Economists always have a multitude of proposed solutions to solve economic / social issues (as to to the effectiveness of these measures - we shall leave it to another debate).
What the Singapore Government proposed today was quite interesting. Perhaps it was due to me not paying attention during the economics classes - but a job credit plan (whereby the Government pay 12% of each employee’s monthly wage to the employers, upto $300 per month, so as to encourage firms to avoid retrenching workers) sounds like a brand new philosophy to me. (Although in substance it may be similar to Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit programme)
Some economic ‘gurus’ may argue that such actions may “distort the labour markets” and adds ‘friction’ to the smooth economic functioning of a competitive firm, whereby redundant/ineffective workers may be kept on the payrole due to such economic packages. However, my word to these ‘gurus’ is to wait till your own job is on the line - where you ponder about how to pay for your next meal - before re-evaluating such economic packages.
Too much blood (read: jobs) have been shed in this global financial downturn. Thank goodness for such plans to save the day for the commonfolks (at least for Singapore)
Read more - US largest stimulus package - US$825bn plan (WSJ)
economics, global issues
Can money buy you happiness?
Yes — so long as you spend the money on someone else.
According to a new research by the faculty from Harvard Business School (HBS) and University of British Columbia (UBC), giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being for the giver.
That’s the insight into the secret of happiness by the professors Michael Norton (HBS), Elizabeth Dunn (UBC) and Lara Aknin (UBC) in the research titled “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness”.
“While much research has examined the effect of income on happiness, we suggest that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn,” the researchers explain, “[and] spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself.”
The research found these results to hold in three different studies: (i) a nationally representative survey, (ii) a field study of people with windfall spending, and (iii) an experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves.
[Read more - Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness (actual research)]
[Read more - Spending on Happiness (HBS newsletter interview)]
economics
The Times published an article highlighting that a new research had shown that performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea.
Alex Wissner-Gross, a MIT graduate now at Harvard University, had put in his research that a typical search generates about 7g of CO2.
“”A Google search has a definite environmental impact” and “Google operates huge data centers around the world that consume a great deal of power,” he said.
Alas, an economist would have point out that the concept of opportunity cost. Instead of browsing an encyclopedia to look up for information, one can simply perform an online search and read up on the required information online - thus saving the CO2 associated with the printing of the encyclopedia (which would translate to a large amount of CO2).
Google had also responded, stating that a single search is actually equivalent to a mere 0.2 grams of CO2.
Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, Rewiring the World, has calculated that maintaining a character (known as an avatar) in the Second Life virtual reality game, requires 1,752 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
Now that’s a huge “chunk” of energy!
p.s. this site is carbon-neutral too
economics, global issues