, you can sell it—legally.
Such mini-bonds are a new trend in the UK, in part because the banking system is skittish about allocating credit to many small firms.
Markets in everything
An unprecedented number of church interiors, liturgical artefacts and period furnishings are for sale in the US while similar material is disappearing in Europe. Many of the objects come from churches that are closing due to declining memberships, an aging population and a shortage of new priests.
Henninger’s, a Cleveland store specialising in religious goods, is currently selling the contents of six early 20th-century churches for Roman Catholic dioceses. Mark Cousineau, the manager of Henninger’s, says these closures are “a sensitive subject”.
“There is an enormous glut of vintage pieces on the market and prices are falling,” said Annie Dixon, owner of the Dixon Studio in Staunton, Virginia, which specialises in liturgical design and restoration.
“In the past eight years, the amount of material we are getting has risen 40% with prices going down,” said Don Riggott of D.C. Riggott Architectural & Liturgical Artifacts in Afton, Minnesota. “Eight years ago, a church wanted 12 Munich stained-glass windows dating from 1860 to 1920 and there was only a set or two around in the country,” said Riggott. They sold for $200,000. “Now there are 20 sets but prices have dropped to $60,000,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Europe, church materials are being repurposed for domestic use. “Clients are turning pulpits into kitchen islands,” said Kate Jerrold, the managing director of Bristol-based Robert Mills Ltd. Pulpits sell for £800 to £4,000. Two years ago, they had double that inventory. “Styles change and the recession has had an impact,” said Paul Nash, the company’s manager.
Here is the link, and hat tip goes to the ever-excellent www.artsjournal.com, one of the most essential sites on the entire internet.
Markets in everything the law of one price?
As an investment, cash is considered a conservative bet. Tonight in Melbourne, a confident buyer took a punt that sometimes, in certain company, cash is worth more as art than money in the bank.
As the opening lot of the Deutscher and Hackett auction, a single wad of $20,000 cash – an artwork called Currency – was sold for $17,500. When the 22 per cent buyer’s premium is added, the total cost comes to $21,350.
The work – by Sydney artist Denis Beaubois, and brought to life with a $20,000 grant from the Australia Council – was divided into two lots of 100 uncirculated $100 banknotes.
Deutscher and Hackett had given it an estimate of $15,000-$25,000, with both extremes sending competing messages about the inflationary value of the work. The notes can still be used as legal tender, according to the artist.
You will note that the winning bidder was not a Swiss bank. Here is more and for the pointer I thank Zac Gross.
China-Icelandic markets in everything
I’ve been waiting for a story like this. If I were a Chinese tycoon, this is exactly what I would buy:
A Chinese tycoon plans to buy a vast tract of Icelandic land for a $100m tourism project which critics fear could give Beijing a strategic foothold in the North Atlantic.
Huang Nubo, a real estate investor and former Chinese government official, has struck a provisional deal to acquire 300 square kilometres of wilderness in north-east Iceland where he plans to build an eco-tourism resort and golf course.
Opponents have questioned why such a large amount of land – equal to about 0.3 per cent of Iceland’s total area – is needed to build a hotel. They warned that the project could provide cover for China’s geopolitical interests in the Atlantic island nation and Nato member.
While home to just 320,000 people, Iceland occupies a strategically important location between Europe and North America and has been touted as a potential hub for Asian cargo should climate change open Arctic waters to shipping.
Mr. Huang is ranked as China’s 161st richest man and he considers himself a poet and an adventurer.