Professor Timmy's Rants and Raves

My wife doesn't understand why I am such a die hard Chiefs fan.  I'm a life long Kansas Citian and became a Cheifs fan back in 1969 when Hank Stram was our coach, Len Dawson was our Quarterbck and we went to the Super Bowl and won.   I've been hooked ever since.  I love the game of football and my wife is convinced I need therapy to get over this and maybe she's right. At the time of this posting my favorite football team has a record of 3 wins and 11 losses following last year's dismal season which was an all time low. By contrast the New England Patriots, who are led by a Master’s level Economist named Bill Belichek, has his team poised for their 7th playoff appearance after 3 World Championships and 4 Super bowl appearances in the last 9 years. It is my contention that two fundamental rules of micro-economics are ignored by the Chiefs and employed by the Patriots. The irony for us die hard Chiefs fans is that our current General Manager was supposedly school

Whenever our class discussions turn to world politics, we get some lively debates. Afghanistan is one of those. While political assessments look at voter turnout or election results and military assessments look at strategy, casualties or the number of troops, I always ask, “what variables do you think we should look at as disciples of economics?” The answers vary depending on priorities, but the main variables are unemployment, the labor force participation rate, the level of investment and of course the GDP per person. Obviously in those places where there are few employment alternatives for the labor force and the population is hungry, the job of bomb making or IUD construction are rational employment alternatives. The lack of investment comes from few opportunities for new business and/or a high price for credit (even though charging interest is against the Koran) that naturally results from an area without security. The low GDP per person tells us that there is not much economic

When I was an undergraduate Philosophy major at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, I became very enamoured with Economics. At that time the professors were very conservative and they tended to lecture exclusively free market principals. For some reason, perhaps it was my rebellious nature, I really like to listen to the words of Senator Edward Kennedy. He made sense to me and that created a world of paradoxical thought. I had lectures and textbooks that explained the functional problems of the minimum wage, all of which are true. But Senator Kennedy made the point that if you work 52 weeks a year in the United States, you shouldn't live in poverty. Maybe it was my blue collar background, but that simple statement summed up how I felt. He inspired me and in order to read what he was saying in politics (and usually on the Senate floor) was not easy task. Back in 1984 we didn't have the Internet. So I had to scurry to the newspaper section of the Maybe Library and hunt down t

Okay after seeing some dear in the headlights looks from last night, I am posting my tips for how to draw indifference curves and solve problems that seem to be real buggars (yeah, that's a technical term.) Some students have trouble getting their minds around the concepts of indifference curves. Because these concepts are abstract, this makes solving word problems a bit taxing. No problem, help is on the way. The SET-UP. Setting up the problem is 90% of the solution. Here are a few tips to Set Up correctly. 1. Draw and label the axis first. 2. Draw the first budget constraint line. 3. Stop. Get a cup of coffee or tea and ponder what you just drew. 4. Read the problem again. NOTICE YOU HAVE YET TO DRAW A CURVE! AHA, THAT IS THE TRICK. 5. Consider if you can draw another budget constraint line next or if you need to draw your first Indifference curve. Save the Indifference curves for last if possible. 6. Slowly (and in pencil lightly) draw your first indifference curve mirroring the

The free market is a great engine and occassionally some students think that's not such a great thing. They point out some of the negatives of the free market such as pollution, unemployment, exploited child labor in less developed countries or the more recent mortgage meltdown. When I hear these stories, I tell them of the lawnmower analogy. So here that is. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Lawnmower Analogy Let's say that we invent the most kick ass small engine ever. It's so efficient and powerful that it can run and run on very little fuel and has tons of horsepower. We decide toput this engine on our self propelled lawnmower and after turning a few bolts it works great. So Bing badda boom, we mow the front lawn in 5 minutes rather than the typical hour it usually takes. We decide to go inside adn get a glass of iced tea but for get that the mower is still running. When we were not watching it, the mower r