As you may know, Callie–my family’s beloved pomeranian dog-girl–died almost a year ago. March 13th will mark an entire 12 months without her physical presence…I still feel her with me, each and every day. She will never be left behind…or forgotten.
This week I adopted a kitten, Callie’s niece, my baby. I brought her home yesterday. Meet Lily Sue:
Tomorrow Today (Saturday), Lily and I are hoping to adopt and bring home Rue (hopefully Lily’s sister, and my younger baby by about 4 months…) Both Lily and Rue are rescue kittens, and while I got nothing but green lights when it came to adopting Lily, I’ve known Rue a few weeks longer… and there have been some roadblocks along the way. The funny part is…I might not have found Lily had Rue not been adopted before I could adopt her first. I was so upset that night I went scouring the internet for a kitty similar to her…which is how I stumbled upon Lily’s listing on petfinder.com…then never let my eyes off her. She’s sleeping in my arms right now as I type this, and I am on Cloud Nine. Funny how things work…
Funnier still is this: The day I started the adoption process for Lily–I got a call from Rue’s rescue organization saying that the family was having second thoughts and that I might be able to adopt her after all.
If Rue is meant to join us, she will. And, if not, we will always love her dearly and keep her in our thoughts and hearts, wishing her the loving, caring home she so richly deserves.
No one left behind or forgotten–simply more loved ones to not leave behind or forget.
And, with that Sky Dancers–here are a few Saturday reads for you, link-dump style…
Fiscal Times: Hillary Clinton is Now Secretary of Job Creation…
The State Department may become the nation’s human resources department by adding job creation to its already bulging portfolio.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited U.S. companies to call on Foggy Bottom experts for guidance on increasing their exports, safeguarding intellectual property abroad, and increasing foreign direct investment in the U.S. as part of a new administration effort to promote domestic jobs.
Those fetus fetishists are willing to let all their incubators die off of preventable and/or treatable disease, quelle surprise. Via Texas Democrats, Feb. 23rd (Thursday):
Today at the direction of Republican lawmakers and Attorney General Abbott, Health and Human Services commissioner Tom Suehs signed a rule that would essentially end the Women’s Health Program in Texas. This essential program, which is funded largely by the federal government, allows low-income women in Texas to access health screening for things such as breast and cervical cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Alright, well that’s it for me. I’ve got a Lily to attend to 😉 What’s on your read-and-rant list this weekend? Let us know in the comments and hope you have a weekend full of R&R if you can!
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
There’s a short summation of some of the most relevant economic literature on Gender Differences at VOXEU. Strict micro theory labor models have a difficult time dealing with any form of discrimination because they are based on labor getting paid on its marginal productivity. Any feature that doesn’t influence production doesn’t really factor neatly in to this particular view of the labor market. This area has been more ripe for study because behavioral economics is now taking into account things beyond the idea that all economic units are rational players. Theories of rational markets and rational agents do a really bad job of explaining a lot of things including bubbles and busts. Just like many gender-based disciplines and their studies, the focus usually is on gender specific traits and social learning. The most germane traits to economic behavior tend to be risk aversion and attitudes towards competition. Preferences can be modeled through functions and their shape can provide outcomes that vary from the labor market curves of yore. Many authors find that you have to model female preferences different from male and this contributes to many aspects of what we would call success in business.
Risk taking is generally seen as important to entrepreneurship, investment, and many business undertakings. It is the focus of a lot of behavior research, some of which can be found in magazines like the Atlanta Parent.
Only recently have economists begun to explore why women and men might have different risk preferences. Broadly speaking, those differences may be due to either nurture, nature, or some combination of the two. For instance, boys are pushed to take risks when participating in risky or competitive sports while girls are often encouraged to remain cautious. Thus, the riskier choices made by males could be due to the nurturing received from parents or peers. Likewise, the disinclination of women to take risks could be the result of parental or peer pressure not to do so.
In recent research (Booth and Nolen 2012), we present a recent experimental study exploring why girls and boys might have different risk preferences. Using adolescent subjects from two distinct environments or ‘cultures’, we examine the effect on risk preferences of two types of environmental influences – randomly assigned experimental peer-groups and educational environment (single-sex or coeducational). The experimental subjects were UK students in years 10 and 11 who were attending either single-sex or coeducational state-funded high schools. We find that the gender composition of the experimental group, as well as the gender mix of the school the student attended, affected decisions on whether or not to enter a real-stakes lottery. But our experiment was conducted at one point in time, and did not track changes over time.
Some important control studies show how women behave in same sex environments. These studies come from those educational studies that show that many girls do better in girl-only schools because teachers tend to show preferences to boys. The three authors of this article came up with a way to study this issue in terms of economic decisions.
In recent research (Booth and Nolen 2012), we present a recent experimental study exploring why girls and boys might have different risk preferences. Using adolescent subjects from two distinct environments or ‘cultures’, we examine the effect on risk preferences of two types of environmental influences – randomly assigned experimental peer-groups and educational environment (single-sex or coeducational). The experimental subjects were UK students in years 10 and 11 who were attending either single-sex or coeducational state-funded high schools. We find that the gender composition of the experimental group, as well as the gender mix of the school the student attended, affected decisions on whether or not to enter a real-stakes lottery. But our experiment was conducted at one point in time, and did not track changes over time.
The authors wonder if risk taking behavior evolves over time and differently depending on the school and parental environment. Frequently, a measurement of risk-taking behavior occurs while playing some kind of gambling game. The authors set up a study in a co-ed business university as well as a single sex one. They provided a gambling game to students and tested students at before the start and after the start of the academic year. They found differences.
We found that, on average, women are significantly less likely to make risky choices than men at both dates. However, after eight weeks in the single-sex class environment – within the larger coeducational milieu – women were significantly more likely to choose the lottery than their counterparts in coeducational groups. No such result was found for men in the single-sex groups. In other words, after eight weeks, the women in the single-sex classes were no more risk averse than men. Moreover, our results were robust to a number of sensitivity checks, including controlling for cognitive and non-cognitive skills (namely IQ and personality type).
The authors argue that this is an important finding.
The findings suggest, first, that a part of the observed gender difference in behaviour under uncertainty found in previous studies might actually reflect social learning rather than inherent gender traits. Of course this is not to say that inherent gender traits do not exist. Rather it suggests that they can be modified across time by the environment in which a woman is placed. Second, the findings are also relevant to the policy debate on the impact of single-sex classes within coeducational schools or colleges on individuals’ behaviour. Whether or not this outcome carries over into other subject areas apart from economics and business remains a topic for future research.
There’s a list of their references as well as some suggestions as where these authors intend to take their research. Here is one study that’s in one of the more prestigious economic journals. This is a rather ambitious study that looks at risk behavior, bargaining behavior, and view to competition. I searched out some of the more interesting conclusions including their elucidation of three preferences where men and women differ.
We find that women are indeed more risk averse than men. We find that the social preferences of women are more situationally specific than those of men; women are neither more nor less socially oriented, but their social preferences are more malleable. Finally, we find that women are more averse to competition than are men
These authors look for reasons for the differences and find a variety of things in both the nurture and nature category. I suppose the important thing is what can we do about this? Does this mean that women will have to create more opportunities in their own businesses rather than look for success in places where the male risk profiles dominate? I frankly wondered if this accounted for the incredible gender gap in my field of finance where risk taking and competition are rampant and well-rewarded. (As you probably can imagine, even the most pathological risk taking generally is rewarded up to a point.)
Anyway, I found this interesting and thought I’d share it with you.
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
Since it’s a slow news day, I thought I’d throw out a question.
The argument about Obama’s birth control mandate for employers is based to some extent on who will be paying for an employee’s health insurance. As I understand it, health insurance is part of a compensation package offered by the employer in order to attract employees. The package might also include retirement benefits, life insurance, paid vacation, paid sick days, and paid holidays.
Obviously, I’m not an economist, but it seems to me that if health insurance is part of the employee’s salary, then the employee should have some control over it. My boss can’t tell me that I have to buy certain kinds of food with my salary or that I have to live in a certain place. It’s my money, because I earned it by working.
I’ve never had an employer try to tell me where I could go on my vacation time, even though the employer was paying me for the time. No, that vacation pay is part of my salary package. So is health insurance. I’m sure employers calculate salaries based on the total cost of the employee, including benefits. So the benefits should belong to the employee.
Compensation is more than just base pay. It is a total package that should address your overall well-being – financial, physical, emotional, even spiritual. As companies compete for talent in tight labor markets, many are rolling out better benefits to attract and retain the best workers. Companies often strive to make it easy for employees to balance their work and family lives by offering family-friendly benefits, cafeteria plans, and other flexible options.
Benefits can significantly increase the value of the compensation package. The costs to employers for providing benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, training, vacation and personal days, and perks such as concierge services could be a significant percentage of each employee’s salary. Because benefits boost the value of compensation, always take benefits into consideration when evaluating a job offer or a promotion.
In addition,
Some benefits are required by law. There are also many government regulations that set the minimum standards employers are required to make available to employees.
For example, states can require employers to provide paid sick days and holidays and a minimum amount of paid vacation time. Most states mandate a 10-15 minute break for every 4 hours of work and at least a 30 minute lunch break. Thanks to unions, there are also laws that employees can’t be forced to work more than a certain number of hours per day and week without overtime pay. There are many constraints on employers.
So what is so bizarre about the government requiring that health care plans offer preventive health care that is appropriate for women as well as men? Even though the employer is arranging for the health insurance and I’m getting a better deal as part of a large group, the insurance is still something I’m earning through my work. The employer doesn’t need to know what choices I’m making about my health care and shouldn’t pry into my choices unless they somehow affect my ability to do my work.
The Obama administration is not requiring that any individual use birth control or even that they have to get prenatal testing. But why shouldn’t they be able to specify that these services be available for people to use if they wish? If you look at the question in this way, the Catholic bishops really don’t have a leg to stand on.
Wouldn’t this be a better way for the administration to frame the argument? Am I nuts? What do you think? Feel free to use this as an open thread as well.
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
From our vantage point in the US, Greece seems very far away. That is an illusion of mere miles. The disintegration of the Cradle of Democracy should send shivers down the spine of every American because this is what a plutocracy looks like. This is the dismantlement of a civil society for the sake of the 1%.
Yes, yes, we’ve heard all the stories of the profligate Greeks, lazy to the extreme, addicted to the welfare state, ridiculously high wages and cushy, early retirements. The Greeks, we are told, are the millstone around the northern European neck, a weak sister draining the stamina and wealth from her industrious siblings, the Germans in particular.
Really?
Here are some factoids that don’t match the stereotypes we’ve been fed:
Greece has had one of the lowest per capita income levels in Europe. Average Greek wage comes in at 21,100 euros [$27, 640] as compared to the Eurozone 12 average off $27,600 euros [$36,134].
The Greek social welfare system is considerably lower than its European neighbors, averaging 3530.49 euros per capita [$4593.87] as compared to the Eurozone 12 average of 6251.78 euros [$8135.32]
Unemployment has spiked to nearly 22%, the number increasing with each round of austerity measures, which has deflated the Greek economy and exacerbated the problem. [In actuality, unemployment is higher since anyone working 16 hours is listed as fully employed. However, even those workers working fulltime are often listed as part time, allowing employers to avoid paying minimum wage, insurance and other benefits.]
The top 20% in Greece pay virtually no taxes at all, a cushy deal reached during the days of the junta between the military and Greece’s wealthy plutocrats.
The cost of living [food, rent, energy] has spiraled out of control, leaving many Greek citizens unable to make ends meet.
As you might recall Greece’s elected leader George Papandreou resigned [with encouragement] and was replaced by Lucas Papademos, a former vice president of the European Central Bank [what a coincidence!]. Papademos assembled a temporary government then quickly pledged to approve the tough terms of a second European aid package of $150 billion.
The new, current round of austerity measures, which resulted in citizens taking to the streets and setting Athens afire, will purge another 150,000 public sector workers, mandate a 22% decrease in private sector salaries [the third decrease in less than a year] and substantial decreases in pensions and welfare services.
The Memorandum is as calculating and mercenary as anything ever written. And while most of the attention has been focused on the deep cuts to supplementary pensions, the minimum wage, and private sector wages; there’s much more to this onerous warrant than meets the eye. The 43-page paper should be read in its entirety to fully appreciate the moral vacuity of the people who dictate policy in the Eurozone.
Greece will have to prove that it’s reached various benchmarks before it receives any of the money allotted in the bailout. The Memorandum outlines, in great detail, what those benchmarks are— everything from reduced spending on life-saving drugs to “lift(ing) constraints for retailers to sell restricted product categories such as baby food.”
And,
It just shows what the MOU is really all about. It’s a corporate “wish list”; a mix of punitive belt tightening policies for working people and perks for big oil, big gas, electric, aviation, railroads, communications etc. “Fast track licensing” and “baby food” have nothing to do with helping Greece reach its budget targets. It’s a joke.
Oddly enough, much of this has the ring of the ‘Privatize the World,” theology, so popular with the Republican Party. Ron Paul? He finds the idea of all government owned lands very disagreeable. It should be opened to private enterprise, he has said. Think of that splendid idea of mining uranium in the Grand Canyon. The evils of the public sector [that would be teachers and firemen and police] have been eloquently dissected by the likes of Scott Walker now facing a recall in November. Paul Ryan has thrilled Tea Party aficionados by warbling vouchers = Medicare and offering schemes to privatize Social Security. Public schools? Don’t fix them, critics say, replace them with private, for-profit Charter schools because for-profit universities have been such a treat for many low-income students, strapped with unsustainable debt and worthless, unaccredited degrees. Prisons? Turn them private and watch costs escalate to the moon. Taxes? We all know the mantra: we cannot possibly tax the ‘job creators.’ Accountability in financial matters? See the ‘deal’ the Administration’s Fraud Task Force crafted with the TBTFs. Respect for the environment? Go no further than the proposed Keystone Pipeline, but never forget the Gulf of Mexico, the shameless behavior of BP and their political handmaidens.
The beat goes on.
These are self-serving reasons to sit up, listen and pay attention before it’s too late. On a more human level is this:
Athens has always had a problem with homelessness, like any other major city. But the financial and debt crises have led poverty to slowly but surely grow out of control here. In 2011, there were 20 percent more registered homeless people than the year before. Depending on the season, that number can be as high as 25,000. The soup kitchens in Athens are complaining of record demand, with 15 percent more people in need of free meals.
It’s no longer just the “regulars” who are brought blankets and hot meals at night, says Effie Stamatogiannopoulou. She sits in the main offices of Klimaka, brooding over budgets and duty rosters. It was a long day, and like most of those in the over-heated room, the 46-year-old is keeping herself awake with coffee and cigarettes. She shows the day’s balance sheet: 102 homeless reported to Klimaka today.
“Enough is enough!” said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of Greece’s most famous leftists, who long ago tore down a Nazi flag under the noses of German occupiers. “They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen.”
“I can still remember as a boy how it was during the great famine and great freeze of the winter of 1941,” said Panaghiotis Yerogaloyiannis, a former mariner now surviving on a pension of €500 [$650.55] a month.
“We have a different sort of war now, one that’s economic, that’s not fought on the field. But it’s still the same enemy, the Germans. And today you are not even allowed to protest. I carry this around,” he said producing a wooden baton from a plastic bag, “to protect myself from the police and thugs who hijack our demonstrations.”
Athens was burning on Sunday. Beneath the rubble, it burns still. No, we are not Greece. But Athens has sent a clear, unmistakable signal. It should be a warning to us all.
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
When I volunteered to live-blog the awards shows this year, I could never have imagined I would be writing this round-up in memoriam of Whitney Houston for Grammy night. Via Spin Magazine, Whitney Houston’s Four-Decade History at the Grammy Awards:
Click to go to Spin Mag... Whitney Houston at her first Grammy Awards in 1986. (Photo: Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images)
On February 25, 1986, a 22-year-old Whitney Houston made her first appearance at the Grammy Awards. She’d picked up three nominations for her debut album, 1985’s Whitney Houston, and “Saving All My Love for You” beat tracks by Madonna, Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, and Linda Ronstadt to win Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She took the stage that night in a ruffled red dress with a wall of hair sprayed to attention atop her head, and blew the doors off the Shrine Auditorium as her mother, Cissy Houston, cheered her on. One of our generation’s hugest voices made a stunning debut at Music’s Biggest Night.
It wasn’t scandalous by tabloid standards, but it was a rebellious act for the young women at the Mount Saint Dominic Academy, a small all-girls Catholic high school in New Jersey. Whitney Houston, class of 1981, sometimes wore mismatched socks and rolled up her sleeves.
The mischievous gospel singer would then push the maroon-colored dress code just a bit further. She would “roll up her little skirt, just a little bit above the knees, and wouldn’t care if she got a detention,” said Dr. Maria Pane, who lives in Lutherville and sat next to Houston in high school home room.
A day after the 48-year-old Houston’s unexpected death on Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif., left the music world in mourning, Pane fondly recalled her old school days in Caldwell, N.J., and the unpretentious Houston, whom she described as an “ordinary high school girl, just like all of us.”
1979: Whitney juggled singing with her studies at a Catholic girls school in New Jersey Getty 1979: Whitney spent her teen years accompanying mum Cissy on nightclub tours, occasionally joining her on stage Getty
Secondly–before I turn this over to the comment section for some Grammy live-blogging/OPEN thread–I’d like to leave you with Whitney’s Grammy debut in 1986…
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
As you may know, Callie–my family’s beloved pomeranian dog-girl–died almost a year ago. March 13th will mark an entire 12 months without her physical presence…I still feel her with me, each and every day. She will never be left behind…or forgotten.
There’s a short summation of some of the most relevant economic literature on Gender Differences at VOXEU. Strict micro theory labor models have a difficult time dealing with any form of discrimination because they are based on labor getting paid on its marginal productivity. Any feature that doesn’t influence production doesn’t really factor neatly in to this particular view of the labor market. This area has been more ripe for study because behavioral economics is now taking into account things beyond the idea that all economic units are rational players. Theories of rational markets and rational agents do a really bad job of explaining a lot of things including bubbles and busts. Just like many gender-based disciplines and their studies, the focus usually is on gender specific traits and social learning. The most germane traits to economic behavior tend to be risk aversion and attitudes towards competition. Preferences can be modeled through functions and their shape can provide outcomes that vary from the labor market curves of yore. Many authors find that you have to model female preferences different from male and this contributes to many aspects of what we would call success in business.
should send shivers down the spine of every American because this is what a plutocracy looks like. This is the dismantlement of a civil society for the sake of the 1%.
The new, current round of austerity measures, which resulted in citizens taking to the streets and setting Athens afire, will purge another 150,000 public sector workers, mandate a 22% decrease in private sector salaries [the third decrease in less than a year] and substantial decreases in pensions and welfare services.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments