Economics and my understanding

To get to the question let us review a few notions. Some of these ideas come from The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner. We work for money. Our money buys things. Hence by the transitive property we work for things. Most of these things are unnecessary but a portion of them are. The necessary portion sates our problems i.e. our problems of food, shelter and clothing. In the past, society operated to quell our needs either via tradition, one worked like one's father, or by force (slavery).  This resulted in the malthusian trap. Capitalism, a new way to ensure our problems are met vs tradition and force, ensures we work by promising to give us things which we collectively work at.  The definition is argued but 3 things often agreed upon are  1)Organization of labour especially division of labour. 2)capital investment for higher production 3)protection of private contracts and private property by the relationship between the state and market. A clear faith based system as one knows that if the farmers all quit tomorrow, the food supply would be depleted quickly yet almost nobody stores a year supply of food in their shelter. We have become so efficient that we can provide to those who have no hand in making any thing. The problem, according to Keynes I think, is that it is a feedback system. With everyone producing, prosperity starts. People buy profit products (overpriced in the sense making them costs less than selling them). With everyone producing, more overpriced products can be bought. If one is good, many times is better. Greed and competition hurl the profit products down. Some profit products even become cheap, it costs more to make than to sell,and this cannot last. Some people must be told to stop producing, this in turn slows their consumption. This appears to induce a negative feedback. People consuming less, which leads to more unemployed workers=> lessening things again. The masses hoard money hence things are not disposed of as quickly hence we get a glut of certain things. This, too, leads to worker unemployment which again lead to lesser things in the end. What stops this cancerous cycle? Keynes thought possibly nothing. He then recommended that it was up to govt's to get us out of this deleterious cycle. The govt's must spend, even if its burying bottles of money for a group of people to dig up. This will stop the unvirtuous cycle and start another prosperous one. Joseph Schumpeter said what got us out of these vicious cycles was creative destruction. No better recent example is the Apple iPhone vs the Blackberry. New innovative products that before the consumer didn't have a choice to purchase like air conditioners, TV's, microwave ovens, PC's, cellphones etc. All products most common people own that JD Rockefeller (an extremely wealthy man of his time) didn't. Friedman, an empirical fellow, liked observational historical data. It showed that crunching the money supply caused recessions.

Factors That Influence Real Estate

1. Demographics

Demographics are the data that describes the composition of a population, such as age, race, gender, income, migration patterns and population growth. These statistics are an often overlooked but significant factor that affects how real estate is priced and what types of properties are in demand. Major shifts in the demographics of a nation can have a large impact on real estate trends for several decades.

For example, the baby boomers who were born between 1945 and 1964 are an example of a demographic trend with the potential to significantly influence the real estate market. The transition of these baby boomers to retirement is one of the more interesting generational trends in the last century, and the retirement of these baby boomers, which began back in 2010, is bound to be noticed in the market for decades to come. (For more on the baby-boomer trend, see Boomers: Twisting The Retirement Mindset.)

There are numerous ways this type of demographic shift can affect the real estate market, but for an investor, some key questions to ask might be: i) How would this affect the demand for second homes in popular vacation areas as more people start to retire? Or ii) How would this affect the demand for larger homes if incomes are smaller and the children have all moved out? These and other questions can help investors narrow down the type and location of potentially desirable real estate investments long before the trend has started.

2. Interest Rates

Interest rates also have a major impact on the real estate markets. Changes in interest rates can greatly influence a person's ability to purchase a residential property. That is because as the interest rates fall, the cost to obtain a mortgage to buy a home decreases, which creates a higher demand for real estate, which pushes prices up. Conversely, as interest rates rise, the cost to obtain a mortgage increases, thus lowering demand and prices of real estate.

However, when looking at the impact of interest rates on an equity investment such as a real estate investment trust (REIT), rather than on residential real estate, the relationship can be thought of as similar to a bond's relationship with interest rates. When interest rates decline, the value of a bond goes up because its coupon rate becomes more desirable, and when interest rates increase, the value of bonds decrease. Similarly, when the interest rate decreases in the market, REITs' high yields become more attractive and their value goes up. When interest rates increase, the yield on an REIT becomes less attractive and it pushes their value down. (To learn more about these effects, see How Interest Rates Affect Property Values.)

3. The Economy

Another key factor that affects the value of real estate is the overall health of the economy. This is generally measured by economic indicators such as the GDP, employment data, manufacturing activity, the prices of goods, etc. Broadly speaking, when the economy is sluggish, so is real estate.

However, the cyclicality of the economy can have varying effects on different types of real estate. For example, if an REIT has a larger percentage of its investments in hotels, they would typically be more affected by an economic downturn than an REIT that had invested in office buildings. Hotels are a form of property that is very sensitive to economic activity due to the type of lease structure inherent in the business. Renting a hotel room can be thought of as a form of short-term lease that can be easily avoided by hotel customers should the economy be doing poorly. On the other hand, office tenants generally have longer-term leases that can't be changed in the middle of an economic downturn. Thus, although you should be aware of the part of the cycle the economy is in, you should also be cognizant of the real estate property's sensitivity to the economic cycle.

4. Government Policies/Subsidies

Legislation is also another factor that can have a sizable impact on property demand and prices. Tax credits, deductions and subsidies are some of the ways the government can temporarily boost demand for real estate for as long as they are in place. Being aware of current government incentives can help you determine changes in supply and demand and identify potentially false trends. For example, in 2009, the U.S. government introduced a first-time homebuyer's tax credit to homeowners in an attempt to jump-start home sales in a sluggish economy. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), this tax incentive alone led to 900,000 homebuyers to buy homes in the U.S. This was quite a sizable increase, although temporary, and without knowing the increase was a result of the tax incentive, you may have ended up concluding that the demand for housing was going up based on other factors.

how to fire someone

TwitterLinkedInDiggBuzzEmail.Howard Levitt, Financial Post · Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011

I've been in this game a long time. When an employer wished to fire an employee for cause, I used to say "Check their expense accounts and their job applications. Many employees gild the lily-1. To cover with or as if with a thin layer of gold.
2. To give an often deceptively attractive or improved appearance to.)
on their expenses and most lie on their resumes. Both are cause for discharge. But now, there is an even easier method -- check their Facebook postings and Google their names.

Two union supporters at West Coast Mazda in Pitt Meadows, B.C., foolishly posted status updates to their hundreds of "friends," many of them co-workers.

For a few weeks, one of them posted increasingly belligerent and threatening messages. He accused two of his male supervisors of sexual acts in the washroom, referred to one of them as "A COMPLETE JACK-ASS," and attacked his employer's products. One of his post's was threatening: "If somebody mentally attacks you, and you stab him in the [face] 14 or 16 times ... that constitutes self defence, doesn't it???," he wrote.

The other employee's misconduct was more isolated. Posting on only one day, his musings, sprinkled with obscene language, included an attack on his employer's ability to service the customers. Realizing he had crossed the line, he apologized, deleted the postings and closed his Facebook account the next day. It was too late. The employer had been monitoring Facebook and had made copies after their "friends" reported the abuse.

When confronted, they both denied making the postings, claiming someone else had gone on their account.

Since the union had just been certified and no collective agreement had yet been negotiated, they applied to the B.C. Labour Relations Board for reinstatement. Allison Matacheskie, vice-chair woman of the board, found their behaviour to be just cause for discharge. Given their audience of co-workers and former employees, she said, they "could have no reasonable expectation of privacy." In her view, the comments were "akin to statements made on the shop floor" in full view of everyone. However, she noted, if the second employee had admitted the postings and been honest during the investigation and hearing, she might have decided otherwise respecting him.

The Internet is a dangerous workplace tool. Downloading pornography invites criminal repercussions. Carelessly sent emails can inadvertently disclose confidential information. The ease and spontaneity created by smartphones invite casual, careless, breaches of civility codes, even defamation. From an employer's standpoint, permissive use of smartphones as workplace tools often comes back to haunt them--employees who work on them after hours have electronic evidence to support overtime claims.

Employees should be under no misapprehension. They should not post web-based comments or send emails they would not want to be printed in the pages of this newspaper. If they do, and it impacts on their employer's reputation or undermines its authority, it can be cause for their discharge.

- Howard Levitt practises employment law in eight provinces and is author of The Law of Dismissal for Human Resources Professionals. He can be reached at hlevitt@langmichener.ca.
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Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/news/features/Facebook+lead+cause+firing/4207432/story.html#ixzz1Cs8EAE36

imbecilia

     In Imbecilia, life was brutal. Resources, with their technology, were scarce. Droughts brought shortages which resulted in imbeciles dropping like flies. One day a capitalist was born. Soon he organized and built a kingdom and a moat with a quarter of imbeciles he employed and began capitalizing. Irrigation systems, crop rotations, building mills etc. Although the capitalist profited from the imbeciles labour, the employed imbeciles did not mind because they ate far more here than they did on the outside. The outsiders saw the wealth and hated the capitalist. They spun fables of the greed, wickedness and evil for what the capitalist stood for. But alas, for 3/4 of the imbeciles, life continued its brutality. But for the employed, life span increased and wealth improved.
     Soon, more kingdoms were built by other capitalist's.
   

right vs left

Rightwingers are mostly religious. They're generally happier than lefties, not only because they're richer, but because they believe that people have free choice. The good book says so. Free choice negates hopelessness which increases happiness. Free choice is also why they like lots of jails. People make decisions solely through their own power and should live with the consequences. This, says the righties, is called responsibilty. Responsibility can be lessened by forgiveness, the other religious thing that's amusingly not that big for them, or blame (eg. satan) but are not invoked unless it is in their own self interest. Wealthy people are generally right wing. Aside from not wanting to pay more taxes, they believe they are where they are because they chose/sacrificed/saved/scrimped/etc. to be where they are. Some believe they've been chosen (You will know them by their fruits Matthew 7:16.). Either way, they believe this is no fluke and lord help those who attempt to topple their gravy train.

Lefties are generally brighter. It takes a fair amount of reasoning to find flaws in society and they do so brilliantly. They can and do find victimhood in heaven. They are generally a miserable lot. They believe the system has oppressed those (sometimes themselves but also a group too stupid, in the lefties eye of course, to see for themselves) who have not "made it" in society. One is where one is because the system is skewed that way. If society were constructed different, we'd have a brand new batch of "winners" hence the lucky few should help the "losers" because it is only dumb luck that they are in the position they are in. There is little personal responsibility, which leads to hopelessness and unhappiness, because the blame is held for the society not the individual. They are not religious ,aside from Marx's opiate of the masses thesis, because they believe religion is a biased man made construct. Ironically, they are far more forgiving to individuals then their religious right counter parts, again because they believe it is society's fault.

Effects of repeal of corn laws=> protectionism 1885 England

The price of corn in the two decades after 1850 averaged 52 shillings.[20] Due to the development of cheaper shipping (both sail and steam), faster and thus cheaper transport by rail and steamboat, and the modernisation of agricultural machinery, the prairie farms of North America were able to export vast quantities of cheap corn, as were peasant farms in the Russian Empire with simpler methods but cheaper labour. Every corn-growing country decided to increase tariffs in reaction to this, except Britain and Belgium.[21] In 1877 the price of British-grown corn averaged 56 shillings, 9 pence a quarter and for the rest of the nineteenth century it never reached within 10 shillings of that figure. In 1878 the price fell to 46 shillings, 5 pence. By 1885 corn-growing land declined by a million acres (4,000 km²) (28½%) and in 1886 the corn price fell to 31 shillings a quarter. Britain's dependence on imported grain in the 1830s was 2%; in the 1860s it was 24%; in the 1880s it was 45%, for corn it was 65%.[22] The 1881 census showed a decline of 92,250 in agricultural labourers since 1871, with a 53,496 increase of urban labourers. Many of these had previously been farm workers who later migrated to the cities to find employment,[23] despite, and perhaps leading to, agricultural labourers' wages being the highest in Europe.[23]

Although highly proficient farmers on good lands did well, farmers with mediocre skills or marginal lands were at a disadvantage. Many moved to the cities, and unprecedented numbers emigrated. Many emigrants were small, undercapitalized grain farmers who were squeezed out by low prices and inability to increase production or adapt to the more complex challenge of raising livestock.[24] Similar patterns developed in Ireland, where cereal production was labor intensive. The reduction in grain prices reduced the demand for agricultural labor in Ireland, and reduced the output of barley, oats, and wheat. These changes occurred at the same time that emigration was reducing the labor supply and pushing wage rates upward to levels too high for arable farmers to sustain.[25]