Re: What Do You Think?
A wise man once said: if something sounds too good to be true - it probably is - I am sure they are just after the $150 fee - they won't even bother going after the free postage I get these ads through email all the time. Usually I just ignore tham but as I'm getting poorer by the second I thought I'd take a look. Do you think this is just a gimmick to get the fees and maybe some free postage, or could it be legit? David No Newspaper Ads… No Magazine Ads…No Bulletin Board Ads ... No Handing Out ... Congratulations Friend, We have selected you to be one of our new catalog circular mailers. You can earn from $550.00 to $3,000.00 and your paycheck is mailed to you promptly every Wednesday. If you accept our offer today and follow our instructions your first paycheck will be in your hands in approximately ten days time, following our instructions! Our printing and publishing company is in the process of hiring home workers. We desperately need home workers each week to stuff and mail out our special advertising circulars. We have so much on hand that we are paying home workers $10.00 for EACH letter stuffed and returned to us as per our instructions. There is no limit to the number of letters that you can stuff and mail for our company. If we receive 55 letters stuffed and mailed out by you will be paid $550.00 75 letters……$750.00 95 letters……$950.00 300 letters…..$3,000.00 And so on... The More Letters you Stuff and Mail the MORE MONEY You Can Make! QUALIFICATIONS * You must be able to read and write simple English. * Have the ability to fold loose page circulars. * Stuff and seal circulars in an envelope. * Apply postage and mail them with the address labels we provide to you. If you pay attention to circulars that you receive from other companies you will notice how all of them are very vague about what your package will contain in addition they don’t tell you if they are the ones that are going to send you the envelopes and circulars to stuff. They say all envelopes will come to you already stamped and addressed. That simply means that YOU will have to advertise to get people to send you self-addressed stamped envelopes. WE ARE DIFFERENT We send you the envelopes, address labels and letters to be stuffed…. We pay you for the work you do as per our instructions. Your only job is to place our special advertising circulars into envelopes and then mail them out. For this you will receive payment of $10.00 per envelope from US! Your initial postage cost is reimbursable. That means it’s free! So keep this in mind when you select an income group. No advertising in newspapers, magazines or bulletin boards. We do not deduct taxes from your paycheck, so you’ll get the full amount. We will send a form 1099 at the end of the year when you’re ready to file your taxes. You will not be stuffing or mailing anything that is pornographic or illegal. All literature that we’ll send you meets the requirements of the regulatory agencies, so you have nothing to worry about. For your convenience, we have established 5 different groups. You can choose the group that you want to work under. Each group carries different earnings potential and a different number of starting supplies. The Earning Potential of Group #1 is $550.00 Weekly Group #2 is $750.00 Weekly Group #3 is $950.00 Weekly Group #4 is $3000.00 Weekly! … This is the Most Popular Group. Group #5 is for established mailers who start in Group #4 and get promoted after receiving their first $3000.00 in pay. Once you’re in Group #5 you have the potential to earn $5000.00 but you must start in Group #4 if you want to be promoted to Group #5. We will leave it up to you to choose your own starting group. For example, if you start in Group #3, we will send you a large priority package containing 95 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels along with our easy to follow instructions. If you choose Group #4, we send you 300 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels. When you are promoted to Group #5, we will send you a large package containing 500 of each item to be stuffed and mailed for payment. WHY DO WE PAY SUCH A HIGH RATE AS $10.00 PER LETTER STUFFED AND RECEIVED ? First, the number of people who respond to our special letters, once they are mailed out, is very high. Second, they like what we offer and are willing to pay for the opportunities that we offer. These two facts allow us to easily afford to pay $10.00 per letter stuffed and mailed. Also, we want you to be happy with your new income level so you’ll continue to work for us which will allow us to continue making money. We need home workers for a year round opportunity. Once you sign up with us, you can stuff and mail for us as long as you want. Take a vacation or just stop and start again
Re: Levitt article
In a message dated 8/4/03 9:41:08 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The article discusses Levitt's research style: his tendency to ask odd but interesting questions and be clever enough to be able to test the hypotheses with publically available data. It also has some discussions of his career path and a little about his personal life. Fabio Thanks, Fabio. So what's so bad about that? David
Re: Levitt article
I couldn't access the article. Could anyone either copy and paste it to me (privately so as not to distrub others) or perhaps just give me a briefy summary? Thank you. David Levenstam The article discusses Levitt's research style: his tendency to ask odd but interesting questions and be clever enough to be able to test the hypotheses with publically available data. It also has some discussions of his career path and a little about his personal life. Fabio
Re: What Do You Think?
In a message dated 8/6/03 8:02:24 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Was it not the maker of fortune cookies at cheap chinese take-out's? heh. -davidu LOL. Okay, fair enough. Now what was HER name? ;) David
What Do You Think?
I get these ads through email all the time. Usually I just ignore tham but as I'm getting poorer by the second I thought I'd take a look. Do you think this is just a gimmick to get the fees and maybe some free postage, or could it be legit? David No Newspaper Ads No Magazine AdsNo Bulletin Board Ads ... No Handing Out ... Congratulations Friend, We have selected you to be one of our new catalog circular mailers. You can earn from $550.00 to $3,000.00 and your paycheck is mailed to you promptly every Wednesday. If you accept our offer today and follow our instructions your first paycheck will be in your hands in approximately ten days time, following our instructions! Our printing and publishing company is in the process of hiring home workers. We desperately need home workers each week to stuff and mail out our special advertising circulars. We have so much on hand that we are paying home workers $10.00 for EACH letter stuffed and returned to us as per our instructions. There is no limit to the number of letters that you can stuff and mail for our company. If we receive 55 letters stuffed and mailed out by you will be paid $550.00 75 letters$750.00 95 letters$950.00 300 letters..$3,000.00 And so on... The More Letters you Stuff and Mail the MORE MONEY You Can Make! QUALIFICATIONS * You must be able to read and write simple English. * Have the ability to fold loose page circulars. * Stuff and seal circulars in an envelope. * Apply postage and mail them with the address labels we provide to you. If you pay attention to circulars that you receive from other companies you will notice how all of them are very vague about what your package will contain in addition they dont tell you if they are the ones that are going to send you the envelopes and circulars to stuff. They say all envelopes will come to you already stamped and addressed. That simply means that YOU will have to advertise to get people to send you self-addressed stamped envelopes. WE ARE DIFFERENT We send you the envelopes, address labels and letters to be stuffed. We pay you for the work you do as per our instructions. Your only job is to place our special advertising circulars into envelopes and then mail them out. For this you will receive payment of $10.00 per envelope from US! Your initial postage cost is reimbursable. That means its free! So keep this in mind when you select an income group. No advertising in newspapers, magazines or bulletin boards. We do not deduct taxes from your paycheck, so youll get the full amount. We will send a form 1099 at the end of the year when youre ready to file your taxes. You will not be stuffing or mailing anything that is pornographic or illegal. All literature that well send you meets the requirements of the regulatory agencies, so you have nothing to worry about. For your convenience, we have established 5 different groups. You can choose the group that you want to work under. Each group carries different earnings potential and a different number of starting supplies. The Earning Potential of Group #1 is $550.00 Weekly Group #2 is $750.00 Weekly Group #3 is $950.00 Weekly Group #4 is $3000.00 Weekly! This is the Most Popular Group. Group #5 is for established mailers who start in Group #4 and get promoted after receiving their first $3000.00 in pay. Once youre in Group #5 you have the potential to earn $5000.00 but you must start in Group #4 if you want to be promoted to Group #5. We will leave it up to you to choose your own starting group. For example, if you start in Group #3, we will send you a large priority package containing 95 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels along with our easy to follow instructions. If you choose Group #4, we send you 300 envelopes, letters and customer mailing labels. When you are promoted to Group #5, we will send you a large package containing 500 of each item to be stuffed and mailed for payment. WHY DO WE PAY SUCH A HIGH RATE AS $10.00 PER LETTER STUFFED AND RECEIVED ? First, the number of people who respond to our special letters, once they are mailed out, is very high. Second, they like what we offer and are willing to pay for the opportunities that we offer. These two facts allow us to easily afford to pay $10.00 per letter stuffed and mailed. Also, we want you to be happy with your new income level so youll continue to work for us which will allow us to continue making money. We need home workers for a year round opportunity. Once you sign up with us, you can stuff and mail for us as long as you want. Take a vacation or just stop and start again whenever you want. Just let us know when you are going to take time off. WHAT IS REQUIRED OF YOU ? Your job is to fold our special advertising circulars that we send you, insert them in the envelopes we send you, apply one customer label and stick one postage stamp. When you complete the batch of circulars just mail them out and your check will be
Re: Levitt article
Along those lines, the following is a Paul Krugman article, which quite humorously recaps a similar media event about a wunderkind economist -- probably a story only economists would find funny. http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/legend.html At 09:51 PM 8/4/2003 -0500, you wrote: The article discusses Levitt's research style: his tendency to ask odd but interesting questions and be clever enough to be able to test the hypotheses with publically available data. It also has some discussions of his career path and a little about his personal life. Fabio Thanks, Fabio. So what's so bad about that? David Well, the article's style and tone was a little odd. For example, as someone else pointed out, it seemed to imply that Steve Levitt was alone in the economic analysis of crimes and other non-market behaviors. It also has this aw-shucks attitude, depicting a wunderkind who was ignored by the profession until the profession was stunned and surprised by his wit. All in all, not the worst article ever written, combining the story of an interesting economist with some weird framing. Fabio
Re: Levitt article
The article discusses Levitt's research style: his tendency to ask odd but interesting questions and be clever enough to be able to test the hypotheses with publically available data. It also has some discussions of his career path and a little about his personal life. Fabio Thanks, Fabio. So what's so bad about that? David Well, the article's style and tone was a little odd. For example, as someone else pointed out, it seemed to imply that Steve Levitt was alone in the economic analysis of crimes and other non-market behaviors. It also has this aw-shucks attitude, depicting a wunderkind who was ignored by the profession until the profession was stunned and surprised by his wit. All in all, not the worst article ever written, combining the story of an interesting economist with some weird framing. Fabio
US housing price trends
Around U.S., a House Is a Home but Not a Bonanza August 6, 2003 By DAVID LEONHARDT FORT WAYNE, Ind. - On a tree-filled boulevard known as Doctors' Row, the four- and five-bedroom brick Tudor homes that are the jewels of this city's housing stock were selling for about $150,000 two decades ago. At the time, some homes in the nation's most desirable suburbs, like Brookline, Mass.; Sausalito, Calif.; and Great Neck, N.Y., cost the same. Over the last 20 years, however, the nation's housing market has been cleaved in two, and the break has helped create two very different economies in one country. Homes in the areas that were already the most expensive - California and the Boston-to-Washington corridor - have often doubled or tripled in value, even after adjusting for inflation. The increases have created nest eggs for longtime owners and allowed them to borrow billions of dollars against their equity, financing new kitchens and college educations and keeping the current economic malaise from being far worse than it might have been. But while the boom has become the subject of daily conversations among the middle class and affluent in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, people in much of the country have little housing bounty to tap for home improvements, retirement or other needs. From Fort Wayne to Rochester to Salt Lake City, the prices of typical homes across most of the country's vast middle have risen just ahead of inflation - and more slowly than incomes. The cost of homes in the most expensive cities is now about six times that in the least expensive, up from a ratio of three to one two decades ago. Here in Fort Wayne, the homes with elegant porticoes and broad lawns on Doctors' Row sell for about $300,000 today, roughly the same as they did in the early 80's, after being adjusted for inflation. Not a single house in Fort Wayne - a small, manufacturing-heavy city halfway between Chicago and Detroit, with a jobless rate below the nation's - has sold this year for more than $800,000, according to real estate industry data. That is roughly the average price of a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The real housing boom is fairly concentrated, said Mark M. Zandi, the chief economist of Economy .com, a research firm. And at the moment, it is clearly keeping the economy afloat in those areas. There is no such cushion throughout much of the nation's interior. Some economists argue that the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate cuts might have been more effective at ending the economic slowdown if the gains in house prices - and the potential they create for consumer spending - had been more broadly shared. Last year, Tom and Judy Auer sold the four-bedroom Fort Wayne house where they raised their three children for $107,900, or slightly less than the $34,000 they bought it for in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. Without a bonanza from the sale, the couple now live in a smaller house in Fort Wayne, relying on the pension from Mr. Auer's job as a hardware salesman at Sears, Roebuck and Social Security, which they began drawing early. Marva and Bill Herx, on the other hand, left Fort Wayne in 1998 to move to the Philadelphia suburbs for his job. When they returned last year, they had made enough profit selling their Pennsylvania house - for about 40 percent more than the purchase price - that they were able to move into a house in Fort Wayne noticeably bigger than the one they had left. The home costs in Fort Wayne have stayed pretty much the same, said Ms. Herx, who is in her 50's. In Philadelphia, we made a good profit in just four years. The dynamic is reversed for younger adults, who are struggling to afford houses on the coasts while their counterparts elsewhere in the country are taking advantage of low mortgage rates to buy bigger, better homes than in the past. All my friends in Fort Wayne have houses. I think the biggest thing in the world I own is a cellphone, said Michael Korte, a 28-year-old Fort Wayne native who works for the City Council in New York and rents a two-bedroom apartment along with his sister, brother-in-law and nephew on the Lower East Side. It blows my mind. For $102,000, Brady Gerding, a high school classmate of Mr. Korte, recently bought 27 acres of land outside of the city where he and his wife will build a house. It will be the second house owned by Mr. Gerding, who, unlike Mr. Korte, did not graduate from college. You can still live like a king in Fort Wayne for $200,000, said Linda Duesler, who has been selling houses here since 1977. And you can live pretty well for $100,000. Beyond determining many families' wealth and standard of living, the two-tier housing market has begun to create difficult questions for government officials trying to create policies that apply to the entire nation. For example, when designing pensions, it becomes very difficult to judge the ability of people to retire because their finances might be in much better shape
Do prices exist?
Seriously - consider the use of a pay phone, or a hotel phone. It is often hard for me, and many other customers, to get completely accurate information on phone call prices. When it comes to phone calls, I've always missed some charge or tax, or there is change from when I last got the info. So: (a) how many other economic transactions have this feature, that it is hard to get an accurate price? (b) If there are many such examples, should we think about fuzzy prices or prices-as-sets, or expected prices? A lot of basic micro assumes there is a single number p. Maybe we should think of price distributions instead. Fabio
