Monday, March 28, 2011

Back In Spokane

After spending a few days in Iowa with my parents, I took the bus across to Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake, I stayed at my brother's new apartment, and helped his family move. Then on Saturday night was the third annual cheese party, which was a great success, with lots of delicious cheeses to try.
Then on Sunday I took to the road again, this time in my car, which has been sitting these last couple months at my brother's. I took it to the shop on Friday to get the suspension worked on, but the struts need completely replaced, and would have taken more time than I had available. So I made the drive without, which results in sore-butt syndrome.
The drive was uneventful, and I arrived safely in Spokane on Sunday evening. Unpacking will take a little longer, but I have a little space of my own again, and started classes today. I am ready and excited to be in school again.

5 comments:

  1. Good for you! Too bad about your struts, but it beats a covered wagon, right? Perspective! I'm glad you had a safe drive. Enjoy school!
    I'm "taking" economics this quarter. Hurray! I'll try not to correct the teacher too much or make too many comments. He says I add "color" to the class. Whatever that means. Um...may be because I told the students they all need to have at least six kids to bolster up the work force for Social Security. haha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, if all your students have six kids and they get enough higher education to be helpful, that will bolster the workforce in . . . 2030? 2035? Right after social security is completely bankrupt and disassembled? Awesome!

    Enjoy economics, though. It can be fun stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Most of our students are older and already have a head start.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The demographic situation is more complicated than it appears. If you just look at birthrates, the replacement rate is too low, and Social Security is doomed to failure. Okay, that's a given. All pyramid schemes fail... eventually.
    However. . . if you dig into the demographics, a whole new pattern emerges. Birthrates vary by education level, (especially the education level of the mother), and incomes are strongly correlated to education level. Movement across class boundaries in the United States is the lowest it has ever been. Put the three together, and it begins to look interesting. Where birthrates are the lowest, income levels are the highest, and vice versa. So you have fewer children making more money, and thereby contributing more to social security, or you have more children making less money, and thereby contributing less.
    You'd have to really dig into the demographics, quantify the correlations, and compute a whole model to see the impact that shifting demographics really have on social security.
    Sure, it looks bad, but for all we know, that's due to the inherent instability of pyramid scheme based pensions, and the shifting demographics are actually postponing rather than hastening the inevitable collapse.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And that comment could totally be a post all on its own, but I would want to rewrite, clarify, and cite studies to do that, and that's all too much work for something unpaid and ungraded.

    ReplyDelete

 

blogger templates | Make Money Online