Centives

In this article, the commutes of Americans are broken down into some interesting graphs. The first aspect of commutes that is evaluated is time. It takes the average American 25.1 minutes to get to work. Another piece of information looked at is the average time an American leaves for work in the morning, which turns out to be between 7:30 and 7:59 a.m. How Americans get to work is also analyzed, and it turns out that despite many Americans trying to be environmentally friendly in different aspects of their life, more Americans than ever are driving alone to work. Check out the rest of the article and find out how your commute compares to that of the average American.

Source: Economix Blog

The Kyoto protocol attempts to use the power of the free market to help deal with the problem of global climate change. One of the provisions allow for the trading of carbon credits. It’s a simple system where those who want to pump excess pollution into the atmosphere can buy the right to do so from somebody who pollutes less, or, indeed, scrubs the environment of pollution. As with most markets though, this one comes with unintended consequences. The New York Times reports that Ugandans were forcefully and violently evicted from their homes to clear the land for the planting of trees. Some of the highlights of the report include:

• New Forests Company bought a 50 year license to grow trees in three districts in Uganda. These trees would soak up carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere thus giving it the right, by the United Nations, to sell carbon credits on the open market.
• The company expected to make up to $1.8 million a year from selling the carbon credits to polluters from around the world.
• Over 20,000 people claim that they were evicted from their lands after their government and the company told them that they were living on the land illegally.
• One Ugandan later took a job with the very company that played a role in ejecting him. He claims that he was promised $100 a month but only received $30.

To read the company’s reactions to the report and the allegations, as well as to find out more about the investors that support the company click here.

Source: The New York Times

Wired has written an exhaustive overview of some of the features in a revamped Facebook that will seem unfamiliar to most. The wall is now just one small tile among many others, and the new profiles seem to focus around a new system called the Open Graph. Some of the highlights of the article include:

• The new Facebook is described by Wired as a “remote-control autobiography”, a “24/7 reality show” of a person’s experiences, and “a visual scrapbook of your life.” Clearly Facebook has something greater in mind than just being a purveyor of online profiles.
• People will be able to share the movies and music they watch. Friends looking at their Facebook pages will be able to click on the movie name or song title and instantly have the media start playing on their own computer, although in certain cases such as Netflix it might be necessary to have a prior subscription with the service.
• One developer compared it to the first day of the IPhone and said that there would be a wave of social apps that would rival the success of the mobile apps on Apple’s platform.
• With all this information on the types of media that people are consuming, Facebook will now be able to send out advertisements that are more targeted in scope than ever imagined before.

You can read more about the importance of Friends Lists as well as an odd legal ruling that limits the sharing of movie information for Facebook users in the United States, and what Netflix is asking voters to do about it over here.

Source: Wired

Reading lists of the richest people in the world can be fun if only to just imagine what it would be like to have that kind of money. Currently, the richest American atop the list is Bill Gates, who has approximately $56 billion (this number can change quickly, though, due to much of that money being tied up in stocks). Many variables come into play when trying to predict when there will be a trillionaire among us, including “inflation, tax rates, and overall economic growth.” If the inflation rate stays at 3% every year, and the richest man in the world were to stay at the value Gates currently holds (it should be noted that Gates is not the world’s richest man, as that title is currently held by Carlos Slim Helu, but the article uses Gates as the standard for this calculation), it will take 98 years for someone to amass $1 trillion. As the article points out, though, the world’s first billionaire is likely to come from a country other than the U.S. The conditions that would most likely bring about a trillionaire are low tax rates, minimal business regulations, and high growth rates which would all allow for greater wealth concentration. Given those conditions, it is certainly plausible that someone could become a trillionaire before the next century.

These guys must be looking on in envy.

Source: Slate

Freakonomics contributor Justin Wolfers recently examined a proposal to forgive all student loans as a short term simulative policy to help boost the economy. He was, to say the least, unconvinced about the merits of the policy. He points out four primary difficulties with the idea:

• Distribution. College kids typically have high incomes. It would further income inequality.
• Macroeconomics. With such a large debt relief only a fraction of the money would be spent. Most of it would be saved and would fail to stimulate the economy.
• Education Policy. It won’t encourage more students to get an education since only those who already have a college education would benefit from the policy.
• Political Economy. Everybody will want to have their loans forgiven in not just this crisis but future ones.

To read more about how such a plan would strengthen the lobbying industry as well as the political rhetoric that Wolfers believes is driving the policy click here.

Source: Freakonomics

A couple months ago, Netflix received some negative publicity when they announced price hikes for certain services. However, that announcement seems small in comparison to the one they recently made – they’re splitting their company in half. Half of their company will remain as Netflix, and this part of the company will offer online streaming services. The other half of the company will now be named Qwikster and will offer DVDs through the mail. Many customers are upset about this as the things now offered by Netflix will now be taken care of by two companies making some things more difficult for customers. However, Netflix originally started out as an innovative “disruptive technology” and was able to overtake Blockbuster in offering movie rentals. Once a company goes from “disruptive technology” to an established company, though, they tend to be a bit more conservative and adopt more traditional strategies. It seems that Netflix is not following this business template, though, as they continue to be aggressive and look for ways to change that may not initially make their customers happy. As the article points out, many great companies are overtaken by disruptive technologies because they listen to their customers and customers often don’t know what is in their best interest. Then, customers begin to see the disruptive technology as better than the company they currently use and the disruptive technology takes over. Perhaps by not listening to their customers, Netflix is staying ahead of the competition.

Source: Slate

The recession affected Americans in many ways, and it appears that one of those ways was in their exercise habits. Due to the recession, Americans took part in more voluntary exercise, but also suffered drops in physical exertion. The increase in available time due to unemployment can help explain the increase in voluntary exercise, and the loss of work-related activities (walking to work, etc.) can explain the decrease in overall physical exertion despite the fact that Americans voluntarily exercised more.

Source: Freakonomics Blog

Bitcoins are a virtual currency which allow its users to bypass banks and other institutions, allowing them to trade with each other directly under the protection of complete anonymity. Its supporters tout it as the next global currency, but as Technology Review investigates, all is not well in the Bitcoin world. They report:

• Because of all the attention that Bitcoins have been getting, their value has skyrocketed, with a tenfold increase in five days in 2010. As a result of this people see bit coins as an investment more than as a token of exchange.
• The currency is volatile and is primarily traded by currency speculators. In a one year period it hit a low of a few pennies and a high of $33.
• There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins in existence*
• All this means that people are hoarding the currency rather than trading it. The number of transactions conducted in Bitcoins has gone down, a negative development for the prospects of any currency aiming for world domination.

To read more about how Bitcoin needs to avoid being devoured by a circle of hype click here.

Source: Technology Review

Via: Jake Kennon

*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that there are 21 million Bitcoins in existence.

Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic attempted to calculate how much Angry Birds, a popular smartphone game, cost the US economy every year. Based on some generous assumptions and light research (a technique we’re quite fond of ourselves), Madrigal estimated that the common pastime costs the US economy over 1.5 billion dollars a year. He came up with this number by estimating or finding that:

• 200 million minutes is spent by people playing Angry Birds each day
• 5% of that time is spent while employees are meant to be working
• The average salary of a smartphone owner is $35

Madrigal notes that some of these assumptions are pretty ambitious, but concludes that his final figure is probably accurate in its order of magnitude. To read more about how he came to his numbers, as well as how this value compares to the estimated market value of Rovio, the company that made Angry Birds, click here.

Source: The Atlantic

Via: WPCentral