Scott Laronge

@scotttheorange

I expect my followers to increase by 18%, from 6 to 7, based on traffic to this blog alone.

The nearest Ben and Jerry’s is about a 40 minute drive. Given that tomorrow is Earth Day, I don’t think spending 4 gallons of gas for a cone would be a good idea. 

However, I do feel slightly cheated.  Today was the last match of the boy’s golf season.  I only found out today that we get a soda along with the green’s fees we pay over there.  And since the home team always pays for both teams, we could have had a dozen drinks afterward.  Such things you always learn at the last moment possible.  Apparently there is such a thing as a free soda.  D’oh.

I’ve bought a copy for 2 bucks in Mumbai and later donated it to the library at InterAmercano in Brazil.  My copy is sitting on my bookshelf at home.  At 1100 pages or so, I’m still trying to figure out how anyone can photocopy this tome that cheaply.  Even so, in the States I think it’s just $8.99.

But nice to know that folks are still reading it.  I should dust it off the bookshelf, been about 2 years since I’ve gone through the whole thing.

I’m listening to BBC Brasil’s weekly podcast and following along without a problem.  While I’m translating this week’s topics in my head, I’m simultaneously reading about a shelved government plan on alternatives to the federal gas tax.  And I’m comprehending both. 

This is a pretty new revelation to me, mainly because when I listen to an English language podcast and read the news, I generally pay attention to one and miss out on the other.  Either I skim through what I’m reading or I tune out the podcast and forget what they’re talking about.

Kinda cool.

1. I get an email late Friday night asking me to fill out a questionnaire for a position in Sacramento. I send it back this morning. 20 minutes later, I get an email saying they filled the job. That’s like setting a date with a girl for the weekend and find out she eloped on Thursday night.

2. I have a good session with my trainer at 24. Combine that with a stomach-flu of some sort, and we’ve got the next diet craze to sweep the nation.

3. Today was the first day of golf practice. It was 49° with 15-20mph winds.

4. Three kids didn’t come to practice. One apparently quit the team, but came out to play anyway. Four couldn’t find us and  couldn’t think to call us to ask where we were. When I did call, I gently reminded them that technology in all it’s wonderment has provided us with a method of two-way communication no longer called the carrier pigeon.  They asked if they should get a ride back there. I told them to find a donkey and start their journey. All these kids are IB. The team nickname is now A Confederacy of Dunces.

5. I had all you can eat beef ribs for dinner. These were passable. Plus we got a tenant discount because Mom works in the same complex the restaurant is located.

6. On the way home, we were rear-ended. And the guy refused to stop. After following him to his mobile-home park, he refused to identify himself or trade information. After saying “there was no damage” and driving off, I called CHP. They came out, we found the guy (helped I wrote down his info) and ultimately arrested him for hit-and-run plus DUI as his blood alcohol was over .16. Plus he claimed to have no driver’s license or insurance. He was also at least 75.

7. In order to unfuck this day, I have decided to have some chocolate-chip ice cream.

The bar in Curitiba didn’t have the sound loud enough (nor do I think ESPN Brasil carried them) to hear the commercials. BBC Sport showed commercials with cars driving on the left side of the road. And the “legal” sites that carried the commercials did IP checks to make sure I was in the US to view them. So I finally get the whole package. Plus I was smart enough to go to the gym and load up on baby carrots already for the festivities.

See, this is what I love about economic terms. The definition of unemployed to economists means I’m looking for work and not currently employed. People who aren’t looking for work are termed as being out of the labor pool, and people who are looking for work, but may be working part time are considered underemployed. I’m just unemployed, pure and simple. And I don’t just sit around the house all day long, I expend “leisure” time, which I feel is a nice way of putting it.

As part of my day, I generally surf around some of the blogs, and stumbled upon this today. I thought the paper isn’t as nearly exciting as the article makes it sound out to be, but did want to address one point they seem puzzled about. “That where unemployment has been higher for a long time people engage in slightly less household production.” My personal theory is that when people are employed (who we will call Emily), and know they have a limited amount of time in a given day to dedicate to household tasks, will spend a small amount of time per day to maintain the household. However, an unemployed person (who we will call Ulysses) that knows they have no other time demands will allow certain tasks to build up and then will “burst” to finish these tasks. Emily might spend 10 minutes a day to scrub down the kitchen, spending 70 minutes a week in total. Ulysses will spend 30 minutes once a week since he has greater blocks of time available than Emily in his pursuits.

As for Scott, I’ve rediscovered the library and gone through a slough of books. The amazon.com shopping cart is getting decimated through that, and I’ve realized some of the books I read weren’t worth the price I would’ve paid to get them, surprisingly enough, 1776 and The Google Story were among them. The Boy’s Golf Team starts up in a few weeks but we’ve had some conditioning for a few of the kids. Sadly it went from beautiful 68° weather (where I was wearing shorts out to the course) to a few days of much needed rain. Thankfully we’ve got renters in the 2nd house, though we had to “promote” the rent to a level I didn’t really like to. However, given that the rent reduction was equivalent to half a month of rent over the course of a year’s lease, without the prospect of a tenant moving in in those two weeks, it was probably a move for the best.

On the job search…Well, since I have enough time to read studies on how the unemployed spend their leisure time, and comment on it, you should be able to draw your own conclusions.

In business, it is entirely acceptable and almost guaranteed that clients that spend more money are given steeper discounts. During my time at E*Trade, we had multi-tiered pricing for clients depending on how much they traded with us. $19.99 for regulars and $9.99 for the high volume traders, ie The More You Trade, The More You Save! Restaurants give out free desserts to their regular clients, and I’m sure bartenders occasionally give out a round or two to their usual clients, the ones that are known to spend money. In business, you want to take care of your highly-valued clients, the ones that spend the most money at your place. This is usual.

What I don’t understand is why it’s suddenly taboo to think this way for government. An article from The Economist stated that “More than half of all revenues to the general fund come from income taxes, and half of those taxes are paid by just 144,000 wealthy taxpayers.” California has something like 36.5 million residents, so basically 25% of taxes are coming from 0.395% of residents, but yet California’s main response is to increase taxes, usually quoted as a 1% increase on the top 1% of earners. Were this a business, as an executive, I’d be finding ways to make sure these 144,000 clients were kept happy by lowering their prices/taxes and finding alternate revenue streams, but this is not an option for government. After watching President-Elect Obama’s interview on Meet the Press this morning, he indicated that taxes will go down for 95% of taxpayers. I do feel somewhat for the other 5%, but one statistic I would love to see is what the 144,000 equivalency is for the federal government’s receipts, as corporate taxation probably has a much larger impact than just individual returns.

On other taxation news, I found out that the restaurant I play trivia in on Thursdays, the SacBrew has a dual pricing structure for beers. Clients at the bar pay $4.75 flat for a pint of beer, while those served in the restaurant (literally 4 steps away and not a separate area) are charged the same rate, plus sales tax, essentially a 7% difference in the price for a brew. Even my server didn’t notice this discrepency until I asked her about it and her manager had to tell her. My guess is that bartenders didn’t want to have to deal with changing pennies, and could more easily just give back a quarter.

At least now I know about this pricing differential, and it annoyed me to the same extent when I found out my Brazilian supermarket was charging more for sodas that were cold than warm ones on the shelf (at about the same price difference too.) But those saying I’m being too stingy should well remember that one does not become a millionaire by spendingмебели money.

Other than the usual platitudes about Thanksgiving that I’m sure everyone’s already heard from everyone else, I got a nice reminder of it today. Mom told me this was the first Thanksgiving I’ve been home for in the past two years. I had spent it last year in Munich visiting a friend, since a Lufthansa ticket from CLT to MUC was about on par as a ticket from CAE to SMF. The year before, I stayed in SC since I was finishing the first year of the IMBA program.

Last year’s dinner was ribs and nachos at the Munich Hard Rock Cafe, and since their “turkey” dinner looked a little limp, the ribs/nachos combination wasn’t too bad of a choice. This year, we’re doing the usual turkey (though Mom deboned it to make turkey broth, and it looks deflated), cranberry chutney, kimchi, stuffing and cornbead. The chutney turned out well, though I’d suggest more sugar and less ginger. But nothing like kimchi with turkey to remind me of the plight of the pilgrims.

Not for our new President, but the aftermath. With California (plus Oregon and Washington) being Democratic, McCain would need to win three of the four of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and Florida. He got Texas only; once Ohio was in the (D) column, it was over. Here’s the predictions:

Bill Clinton is our new UN Ambassador.
Warren Buffet has a senior economic role, if not SecTreas.
Colin Powell is the new National Security Advisor.
Bill Richardson comes back as SecEnergy.
Ted Stevens is re-elected in Alaska. He then resigns and Sarah Palin names herself the new Senator. In spite, she is placed on the same committees as Al Franken and a new political sit-com is born.

Rudy Guilianni will come back to run in 2012, as will Mitt Romney. This time, they’ll just campaign together and perhaps the (R)s will have a chance.