Ok, I’m on a kick – women’s empowerment. Just keep that in mind.
The BBC came out with an article saying that even though women are typically happier with their jobs, that reverses at about age 60 and men become happier than women with their jobs.
I fully admit that I haven’t read the study and I am also fully aware that journalists can sometimes misinterpret studies and twist them to say something their not. I hope that’s not the case.
Anyway, one of the possible reasons for this is that women don’t want to go home and hang out with their husbands. This struck home because I’m fairly certain that that’s why my eighty-year-old grandmother hasn’t retired as the manager of a land-title insurance company. I find it fairly ironic.
Women are the one’s who watch romantic comedies, which according to a friend of mine, indoctrinates us to unrealistic expectations about romance. We’re the ones driving the romantic book industry. We have dreams of fancy weddings (supposedly) and we don’t want to hang out with our husbands when we’re old. It would be interesting to find out why that is. It would be nice to know why, so that I don’t feel unhappy with the idea of hanging out with my husband at the age of eighty.
Eric Morris (not related to me) recently had a post on the NYT’s Freakonomics blog titled “Sex and the SUV: Men, Women, And Travel Behavior” that addressed differences between the driving habits of men and women. According to the post, people are more likely honk at female drivers, female drivers have shorter commutes, and females are less likely to be chaffeurs, cabbies, or long-haul drivers.
I’m not really sure what the point of his post is. I think that a lot of the differences in driving can be about primary child-care responsibilities. If you are responsible for dropping off/picking up and driving around kids, the drive time is likely to be shorter. As for less likely to be chaffeurs, cabbies, or long-haul drivers, again you can look at child-care, or you can think about the whole safety issue. I know that that was something that was on my mind in New York. As a female, I am more likely to be raped and assaulted, or that’s what society tells me.
I’m in a class right now called Power and Money. It’s a really interesting class that examines the intersection of politics and economics (and its a political science class, by the way). Right now, we’re looking at the U.S.
One of the readings for the week is a chapter from a book titled Political Cycles in the United States that examines the relationship between who is elected and what happens in the economy. One finding is that Democrats experience more growth in GDP in the first half of their presidential term, while Republicans experience more growth in the second half of their presidential term. The authors took a sample ranging from Truman’s presidency to the first Clinton term. As quoted from the book, “The average yearly growth rate of GDP for Democratic administrations was 4.2 percent and only 2.4 percent for Republican administrations.”
I’m thinking it doesn’t matter if you like Obama or not, I think electing a Democrat in a recession is a smart plan.
I’ll be the first to admit: I’m already done Christmas shopping. I took advantage of some discounts to get them all relatively cheap, and now its something I don’t have to worry about as I’m doing the mad dash towards finals. Man, I love finding some good discount shopping.
Baseball is my favorite sport. And I am becoming increasingly convinced that money makes the world go round. So it would make sense that I was drawn to a CNNMoney article about how the Yankee’s were the most effecient team with their money this year.
According to the article, the Yanks had a net income of $69 million (this is only after paying player’s salaries and the luxary tax, however). The payroll efficiency metric used in the article claimed that the Yankees paid $3.2 million per marginal victory, defined as every victory after the 49th. Next in line were the Red Sox, with $5.2 million per marginal victory.
I would be intrigued to find out how much the post-season games helped with this statistic. It certainly would have helped the Red Sox with their ROI. Because the more games you play, the less per game you’re going to pay. I think a better measure might be just regular season games.
Although its intrigueing to see how the merging of efficiency and effectiveness works. Earlier this year, my management professor used the example of the Denver Broncos as an example of both. The team was efficient under its original owners, who solicited donations for everything and tried to put as little money as possible into the team. They lost a lot and weren’t generating any income. New owners took over, pouring money into the team. The Broncos started winning, generating money for the owners, so they were effective, but far from efficient. This was supposed to drive home the point that its best to be both effective and efficient, but if you can only be one, it better be effective.
It’s hard to believe that the team with the largest payroll can still be the most efficient. It certainly undermines the point made by the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis. But then again, it all just proves the point: money makes the world go round.
In recent times, Governor Nixon’s been busy. He’s won a basketball game and is grappling with the need for trained workers in the state of Missouri. I find it kind of amusing that Nixon beat University of Missouri’s President Forsee in the annual Black and Gold game, with all the implications that has, on and off the court. It seems sort of symbolic, in a way like the feedback Nixon is hearing from businesses before he introduces his jobs package in January. Most of what he’s hearing is that there is a need for more technical training – not something four-year college institutions are particularly known for giving its students.
On Oct. 7th (ok, so its been awhile), The Economist blogged about an argument that the recession is hitting men harder than women. They note that 75% percent of job losses in this recession have happened to men, but that that number is lower than in the past two recessions. They also note that women have been hit harder in taking pay cuts than men, although that may have changed now that Ken Lewis is giving up his salary.
I find this a little interesting when taken in conjunction with a blog post by Daily Worth about Suze Orman talking to a women’s conference in Pennsylvania. The governor had just applauded the head of state commission for reducing her salary instead of cutting staff. Suze Orman gets up and reprimands women for not fighting for their real worth in jobs, since women only make 77 cents per dollar that men earn.
Women are nurturers, for the most part. I did it today by feeding people pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, and pumpkin seeds. I’ve got more pumpkin pie and an entire applie pie left. I love cooking and feeding people. I would rather take the pay cut than cut staff, if I were in that position. So, I find it interesting when this argument pops up, especially in a time when most people have their heads down, taking what they can get.
Once again, I’m late in getting this up. I’m back at school now, and things are hectic and crazy, but I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be better about posting. However, I ran across this article in the Wall Street Journal about restaurant stocks. The basic premise is that restaurant stocks are pretty good indicators of where the economy is heading, and right now, certain restaurant stocks are up. At the time the article was printed, stocks for both The Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, and Starbucks were up, while stocks for the owners of Red Lobster, Olive Garden (both owned by Darden Restaurants), and Chili’s (Brinker’s International) were down. As of right now, The Cheesecake Factory is trading higher than it was a year ago.
The writer of the article, Brett Arends, cautions readers against getting excited about investing in restaurants because Americans are in more debt. He also contends that all the hype about Americans eating in more is false. He thinks that eventually, all that extra debt that Americans are carrying around will catch up with them and eventually they’ll cut out all those extra calories in the form of restaurant food.
I’m not so sure. I think American’s love affair with good food and not enough time to make it themselves will allow the restaurant industry to remain a strong investment option. But I think what Americans want out of their restuarants is changing. Of the three restuarants that are posting positive results, two are very committed to causes. Chipotle offers ethically-raised food and promotes an awareness for clean and ethical living conditions for animals. That may not be what they’re most known for, but it is pretty evident if you walk into one. Starbucks is always selling books that promote one cause or another and franchises are usually pretty willing to let groups promote themselves there. Add in their (red) line of products that funnels money to fight AIDS in Africa and ethical coffee harvesting, and you’ve got a socially-concsious coffee shop. The Cheesecake Factory just has fantastic food in Chicago.
When I think of the other restaurants however, I think of mediocrity. They don’t stick out. They aren’t socially conscious. It’s very clear that they are chains and they’ll serve you food without character that’s not bad, but not particularly good either. As a college student making minimum wage, I’m probably not going to eat at them because I can get more for my money that tastes better somewhere else.
Maybe Mr. Arrends is right. But I’d argue for some different examples in his article to demonstrate the point.
Earlier this week, I was at Citi Field for a baseball game. It was the Mets/Cards game where Pujols hit a Grand Slam in the 10th. Sadly, I left before that, but it was still a good game. I enjoyed the field. I was up at the very top and was able to see everything. I wasn’t super-excited when I saw Wellemeyer go in and I definately wasn’t excited when he hit the batter, but it all ended up all right. The rotunda is very nice and the fans weren’t obnoxious, which is important to me.
I recently added WSJ’s blog The Juggle to my RSS feed. I think it’s going to be one of my better blogs to follow because its focused on an area that I’m interested in: the balance between work and family.
The gist of the post is that if men earn more than their wives, they have higher career satisfaction, but it has no impact on how happy they are when it comes to family. However, women who earn the same or more than their husbands have higher career satisfaction, but aren’t as happy when it comes to family.
My feelings on this are mixed. One, the fact that this study took place means that women have come a long way in the workforce. Not that long ago, a woman making more than her husband would have been extraordinarily hard to believe. In fact, if the 1950’s portraits are to be believed, all women stayed home to cater to the men in their lives 60 years ago. Also, this study exposes how earning an income can affect how people see the world and how it affects their relationships. The study acknowledges a cultural shift, which is pretty cool. Two, what I don’t like is that women feel bad for earning more. I understand how it can happen, but women are under so much pressure to do everything, and I think its time to stop feeling guilty for not being Superwoman.
One of the readings for the week is a chapter from a book titled Political Cycles in the United States that examines the relationship between who is elected and what happens in the economy. One finding is that Democrats experience more growth in GDP in the first half of their presidential term, while Republicans experience more growth in the second half of their presidential term. The authors took a sample ranging from Truman’s presidency to the first Clinton term. As quoted from the book, “The average yearly growth rate of GDP for Democratic administrations was 4.2 percent and only 2.4 percent for Republican administrations.”
Once again, I’m late in getting this up. I’m back at school now, and things are hectic and crazy, but I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be better about posting. However, I ran across this 
