A quick Happiness Primer

May 1, 2013 | Author: Ocean

A) List here below your 5 happiest moments in recent history. We don’t do anything with what you write in the text boxes, we’re just putting them there so you write something:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

B) Now, list here below the 5 things that take up most of your time (be more specific than just “work”):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

C) And finally, what are the 5 things you own that cost the most?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Ok, now compare list C and list A. Is there any overlap?
Compare list B and list A. Any overlap there?

Remember when you were young and you had a great time by being with people you liked, or discovering new things? Well, chances are you haven’t changed much. You just thought List C had taken the place of List A because that’s what we keep hearing should happen. But hearing it doesn’t make it so.

And for those saying they are dedicating their time to list B so they can indirectly have more of list A, are you sure you’re not justifying things? For example, if you are working at a job you hate so you can have fun on a one week vacation, check this out.

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A Thousand Words (and a topic for your thesis)

April 23, 2013 | Author: Ocean

This week 50% of Dumbagent is moving to a new continent, so this post will be a combination of some things we’ve already mentioned at various times that seem to tie together nicely.

First of all, many readers probably already know about The Economist’s “Recession Index,” which measures the likelihood of a recession based on the number of times the word is mentioned in mainstream media. In other words, if more and more media outlets use the word “Recession”, it is more likely we are going through a recession.

The New York Times took this concept one step further, with this chart, which analyzes what various political parties say and which words they use. When they first did this, we stated that this concept might be more interesting if it featured some filters. For example, when the Democrats mention “Economy”, is it in a positive or negative light?

It turns out a blog called Bluematter did this, sort of. Here is an excerpt:

Rising house prices: Good
Falling house prices: Bad
Affordable houses: Good
Unaffordable houses: Bad

Free trade: Neutral
Unfettered free trade: Bad
Fair trade: Good
Outsourcing: Evil
Buying local produce: Divine

Link to original post on Bluematter.

However, as on point some of these may seem, it doesn’t look like any statistical analysis was behind these ratings. So we propose that someone actually perform this analysis. In other words, someone should find several keywords used in the media, study their usage over time, and filter the results into “positive”, “negative” and “neutral”.

At that point, some very interesting trends could start to pop up. Do negative comments relating to immigration tend to pop up more often during recessions? When do we see the spikes in gun control discussions? What might we be missing?

Any thesis writers out there in need of an idea?

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Why the Chinese are getting divorced

April 17, 2013 | Author: Ocean

An interesting phenomenon is occurring in China, according to CNN’s global public square.

Save your money: divorceA new tax law in China states that there will be a 20 percent capital gains tax on the sale of second homes. This law can be argued to have various consequences, which usually vary depending on whether you agree with the tax or not. Some might argue that this is a good way of taxing richer people, since it is only on second homes. Others may argue that a 20 percent tax on a house is too high and will be a disincentive to sell, thereby stagnating real estate markets.

I doubt many pundits would except it to lead to a rise in divorce rates, however.

But apparently this is exactly what is occurring. If a married couple owns property they want to sell (that is not their first home), they can get a divorce. Then one of the divorcees can claim they only own one of the properties, sell it, and then the couple can get remarried, presumably without paying the tax.

This extreme form of pragmatism may seem odd to many, but is it wrong? In a manner, these couples are finding a way around a system they obviously feel is unjust. They are confident enough in their relationships that a dissolving government confirmation of their marriage will not jeopardize whether they want to stay together or not. And in the process they get to keep quite a bit of hard earned cash. The main opposition points to this would be:

A) It destroys the sanctity of marriage.

B) It subverts what the government is trying to achieve.

These are obviously valid points, with the first being personal, and the second merely stating the government left a loophole people are willing to take advantage of.

In a way, however, it is reminiscent of an extreme form of pragmatism not seen in the United States since the frontier days of P.T. Barnum through to the roaring 20′s. Of course, that all ended with the stock market crash of 1929, so who is to say what will happen in China’s future? In the meantime, however, the Chinese seem to be nothing if not resourceful and pragmatic.
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Posted in Current Events, Featured, Taxes | 1 Comment

A Big Thank You

April 9, 2013 | Author: Ocean

Lately we have launched our new book, have been maintaining (and will soon be adding new items to) our Dumbagent store, while constantly keeping up conversations and bringing up new ideas on our Facebook and Twitter pages. All of this is on top of maintaining this: our regularly scheduled programming with regularly weekly (and sometimes more) blog posts.

This has all been done by two people who are on different continents. One of them gets all the credit as author of the blog posts and the book. The other one, however, has probably been doing the most work, and it is high time she received her recognition.

So today’s post is merely to give a big THANK YOU to Rebecca Brizi, the official Dumbagent Factotum.

Thanks Becky!

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Kindle Users!

April 4, 2013 | Author: Ocean

Our book is now available for Kindle users for $0.99. Amazon will not allow us to sell it for any cheaper, so we decided, rather than make it free for 24 hours, to make it $0.99 for 7 days. You can download our book for this price for the next week onto your Kindle, Ipad, Iphone devices, and everything else supporting the Kindle format. You can access our Kindle page here.

By the way, it is still free for Amazon Prime users, so if you have Amazon Prime, feel free to download it and lend it around!

Enjoy!

Is this how a Kindle works?

Is this how a Kindle works?

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