April 29, 2008 7:28PM
The Big 3: Stats, Stocks, and Stimuli
By Cody Willard
1. Inflating the Inflation of Inflation
2. Buy Softee For a Hard Fight
3. Flip It: GTA4 reduces violence!
1. I ran through the BS, ER BLS data of beef, electricity, bananas, and other essentials for the last decade and came out with a roughly 3% inflation rate. The question is what it’ll look like ten years from now…and we better hope the guys in charge of our dollar start thinking about that.
2. On CodyWillard.com today, I issued a hard buy on Microsoft. Stock’s down manly cuz this Yahoo fight, but I think the stock’ll head back into the $30’s in coming weeks regardless of who scores the TKO in this fight.
3. Today’s Flip It: Grand Theft Auto makes this country safer. Plato always argued that violent and tragic entertainment was key to keeping a society safe since it reminds people why peace is good. Buy your angst-ridden teen a copy of GTA4 today…it’s his money we’re borrowing for this stimulus package anyway
Comment by Michael Gat
Apr 29th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Interesting that your inflation number and the approximate GDP growth for the same period come out to roughly the same thing, if you run through the details.
When you strip away all the B(L)S machinations, what you end up finding is that almost all of our economic growth in the past couple of decades were inflation. And our improved lifestyles? All debt. Courtesy of our elected and unelected “leaders” in DC.
Comment by Michael Gat
Apr 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I’m going to flip on Plato with regards to GTA. The key, of course, to the tragic and violent entertainment of Plato’s era was that the violent and evil people (and sometimes just those who got caught up in somebody else’s evil) always got theirs in the end. The tragedies (like those of Shakespeare, and throughout history) always ended with a funeral.
When GTA forces the players to see the events through the eyes of the mother whose kid is gunned down, or the shopkeeper whose business is destroyed, or just the guy who now has no way to get to work because his car was stolen, then I’ll concede its educational value.
For now though, I’m going to flip it on both “sides” of this argument. It’s entertainment. It doesn’t make society safer, and doesn’t encourage anybody to commit crimes. Even kids know the difference between entertainment and reality. The ones who would be seriously influenced by this are probably the same ones who would latch onto something else if video games didn’t exist.
The true “danger” if you want to call it that, is the opportunity cost of the time and effort put into the debate, and the true benefit is that it’s another thing to keep our political classes distracted by unimportant issues, so they can’t do any more harm.
Comment by Cody Willard
Apr 29th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Great stuff all around Michael. See my prior post for my best on opp costs…
Comment by Michael Gat
Apr 29th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Yeah, saw that one. It’s probably what made me think of it.
And not to knock your business, but here’s something about the opportunity cost of watching Happy Hour (OK, TV in general) every day. I think you’ll like it. Get this guy on the show!
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus