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Experience More Experience, Writing

The Blizzard

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The Blizzard

“Bethany! Bethany!” The doctor called down the hall to the nurse.

“Dr. Meechim, yes?”

“Can you page Dr. Schultz and have him look over Ms. Cortez’s file. Her temperature and her chest pains make me think pneumonia.”

“Where are you going Dr. Meechim?”

“Did you hear the weather report? Collins County is going to get four feet of snow tonight.”

“I heard. We all heard.”

“Well, I have got to get home to my family. Please, just give Dr. Schultz the file and have him keep an eye on her. Pneumonia. Tell him I think that she has pneumonia.” Dr. Meechim wasted not one second as he turned to gather his coat and hat.

“I’ll tell Dr. Schultz, but I already know he has a full roster tonight.” Dr. Meechim began to walk down the hall towards the elevator. “He is going to rip me a new one, Dr. Meechim.”

“I’ll make sure that he does no such thing.” Dr. Meechim called back before he entered the elevator.

~

“That was Ashley on the phone,” Dr. Meechim walked back into his kitchen.

“What time is the next available flight?” Cynthia Meechim, the Doctor’s wife asked.

“The storm last night shut everything down. She’ll be stuck in Detroit for at least the next twenty-four hours.”

“Gosh, I hope she stays warm.”

“She’s in an airport, honey. They have a Tim Horton’s and gift shops that sell neck rests at every terminal.”

“I’m just glad you got in when you did. I couldn’t imagine if you were stuck at the hospital for the entire weekend.”

Cynthia cleared the breakfast table just as the Doctor reached for more bacon.

“I could imagine.”

“Where is Ashley?” Walking into the kitchen with his hockey skates over his shoulder and stick at waist level was Connor. He is the Doctor and Cynthia’s youngest child.

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Melt, Writing

Do You Even Act Rationally Bro?

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Do You Even Act Rationally Bro?

If you have taken an introductory economics class, you learn that the world is made up of rational human beings trying to allocate scarce resources. In essence, people demand goods that have a limited supply. Where demand meets price is where we get the equilibrium quantity and price. What this classic model fails to notice is that people are fucked. It also fails to recognize that people are sometimes irrationally good. In the three sections of this article, I will discuss the areas where the classic view of economics is not sufficient. In essence, this article is a quick overview of some basic concepts in behavioral economics.

That’s Not Ethical, Man

If you solely accept the simple principle of supply and demand as your over-arching market compass, you may be a giant dick. Under this view, you would be okay with a hardware store increasing the price of snow shovels the morning after a large snowstorm. In that, the snowstorm increased demand and due to that increase, price should shift upward. Behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetch, and Richard Thaler proposed this scenario in a survey to individuals asking if it was fair. 82% of respondents answered that the price hike was unfair. So although theoretically the storm increased demand for snow it did not increase peoples willingness to pay because they see the price increase as unjustified and therefore unfair.

So, if it isn’t just simple supply and demand that dictates price and profit, then what does? The answer involves a little sociology my friends, in that social norms dictate community standards of fairness. Ernst Fehr believes a social norm has three parts:

  • It is a behavioral regularity; that is
  • Based on a socially shared belief of how one ought to behave; which triggers
  • The enforcement of the prescribed behavior by informal social sanctions.

So what have us wealth thirsty capitalists defined as fairness in the application to price, rent and wage setting? “A relevant precedent that is characterized by reference price or wage.” Da Fuq?!?!? No, it really is quite simple and is known as the principle of dual entitlement. The basic idea is that, transactors have an entitlement to the terms of the reference transaction and firms are entitled to their reference profit. This means a firm is not allowed to increase its profits by arbitrarily violating the entitlement of its transactors to the reference price, rent, or wage. So raising the price of snow shovels after a storm is arbitrary, but raising the price of snow shovels because of an increase in cost for the firm would be fair. What are the possible sources of reference transactions? Price, posted price, and previous transactions between a firm and a transactor.

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Slack, Writing

With The Dust Settled, American Sniper Finds Itself In No Man’s Land

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Sniper leaves a parable of reactionism in its wake

For the past few weeks, no matter what part of the country you’re from, America has been under attack. We’ve endured a blitzkrieg of mortar-launched articles, think-pieces, tweets, op-eds, Facebook posts, TV rants, reactions, and even challenges, leaving a hazy fog of opinions to settle on the nation. On one side we have the ever-present “war is some badass shit” party. Opposite them resides the up-and-coming “war is like, not chill” party. For every bold countryman who took a shot at American Sniper and its drawling hero, an equally courageous samaritan recoiled and fired back in the reactionary way that one does when a stranger says something about your mother. It was clear there was no common ground to be seen, well, except for the film itself. Have you guys seen the film?

[Gasping for air as I snap out of pun-induced blackout] Ok. Give Clint Eastwood credit for creating a patriotic Iraq War movie that isn’t necessarily pro-war, but not too much credit. Eastwood shies away from making it a wholly anti-war film, and what could have been a damning portrayal of post-9/11 American foreign policy. Instead he articulates Chris Kyle’s red, white, and blue ‘true’ story in shades of grey.

First of all, taking political statements from troops should never be your first choice. I understand there’s a utility to having a first-hand account, but their heads are largely slathered with propaganda. They also are taught a strict adherence to whatever an unseen disciplinary chain of command tells them. These men are not geopolitical analysts; they are soldiers. But that’s neither here nor there; because forming political opinions based on this film is very odd anyway considering it seems deliberately apolitical. There isn’t one mention of the phrase ‘Iraq war’, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, or ‘Saddam Hussein’ and I believe I only heard ‘terrorist’ once. There isn’t a shot of a TV with pundits debating the legitimacy of said war either. Yet, we do see Kyle watching the news as it reports of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in eastern Africa. After seeing this, Kyle enlists in the U.S. Navy looking to “be of service.” The next time we see a TV it’s September 11th, and Kyle and his newly married wife are visibly distraught. Kyle is sent to Iraq immediately after. That’s where it gets tricky.

It’s easy to say that Eastwood is being irresponsible by implying that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. But the truth of the matter is that, for better or worse, this tale is 100% from Chris Kyle’s perspective. Kyle enlisted without an attack on American soil even occurring, so it’s easy to assume he couldn’t have cared less if Saddam Hussein was hiding WMD’s under his totalitarian ‘stache. It was America time. War o’clock. Gun hour? Whatever. It’s a film adaptation of an autobiography, and Eastwood takes that very literally. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’, Clint says (for the first time in his life). All complaints regarding humanitarian faux pas are to be forwarded to the residence of Mr. Christopher Kyle, punk.

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Optimisal, Writing

In Defense of Billy Eichner

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I had a conversation with a friend of a friend recently who was not from around here. That is to say, she wasn’t from America at all. She grew up in South England and this was her first trip to New York. She informed that while she grew up on a steady diet of American pop culture, she was no expert on the subject and felt very lost in New York City (“It’s nothing like Sex in the City,” she informed me.) She was telling me about how she couldn’t quite describe Manhattan in relation to other cities she had visited, how Manhattan felt like so many places at once, a complicated puzzle nobody could solve, and I informed her that trying to summarize New York City is a fool’s errand. She then asked me what movies or TV shows felt best captured the essence of New York City, and it sent my brain into a tailspin. A lot of things popped up at once. Some were obvious answers. Most Woody Allen films, for starters. Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection. Then you got your TV shows, all of whom do the city justice. Seinfeld, of course. 30 Rock is a staple. Broad City is brilliant and captures the essence of being young, lost and stoned in New York City (unlike it’s melodramatic cousin Girls.) It seemed like a great recommendation, until I remembered Billy on the Street. At first, it seemed like a game show with such games as “Rapper or Nic Cage character?” doesn’t quite fit the profile, but Billy Eichner sure as hell does.

Billy Eichner yells. He yells a lot. It’s his thing. His shtick, as far as most people are concerned (“The best part of that is when you scream at me,” declared David Letterman with zero irony after playing a game with him entitled “Celebrity Child or Kentucky Derby Winner.”) In his game show and most of his media appearances, he asks trivia questions related to pop culture. Though it starts with a calm explanation, it frequently escalates into comedic explosion as Billy grows frustrated with the participants lack of knowledge. He has other moves in his comedy toolkit yet people seem to focus only on the fact that, yes, Billy Eichner yells a lot, and your amusement of this may vary.

His profile has increased dramatically in the past year. The third season of Billy on the Street aired and featured a murderer’s row of special guests (Olivia Wilde, Neil Patrick Harris, Paul Rudd, to name a few.) He’s done rounds on pretty much every major talk show in America. He has a recurring role on Parks and Recreation. His new show, Difficult People, an Amy Poehler-produced comedy starring him and Julie Klausner, was picked up for a full season on Hulu and will debut next year. He had a featured bit at the Emmys that killed and was perhaps the only saving grace in an otherwise bland evening of typical award show charades.

Despite this, Billy has caught a lot of unnecessary flack. There are people who call out his shtick, persona, whatever you want to call it. It’s grating. It’s annoying. It gets old fast. Not that we should ever live our lives by YouTube comments (or even look at them to begin with), but for every ten comments that are positive, there’s at least one negative person typing “this faggot isn’t funny.” I really don’t think Billy Eichner is disliked because he’s gay, though there are certainly some homophobic ass holes out there who beg to differ. I don’t see straight people, specifically males, watching Billy Eichner and thinking “Well, he’s gay, and I’m straight, so I can’t actively watch this guy.” I’m pretty sure we’re getting better on that front. Most Americans aren’t looking at it through that viewpoint.

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