RWL #301
too busy? probably not
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire!
Life as a professor, episode 637: So there I was. I had just finished teaching my last class for the week and I realized I had not wished my wife a happy birthday before I left the house. This was especially egregious because it was, in fact, her birthday. And one does not fail to wish one’s wife a happy birthday before leaving for a morning of teaching young scholars the ways of finance if one wishes to return to a household of peace and harmony. However, I had failed to do so. So off I scootered (yes, that is my manly 2-wheeled vehicle) to the grocery store and thankfully they had her favorite flowers - tulips. This all looks good for the hero as he checks out and heads back to the parking lot to mount up and return home. Except, where does one put long stemmed tulips when one is riding a scooter? Well, one hangs them from the front and hopes for the best. In case you have never seen a tulip, or noted how delicate their flowers are, let me tell you that having them exposed to 30 mile an hour winds is not the favored way of transporting them, even over short distances. Luckily, effort sometimes counts more than actual outcome, especially in love, so the fact that half of the tulips lost their heads on the way home was acceptable and balance was returned to the Force.
True story.
Along these lines, I have been thinking this week about time management and priorities. I reviewed my students’ resumes this week (the juniors) and some of them have remarkable lists of accomplishments, including extensive community service. I look at their resumes and I think, do you sleep? And then some have worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, full stop. So I harassed them (the latter group) about making time for community service, because in my opinion, observation, and direct (if long ago) experience, the average undergraduate has lots of time they typically fill with frivolity. I told them they should aim to have at least one community service bullet on their resumes because I just don’t buy that they don’t have time. Of course there is the one kid who is paying for her own way through school and skipping meals to make sure she can pay her rent. But that is the bottom 1%. I know this because most of them come in with $5 venti half-caf almond milk macchiatos to my 9:40 finance class. I know I didn’t have money for a $5 cup of coffee - above said wife would have words with me if she found out I was indulging in them more than once a year. But the point is we can usually fit in a little time for things that are actually important. I’ve shared this video clip before of Debbie Millman, but I love how she says, substitute “I’m too busy” with “It’s not a priority”, because if something were really important, you would find the time.
There is a flip side to this argument: you can pile up lots of things that are not important and then not accomplish anything you really care about. I’m finding this semester that i have said yes to too many things and I’m on the opposite side of this argument. I probably need to prune some things I don’t care about and get more focused. For example, I am on five boards right now. That’s probably 2-3 too many. When you, or at least when I, let obligations like this pile up, it is often a symptom of the fact that I don’t want to work on something that is actually important. So in a way, having too many obligations gives me emotional cover from the things I know I should be doing. In the end, it’s just the other side of the same coin of avoidance. I’ll be working to prune that back over the next few months. Teacher, listen to your own advice!
So with that, willing good for all of you, have a great week and I present you with the links!
Read
What: NPR, A woman struggling with early-onset Alzheimer's got a moment of grace while shopping
Why: “In 2018, 51-year-old Joani Arrigoni was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. For Joe Arrigoni, her husband and now full-time caregiver, it has tested the limits of his compassion and understanding.”
This is too short to bother to summarize. Just click. Feel better about the world.
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What: Scott Sumner, California housing prices and homelessness
https://www.econlib.org/california-housing-prices-and-homelessness/
Why: “Thus expensive housing and homelessness are linked, but not because the homeless can’t afford housing. Rather the correlation occurs because the homeless in expensive areas are not in the market for housing. For the homeless, the relative cost of living on the street in Los Angeles (relative to an apartment) is much lower than the relative cost of living on the street in Arkansas. So it would be rational for a homeless person to relocate from Arkansas to LA.” Relative prices is a crucial concept you come to understand in economics.
Let’s say it costs $500/month (in cash or labor) to survive on the street in either AK or CA.
If an apartment in AK costs $1000/month, that is a ratio of 1/2. If the same size and quality apartment in CA costs $5000/month, then the cot of living on the streets is 1/10. In AK, you may as well find a way to afford that slightly more expensive cost of being housed; in CA the cost of being housed is astronomical. Couple with that the fact that CA provides many more supports for unhoused people, and that makes it even less expensive to be unhoused in CA.
I’m not saying it’s the choice I would make - there is a reason I live in NH where the housing prices are a fraction of what they are in CA. The LHH would probably cost $5M in LA (given its size and the amount of land we own), and that would leave me living in the Adventure Van. It’s all relative.
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Watch
What: Paula Pant, The most powerful way to think about money (7 min)
Why: This is a good 7 minute video to motivate you to think about financial independence. Financial independence is possible for most people. It requires cultivating some simple habits. Plant suggests setting a goal of saving 20% of your income, but if you aren’t anywhere close to that, start with just 1% and add on to that each month. I love that advice. It’s very much in line with Tiny Habits that I talked about previously. If you want to build a habit, don’t shoot for the moon. Start with a tiny step, but find a way to make it automatic so you don’t have to exert yourself to do the habit. Saving money is easy. Set up an automatic investment, for example, into your 401K or IRA, but set up the amount so it is a small amount - something you might blow on a dinner out - but have it come out of your bank account automatically. Then make that deposit just a little bigger each month over time. Most investment firms will let you ratchet up your investment. Financial independence is a habit. Many people embrace YOLO too much - you may only live once, but you can’t live like there is no tomorrow.
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Listen
What: GoodFellows, Conversations from the Hoover Institution: “Deep Thoughts”: Tyler Cowen on AI and the Future of Work (62 min)
Why: I think GoodFellows is now my current favorite podcast. “A historian, an economist, and a general walk into a podcast booth…” It’s a bit like the start of some sort of corny joke, but the mix is excellent. Of course they are all classical liberals, like me, so maybe it’s the homophily, but I find almost every episode fascinating and insightful. Add to this mix this week my favorite public intellectual, Tyler Cowen, whom I have shared many times, and you have a bit of a party in your ears (less the Brittany Spears).
I remember when I took industrial organization with Cowen back in 2008, the last class of the semester he didn’t have any material. He just told us to come with a question for him. So for three hours he held forth while we asked him random questions about the recording industry, monetary theory, Chinese food, and anything else we could think of. He’s hands down the most interesting thinker I have ever been exposed to. In this episode the GoodFellows spend time asking him about the future of work as AI becomes mainstream. Cowen never disappoints.
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What: The Dispatch Podcast, The Secret Mass Killer (35 min)
Why: From the description:
On today’s explainer, Declan is joined by RAND Corporation senior researcher David Luckey. A retired Marine Corps officer, David is now devoted to getting congressional attention to the thing that killed tens of thousands of Americans last year: fentanyl. David explains the scope of the overdose epidemic, its force multipliers, and the ways to fight it.
I feel like COVID has allowed us to take our eye off of this incredibly destructive ball that is rolling through our communities across the United States, killing mostly people in their prime. According to the podcast, opioids are the number 1 killer of people aged 18-45. I’m not sure why this isn’t front and center of every newspaper and newscast. The opioid killing people is fentanyl. The shocking fact that they discuss is that just a few grains of fentanyl is enough to kill a person who is not currently addicted, and most people dying from fentanyl overdoses are not people who were seeking out the drug, but people who are buying other street drugs which were laced with fentanyl.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso