Phantasmix (aka Re: money)

Here’s a few things that caught and held my attention for a few minutes today.

Mexicans are being encouraged to reclaim a piece of Texas, more than 150 years after they lost the Lone Star state to the United States.

Texan estate agents are heading south of the border to drum up the interest in buying cut-price land and property in the foreclosure-hit state.

Source: Telegraph

Funny.

The debut of powerful atom-smasher

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

This collider, called the largest scientific experiment in history, is expected to begin test runs in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists’ wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?……

….CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is “no conceivable danger” of a cataclysmic event

Can’t you tell that the lawyers wrote this report? So these scientists have no idea what might happen, but there’s no “conceivable danger”. In other words, there is danger, they just can’t imagine what it might be.

I can’t stand any of the current U.S. presidential candidates in the running, disgusting lying puppets. Today I learned that Obama’s election campaign slogan is “Change you can vote for”. It’s really a pretty loaded and clever sentence “change you are allowed to vote for” is another way of putting it (but I’m biased).

Still can’t believe Americans don’t vote directly for candidates. Supposedly un-democratic Russia or just about all ex-USSR member countries have a system where you can have 15 or 20 or whatever number of candidates from numerous parties in existence there. And you vote directly for the party, and directly for the candidate. Not for a representative of the representative, and not one of the two available parties, often having to pick “the lesser of two evils”.

Source: School of Psychology, University of Leicester

My comments are italicized:

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland - figures
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas - I can see that (pretty much any island except maybe Haiti)
6. Finland - really? Finland is leading in suicides
7. Sweden - same here: they’re happy despite not even getting enough sunlight?
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei - no surprise there: sun and money
10. Canada - ooookay
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other notable results include:

23. USA
35. Germany
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia

The three least happy countries were:

176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

Finding total happiness is the ultimate goal for many people — but should it be? New research suggests that if wealth and success are also at the top of your list, the two goals may be somewhat incompatible.

Diener and his colleagues used data from the World Values Survey, which measures the happiness of respondents on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 the happiest). They found that income did indeed increase along with happiness but not at the very top. The 10s earned significantly less than the 8s and the 9s. The latter were also more likely to have gone to college, have engaged in the political process and have saved money.

Why is it better to be happy but not euphoric? Diener’s take is that happy - but not too happy - people are strivers. They’re interested in making the sorts of changes necessary to get ahead in life, including engaging in competition (not always a happy pursuit), obtaining more education and changing their behavior when what they’re doing now isn’t working. The 10s, on the other hand, are too complacent to adjust enough…

Extreme optimists (those who overestimated their own life spans by 20 years or more), additional research shows, also behaved in other ways that weren’t good for their future. They accumulated debt and didn’t save. Moderate optimists, recognizing that their luck could run out, saved more than the extreme optimists did.

Source: CNN

In other words, happiness makes you complacent and lazy.

Airlines May Start Treating Passengers “Like Freight”
Finally, being in shape may become lucrative for regular people, not just celebrities

Dow Jones Industrial Average P/E ratio stills stands at a lofty 27.22 (including dividends), it was around 28.2 on June 8 when I checked last. Something’s gotta give: earnings must rise (unlikely judging from the latest announcements) or the market goes down some more.

A High Price for Healthy Food
As of Dec, 2007 “energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods.” Since then healthy food went up in price even more, and more than the junk in percentage terms.

We’re doing our part in staying out of hospitals by eating well, shouldn’t we be able to deduct some of our grocery bills? or at least pay less in medical taxes?

Corn

Some corn uses are: feed for livestock, heating, plastics, fabrics, high fructose corn syrup.

This year corn crop is ruined by rains and floods. Prepare for much higher food prices next year, and possibly shortages. I’ll be looking for some corn stocks or funds, don’t want to try futures since I haven’t really figured out the stock part of the market yet. If you have any ideas on how to play this situation, let me know.

Corn field under water (this is Pennsylvania, Iowa has been flooded much worse).
Photo credit - courane01

Hat tip to Duc for mentioning this.

Google Trends compares search term popularity. It can be used as a predictor of people’s behavior. Here’s the original chart that interested me:

And here’s a few others I checked out, all over the last 12 months.

Read more »

Photo credit: fernando

A study published today by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays.

“I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th,” CVS statistician Alex Hoen told the Verzekerd insurance magazine.

In the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7800 traffic accidents each Friday, the CVS study said.

But the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7500.

There were also fewer incidents of fire and theft, although the average value of losses on Fridays 13th was slightly higher.

Source: news.com.au