Isn't it ironic?

Yesterday revealed why I generally argue against government regulation in our economy. They screw everything up and vote based on what will get them re-elected rather than what is right for the economy. It's ironic that the one time I argued for government intervention ends up illustrating why they shouldn't be involved normally.

The latest viewing and media trends

Interested in the latest viewing and media trends? You can check some out here.

They are from US data...which explains why I don't recognize half of the movies. It's also great to see that Barbie and the Diamond Castle is the third most popular DVD and that The Office Season 4 came in seventh. Something is wrong with that. I'm sure that The Office will pick up in the viewing trends now that it's back on air.

on a lighter note

I'm coming home in 2 days! I'm looking forward to using my parents DVR to watch the new episodes of Dancing with the Stars and The Office....Oh, and I'm also looking forward to seeing my family and friends ;-)

The bailout

Okay, now that I've started commenting on economics I can't stop. The news yesterday was that the bailout is turning out to be a hard sell in Congress. Again today, Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Fed) is testifying that action needs to be taken quickly.

I understand it is important to do the due diligence when passing a plan which involves $700 billion of tax payers money. It seems the hold up is that representatives think the plan is too sweeping and needs more safeguards. Their constituents don't want their tax money going to rescue the Wall Street high rollers. [As I mentioned previously, that's not what this plan will do.] They want to tack on additional regulations such as a salary cap for executives. Last time I checked the salary of executives is not what caused the problem. If they start passing regulations like that they will be taking away the incentives which make our free market work.

Who do I want setting economic policy? Representatives in Congress who, based on their comments in the press, don't appear to not have vast economic understanding. Or Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who has no special interests in Wall street and who is an expert in macroeconomic policy. No one is perfect and probably no policy is perfect but my vote is with Bernanke.

My book wish list

My recent reading and research has produced quite a list of additional books I'd like to read. The list keeps growing and I can't seem to make enough time to read the books I already have. I thought I'd blog about them for interest's sake. Plus, maybe it can be the start of my Christmas list! [Attention: MOM]

From my research into human trafficking:

"Just Courage" - Gary Haugen. IJM President Gary Haugen describes a journey to freedom from the triviality and fear that can stifle our lives.

"Good News about Injustice" - Gary Haugen. Interspersed with individual stories of specific abuse, this book chronicles the vision behind IJM's work and seeks to tackle tragic injustices with practical insight, answering tough questions regarding the nature of injustice and the Biblical mandate for Christians to confront it.

From my reading of "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller (but also tied to interest in human trafficking):

"The Nature of True Virtue" - Jonathan Edwards. [Printed in Paul Ramsay, "The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Ethical Writings."] Edwards concludes that only if God is our ultimate good and life center, will we find our heart drawn out not only to people of all families, races, and classes, but to the whole world in general. (From "The Reason for God.")

"For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the end of Slavery." - Rodney Stark.

"A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow" - David L. Chappell

From reading, "The Roots of Endurance" by John Piper:

"A Practical View of Christianity" - William Wilberforce. The fatal habit of considering Christian morals as distinct from Christian doctrines insensibly gained strength. Thus the peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of sight, and as might naturally have been expected, the moral system itself also began to whither and decay, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with life and nutriment.

*Forgive me if I don't get all the quotes, italics and underlining correct. I can't figure out how to underline on the blogger formatting...I'm sure you get the idea.

Economics lesson

To say something drastic is going on in the economy is an understatement. I don't have much time to follow the news on this as closely as I'd like and my lack of educated posts here probably makes that obvious. I've had a few people ask me for my explanation of what's going on and my opinion as an "economist." (I put that in quotes because my current job has taken me away from pure economics- another reason it is harder for me to follow what is going on).

Thanks to a blog post by SWIND, I don't have to take the time to create my own analysis! I will re-iterate a few of his points here:

- The President does not have as much control over the economy as they claim to, or as people believe they do. Their policies do matter but they can't control the inevitable swings in the economy.

- Tax cuts and the bailouts will not just help the "fat cats" - the bailout is critical to keep the economy going regularly. The companies aren't being saved to go on as usual. If the the bailouts don't happen everyone will be worse off.

- Regulation is probably needed but it depends what the regulation is. Usually in times of financial crisis, ie. The Great Depression, the government responds hastily with regulation and programs to solve that particular problem, ie. The New Deal, but that ends up creating problems in the future that could have been avoided. They need to take a more holistic approach. From a pure economic theory basis, I am opposed to regulation since free markets should regulate themselves. However, that is in the case of assumed"perfect markets" which is only a theoretical idea. (Our catch phrase in grad school was "Just assume it!") The global economy is not perfect so the theoretical idea that markets can regulate themselves perfectly won't hold up either. So, some government regulation is inevitable but needs to be as minimal as possible, very well thought out and analyzed.

There. Now I can go back to commenting about more trivial matters like music, movies, football, and my trip to the Grand Canyon.

A sunny day in London (?)

You just can't predict the weather in London. It's why people are always talking about it.

We've had sunny blue skies for the last 3 days and it's been great! Today I went for a walk with my friend Ruth in Hampstead Heath. One of the best things about London is all the parks. It was a lovely day for my last real training before the Grand Canyon. Plus, now I've been to most of the locations in the film Notting Hill.Rice...it's heavier than it looks!

ps.

I'm wondering why I signed up to go on a trip with a company called "Just Roughin' It." I'm not much of a "roughin' it" kind of girl but I think I'm up for it. Carpe Diem.

That's a lot of rice...

My training is almost over. In 15 days I'll be on my hike in the Grand Canyon. I'm not too worried about the distance given that it's 24 miles in 4 days and I've already hiked 60 miles in less than 24 hours. But, I am worried about having to carry a heavy backpack. One of the ways they suggested to train was to fill a backpack with rice and practice carrying it.

So, I have 8 kilograms of rice in a backpack. That's a lot of rice. When I first put it on I thought to myself, "This is a piece of cake...it doesn't even feel that heavy." About 10 minutes in I began to think, "Ohhh, this is heavy." I probably should have started earlier with the backpack but, oh well.

I was checking out the website for the tour company (Just Roughin' It) again the other day and looked particularly at the difficulty ranking of our trip. It's ranked "moderate" which seems okay until it says "For experienced hikers in excellent physical condition." Hmmm. What exactly is the definition of "excellent physical condition?" How much more in shape can I be in 15 days? I am about to find out.

too similar

You may remember I picked Tottenham Hotspurs as my football team. I picked it for several reasons, one of which was the similarities with the Bengals. They have some really great players and great potential but never quite pull it together...Unfortunately the similarities only get stronger. They lost their first match and are at the bottom of the Premiership.

Maybe I should pick a soccer team who is good. That could solve all our problems. My friend reminded me today that we are only one game behind the Colts. If only it were so simple.

Lost in Austen

I know I've got at least 3 readers who are Jane Austen fans so at least 3 people will find this post interesting.

A network in the UK has a new TV series called Lost in Austen. It's about a modern day girl who walks through her bathroom door and gets stuck in the world of Pride and Prejudice. It's sort of like walking through the wardrobe and also like any time traveling story in seeing how her presence affects the story.

You can see some clips on the website and if you search on You Tube you can see some of the episodes. I watched an episode last night and it was pretty interesting and funny. I found it a little frustrating but still good. It's also hard because I've seen at least three sets of actors acting out the same story so I started to compare them all.

But regardless, for those Jane Austen fans out there it's worth checking out!

T5

I haven't been to an airport in over 2 months! Let me tell you, I didn't miss it.

Today I flew to Newcastle and back for an all day meeting. It was my first experience flying out of the new Terminal 5 in Heathrow. Now that all of the problems are fixed it really is an amazing terminal. It is very big, open, clean and modern. There are the typical [I can't afford to shop in on a regular basis] shops but maybe a few new ones as well. As much as I get tired of walking around airport shops, I still can't resist all the handbags and smelling the perfume.

Maybe if you come to visit me you'll get to experience the new terminal! (hint hint)

US Open

Props to the Brit, Andy Murray, for beating Rafael Nadal and making it to the finals of the US Open! I usually root for Federer but in this case I think I'll be pulling for Murray.

Anticipation

The weather here has been pretty depressing so I was excited for football season to start. Since I moved I haven't had DVR but they are coming to install it tomorrow so I can record what games are available on Sky Sports. I can also record NFL Total Access which is really my only source of football news.

Based on yesterday's game I doubt they are going to be mentioning the Bengals on Total Access, except to mention the Ocho Cinco story again. I didn't see the game but from what I hear it wasn't good. The ESPN week 1 recap said "The Bengals and Lions have the looks of two really bad teams." Plus I suppose Tom Brady's injury steals the show regardless.

Maybe I should use my Sky Sports to watch more soccer/football.

Oh well. I'm still excited to go to the Bengals vs. Browns game when I am home in Cincinnati. I also have tickets to the NFL game at Wembley Stadium in London to see the Saints vs. Chargers.

updated photos

I've updated my Trailwalker photos here. It's been awhile since the event but I was trying to wait for some pictures from my teammates. I never got them so I'll just post mine instead.

2 things

There are two things I've been thinking about but am not sure how to comment on. Their levels of importance are substantially unequal but I'll include them together anyway. I'll start with the most important one*.

One: Chad Johnson changed his name to Ocho Cinco. Awesome. What does that mean for the Bengal's season? Let's just hope they can pull it together!

Two: The choice of Sarah Palin for the Republican VP. Since it's pretty much impossible to get unbiased reporting in the media and since I'm otherwise somewhat uninformed (apathetic) about politics I'm not sure what I think about the choice. I'm interested in any educated opinions of my readers. I'll refrain from further comment for now.

*I hope you pick up on the sarcasm...But just in case you can't I thought I would point it out for you.

A British beach holiday??

This weekend I took a few days off and went to the Isle of Wight.  Since I still have no passport I can't travel but have been needing to get away.  The Isle of Wight is part of the UK so no passport was needed!  The island was pretty and it was relaxing to lay on the beach if only for one day.   The house we stayed in was on a cliff overlooking the sea which was also very nice.  It's good to get out of London but it also makes it really obvious that not everywhere in England is like London.  The surroundings, culture and people are very different outside of the city.

The downfall of any beach vacation in the UK is, of course, the weather.  We had one day of sun so we took full advantage.  The other days we were there it was the usual clouds and rain.  I can assure you, everything you've heard about British weather is true.  I'm not sure if I can bear another fall and winter of gloom.  It's definitely taught me to enjoy the sunny days!