About Soulmates and Jobs

Searching for a soulmate is like searching for a job. Just as when you look for a job, you weigh the good and bad things about it and settle for a middle ground, same is true when you are looking for a soulmate. Atleast that's what Betsey Stevenson believes. In a commentary for Marketplace she writes:

Economists simply can't believe in one soulmate. There are too many people in the world and the odds of finding that one person in five billion are, well, you can do the math.

So if economists don't believe in soulmates, why do we think people get married?

Searching for a spouse is very similar to searching for a job. There is not one perfect job for each of us, but there are clearly better and worse jobs. So we hunt, for a spouse and a job. When do we stop? When the offer in the hand is better than the likely offer in the bush.

The Meaning of Freedom

Below is a audio clip of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College.

Meaning of Freedom


The entire speech This is Water is published as a book.

There is Nothing Ex About the "Ex-Wife"

As Jim Samuels said, "A wife lasts only for the length of the marriage, but an ex-wife is there for the rest of your life".

Turns out, its not just the government that is interested in the tax evading multi millionaires . The UBS tax cheater's list is rekindling interest of many ex-wives in their ex-husbands. I presume it is love of a different kind now.

Questions for the BJP

With the expulsion of Jaswant Singh from the BJP, Churumuri had a post with the list of questions for the BJP

Of all the questions this one seemed to stand out:

Since “inner-party democracy” in the Congress often evokes sniggers among BJP folk, are we to conclude that such a concept doesn’t exist in God’s Own Party? That its members aren’t expected to think on their own? That all its members expected to hold only one view which the RSS sends from Nagpur using sparrows?

Now a question of my own.

The True Cost of Healthcare

All over the country, it seems that the one topic on everybody's mind is healthcare. Be it the various town hall meetings from Altantic to the Pacific, or the irrefutable center of the health care debate, Washington DC, everybody seems to be talking about health care and ways to reform it. Few of the ideas for reform being thrown out include providing coverage for every individual in the country, promoting electronic medical records, reducing costs by providing the right incentives for physicians and other providers etc. But nobody seems to be talking about the cost of the current system and the toll that it is having on the economy as a whole.

In a recent article How Healthcare Killed by Father, David Goodhill discusses the true cost of the healthcare hidden or otherwise and the return on investment that we are getting by paying into a system that is broken. The paragraph below highlights, how much we are losing in terms of other growth opportunities by not reforming a bad and broken system:

Yet spending on health care, by families and by the government, is crowding out spending on almost everything else. As a nation, we now spend almost 18 percent of our GDP on health care. In 1966, Medicare and Medicaid made up 1 percent of total government spending; now that figure is 20 percent, and quickly rising. Already, the federal government spends eight times as much on health care as it does on education, 12 times what it spends on food aid to children and families, 30 times what it spends on law enforcement, 78 times what it spends on land management and conservation, 87 times the spending on water supply, and 830 times the spending on energy conservation. Education, public safety, environment, infrastructure—all other public priorities are being slowly devoured by the health-care beast.

What is a Baby Thinking?

As a parent of a one year old, I can relate to this question in more ways then one. A toddler who can hardly keep his attention on one thing for more then a few seconds. One moment he is craving for the new toy in the store, like his life depended on it, and the moment you purchase it, the wrapping of the toy is his new best buddy; the toy just an after-thought. Examples like these abound where baby's are running around from one thing to the next in a matter of minutes. All of this brings us back to the one question: "What is the Baby Thinking?"

In writing a review for Alison Gopnik's new book, The Philosophical Baby, Paul Bloom writes:

Simple experiments demonstrate that babies are, for the most part, trapped in the here and now, a conclusion supported by the finding that the part of the brain responsible for inhibition and control, the prefrontal cortex, is among the last to develop. Gopnik uses the example of an adult being dumped into the middle of a foreign city, knowing nothing about what's going on, with no goals and plans, constantly turning to see new things, and struggling to make sense of it all. This is what it's like to be a baby—only more so, since even the most stressed adult has countless ways of controlling attention: We can look forward to lunch, imagine how we would describe this trip to friends, and so on. The baby just is.

Money as an Painkiller

Counting money can make one feel less pain. This according to a research paper titled Symbolic Power of Money.

This probably explains why all the Wall street bankers fell no pain about us ordinary people. How would they, when they have million dollar bonuses that need counting.

Read the complete story at Money as a Painkiller

Is There a Debate on Health Care Reform Anymore?

Recent reports of town hall meetings organized by US Congressman and Senators have witnessed unruly crowds shouting against the reform bill that is being discussed in the US Congress. The crowds have been so boisterous and unruly that the room for debate has been pretty much shut out.

Well some people may have legitimate concerns about the health care bill, a lot of people are just showing up with misinformation or no information at all that can add value to the debate at hand. The best example of the misinformation or no information out there was a man who recently showed up at Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) town hall meeting and told him:

“keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

Charles Blow in his most recent column for the NY Times puts it best:"Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt."

So is there some sort of debate left in the health care reform anymore, or has it been hijacked by fear mongers, the misinformed, and the ideologues?

Go green — go in the shower

This reminded me of the Seinfeld episode, The Wife.

More Seinfeld - Season 5 News & Previews

George's explanation for going in the shower, "I was there! I saw a drain!. IT'S ALL PIPES! What's the difference?"
Well now George can also add that he was being environmentally friendly by going in the shower.
Video promoting Going in the Shower

Helpful Travel Tips

Before travelling to any country, it is better to learn about the rules and regulations in place. Below are some helpful tips:
1. In Milan it is a legal requirement to smile at all times, except during funerals or hospital visits.
2. In Massachusetts, taxi drivers are prohibited from making love in the front seat of the car during their shifts.
3. In Denmark, people are legally obliged to honk the horn and check for small children underneath the car.
4. In Thailand, it is illegal for anyone to leave a building without wearing their pants.
5. In Michigan, anyone planning on bathing in public must have their swim suit inspected by a police officer.
6. In Florida, any unmarried woman who parachutes on a Sunday could be jailed. Singing while wearing a swimming costume is also prohibited.
7. In Portugal it is unlawful to urinate in the sea.
8. In Hong Kong the wife of a husband who commits adultery is legally entitled to kill the mistress in any manner desired, and the husband with just her bare hands.
9. In Switzerland flushing the lavatory after 10pm is illegal.
10. In Canada if you are arrested and then released from prison, it is a legal requirement that the felon is given a handgun with bullets and a horse, so they can ride safely out of the town.

I wonder how some of these laws are enforced. I can only imagine the conversation between the defendant charged with urinating in the sea or caught flushing his toilet after 10pm and the judge/prosecutor.

Read more travel tips Guide to Holiday

Link obtained from Smoke Signals

Should the Indian Government Bail Out Private Airlines?

This week, six of the seven private airline in India have called for a one day no fly day on August 18th 2009. The reason: to protest against the high cost of aviation fuel and high airport tax, which they sight as the main reasons why they lost about Rs 10000 crores ($2 billion) last year. They want the government to bail them out.

1. Granted that the government of India is spending Rs 15000 crore ($3 billion) to bailout the government run Air India and Indian Airlines (Which I see as throwing good money after the bad), but should this bailout package be extended to the entire aviation industry?
2. Have the airlines which saw double digit growth in passenger volumes expanded way beyond their means to sustain themselves in this recessionary environment? Can the airlines survive by increasing their prices or by cutting their fleet strength?
3. What about the infrastructure like airports? Have they kept pace with the growth of the industry? If not should the government also share the blame for the current crisis?
4. Should the government spend money on bailing out the airlines and risk not having enough money to build the necessary infrastructure; or should the government spend money on modernizing the infrastructre and let the markets take care of the airlines and risk loosing lot of airline traffic due to closure and consolidation of the various airlines?