Safetogototown

  OUCH! It has been difficult to focus on anything other than the heat.  Last week we had a couple days of moderate heat.  You know it is a summer cold front in Texas when you get excited about 90 degree temperatures!  Other than these few days of moderate heat we have consistently maintained triple digit heat and even set a few records.  Living in the north we had what we called the February blahs.  This malady occurred after extended periods of January cold spells that forced most people to stay indoors.  By February you experienced enough time indoors.  So much so that you were tired of being indoors.  Here in the south the same could be true about August.  Instead of escaping the cold by staying indoors you sheltered from the heat using your air conditioning.  So welcome to the August Blahs! This heat has made it difficult on focusing on a topic for the week.  The heat is making it difficult to objective assess any particul...

  I am a few days late with this weeks post.  I could say that most of my mental energy has gone into practicing last weeks post of selective amnesia.  The heat in North Texas continues to be in the triple digits and there seems to be no end in sight.  In fact the forecast for the next couple days is for even hotter temperatures.  Daily reminders make it impossible to "forget" the heat.  I was actually busy with drywall and painting at our church.  School begins this week and our church has a number of services that support school age children and a number of rooms needed to be upgraded / repaired to support these services.  The work needed to be completed this week.  I have not been so busy to not keep an eye on what is going on in the world. The one thing that struck me this past week was the report that credit card debt had exceeded 1 trillion dollars.  First off, most people, myself included have no way of comprehending the number 1 ...

  I am currently reading Richard Thaler's book,  Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics .  I am only about a quarter of the way through the book so I am in no position to offer a review.  Also the book is rich with concepts, so rich that I will need more than one reading to fully comprehend them all.  However I have read enough to endorse it.  Richard Thaler takes to task economic theories that are based on human beings making rational decisions.  Most economic theories are based on the premise that an individual will optimize their economic situation.  Thaler encountered many situations where is just not the case.  I mentioned one in my  July 12th post .  This was the story regarding cab drivers on rainy days.  On rainy days demand for cabs are high.  Traditional economic theory would predict that the cabbies would actually work longer to maximize revenue on rainy days.  Thaler realized through observation a...