Ratio

I really like Cafe Brazil. So I hope the restaurant does not "increase" the price/value as this would involve increasing prices, decreasing value, or both.
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As Transparent as Mud

This is not a town hall. This is organized propaganda. Even those who support Obama's policies can't possibly defend this. If Obama has good answers to tough questions, then he should not be afraid to be asked any question in public. This sort of screening and selecting of questions indicates a supreme lack of confidence in his overall advocacy.

Pizza box advertising

I thought this was very cool. My pizza box has an advertisement on it from The Economist. It is a pie chart telling me that 96.8% of mushrooms exported to the US come from Canada. Mexico exports 2%. China and Turkey each export 0.5%. South Africa exports 0.2%.
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I got a new BlackBerry

After years of using a free phone, I have finally bought a new BlackBerry Curve. It truly is an amazing piece of technology. I have been downloading free apps all day. I am impressed with the way that the features interact with each other. I can say a command like, "Chinese food" and my phone will perform a Google search for Chinese restaurants near my location. Then, it can guide me turn by turn to the location I select. I can even take pictures and upload them directly to this blog. So you may see me posting more frequently than I have in the past and with more pictures.
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Income Inequality Sowell vs. Krugman

Grad School Quest Part VI: Accepted at UF

For those of you who know me well, this is old news, but I thought I would post my decision here. After reviewing my options carefully, I decided to accept a position in the Economics PhD program at the University of Florida. I will be moving to Gainesville at the end of July. I have an apartment picked out and a moving company ready. I am really looking forward to the time I will spend in Gainesville.

Go Gators!

Why Do Poor People Lose Lotteries?

Everyone knows that poor people play lotteries disproportionately more than others. What has long baffled researchers is that poor people also lose disproportionately more often than others. Up until now, I hadn't heard a sufficient explanation for why this is. But the other day, I watched a Dateline special by Chris Hansen that seems to do a lot to explain what might be going on.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Dateline caught a pretty significant percentage of gas stations who kept the "winning" tickets if the player didn't check them personally. So, if relatively poor people are frequent players of lottery games, and frequent players are less likely to check their tickets personally, then they may be less likely to discover a winning ticket because of a dishonest store clerk.

It might be interesting to investigate the relationship between the level of lottery fraud in a state to the disparity between the percentage of winners per ticket purchased within income brackets.

Is there a measure or proxy for lottery fraud per state? Data on arrests would only reflect the number who were actually caught.