From the Gulf Islands to the Rockies using Web 2.0

As our cardboard boxes and Rubbermaids ravenously gape at me to be filled, I am aware that this is the last entry on this PC. My new Free-Agent Pro is busily backing up my gigabytes of memory to make it portable. I checked out some Macs yesterday and the resolution of their screens revealed details and clarity in my Flickr images that I had never seen before.

I have been using as many services on Web 2.0 as possible since I first learned of its existence in the fall of 2006. But there are still so may files that are dependent on physical memory. My major concerns are my EndNote and Adobe Photoshop files.

Web 2.0 is not just a virtual space for personal data storage, it is a space of sharing thanks to Creative Commons. Speechless has had 18,192 hits since first uploaded in October, 2006.

to be continued . . .

Maps, museums and census: Google earth community

“Censorship is only one part of a broader issue: Who controls the maps we use, and how much can we trust them? “Mapping has always been a tool of dominance,” says Michael Goodchild, the UC Santa Barbara geographer. “There is no such thing as an objective map.” It’s no coincidence, he says, that the last golden age of mapmaking was the colonial era, when cartographers were dispatched to catalog western Europe’s conquests around the world. James Rennell’s maps weren’t just an effort to understand India; they were a means to show, as he once said, “the advantages that may be derived from our territorial acquisitions.”

“Today the power still lies in the hands of the map makers. The only difference is that we’re all mapmakers now, which means geography has entered the complex free-for-all of the information age, where ever-more-sophisticated technology is better able to reflect the world’s rich, chaotic complexity. “Once you express location in human terms, you get multiple places with the same name, or political issues over where boundaries are, or local differences,” says David Weinberger. “As soon as you leave the latitude/ longitude substrate, you get lost in the ambiguous jumble of meaning. It’s as close to Babel as we get.”"

Ratliff, Evan. 2007. “Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World.” Uploaded June 26, 2007. Accessed June 26, 2007.

Democratization of Debt: Bear Stearn and Mortgage Meltdowns

In a Marketplace interview Amy Scott asked interviewees about the disturbing consequences of the interconnections between banks, hedge funds, high risk mortgages and pension funds. In June, 2007 two major hedge funds managed by the investment bank Bear Stearns, who purchased securities that were essentially a “repackaging of all kinds of risky mortgages” to tap into the subprime mortgage market are now verging on collapse as the number of borrowers defaulting on these mortgages increases. Joseph Mason explained that “this isn’t just a Wall Street problem. Your 401k or pension fund may be invested in similar mortgage-related securities.” The investor-base is broad and it is difficult to know who is at risk. “Investment managers don’t have to report their holdings. And unlike stocks, these securities aren’t quoted on an open market [. . .] Those hedge fund investment managers create investments that are bought by our pension funds and mutual funds. Charitable foundations are invested in these. It’s a broad investor base, and it’s not the rich versus the poor.” Mason has been a firm proponent of more transparency in financial dealings (Scott 2007).

Mason and Rosner (2007) warn that risk continues to increase, as ratings agencies revise their loss expectations to account for the dynamics of the mortgage meltdown. “Residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market has experienced significant changes [from 1997-2007].” [T]hey caution that “structural changes in mortgage origination and servicing have interacted with complex residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and highly volatile CDO funding structures to place the U.S. housing market at risk. This [. . .] could lead to prolonged domestic economic implications for U.S. standing in the world economic order [. . .] The potential for prolonged economic difficulties that also interfere with home ownership in the United States raises significant public policy concerns. Already we are witnessing restructuring and layoffs at top financial institutions. More importantly, however, is the need to provide stable funding sources for economic growth. The biggest obstacle that we have identified is lack of transparency.” (Mason and Rosner 2007).
Market analyst Winzer (2005 cited in Christie 2005) warned that the housing market was high-risk as the boom has already gone on longer than expected. Low interest rates which means cheap mortgage rates extended the cycle of the real estate boom artificially creating higher demand and higher prices as all market levels (Winzer cited in Christie 2005). “Winzer assesses local market risk by taking into account economic and population growth, construction costs, vacancy rates, and, especially, income. He also considers such factors as density and access to open land. Prices in densely settled New York have always been higher than those of cities with lots of space for new housing (Christie 2005).

 

Key words: mortgage meltdowns, Bear Stearns, Bubble economy, housing slump, mortgage helpers, democratization of debt,

Timeline

1965-2005 Between 1965 to 2005 there was no national US real-estate bust as home prices surpassed inflation by a percentage point or two on average. However local reversals have taken place and some cities have never recovered (Christie 2005).

1973-5 US investors in the S&P 500 lost 14% in 1973 and 26% in 1974 but gained 37% in 1975 (Mann 2000).

1970s “The additional grades or risk have arisen from the willingness to underwrite mortgages for more risky borrowers, encouraged by the democratization of credit since the 1970s. Lending to more risky borrowers is, by definition, more risky. More loans to risky borrowers increases the total amount of risk to be sold in the marketplace” (Mason and Rosner 2007).

1980-1990 In Los Angeles real estate was turbocharged for nearly 10 years (Christie 2005).

1985 In Peoria, Ill. a more traditional area the average home price fell from $60,800 in 1981 to $51,400 in 1985 partially because of

strikes and lay-offs at Caterpillar, the city’s biggest employer (Christie 2005).

1987 Canadian families saved 20 percent of their take-home pay (Ed 2007).

1987 Stock market crash

1988 In “oil patch” cities like Oklahoma City prices plummeted 26 percent from 1983 to 1988. They only returned to 1983 levels in 2003 fifteen years later. In Oklahoma City, the inflation-adjusted price in 1983 was $196,600. Today, it’s just $135,100 (Christie 2005).
1988 Houston home prices fell 22 percent from $111,000 in 1983 to $86,800 in 1988 rebounded only in 2003. Counting inflation, the average Houston home, which cost just $159,700 in 2004, is actually worth less [in 2005] than it was [in 1983]. When, adjusted for inflation, a home cost about $219,000 in 1983 (Christie 2005).

1988 – 1990s Real estate prices fell in Northern California first followed by the rest of the state “as employers fled, incomes dwindled, quakes rumbled, sales fell and prices slipped. [. . .] Silicon Valley’s housing market crashed into recession along with the state’s economy (Perkins 2001).

1989-90 The notorious price bubble of 1989-90 was linked to central banks specifically the Bank of Japan. “The Japanese economy continued to suffer during the early 1990s, and remained in recession until the end of 1993. Nominal GDP growth rates, which had been around 7 percent during the bubble period, fell beginning in 1990 and by 1991-93 were close to zero. Profits in the manufacturing sector fell 24.5 percent in 1991 and 32.1 percent in 1992. Bankruptcies began to rise starting in the latter half of 1990; by 1992, bankruptcies with debt more than Y10 million totaled 14,569 cases. Failures of real estate firms or of firms engaged in “active fund management” constituted more than half the corporate bankruptcies in 1991 and 1992 (Miller 2001).”

1991 Inflation-adjusted take-home pay in Canada froze to this level (Ed. 2007).”

1992 A new car in Canada cost $20, 000.

1992 – 2000 “Japan remained pretty stagnant in the last eight years, with the majority of the loss coming in the first two, when it eventually fell by more than 60%. There was never a big drop, just a constant and inexorable drift downward. Real estate prices plummeted, almost no Japanese company ended 1992 higher than it started 1990. In the interim, banks have failed (and if it weren’t for the financial props of the Japanese government, many more would have), and companies have had to reassess some of their basic assumptions, such as lifetime employment and large benefit packages” (Mann 2000).

1996 There was a housing market reversal in Los Angeles with average house price dropping from $222,200 in 1990 to $176,300 in 1996, a loss of 20.7 percent. “Furthermore, those are nominal prices, not real values. To calculate the loss more realistically you would have to figure in the cost of inflation: $222,200 in 1990 would have been worth $266,700 in 1996 dollars, which means the actual loss for homeowners buying in 1990 and selling in 1996 was closer to 34 percent (Christie 2005).”

1994- 1996 “In 1994, [Japanese] banks wrote off non-performing assets of Y5.7 trillion, exceeding the previous high of Y4.3 trillion in fiscal year 1993. As yet, no major bank has failed, although a number have reportedly encountered serious difficulties. In December, 1994, the Bank of Japan supervised the takeover of two credit cooperatives, the Tokyo Kyowa Credit Cooperative and the Anzen Credit Cooperative, through the creation of a bridge bank with government support. The Bank’s decision not to let these institutions fail and pay off depositors under the deposit guarantee program was based, largely, on concern for the potential systemic effects of a deposit payoff on public confidence in the banking system in general. The “jusen,” or housing finance banks, suffered the most serious problems; these institutions, which were typically organized and sponsored by major commercial banks and staffed, in part, by former officials from the Ministry of Finance, lost tens of billions of dollars as a result of the collapse of the price bubble, and became one of the most contentious political issues of the day during 1995-86 (Miller 2001)”.

1996

“How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy? We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability. Indeed, the sharp stock market break of 1987 had few negative consequences for the economy. But we should not underestimate or become complacent about the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy. Thus, evaluating shifts in balance sheets generally, and in asset prices particularly, must be an integral part of the development of monetary policy.”

- Alan Greenspan (December 5, 1996)**

1998 There was a market correction in the United States in October of 1998.

1992 – 2000 “Japan remained pretty stagnant in the last eight years, with the majority of the loss coming in the first two, when it eventually fell by more than 60%. There was never a big drop, just a constant and inexorable drift downward. Real estate prices plummeted, almost no Japanese company ended 1992 higher than it started 1990. In the interim, banks have failed (and if it weren’t for the financial props of the Japanese government, many more would have), and companies have had to reassess some of their basic assumptions, such as lifetime employment and large benefit packages” (Mann 2000).

2004 British Columbia graduates from university have an average debt of $20, 000.

2005 Real-estate investing spiked, pressuring prices upward. In Phoenix, according to Bill Jilbert, president and COO of the Coldwell Banker brokerage there, investors from Nevada and California have invaded the Arizona market, and “affordable housing has been pushed to extremes (Christie 2005).”

2000 In Tampa Bay Florida, high risk adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) made homes “seem affordable when wages stagnated as prices soared. They were just the ticket for cash-out refinancings and home equity credit lines that bought cars and swimming pools and paid off credit card debt. “What happened in a lot of expensive real estate markets is that first-time home buyers who felt they could not afford a home otherwise, took on a loan that had lower monthly payments than a traditional mortgage would have,” said Allen Fishbein, director of housing policy for the Consumer Federation of America. “They weren’t being underwritten on the basis of the borrower’s reasonable capacity to handle these loans.” The payments started out manageable, especially since many loans offered teaser rates. But borrowers are getting a lesson in what the word “adjustable” means. More than $130-billion in mortgages payments were reset in 2006″ In 2006 nearly a third of Tampa Bay mortgages were the high-risk varieties, up from 10 percent in 2003 (Huntley 2006).

1991- 2005 “[I]ncreased complexity from increased grading of risk can also result in increased opacity. Risk that is more difficult to see, by virtue of complexity, is risk just the same. There are plenty of reasons to believe that the amount of risk in the marketplace has increased. Figure 3 shows that defaults on ABS and residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) increased substantially between 1991 and 2005″ (Mason and Rosner 2007).

2006 Fitch Global Structured Finance 1991-2005 Default Study revealed that, “the overwhelming majority of global structured finance defaults over the 1991-2005 period were from the U.S., accounting for more than 97 percent of the total. While the 1,000 U.S. defaults were mainly concentrated in the Asset-Backed Securities._ (ABS) sector, the 27 international defaults were primarily from the collateralized debt obligations (CDO) sector.” See Mason and Rosner (2007) warn that risk continues to increase, as ratings agencies revise their loss expectations to account for the dynamics of the mortgage meltdown. For instance, on March 27, Standard & Poor’s raised its expectation for losses on 1.

2006 In Florida millions of homeowners were warned of the mortgage meltdown in which they will “face a financial nightmare brought on by a combination of higher interest rates, risky mortgages and a housing market gone cold (Huntley 2006).

2007 Since 1991 inflation-adjusted hourly wages rose only 10 cents (Ed. 2007).”

2007 A new car in Canada cost $32,000 a 60 percent increase from 1992 (Ed. 2007).”

2007 Canadians collectively owe three quarters of a trillion dollars in personal debt. Canadian families not only have no savings, they draw on pension savings to make ends meet.

“The result of the easy credit is that an average family now owes far more than it takes in. That means we remain solvent only so long as the book value of our assets — things like our home, pension funds or investments — continue to increase (Ed. 2007).”

2007 British Columbia graduates from university have an average debt of $27, 000.

2007 It is now acceptable for Canadian families to pay 60 percent of income to pay monthly payments of their home mortgages (Ed. 2007).

2007 The British Columbia government will allow home owners who are over 55 to defer property tax payments for as long as they live. The government will claim unpaid taxes after you die or sell effectively placing the tax burden on the children (Ed. 2007).

2007 “The number of corporate failures in Japan rose for the third month in a row totaling 896 cases in December up 18.2%. November flops were up 6.5% and the number of companies going belly up in October were up 7.8%. The amount of debts the insolvent companies left behind were up 30.6% to 463.09 billion yen (Belew 2007).

2007 In March Bob Lawless reported in his blog that, “The folks at Automated Access to Court Electronic Records or AACER regularly collect data from all the bankruptcy courts for creditors and attorneys. They have a wealth of information that does not show up in the mainstream media. Most recently, they tell me that there were 58,640 total U.S. bankruptcy filings in February 2007 as compared to 55,088 total U.S. bankruptcy filings in January 2007. OK, that looks like a slight increase, but looks are deceiving. It’s actually a fairly hefty increase. The February filings were spread over only nineteen business days while the January filings were spread over twenty-one days. On a daily basis, the February filings were up 17.7% as compared to January (Lawless 2007).”

2007 Jayson Seth analysed data in National Association of Realtors (NAR) June 24, 2007 report. Seth argues that “America’s easy-credit, quick-flipping, borrow-now-and-forget-the-consequences lifestyle is coming to an increasingly painful, grinding halt” and the “confidence of homebuilders is at a 16-year low (Seth 2007).”

2007 Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors announced that the real estate market is softening due to psychological factors, tighter credit for subprime borrowers. NAR’s Lawrence Yun explained that since late 2006 housing sales have slowed as buyers double up with family, friends or just mortgage helper units in their homes to be able to pay for higher-priced homes.

2007 Mason and Rosner (2007) warn that risk continues to increase, as ratings agencies revise their loss expectations to account for the dynamics of the mortgage meltdown. For instance, on March 27, Standard & Poor’s raised its expectation for losses on 1. “Residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market has experienced significant changes [from 1997-2007]” Furthermore they caution that “structural changes in mortgage origination and servicing have interacted with complex RMBS and highly volatile CDO funding structures to place the U.S. housing market at risk. Equally as important, however, is that housing market weaknesses feed back through financial markets to further weaken financial instruments backing today’s CDOs. Decreased housing starts that will result from lower liquidity in the MBS sector will further weaken credit spreads and depress CDO and MBS issuance. This feedback mechanism can create imbalances in the U.S. economy that, if left unchecked, could lead to prolonged domestic economic implications for U.S. standing in the world economic order [. . .] The potential for prolonged economic difficulties that also interfere with home ownership in the United States raises significant public policy concerns. Already we are witnessing restructurings and layoffs at top financial institutions. More importantly, however, is the need to provide stable funding sources for economic growth. The biggest obstacle that we have identified is lack of transparency.” (Mason and Rosner 2007).

2007 In a Marketplace interview Amy Scott asked interviewees about the disturbing consequences of the interconnections between banks, hedge funds, high risk mortgages and pension funds. In June two major hedge funds managed by the investment bank Bear Stearns, who purchased securities that were essentially a “repackaging of all kinds of risky mortgages” to tap into the subprime mortgage market are now verging on collapse as the number of borrowers defaulting on these mortgages increases. Joseph Mason explained that “this isn’t just a Wall Street problem. Your 401k or pension fund may be invested in similar mortgage-related securities.” The investor-base is broad and it is difficult to know who is at risk. “Investment managers don’t have to report their holdings. And unlike stocks, these securities aren’t quoted on an open market.” Mason has been a firm proponent of more transparency in financial dealings (Scott 2007).

Webliography

Belew, Bill. 2007. “Corporate Bankruptcies climb for third month in a row.” Uploaded January 21, 2007. Accessed June 24, 2007.
Christie, Lee. 2005. “Real estate: When booms go bust: Home prices can and do go down. Here’s what declines have looked like in the past.” CNN/Money. September 19, 2005.

Editorial. 2007. “Family finances under pressure.” Victoria, British Columbia. Times Colonist. June 24. D2.

Fitch IBCA, 2006. Fitch Global Structured Finance 1991-2005 Default Study, Nov. 26, 2006.
Huntley, Helen. 2006. “Mortgage Meltdown.” Tampa, Florida: St. Petersburg Times. Uploaded October 2, 2006.
Jayson, Seth. 2007. “Housing Slumps. Who’s Surprised?“; The Motley Fool. Uploaded June 25, 2007. Accessed June 25, 2007.

Lawless, Bob. 2007. “Bankruptcy Filings Up 18% in February 2007.” Credit Slips: A Discussion on Credit and Bankruptcy. Uploaded March 6, 2007. Accessed June 24, 2007.

Mann, Bill. 2000. “An Investment Opinion: What a Real Bear Market Feels Like.” >> Fool on the Hill. Uploaded April 26, 2000.

Mason, Joseph R.; Rosner, Joshua. 2007. “Where Did the Risk Go? How Misapplied Bond Ratings Cause Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligation Market Disruptions.” Uploaded May 2007. Accessed June 24, 2007.

Miller, Geoffrey P. 2001. “The Role of a Central Bank in a Bubble Economy.” July 16, 2001.

Molony, Walter. 2007. “May Existing: Home Sales Show Market is Under Performing.” Washington. Uploaded June 25, 2007.

Perkins, Broderick. 2001. “California Real Estate Won’t Mirror Silicon Valley Volatility.” >> Realty Times. Uploaded May 18, 2001. Accessed June 24, 2007.

Scott, Amy. 2007. “Mortgage meltdown hits Bear Stearns.” >> New York: Marketplace. Uploaded June 20, 2007. Accessed June 24, 2007.

Winzer, Ingo. 2005. president of Local Market Monitor, which sells real-estate market analysis to corporate and consumer clients.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Democratization of Debt: Wall Street’s Bear Stearn’s and Tampa’s Mortgage Meltdown.” >> Speechless. June 24, 2007.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Democratization of Debt: Bear Stearn & Mortgage Meltdown.” >> Google docs

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddp3qxmz_320dqk9nt

Nessun Dorma by PavaPotts: humility and ectasy, from selling cells to elevating souls

In the mythopoetic language of the aria Nessun Dorma from the Italian opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini’s (1858-1924) the nameless prince seeks to enrapture the cold-hearted judge. Lew (1997) described the opera’s “underlying theme of the law: La legge è questa” which is “almost like a magic spell.” The Unknown Prince enters the contest and wins. But he wants something more authentic in his relationship with the princess than simply solving her riddles. The aria Nessun Dorma refers to a sleepless night through which his judge, the vinegar-souled princess, seeks to deprive the prince of his prize. He sings of a secret hidden within him, of dissolving the silence and finally of conquest. See Lew (1997).

Knox described how the Idol judge vinegar-souled Simon Cowell could not help smiling as he listened to Paul Potts’ rendition of  Nessun Dorma. His smile broke his face in half.

Journalist Jack Knox (2007) described 36-year old Welsh mobile-phone salesman, Paul Potts as the “classic underdog” looking like he “had been beaten all [his] life. ” Potts according to Knox was “poor, dumpy, shlumpy, overweight, slump-shouldered, with a gut-over-the-belt frame.”

The story of Paul Potts sharply contrasts with that of Joshua Bell, one of the world’s greatest violinists, who played his multimillion-dollar Stradivarius for spare change, incognito, outside a bustling Metro stop in Washington in a social science experiment. Commuters hurried by and only a rare few stopped to listen and were enraptured including one mesmerized very young child who tugged at his mother’s hand as she rushed to her next appointment (Weingarten 2007).

Location, location, location.

If Paul Potts had chosen to sing Nessun Dorma in that Metro stop in Washington in April 2007 would he have melted the hearts of vinegar-souled passersby? One thing is for sure, from now on, thanks to a combination of the popularity of Idol-style shows, Youtube and email if Potts were to sing for busy commuters he, unlike Joshua Bell would not go unnoticed.

to be continued . .

Notes

The Prince
Nessun dorma, nessun dorma … Tu pure, o Principessa, Nella tua fredda stanza, Guardi le stelle Che tremano d’amore E di speranza.	No one sleeps, no one sleeps… Even you, o Princess, In your cold room, Watch the stars, That tremble with love And with hope.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me, Il nome mio nessun saprà, no, no, Sulla tua bocca lo dirò Quando la luce splenderà, Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio Che ti fa mia.	But my secret is hidden within me; My name no one shall know, no, no, On your mouth I will speak it* When the light shines, And my kiss will dissolve the silence That makes you mine.
Chorus
Il nome suo nessun saprà E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir.	No one will know his name And we must, alas, die.
The Prince
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle! All’alba vincerò!	Vanish, o night! Set**, stars! At daybreak, I shall conquer!

From Lew (1997).

The copyright for the Italian libretto of Turandot has been held by G. Ricordi & Co. since 1926 (Lew 1997). aria Nessun Dorma

 

Keywords

urban ethnography, moral mathematics, slow world, everyday.life, digg.com, digg story, youtube

Webliography

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Pearls before Breakfast: Story Dugg by papergirls.” >> papergirls. Uploaded May 16, 2007.

Knox, Jack. 2007. “Internet’s Idol’s Story Gives Hope to Us All.” Victoria, British Columbia: Times Colonist Sunday Edition. June 24, 2007. p. A3.

Lew, Mark D. 1997. “Turandot: Commentary on Symbolism, Poetry, and Nessun Dorma.” Last Updated September 29, 1999. Accessed June 24, 2007.

Weingarten, Gene. 2007. “Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?” Washington Post. April 8. Page W10.

Mount Tzuhalem on Youtube, June 21, Aboriginal Day

Powdthavee (2007) Putting a Price Tag on Your Friends, Neighbours

How much is your happiness worth to the market? Is one person’s happiness worth less than another’s? With these finite monetary values in hand will the moral mathematics with which public policies are formed be guided by solely economic concerns? While reading University of London researcher, Nattavudh Powdthavee’s (2007) paper in which he places a monetary value on life satisfaction gained or lost by changes in social interaction, health, employment and marital status using shadow pricing algorithms, I had a sense of déjà-vu. And I thought of the Pinto. Borders between disciplines are blurring and economists are engaging with issues that were associated with psychology, philosophy, moral philosophy, virtue ethics and religion. In the end is Powdthavee setting the stage for a more sophisticated form of risk management?

Powdthavee concluded that social relationships with neighbours, family and friends have a positive effect that can be greater than an actual change in income. “[T]he finding that income only plays a small part in influencing our wellbeing is in fact one of the central conclusions reached in this paper. It appears that other possessions in life such as social relationships, long-lasting marriage, and good health matter a lot more to happiness than what average level of income can normally buy in the long-run (Powdthavee 2007).”

Powdthavee’s findings are largely a reiteration of his bibliographic sources which is a useful research tool in itself. Many of the references however are the same as those provided by Oswald on his content-rich site complete with full-text articles. Oswald’s (1997) paper “Happiness and Economic Performance ” was based partially on the impressive and solid data compiled by the British Household Panel Survey, one of the longest running panel surveys in the world. Both Oswald and Powdthavee acknowledge the importance of Argyle’s (1989) early work.

In the 1970s using an internal cost-benefit analysis Ford Motor Company with President Lee Iacocca at the helm, placed a monetary value of $200,000 on a human life (Dowie 1977, Strobel 1980, McKenny 1997). They made business ethics history in 1977 under the headline of “Pinto Madness” when their immoral math was revealed explaining why they had waited eight years before correcting a fatal defect in the fuel system in the profitable Pinto, the biggest selling subcompact in America at the time. Ford engineers were cognizant during pre-production in the 1960s that the Pinto’s fuel system would rupture in a rear-end collision turning it into a deadly firetrap. Since its rushed release August of 1970 to compete with the popular Volkswagen Beetle, from 500 to 900 people burned to death in preventable accidents. Ford’s president, Lee Iacocca, riding on his enormous success with the Mustang, cut the production time from 43 months to 25. He was never told of the defect because his staff knew his motto, “Safety doesn’t sell.” The economic guru of the time was Milton Friedman who declared that the sole responsibility of business was to increase its profits. Ford’s accountants and engineers worked out an algorithm in which the placed a monetary value on the cost of a human life, the estimated number of lives lost, insurance costs versus the cost of correcting the defective fuel system. They concluded that based on this internal cost-benefit analysis that it wasn’t profitable to make the changes sooner than 1977 (Dowie 1977).

Strobel, legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune, published a scathing critique of the case study in Reckless Homocide: Ford’s Pinto Trial (1980) which McKenny summarized for a lecture entitled “Moral Reasoning: the Case of the Ford Pinto” in a Research Ethics Seminar.

A cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ford concluded that it was not cost-efficient to add an $11 per car cost in order to correct the flaws. Benefits derived from spending this amount of money were estimated to be $49.5 million. This estimate assumed that each death which could be avoided would be worth $200,000, that each major burn injury that could be avoided would be worth $67,000 and that an average repair cost of $700 per car involved in a rear end accident would be avoided. It further assumed that there would be 2,100 burned vehicles, 180 serious burn injuries, and 180 burn deaths in making this calculation. When the unit cost was spread out over the number of cars and light trucks which would be affected by the design change, at a cost of $11 per vehicle, the cost was calculated to be $137 million, much greater then the $49.5 million benefit (McKenny 1997).

What about those who are at risk to social exclusion by way of structural impediments such as the Inuit and First Nations in Canada? Their suicide rates are among the highest in the world. Where does that compute in this kind of risk management, this economic and moral reasoning?

And which kind of life satisfaction is Powdthavee measuring: hedonic happiness or Aristotle’s Eudaimonia or somewhere in between?

Keywords: social relationships, friends, neighbours, social capital, life satisfaction, shadow pricing, Social Support, Psychological Well-Being, psychology, happiness, Subjective Well-Being, social indicators, Duchene smile, Pan American smile, Eudaimonia, hedonic happiness,

Notes

“…yearbook photos are a gold mine for Positive Psychology researchers. ‘Look at the birdie and smile,’ the photographer tells you, and dutifully you put on your best smile. Some of us break into a radiant smile of authentic good cheer, while the rest of us pose politely. There are two kinds of smiles. The first, called a Duchenne smile (after its discoverer, Guillaume Duchenne) is genuine. The corners of your mouth turn up and the skin around the corners of your eyes crinkles (like crow’s feet). The muscles that do this, the orbicularis oculi and the zygomticus, are exceedingly difficult to control voluntarily. The other smile, called the Pan American smile (after the flight attendants in television ads for the now-defunct airline), is inauthentic, with none of the Duchenne features. Indeed, it is probably more related to the rictus that lower primates display when frightened than it is to happiness (Seligman 2002a:5).”

Seligman compared Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia, the Good Life, with its focus on the pleasures of contemplation, deep absorption and immersion, a state we now call “flow.” And during this state there is neither thought nor feeling with the Hollywood’s hedonic concept of happiness. The hedonic view of happiness embodied in the Goldie Hawn-Hollywood cheerful smile is based on maximizing pleasure through positive feelings and minimizing pain. In other words happiness equals pleasure. However, he argues, this “Duchenne smile” is highly heritable. But 50% of the population are just not very smiley and cheerful and won’t be even after acquiring skills like mindfulness, which affects only the upper part of the set range of positive affectivity (Seligman 2002b).

“So the core thesis in Authentic Happiness is that there are three very different routes to happiness. First the Pleasant Life, consisting in having as many pleasures as possible and having the skills to amplify the pleasures. This is, of course, the only true kind of happiness on the Hollywood view. Second, the Good Life, which consists in knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life. Third, the Meaningful Life, which consists of using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are (Seligman 2002b).”

A RoperASW research project financed by Money found that “At a household income of about $50,000 a year, the happiness curve flattens out (Chatzky 2003).”

“Richard Easterlin (1974, 1995) was one of the first economists to study statistics over time on the reported level of happiness. His data came from the United States. Easterlin’s 1974 paper’s main objectives were, first, to suggest that individual happiness appears to be the same across poor countries and rich countries, and, second, to argue that economic growth does not raise well-being (Oswald 1997).”

“The British Household Panel Survey data show that income has no strong role to play, but that joblessness does. Clark and Oswald (1994) fail to find any statistically significant effect from income (Oswald 1997).”

“Reported happiness is high among those who are married, on high income, women, whites, the well-educated, the self-employed, the retired, and those looking after the home. Happiness is apparently U-shaped in age (minimizing around the 30s) (Oswald 1997).”

“The main objective of the BHPS is to further our understanding of social and economic change at the individual and household level in Britain and the UK. The BHPS is a research resource for a wide range of social science disciplines and supports interdisciplinary research in many subject areas. The BHPS has recently been refunded for a further five years to 2009 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. By 2009, a total of 18 years of panel data will have been collected, making the BHPS one of the longest running panel surveys in the world (BHPS 2007).

“An American study of 22 winners of large lotteries found no clear difference between their happiness and that of controls. More generally, the relationship between wealth and happiness (or SWB – Subjective Well-being – in the jargon) seems difficult to quantify, but hard to discount. Some measures seem to confirm that it is a component of SWB – such as the survey which found that the rich are happy 77 per cent of the time, whilst the rest of us are happy only 52 per cent of the time. On the other hand, another survey found Nigerians measuring up more or less exactly to Germans in terms of per capita contentment (Argyle 1989).”

Bibliography and Webliography

Argyle, M. (1989). The Psychology of Happiness , Routledge, London.

BHPS (The British Household Panel Survey ) 1991-.

Chatzky, Jean. 2003. “Ten commandments of financial happiness: The secret to being happy isn’t earning a lot – it’s gaining control over your finances.” >> Money Magazine. Uploaded October 2. Accessed June 20, 2007.

Chatzky, Jean. 2003. “How much money do you really need to be happy?” >> USA WEEKEND. Uploaded Sept. 21. Accessed June 20, 2007.

Chatzky, Jean. 2003. You Don’t Have to Be Rich: Comfort, Happiness and Financial Security on Your Own Terms. Portfolio/Penguin.

Dowie, Mark. 1977. “Pinto Madness.” A Mother Jones Classic. September/October.

McKenny, Gerald. 1997. “Moral Reasoning: The Case of the Ford Pinto.” in Vardi, Moshe Y. 1997. >> Research Ethics Seminar. Uploaded 1997. Accessed June 21, 2007.

Oswald, Andrew J. 1997. “Happiness and Economic Performance ”, Economic Journal, 107, 1815-31.

Powdthavee, Nattavudh. 2007. “Putting a Price Tag on Friends, Relatives, and Neighbours.: Using Surveys of Life Satisfaction to Value Social Relationships.” Forthcoming in the Journal of Socio-Economics. http://www.powdthavee.co.uk/resources/valuing_social_relationships_15.04.pdf

Seligman, Martin E. P. 2002a. Authentic Happiness : Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.

Seligman, Martin E. P. 2002b. “Pleasure, Meaning & Eudaimonia.” >> Authentic Happiness. http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu

Sharma, Vijai P. 2002. “A Genuine Smile Goes a “Long Way.” >> Mind Publications. Posted October 2002. Accessed June 20, 2007.

Strobel, Lee Patrick. 1980. Reckless Homocide: Ford’s Pinto Trial. And Brooks.

Vardi, Moshe Y. 1997. “The Case of the Ford Pinto.” >> Research Ethics Seminar. Uploaded 1997. Accessed June 21, 2007.

The Psychology of Happiness. >> Global : Ideas : Bank.

Powdthavee References

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Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Powdthavee (2007) Putting a Price Tag on Your Friends, Neighbours and Relatives.”

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddp3qxmz_315qjsq58

Heron Rookery, Cowichan Bay, Youtube, WordPress, Flickr and Google Docs

The industrial-size cries of the young heron reminded me of scenes from Jurassic Park. Their loud squawking can be heard long before you can see them.  The activity in the nest is so aggressive and loud you would think an eagle was attacking. The huge nests balance on the tops of alder trees.  This active rookery of about 50 nests is situated at c. 48°44′21.80″N, 123°37′38.78″W.  On June 17, 2007 the young were visible with the naked eye. They are awkward and seem to be over-sized for their nests which sway as they fight over food that the adult heron bring.

As we chatted we could see a steady stream of herons flying back and forth between the food sources at low tide on the Cowichan Bay estuary and the rookery at the edge of the ravine that cuts deeply behind Pritchard Road. Dell Bumstead’s mature, magical garden is at the end of Pritchard just on the edge of the ravine. Dell remembers when one flock of seventy heron flew over her garden c. 1997.

Taxonomy, empty lots, roadsides

Louise was breathless with excitement and it didn’t help that Reba was pulling at the leash. As usual I was on my knees pulling out Swamp grass and clover from around the heather. She was so proud of her beautiful Labrador Retriever who had just found a trail hidden among the overgrown bushes at the end of an empty lot off Wilmot Road. It was just a few minutes from our hill-side homes overlooking Cowichan Bay. The lot was not really empty as it was completely overgrown with clover, daisies, Swamp grass, wild blackberries and dozens of other plants many of which I had been battling as weeds for the last 18 months in the garden. Here they flourished and were stunningly beautiful swaying in the breeze.

Suddenly the quiet was broken with industrial size squawking. It reminded me of the sound of raptors in Jurassic Park. As we zigzagged through patches of thorny plants we could see huge heron nests that seemed to be balanced precariously atop Alder trees that were too thin and fragile for this weight and responsibility. The loud squawking seemed to increase and decrease in lulls which I thought at first was due to our arrival or maybe even an attack of an eagle. But as I stood silently watching I could see the adult herons incessantly leaving the nests and returning with food for their offspring. The young were rowdy and ungainly and the branches thrashed as they competed for food. One graceless young heron perched precariously on a branch that bent and swayed under his weight.

All around us underfoot were trunks of trees cut long ago to clear the land to the edge of this ravine tucked in behind Pritchard. The ravine meanders with branches leading into Cowichan Bay estuary somewhere near Wessex Inn.

Roger Tory Peterson¹ reminded us that the majority of flowers that grow in vacant lots and along roads in North America are aliens. Hundreds of wayside plants came from Europe. Some came from gardens but most came unseen as seeds mixed in with shipments from across the sea. The first known station for a foreign plant is often at seaports or along a railroad track. In the prairies certain flowers came at first to airfields. In 1968 Peterson had already noticed that the best place to find remnants of the disappearing prairie flowers was along the railroad right-of-way. Roadsides are relatively poor because of mowing and plant-spraying operations. Even coastal marshes have lost their flowers through ditching and draining (1986:x11).

Flowers are rooted to earth, often separated by broad barriers of unsuitable environment from other ’stations’ of their own species. “Therefore over the centuries, subtle differences have often developed with strains that are so marked that botanists have given them varietal names. Others are ignored because they would overburden an already complex taxonomy. Or a flower, from the same seed, may be depauperate in a sterile soil or where lack of competition has favoured it in some way. Familiar flowers than can look unfamiliar. Some hybridize (Peterson 1968:xii).”

“What of the future of rare native wildflowers? Because of the attrition of habitat, some are in a precarious position. Bogs along the southern margins of glaciated country are becoming fewer and orchids requiring bog conditions are harder to find. When a forest has been cut, its shade-loving orchids may also disappear, and half a century or more may pass before succession makes the forest suitable again for them. How can they return? [...] Can seeds remain viable in the soil for half a century or more, until succession renders their habitat suitable again? We know little about this (Peterson 1968:xii).”

We entered the trail that Reba had shown us and there was a third space of semi-tropical rain forest. This hidden treasure is tucked away in the village of Cowichan Bay. A small stream, that dries up in the summer, winds through this hidden ravine. It is a corridor of towering douglas fir, cedar trees and arbutus trees with dense foliage that is tucked in between developed areas on either side. Sword and maiden-hair ferns and a wide diversity of wildflowers grow in the cool, moist mini-ecosystem. A few villagers have maintained a trail with an almost invisible entrance at the end of a clearing on Wilmot. I am not sure that it is precisely located on the Flickr map but the coordinates are (48°44′23.86″N, 123°37′39.45″ W).

This is linked to my Flickr and to my Google Earth Community and will be linked to Youtube, Facebook and Google Video.

Notes
1. I usually try to separate my own phrasing from that of an author whose works I am citing. In this case these words are a blend of direct quotations from Peterson’s Introduction and my own editing to shorten and summarize. His phrases and wording are so exact, poetic and appropriate that I wanted to enhance their metaphorical quality by keeping them intact. If I included all the “” the result would be too cumbersome.

Bibliography

Peterson, Roger Tory. 1968. “Introduction.” in Peterson, Roger Tory, McKenny, Margaret. 1968. A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-central North America: A Visual Approach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Peterson, Roger Tory. 1968. “Survival.” in Peterson, Roger Tory, McKenny, Margaret. 1968. A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-central North America: A Visual Approach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
p. xii.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Taxonomy, empty lots, roadsides.” >> Speechless. June 18.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Taxonomy, empty lots, roadsides.” http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddp3qxmz_304fp4w32 June 18.

Taxonomy, Virtual Petroglyphs and Google Earth

When we arrive there in a couple of weeks, I can conjure the experience of here by visiting these sites in cyberspace that stay put while I move from place to place. The closer the date to our departure, the more I seem to want to add to my Web 2.0 accounts. It’s as if I want to show my appreciation to this Island by naming and locating the whatness and whereness of things. Thanks to Dave and to friends like Louise and Jim who know wildflowers, shrubs and trees with help the web, I’ve come to better understand the delicate, unique ecosystems here. Through Google Earth I’ve been able to situate with some certainty photos on Flickr and the Google Earth community and videos on Youtube. I use Google docs to write notes about them and WordPress to blog it.

Brenda, Diego, Mohammed, Glynelda, Jim, Dave and I visited East Sooke Regional Park on southern Vancouver Island on Sunday, June 17, 2007. We parked at the end of Becher Bay road and walked to Creyke Point looking out over Juan de Fuca Strait with Campbell Cove on one side and Becher Bay on the other.From Creyke Point (48°19′31.29″N, 123°37′49.56″W), East Sooke Regional park we could see Wolfe Island (48°19′27.79″N, 123°38′5.69″W) in Campbell Bay. Beyond the Juan de Fuca Strait the Olympic Mountain Range was barely visible through the clouds. It took about an hour to reach the Alldridge petroglyphs (48°19′4.01″N, 123°38′20.02″W) because we stopped to take photos and videos of a large arbutus, a life-rich tidal pool (where Dave, Jim and Diego found sea anemones, chitons, sea stars, coral, goose-neck and rock barnacles, sculpin): wildflowers like Blue-eyed Grass, Castilleja coccinea, Fool’s Onion and stone crop, pine trees clinging to the rocks dwarfed by the strong ocean winds, waves crashing along the coastal trail. We watched two sea lions emerge near us just off shore when we stopped for lunch on a rocky outcrop. We didn’t go the extra ten kilometers to see the Beechey Head landmark (48°18′52.34″N, 123°39′15.67″W) as we had a few months ago. The Alldridge petroglyphs (48°19′4.01″N, 123°38′20.02″W) had been defaced with graffiti since our last visit. At Alldridge Point we chose to return along the coastal trail rather than take the wooded trail back to Aylard Farm. On the way back we saw a sea otter enjoying the fish he had just caught. An eagle landed and surveyed the surroundings as we sipped coffee and tea on the patio of the Smoking Tuna. Young Diego explored the docks, launched his toy sailboat and admired the harbour seals. Dave took photos of the petroglyphs at Alldrige Point.

This photo of Indian paintbrush, Castilleja coccinea was taken just off the trail near Creyke Point looking out towards Campbell Cove.

The bright orange, showy parts of Indian paintbrush, Castilleja coccinea, are actually bracts (modified leaves), with a flower inside each bract. Many members of the Scrophulariaceae are photosynthetic root parasites (hemiparasites), such as Indian paintbrush. Paintbrushes Castilleja along with the rare Henderson’s checker-mallow (Sidalcea hendersonii), sweet gale (Myrica gale), sedges (Carex sp) and shooting stars (Dodecatheon sp) are among the rare plants of the tidal area of Metchosin.

Fool’s Onion Brodiaea hyacinthina. I found these on the coastal trail just beyond Aldridge Point. The plant is sometimes mistaken for onions,the allium family, and is therefore called Fool’s Onion. This West Coast native brodiaea is frequently found from Southern British Columbia to Northern California West of the Cascade Mountains. It is not uncommon to find it growing among grasses or sagebrush. It can grow in USDA zones 4-9 in a well-drained sunny spot. See Hansen, Wallace W. “Native Plants of the Northwest.”

I found these Blue-eyed Grasses genus Sisyrinchium bellum not far from the Fool’s Onion. “Blue-eyed grasses genus Sisyrinchium are part of flowering plants of the Iris family Iradaceae. They are stiff grasslike plants with 6 petals each tipped with a small point. The fruit is a small round pod. There are between 70 to 150 species (according to different authors), all native to the New World. The name Sisyrinchium is derived from the Greek words sys (pig) and “rhynchos” (nose), referring to the habit of pigs grubbing the roots. These are not true grasses, but many species are low-growing, and the leaves of some appear to be grass-like; and they do often grow on grasslands. Many species resemble irises, to which they are more closely related. Most species grow as perennial plants, from a rhizome, though some are short-lived (e.g. S. striatum), and some are annuals (e.g. S. iridifolium). The flowers are relatively simple and often grow in clusters. Many species, particularly the South American ones, are not blue, despite the common name. Flower colours in the genus includes white, yellow, and purple, as well as blue, often with a contrasting centre. Of the species in the United States, the Western Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium bellum, is sometimes found with white flowers (wiki).” They are found in open grassy places on the Pacific coast blooming for a long time in spring to summer.

Stone-crop

Stone-crop

Webliography

2005. Notes Native Study Group

“Scrophulariaceae Indian paintbrush, Castilleja coccinea” digital flowers
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/help/digitalflowers/Scrophulariaceae/11.htm

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Taxonomy, Virtual Petroglyphs and Google Earth” >> speechless

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Taxonomy, Virtual Petroglyphs and Google Earth” >> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddp3qxmz_297r3d4jw

Slideshare, WordPress and Web 2.0

This slideshow Logo Digitage Web2.0 was featured on SlideShare on June 18!