From guest blogger, Mariana Do Carmo, student at Yale University. What if prolonging life results in prolonging not only your suffering but also that of others? The recent development of universal health care in the United States will make it…
The Revolution That Grandma Started
The NYC Miss Subways competition was about a lot more than pretty “girls” (as they were called). To become Miss Subways for a month, applicants had to submit a picture to the John Robert Powers Agency. From perhaps 1000 applicants,…
Debating Paid Sick Leave Laws
I wonder if we could say that Mayor de Blasio’s sick leave proposal dates back to 1895. 119 years ago, concerned with the harm that a “biscuit, bread, cake bakery or confectionery establishment” could inflict on its employees, New York…
Does Your Barista Do a Repeatable Routine?
Starbucks calls it “transactions per hour” but from our perspective, it’s waiting in line. Researchers say that it takes only 3 minutes in a queue for us to become impatient. Hoping to show their shorter line time and higher sales,…
One Reason That We Have Nutella
Inside a jar of Nutella you might have a little bit of the Ivory Coast, Turkey, Malaysia, the EU and the US. Processed in the EU, Turkey, Russia, Australia, North or South America, the cocoa and hazelnut spread is then…
Connecting Abigail Adams to Janet Yellen
Reading about “touch generations” in Sam Arbesman’s Wired Magazine blog, I realized that Abigail Adams and Janet Yellen were connected. Different generations touch when one’s birth year coincides with someone else’s death. Born in 1744, Abigail Adams died in 1818, the year that Karl Marx was…
The Green Blog: Why Japan Might Face a Demographic Crisis
By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School. As of late, younger Japanese citizens are choosing to live the single life rather than get married. But why? Seven years ago, Japan’s population climaxed at 128 million, but…
In West Virginia, Is Price Gouging a Problem or a Solution?
West Virginia’s Attorney General says it’s illegal and “just plain wrong” to inflate the price of water in times of emergency. In addition, he suggests that people keep an eye on what vendors charge for items like hand sanitizer and…
Marrying Up in China
“There is an opinion that A quality guys will find B quality women, B quality guys will find C quality women, and C quality men will find D quality women…The people left are A quality women and D quality men.” Huang Yuanyuan, commenting on marriage in China…
Which College Grads Have Unemployment Problems?
With a 6.7% unemployment rate and 74,000 jobs created for December, are you okay if you have a bachelor’s degree? I discovered some answers in a new paper from the NY Fed. Unemployment and underemployment for recent college graduates have been…